California, where he had moved several years ago with the rest of his family, was a work in progress, a city whose council worked hand in hand with its developers. Consequently—and aesthetically—that development progressed slowly.
What that ultimately meant was, according to his uncles, Aurora had taken thirty-five years to go from a rural, two-lane, three-traffic-light town to the major thriving city it was today.
That also meant that there were still large parcels of land that were generally undeveloped. Most of them were located on the outskirts of the southern perimeter of Aurora.
That was where he was traveling right now, on his way to a crime scene, which, it seemed, had the dubious distinction of being both the site of a multiple homicide and the site of a cold case all at the same time.
The bodies, according to the investigators who had been summoned by the first officer on the scene, had apparently been in the ground for years; the exact amount of time—as well as the exact number of bodies—had yet to be determined.
Hell of a way to start a Monday morning, Malloy thought, stifling a yawn before it managed to momentarily make him shut his eyes.
He took in a deep breath, trying hard to rouse himself. A better way to go would have been to drink some of the pitch-black, strong coffee that was riding next to him in his vehicle’s cup holder, but unless he pulled over—something, considering the narrowness of the winding road he was on, that was not advisable—he was not about to risk reaching for the tall container.
For that to happen, the split second that his eyes might be off the road could just be enough to send him careening into an accident—or his demise.
Notoriously happy-go-lucky and possessed of what some had referred to as a charmed life, Malloy was still not reckless enough to think himself above any and all accidents. Better safe than sorry had been an unspoken mantra in his family, courtesy of his very wise, late mother.
All things considered, he chose to obey that mantra this morning.
The coffee could wait.
Instead, Malloy did his best to snap his countenance into alert wakefulness by biting down hard on the inside of his bottom lip. He stopped just short of drawing blood.
Just where the hell was this damn stupid nursery he was going to anyway, he wondered grudgingly. Shouldn’t he have arrived there by now?
According to the information he had been given just before he’d left the precinct, the bodies had been discovered by the owner of a construction crew while clearing some heretofore unused land that belonged to the nursery. The idea was to extend the nursery and erect several more large greenhouses across the two additional acres.
The greenhouses were to display even more specimens of cacti and succulents, as if four acres weren’t already enough, Malloy thought darkly.
At the age of eight, after running through what he thought was an empty field at twilight, he’d tripped and gotten almost impaled on the sharp, near-lethal spines of a small, but menacing saguaro cactus. Since then Malloy had developed an aversion for everything and anything that even remotely looked as if it belonged to the cacti family.
To his mind, it only seemed natural that an aversion to succulents should follow, as well. Though a collector would argue the point, it seemed like one and the same to him.
He was vaguely aware that there were whole clubs devoted to meeting regularly and discussing the care and feeding of various different species of these visually ugly plants, but for the life of him, he could not fathom why.
Then again, he didn’t understand why anyone would pay more than the cover price of a so-called rare comic book, either.
It took all kinds, Malloy told himself.
Taking a turn down yet another obscure road whose sign he had almost missed, Malloy breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently, he was almost at journey’s end. There was a sign posted up ahead just before a newly installed chain-link fence.
The sign proclaimed Rainbow Gardens. The sign looked new, as well.
According to what he’d been told, the old nursery, which had gone by—to his way of thinking—the far more accurate name of Prickly Gardens, had been sold a little over a month ago. The present owner had come in with new ideas, the first of which had included expansion of the nursery so that even more plants could be properly showcased.
Sorry, no expanding yet, Malloy thought. There’s the little matter of some bodies to clear up.
Malloy pulled his car right up to the gate. The latter was closed.
There was another sign, an older, weather-beaten one, which told whatever traveler approached it that visitors were admitted “By appointment only.” It went on to say that if the visitor did have an appointment, to “Please, honk.”
There was what appeared to be a trailer standing some distance away, perched just above a row of several small greenhouses. Surrounding those greenhouses were a great many succulents and cacti planted in the ground and growing at a very prodigious rate.
Malloy assumed that honking was for the benefit of whoever was inside the trailer.
With his engine running as his car stood before the gate’s fence, Malloy paused to drain half the coffee in the container he’d brought. Only then did he do as the sign advised.
He honked his car’s horn.
When there was no immediate response, Malloy did it again, this time leaning on his horn until he saw movement from the trailer.
A man wearing gray dress slacks and a crisp, long-sleeved, button-down blue shirt approached the gates. He appeared totally out of place in the rural-looking, overgrown nursery.
He also looked extremely agitated.
Unlocking the gate, the man greeted Malloy by announcing, “Finally!” as he pulled the gate back.
Malloy drove down the slope and into the nursery, pulling his vehicle over to the first available parking area. The entire space was meant, he assumed, to accommodate several vehicles, but it looked barely wide enough to house three very compact cars. Planning was obviously not someone’s strong suit.
Deliberately taking his time—he didn’t care for the man’s attitude—Malloy stepped out of his car almost in slow motion, his shoes carefully making contact with the sun-cracked dirt as if he could feel the heat through the bottom.
Looking at the man who made no secret of sizing him up, Malloy said, “Excuse me?”
“I said, ‘finally,’” the man bit off sharply. “Maybe now that you’re here, you can move this so-called ‘investigation’ to its conclusion.” It wasn’t a question but a strongly worded order. Angry, the man contemptuously indicated the four idle fellows standing in the distance. “That construction crew is being paid by the hour to stand around and watch that woman bend over.”
Okay, maybe he’d had less than the minimum hours of sleep to be sufficiently operational, Malloy thought, but he had just had a really good jolt to his system, thanks to the coffee he’d imbibed a minute ago, and the scowling man in front of him still wasn’t making any sense.
“You
