The Dead Soul (11 page)

There was a knock on the door. Jake had just come in from the Boys & Girls Club and a stop at the Donut Chef. It was snowing. He was smiling. No sooner had he closed the door did he turn around and have to answer it.

Two guys dressed in military greens asked for Mr. or Mrs. Cooper.

“Go to your room,” Jake’s mother said, walking up from behind, wiping her hands on her apron. “Go now, boy. Hurry.”

Upstairs, his ear against the door, Jake listened to his mother wail as Martin Cooper put on his game face. Only thing the old man said was, “You know, there was a time not even an ambulance would not have come into this neighborhood without a police escort.” He stuck out his hand. “Fifteen company. Korean War.”

The captain handed Casey’s dog tags to Martin.

Martin put them in his pocket.

Jake had always viewed his father as a shell of a man, hollow and unfeeling. Mr. Pokerface. Martin was kind of just, well, there. He had played the role of the father, as if he had read a how-to book, or taken some adult-ed class on parenting. But then Casey died and Martin found salvation in a pint of Popov he kept in the glove box of his car. Jake would see him staring at the white and red label before taking a swig. Martin started hanging out at McBride’s and getting beaten up. As the years passed, Jake watched him sink deeper, never being able to pull himself out of it. Jake would walk out of the house or come up from behind the car unexpectedly and see his father tipping. He’d stop, watch, but never say anything to anyone.

Alcoholism, the middle class white elephant.

As Mrs. Cooper cried, Martin put a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, Captain. Lieutenant.” Nodded to both men. “We appreciate you coming out.”

Jake backed away from his door. Walked to the closet, where he had hid Casey’s tattered and torn boot-camp training T-shirt. Jake planned on wearing it himself as soon as he could fill it out. Standing in his room that day, Jake held the shirt to his nose. He could still smell Casey. 

10:15 P.M.

“I have to get over there and see Father John,” Jake said as he took the left on Woodycrest, nearing home. Brendan was just waking up.

“You find out what he wants?” Dawn loved listening to Jake talk about Casey. She knew it helped him.

“No. But I suspect it has something to do with the deacon. He mentioned his name. Never trusted that guy, Dawn.” Jake took a breath. “Hey, I want to drop Brendan off at school tomorrow morning, okay? Maybe once or twice a week from now on.”

Dawn smiled. Jake would give up on it after two weeks. But it was a start.

“I’m thinking of clocking out for good after this case.”

20

Sunday, September 7, 7:46 A.M.

Dickie and Anastasia made contact with Dr. Albert K. Shelton. He was a rather academic-looking, owlish man who wore a bow tie. He had one of those Honest Abe mustacheless beards. Spoke in language that made two streetwise cops feel as though their community college degrees were worthless. They hooked up with the professor shortly after Dickie phoned Jake the previous night. Shelton decided it would be better to meet in the lab “as early as possible.” He said he was scheduled to give a lecture that afternoon in Canada at a conference, and didn’t have a lot of time to spare.

“The Queen of the Night,” Shelton said aloud after introducing himself. He grasped the seedling found underneath Lisa Marie’s body with a pair of tweezers. Placed it under a microscope. “I’m sure of it. This little seedling is the ‘hot’ plant of the moment. All the rage today, detectives.”

“I’m a CSI, sir. Not a detective,” Anastasia corrected. “A distinction not quite made clear on television these days.”

The scholar ignored the comment. “What you officers need to do is conduct several more tests in order for the seedling to have any significance to your investigation.” Anastasia took notes. Dickie stood, listening closely. “Just to be certain. You need random samples of bark and leaves. Other seeds taken from different trees, shrubs, flowers, and other foliage and plant species surrounding the home of the victim. Along with any strange plants you might come in contact with during your investigation. The science behind this tiny naturally manufactured species is quite complicated. Same as, say, your DNA coding for blood.”

“Okay, doctor … humor us, would you. How is the DNA similar?” Dickie couldn’t help but think the professor sounded like one of the scientists he watched on Discovery Channel. Crass. Over-educated. Smarter than everyone else. The attitude the guy projected felt demeaning. It was hard to ignore.

Prick
, Dickie said to himself.

“Your toxicologists could probably answer this better, Detective. But I’ll give it my best. When you come down to it, we are not so much different than plants. Our DNA, speaking scientifically, appears almost identical on paper.”

Dickie picked his teeth with a toothpick he took from a bowl at the TGI Fridays the night before. As the professor spoke, he pictured two strands of the DNA ladder, the helixes, twisting next to each other.

