In the Clearing (28 page)

“Did you talk to this guy?”

“Just got off the phone with him; he says she asked for an appraisal
and
said she was thinking of selling first thing after the holidays. That would have been within days of the trial date,” Kins said.

“Maybe before the divorce was even final,” Tracy said. “I
knew
she was fixing it up to sell.”

“Which would have violated the agreement.”

“But only if Tim Collins was still alive. This could show premeditation.”

“Maybe,” Kins said. “I’m going to take a drive over there. I want to lock this guy down. You want to go with me?”

Tracy’s cell phone rang. “Hang on.” She fished through her purse and retrieved her phone. Caller ID indicated Jenny Almond.

“You’re probably calling for an update,” Tracy said.

“Actually, to give you some news,” Jenny said. “I just heard through the grapevine that Earl Kanasket is in the hospital.”

Jenny wouldn’t be calling to tell her Earl had a stomachache. “What happened?”

“I heard he had a seizure. The son took him in, but apparently against Earl’s wishes.”

“How do you know that?”

“I called the hospital and spoke with his doctors.”

“How bad is he?”

“He’s breathing on his own now, but he’s refusing any extraordinary lifesaving measures. Doctor said Earl told them he’s prepared to leave this world and be with his wife and daughter.”

Tracy thought of Élan Kanasket saying that his mother had gone to her grave not knowing what had happened to Kimi, and his prediction that his father would do so as well. She didn’t much care about proving Élan wrong; she cared more about putting Kimi to rest for Earl while he was still breathing. The window to do that had just narrowed significantly.

“Reunion activities start this week, don’t they?” Tracy said.

“They do.”

“I have something to take care of this afternoon, then I’m going to come back down. Is your mother’s house still available?”

“Yeah. She doesn’t get back until next week. You want to get together and talk about what you’ve found?”

“I’ll likely be late tonight. Why don’t I fill you in tomorrow?”

CHAPTER 23

T
he following morning, despite getting to the Almond farmhouse late and having a difficult time falling asleep, Tracy was out of bed before the rooster started crowing. She’d been unable to quiet the swirling thoughts she’d taken to bed with her, and when she awoke, they started again.

Running often helped clear her mind. When she stepped outside in her winter running gear, it was 5:15, dark, and according to the thermometer mounted near the front door, a brisk thirty-seven degrees. She set out on what had become her regular path, along the ridge of the foothills, intending to complete what she estimated to be a six-mile loop. It was disorienting running in the dark, but she had a headlamp, and the footing was solid.

When she reached the top of the ridge, she stopped to get her bearings. The state route was to the west, Stoneridge to the south. Her usual course was to follow the foothills east, then loop back north and west to the farmhouse. But a thought came to her, and instead she ran due south, following a less worn path and keeping 141, her point of reference, on her left. The foliage grew denser as she continued, and several times she considered stopping and turning back, but she pushed on, sensing she was heading in the right direction. She ran down an incline, feeling the impact on her knees and shins, continued on flat ground for another half a mile or so, and came to another grade, this one steeper. She powered up it, her breathing labored, arms and legs pumping. When she reached the top, she intertwined her fingers behind her head, pacing as she struggled to catch her breath. Below her was the clearing.

She always did have a strong sense of direction.

She walked down the hill, each breath marking the air. The first signs of dawn, a pink sky, inched just above the foothills, shedding shadowy light on the clearing and the surrounding trees.

Tracy walked to the spot where Kaylee Wright said Kimi had fallen, the spot where someone had planted a bush—the tips of the leaves already looked to be turning brown. She took a moment there, saying a silent prayer for Kimi, for her sister, Sarah, and for other young women like them. When she’d finished, a thought came to her, and she turned to consider the location where she’d seen the man the night she’d first come to the clearing. She crossed to the tree line and entered. In the daylight it was easier to pick her steps.

Farther in, she noted what looked to be a dead plant on the forest floor, its root ball still intact. She bent to pick it up and noticed several more similarly discarded, each also with a root ball. She followed the trail and found a pile—dozens of different kinds of plants in various stages of decomposition.

Nothing grows in the clearing.

That hadn’t stopped someone from trying.

She continued through the forest until she emerged onto the easement beneath the electrical lines. Her curiosity now piqued, she walked up the hill in the same direction as the tire tracks to the ridge of the foothills. From there she surveyed her surroundings but didn’t see anything that stood out. She ran along the ridgeline for another mile and was about to turn back when she found herself looking down upon a sprawling plot of land with a large redwood storefront, multiple glass hothouses the size of warehouses, and what appeared to be acres of rows of potted plants, vines, shrubs, and juvenile trees.

A nursery.

She looked at her watch and started quickly back to the house.

At the farmhouse, Tracy called the Central Point Nursery and confirmed that Archibald Coe worked there, though the woman she spoke with said Coe wouldn’t be in until eleven. Coe had to be the man Tracy saw the night she’d visited the clearing, which meant he must be the person planting different plants and shrubs in the place where Kimi Kanasket had been run over, and judging by the pile of plants Tracy had found, he’d been doing so for years.

She called Jenny, filling her in on what she’d recently learned and telling her she was going out to Central Point to speak to Archibald Coe. She’d also like to speak to Hastey Devoe, but she suspected that might be difficult unless they could catch him alone. Jenny suggested they put a loose tail on Hastey and said she’d let Tracy know if anything came of it.

Just before eleven, Tracy jumped in the truck and headed out into a heavy mist. When she arrived at the nursery, a woman behind a counter inside the sprawling redwood building advised her that Archibald Coe managed the nursery’s garden center, which consisted of annuals, perennials, and foliage. Tracy would likely find him in one of the large glass hothouses out back. The woman offered to call Coe over the nursery’s intercom system, but Tracy declined the offer and said she’d find him on her own. The woman suggested that Tracy try the farthest glass warehouse on the lot.

