The Botanist (15 page)

When a basketball-sized hole had been cleared, Cody shone his flashlight into the box. Stieger peered in with him. Cody let his head drop, suddenly exhausted. He fell back onto his buttocks and leaned his forehead against his arm. He wasn’t spooked by what looked up at him from the hole, just saddened.

Not for the first time since this whole thing began, he wondered how his Uncle Clyde would have handled it. Cody felt like he was falling down a rabbit hole—one with smooth sides and no way to tell how deep it was or which way was up.

Rivulets of sweat ran down Stieger’s cheeks and his chest moved more deeply than usual. “The plot thickens,” he said quietly.

“I don’t think we’re discovered the plot yet. I think we’re only scratching the surface.” Cody pulled his camera from his pack and snapped a picture to send to the captain. The skeletal face staring up at him could almost have been sporting a morbid smile. Cody was no coroner, but the long, undecayed locks of hair sprouting from the skull suggested a small woman or girl.

Stieger reached into the splintered coffin and pulled out a book. When he gingerly let it fall open, faded handwriting could be seen. It looked like a journal.

Cody’s camera flashed again. Pictures were supposed to be mementos, usually of something good. Cody didn’t think he’d ever get used to photographing the dead.

Chapter 25

When Cody arrived back at the station two hours later, the captain, Frank, Court, and Tom were all waiting for him. He’d called the appropriate people, and it didn’t take long for what was once Alastair Landes’ property to be cordoned off. Reporters showed up and Cody thanked heaven for the extra cops in town. Linda arrived in a coroner’s vest to take the bones away, and Stieger promised to keep in touch.

“Well, where is it?” Frank asked.

Cody produced the sealed plastic bag that contained the journal Stieger had found. “It needs to be printed. If we’re lucky, this guy’ll be in the system.”

“Did you read any of it?” Court asked.

“No. It was too dark out there. Pretty much just chicken scratch anyway, but look at the inside cover.” The plastic bag was wrapped loosely enough that he could partially open the book and let them look inside. The white part of the inside cover was dirty and creased. The faded blue ink constructed only two words:
Shakespeare’s Girls
.

Despite the different mediums, the style and shape of the writing was unmistakably similar.

“Okay.” The captain removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “That’s enough to assume that whoever buried the bodies in the desert also wrote this journal.”

“Agreed,” Cody said.

“I’m going to call in a criminalist.”

“What?” Frank and Court said at the same time.

“Like a profiler?” Tom asked.

“I’m not any happier about it than you,”—the captain replaced his glasses—“but I think it’s the best thing. The mayor’s leaning on me, because the governor’s leaning on him. I’ve had offers of help from every major agency in the country, all the way up to the FBI, and quite frankly, I think we’re out of our league here, unless one of you has worked a serial killer case I don’t know about?”

Silence followed.

“I’m not bringing them in to run the show, but we have too many leads to follow to sit around trying to interpret the psychotic scribblings of a madman. I’ll give the journal to the experts and let them figure out the psychosis. That way we can focus on catching the guy.”

Cody rifled around on his desk, looking for the real estate document he’d read earlier about Alastair Landes’s land. He glanced up to find the captain and his fellow detectives staring at him.

“Do you know that little convenience store on fifth and Center called
Janet’s?”

“Sure,” Court said. “My wife likes that place. A bit out of your way, though, isn’t it?”

“No. I try to avoid the traffic on Main during certain hours of the day, so I take a detour that takes me right past
Janet’s.
I drive by it all the time. Earlier today, I read a report about none of Mt. Dessicate’s stores knowing of any customers that bought a lot of blue food coloring, but you’re right Court:
Janet’s
is a bit off the beaten path, both geographically and in terms of business visibility. An out-of-towner uniform might miss it, so I decided to stop in, and guess what?”

“They knew of someone?” Tom’s voice always rose in pitch when he was surprised.

“The owner remembers a transient that used to buy blue food coloring by the case. This was at least twenty years ago. This guy apparently gave everyone the willies and he worked for a man named Alastair Landes.”

“Landes,” Frank said. “
Land
es
.
Why do I know that name?”

Cody held up the report. “Because he’s the one who last owned the land the mass grave is on.”

Tom let out a low whistle. “So what happened to this Landes guy?”

