The Naturalist (The Naturalist Series Book 1)

by Andrew Mayne

  I’m pretty sure this counts as tampering with evidence, even if there’s no longer a murder investigation.

  Why did I take it?

  I’d like to think it’s because collecting samples is second nature to me. I teach a whole class on how to improvise field kits from Scotch tape, pen casings, and anything else you can find lying around.

  My lab is a magpie collection of random things. Some are immediately important; others don’t strike me until later on.

  Curious holes in a caterpillar cocoon I came across helped explain why a flower grew in one environment but didn’t catch on just a few hundred meters away over a hill. An entomologist colleague recognized the holes as termite bores. Not exactly natural enemies, but in this instance, whenever a caterpillar tried to cocoon on a tree branch, this species of termite tore open their tiny home, allowing in harmful parasites. The caterpillar died, never making it to the next stage where it could flap around, spreading pollen.

  Absentmindedness is the most innocent explanation of my actions. Bio-kleptomania is at least understandable. The rest are a bit ghoulish.

  A mistake we make too often in science is thinking that having a name for something is the same as understanding it. A skeleton in a museum or a drop of blood can only give you part of the picture. Juniper’s blood is just that—one pixel of the image.

  You could probably tell more from her discarded dental floss. At least I would know what she had for dinner, her dental health, and possibly the DNA of the last person she kissed.

  I put my motivations aside and get up to use the toilet. At midstream, my phone rings.

  I wash my hands with only symbolic thoroughness and check the caller ID.

  It’s Julian Stein. He’s the philanthropist behind the foundation that gave me my grant. Despite the rather sketchy nature of my application, he’s the one that pushed it through, like he’s done for me in the past.

  Julian is fucking brilliant. He was a child whiz who sold his first software company when he was seventeen. He went on to become a venture capitalist and rich as hell.

  For a guy that has it made—house overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, New York penthouses, and red-carpet walks from the indie films he’s helped produce—I can’t tell you the number of times he’s told me how much he envies me.

  It’s a funny thing. When I’m worried about whether the university is going to pick up my contract and how I’m going to pay my rent, it seems ridiculous that a guy who’s flown presidents on his private plane would look at me with envy.

  But when I’m out in the field, or even on my computer, and discover something exciting because I had the free time to do it, I understand.

  I came to his attention when WIRED magazine did a story on an oddball discovery of mine. I discovered a way to use a local phone book or mailing list to anticipate which cities were going to see flu outbreaks first. I made a list of predictions based on a couple of factors. The biggest one was the number of people in a city who shared a last name.

  People who share last names tend to be related and get together more often for meals and are less guarded about eating off one another’s plates and exchanging germs. This creates pockets of infection over weekends that soon extend to schools and work. The presence of convention centers added to the calculation.

  It wasn’t a hard rule, but it had some useful explanatory power. It remains to be seen if it’s just a theory that fits the available data.

  Julian called me after reading the article and encouraged me to do more research along those lines.

  I’d hesitate to call us friends. He lives his life in five-minute chunks, and you’re keenly aware that as soon as this conversation ends, he’s going to go to the next name on a very long list of people he talks to.

  I answer the phone with a slightly froggy voice. “Hey, Julian.”

  His voice is somber. “Theo. I heard. How are you holding up?”

  I hesitate to ask what he heard. About my arrest—well, it wasn’t an actual arrest—or about Juniper. With Julian, there’s no point in wondering how he found out so quickly.

  I decide to say the thing a slightly less self-interested person would say. “Poor girl.”

  “Did you know her well?”

  “Not really. I hadn’t talked to her in years. I didn’t even know she was working near here.” Did I just try to state my innocence a little too forcefully?

  “I gave her a grant a while back.”

  “You did?” To be honest, other than an occasional conference I go to that Julian throws, I have no idea who he’s funding.

  “Not much. But when I heard she’d been one of your students, it was an automatic yes. She’s actually cited you a few times.”

  Damn, she would have been better off never knowing me. “I had no idea. I only knew her as an undergrad.”

  “I’m looking through her Facebook page right now. A lot of outpouring for her. She must have been something special.”

  I wish I knew. I put Julian on speakerphone so I can try to find her on my laptop. The first link is her Twitter profile. I click on it, and a photo pops up.

  It’s her. She’s smiling.

  I haven’t seen that face or that smile in years. It comes back vividly.

  She was a pretty girl. Not in any conventional way. I think I remember now—her father was Irish and her mother was from Haiti. She could pass as Brazilian or any other beautiful mélange. She was one of a kind.

  I steal a guilty glance at the vial of her blood next to me. At least we still have her DNA . . .

  It’s a perverse thought. Even for a biologist.

  “I’ve heard they caught the bear.”

  “Yeah. I saw it last night.”

  “I guess that’s good.”

  “You guess?”

  “They took me in for questioning,” I say, half confessing.

  “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Maybe not. But for a little while they thought I’d killed her.”

