Case of the Poison Powder Chapter 12
Margaret Mitchell Mysteries - The cozy cousin of Carson Crime Files
The Case of the Poison Powder
(Miss Chapter 11? Find it Here) Or start with the first chapter!
Chapter 12
The detention center felt colder than usual, or maybe that was just Margaret’s dread seeping into her bones. She sat across from Sade in the same cheerless interview room, but everything had changed since her last visit.
Sade looked worse. The gray pallor had deepened, and her eyes held a haunted quality that made Margaret’s chest ache.
“They’re saying I’m a terrorist. That I sold pesticides to people who wanted to kill thousands.” Sade’s voice was barely above a whisper. “My babies are going to grow up thinking their mother is a monster.”
“You’re not a terrorist. And we’re going to prove it.” Margaret pulled out her legal pad. “But I need you to help me understand something. The IT firm says your badge wasn’t cloned. That it couldn’t be cloned without leaving traces.”
“I told you my badge was never stolen. I keep it in my purse. Always.”
“Not even for a few hours?”
Sade leaned forward, her hands pressed flat on the table. “Ms. Mitchell, I swear. My badge was with me. In my purse. The whole time.”
Margaret studied her client’s face. She saw only truth and growing panic. “Then how did it access that storage room when you were in Wilmington?”
“I don’t know! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everyone. I wasn’t there. I was looking for that distributor.”
“And Nick Liu gave you the address?”
“Yes! He sent me an email about an urgent delivery of hydroponic seedlings that got delayed. He needed them by Friday morning.” Sade spread her hands helplessly. “When I got there, nothing. The address didn’t exist. I drove around for hours.”
Margaret’s pen stilled. “He sent you an email?”
Sade blinked. “Yes. I thought I told you that.”
Margaret stared at her notes, the pieces refusing to fit together. “Do you still have the email?”
Sade shrugged. “I suppose it’s still on my computer.”
Margaret made rapid notes. “This email—was that normal? Did he often ask you to pick up supplies?”
“Never. That was the first time. I thought it was strange, but he’s the R&D director. He set me up,” Sade whispered. “Nick Liu sent me away, used my badge somehow, and let me take the fall.”
“That’s what I’m going to prove.” Margaret gathered her papers. “The email is evidence. We can show you had no reason to be in Wilmington except that he sent you there.”
“But how did he use my badge if I had it with me?”
Margaret stood, gripping her briefcase. “I don’t know yet. But Nick Liu designed that entire security system. He’d know its weaknesses better than anyone.”
She knocked on the door for the guard. “Hold on, hon. We have something we didn’t have before. Proof that Nick Liu deliberately sent you away from the facility the night of the theft. That’s not a coincidence. It’s premeditation.”
As the guard led Sade away, Margaret pulled out her phone. Katherine answered on the first ring.
“I need everything on an email from Nick Liu to Sade Jalloh on January 8th. He sent her to Wilmington. He deliberately got her out of town the night of the theft.” Margaret walked toward the exit. “Kat, he designed that security system. If the IT firm says badges can’t be cloned, but Sade’s badge accessed that room while she was in Wilmington...”
“Then he found another way in,” Katherine finished. “A backdoor. A vulnerability only he would know about.”
“Exactly. We need to prove it before the feds take over this case.” Margaret pushed through the doors into the cold January air. “Because if we don’t, Sade Jalloh is going to spend the rest of her life in prison for something Nick Liu did.”
Stay tuned for Chapter 13, next week!
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Margaret Mitchell, her white terrier Spotty, and her gang at the local nursing home tackle Baltimore mysteries with pluck, perception, and palaver.
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