Seeds of Evidence (9781426770838)

by White, Linda J.

  “It needed a salt water bath,” he replied.

  The tiny stubble of his beard glinted in the afternoon light. “What have you been doing?” she asked.

  “I went kayaking, and I saw this bird,” he paused, and squeezed his eyes shut as he reached for the name, “a great egret. Very cool.”

  Kit laughed softly.

  He told her about the woman he’d met, and about the photograph on the wall of the Main Street house.

  “I’ve heard of her, but never met her!” Kit said. “Her art is all over the place. Not just photographs, but incredible oils, too. She’s wonderful.”

  The breakers rolled in, relentlessly pounding the sand. A flock of brown pelicans flew parallel to the shore, their wings beating the air. “Hey, your friend Sellers came by to see me.”

  Kit arched her eyebrow. “He did?”

  “Yep. Asked me all kinds of questions. Why had we gone out on the ocean, how long had I known you, was I helping you with the investigation, what did I do in D.C… . he was really nosy.”

  “That’s weird.” She blinked. “Did you tell him where I’m staying?”

  “No way!” David ran his hand through the sand. “My guess is he is going to file a report and he wanted to cover all of his bases.”

  That made sense. Rick had shown her the paperwork. Even given her copies. But how did he and that reporter find out where she lived?

  The sound of the breakers murmured a refrain. David glanced toward her. “Kit …”

  She turned.

  “How long were you married?”

  The question caught her off guard. She hesitated. “Seven years.”

  “What happened?”

  “That’s pretty personal.”

  “So was my shooting incident.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. Kit picked up a small shell, a white, ridged scalloped shell, fingered it, and tossed it into the sand. She gave him the outline. “By the time he got his PhD, Eric didn’t want to be married anymore.” She hated the fact that tears formed in the edges of her eyes. She stared straight ahead at the sand, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

  “He left you.”

  “Yes.”

  “That stinks.”

  She let that comment ride for a minute, secretly agreeing with him. Then she pulled out the response she’d memorized: “I believe God will take care of it somehow.” Did she even believe that anymore?

  The muscles in David’s jaw flexed. He threw a little shell off into the sand. “Law enforcement’s pretty hard on relationships.”

  But what had she done wrong? She’d asked herself a million times if she had neglected Eric, put her career ahead of him, failed to be a good wife. Kit felt her neck tightening up. Off to her right, a kid kept trying to get his mother’s attention. The mother, apparently lost in her own thoughts, ignored him.

  “It seems like you have to choose one or the other; law enforcement or marriage. The two just don’t seem to mix.”

  Kit bristled. “I don’t believe that.”

  David picked up a handful of sand and let it drain through his fist. “It’s hard. It’s a consuming profession. A lot of times, spouses don’t understand.”

  “I think it could work. I’ve seen it work, in fact.”

  “Not sure it’s worth the trouble.”

  “Sounds like you like being alone.”

  “Pretty much.”

  So what was he after? Why did he call her?

  Out on the ocean, two kayakers paddled in rhythm. David inhaled deeply. He turned to look at Kit. “I, uh, I wanted to tell you that I just can’t get involved with your case right now.”

  He was pulling back.

  “I understand.”

  “That first day, after I helped you move that boy, I didn’t stay because I came here to get away from law enforcement, you know?”

  “Sure.”

  “I was intrigued by the boy, and by Jimmy’s story, but then,” David stroked his arm, “I realized I … I can’t do this. Not now. And I’m sorry …”

  Kit’s emotions were swirling. “It’s OK. Look, you’ve already helped me a lot, so don’t worry about it. Take care of yourself, OK?”

  He nodded and squinted as he stared out over the ocean. His feet burrowed down into the sand. “Do you have any new leads?”

  Should she tell him what she’d learned about the littoral currents of the ocean? Or the ag industry on the Eastern Shore? She decided not to feed the law enforcement addiction. “A few,” she responded vaguely.

