Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Green Beret
Morgan didn't go to her office in the Loop.
Instead, she caught the Green Line, transferred to the Blue Line at Clark/Lake, and took it back toward Forest Park, riding the same route where she had encountered the mysterious stranger forty-eight hours earlier.
The Mason jar sat heavy in her tote bag, wrapped in three plastic grocery bags to prevent the toxic vapor from leaking out. Her mind raced with unanswered questions. Who was that woman? How could a total stranger know that Julian would buy her a necklace? And most importantly, how had she known what that necklace would do?
At 9:30 AM, Morgan got off at the Austin stop. She remembered the woman’s clothes clearly: the faded grey trench coat, the emerald-green wool beret, and that lingering scent of fresh lavender. She wasn’t homeless; her coat had been immaculately kept, the cuffs clean, her posture proud despite her age.
Morgan walked into the small convenience store across from the bus depot, showing the cashier a quick description. The cashier shrugged. She went into a nearby bakery, then a dry cleaner's. Nothing.
Desperation began to claw at her throat. If she couldn't find the woman, who would believe her? If she went to the police with a jar of cloudy water, Julian would simply claim he bought a cheap trinket from an overseas website that reacted poorly to water. Without hard proof of intent, she was just an unhinged wife accusing her husband of attempted homicide.
She sat on a wooden bench near a community garden on South Boulevard, shivering in the autumn wind. And then, she smelled it.
A drift of dried lavender.
Morgan jerked her head up. Twenty yards away, walking along the gravel path of the garden with a wicker basket of dried clippings, was the woman in the green beret.
Morgan leapt from the bench, her boots crunching on the fallen leaves. “Excuse me! Please, wait!”
The elderly woman stopped, turning slowly. Up close, in the harsh morning sunlight, her face was lined with deep, tragic creases around her mouth, but her pale blue eyes were crystal clear. When she saw Morgan running toward her, breathing hard, she didn't look surprised.
“You soaked it,” the woman said simply.
Morgan came to a halt, gasping for breath. She pulled the jar halfway out of her tote, revealing the murky violet water and the corroded metal settled at the bottom. “What is this? How did you know?”
The woman looked down at the jar, her expression hardening into an abyss of sorrow and rage. “Dimethyl sulfoxide mixed with high-potency digitalis glycoside. It dissolves in water, but on bare skin, the carrier oil drives the toxin straight into the bloodstream within two to three hours. The coroner calls it massive cardiac arrest. Natural causes.”
Morgan felt the world tilt beneath her feet. “Who are you?”
“My name is Evelyn Vance,” the woman answered softly. “And five years ago, your husband was named Julian Mercer. Back then, he was married to my daughter, Claire.”
Morgan swayed. The air felt thick, impossible to swallow. “Julian was... married before?”
“He told you he was a bachelor who focused on his business ventures, didn't he?” Evelyn gave a bitter, sorrowful laugh. “Claire was an artist. She inherited a four-acre farm and an apple orchard in southern Illinois from her father. Julian persuaded her to take out a substantial life insurance policy to cover their ‘joint business loan.’ Then, on her thirty-second birthday, he gave her an antique silver locket.”
Tears welled in Evelyn’s eyes, but she did not let them fall.
“Claire wore it out to dinner. By the time they reached dessert, she complained of dizziness and nausea. By midnight, she was dead in the emergency room. The hospital found no foul play. The insurance company paid out seven hundred thousand dollars to Julian Mercer. Within six months, he sold her family orchard to a commercial developer and vanished into thin air.”
Morgan’s knees gave out. She collapsed onto the wooden edge of a raised garden bed. “Why didn't you go to the police?”
“I did,” Evelyn whispered, stepping closer and placing a gentle, weathered hand on Morgan’s trembling shoulder. “I begged them. But the silver locket had vanished from the hospital room. Julian claimed it was lost during the resuscitation efforts. Without evidence, they called me a grieving, hysterical mother. For five years, I’ve tracked him. I followed his aliases from St. Louis to Milwaukee, and finally to Chicago. When I saw him on Michigan Avenue three months ago, I knew he was setting up his next victim.”
“You followed him to me,” Morgan breathed.
“I followed him to your apartment building,” Evelyn nodded. “I saw you leaving for work every morning. I saw the look of exhaustion and patience in your eyes—the exact same patience Claire had. When I saw Julian walk into a shady custom jeweler in Chinatown last week, picking up a sealed velvet box, I knew the clock was ticking. I waited for you on that bus.”
Evelyn knelt down in front of Morgan, looking directly into her eyes with an intensity that burned through the cold.
May you like
“He wants your grandmother’s cottage in Door County, Morgan. And he wants your life insurance. If you run right now, he will disappear, change his name again, and kill another girl. Will you help me put him in a cage?”
***
