Hidden Path

by Melissa F. Miller

  They joined the NCSC agents at the table. Bodhi draped the dead Chinese man’s bag over the back of his chair.

  Clausen skipped the small talk. “Did you finish the autopsy?”

  “Yes. The cause of death was rapid exsanguination as the result of a wound to the common femoral artery.”

  “He bled out?” Thurman asked as he dipped a french fry into a pool of ketchup then popped it into his mouth.

  Chief Clark and Clausen both averted their eyes from the pool of red on Thurman’s plate.

  “In broad strokes, yes. There’s something called the triad of death. So, technically, it wasn’t just blood loss. It’s the combination of hypothermia, acidosis, and coagulopathy.”

  “Sure, okay.” Thurman kept mowing down ketchup-drenched french fries while he spoke.

  Bodhi speared an olive and turned the conversation away from blood. “One finding that might be of interest to law enforcement was the mud on his boots. There were lima bean seeds stuck to his soles.”

  “Did he grow lima beans?” Clausen asked, turning to the police chief.

  “Not as far as I know. But, as I told Dr. King, Mark Olson leases a couple acres to a lima bean farmer.” Chief Clark’s voice was low.

  “Olson? Does this mean you’ve changed your opinion as to whether Durbin started the fire?”

  “No.”

  Clausen raised an eyebrow. “I see.”

  There was a lengthy pause, but the chief didn’t elaborate. She focused instead on eating her pizza, crust first, which struck Bodhi as an unusual technique. But live and let live.

  Thurman finally broke the silence. “Speaking of the Durbin-Olson situation, have you spoken to that attorney Mr. Olson retained?”

  “No, I’ve been busy watching Dr. King hack apart Mr. Durbin and remove all his organs.”

  Thurman winced.

  Bodhi put down his apple and reached for the bag hanging over the back of his chair. “Not to the change the subject, but I’m going to change the subject. Just as a reminder, we have two dead men down in the basement. This bag belonged to the John Doe I found in the meadow.”

  Chief Clark pursed her lips. “But it’s empty.”

  “True. But last night I was assigned to clean out the basement at The Prairie Center—”

  “Wait. They dole out punishments?” Thurman asked.

  “It wasn’t a punishment. It was a task that I was supposed to perform in a mindful way.”

  “Same difference.”

  “I was in the root cellar and I found a wheeled foot locker—something like a travel trunk.”

  “Aren’t those usually locked?”

  “Yes.”

  “But this one wasn’t?” Clausen’s eyebrow went up again.

  “It’s not now.”

  Clausen’s lips quirked up, just the hint of a smile.

  He loosened the drawstring and placed the knife and journal on the table. “Inside the trunk, I found clothes that would have fit the deceased and toiletries—all with labels and identifying information removed. I also found this knife and the notebook.”

  Chief Clark reached for the weapon. Clausen reached for the diary.

  “This is a sharp blade, good quality. Too bad he didn’t have this on him when he was garroted,” the police chief mused as she examined the knife. “He might have stood a fighting chance.”

  She sheathed it and returned it to the table.

  “The journal is encrypted. Agent Clausen is apparently a good code breaker.” Bodhi explained for the police chief’s benefit.

  Clausen raised her head from the book. “I’m not bad. Can I hang on to this for a while?”

  Bodhi looked at Chief Clark, who shrugged and said, “Sure. Just keep us apprised.”

  “But this means this guy was a spy—I mean, right?” Bodhi asked.

  “Probably. And it probably means Fyodorovych offed him.” Thurman’s voice was matter-of-fact.

  “What do you base that on?”

  “The garrote. And the fact that he’s almost certainly freelancing for his old employer.”

  Bodhi shook his head. “Can you fill me in? On the non-classified parts, at least? Because this story doesn’t hang together for me.”

  Thurman took a breath and looked at Clausen. She closed the diary and pushed her half-eaten bowl of soup to the side.

  Then she leaned across the table and said, “This is not to be repeated. If it is repeated, we’ll deny having told you. And you’ll both be on the radar of the Director of National Intelligence, which is not a place where you want to be. Are we clear?”

  Chief Clark rolled her eyes over the top of her milk container but said, “Crystal.”

