“Anytime.” He actually meant it. Interesting.
* * *
Laurel loosened her scarf as she met Haylee at the entrance of the greenhouse with Huck and Aeneas behind her. They’d look around, and the crime techs would fingerprint the place the next day, but she didn’t hold much hope that they’d find anything. “Thank you for meeting us.”
“Sure.” Haylee rocked back on her brown boots, her sandy blond hair in a ponytail. “I’m happy to help, and I should be honest. We’ve been looking for a greenhouse, and if this one is for sale or rent, I want it. That makes me a bad person, but the business is really struggling.”
Laurel handed the woman latex gloves. “That doesn’t make you a bad person. It’s a logical plan.”
Haylee perked up as she pulled them over her hands. “Thanks. That’s what I thought, too.”
Laurel stepped back at seeing a lock on the door, her own hands already covered. “Huck?”
“Yep.” He used bolt cutters to slice it. Then he opened the door and walked in first, his gaze sweeping the interior. “Place is hot. Must have heat running. Nobody here. Come on in.”
Laurel allowed Haylee in first and then followed her. Had Huck cleared the space for the civilian or for both women?
“Man, there are a lot of flowers in here.” Huck lifted a blooming white daffodil to his nose.
Haylee nodded. “Greenhouses can be maintained thirty degrees warmer than the temperature outside, so there’s a lot you can grow in the winter. Dr. Lamber was a great botanist. I took a class from her at the community college.”
Laurel looked over a feathery fern at the woman. “Did you graduate in botany?”
“Oh, no.” Haylee waved her hand. “I didn’t graduate. I mean, I want to graduate someday, but right now, we just don’t have the money. I’m smart enough, though.”
“I’m sure you are,” Laurel said.
Haylee ran her fingers over what looked like a witch hazel branch. “Maybe not as smart as you, but I would like to get a degree. Jason has an architecture degree. I’m not good at math, but flowers I understand.”
Huck wandered past beds of flowers and plants to the back. “Using electric heat like this must’ve cost a mint.”
Haylee nodded. “Seriously. But it’s worth it. Just look at these flowers. They’re beautiful.” She pointed to the far end. “You have vegetables over there, roots here, tropical plants there, and different flowers throughout.” She walked along one of the three aisles and then stopped. “Ah. Here’s the happy stuff.”
Laurel walked by the marijuana plants to the far end of the greenhouse, where a desk and small filing cabinet had been set up. Candy and chip wrappers littered the ground along with empty beer cans. No doubt this was where Tommy and Davie had smoked cannabis and skipped school the other day. “We’re looking for black dahlias.”
They scouted the entire greenhouse but didn’t find one black dahlia plant. Laurel’s shoulders drooped. “Guess this lead won’t pan out. However, why don’t you tell me about Davie and Tommy.”
Haylee crouched to examine a pot of darker soil. “They’re sweethearts who work hard for not a lot of pay.” She looked up. “I know Tommy got the job because his parents are making him pay back his lawyer, but Davie really needs the money. He helps his mom out a lot.” She stood. “You’re wrong about them if you think they could kill anybody.”
Laurel nodded. “All right. Who do you think killed Dr. Lamber?”
Haylee stepped back. “Me?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.” Haylee tugged on her ponytail, her lips pursing. “Well, I don’t know. Sharon Lamber was married, and she cheated on her husband, right? How about him? Maybe he got so mad at her, he just started killing all doctors.”
It wasn’t a bad hypothesis. “He has an alibi,” Laurel said.
“Oh.” Haylee’s face fell. “How about your sister, then?” she conjectured wildly. “Davie told me about some of her experiments with him, and he thought they were cool. I’m not so sure. The professor seems . . . predatory.”
That was a fairly accurate description. “I don’t think she’d want to spend her precious time setting up crime scenes like the ones we’ve seen lately,” Laurel said honestly. “If she killed, she’d do it efficiently and then move on.” Without a second thought.
Haylee shivered. “That’s creepy.”
“You have no idea.”
“Hey,” Huck called out. “There’s something here.”
