The Botanist (26 page)

Chapter 39

By evening, shockingly little progress had been made at the dig site. The reports Cody got were disheartening. The bulldozers had broken through several weak underground tunnels, but two out of three had collapsed completely, obscuring any pathways that might lead farther in. The third had held, but led only to a dead end—yet another barrier to drill through.

They
were
making progress, and as they found their momentum, the pace of the work had sped up in late afternoon, but Cody still worried. Progress or not, at this pace it would take weeks to find Alex. Who knew how long they had? Days? Hours? There was the possibility that she was already dead.

The thought made Cody want to vomit, so he pushed it away. He had to believe that both Alex and Melissa were alive and would remain so.

Cody spent the better part of the day with Alex’s father, teasing out details and clues from her life, and what her father remembered from her childhood, but nothing helpful surfaced. By the time they were finished, darkness had set in, and digging had halted for the night. Huge spotlights were being brought in so that the digging could go on twenty-four-seven, but they wouldn’t arrive until the next day. It was too dangerous to dig in the dark, so everyone had gone home, promising to return at the first sign of the sky’s lightening.

Cody knew he’d never sleep tonight. He understood the safety factor. It was black as tar out there, and flashlights couldn’t compete with the darkness when they were talking about digging underground in an unstable structure with desert night prowlers all around. Captain, Court and Frank had left for a short time, but were back now. They’d gone home, kissed their wives, tucked their kids in, and then returned to grill Cody on what Resputa had said.

Resputa.
It seemed like so long ago that Cody visited the prison. His fellow detectives immediately began plugging in leads based on what Resputa told him. Cody appreciated it, and knew he should help, but he couldn’t concentrate. He didn’t care about puzzles and clues when Alex was alone in the dark with a stark-raving flower-grower.

Frank and Court hurried in and out of the office, working on leads while the darkness prevented them from working at the dig site. Cody tried for the hundredth time to read the report in front of him, but he couldn’t concentrate. His phone rang, and he was glad for the distraction.

“Oliver.”

“Hello, Detective. My name’s Sterling Rogers. I’m with the 4–2 in Cache County.”

“What can I do for you, sir?” Cody asked, hoping he didn’t actually have to call the guy Mr. Rogers.

“I’ve got about three dozen unies up here willing to volunteer their weekend to help you down there if you need them. I wanted to make sure that you could put them to work. We’re getting reports of more police officers than you know what to do with down there.”

“Actually I’m not the one to talk to, Officer Rogers. I couldn’t even tell you.”

“Aren’t you the detective in charge?”

“Yes, but I’m not handling logistics. I’ll have to transfer you to my captain. He’ll be able to direct you.” Frank had handed off logistics duty to another officer so he could help in last night’s operation, but Cody had no idea who it was.

“That’s fine. And thank you, Detective. What’d you say your name was?”

“Oliver. Cody Oliver.”

Rogers barked a laugh. “Not related to Clyde Oliver from up north, right?” He sniggered through the phone line.

Cody froze. Something about Rogers’ tone made the hairs on his neck stand up.

“Detective? You still there?”

“Yes,” Cody said warily. “Clyde Oliver was my uncle.”

The silence that stretched across the phone line was both loud and uncomfortable.

“Did you know him?” Cody asked when Rogers didn’t speak.

“I . . . well, not really, no. I knew of him.”

“And what did you know?”

“I . . . my apologies, Detective. I simply meant . . . that he had passed. I didn’t dream that you were actually related to him. It was terribly insensitive of me. I’m sorry.”

Cody played the conversation back in his head. Rogers sounded flippant, even sarcastic when asking if Cody was related to his Uncle Clyde, as though it would be a negative thing for a familial tie to exist. Had Rogers really been poking fun at a fellow officer who’d died in the line of duty? As if to say he was a loser for it?

“Okay,” Cody said slowly, “but I’m not sure which part of what you said was insensitive. What were you implying?”

“Nothing, Detective. Nothing at all. If you’ll just transfer me to your captain, I’ll get my situation straightened out.”

Cody didn’t answer. He tried to think of what to say to get Rogers to tell him more.

“You know,” Rogers said, “I think I have your captain’s number somewhere. And I should probably double-check my count of officers. I’ll do that and call him back myself. Thank you very much, Detective.”

The line went dead before Cody could respond. With a sigh, he replaced the receiver. Frank walked in, trying to read a paper he was holding while also tilting his head back to sip his coffee from a white disposable cup. Cody’s worry must have shown on his face because when Frank caught sight of it, he paused. But before he could say anything, his torso was thrown forward, independent of his feet. He stumbled forward, like someone had hit his retard button, spilling coffee on the ground and barely staying upright. He turned to glare at Court, who’d walked right into him, not realizing he’d stopped in the doorway. Court glared back at Frank for stopping.