Cody sighed.
“He died in ’87. He didn’t leave a will, so the county liquidated his ranch and absorbed the real estate. It’s part of county public lands now. The owner didn’t know what happened to the transient, assumed he left town when Alastair died. He did suggest that someone who knew Alastair more personally could tell us more about the transient.”

“And maybe give us a better idea of where he went after Alastair’s death,” the captain finished.

Cody nodded.

“Well, it’s a place to start. You stay on that, Cody, and keep me updated.” The captain looked down at his papers, shuffling them. “Does anyone else have anything of import?”

There was a brief silence before Tom spoke. “I did manage to get the report about Alex being found on the highway.”

Cody’s head snapped up. “And?”

“It’s about like she says. Not a lot of details. There is one thing of note, though: guess which highway she was found wandering?”

Cody raised his eyebrows in question.

“This
highway, about a mile north of that historical monument.”

The silence stretched as that sank in.

“Obviously
that’s
not a coincidence,” Frank muttered.

“Keep digging,” the captain told Tom, who nodded. “All of you keep at it. Bring anything important directly to me, and it goes without saying that this is your priority. Everything else is on the backburner. Beyond that, I’ve got the mayor breathing down my neck and the press to deal with. I’ll be in my office.”

Chapter 26

An hour later, Cody’s phone rang, making him jump. He’d made fourteen calls in the past hour, trying to confirm what Stieger had found on Alastair Landes and fill in the holes. Landes was proving a difficult man to learn about.

“Cody Oliver.” Cody cradled the phone’s receiver with his shoulder so he could work while he talked.

“Detective Oliver? This is Officer Shaffer. I’m with Ms. Thompson at the safe house?”

“Of course. Is anything wrong?”

“Not with her, sir. Ms. Thompson is resting. She’s fine. The problem is that my captain just called and ordered me back to Gunnison. He wants me back there tonight. I need someone to come and relieve me so I can head back.”

Cody glanced at his watch. It was a quarter past seven. Most of the extra cops in town would have retired for the evening. He didn’t know who to contact to assign another uniform to Alex. Frank was the one keeping track of how many extra men had come from which towns and where they were at any given time, but Frank and Court had headed out for dinner ten minutes ago. And when Frank was ripping into dinner, he generally didn’t answer his cell phone—at his wife’s request, but Frank gleefully used it as an excuse to ignore work while he ate.

“Well, Shaffer, it’ll probably be an hour or two before I can get another uniform over there. Do you need to leave right away?”

“As soon as possible, sir. My captain insists.”

“All right. I’ll come and relieve you myself. Be there in fifteen.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Cody stood and gathered up his things. He was waiting to hear back from all of the calls he’d made, but he’d given his cell phone number in each instance, and he could read his boring reports just as well at the safe house as he could here. Might as well let the young man get home and appease his captain.

“Cody.”

Cody skidded to a halt beside the front desk. “Yes, Rose?”

“Lab reports on the vics came back.”

“Where?”

Without taking her eyes from her monitor, Rose stabbed her pen in the general direction of a manila envelope on the corner of her desk.

Cody snatched it up, noting his name on the front. “Thanks, Rose.”

“Mmm-hm.”

On the way over, he called Frank. As he suspected, the call went straight to voicemail. He left a message for Frank to find a uniform to spend the night at the safe house with Alex, and to call and let Cody know when the officer was on his or her way.

The safe house was a small, red brick rambler that snuggled in perfectly with every other house on the street. The grass was cut but not landscaped; the front and garage door paint was faded but not chipped; the driveway was pocked but not potholed. It looked lived-in without drawing attention to itself—the perfect location for a safe house.

Shaffer opened the door. “Thanks again, sir.”

“No problem. Heading home right away then?”

“Yes. Well, I have to take the unmarked car back to the station and swap it for my squad car, sir, but after that, yes.”

“Stay alert out there. Apparently the highway isn’t safe at night.”

“Going the other direction, detective, but I’ll be careful anyway.”

Cody chuckled, then raised a hand in farewell as Shaffer backed out of the driveway.

He took his files into the kitchen and spread them out on the table. The house was quiet, and the bedroom door was closed. Alex must still be sleeping.

For the next hour and a half, he sifted through the reports. He found a few interesting details, but nothing jumped out at him.

A surprising amount of the land outside the city limits was either still privately owned, or had been up until the eighties. Apparently, quite a few people or companies had bought parcels over the years, planning to develop it. Developing so far into the desert was difficult, though, and in most instances, plans fell through and the property rights lapsed or were simply abandoned. The county then absorbed the land.

