Chapter Two: Nobody Questions the Pothos

Steven wrote the name down.

“Daniel.”

The pothos shivered beneath my fingers, although there was no breeze strong enough to move it. “That’s what she kept saying.”

“Last name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Relationship?”

“I don’t know.”

“Description?”

I looked at him.

Steven lowered his notebook. “Right. Plant.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ve been doing this for seven years, Ivy. Occasionally, I forget which witness I’m interviewing.”

“You’re not interviewing it. I am.”

“Then ask better questions.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. The corner of his mouth moved.

Behind me, Mabel said, “I still like him.”

“Stay out of this.”

Steven glanced toward the other greenhouse. “Mabel?”

“Who else?”

He nodded as though that explained everything, then turned his attention back to the pothos. Unfortunately, Steven’s questions were good ones. They were also the kind plants were notoriously bad at answering.

Human beings organized the world through names, dates, addresses, and relationships. Plants did not particularly care that the man who came into your house every Thanksgiving was Uncle Robert. They knew he was the loud one who smelled like peppermint and always stood too close to the ficus.

Sometimes that was more useful. Sometimes it absolutely was not.

I pulled a stool closer to the counter and sat so I could concentrate without leaning over the plant. “Let’s start over.”

The pothos responded with a wash of nervous attention.

“You lived with Judith.”

Warmth came immediately. Sunlight through a window. Regular water. Fingers checking soil. A woman’s voice.

“She took care of you.”

Contentment.

“Good. Did Daniel live there, too?”

Nothing. I tried again.

“Was the angry man there every day?”

Confusion.

“Did you hear him often?”

Recognition, followed by uncertainty. Not often.

“Had you seen him before the argument?”

Yes.

“How many times?”

That was useless almost immediately. Plants were not clocks.

A bonsai that had been alive for two hundred years could understand the concept of Tuesday if it cared enough to learn. A pothos that had spent its entire conscious existence measuring time in light, darkness, and watering cycles considered my obsession with calendars a bizarre human failing.

“More than once?”

Yes.

Steven wrote that down.

“Was Judith afraid of him before that day?”

The response came slowly. No.

I sat back. “So she knew him.”

“Looks that way,” Steven said.

“Or she was remarkably relaxed about strange men coming into her house.”

“At seventy-two?”

“At any age.”

“Fair.”

I looked at the plant again. “Did Daniel hurt Judith?”

Fear slammed through me so suddenly that I jerked my hand away.

Steven straightened. “What happened?”

“That’s a yes to something, but I don’t know if it was my question.”

The pothos was frightened again. I softened my voice. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

“Of course it’s safe,” Reginald said from the other room. “If the man attempts to enter this place, he will regret the decision.”

I glanced toward him. “How?”

A pause followed. “I have not determined that yet.”

“Excellent security plan.”

Steven looked between me and the doorway. “Do I want that translated?”

“Reginald intends to defend the premises.”

“Good.”

“He doesn’t know how.”

“Less good.”

The front door opened before I could continue, and Noah Bell came through carrying a cardboard drink tray and a paper bag.

“Good morning, boss. I brought—”

He saw Steven. Then the uniformed officer. Then the distressed pothos sitting on my counter.

Noah’s expression brightened. “Is this a crime plant?”

“No.”

His shoulders dropped.

“It’s a plant associated with an ongoing police investigation.”

The shoulders came back up. “So, crime plant.”

Steven looked at me. “I blame the educational system.”

“He’s twenty-two. At this point, we have to accept some responsibility ourselves.”

Noah deposited the drinks on the counter and leaned toward the pothos. “Hey, little guy.”

The plant responded with mild interest.

“You’ve had a rough time, huh?”

More interest.

Noah carefully rotated the basket to inspect the damaged vine without touching it. “This needs splinting.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“I can do it.”

“I know. Later.”

He finally seemed to notice my expression. “Oh. Serious.”

“Yes.”

Noah immediately stopped hovering. That was one of the reasons I liked him. He had the enthusiasm of a golden retriever discovering an unattended picnic, but he could read a room when it mattered.

“I’m going to go open greenhouse three.”

“Thank you.”

He picked up two of the coffees, hesitated, then slid one toward Steven. “I got an extra.”

Steven accepted it. “Thanks.”

“It has caramel.”

Steven looked at the cup. “So much caramel.”

“I panicked at the drive-through.” Then Noah disappeared.

Steven took an experimental drink. His eyebrows rose. “That is horrifying.”

“You’re going to finish it.”

“Probably. Bad coffee is still coffee.”

I smiled despite myself and turned back to the pothos. The brief interruption had helped. Its fear had subsided, and the damaged leaves no longer trembled.

“Let’s try something else. After the argument, did Judith leave?”

Yes.

“Did Daniel leave?”

Confusion.

Of course. The plant couldn’t know what happened after someone left its sensory range.

“Did Judith take you with her?”

Yes.

That surprised me.

Steven caught it. “What?”

“She had the pothos during whatever happened next.”

“Her daughter found it outside the back door.”

“So Judith brought it home again, or someone else did.”

Steven’s expression sharpened.