Crossing to it, Tracy raised the hood on her Gore-Tex jacket against the increasingly steady rain and stepped around puddles so as not to spend the rest of the day in wet shoes and socks. An ominous dark sky was the harbinger of a quickly worsening weather system, and Tracy hurried to get inside before what felt like an imminent deluge.

Inside, she lowered her hood and shook off the rain. Overhead fluorescent tubes shone above tables of perennials in various stages of gestation, and rows of potted plants and small trees. The warehouse was significantly warmer than outside, the air muggy and infused with the tart smell of fertilizer.

It wasn’t hard to find Archibald Coe. He was the only other person in the hothouse and closely resembled his most recent driver’s license photo—balding with just wisps of gray hair. Coe was sickly thin, gaunt through the cheekbones, with dark circles under sunken eyes. Dressed in knee-high rubber boots and a weathered Army-green rain slicker, Coe was working his way down a row of saplings sprouting in orange ceramic pots, watering them with what looked like a showerhead at the end of a metal pole. As Tracy neared, he lowered the wand and considered her with a flat expression and an almost vacuous gaze.

“Archibald Coe?”

The wand stopped spraying, though the water dribbled for a moment longer before stopping all together.

“I’m Tracy Crosswhite. I’m a detective from Seattle.” She showed him her shield, which did nothing to change his impassive gaze. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“I’m busy,” he said softly, sounding apologetic and looking like he’d already put in a full day. “I have to work.”

“I won’t take up much of your time, Mr. Coe. We can talk while you work, if you like.”

Coe looked momentarily uncertain, then raised the wand and watered the next tree in the row, dragging the hose behind him.

“Did someone tell you to expect me?” Tracy asked, puzzled at Coe’s seeming lack of interest.

Coe shook his head. “No.”

“Some people would be concerned if a detective showed up unannounced and wanted to ask questions.”

Coe looked up at the glass roof as a hard rain began to peck the panes, making a sound like bird beaks trying to shatter the glass.

“Are you curious what this is about?” Tracy asked.

Coe lowered his gaze. “What is it about?”

“Kimi Kanasket.”

The pecking increased in intensity, hail now hitting the glass and sliding to the corners of the metal frames. Coe again lifted his gaze, and Tracy took a moment to study him. What she’d thought to be indifference she now saw as fragility. Coe, the young running back Sam Goldman had described as shifty and fast, shuffled about with the tenuousness of an old man uncertain of his balance and afraid of falling. Each movement was so deliberate and methodical it made her wonder if Coe was sedated.

“Do you remember Kimi Kanasket?” she asked.

Coe nodded. “We went to school together. We ran track. She was very fast.” Coe put down the wand and shuffled back to the beginning of the row. He picked up a box and shook out sticks the color and shape of cigarettes and began pressing them into the rich soil of each pot.

Tracy decided to try a different approach. “What types of trees are these?”

“Lemon,” he said.

“Here in the Northwest?”

“We have a buyer in Southern California, but you can grow them here. You just have to know how to take care of them.”

“How did you get started with plants?”

“My dad owned a nursery.” Coe continued pressing the fertilizer spikes into the soil. “He used to say that plants are like children.”

“Really? How so?”

“They come from a seed, sprout limbs, grow taller, stronger—but you have to nourish them.”

“Do you have children?” Tracy asked.

Coe nodded.

“A boy? Girl?”

“Yes.”

“One of each?”

“Yes.”

“How old are they?”

Coe paused, staring at the ground. “I don’t know anymore.”

“You don’t see them?”

Coe shook his head. Then he picked up the watering wand and started down the next row of saplings.

Recalling Tiffany Gallentine’s statement that Darren took his own life when his daughter turned seventeen, Tracy asked, “How old were your kids when you and your wife divorced?”

This time Coe answered without hesitation. “Fifteen and ten.”

“Who’s older?”

“My daughter.”

“So you know what it’s like to be a parent, Mr. Coe.”

Coe stepped to the next plant without responding.

“You know that sometimes kids don’t always do the right thing.” The watering wand hovered over the same tree before Coe directed it to the next tree in the row. “But we forgive them. If they come to us and tell us they’ve done something wrong, we forgive them. We all make mistakes.” It was a speech Tracy had given to many suspects.

“I don’t see them,” Coe said. “They’re grown now. We don’t talk.”

“Kimi Kanasket didn’t jump in the river, did she, Mr. Coe?”

Coe didn’t respond. He looked momentarily paralyzed, the water beginning to puddle in a pot. “What happened in the clearing in the woods, Mr. Coe?”

“I don’t know,” he said as if coming out of a trance. He pulled the hose behind him to the next plant.

“Who would?”

“I don’t know.” Coe again tugged at the hose, but it had become wedged along the bottom of one of the ceramic pots and he had to go back to free it. Rain cascaded down the glass panels, blurring the view outside.

“Earl Kanasket has gone forty years not knowing what happened to his daughter,” Tracy said. “You have children. You have to know how that would feel—to lose one of your children and never understand why.”

Coe began to shift from his heels to the balls of his feet, rocking. “I don’t see them,” he said. “I don’t see my kids.”

“I can help you, Mr. Coe,” Tracy said. “If you tell me what happened, I can help you.”

Coe shuffled to the next plant, dragging the hose behind him. “I have to work,” he said. “I have to water the plants.”

“Why do you put plants in the clearing, Mr. Coe?”

Coe didn’t answer.

“I saw you that night, in the clearing, didn’t I? You’re the one who brings plants there, aren’t you?”