There was some talk of underground springs in the area the bodies were found. That might explain the wet soil in the graveyard. Perhaps the spot was a natural oasis, and that’s why the killer picked it. If underground streams laced that mountain, a person might be able to survive out there, away from civilization, without much trouble.

Cody couldn’t stop thinking about that passageway above the graveyard. He’d started to explore it, but it simply hadn’t been feasible when he was out there by himself. As far as he knew, no one else had explored it any more than he had. The CSI team had put a camera down it, but they hadn’t found any evidence that suggested it was anything more than a natural fissure. Cody made a note to set up an exploration of that spot.

A few papers later, he came across a CSI report that corroborated his theory. It said that water was seeping up through the ground in the place the corpses were found. It was also kept in the shadow of the mountain during the hottest part of the day. That meant that it was probably the best spot for miles to get something to grow.

Unfortunately, the lab reports on the bodies didn’t help a whole lot either, other than to make him more disgusted than he already was. There was precious little tissue to deal with, but analysis of what they did have, along with bone marrow analysis, showed a neuromuscular agent present in the tissue. That meant that they had been paralyzed, but awake, while the torture was going on.

Cody set the report down and rubbed his eyes. This was all interesting, but it didn’t tell him how to find his killer. The answer was out in the desert somewhere. Or possibly in Alex.

As though thinking of her was a summons, the bedroom door opened somewhere beyond his sight. He heard footsteps on carpet, the sound of a light switch being flipped, and then a door shutting. He could only assume she’d wandered into the bathroom.

A few minutes later, he heard running water. The door opened, and she appeared around the corner. Her eyes brightened when she saw him.

“Hey. It’s you.”

“Yeah.”

She walked over to the cupboard and took out a glass. “I didn’t think babysitting was part of a detective’s job.”

Cody laughed. “It’s a protective detail, not a babysitting job. Please don’t go around telling people that my job is to babysit witnesses all day.”

“Why not?” She laughed, filling the glass with water.

“Because this is a small town. It’ll probably get back to my father.”

Alex smiled. He could see her intelligent eyes picking up on the implications of what he’d said and making deductions. Her gaze wasn’t judgmental, though, just mildly curious.

“Actually.” He casually returned all of the reports to the folder and closed the lid. “Frank’s supposed to find me a replacement. I’m kind of surprised I haven’t heard from him yet.” He looked up at her. “How’re you feeling?”

She shrugged. “Fine. Sore, but not bad. I was going to make something for dinner. You want some?”

“Sure. Although, maybe I should do it. You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I’ll be fine. No offense, but it’s obvious that men stocked this place. It’s all Easy Mac and scrambled eggs and hot dogs.”

Cody tried to hide his laugh. That sounded an awful lot like Tom’s favorite foods.

“Do you have a preference?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No, you choose.”

He continued reading while she worked. Her phone rang, and she talked with her father for a while. He could tell she was structuring her words very carefully to keep from alarming him. Cody couldn’t help but admire her. He thought she ought to tell her parents the truth, but he could tell she was looking out for them.

She’d found some vegetables in the fridge and made them both what turned out to be surprisingly good omelets, accompanied by toast. Before she ate, she said grace, another thing that surprised him. It wasn’t that she didn’t seem the type—she didn’t strike him either way—but she was so no-nonsense, so independent, that he wouldn’t have thought her religious.

The vague awkwardness as they began to eat lasted only a few minutes. It was broken by Alex, of course.

“So, your father disapproves of your job?”

Cody’s hand froze on the way to his mouth.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry. You don’t have to tell me; I was just making conversation.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s all right. It’s just that most people don’t pick up on it so quickly. Or exactly.”

“Well, you said you didn’t want people telling him that you babysit witnesses all day. So it’s either that, or he’s a cop too and just really hard on you.”

“No, not a cop. My dad is
definitely
not a cop. My uncle was.”

He could see the wheels turning behind her eyes. “Is he the man in picture on your desk? You’re, like, six or something.”

“
Fifteen
. And yes, that’s my uncle. That was the last picture I took with him before he died.”

Alex’s playful expression turned serious. “In the line of duty?”

“Yeah.” She didn’t press but the question hung in the air, and he found he was comfortable sharing it with her. “He surprised a couple of drug dealers peddling their wares and it got ugly. He was shot in the crossfire.”