I touched the leaf again. “Were you in a car?”

Movement. Enclosure. Vibration. Yes.

“With Judith?”

Yes.

“Was she driving?”

Nothing useful.

“Did you go somewhere?”

That earned me the botanical equivalent of obviously. I sighed.

Steven hid a smile behind his coffee.

“You try questioning someone without a nervous system.”

“I’ll stick with suspects.”

“Coward.”

I closed my eyes and let the plant show me what it could instead of forcing human questions onto it.

Movement. Judith’s voice. The man. A sharp burst of anger. Another voice raised over hers.

The pothos being jostled. Something falling. Darkness. A smell.

That was unusual enough that I concentrated harder. Plants constantly process chemicals. Smell wasn’t exactly the right word for how they experienced the world, but it was close enough for my human brain.

Fuel. Wood. Something sharp and resinous. Cedar, maybe.

I opened my eyes. “The man smelled like gasoline.”

Steven stopped drinking.

“And cedar. Or some kind of wood. The plant associates both with him.”

He wrote it down. “Anything else?”

“Judith was angry before she was afraid.”

“That matters.”

“I thought so.”

The shop phone rang. Mari answered from the office while Steven stepped away and pulled out his cell.

“I’ll call this in.”

“You have somebody checking Daniel?”

“I will in about thirty seconds.”

He moved toward the far end of the greenhouse. I stayed with the pothos. “You did very well.”

Relief.

I examined the crushed vine. Whatever had happened, the plant had been caught in it rather than deliberately damaged. That didn’t make me feel better.

I found a thin bamboo support and some soft plant tape beneath the counter. “You’re going to lose a couple leaves.”

Distress.

“You’ll grow more.”

Less distress.

“You’re staying here until Judith comes for you.”

The certainty with which I said it bothered me. I didn’t know Judith Mercer. I didn’t know whether she was alive. The pothos believed she was coming back because plants had very little use for the human concept of lying to oneself.

I secured the damaged vine.

“She is alive,” Mabel said quietly.

I turned. Her voice carried easily through the open doorway between greenhouses.

“You don’t know that.”

“Neither do you.”

“No.”

“But you hope she is.”

“Yes.”

Mabel’s leaves rustled. “So do I.”

For all her gossiping, she occasionally reminded me why I had spent years talking to her in the first place.

Steven returned before I could answer. “Daniel Mercer.”

I looked up. “That was fast.”

“Judith has one. Nephew. Thirty-eight. Lives about fifteen minutes away. Daughter says they’re close.”

“Does he restore motorcycles?”

Steven stared at me. “What?”

“Gasoline. Maybe oil. The pothos couldn’t give me much.”

He was already looking at his phone again. A few taps later, his expression changed.

“What?”

“Daniel Mercer owns Mercer Classic Motors.”

I felt a chill. “Cars?”

“Motorcycles. Restoration and repair.”

For several seconds, neither of us spoke. It wasn’t proof. It wasn’t even evidence. It was exactly what plant information always was: a direction scratched into the dirt with one leafy finger.

Steven put his phone away. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Be careful.”

“I generally am.”

“That is demonstrably untrue.”

“I’m still here.”

“Low standard.”

He picked up his jacket from the counter, then glanced toward the pothos.

“Anything else before I go?”

I almost said no. Then something tugged at the edge of my awareness. Not the pothos. The plants around us.

A whisper of information was moving through the greenhouse network, passed from one plant to another in the strange, fragmented way gossip traveled when nobody involved understood why a detail mattered. I went still.

Steven noticed immediately. “What?”

“Wait.” I followed the impression. Philodendron. Fern. A row of young monsteras. Back toward the main greenhouse.

Something had arrived with the pothos’s story and found an echo.

I walked quickly, Steven behind me.

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know yet.” The thread led me back to the worktable. Mabel was alert. Reginald was very still.

Beside him sat a small tray of miniature roses that had been returned two days earlier by a customer whose mother had moved into assisted living.

I crouched beside them. “You know Judith?”

Recognition. Not Judith herself. Her scent. Her voice. Fear.

My pulse accelerated. “Where?”

The roses sent me an image of sunlight, a porch, and a woman leaning close while speaking urgently to someone I couldn’t see.

Then came the same sharp scent the pothos had given me. Cedar. Gasoline.

Steven crouched beside me. “Ivy?”

I looked at him. “The pothos isn’t the first plant that heard Judith arguing with Daniel.”

His expression hardened. “When?”

I turned back to the roses and tried to translate their sense of time. Not yesterday. Not recently enough for that. Several light-dark cycles had passed before they had left their old home.

Maybe a week. Maybe longer. And underneath the memory was something I hadn’t gotten from the pothos. Judith wasn’t angry during that earlier conversation. She was scared.

“She was afraid of him before she disappeared,” I said.

Steven rose immediately. This time, there was no trace of amusement in his face.

“I need to find Daniel Mercer.” He headed for the door.

The roses stirred beneath my hand. One final impression reached me. Digging. Dark earth. Judith’s frightened voice. And something hidden beneath the ground.

“Steven.”

He stopped. I stared at the roses.

“I think there’s something else.”