In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)(69)

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?”