The Groaning Board

slid it back toward Wetzon. “I guess if it was important
it’ll come back to me. What do you have there?” She picked up one of the books. “Poisons in Everyday Life .”
    “ Look up azaleas.” Wetzon took a sip of coffee.
It was scalding and strong enough to wake the dead.
    “What’s this about?” Her eyes were
bloodshot and the skin around them puffy. Micklynn leafed through the book.
“Azaleas?”
    “Yes.”
    “Azaleas are azaleas.” She stopped,
began to read. Her eyes blinked rapidly. “Jesus!”
    “Right.”
    Micklynn checked out the other book.
“I see you have come prepared.”
    “I haven’t had a chance to look at
it. What does yours say?”
    “It says it’s part of the rhododendron
family, that all parts of the plant are poisonous. Rhododendrons! Do you
believe it? They’re so beautiful.”
    “Go on.”
    She shook her head in disbelief, her
finger searching for the place where she’d paused. “Oh, here. Grayanotoxin.
Andromedotoxin. Glycocide. Look at this: The whole plant is poisonous. Honey
made from rhododendron flowers is highly toxic. Reaction time after ingestion
is six hours. Symptoms are nausea, vomiting, paralysis, slowing pulse, lowering
blood pressure, diarrhea, seizure, coma... death.“
    “This is what killed Sheila.”
    “No!” Micklynn slammed the poison
book shut. “It would have had to be in my batter. That isn’t possible.”
    Wetzon watched her carefully. Had
Micklynn poisoned Sheila and hoped to get away with it?
    “You’re looking at me as if I did
it.” Micklynn’s voice rose and people began glancing their way.
    “Why would you do it, Micklynn? I
don’t see a motive.”
    “Okay, okay. They can’t arrest a
person if that person doesn’t have a motive. Can they?” The lopsided smile on
her face was unsettling.
    “They can if they have a witness.”
    “There was no witness,” Micklynn
insisted, agitated, swinging her arm for emphasis. Hand touched mug and knocked
over her latte.
    Wetzon grabbed the poison book, but
the plant encyclopedia got doused and became an expense of the investigation.
“Easy does it, Micklynn. You’re saying no one was with you when you made those
muffins?”
    “I don’t remember,” she said, after
Wetzon had about given up getting an answer from her. “Just find who did it,
Leslie, before it’s too late.” Micklynn rose like a queen, though a bit
unsteady on her feet, and swept down the stairs, a spectacle even for the Upper West Side.
    After she wiped the book down with
her napkin, Wetzon lingered over her coffee. There was no witness, Micklynn had
said. Had she meant that she hadn’t done it, therefore there were no witnesses?
Or that no one had seen her do it? And she’d seemed almost smug about
not having a motive to murder Sheila. And if she didn’t remember, how could she
be so sure?
    Death by azaleas. Too horrible. No
accident. Premeditated murder. Wait. What had Micklynn said? Find who did
it—before it’s too late. Before it’s too late?
    Wetzon returned the poison book to
the shelf, then went downstairs to pay for the book on plants. A line of ten
people had formed in front of the registers. She opened the concise
encyclopedia of plants, looked up azalea in the index, and found the
page. It was a beautiful plant. The flowers were funnel-shaped and somewhat
two-lipped, pink.
    She’d seen them before. Yes, once in
Madge’s bag, and once before that... in Micklynn’s apartment.

Chapter Thirty-Five

     
     
     
    JUNE
     
    SoHo AT NIGHT WAS
HONKY-TONK, MADE SLEAZY BY DIRTY sidewalks clogged with vendors, tourists, and drifters. Refuse was
strewn in the gutters of its narrow streets.
    Hem and Minnie owned the top floor
and roof of a converted, iron-faced warehouse, typical of the district. Also
typical was the ground-floor gallery known for its avant-garde artists.
    Getting out of the cab on Prince Street, Wetzon and Laura Lee were confronted by an enormous naked foot sculpture, cut
off at mid-calf, in the huge well-lit window of the gallery. A penis rose from
the calf cavity, throbbing with translucent light. Inside the gallery several
well-dressed people Were admiring the piece.
    “This must be the place,” Laura Lee
drawled.
    “Quelle surprise. How nice of Hem to put his logo
right in the front window so no one can miss it.”
    Although they shared the same
address, the loft apartments above the gallery were separated by a small foyer
with mailboxes and buzzers. Laura Lee pressed