Authors: Louise Hendricksen
B.J. pulled up beside a separate building that appeared to be a combined equipment shed,
garage, and workroom. “Got the key, kitten?"
Nathan slid open the back door of the van. “Doctor, do you mind if I have a look inside
first?"
B.J. shrugged. “How long do you need?"
“Ten minutes ought to do it."
Amy handed him the key Cam's attorney had sent by messenger. “Let us know when you're
ready,” she said.
B.J. scowled and slumped down in his seat. “What the hell does he think he can find that
we didn't?"
“You might be surprised. His grandfather taught him remarkable skills, and the government
picked up where he left off."
Levering herself out of the van, she followed thyme-fringed stepping stones to a
hedged-in plot. Crushed herbs assailing her nostrils, she opened a wrought-iron gate and
strolled through Mai's private garden.
Mai's father had clipped hemlock and boxwood into topiary urns, balls, cubes, and
castles. He'd shaped and sheared yew into scores of animals, peacocks, rabbits,
squirrels, even a dragon. What a devoted father he must have been to spend so much time
on his daughter's garden when he had a landscape business to run.
Her throat constricted as she recalled Mai and Cam standing beside the castle and dragon
topiary during their wedding ceremony.
Through the drifting veils of fog, she gazed at endless rows of trees and shrubs flanked
by long, glass-enclosed greenhouses. After a moment, she gave a long sigh. Now, Mai and
her father were dead and poor Cam sat in jail.
When she heard Nathan's voice, she hurried back through the gate and joined the men
beneath the covered patio at the rear of the house.
B.J. stood with his hands in the pockets of his red nylon jacket. “So, what's the
verdict?” Wind stirred long, suspended lengths of chimes on the porch. Their deep bell
tones added a grave note to her father's words.
Nathan propped his shoulder against a black wrought-iron support. “Do either of the
Nguyens smoke?"
“Not to my knowledge,” Amy answered. “Why?"
“Someone who was in the house did. How about the sheriff?"
B.J. focused on a crack in the smooth, pink-concrete pathway. “Never saw him with a
cigarette."
“Whoever it is smokes Djarum or Samporena cigarettes. They smell like incense."
B.J. bristled. “Impossible. We would have noticed such a thing."
Nathan strode to the back door and swung it open. “See for yourselves.” He stood to one
side and let them file through ahead of him.
Amy took one look at the kitchen and gasped. “Somebody's been here."
Cornflakes crackled under B.J.'s shoes. “Jesus, they trashed the place."
Nathan glanced from Amy to her father. “It wasn't like this when you did your initial
investigation?"
Amy shook her head. “It showed signs of a struggle, but nothing like this."
B.J. stepped carefully around spilled sugar and flour, slipped on rice grains, and caught
hold of a chair. “What a god-awful mess. Must have been hooligans."
“I don't think so."
B.J. swung around and glared at Nathan. “Why not?"
“Everything's been put through a sieve. They dumped the rest into pots and pans."
Amy analyzed the scene. Cupboard doors gaped, broken glass littered the counter top. The
contents of overturned drawers mounded on the floor. A mess to be true, but an orderly
mess all the same. “Someone's looking for something.” She turned to Nathan. “Right?"
“Something small, is my guess. They pried the baseboards and electrical outlets off in
the other rooms.” He hooked his thumbs in the back pockets of his pants and said
quietly, “Smell the cigarette smoke?"
B.J. eyed him steadily. “Yes.” He turned his back. “I'll take this room, Amy. You go
through the others and see if we should reprocess them. Then we'd better contact the
sheriff."
Nathan shifted from one foot to the other. “If it's all right with you, I'd like to look
around outside."
“I've already gone over the grounds around the house.” B.J. made a sweeping motion with
his hand. “But, sure, go do whatever you want to do.” His tone was less man
gracious.
Nathan stiffened and looked away. Amy scowled at her father, moved to Nathan's side and
put her hand on his arm. “See you in a little while."
His expression softened slightly and he nodded.
After Nathan left, Amy followed the trail of incense-scented cigarette smoke into the
living room. A sofa and two chairs rested on their backs, their white satin coverings
slashed, their padding pulled out.
