Case of the Poison Powder Chapter 13
Margaret Mitchell Mysteries - The cozy cousin of Carson Crime Files
The Case of the Poison Powder
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Chapter 13
Margaret returned to AgroSynthetics with a different energy than her first visit. No more cautious probing. No more dancing around possibilities. She had questions, and Nick Liu was going to answer them.
“Ms. Mitchell. I wasn’t expecting you.” Nick looked up from his computer with visible annoyance when she appeared in the doorway.
“May I?” Margaret gestured to the chair anyway.
He sighed, the stress ball already in his hand. Squeeze, release. “I suppose I don’t have much choice.”
Margaret settled into the chair and pulled out her legal pad. “I have a few follow-up questions, Mr. Liu. I appreciate your time.”
“Make it quick. I have a meeting in twenty minutes.”
“The police tell me you were at a conference in Philadelphia on the night of the theft. Hotel records confirm it. So does the restaurant where you had dinner with colleagues.” Margaret kept her tone conversational.
Something flickered across his face—surprise, maybe, that she knew. “That’s correct.”
“Did the police ask you about the email you sent Sade that evening?”
“What email?”
Margaret watched his expression carefully. “Sade says you sent her an email at 5 PM on January 8th. Asked her to pick up a carton of hydroponic seedlings from your distributor in Wilmington. The email said it was an urgent delivery that had gotten delayed, but you needed it in the office by Friday morning.”
Liu shook his head immediately. “I didn’t send the email.”
“Are you sure?” Margaret tilted her head, letting skepticism color her voice. “No doubt you send hundreds of emails each week. It wouldn’t be surprising if you forgot exact details—”
“I’m sure.” His tone was firm, almost defensive. “I would never send Sade a last-minute emergency email like that.”
Margaret cocked an eyebrow. “So there was no delayed delivery?”
Nick set down the stress ball, leaning forward slightly. “Well, we were expecting a case of hydroponic seedlings that come through a distributor in Wilmington. But I wasn’t expecting them until Friday and hadn’t planned to start the project until a week after Monday. Hardly urgent.” He gestured with one hand. “I always build in extra time for shipments to arrive. I’ve gotten stung by delivery companies before.”
“Interesting.” Margaret made careful notes. “Because we have copies of the email that came from your account. Time-stamped 5:03 PM on January 8th. Sender: nliu@agrosynthetics.com. Your email address.”
Nick’s expression shifted, confusion replacing defensiveness. “Impossible! I was in Philadelphia by then. At the hotel.”
“Did you access your email remotely that day?”
“Of course. I check email constantly.” He pulled his laptop closer, already opening it. “But I didn’t send anything to Sade. Here, see for yourself.”
He turned the screen toward her, pulling up his email server. He navigated to his sent folder, scrolling through messages from January 8th.
Margaret scanned the emails. Conference registration confirmation. Dinner reservation. A message to a colleague about meeting times. Nothing to Sade Jalloh.
“Check your trash,” Margaret said.
Nick clicked through to the deleted items folder. Empty except for spam from the previous day.
“Drafts?”
Also empty.
Margaret straightened, her mind racing. “Someone accessed your account and sent the email. Then deleted all traces of it.”
“That’s not possible.” But Nick’s voice held less certainty now. “Our email system has security protocols—”
“Could someone bypass those security measures?” Margaret watched his face.
Nick was quiet for a long moment. The hum of lab equipment filtered through the office walls. Finally, he looked up at her. “Theoretically. If they had administrative access. If they knew the system architecture well enough to exploit vulnerabilities.”
“Someone like you.”
His eyes hardened. “I was in Philadelphia, Ms. Mitchell. You just confirmed it yourself.”
Margaret leaned forward slightly. “But you could send an email from anywhere.”
“I could. But I didn’t.” Nick closed his laptop with deliberate precision. “And if someone accessed my account to send the email, they did it without my knowledge or consent.”
Margaret studied him—the tight line of his jaw, the way his fingers kept reaching for that stress ball. Defensive, yes. But also genuinely troubled. “Mr. Liu, the police told me about your history. Environmental activism. Arrests for protests.”
His face flushed. “That was over ten years ago. I was young, idealistic, and stupid. I chained myself to some trees and trespassed on private property. Misdemeanors. I paid my fines and moved on.”
“But you still care about environmental causes.”
“Of course I do. Most people do. That doesn’t make me a terrorist.” He stood abruptly, moving to the window overlooking the greenhouse. “Ms. Mitchell, I understand what you’re implying. That I’m connected to those eco-terrorists. That I stole the pesticides and framed Sade. But I didn’t. I was in Philadelphia. My alibi is airtight.”
“Then who sent the email from your account?”
He turned back to face her. “I don’t know. But I intend to find out.” His expression moved from defensive to calculating. “If someone compromised my email, it’s a serious security breach. I need to report this to IT immediately.”
“The police should be involved,” Margaret said.
“Then call them.” Nick moved back to his desk, already reaching for his phone. “Because if someone is using my credentials to commit crimes, I want it documented. I want it investigated.” He paused, meeting her eyes directly. “Ms. Mitchell, I didn’t steal those pesticides. I didn’t send Sade on some wild goose chase to Wilmington. And I certainly didn’t provide chemicals to terrorists planning mass murder.”
Margaret gathered her briefcase. “Then you won’t mind if I ask IT to pull the server logs. Find out where the email to Sade originated.”
“Be my guest. In fact, I’ll authorize it right now.” He was already typing. “Chris Webb can coordinate with IT. They’ll pull whatever records you need.”
Margaret paused at the door. “Mr. Liu, one more thing. Who else would have administrative access to the email system? Who else would know it well enough to exploit vulnerabilities?”
He looked up from his phone, and for the first time since she’d met him, she saw something that looked like real fear in his eyes.
“Only three people have that level of access. Myself, Chris Webb, and the external IT contractor who maintains the system.” He swallowed hard. “But Chris was home the night of the theft. The police verified his alibi.”
“And the IT contractor?”
“Company out of Towson. They handle our cybersecurity, system maintenance, all the technical backend.” Nick set down his phone. “They have remote access to everything. Including email servers.”
Margaret felt pieces clicking into place. “I’ll need their contact information. And the name of whoever specifically handles your account.”
“I’ll send it to you within the hour.” Nick rubbed his face, suddenly looking exhausted.
Margaret studied him for a long moment. Either he was an excellent actor, or Nick Liu was telling the truth. And her instincts, honed over fourteen years of reading clients and witnesses, said he was telling the truth.
“Send me that IT contractor information,” she said. “And Mr. Liu? Don’t leave town. The police may have more questions.”
She walked out, through the greenhouse and lab, back through the security checkpoints. Only when she reached her car did she pull out her phone and call Katherine.
“The email wasn’t from Nick Liu,” Margaret said without preamble. “Someone else sent it using his account. Find out everything you can about that IT contractor. Employee records, client lists, any connections to environmental activist groups. Because whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing.”
“On it. And Margaret? This is good news. Real evidence that someone set up Sade.”
“It’s something,” Margaret agreed. “Now we just have to prove it before the feds bury her under federal charges.”
Stay tuned for Chapter 14, next week!
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