  He nodded and continued staring out over the ocean. “The important thing is, keep at it. Somebody intentionally killed that little kid, somebody bigger and stronger. He put something—a cord or a rope—around his neck and watched him as he died. That’s no way to treat a kid.” He gestured with his hands as he spoke. “There’s nobody to speak up for that boy now, nobody but you to bring him justice. It’s a sacred trust, you know? Don’t let anything get in your way.”

  6

  KIT STOOD IN THE GREAT ROOM OF HER COTTAGE, STARING OUT OVER THE channel. A group of five or six gulls were fighting over some crab shells someone had thrown out, swooping and diving, picking up bits of crab and stealing them from one another.

  The house was quiet, too quiet, and loneliness had settled like an ache in her bones. David was right. It was best not to mix law enforcement and marriage.

  But what about children?

  The call from the forensic botanist from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington distracted her. “I did some initial testing on that material you sent me,” the professor said. “You have time to talk about it?”

  “Sure!” Kit slid a pad of paper in front of her on the table and picked up a pen.

  “What is it you were hoping to learn?”

  Kit filled him in on the details of the case. “So I’m wondering: is there a way to use the seeds or the acorns to figure out where the boy was before he died?”

  Kit waited during a long pause. The botanist, Dr. Timothy Hill, was one of a tiny handful of people in his specialty who applied his science to criminal investigations. “Unfortunately,” Dr. Hill said, “tomatoes of this kind are ubiquitous. Now if they’d been heirloom tomatoes, those we could do something with. But these are just simple, common tomatoes grown commercially all over Delmarva, and their DNA would not be traceable.”

  Kit’s hope sank. “I thought that we could link DNA to individual plants.”

  “It’s true, we have done that. Actually, we’ve been doing it since the early ’90s. The first case involved a murder in which the body was found near a palo verde tree out in Arizona. The investigating officer picked up some seed pods. Then, they identified a suspect, and found similar seed pods in the back of his truck. A DNA scan showed that all the pods came from the same plant, thus putting him at the place of the crime.”

  “And that won’t work for tomatoes?”

  “Not with these tomatoes. Besides, in the Arizona case, there were two samples to compare: one from the crime scene, one from the suspect’s truck. You only have one. But here’s something else to consider,” Dr. Hill said. “That little boy had been eating tomatoes out the wazoo. According to the medical examiner’s report of the number of seeds found in his gut, I’d say he’d ingested a dozen or more in the twelve hours before his death. Either this kid’s mother had a heck of a kitchen garden, or his parents are ag workers with lots of access to free tomatoes.”

  “Which still doesn’t answer why he’d be out on the ocean in a boat.”

  “That’s a question outside the field of botany,” Dr. Hill said, chuckling.

  “So you can’t trace the tomatoes …” Kit said, pensively.

  “The acorns now … they’re more distinctive. We might be able to work with that. We can often trace those to an individual tree.”

  “What kind of tree are we talking about?”

  “Quercus virginiana. Southern live oak. Common from Norfolk south, in sandy-soiled coastal areas.”

>   “Norfolk south? What about the Delmarva Peninsula?”

  “They’re not native to the Eastern Shore. If they’re there, someone planted them.” Dr. Hill paused. “Then again, that could work to your advantage, assuming, of course, the little boy had been living on the peninsula. If he hadn’t, well, you’re totally out of luck.”

  Kit pressed her phone to her ear. “Let’s assume he lived on the peninsula. How can the acorns help?”

  “Well, think about it: if we were talking about a red oak or a white oak, they’re all over the place. We would find it very hard, probably impossible, to find the mother tree. But live oaks don’t grow up there naturally. People plant them as ornamentals.”

  “Ornamentals?”

  “Live oaks are the big tree you see in pictures of the old plantations, the ones with the Spanish moss hanging down from them. So people use them to evoke that Old South image. Since they’re not native to Delmarva, there won’t be nearly as many and they’ll be in fairly predictable places, around houses, along lanes, like that. They’re evergreens, with leaves that look kind of like thin magnolia leaves. Go to Hampton University. There’s a famous live oak there, the Emancipation Oak. That’s where the Emancipation Proclamation was read out loud for the first time in the South, in 1863.”