  “That’s fucking scary.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Thank god they got to the bottom of that one quickly enough.”

  “Yeah . . . ,” I reply slowly.

  “Yeah? You’re not instilling confidence in me.”

  “What? I didn’t kill her.”

  “I never doubted you,” he says sharply.

  “It’s just . . . you know the thing about first impressions? Often they’re an element that’s spot on.”

  “Theo, you’re losing me here. What are you saying?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just, well, the one detective I spent time with. He was smart. Street smart. I don’t think he’s the type to go off on wild tangents.”

  “But they realized it was a bear and found it.”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” I pick up the vial and rotate it around in the beam of sunlight streaming through the gap in the door. Something reflects back.

  “You talk to the parents yet?” asks Julian.

  I squint and see a fleck of hair. It’s a short, straight bristle, not anything you’d see on a human—at least a healthy one.

  “Theo?”

  “Hey, Julian, do you know any bear experts?”

  “We funded an ursine diversity project. Want to talk to them?”

  I don’t know what I’d ask. “No. Um . . . I got a sample of her blood and maybe a hair from the bear.”

  “You collected this?”

  “No. Not exactly. Never mind.” I set the vial back on the stand.

  “Want to have someone look at it?”

  “Nah, Fish and Wildlife is on it. I’m just being morbid, I guess.”

  “You’re being a scientist. We can wait and see what they say if you want . . . although I’m not sure they’ll do much beyond confirming the bear. I’d be curious to know if he had anything wrong with him or if there was something about Juniper that caused the attack. That whole PMS thing attracting bears is a myth, right?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know if the
re’s enough data points. Anyway, getting into this probably crosses a line.”

  “Maybe,” Julian says. “But let me ask you a question. If it was Juniper that had a vial of your blood and some bear hair, would you want her to have someone look at it?”

  “Yeah. But I don’t know her well enough to know if she’d want that . . .”

  “Trust me, I’m sure she would. Send it.”

  “All right.” Anything to get rid of it.

  “You talk to her mom yet?” he asks again.

  There’s something about the way he says yet. As if this is a duty I’m supposed to perform.

  Shit. Of course I should call. I’m such an asshole. The normal human thing is to call them and tell them you’re sorry.

  I hesitate. “No. I was trying to get her number.”

  “The police didn’t give it to you?”

  I didn’t even think to ask. “I . . . I was getting around to it.”

  “I’ll text it to you. I’m going to call later. It’d be good if you did it sooner than later. Being her favorite professor and all.”

  Favorite?

  “Yeah. I’ll do that now.”

  “All right. I’ll send a courier over for the sample. I’ve got a rapid turnaround lab I’ll tell you about later.”

  Thorough as hell, Julian.

  We say goodbye, and I stare at the number for Juniper’s mom.

  How do you even put into words how you feel about this? How do you begin to explain why it’s your fault?

  I know sitting here in the dark won’t get me any closer to an answer. I just dial the number and hope for once in my life I’ll know the right thing to say at the right time.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BUTTERFLIES

  “Hello?” Juniper’s mother’s voice sounds a bit stressed, yet still strong. For her, the nightmare began when Juniper went missing a few days prior. She’s had some time to adjust, I guess.

  “Hi, this is Theo Cray. I had your daughter in my class a few years ago? I wanted to call to give you my condolences.” Condolences—what a meaningless way to say I have no idea what to say.

  “Professor Theo?” Her voice lifts. “Thank you for calling. It means a lot to me.”

  “I don’t know if they told you, but I’m in the same area.” We’ll leave out the part where they thought for a moment I’d brutally murdered your daughter.

  “Yes. I know. Juniper had mentioned it.”

  “She had?”

  “Oh, yes. She kept track of your research. I don’t have to tell you how much you inspired her.”

  Me? “She was a delightful student.”

  “Did she ever tell you that you’re the one that stopped her from dropping out of college?”

  “Um . . . no.” She never really told me anything, because I never bothered to treat her as anything other than a name on a roll-call sheet.

  “She was having a rough time. Boy problems, and her father had died a year before. It was a stressful period. She says you gave her hope. She wanted to be like you.”

  Be like me? A socially ignorant bystander to the world?

  “Thank you for that. I don’t hear that very often.” Never would be more accurate.

  “I’m sure you’re being modest. It means a lot that you called.”

  She should be yelling at me. “I just wish . . . I’m sorry.” My voice breaks. “I wish I could have been a better teacher. I wish I could have told her to be more careful. I’m sorry, Mrs. Parsons, I shouldn’t be saying this to you.”

  “It’s okay. I’m still trying to deal with it.” I can hear the sound of her holding back tears. “She was my little girl. Now she’s gone.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I take a breath and wipe my nose.

  “Dr. Theo, why was she alone out there?” Her voice goes from cordial and in control to distant.

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know what she was doing out here. I wish I could have spent some more time telling her how to be careful.” I feel guilty for blaming her and immediately try to backtrack. “I mean . . . I just . . .”