Cody ignored them, getting to his feet and grabbing his keys.

“Where you going, Cody?” Frank asked.

“To my car. Be right back.”

They moved to let him pass. Cody went out the back way to avoid the captain’s suspicious eyes, and headed for the parking lot.

Frank
sighed as he threw back the last of the long-since-cold liquid in his cup. His eyes were ready to fall out of his head. Working at the desk opposite him, Court looked about as strung out as Frank felt. Court’s pen was moving at a much slower cadence than usual, and Frank was sure the same slow motion sickness was affecting him. He still had hours of work to do, but he needed to get rid of some of it to feel like he was accomplishing
something.

He had a small stack of reports he could pass off to Cody. Ah, the joys of being lead detective on a huge case like this—mountains more paper work than anyone else had to deal with. He chuckled an evil laugh in his head. He would have done the laugh verbally—he usually did—but he was too tired to trouble his voice box.

Feeling pleased with himself, he siphoned the reports he could get rid of off his pile and turned toward Cody’s desk. Cody wasn’t there. Frank supposed he could just leave the reports, but now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen Cody in a while.

Welcoming the excuse to leave his desk for a few minutes, Frank got up and walked out into the lobby. He used his thumb and index finger to stretch two of the horizontal blind slats apart and gazed, blurry-eyed, toward the parking lot. Cody was nowhere to be seen. The parking lot was vacant of Jeeps.

“Rose?”

“Yeah.” Rose had perfected the art of talking while not looking up from her work.

“Did you see where Cody went?”

“Left a while ago.”

“Do you know why?”

“I assume he’s following a lead.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s a detective.”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Rose . . .”

His tone brought her irritated eyes up to his, and she finally turned from her computer.

“Cody paced outside the captain’s door for a while. He only does that when he wants to ask a question, but the Captain’s been on the phone for hours. Finally, Cody got in his Jeep.”

Frank smirked to himself. For a woman who never looked up from her work unless forced, Rose had nearly omniscient powers of observation.

“And which way did he go?”

Rose gazed at him, expressionless, for several seconds before answering. “South. Into the desert.”

Frank’s smirk faded. Cody lived in the other direction. Unless he was making a run for it, hoping to start a new life south of the border or some such, the only place he could be going was to the abduction sight. Why would he go there now? It was after midnight. The digging would resume in only five or six hours. It wasn’t as if Cody could operate the bulldozers himself, especially in the dark. Unless . . .

“Thanks, Rose.”

Frank turned abruptly and walked back to his office. He knew Cody too well. He loved the kid, but Cody was a man of action. As detectives, they all were, but Cody could be independent to a fault, and the feeling in Frank’s chest was suddenly one of urgency.

“Court,” he whispered when he got back to his desk, “we gotta go.”

Court looked up from what he was working on, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. “Huh?” His voice was alarmingly loud in the quiet of the station.

“Shhh! Cody just took off.”

Court looked completely blank. “Oh . . . kay . . .”

“He went to the abduction sight. I think he’s going to try and find this guy on his own.”

Court’s expression went from confusion to concern. “Why would he do that?”

“Um, well. I gotta tell you something.”

Court raised an eyebrow.

“He has a thing for Alex.”

It seemed to take Court a long time to process that statement. “Well, we’ve all seen him staring at her, but that doesn’t mean—”

“Trust me, man. I walked in on the two of them going at it yesterday.”

Court’s eyes widened. “Going . . . at it?”

“Making out”—Frank motioned vaguely to the left side of the room—“against the wall.”

“Oh.”

“Didn’t you see how freaked out Cody was when she disappeared?”

“Yeah, but Cody takes every case to heart.”

“Now multiply that by a thousand because he’s got feelings for this woman. What would you do?”

Court’s mouth drew into a worried line. He nodded, stood, checked his gun in its holster, and came around the desk. “Let’s go.”

Frank put a hand on his partner’s chest to stop him. “The captain won’t approve of us going out there in an official capacity. He can’t. We should leave him out of it.”

Court nodded. “Plausible deniability. Agreed.”

“I’ll tell Rose I’m going on a midnight coffee run. You sneak out the back and meet me in the parking lot.”

Court nodded as he slipped out the door and toward the back of the station. “See ya in two.”

