Death Deserved (A Detective Jackson Mystery) (13 page)

CHAPTER 17

Thursday, December 3, 8:35 a.m.

Sophie hurried into the news office, eager to get out of the cold, but also excited to start her workday. The shooting story was interesting on so many levels. The motives for crime fascinated her. Not the petty theft and fraud committed by people who were addicted or broke. No, she loved to chase down the big stuff. Like the scandal of a once-reputable property manager who stole millions of dollars and disappeared. What the hell was that about besides greed? Maybe a gambling problem. She’d interviewed some of his friends and family, but still hadn’t uncovered the truth. But she would let that story go for now. Not only did the shooting incident have a murder motive to figure out, but it had taken place in a marijuana-growing nursery. The whole legalization issue was still murky, but the potential for profit was huge, so anything was possible.

Inside the building, she hurried upstairs, where the whole staff was now crammed into a space originally designed just for the reporters and editors. The downstairs had been leased out, and she was lucky to still have a job.

“Good morning, Sophie.” Her editor, Karl Hoogstad, stood outside the narrow entrance to her cube. Round and balding, he wasn’t easy to look at. But he was great at his job, and she’d learned recently that he’d fought for her when the management had tried to replace her with a low-pay, no-benefits intern.

“Morning. What’s up?”

“I’ve got an interesting tie-in for you on the shooting-death story.”

Sophie slid past him as he talked and turned on her computer. “What’s that?”

“A New York investment company with a focus on the marijuana industry is buying up property here in Eugene. They plan to develop and lease the buildings to pot growers and/or edible-product manufacturers.”

“Intriguing.” She grabbed a notepad from her desk, but didn’t sit down. “What’s the name of the company?”

“Kaylyx.” He spelled it, then added, “Check with Karen. She’s reporting the story in the financial section soon.”

“Do we have any reason to think the company is connected to the murders?”

Hoogstad chuckled. “That’s your job to find out. But in the meantime, the speculation will be interesting to readers.”

“Yes it will.” Manipulating readers was not her style, but humoring her boss was. “I’ll get on it this morning after I track down the second shooting victim.”

“Do what you do. This could be another award winner for you.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she just smiled. Awards looked good on her résumé, but getting the whole story was more satisfying. When Hoogstad finally left, she waited a moment, then hurried to the little kitchen area to make a cup of mint tea. She stayed away from caffeine—it made her dehydrated and cranky.

Back at her desk, she listed the calls she needed to make, including one to the finance reporter. It wasn’t nine yet, so she’d start with the hospital. The name and status of the second shooting victim were critical. But how could she trick a receptionist or nurse into telling her? First, she’d ask Jackson again. Maybe he would give her something.

She sipped tea and checked her email while she called Jackson’s phone. The call went to voice mail, and she hung up without bothering to leave a message. A desperate-sounding email from a reader gave her an idea. Sophie used her cheap prepaid phone to call North McKenzie. She would get back to the reader later. When she had the receptionist on the phone, she worked up as much distress as she could. “I think my sister was shot yesterday at that pot farm, but the police won’t tell me anything. Is she in the hospital?”

“What’s her name?”

“Her birth name is Jenny Saylor, but she’s changed it a few times. She’s homeless and hides from the cops, so she may not even have ID anymore.” Sophie kept her voice quiet and her hand cupped over her mouth and phone. “I’m not sure what she goes by now. At one point, she called herself Morningstar.”
Oh boy.
She’d never fabricated anything like that before, and she hoped her cube neighbor wouldn’t look over the wall with a scowl.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Real empathy from the receptionist. “But what makes you think she was one of the people shot?”

“Because the last time we talked, she mentioned seeing a guy who grew pot out on River Loop.” Sophie faked a sob. “The paper said one victim was still alive. Should I just come in and see if it’s her?”

“I’m sorry, but it’s too late for that. The gunshot victim checked out, and we have no idea how to contact her.”

Already?
That surprised her. “She must not have been hurt badly.”

“Oh, she was injured. She left abruptly against medical advice, and we don’t know what to make of it.”

“That sounds like my sister. Can you please tell me what she’s calling herself, so I can try to find her?”

“I think I heard her say Kayla Benson, but she came in without identification. I hope you find her. That’s all I can say.” The receptionist hung up.

Success!
Sophie slid the burner phone back into her purse. Typically, she used it to contact people who wouldn’t pick up if they knew it was someone from the newspaper. But it was also effective for calls she didn’t want traced back to her.

So Kayla Benson, with no ID, had survived her gunshot wound and left the hospital prematurely. That was peculiar indeed. Was the victim afraid the shooter would come after her again? Or was she avoiding the police? A whole new layer to the story.

Sophie plugged the name Kayla Benson into several social media sites. Only one Facebook hit in the Eugene area—a twenty-eight-year-old woman with fewer than a hundred friends and a neglected page that didn’t seem important to the user. Her photo was quite unflattering. Short, frizzy, dyed-blonde hair, little makeup, and a yellow T-shirt. Who was she? A meth-skank drifter who hooked up with a local pot grower, looking for easy money? Sophie laughed out loud. When the newspaper finally shut down, she might try her hand at crime fiction. She loved characters and had some stories to tell.

After downing the rest of her tea, she jumped up and pulled on her red leather jacket. She wanted to see the pot farm up close. The cops and technicians would be gone, and she needed a better idea of the operation’s size. Now that she knew about the out-of-state investors wanting to develop growing spaces, the business’ square footage and sales volume were important details. She stepped over to Brian’s cube, but the photographer wasn’t in. She called him, and he didn’t answer, so she left a message asking him to meet her at the crime scene if he could. Over the years, Brian had become a good friend, and she wondered where the hell he was. He was a little spacey at times, but rarely late for work. Maybe he had a photo shoot already scheduled.