  “Sure,” Bodhi agreed.

  “Good. So, the short version is Russia and China have both been trying to get their hands on Supra Seed’s R & D for years.”

  “And by research and development, you mean corn seed?” Bodhi clarified.

  “Right.”

  “How can it be top secret? It’s growing all over the county and probably the rest of the state, too.”

  “And Nebraska and Iowa,” Chief Clark confirmed. “But Supra Seed keeps a tight lid on its experimental seeds. The agricultural stores have lists of which farmers have been contracted to plant which specific lines of seeds. And if you’re not on the list, you don’t get the seeds.”

  “It’s like a controlled substance,” Bodhi marveled.

  “It’s big business. And it’s serious stuff. Supra Seed’s competitors would love to get their hands on those seeds to reverse engineer the gene lines.”

  “How?”

  “By planting them under controlled conditions. The Chinese and Russians want to plant them, too. Because they have mouths to feed.”

  Thurman interjected. “Here’s some background that will shed some light on the urgency of their need. In the 1930s, a guy named Henry A. Wallace was the United States Secretary of Agriculture.”

  “He later became FDR’s running mate and was Vice President for Roosevelt’s first term. He was something of a controversial guy, so he only served one term. He went on to serve as the Secretary of Commerce,” Chief Clark added.

  They all looked at her.

  “History major,” she said with a shrug.

  “Anyway, Wallace instituted the ever-normal granary, which functioned as a federal reserve for grain. His idea was to always keep production high. In boom years, the government would buy the excess, to keep prices from dropping. And in lean years, the government could release reserves.”

  “Okay, sure.” Bodhi vaguely remembered the concept from some long-ago economics course.

  “It was brilliant, for a while. Farmers loved it. But in the 1950s, Ezra Benson became the Secretary of Agriculture. Benson thought the grain reserve program was socialism. He wanted to compete with Russian and Chinese communist farms by glutting the international market with corn to depress prices. And instead of reserving the surplus, his idea is to use it as foreign aid to allies,” Thurman continued.

  “Ever since the 1970s, the government’s been selling loads of corn to both China and Russia. They seemed to think it was humanitarian in nature, but we were making them dependent on us for food,” Clausen added.

  “And if they rely on us, we can control them by threatening to take it away,” Bodhi understood now.

  “Exactly. So, logically, they want to do an end run. They need to figure out how to grow corn with massive yields themselves.”

  “So … they send spies here to do what? Steal corn kernels from the fields?”

  “Maybe. Probably.” Clausen nodded. “But they need more than the seeds. They need access to the scientific data. When to plant? When to water? How much? Which pesticides to use? When to spray? When to harvest?”

  Bodhi thought back to his conversation with Hannah Lee Lin. “Isn’t that all computerized? Couldn’t they hack into the software programs remotely?”

  Clausen chuckled mirthlessly. “If it were our software, maybe. B
ut Supra Seed’s stuff is locked down tight. The farmers who use their crop management software need key fob tokens to log in. A fob generates a single-use password each time the farmer logs into the system. And they’re geographically limited—they won’t work off the farm. Sort of like those grocery carts at some urban stores—the wheels lock up if someone tries to take them off the property.”

  “So—” Bodhi began.

  “So, they must have an inside man, one or both of the Russians or the Chinese must’ve turned a Supra Seed employee. Someone who has access to the data from the company side.”

  “Have you shared this theory with Supra Seed?” Chief Clark asked.

  “Yes. They insist their people are all clean. But the security team is monitoring everyone who has access to the information that the Russians and the Chinese would want to get their hands on.” Clausen patted the journal. “And if this book did belong to the Chinese John Doe, it looks like he did manage to get his hands on something. I’ll just need to break the code to figure out what.”

  “Do you think he hid that trunk in the basement or do you think it was Fyodorovych?” Thurman asked. He directed the question toward Bodhi.

  “The Russian. The monks said they’d asked the dead man to store his bag in the barn because it was made of animal hide. That’s where I found it. Presumably, Gavriil Fyodorovych knew that’s where he kept it and after he killed him, he took it. He would have had access to the basement.”