Beside a six-foot-tall feather palm stood a chest its brass-hinged doors gaping open. A
raw cigarette burn marred the black lacquered top. Gray ash dotted the oak flooring
beneath the chest's carved feet.
Amy clenched her teeth. The bastard desecrated Mai's body, then he savaged her house.
Rigid with anger, she marched into the study. Books lay everywhere, each with its spine
slit.
She picked up a dog-eared children's book illustrated with crude pen and ink drawings.
Thinking it might be a keepsake of Mai's, Amy slid the slim volume into her pocket to
give to Cam, and moved on to inspect the bathroom.
Lotions, creams, pills, and bath crystals filled the sink to overflowing. Discarded
containers cluttered the counter top and floor. Amy swore under her breath and continued
her survey.
In the master bedroom, piles of mattress stuffing dotted the parquet floor. An
intricately made screen slumped in a corner, its bamboo sections split open like a
gutted fish. What was it that would drive anyone to such wanton destruction? she
wondered.
“Amy,” Nathan said, startling her out of her reverie. She turned as he made his way
toward her, his boot heels thudding on bare flooring. As he always did when following a
trail, he kept to the periphery, to avoid walking where others might have walked. “I
found something I think you and your father should see."
“I've got plenty to do right here,” B.J. said irritably when Amy asked
him to accompany her and Nathan outside. “Look at this.” He held up a shard of glass
tipped with what looked like blood, dropped it into an evidence bag, and scribbled an
I.D. on the fluorescent red label.
“It'll keep Dad, Nathan's found something."
Ignoring Nathan, who stood in the doorway behind him, B.J. growled, “Blast it! You know I
don't like other people messing around in my case."
Nathan's nostrils flared, but he gave no other indication he'd heard the older man.
Amy's patience snapped. “What case? We don't have a single lead."
B.J. looked up, startled by her tone. “All right, all right. Don't get so upset.” He
flipped up the gray hood of his magnified viewer and peered at Nathan. “Let's see what
you've got."
“Wait until I get my camera and forensic kit,” Amy said and started for the door.
“How do you know you'll need them?"
She turned and gave a hint of a grin. “I know Nathan."
Nathan suddenly brightened. “I'll get your gear."
B.J. fidgeted as he and Amy waited for him by the back step. “This cowboy of yours is
getting on my nerves,” he said.
“You might try giving him half a chance."
“Why? I don't owe him anything."
“He's my friend."
“Hah! Some friend."
They quieted as Nathan hastened from the red cinder driveway and handed Amy her camera.
“Start over here.” Carrying her forensic kit and a long, thin piece of doweling he'd
picked up somewhere, he skirted the patio and squatted down at the far edge. Amy and
B.J. moved closer.
Nathan tapped his improvised pointer on the pink concrete. “Get down on all fours and
sight across."
Amy and B.J. did as he instructed. “You referring to those small clumps of mud on the
concrete?” she asked.
“Uh-huh."
B.J. inched forward. “Okay to get closer?"
When Nathan nodded, B.J. flipped down his magnified viewer and advanced slowly. “They
form a kind of pattern."
“Yes, he left his flip-flops there."
“Thongs? In January? Hell, the man would have to be nuts."
“Most Southeast Asians wear
shek choeung phtoat
from the time they can walk.
They're cheap and more practical than shoes."
Nathan stood and gestured to a grove of evergreens approximately a hundred yards away.
“He came from that direction. And he's been here twice. The first time was about five
days ago."
Amy drew in her breath. “When Mai was killed."
Nathan nodded. “He came back again last night."
B.J. stood up and thrust out his chin. “How do you know?"
Nathan jerked his head. “Follow me.” He picked up Amy's kit and walked along in a bent,
tracking stance for several yards before hunkering down again. “Things grow in harmony
with their surroundings,” he said solemnly. “If they do not, there is a reason for
it."
He touched slender green spears of grass that were bent at a forty-five-degree angle.
“These were disturbed about five hours ago. Now look at those over there,” he held his
stick over blades with a barely perceptible bend, “Similar vegetation recover their
normal position at the same rate.” He regarded B.J. with a half smile. “If the weather
has not changed."