The
captain hung up the phone and rubbed his eyes. He’d been on the phone with Mayor Thomas Hascomb for an hour. Thomas had ripped him a new one for “letting the investigation get away from him.” Really it was because he’d allowed a civilian to get involved in a sting operation that had gone horribly awry. Within hours the press had a hold of it. They were painting the Mt. Dessicate PD as incompetent and practically complicit in Alex’s abduction.

The captain sighed. He’d agreed to allow Thomas to send in more experienced reinforcements. In truth, it would be a relief. The captain had no intention of letting anyone else run his investigation or take charge of his jurisdiction, but this was getting too big for him to manage alone.

The fact that the press was getting details not privy to the public within hours of their inception meant that someone, probably one of the unies, was informing them. There was absolutely no way and no resources to commit to finding out who it was and plugging them up.

A soft knock at his office door brought him out of his thoughts. Rose’s head and shoulders appeared. The captain looked at the clock. It was well after midnight, which was when her shift officially ended.

“Heading home, Rose? You ought to. If you don’t get enough sleep to do your job, there’s no hope for the rest of us.”

Rose smiled. “I’m almost done, sir, but actually there’s something I thought you should know.”

“Oh?”

“All three of your detectives just headed for your crime scene.”

The captain frowned. At this hour? “Why?”

“I don’t know, sir. They don’t exactly keep me in the loop. Cody headed off by himself twenty minutes ago. I didn’t think much of it. He’s been all over the place lately. When Frank realized he was gone, he bolted back to his office. I heard whispering. Then Frank told me—
very
casually, I might add—that he was going out for coffee. I think Court went out the back. They always forget that I have a crystal clear view of the parking lot. They both jumped into the same car and tore after Cody like vampire bats out of hell.”

The captain smirked. “I guess we’re not all that mysterious to you, are we Rose?”

“When you say ‘we,’ do you mean men in general, or . . . ?”

The Captain chuckled and got to his feet, feeling every one of his fifty-three years. “Thank you, Rose. I’ll take care of it.”

Rose nodded and disappeared, but the door froze on its way to closing, and Rose appeared again. “Are you going after them, sir?”

“It’s my job.”

“Then if you don’t mind, I’d like to stay at my desk a bit longer. Just in case you need anything.”

The captain considered. He knew he should tell her to go home and to bed. She had five kids to get off to school in the morning, and she’d been a loyal employee for the better part of ten years. Still, he would feel better, should the situation in the desert turn ugly, having Rose at her post. There was no one he trusted more to get things done.

“Don’t feel obligated to stay, Rose, but it’s up to you.”

She gave him a quick nod and left. For good this time. The captain gathered his keys, gun, and cell phone. He’d have to call his wife on the way and tell her not to expect him before dawn.

Chapter 40

Cody’s parents lived on the outskirts of town, in the same direction as the site where Alex had been abducted. As he neared the turnoff to their neighborhood, he slowed down, contemplating going back out into the desert to look for Alex. If he hadn’t wanted so badly to know what his father knew, he might have done it.

Despite the fact that it was after midnight when Cody pulled into his parents’ driveway, all the lights in their home were still on. Cody wasn’t surprised. Both his parents worked nine-to-five jobs, which meant they didn’t need to be in bed early. His father had been a night owl for as long as he could remember, and his mother had chronic insomnia, so they were often up late.

Cody rapped loudly on the front door. It was nearly five minutes before it opened, but he didn’t knock again because he could hear his mother rustling around on the other side. He could just picture her, smoothing out her night robe, checking her hair in the mirror in the entry way, and tidying up the sitting room before even considering opening the door.

When she did, her face broke into a smile.

“Cody!” She threw herself into his arms. He stood there on the porch, hugging her for a few seconds. “We’ve been so worried about you.”

“I know, Mom. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I know that.” She pulled back. “Your friend, Alex, told us everything. I’m so sorry about Tom, Cody.”

“Thank you,” he managed in a whisper.

“Do you want to crash here for the night?”

He shook his head. “No. Actually, I can’t stay long. I need to talk to Dad.”

“About what?”

“Uncle Clyde.”

His mother’s face went very still. “That’s not a good idea, Cody. You’ve had a rough couple of days. Your friend died. You should deal with what you have on your plate right now before you—where are you going?”

He stepped past her. She was his mother, and he knew she was trying to protect him, but it angered him that she knew things she wasn’t telling him. Some random cop from up north knew more about his uncle—his hero, the reason he’d become a cop—than he did. Rather than yell at her for it, he simply stepped around her.

He walked to the foot of the stairs and listened. Not a sound. He couldn’t hear his father moving around up there.

“Cody, listen to me—”

Cody looked down the hallway. Light framed the door on the right. His father was in the den.

