Cavanaugh Cold Case. Marie Ferrarella
she turns up all the bones from here to there?” Harrison retorted.
“Nope, just the ones that are buried along the perimeter of your property,” Sean told him pleasantly. His words didn’t match the chief’s expression.
Apparently, Malloy thought, sarcasm was wasted on the nursery’s new owner, because he took the head of the CSI unit seriously.
“My bulldozer can go a lot faster,” Harrison told them.
It didn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that the man’s only interest in the matter was speed, and that he couldn’t care less about any sort of resolution as far as solving the crime went. The abrupt cessation of work was costing him a considerable amount of money for each minute that went by, and not only was money the bottom line, apparently as far as Harrison was concerned it was the only line.
“Your bulldozer can also crush a lot of those bones beyond recognition,” Malloy told him before Kristin could speak up.
In his estimation, Harrison was clearly a Neanderthal type, and anything that the medical examiner had to say, Malloy knew, wouldn’t carry any weight. There was no point in having her hit her head against a brick wall.
“It’s not like they’re exactly a pretty sight right now,” the frustrated nursery owner snapped.
“Mr. Harrison, the less time you spend standing here, talking and tying us up, the faster this’ll go and the faster you’ll be able to get back to building up your nursery,” Malloy pointed out. “Now, if you really want to talk, that’s great,” he continued cheerfully. “I have plenty of questions I’d like to ask you.”
At this point, the scowl on Harrison’s face was going clear down to the bone. Second-guessing the detective’s question, he snapped, “No, I didn’t kill anybody.”
The smile that flashed across Malloy’s lips was entirely superficial and empty. “That’s very reassuring to know, Mr. Harrison, but that wasn’t going to be my question.”
“Oh.” Harrison looked somewhat taken aback. “Well, what was it, then?” the nursery owner asked, trying not to look flustered.
To get out of the medical examiner’s way—and possibly on her good side—Malloy began to inch his way up the incline, leading the nursery owner back toward the uninviting trailer. “How did you come to be the owner of this property?”
Following the detective, Harrison looked at him as if he were simpleminded. “The usual way. I bought the damn thing.”
“From?” Malloy asked, attempting to coax more information out of him.
Harrison’s expression grew even more condescending as he looked at the man asking him these questions. “The person selling it.”
Malloy blew out a breath, trying not to let his temper get the better of him. This wasn’t anything new. He’d dealt with idiots before. “I need a name, Mr. Harrison. Who sold you the property?”
Harrison stopped walking. “My lawyer handled it. He dealt with some long-time employee who worked here. The guy was acting on behalf of the owner.”
The man was definitely a challenge to his patience, Malloy thought. “I still need a name, Mr. Harrison.”
“I don’t have a name,” Harrison snapped irritably. “I already told you. My lawyer handled all that. He does all my transactions.”
“All right, then I’ll need his name,” Malloy said, the calm timbre of his voice belying the way he really felt about this verbal square dance.
Part of him would have felt a certain amount of satisfaction if he could have discovered that Harrison was behind these murders. He made a mental note to investigate the man’s background and his general whereabouts twenty years ago—although he would have been very young at the time.
“Fine,” Harrison bit off. “I’ve got his card in that tin can of an office up there.” He waved his hand contemptuously toward the trailer.
“Lead the way,” Malloy said amicably, fairly certain that Harrison wasn’t aware that he was being led up to that trailer already.
Harrison frowned at the former owner’s living accommodations. “First thing in the morning, I’m having that piece of junk hauled off and getting a real RV set up in its place until I can have a building erected.” He aimed a penetrating glare at the detective next to him. “Unless that’s against the law, too.”
Malloy counted to ten in his head before he addressed the owner’s contemptuous statement. “None of it’s against the law, Mr. Harrison. There are just procedures that have to be followed.”
“Procedures be damned,” Harrison snorted. “I’m losing money here.”
“And I’m very sorry about that, Mr. Harrison,” Malloy responded, his voice almost singsong in tone, even as he deliberately assumed a contrite expression. “You could write a letter to the department, detailing the inconvenience that this investigation is causing you—not to mention the money it’s costing you,” he added, then approximated a sympathetic tone, saying, “Maybe they’ll reimburse you.”
Again Harrison stopped walking, wonder written across his dour face. “They’d do that?”
Malloy eased himself out of the corner with the skill of a savvy con artist, something he had picked up by observing the people he tracked down and arrested.
“I don’t handle that end of it, but nothing’s impossible,” he told the nursery owner innocently.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the amused look on Sean’s face. The latter had come closer and overheard him. It took effort for Malloy to maintain a completely unaffected and neutral expression as he followed Harrison the rest of the way up the incline and into the trailer.
The trailer’s interior had a musty smell, thanks to piles of papers that hadn’t been sorted and either filed away or disposed of in a long time. Harrison cursed roundly under his breath as he searched his desk.
“Here!” Harrison declared dramatically, finally finding the business card he was looking for. He all but slapped it into the detective’s hand.
“You might want to call ahead and tell him I’ll be stopping by,” Malloy advised. He slipped the business card into his wallet and tucked the wallet away. “Do you remember when you bought this property?”
Suspicion crowded the distrustful brown eyes. “Almost five weeks ago. Why?”
“That was going to be my next question,” Malloy told him, his voice deceptively friendly sounding. “Why?”
Harrison’s dark eyebrows drew together in a perplexed look. “You mean why did I buy it?”
“Yes.” It seemed a simple enough question on the surface, Malloy thought. “Was it a lifelong passion of yours to surround yourself with greenhouses full of exotic plants? Or were you looking for a business write-off when you bought this property? Or...?”
He let his voice trail off. There was still the possibility that Harrison had somehow been involved in these murders that made up the cold case. Maybe the man knew about the bodies buried here and didn’t want them falling into the wrong hands. In his haste to make money, he’d forgotten that the bodies were on this side of the property rather than the developed side.
Malloy watched the nursery owner and waited for him to respond.
Harrison stared at him for a few moments, then shrugged. “I just wanted my own business, and I thought that being in charge of a nursery like this would be relatively stress free.” He punctuated the sentence with a dry, self-mocking laugh. “How’s that for a stupid move?”
“Not necessarily a stupid move, Mr. Harrison. Things’ll be resolved one way or another,” Malloy assured him. “So, you didn’t know the owner before the property changed hands?” he asked innocently.
“Didn’t