  “She was always careful. She spent summers in Yellowstone working with the forestry service. She’d encountered lots of bears and always knew to stay clear. But . . . I guess the one time you’re not looking.”

  This is the first I’ve heard she’d done forestry-service work. She had more training than I thought.

  Now I feel even more guilty for attributing her death to her carelessness. It’s comforting to blame the misfortune of others on their own actions. It’s also wrong.

  She probably had more outdoors skills than I do. Which makes the way she died all the more senseless.

  It’s the wrong time to ask, but I have to know. “What was Juniper doing up here?”

  “Something to do with fish genes, I think.”

  The map where they found her body wasn’t anywhere near a pond or stream. But she could have just been hiking for fun.

  Still, as a fellow scientist, not to mention a former teacher of hers, I should at least find out a little more about what she was researching. It’s shameful that it took her death for me to even be aware that one of my students had gone off to do her own interesting things.

  “Did you see it?” she asks.

  I have to take a moment to figure out what she means. The bear. The monster that killed her baby.

  “Yes, I saw it last night. We caught it yesterday.”

  What an utter lie for me to say we.

  “Thank you for helping catch it. It makes me feel better that it’s not going to hurt anyone else. Of course Juniper wouldn’t have wanted the thing to suffer. She was that way.”

  Of course she was. “It was a quick death. The hunter got it in one shot.”

  “Good. Juniper would be upset with me, but I’m glad you all got the fucker.” She pauses. “I’m sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

  “Are you sure you got him?”

  For a moment I think she’s challenging my version of the story where it’s we that got the bear. I’m about to confess; then I realize she’s asking if we got the right bear.

  “They seem to think so. They do tests for that kind of thing.”

  The vial of Juniper’s blood and the hair from the bear is sitting on my nightstand. I feel better about taking Julian up on his offer to have it analyzed. “I’m going to double-check,” I say, feigning authority. “I have some friends who can do some of their own testing.”

  “Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Theo. That means so much to me. I’m glad you’re there.”

  I feel some relief that her mother has justified my transgression.

  “Of course,” I say magnanimously, and completely full of shit. “Please, just call me Theo. And if there’s anything I can do for you, let me know.”

  “She had her car at a repair shop. I hate to be a bother. The police can send me her things, but . . .”

  “I’ll take care of it. Just give me the name of the shop and where she was staying. I’ll handle the rest.”

  We say our goodbyes. I make a mental note to follow up with her on the phone in a few days. I can’t just treat this like sending an obligatory Mother’s Day card.

  This woman lost everything that was important to her. As far as she’s concerned, I was important to her daughter. The very least I can do is respect that and look in on her from time to time. I’m sure it would be what Juniper wanted.

  Juniper, the more I hear about you, the more interesting you become.

  What were you doing out here?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WALKING DISTANCE

  Bryson’s Auto Repair sits on a patch of gravel along the highway, seated between long stretches of pasture near where the tall trees of the forest begin. Its presumed namesake, Bryson, in his fifties and wearing grease-stained overalls, looks up at me from under the hood of a Subaru Outback as I pull in.

  I spot what must be Juniper’s Jeep sitting in the noon sun on the edge of the
lot next to a pickup truck and a Toyota Camry that’s missing a hood and fender.

  Bryson walks out to my SUV to greet me. “So you’re the other one?” he says as I climb out.

  “The other one?”

  “The other fella they took in.”

  Ah, I get it. Of course. Glenn had mentioned that they had another potential suspect before they realized a bear killed her.

  He’s a few inches shorter than me but has a thick build. I only see one car lift and a small winch. He probably keeps fit lugging heavy parts around all day.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Looks like the one they were after walks on four legs.”

  “I suppose,” he replies.

  I point to Juniper’s car. “Her mother asked that I make arrangements. She lives in North Carolina. Any idea how to get it there?”

  “The tow company that brought it only does in-state. But I know a car service that will cost you about eight hundred. If you got a few weeks, you can take out a Craigslist ad and see if anybody working up here for the season wants to drive it back.”

  “You think that’ll work?”

  Bryson shrugs. “I dunno. But if you got the time.”

  “Actually, I have to be back in Austin in about a week. Fall classes are starting. Maybe I’ll try the ad for a few days.”

  I’d hate to ask Juniper’s mother to pay for this. Worst-case scenario, I’ll put it on my credit card and figure out later how I’m going to manage the expense.

  Bryson looks over my shoulder at my Explorer. “You planning on getting new tires soon?”

  I’m about to dismiss him as a huckster when I actually look at the tires and realize I have almost no tread on the front ones.

  He’s noticed my hesitation. “I’m not trying to hustle you. I can replace the front ones with a couple of discounts. The rear ones will last you another little bit. It’ll only cost you a hundred and fifty.”

  “Each?”

  He lets out a small laugh. “Pardner, if I was going to rob you, I’d never let you see me coming. Hundred fifty for the both and I’ll throw in an oil change.”