Murder in the Smokies - By Paula Graves Page 0,62
I may end up having to leave for a while,” she said. “But if I do, I’ll definitely be back this afternoon.”
“Cream? Sugar?”
“Two creams, one sugar.”
He picked up her cup and crossed to the counter. She took another quick look at her list of messages, unsurprised but nevertheless disappointed that there was nothing from Sutton.
What had she expected, a message begging her to give their relationship a chance? With a wry smile, she set her phone down and turned to accept the coffee from Bramlett. “Thanks.”
“You let me know if you need anything.” With a small wave, he left the break room, closing the door behind him.
Waiting for the coffee to cool, she called Antoine to check on his progress. He sounded a little out of breath when he answered.
“I’ve never walked so many hills in my life,” he complained. “Next job I take, it’s going to be somewhere like Kansas. Nice and flat.”
“Anything suspicious about any of the trucks?”
“Well, half of ’em looked like they hadn’t been washed in years, so I don’t think they’re going to be our mystery trucks. I’m looking into the alibis on a couple that might fit the bill, but nothing about those truck operators struck me as particularly suspicious. Any luck at the nursery?”
“Not yet. I’m going to make some calls from here, maybe stick around and talk to the employee who’s coming in at one unless something comes up.”
“All right. I’ll let you know if I come across anything on my end. You do the same?”
“You bet.” Ivy hung up and pulled out her notepad to check her interview notes. Next call, Plott’s pastor, since Plott swore he’d been at church helping out on a mission project the night Amelia Sanderson was killed. But when she dialed the number he’d given her, she got a voice mail message informing her everyone was out to lunch. She left a message for the pastor to call her and picked up the cup of coffee, starting to take a sip.
She paused just before the coffee touched her lips.
Slowly, she lowered the cup back to the table and looked down at the milky-brown liquid. Two creams, one sugar, just as she’d requested. But had she actually watched Bramlett put the extras in her coffee?
She looked behind her at the counter. Two torn individual creamer packets and a sugar packet ripped in two lay on the counter. She crossed to the counter to examine them, feeling ridiculously paranoid. But if their theory was correct, the person who’d killed their four victims had also planted the belladonna at the cemetery. And a single belladonna leaf contained enough poison to kill an adult human.
How hard would it be to infuse a cup of coffee with crushed belladonna leaves? Or put a tasteless, colorless drug like Rohypnol in her drink while she had her back turned?
She started to leave the cup of coffee where it sat, then thought better of it and poured the liquid down the drain of the break room sink. She pulled a pair of latex gloves from her pocket, picked up the empty cup and pulled off the glove, letting it turn inside out and envelop the cup. After tying the wrist opening into a knot, she placed the cup into her purse and dropped back into the chair in front of the table, feeling equal parts stupid and relieved.
A knock on the break room door made her jump. Mark Bramlett stood in the doorway, an apologetic smile on his face. “Sorry to interrupt, but I just came across something kind of strange on the underside of the truck. Would you come take a look and tell me if I’m just imagining things?”
Curiosity eclipsed her paranoia, and she followed Bramlett out of the office. There was nobody else in the front office, she noted with surprise, not even the two men she’d just interviewed. Maybe they were all out in the greenhouses, she supposed, walking fast to keep up with Bramlett’s long-legged stride.
“I wouldn’t have even seen it at all if I hadn’t thought I heard something under the truck. Occasionally a possum or raccoon, or even a feral cat, will crawl up into the underside of vehicles to get warm. I didn’t want to start the truck and chop some poor critter into pieces. So I looked up under the truck and I spotted something under the back axle.”
He waved his hand toward the back wheels, as if giving her permission to take a look.
She