Chapter 35

Zane POV

The three of us found Mavis in the succulents, swearing under her breath about overwatering.

She was exactly as I had found her last, wearing denim coveralls, a utility belt, and a Coolie-style straw hat.

“Sarah, Alpha Zane,” she greeted us, wiping at her cheek with the back of a garden-gloved hand. She looked at our third member.

“Agent Travis,” he said with a nod.

“Ah, heard of you,” she said. “Is there something I can help with?”

“Marshal Kim,” Travis said. “Do you remember him?”

“Hard not to,” she said. “Odd little fellow. Is he doing OK?”

“He’s dead, and we’re treating this as a homicide investigation.”

She blinked at us. “Oh, dear. Someone murdered Marsh? Whatever for?”

“That’s what we’re hoping you might help us with,” Travis said.

“Well, not in the middle of the desert, surely,” she said, gesturing at the desert plants around us. “Come into the shack and have a cuppa.”

“You’re British?” Travis asked as we followed her to what looked like a tool shed.

“A bit. They’ll take my tea away when I’m in the ground.”

It struck me that I had become so focused on werewolf-human dynamics that I hadn’t noticed earlier she did, in fact, have a noticeable British accent, and a somewhat “Oxbridge” one at that.

In addition to a hundred gardening tools, the shed had a small counter inside it that boasted an electric kettle, a box of tea bags, and several cups. She hosed some water into the kettle and set it to boil.

“So, what do you want to know about Marsh?” she asked as she turned to lean back against the counter.

“You were friends?” Travis asked, looking calm and collected even while jammed up in the shed with the rest of us. Zane looked good too, actually. I was probably the only one who wasn’t, damn it.

“Nobody on the grounds was friends with Marsh, far as I know. He wasn’t disliked or anything, but he had his own way of doing things and didn’t talk much about himself. I know he had some sort of fiancé, and I think a dog at some point. That was about it.”

“Did he show any interest in Chloe or Grace?” Travis asked, and it struck me that he hated to ask the question. There was something about Marshal’s quiet, snug cottage that had made us all a little protective, I thought.

“You think he had something to do with that?” Mavis thought for a minute. “No, certainly not.”

I felt relief and frustration in equal measure. Who was this man, after all?

“Oh?” Travis asked.

She shrugged and looked at the kettle. The water was heating up on schedule.

“Kidnapping? Murder? None of that sounds like the little Marsh I knew.”

“That’s the second time you’ve called him ‘little,’” Travis said. “But he was of medium height and weight.”

Mavis waved a hand. “He was so quiet, timid, really. He was half-wolf, you know, and I think it ate at him a bit.”

“He was a human-wolf hybrid?” Zane asked, looking surprised.

“Nothing wrong with that,” Mavis said with an edge in her voice.

“No, of course not. I just thought he was a beta.”

“He was.” Mavis sniffed slightly. “It’s a myth that hybrids are always gammas. And as a beta, he was fine. I think it was more he just didn’t want people in his business, if you get me, like, if he could have, he’d have been invisible.”

“His cottage in Maywood was very cozy,” I said. “But yes, I can see what you mean. It was very private.”

“Maywood?” Mavis raised her eyebrows. “Posh neighborhood, that. Bet he liked it better than his place here.”

“Mr. Kim lived on the grounds?” Travis asked.

“Yup. Not so popular to do these days, so his place’s still as he left it.” She looked at us. “Do you want to see?”

Obviously, we did, but we let her and Travis drink their tea first. Zane and I declined. Tea was a sorry excuse for coffee, in my opinion, and I think Zane didn’t want to delay things.

It bothered me terribly, all of a sudden, that I didn’t know whether Zane liked tea.

We took a ride in Mavis’s electric cart, and soon we were looking at a slightly larger version of the tool shed we’d left behind. The front boasted an overgrown garden, and there was some sort of notice on the door, which I later saw was an announcement the water would be turned off.

There were no books inside, but it was still obvious that the same man who’d lived in the cottage was the man who’d lived here. It was cozy again, though less well-appointed. He’d had less money to decorate, and it showed.

I couldn’t help but smile in remembrance as I looked at the bookshelves made with plywood and milk crates. I’d had the same when I was in school.

Restless, I left Zane and Travis to look around the single room, plus bath, that Marshal had called home and walked around the little plot of land the shack stood on. I saw what had been a carefully tended garden turned now to wild excess. Five years had let the weeds in, and they’d had a ball, but I could see little grows of roses, daisies, and poppies.

“I’m smelling that empty odor again,” I heard Zane say from behind me. I turned to look at him, silhouetted against the sun. I had a flash of him naked in the bath and put the image out of my mind. This was hardly the place or time.

“Old?” I asked.

He shook his head and walked to my side. “Fresh. Whoever was in Marshal’s cottage has been here within the last couple of days.”

“Looking for evidence?” I suggested.

“Maybe.”

He and I both looked around the garden now. I realized what was bothering me.

“There are holes that have been dug up and then filled up again,” I said, pointing to where the soil was darker.

Zane nodded, and soon he and Travis were walking around noting the little hills of overturned dirt.

Mavis walked up to me. “Keeping your own feet under you?” she asked.

“Trying. The girls make everything worth it.”

“Just don’t forget you know who you are.” I turned to her, but Mavis was wandering away then.

Travis got on the phone then, leaving me no time to wonder what Mavis was talking about, and then the place was knee-deep in police and security personnel with metal detectors and sonic resonators, and who knew what. One machine that made a sort of ponka-ponka sound left me with no idea what it might be for, and I didn’t want to ask.

Over by the fig tree, several people started to get excited. There wasn’t a pile of dirt.

More equipment was brought in, and within about an hour they had dug up a large metal box. The alphas in the area turned away in disgust, rubbing their noses.

Soon, they had the box open, and though I was several rows back by this point, I could see there was a decomposed body inside.