Josefine sent Bates home with the painting once the sun started setting and made her way back to Sachiko's booth in time to find her closing up for the night. She kept her distance and kept quiet, hushing Wolf occasionally as she followed Sachiko back to her home in one of the outskirt neighborhoods. There she waited, circling the place and making note of the red rose vines creeping up the back of her house and what looked like water hemlock dug up by the root a few paces down the road. Once an hour or two had passed and she could be sure Sachiko was likely asleep, Josefine approached the house and started peeking in the windows, pausing when she found a little studio, the painting on the stand an exact portrait of the man who'd come to visit her as if adding him to the series, except the roses hadn't been added in yet. She thought back to the other paintings and a smile crept across her lips as she pieced together what was going on. Wolf let out an eager sound, but Josefine hushed it again.
"We have to be certain, alright?" Wolf grumbled a noncommittal sound in reply but for now, Josefine remained in control so she turned away from Sachiko's house and set on her way back down the road to where she'd left her little motorcycle.
#
The next day, Bates woke up to find Josefine reading through her botany book for information on both water hemlock and rose vines. She'd confirmed her suspicion that the placement of the flowers and petals in Sachiko's paintings was determined by the effects of water hemlock poison on each one.
"What are you reading about so early in the morn?" Bates rubbed the sleep from her eyes and adjusted the scarf keeping her curlers in place.
"Rose vines." A perfect eyebrow arched at that.
"Aren't they a fairy tale?" Josefine drummed her fingers on the book's pages.
"No, though there is a story about them growing on a which's house. They're white roses that reflect moonlight so they look like they glow at night. The fairy tale did tell the truth that if fed blood, they'll bloom this brilliant red."
"They call those blood roses, right?" Josefine nodded.
"Curious, isn't it?" Bates rolled her eyes.
"Get out of the house, Doc, you are getting a bit touched in the head." A very real smile bloomed across Josefine's lips, a little bit of Wolf slipping through.
"I do have plans, actually."