“No vest?”

“No. But it wouldn’t have mattered. He took one to the head. Never woke up.”

Alex sighed. “Cody, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

“Is he the reason you became a cop?”

“Yeah. I idolized the guy. He was a decorated hero in this community before he accepted a detective’s position up north. Just wish he would’ve lived long enough to see me follow him.”

“So why doesn’t your father approve?”

“I don’t know. My dad and my uncle seemed close. Some of my earliest memories are of spending weekends with my dad and Uncle Clyde. They always got along. We’d go fishing or watch sports, or work on the house for my mom. We even went up north once or twice for a big-deal ball game. But for some reason my father didn’t want me to take up my uncle’s profession. Tom thinks they must have had a falling out as adults.”

“Makes sense.”

“Not to me. Even if they did, that doesn’t mean that cop work is bad. I might as well have gone into the street side pharmacist business, for all my dad’s pride in my profession.” Cody stopped and cleared his throat, realizing he was venting.

Alex didn’t seem to notice. She was studying her food. “I think Tom must be right, though, about the falling out.”

“Why?”

“It’s just odd. Police work is a really noble profession. Unless your dad is a . . . some color-collar criminal—”

Cody chuckled.

“—he should at least be
okay
with it. Something must have happened to give him a grudge.”

Cody shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. He won’t talk about it, though.” He waved his hand at her. “It’s an old argument anyway. I went through the academy six years ago, and he still tries to talk me out of it.”

Alex’s eyebrows went up, and she laughed. “Six years later and still trying, huh?”

Her amusement dissipated the anger he’d been nursing for the last few days, and he found himself grinning back at her. “Yup. Always concocting schemes to get me to work with him, join other companies, overnight millionaire scams.”

“Really?” She laughed harder.

“Yeah.”

After a moment, her smile faded a bit. “Sorry, I guess that’s probably not funny to you.”

“No, it’s nice to laugh about it. Easier than being angry, anyway.”

Alex nodded.

“What about you? Your parents hate photography?”

“No. I haven’t had too many problems with my parents—at least, not of that nature. They’ve always been supportive of anything I want to do.”

“Well then, of what nature
are
your problems with them?”

“Well, there was the whole adoption-deception thing.”

Cody’s gaze dropped to his plate. He’d forgotten. “Right.”

“Other than that, my mom can nag with the best of them, and my dad is pretty overprotective. He scared away a few boyfriends in high school. But that’s just normal family stuff.”

He nodded and they were silent for a few minutes. “You know,” he finally said, “I’ve gotta say, I’m impressed with the way you’re handling all of this. Most other people wouldn’t be nearly so calm about it.”

Alex studied the table for a moment before answering. “First of all,” she said, “I think you’re giving me too much credit. I’m only pretending to be calm. It’s totally an act.”

He grinned. “Noted.”

“Other than that—” She lifted a shoulder. “Between the shock of the adoption news and some . . . other realities of life, I suppose I’ve just learned to take things in stride. Fight for what you want, of course, but being angry about things you can’t control—there’s just no point to it. Like my adoption—my aunt in Arizona made me see how blessed I actually was. Especially considering how I was found, who knows what kind of biological parents I had. Or if I had any by that point? I was put in a good home with loving parents. I couldn’t have asked for better.” She shrugged again. “Whatever happens, especially if it’s not something you choose, I think there’s a reason for it. I think there’s a reason I’m here. Whether just to help catch this guy or to have an experience I’ll grow from or”—she glanced up at him—“some other reason, I don’t know. But I believe it just the same.”

She was sounding more like the praying type, now, but Cody respected her for it. “I hope you’re right.”

They finished the meal in silence, and she got up to clear the table.

He stood. “Uh-uh. No way. You cooked. I get to do the dishes.”

“’Kay. It’ll take you all of three minutes. Um, assuming the dishwasher works, that is.”

“I think it does.” They found some dishwasher soap under the sink and assumed that meant the appliance worked. They only had six or seven dishes to put in, so they wouldn’t run it anyway.

“So,” Alex said when he was done, “are you still working on that stuff?”

He glanced at the file. “No, I’m pretty much done, except I need to call Frank. Why?”

“There are some decks of cards in the living room. You up for a game?”

Cody smiled. “Sure.”

He followed her into the next room where they sat on opposite sides of the coffee table. He decided his call to Frank could wait.