Ron shook his head.
I looked at J.P. “You fare any better?”
He smiled, despite the absence of a file folder of any size. “I think so. I got two items linking the car trunk to the dead man. The first is a definite blood match, and the second might give us the leg up we’ve been looking for, although to give credit where it’s due, one of the crime lab guys discovered it. Remember the debris collected from Boris’s hair and clothes? Most of it was pond scum, but there was a single leaf fragment that caught this guy’s eye. He’s an amateur botanist-studied it in college-and this thing looked like nothing he’d ever seen. So instead of just sending it down the pipeline for someone else to figure out weeks from now, he took it to a consultant after work. Turns out it came from a ginkgo tree-a Ginkgo biloba, to be exact-native to China, so it’s pretty rare.”
He was about to continue, which I knew he could do for a quarter hour if properly stimulated, but I was too curious to wait. “How rare?” I asked.
J.P. blinked at me a couple of times, caught off guard. “I don’t know-maybe a couple of hundred in the state. But that’s not really the point. See, these trees aren’t like most. They’re distinctively sexed. Male trees are separate from female trees.”
I began to smile, despite my impatience, and decided to leave him alone.
“When I was going through the trunk of the rental car,” he continued, “I collected what turned out to be a tiny sample of flesh from a ginkgo seed, which is unique to the female. It was gooey and didn’t smell too good. I didn’t know what it was then, of course, except that it was some sort of plant, but after the leaf was identified, I drove it up to the lab yesterday afternoon, just before quitting time, and they confirmed it.”
“Which leads us where?” I asked belatedly, realizing he’d come to an end.
“I don’t know yet, but if we could locate all the female ginkgo trees in the immediate area, it might give us a location.” He hesitated a moment. “Of course, that could be easier said than done. I was going to start calling a few local naturalists, botanists, and the like. See what I could find.”
I raised a finger. “I have a better idea. Come with me.”
Newfane, Vermont, is about twelve miles northwest of Brattleboro on Route 30, a broad, beautiful, winding road that follows the meandering West River up the valley toward the ski slopes of the southern Green Mountains. During foliage season, every October, the road fills with out-of-state cars and buses “from away,” crowded with tourists soaking in the idyllic mixture of hills, trees, and sun-dappled water. Most of these people make a stop at Newfane village-to shop, take pictures, gather leaves, and walk around a quaint clutter of ancient white clapboard buildings bordering a huge green commons complete with church, courthouse, and meeting hall.
This, over time, has helped transform Route 30 into one of the major non-interstate arteries into the state’s center, and make Newfane a stepping-off point to many inland destinations. Which is why I immediately drove J.P. up there.
Just south of the village proper, across from Rick’s Tavern, was the Newfane Greenhouse, one of the best nurseries in the area and-what interested me most at the moment-a favorite destination for the upwardly mobile. I was counting on the ginkgo’s rarity to translate into an appropriately high price tag-and on the greenhouse’s staff to know who could afford one. J.P.’s notion of chasing down naturalists hadn’t been bad, but no one I’d ever met in that line had ever had two dimes to rub together. I was hoping the ginkgo was less a natural phenomenon and more an upper-class commodity.
It wasn’t too busy when we arrived. The summer was winding down, and while I was still impressed by the activity in the parking lot, it was still less than half-full.
J.P. and I got out of the car, looking out of place in our coats and ties, and walked into the only building that wasn’t a plastic-sheeted greenhouse. A young man greeted us from behind the service counter. “You need any help?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re looking for some information about a really rare tree-a ginkgo. You know anything about them?”
He pulled a face and shook his head, smiling. “I can handle the run-of-the-mill stuff, but that sounds more like Jay’s department. Hang on a sec.”
He reached under the counter and retrieved a portable radio. “Jay?” he said after keying the mike.
“Yeah,” came the answer after a pause.
“I got two gentlemen here asking about ginkgo trees.”
“Be right there.”
The young man replaced the radio with a laugh. “You must’ve pushed a button with that one. He’s knee-deep in mud, working out back.”
A woman approached with a tray full of small plants, and we faded back so the clerk could work the cash register. A few minutes later, an impressively tall, skinny man wearing a baseball cap and an open face ambled into the building, rubbing his hands on a mud-encrusted pair of khakis.
He smiled broadly as he drew near. “Hi. I’m Jay Wilson. You the ones interested in the ginkgos?”
I walked with him to an unpopulated corner of the room, speaking quietly. “Probably not in the sense you’d like, I’m afraid. We’re from the Brattleboro police-sort of on a research trip.”
Wilson’s bright disposition remained undaunted. “Neat. What do you want to know?”
“I guess for starters, do you sell them?”
“I do when I can find ’em. They’re pretty hard to get. Even as high-priced as they are, they move like crazy.”
“So there’re a lot of them around?” J.P. asked, disappointed.
“Oh, no. Offhand, I’d say fifteen to twenty tops in the whole county. Their rarity’s part of the appeal. Not that they’re fragile or anything,” he added quickly, as if we were customers. “They’re quite hardy-grow almost anywhere. Interesting tree, actually, and a real beauty. One of the oldest on the face of the earth. I read they were, around two hundred and thirty million years ago, native to North America, which is ironic, since their only native habitat these days is eastern China. That’s what makes ’em so pricey.”
“I gather they come in male and female varieties,” I commented.
He seemed to dismiss the idea. “Well, they do, but that doesn’t really matter. People only buy the males. It’s all I ever sell.”
We both stared at him. “Why?” J.P. finally asked.
“The females have seeds-orange grapey things about an inch long, coated with a messy pulp. They not only litter the ground, but they stink to high heaven-the pulp does. They’re famous for it.”
“How many females do you think are in Windham County?” I asked.
He considered that for a moment. “Probably no more than three or four, but that’s just a guess. They’re a little sneaky. For the first twenty to even fifty years, the males and females look pretty much the same. It’s only after they fruit that the females come out of the closet. So there’re probably several supposed males out there that’re getting ready to surprise their owners. I got called about one just recently. Guy wanted to know how to deal with the seeds. I told him he was screwed. Even picking them up won’t work, since they’re designed to break open when they land. The season only lasts six weeks, though, starting in late summer. I said he should try to work it to his advantage. Make it a selling point to his guests somehow. Asians actually eat the seeds-consider ’em a delicacy, after the pulp’s been removed-and they’re hot right now in the herbal medicine market. Supposed to treat everything from Alzheimer’s to hearing problems.”
He gave a sly smile. “They’re also sold as a sexual enhancer-that’s why I thought he could turn it into an advantage. He didn’t sound too convinced, though. Maybe he couldn’t figure out how to phrase it in the brochure.”
“Brochure for what?”
“He runs the Windham Hill Inn, just outside West Townshend.”
Chapter 6