“You see,” Shelton continued. He held out the seedling. Pointed at different sections of it with the tip of his pen. He smelled of Old Spice and used bookstore dust. “In all of us, mitochondrial DNA is found in the energy-producing organelles of the cell called ‘mitochondria.’ ” He peered up over the top of his glasses to make sure they were listening and paying close attention. “Most of our DNA is found in the nucleus of two types of what we call copies—nuclear DNA, which is routinely used for the typing you are likely familiar with. But also mitochondrial DNA, which is a shorter piece of DNA found in hundreds, I’d say, even thousands, of copies per cell.”

Dickie and Anastasia shook their heads, as if to say, Ah, now we get it.

“If you come upon a scene, you should take samples of those plant species that might be out of character for that particular region. This way we can use this sort of mitochondrial DNA typing to wipe out other possibilities. It won’t convince me. I’m already there. But you’ll need this additional evidence when you prosecute.”

“You get that, Rossi?” Dickie wondered how it was going to help them to find a murder suspect. Forget about courtrooms. He had made up his mind—this guy wasn’t going to make it that far if they found him.

“I got it all, Shaughnessy.”

The doctor looked at his watch. “I am stressed for time. Certainly, whoever allowed this ‘clue’ to escape onto the scene of this crime did not intend it to happen. That’s one possibility. The other is, he did intend it to be left there. It’s either a mishap or a deliberate attempt to confuse or say something.”

Dickie and Anastasia took a breath. The professor paused.

“But then, of course,” the doctor continued, “it could have been frozen. A test I ran indicated that it’s dead. It would not grow, in other words, if we planted it. The flower it spawns is sometimes called the Dutchman’s Pipe Cactus. Or the Nightblooming Cereus. The scientific term we use here is,
Epiphyllum oxypetalum
.”

“Dutchman’s Pipe sounds exotically erotic.” Dickie raised his eyebrows.

“Great turn of phrase, Shaughnessy. Cinemax fan, I see.” Anastasia laughed.

The doctor walked over to his computer and Googled “Queen of the Night.” Dickie stood in back of the doctor’s chair, waiting for the white screen to produce that list of water blue links.

“You see,” Shelton said. He pointed to 7,230,000 hits the phrase returned. His glasses hung from a chain around his neck. He breathed laboriously, reminding Dickie of a chain smoker. “There are chat rooms and sites where you can buy these flowers. People today will start a chat room about anything—including the Epiphyllum oxypetalum.”

Dickie was interested in this observation. “Make a note, Rossi. Maybe get inside a chat room, start talking like you’re a young blonde hottie looking for these flowers. See what happens?”

Sounded totally
NCIS
, but what the heck.

“I need to run more tests. Call a few colleagues. Which will take some time. But I should be able to pinpoint where the seedling originated from and even track down its source within, say, a few dozen miles. Shouldn’t be that hard with a little bit of patience, Internet searching, and study of the botanical patents filed for the species.”

“Patents?”

“Correct. Each species has its own patent. Ever drive by a cornfield and see those signs along the side of the road with numbers on them?”

“Where are these flowers mainly from, Doctor?”

A strong wind blew outside, whistled underneath the cracks of the windows. They all looked out into the parking lot. The tops of the trees bent toward the east. A shiny, dark purple hawk with an orange beak and beady black eyes pecked at a squirrel carcass in between two yellow parking lines as a Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows drove up to the lab entrance and parked.

“Speaking specifically of the units traded on the Internet, most are from South America. They’re imported into the states from buyers and sellers throughout the world. You see, Detective, people are attracted to the allure of her bloom. The
Epiphyllum oxypetalum
opens at night and closes before dawn. It’s quite compelling. Brazil, I think, is the host country for the annual Queen of the Night Festival. You’ll probably want to get your computer forensic people to amp up their end. There’s probably an answer for you somewhere on this young girl’s computer.”

Dickie thought a minute. “What about eBay?” They had heard Lisa Marie traded on eBay, but the computer forensics lab hadn’t found any sign of it on her computer.

“That is a possibility. Hold on.” The professor Googled “Queen of the Night, eBay.”

Hundreds of hits. There were literally dozens of eBay sites trading the Queen of the Night flower.

“Appears you two have your work cut out for you.” Shelton scrolled down through all the eBay hits.

“In your opinion,” Dickie paced in back of where the professor sat, “you think it’s a dead end? I mean, like you said, this thing could have been on the ground for weeks—dropped there by some Boston College botany student.”

“I did not say that, Detective. Please stick to the facts. Do not overstate my opinions.” Anastasia didn’t appreciate this guy’s attitude. It was beginning to grate on her nerves. “What I
said
,” he paused for a quick beat, “was that
perhaps
there’s a chance the seedling could have been left at the scene a few days before your squad found that young woman. Seedlings are a lot like bodies, in a manner of decomposition. It takes time. In that environment, with moisture and a certain amount of protection from the elements, that time could be extended or sped up. Don’t know. This is one of the tests I need to conduct in the lab.” The doctor walked over to the coat rack near the exit, pulled his fedora off a hook, grabbed his trench coat and umbrella. He then took a peek at the clock on the wall. “I must be going if I am to make my flight north. As you can see, my car has arrived.”