  Kit opened up her laptop and Googled “Southern live oak” while she continued to hold the phone.

  Dr. Hill continued, “They’re resistant to salt spray, and if they’re growing right alongside a body of water like the ocean, they’ll be kind of scrubby and short. But inland, they get real big—80 feet max. The fact that your boy had acorns in his pocket at this time of year tells me he was keeping them, playing with them. He had a stash of them somewhere … in a jar or something. They don’t drop until September, and if they’d been on the ground since last winter, they would have been eaten by animals or rotted. So he had to have had them stored somewhere.

  “Here’s what I’d do,” Dr. Hill continued. “I’d look at the big tomato fields, and see if I could find a house with live oaks around it … lining the driveway or just in the yard, anywhere nearby. Then I’d get a sample from them and check the DNA.”

  “So you could trace the DNA? To an individual tree?”

  “We should be able to.” The botanist explained what kind of samples he’d need. Kit hung up the phone. She had just a little over a week left to prove her case to her boss.

  David pushed his paintbrush into the corner of the window frame. He was trying to keep his feelings at bay by focusing on the painting and playing upbeat music in his iPod.

  But he missed her. He barely knew her, but he missed her. And that violated every practical rule he had established for himself. Every long-standing principle. Every common-sense, street-smart, logical game plan he’d ever created.

  He looked up every time a car passed, hoping he’d see a green Subaru Forester. Hers. He caught himself daydreaming, his brush poised in midair. He wondered a thousand times over if he should call her. Take a chance, again.

  But those chances had never worked out. Why did he think another one would? And was he drawn to her, or the adrenaline of the chase?

  Armed with a list of growers from the local agricultural extension agent, Kit spent six hours bent over her laptop, zooming in on satellite photographs of tomato farms on Google Earth, looking for live oaks, based just on their shape—the huge crown, broad, spreading branches, and overall size. After identifying sixteen possibilities, she’d spent two days driving around, checking them out in person, and reducing her list to eight farms. Eight locations on the Virginia portion of the Delmarva Peninsula where there were live oaks near tomato fields.

  What a long shot. Kit tried to encourage herself by remembering the case of the federal judge killed by a pipe bomb loaded with nails. The FBI case agent went from hardware store to hardware store, looking for a match for the nails. He finally found exactly what he needed on his vacation.

  If that agent could be that persistent, she could, too.

  Now, she needed to collect acorn samples and oak leaves and have them tested in the hopes that the DNA from some of them would match the DNA of the acorns in the dead child’s pocket. But first, she needed to gather supplies.

  The only hardware store in town was small and jam-packed with everything from hammers to nails to seine nets and crab traps. Kit edged through the narrow aisles, collecting things she needed in a small blue bucket. Gloves, zippered plastic bags, a small bottle of hand sanitizer, plastic shoe boxes, paper labels, and Sharpie markers. The last thing on her list was duct tape.

  “Aisle 5, near the back,” a helpful clerk suggested.

  Kit headed that direction. As she rounded a corner, she nearly collided with a broad chest wrapped in a blue T-shirt emblazoned “Law Enforcement 10K Torch Run.”

  David O’Connor.

  “Kit!” The surprise on his face mirrored her own. He grabbed her arm and before she could protest, moved her to a quiet corner of the store. “What are you doing? What’s all that?” He nodded toward her bucket.

  She lifted her chin. “Tools of the trade.”

  His eyes showed instant recognition. “Tell me!”

  Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in the coffee shop at the corner, the sweet fragrance of a caramel macchiato mingling with the strong scent of a grande bold, black. Kit perched in her chair, her emotions roller-coastering, marveling at the ease with which David O’Connor had pulled her back into his life. Maybe she had misjudged him. Maybe he wasn’t rejecting her.

