He shook his head. “I’m not here to hassle you. This is going to make a good segment. It’s going to make Ordinary look good. Can I film you processing the scene of the crime?”
“No. It might be small, but this is still a crime scene,” I said. “We aren’t done taking our own pictures. You need to leave until we’re finished.”
“I’ll be quiet as a mouse.”
“Perfect.” Myra tapped his arm. “All rodents are required to wait in the parking lot until we’re done. I’ll escort you. Right this way.”
“You want to say that on camera, officer?” He pointed the camera at her face.
“Sure. We need you to step back to the parking area until we clear the scene. It’s right this way.”
He swung the phone toward Than and me, then settled on Crow. “Why is he here? He’s not police.”
“I am an expert on the native flora and fauna,” Crow said, leaning a little extra hard on his accent. “I am also a native son of this land.”
I didn’t think he needed to lay it on that heavy, but from the considering look on Patrick’s face, he’d played it right.
“This way.” Myra tugged his sleeve.
That finally got him moving, and the two of them walked off. Their voices mingled, then he chuckled. Myra was good at diffusing situations.
“Have you gotten pictures of this?” I asked Than.
“Yes, as has Myra.”
“Okay, give me a minute.” I studied the space, took a few photos of my own, and circled the crime scene with an eye for how someone would have arrived, and how they would have left with a pile of greenery—some of it large, heavy bushes—without anyone seeing them.
“Did Jimmy see anything?”
“He saw the missing plants.”
“No security cameras?”
“No.”
“Jimmy was the first one in this morning?”
“Yes.”
“All right, let’s walk the exits and see if we can find anything. Than, Crow, go that way, I’ll cover the west exit.”
Whoever, or since this was Ordinary,whateverhad taken the plants had been in a hurry. The soft ground was churned up, as if there had been a lot of traffic. It was possible Jimmy had done his fair share of stomping around before Than and Myra arrived.
Bits of leaves and twigs scattered the otherwise well-groomed lawn, leaving a trail like breadcrumbs leading the way out of the forest. I stopped in front of the west gate. A smashed pile of freshly murdered daisies were clumped to the left, a few discarded fern fronds to the right.
And right there in the soft mud near the front of the gate was a footprint.
No, not a footprint. A hoof print. A very small, pony-sized hoof print.
Xtelle.
“You little jerk,” I said. I didn’t know why she would be mincing around stealing shrubbery, but it was exactly the kind of thing she’d do.
I snapped a few pictures of the print and found another print, this one from a cloven hoof. Avnas had been here too.
“Morning, Chief,” Jimmy said from behind me.
Jimmy was the kind of old guy who still dressed the way he had in high school. For him that meant high-waisted denim cuffed at the hem, a plaid shirt buttoned all the way up and tucked behind a belt with a shiny buckle.