It rained buckets on the drive out, then abruptly stopped as she parked her car.
Nice.
Thank you, universe.
Sophie climbed out, noting the two civilian cars were gone too. Probably towed to the crime lab. Her girlfriend, Jasmine, could be searching those vehicles at that very moment. Sophie trotted up the wood steps to the covered porch and looked in both windows. Detectives had emptied drawers and moved furniture in their search the day before. She tried the door. Locked.

Sophie hurried around the corner of the house, her red pumps not doing well on the slick, muddy gravel path.
Oh well.
She carried a roll of paper towels in her Scion—always. When she neared the back of the house, the nursery building came into view. Long and plain with cheap metal siding and a nearly flat roof. A utilitarian building if there ever was one. She took out her notepad and jotted down a description, then took six photos with the big camera. The interior of the building was what mattered. She hurried to the door, where a piece of yellow crime-scene tape had been torn down. When she turned the knob, it gave, and the door opened. A lucky break.

The ripe odor of wet dirt and decay made her blink as she stepped in. The sight shocked her. Rows and rows of brownish-black pot plants, all in some stage of dying. Had Jackson’s team destroyed the crop? That surprised her. Pot was legal now, and everything in this room was evidence. Sophie started snapping photos. First, the dead plants, then she looked for where the bodies had lain. She spotted side-by-side reddish-brown stains on the floor near the workbench. That must be it. She took photos from various angles and proximities. Brian would have taken perfect pictures, but several of these would end up on the website.

The two victims had been close together, but the man had died, and the woman had walked out of the hospital before the day was over. They hadn’t been shot for the crop—or the killer would have taken it. The tops, where the buds were, could have been hacked off and bagged in about fifteen minutes. Had this crime been about control of the new marijuana market? Sophie turned away from the bloody floor and stepped over to a dead plant in a five-gallon black-plastic bucket. Law enforcement typically burned the pot crops they seized. These plants looked poisoned, as if someone had used a toxic weed killer on them.

She looked around the room. Fifty or sixty dead plants. Whatever had been dumped on them had acted fast. She dug through her purse until she found a tiny plastic bag where she kept a small container of makeup. After removing the foundation, she pinched off a dead bud and slipped it into the bag. Could a lab detect what had killed the plants? Who would she take the sample to? Her ex-boyfriend was a professor at Lane Community College and knew people at all the local universities. She would call him for advice. They’d parted on decent terms, and thinking about him made her a little horny. Sex with men was better than sex with women, but relationships with people of her own gender were much more satisfying.

Sophie took a few more photos, then stepped out of the crude nursery. She reached for her phone to make a call, and it rang in her hand. The photographer finally getting back to her. “Hey, Brian.”

“Sorry I missed your call. I’m at the hospital. My son is really sick.” Her friend sounded closer to tears than she’d ever heard. And they had witnessed some devastating scenes together.

“Oh no. I’m sorry. What’s wrong with him?”

“They don’t know. But it’s really bad.” Brian let out a strange noise, then was quiet while he got himself together. “Sophie, I think it’s my fault.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Promise me you won’t tell anyone.”

Jesus. How bad was it?
“Okay.”

“I bought some pot brownies for a get-together I had the other night. Just a few friends watching the play-offs. There was one brownie left over, and I put it in a kitchen cabinet. Shane got into it.” Brian started to cry. “I didn’t know pot could make kids this sick.”

His emotions threatened to overwhelm her. Sophie was glad she wasn’t having this conversation in person. “How sick?”

“It’s like he’s been poisoned. He keeps vomiting, and his blood pressure has dropped really low.”

Poison. And pot. Again.
Her reporter brain kicked in, and she started pulling ideas together. “I’m heading out there. It sounds like you need some support. What room are you guys in?”

“Intensive care, three twenty-five.”

“I’m on my way.” She hung up, mentally rescheduling her day.

At the medical complex, Sophie drove into the parking garage, thinking about the shooting victim who’d left the hospital the night before. Kayla Benson. Maybe she could get more information about her while she was here. What if she landed an interview with the victim? A first-person account of the shooting would make great copy. For now, she would ask Brian about the pot brownie and where it had come from. The dead plants and the poisoned brownie were not likely connected, but she had to check out both incidents.

She found Brian and Shane at the end of a long hall in the ICU. Her friend looked awful. Uncombed hair, red blotches on his face, and a stained T-shirt. She’d never seen him outside of work before. The worry in his eyes was evident, so she hugged him. “It’s going to be okay.” She didn’t know that, but people needed to hear it.

Pivoting to the hospital bed, she braced herself. The boy was about six and had an IV line in each wrist. His pale skin and platinum-blond hair blended into the white sheets, as though he were slowly disappearing, leaving only the medical equipment behind. Would he ever open his eyes again? How heartbreaking for his father. Sophie turned back to Brian. “What do the doctors say?”

“Not much yet. They’re running blood tests and trying to determine the toxin.” Brian slumped back into the visitors’ chair. “In between bouts of vomiting, he’s completely out of it, like he’s in a coma. He’s also not breathing well, but they’re afraid to put in a tube because of the vomiting.”

She realized Brian had slept in the room. “Where’s your wife and daughters?”

“In California, on a field trip with their Scout troop. But I called Trish, and they’re headed back.” Brian hung his head in shame. “She never leaves me alone with the kids for any length of time, because she thinks I can’t handle it. And she’s obviously right.”

“Until you know for sure what’s going on, there’s no point in blaming yourself.”