“You must understand—” His mother was at his shoulder. “There were things we didn’t tell you, and there were reasons for them. You were only a child.”

Cody had started down the hall, but that last stopped him. He swung to face her. “I’m not a child anymore, Mom. I haven’t been for a long time.”

She seemed abashed by that. Her gaze went to the ground, and after a moment, he turned and stalked down the hall.

He didn’t bother knocking. His father’s den was cramped, but cozy. A huge mahogany desk filled one side. It was surrounded by overstuffed chairs, bookshelves bursting with volumes, and a little-used fireplace on the opposite wall.

Cody’s father was hunched over a large book, pen in hand, making notations. Cody recognized it right away; it was his father’s account ledger. Norman was a meticulous bookkeeper. He owned his own business, so he had to be, but he never let anything slide.

He looked up with surprise when Cody strode in. “Cody. What’s wrong?”

Cody walked to his father’s desk and leaned over, resting his palms on the edge of it. “I want to know what you haven’t told me about Uncle Clyde’s death.”

His father’s face became still, as his mother’s had. “Cody what happened?”

Cody dropped his head in exasperation. “What happened is that I got a call from a cop today who seemed to know something negative about Uncle Clyde. He practically laughed when asking if we were related. Why would he do that?”

Cody’s father sighed. He rested his elbows on his desk, laced his fingers together, and leaned his forehead against his hands for a moment before looking up at Cody again. “What was this cop’s name?”

With a snarl of exasperation, Cody turned away from his father. Couldn’t he answer a simple question? His mother was standing in the doorway, looking scared.

“Markinson?” his father asked.

“No.”

“Rosette?”

Cody swung back toward his father. “What difference does the name make?”

“Rogers, then.”

Cody swallowed. How had his father guessed that? He felt like he ought to be connecting something, or coming to some logical conclusion, but his mind was so a-swirl with the events of the past week, he couldn’t imagine what was going on.

Cody’s face must have been a confirmation of sorts because his father nodded. “We’ve always known you’d figure out the truth sooner or later. To be honest, I’m surprised it’s taken this long. I’m surprised you haven’t run into anyone, or stumbled upon anything suspicious before now.”

“What is there to be suspicious about? Uncle Clyde died in the line of duty.”

His father smiled, and it was sad, sympathetic even. It made Cody afraid.

“That’s not exactly what happened, Cody.”

“That’s what the papers said, and the news, and everyone I’ve ever spoken to about it.”

Norman nodded. “Because that’s what most people believe happened. They weren’t lying to you. They just didn’t know the whole truth.”

“Which is what?”

“This isn’t the time for this.” Cody’s mother stepped forward. “You’re upset, Cody. Your partner died two days ago. You need time to grieve. You need time to figure out your case. Then we can revisit this.”

Cody turned to look at her. “Everything in my life—and I do mean absolutely everything—has gone to pieces in the last few days, Mom. I have a right to know this.” He included his father in his glare. For some reason, his father was more willing to talk to him than his mother was, and that had
never
happened before.

His father nodded slowly. His mother opened her mouth to protest, but Norman put up a hand. “He’s right, Barbara. He has a right to know.” His gaze shifted to Cody. “Just understand, Cody, that this won’t fix the things that have broken. If anything, it’ll make them worse.”

Cody considered that, but found he didn’t care. How could he just go home now without knowing? “So be it.”

His father nodded. “The official story was that you uncle surprised some dealers. It was a glorified drug bust, and he was shot trying to take them down. You’ve never questioned that story?”

“It’s what everyone said. Why
should
I question it?”

“There aren’t many details to go on.”

“I always thought it was police business. The kind of thing that wouldn’t be released to the media.”

“Or the family?”

Cody sighed.
“There are things that sometimes aren’t, Dad.”

“And when you became a cop, you never looked into the old report?”

“Sure I did. It didn’t say anything different than I already knew.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t.”

Cody waited for his father to speak again, heart pounding.

“Cody.” Norman’s voice was quiet. “Your uncle didn’t stumble upon the dealers. Nor did he do exceptional detective work and figure out where the deal was going down. He was there for a different reason: he was meeting them.”

Cody frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He was meeting the dealers purposely. He was part of the drug deal.”

Cody tried to make sense of that. “Was he undercover?”

Norman slowly shook his head. “No, Cody. He wasn’t. He was crooked.”

A cold pit settled in Cody’s stomach. He didn’t remember bending his legs, but suddenly he was sitting in one of the chairs in front of his father’s desk.

“I don’t believe you.” He’d meant to be vehement, insulted, shocked—how could his father even suggest such a thing?—but it came out as a barely audible whisper.

