Flowering Judas(136)

“Could somebody have been trying to search the place?”

“It doesn’t look like that, no,” Rhonda said. “It’s not that kind of mess. And anybody who had been trying to search the place would have found what the police found, because it wasn’t like it was hidden.”

“And what was that?”

“Guns and ammo,” Rhoda said. “Two rifles under the bed—just under it. Not in cases or bags or anything, just shoved there. Several, I made at least four, handguns. A double-barrelled shotgun. Three tasers.”

“For God’s sake,” Gregor said. “What was the idiot doing? Had he joined the mob? Did he owe money to the mob?”

“He owed money to everybody, from what we’ve been able to tell,” Rhonda said, “but I don’t think that’s what this is. There’s a lot of ammunition in boxes, but I’m willing to bet, even after just a first look, that most of these things haven’t been fired in years. And some of them are brand new. They’ve never been fired.”

“I don’t suppose he bought any of them legally and registered them,” Gregor said.

“We haven’t checked yet, but my guess would be no. He doesn’t seem the type, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I know what you mean.”

“I would say, though, that you had a good call that the gun you’ve got up there would be a gun he brought with him and not anything somebody up there had. My guess is that he was packing most of the time. It probably made him feel important.”

“Probably,” Gregor said.

“And we also found drugs,” Rhonda said. “Not a lot. Not a little, either. It’s not impossible that he was dealing a little on the side, some marijuana, maybe some cocaine, but it wouldn’t have been anything dramatic. He was definitely using. And his refrigerator was full of beer. And there was an entire bookshelf of the hard stuff, Patrón, Johnnie Walker. Most of those were better than half empty.”

“Was there any money?”

“Nope. Were you expecting us to find any?”

“Not really,” Gregor said.

“I don’t know if any of this helps,” Rhonda said, “but this guy was in no way the kind of person who loves the outdoors and wants to go hiking all the time. If he was doing even half the stuff there’s evidence of him doing around here, he wouldn’t be able to hike for half a mile without falling over dead. And, for what it’s worth, I don’t think the house being out in the country means he was fond of the wilderness, either. I think it just means—”

“That he wanted to be far away from people who could pry into what he was doing?”

“Like that,” Rhonda said. “You can’t think this guy killed your two, right? Because this guy was dead first.”

“I know who killed my two,” Gregor said, “I’m just trying to find a way for the prosecution to make their case.”

“Well, good luck with that. I’m going to go now. They’re going to take out a wall in the bathroom.”

Gregor didn’t ask what they wanted to take out a wall in the bathroom for. He sympathized with the landlord who was going to have to clean up at least some of it when all this was over.

Tony Bolero was making his way through the tree-lined streets of a neighborhood that practically screamed “best place to live in town.” The houses were all large, if vaguely old-fashioned: ranches; split-levels; “contemporaries” that must have been built in the Sixties.

Tony pulled into a driveway that already had too many cars in it, but not enough for Gregor. There was no patrol car here. There was no Howard Androcoelho.

Tony pointed ahead to the long, low ranch. “This is it,” he said.

Gregor was looking at something else. The yard was wide and deep. What he was looking at was almost invisible from the driveway. He got out of the car and went to the side of the garage. Then he just stood there and stared.

“My God,” he said.

“What is it?” Tony Bolero materialized at his elbow.

Gregor pointed across the back lawn. “It’s a greenhouse,” he said.

It wasn’t just a greenhouse.

It was a big one.

2

The other cars drove up almost immediately—Howard’s, and then the two patrol cars. Nobody’s siren was blaring. Nobody’s lights were pumping. It was all very quiet, as if what was about to go on here was a pool party or a barbecue, the kind of thing people who lived in the kind of place Sherwood Forest was did on any given weekend.

Except that it wasn’t a weekend.

“Did you bring a search warrant?” Gregor asked.