Free The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery by Ann Ripley

Louise realized with a guilty start how unkind she was being to a woman who really hadn’t asked to be born small, blond, and beautiful.
    “I’m sorry I asked,” she said to Jeffrey. “It’s not my business, and unfortunately, I tend to get too nosy about things in general. Maybe it’s because I’m always looking for gardening stories.”
    He slowed their dancing so that they were merely rocking back and forth in time to the music. “You are a perplexing woman, Louise—but interesting. You know, if you contact me at my office on campus, I’ll be happy to talk to you about my work.” He grinned diabolically. “All about how I implant foreign genes into plants, as I did with the Sacred Blood iris, and come up with a transgenic plant …”
    “You mean, a plant with a new gene implanted …”
    “Yes. In the case of this plant, a red gene from the maize plant was shot into the nucleus of the iris—as well as other genes.”
    “How do you do it?”
    “We start with a segment of the peduncle of the iris …”
    “Peduncle.”
    “It’s the portion of the stem just below the ovary. We take that piece and culture it, causing it to form a callus, or thickened tissue. The callus is divided up and put in a solution, so that you have this cell suspension of iris, with the possibility of thousands of plants. Then, into this cell suspension, the red gene, and other genes, are inserted. This particular plant has been further engineered both to have a spicy smell and to have a later blooming period than most irises.”
    “That’s produced by other genes?”
    “Yes. The one that affects blooming is probably more significant. Now we have an iris that starts flowering with theroses in June, and continues right into July. It is truly superb. Oh, I’ll be happy to tell you all the nefarious things I do each day in that laboratory.”
    “I’d love that.”
    “Sorry about before—I just didn’t feel like being that agreeable at the table, with everyone listening in.”
    “You seem so cautious about things, Dr. Freeling—”
    “Jeffrey, please.”
    “Jeffrey. Do people really steal each other’s work on these projects?”
    “I suppose they could. People do steal each other’s patented plants. I’ve heard some growers are pollen thieves—they actually go to someone else’s experimental flower beds and snitch pollen, the better to grow things themselves. And I’ve heard more than one story about a horticulturalist who has stolen patented roses. They sneak into someone’s greenhouse, strip the buds from an exquisite patented rose, take them back to their place, graft them onto understock, and grow them themselves.”
    Louise smiled. “It’s a strange world. I see you’re more agreeable than you want that world to know.”
    “Something like that,” he answered seriously. “It doesn’t pay to wear your heart on your sleeve—or to give away your whole game at the drop of the first card. Life is funny—some people are dealt a very poor hand and deserve to get a better one.”
    She laughed. Yet she was surprised that this direct-talking professor had suddenly switched to metaphor, as if he were speaking in code, hiding secrets that he longed to reveal. “You mean, put down a few discards and draw a few new ones from the deck.”
    “Do you play poker?”
    “Bill does. I just eavesdrop.”
    He chose to take even this seriously. “I used to eavesdrop on
life
. These days, I’m disinclined to do so. I want to live it.” And he swept her back into the rhythm of the dance.
    “Mmm,” she said appreciatively, “whatever that means. Maybe that’s why you dance so well.”
    By the time she was escorted back to her seat, she knew why the ladies liked the professor. He had a certain way about him. But he definitely didn’t give away his game. If he had always been a bachelor, it had been his choice.
    Bill had dutifully danced with each of the women at least once—Bebe, several times. He gave Louise a wry