  The sun had begun to slide toward the horizon, sending shafts of light through the stained glass windows of the coffee shop. One golden beam fell across David’s face, turning the highlights in his brown eyes golden. Fool’s gold, perhaps?

  Kit explained the findings of the forensic botanist, her own research, and now, her mission. The words tumbled out, falling over her inhibitions like children at play.

  “Why don’t we go now? Tonight?” David suggested.

  “Tonight?”

  “Didn’t you say you were short on time? We can snag samples and ship them in the morning. Or we can drive them down to this botanist.”

  “We? I thought you didn’t want to be involved?”

  He blushed and ducked his head. He stared out of the window momentarily. When he looked back at her, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled with humor. “Despite all my resolutions, I think I am involved.”

  “David, I don’t think …”

  “Wait, wait,” he said, raising his hand to stop her. “What was your plan?” He leaned forward, intent. “Do it on your own?” The look on his face told her how unwise that would be.

  “I do a lot of things on my own,” she countered, “just like you.”

  “I don’t care how tough you are, no way should you be going out there at night by yourself, no backup …”

  He was right. Her boss would have a fit.

  “Let’s go. I’ll drive.” David moved his chair back.

  Kit remained still. “You’re addicted.”

  “Addicted? To what?”

  “To law enforcement.”

  “No way. I’m just trying to help a friend.”

  “You said you were backing off!”

  “Off the case, yes. But I never said I’d give up acorns! I love acorns.” He grinned. Then his voice dropped. “Kit, I want to help you get these samples. Besides, if something happened to you while you were out there by yourself … I couldn’t live with myself. Please don’t do that to me.”

  She checked his sincerity. Then she checked her watch. “Pick me up at 9:00.”

  “This is nuts,” she said, smiling as she piled into his vehicle.

  “Nuts? I thought we were going after acorns!”

  She laughed.

  “Anyway, you Feds plan too much. Cops are all about spontaneity. Gettin’ it done.”

  Spontaneity? Like jumping into a police pursuit? She kept her mouth shut. He was right: cops played things out
differently than agents. Cops had to respond to what was happening on the street. Agents tended to plan their interactions with bad guys more carefully. There were advantages and disadvantages to both methodologies.

  David had a gun tucked in beside him, next to the center console of the Jeep. “Expecting trouble?” she asked.

  “I’m playing Boy Scout. Be prepared.” He also had flashlights, batteries, bottled water, and Power Bars.

  Kit opened her laptop and outlined the plan. They’d start up near the Maryland line, then work their way down the peninsula. “Trivia question: what famous ship is constructed of live oak?”

  David shifted his jaw. “Give me a hint: is it an aircraft carrier?” He grinned at her.

  Kit laughed. “Come on. Didn’t you tell me you spent four years in the Navy?”

  “Yes, but … I give up.”

  “The U.S.S. Constitution—‘Old Ironsides.’ ”

  He looked at her. “Really?”

  “Yep. They used live oak to construct it because it was so strong it could take cannon fire.”

  “No kidding.”

  “And the Navy still owns stands of live oak trees.”

  “Well, Miss Wikipedia. I’m impressed.”

  Fifty minutes later, they arrived at their first farm field. The moon was rising in the east as David pulled over. He had extinguished his headlights half a mile down the road. They both sat still just watching for a few minutes. The field was dark and no one was in sight. Kit glanced over at David. His eyes were shining in the dim light. “You want me to do it?” he asked, looking over at her.

  “Do you know how many hours I’ve spent learning to identify live oaks? I’ve got it.” She quietly opened her door, put her laptop down on her seat, slipped on gloves, and slid out into the night. The air felt thick with humidity. She had on black pants, a black T-shirt, and a black jacket, and she was wearing her fanny pack. She waited until her eyes adjusted to the dark, then started into the field. All of her senses remained on high alert. She heard a dog barking in the distance, smelled the pungent tomato plants, felt the soft loam of the field under her feet, brushed away a cloud of mosquitoes hovering around her face.