Dickie helped the old man put his jacket on.

“Thanks, Detective. These bones of mine sometimes do not want to cooperate.”

Taking a look at Shelton decked out in his fedora, trench coat, white shirt and bow tie, an umbrella hanging from his arm, Dickie said, “Hey, doc, I gotta be honest with you. Besides the Amish beard, you’ve got this whole John Steed-Patrick Macnee-Avengers vibe happen’n.” Anastasia looked on, puzzled. She was too young to get it. “I hope you’re not holding out on us, like that secret agent, Steed. That would not be a smart thing to do.”

“Don’t insult me, Detective. Please. This is a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar Vero fedora. Do I need to tell you what my clothes are worth?”

Dickie wanted to punch the guy in the face, but kept his cool. “So let me ask you then,” Dickie said as they started for the door. “Hypothetically speaking. Let’s say our vic was into these flowers and traded them on eBay. Would she have pollen or any sort of trace of these flowers on her possessions? Do they shed their DNA, I guess I’m asking?”

Neither Rossi nor Dickie could fathom a kid Lisa’s age so engaged in the hobby of e-trading flowers. Her parents had said nothing about it.

“Of course. If she trafficked in the
Epiphyllum oxypetalu
, her bedroom, handbag, clothes, all of these would be covered with a fine layer of residue from the Queen that is quite easy to observe under the glass eye of a microscope.”

Forensics probably overlooked this when they went through Lisa Marie’s belongings. The scrub-down at the morgue would have taken care of any of it left on her body. “Anastasia, make a note to call forensics and tell them to FedEx any clothes taken from Lisa’s bedroom up here to Mr. Shelton as soon as possible.”

“That’s ‘Doctor.’ Not sure I can get to that for you right away.”

“Oh, I think you can, Professor,” Dickie shot back.

Shelton looked at Dickie, who stared him down.

“Perhaps I’ll make some time, Detective.”

The big, beefy chauffeur dressed in black stood by the door of the Town Car.

“They treat you pretty good in Canada,” Dickie said. “Shoot. Look at this.”

“I’ll be in touch, Detective.” Shelton sat down inside the car. “A few more tests and I think I can break this thing open for you. I don’t want to get into it just yet, but I have a theory. I may know who it is you’re looking for. Driver, let’s go.”

Dickie and Anastasia stood, watched the limo drive out of the parking lot.

“So tell me, what stands out the most to you, Rossi?”

“If I had to pick something, I’d say that indentation on Lisa’s back. This flower thing—it’s probably meaningless.”

“Did anything come back from trace yet? That mold Jake had cast?”

“Yep. No known source. They tested it against the FBI’s database. Every type of vehicle they could. The idea was that she was put in a trunk and the backside of a bulb or some sort of instrument in the trunk made the indentation. But no one found a match.”

The Town Car disappeared into the woods, out of view.

“Check into this douchebag professor’s background for me, would you. I’m getting bad vibes from this guy.”

“That’s insulting, Shaughnessy.” Anastasia tilted her head to one side. “But I’m on it.”

Dickie didn’t mean anything by it. He talked to Anastasia as though she were one of the guys.

“I suppose,” Dickie said as they walked toward his Crown Vic. “You think you know what that indent is?” He opened the door and spoke to Anastasia over the roof as she held the passenger’s-side door handle across from him.

“I have my thoughts. Yes.” Anastasia opened her door and got in.

“I knew it! What might that be, Rossi?” Dickie got in. Then, thinking about it, said, “I should probably take a leak before we go. This prostate of mine is not what it used to be, Rossi.”

“TMI, Shaughnessy. And, yes, oh yeah, it’s a handle all right. A briefcase handle. Or some sort of a handle on a box.”

“That’s pretty good, Rossi. Not only thinking outside the box, but inside of it, too.”

She smiled, buckled herself in.

“Maybe Jake’s iPhone will come up with something!” They had a good laugh between them. Dickie opened the door and stepped out. “Let me ask you, seriously now. What do you think of this seedling lead?”

“It’s a ruse. Our guy left it to throw us off. Serials like to play tag, Shaughnessy.”

“I might be with you on that.” Dickie went to walk away, but stopped. “Let me take a piss and we can get back to the motel to pack up and go home. It’s too quiet out here. Spooks me.”

“I won’t argue with you on that, Shaughnessy.”

Dickie walked into the professor’s lab. He had noticed a receptionist’s office while they were inside. As soon as he got around the corner, out of Anastasia’s sight, he found a landline telephone. He didn’t want to use his cell phone. After taking one last look out the window, through the slit of the dusty blinds, making sure Anastasia hadn’t decided to follow him, Dickie dialed.