B.J. folded his arms. “That it?"
“Not quite.” Nathan rose and headed toward the woods.
Her shoes now soggy, Amy trotted along at his side. “You followed that practically
invisible trail all this way?"
He wagged his head. “Actually, I started at the woods and worked backwards."
Amy knotted her brows. “Why there?"
“I've been in this guy's shoes.” He chuckled. “Make that thongs. When you're on a
stakeout in terrain like this, you find the tallest tree."
With his shoulder, he held aside pendulous cedar branches. Motioning Amy and B.J. into a
rosin-scented arbor, he pointed upward. “Our man used that tree.” Twenty feet away stood
a Douglas fir with wisps of mist coiling lazily around its corky-barked trunk.
“This is more than I could possibly have hoped for.” Amy followed Nathan on his
roundabout route, her feet sinking into layers of moist, black, decaying needles.
He stopped about ten feet from the towering fir. “He came here over a period of several
weeks."
Twigs snapping underfoot, B.J. waded through a patch of leathery-leafed salal. “And how
did you determine that?” he asked.
"I just know."
Nathan's quick glance begged Amy's forgiveness, for his sharp tone.
He set down the forensic bag, wrapped his arm around a sapling, and leaned far out.
“Notice these?” He held his stick over something at the base of the tree.
Amy found a patch of club moss, got down on all fours, and stared into the gloom beneath
the sweeping branches. Finally, her eyes focused in on Nathan's find. “Cigarillo
butts."
“Djarum. They're manufactured in Indonesia.” He moved his pointer a couple of feet. “Can
you see the cellophane? It's a slightly heavier variety than ours.” He touched a clump
of dried sword ferns. “The empty packs are staffed under here."
Amy thought of the valuable DNA information the saliva-dampened cigarettes might yield.
“You certainly found a treasure trove."
She swung around to B.J.."This, along with the blood you found, could prove
decisive."
“Doesn't prove he's the murderer."
“No?” Nathan stomped through a thicket of red alder. He stopped near a stump, teased
aside rotted wood with his piece of doweling, and exposed two flat metal prongs embedded
in black rubber. “That convince you?"
“Jesus Christ, an electrical cord! I gotta get more light in here!” B.J. spun around and
bolted back the way they'd come. Suddenly he stopped and yelled back, “Don't touch a
thing. Not a thing, hear?"
Nathan lowered himself onto a fallen log. “Does he ever let up?"
When Amy smiled, Nathan flung her a sour look. “Something funny?"
“I just figured out what's eating him."
“Fine. I'm glad
you
know."
Amy uncapped her camera and snapped a picture of the protruding electrical plug. “He
started out being angry because he thought you'd hurt me.” She returned to the big fir
and focused in on the cigarette butts. “Now, his nose is out of joint because he
realizes your knowledge is on a par with his."
“Great. That puts me on his list."
She laughed out loud and triggered the camera. “You two are very much alike."
“Thanks, just what I wanted to hear."
She ambled over to where he sat. “I meant it as a compliment. I happen to think my dad is
a very special guy."
Nathan spread his hands. “And you think
I
am, after all I've done to you?"
“You didn't set out to hurt me, Nathan. I don't blame you for what happened between
us."
His expression softened as he brushed his knuckle across her cheek. “Kitten,” he said
slowly, as if getting the feel of the name. “Nice. I like it.” He managed a wry smile.
“At least your father got that right.” He studied the tips of his muddy boots, then met
her gaze once more. “
You
are very special person,
too
."
Not hardly,
Amy thought. A special person would be honest and aboveboard and not
yearn for a man who belonged to another woman. She swallowed. “Maybe. Maybe not.” When
she ran her tongue over her dry lips, she saw a flame kindle in Nathan's eyes. “I'd
better get busy.” She smiled at him. “Mind if I get a picture of you?” In the difficult
months ahead, she'd need one.
“Not if you'll let me take some of you."
Amy took photographs of the vicinity, before revisiting the lookout tree. Kneeling on the
forest duff and inhaling the damp mushroom odors, she got several close-ups of the site.
Finally, the knees of her wool slacks sodden, she struggled to her feet.