Norman’s eyes dropped to his ledger. He shut it. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

Cody found his voice again, making it sound more solid this time. “If that’s true, why have I never heard it before?”

“Because no one knows. Even back when it happened, no one knew. Clyde and I were very close in the year before his death. We spent every weekend together—watching games, doing yard and house work, spending time with you—and I knew nothing about it. Even Clyde’s partner knew nothing about it.”

“How could his partner know nothing about it?” Those weekends were what made Cody idolize his uncle. But they were just weekends, not every waking moment.

“From what I understand,” Norman said, “his partner was a rookie. If there were signs, his partner was too inexperienced to pick up on them, or just too afraid to report them. They were together all day on the job, but this was something Clyde was doing in his spare time.”

“Doing what exactly?”

“It was a type of blackmail. He had an agreement with these dealers. He looked the other way—sometimes even gave them information to make sure they could do their deals without getting caught—in exchange for a cut of the profits.”

“But—” Cody ran the information through his head over and over again, trying to make it fit. “What was he doing with the money?”

“Who knows? From what we could tell, most of it was going to an off-shore account. We were never able to trace it, and without his identifying information, we have no way to locate or access it.” Norman went on when Cody remained silent. “It was suggested that he was starting a college fund for you.”

Cody’s head snapped up. “For me? Why do you think that?”

“One of the dealers that survived the shooting was questioned. He implied it. But he was probably full of it anyway. Even if they were partners, I doubt Clyde would have confided in someone like him.”

Cody stared at the rug beneath his father’s desk for a long time. He felt utterly hollow. How could it be true? Yet the seriousness of his father’s face, the fear in his mother’s eyes, the tone in Rogers’ voice on the phone earlier . . . it
was
true. It had to be.

“And why didn’t you ever tell me this? Why keep it from me?”

“You were only a child when he died, Cody,” Norman said. “And so heartbroken already.”

Cody jumped to his feet. “That’s not good enough! Maybe I was a child then, but I haven’t lived under your roof for almost a decade. What right did you have to keep this from me when I practically . . . based my life on who he was?”

His mother answered, her voice small. “You idolized him so, Cody. We wanted to preserve your memory of him.”

“A memory that was a lie.”

“It wasn’t a lie,” his father said firmly. “Clyde loved you, Cody. He doted on you. His professional misdeeds had nothing to do with how he felt about you.”

Cody shook his head and sunk into the chair, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“So this,” he ventured, looking up at his father, “is why you disapproved of my becoming a cop?”

Norman shrugged uncomfortably. “Clyde was a good man, Cody. And he wasn’t always crooked. He was such a good cop, he was offered a promotion—to join the narcotics division. He was going after dealers that were higher up on the food chain. Don’t you see? The temptation of money was right in front of him. Before that, he wouldn’t have thought of it. You are just like your uncle, Cody, in so many ways . . .”

Rebellion flared in Cody’s chest, and he leapt to his feet again. “So you couldn’t trust me with the truth. You were certain I’d repeat
his
mistakes! You’ve tried and convicted me of something I haven’t even had the chance to say no to.”

“Cody—”

“Don’t you think that if you wanted me to avoid his sins, you should have at least told me about them?”

“Cody—”

“Rather than encouraging me to be a better man than he was, you hid the truth from me because you didn’t think I could handle it. What kind of parent assumes their child is too
weak
to deal with the darker side of life?”

“Cody!” his father roared, on his feet now.

They glared at one another from opposite sides of the desk. Something tickled Cody’s face, and he swatted it away. It was a drop of water.

Finally Norman dropped his glare. “It’s not that I think you’re weak. No man is immune to that kind of temptation. I wouldn’t have thought Clyde could do something like that, but he did. Everyone is capable of giving in to depravity.”

Somewhere in the back of Cody’s mind, in a place he couldn’t acknowledge, his father’s argument made sense. Cody straightened his back. He couldn’t be here anymore. When his father said the word
depravity,
it only served to remind Cody that Alex was out in the darkness somewhere with that monster. Without a word, he turned and headed for the hallway.

“Where are you going?” his mother asked when he came level with her.

He turned in the doorway and looked back at his father. “I have a job to do.”

His mother placed a hand on his arm. “Cody please, won’t you just—”

“There’s a monster pulling people off the highway and murdering them in the desert.”

His mother shuddered.

“I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”

“I know,” she whispered.

Cody looked from her to his father, his voice laced with bitterness. “I
will
protect this town. No matter what you think me
capable
of.”

Without another word, he left the house.