  “So, he’ll be coming back for it.” The police chief’s voice was heavy. “Just what I need, a break-in at the monks’ house. I’ve already got this fire and Jason Durbin’s murder to deal with.”

  Clausen and Thurman exchanged glances. “We can keep an eye on The Prairie Center for you.”

  “Have at it.”

  Bodhi coughed. “You’ll need to talk to Roshi Matsuo and Bhikkhu Sanjeev.”

  Another look passed between the federal agents. Bodhi fixed his gaze meaningfully on the encrypted journal.

  After a moment, Clausen sighed. “Fine.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Thursday evening

  The conversation between Clausen and Thurman and Sanjeev and Matsuo had gone about as well as a conversation between a pair of NCSC agents and a pair of Buddhist monks could reasonably be expected to go. The agents wanted to search the farmhouse from top to bottom and interview all the silent retreat attendees, novice monks, and assorted others present. The monks bemusedly rebuffed that request but permitted the agents to stake out the property from the vantage point of the barn.

  Bodhi, having autopsied two men in two days, welcomed his evening work assignment of washing and drying dishes. It was restorative and productive, rather than reductive. He was drying the big metal stockpot when Matsuo came into the kitchen. Bodhi kept his focus on the shiny pot until Matsuo touched his sleeve.

  “Yes?”

  “May I talk to you when you finish? Tonight, Bhikkhu Sanjeev will lead the Dharma discussion. If you’re willing to miss it, I thought we could discuss your meditative progress.”

  Bodhi returned the pot to its designated shelf and hung the damp dish towel over the oven handle to dry.

  “Roshi, I’m afraid I haven’t made much progress during this retreat.” Surely the Zen teacher knew as much. Bodhi had spent more time in the morgue than on his meditation pillow.

  Matsuo smiled his slow smile. “I see. But you did come here for a reason, yes? And the reason was not to solve murders.”

  “That’s true.” Bodhi searched for the right words. “I came here because I needed to figure something out.”

  Matsuo sat on the wooden bench along the wall near the back door and gestured for Bodhi to join him. “And have you figured it out?”

  Bodhi sat. “No.”

  “Do you no longer have the need to resolve it?”

  “I haven’t had time.”

  “Ah, but you have had time. You just chose not to use it in silent meditation.”

  “The Buddha says not to harm any living creature.”

  “This is true.”

  “Someone is harming people. One of your neighbors has been killed, and one of your students—or a guest, at least. I have training that can help the police to stop the killing. If I don’t do that work, I’m not following the Buddha’s precept. I’m allowing harm to come to living beings.”

  Bodhi had worked through his position on this matter months earlier, when he’d been asked to consult on a death cluster in Florida.

  Matsuo considered the proposition with a serious expression. Finally, he said, “You may be right. There are followers of the Buddha who believe activism, for lack of a better word, is in keeping with the teachings. I’m not sure I agree.”

  “Why?”

  The monk exhaled slowly. “It’s true that we should stop violence and killing when we can. But the trick is to do it without anger. That’s a difficult task—to do it with compassion. This Gavriil person has killed at least once before, perhaps more?”

  “Almost certainly more.”

  “If you encounter him and he wishes to kill you, what will you do?”

  “I … what should I do?” This question had stymied him more than once.

  He was perhaps unusual for a practicing Buddhist in that, so far, people had tried to kill him on two separate occasions. The first time, he had refused to defend himself, and his friend Sasha had nearly died as a result. The second time, just a week ago in Canada, he had taken steps to protect Eliza—and himself. He wasn’t sure which path was the right path.

  Matsuo smiled serenely. “I believe that you must stop him. If that means he must be killed, then it must be done lovingly.”

  “Kill him lovingly?”

  “Yes. Assuming a killer cannot be stopped any other way, then a surgical killing, done without anger or righteousness, may be the correct thing to do. You would be protecting innocents, and you would be doing him a kindness because allowing him to continue killing will be to doom him to bad karma.”

  Bodhi blinked at this calm defense of taking a life. “I don’t think I could do that.”

  Matsuo shrugged. “It is not the Theravada way. Sanjeev would disagree with me. He’d say we don’t know all the facts—what if this Chinese man had worse karma than Gavriil? Then his killing was good karma. You see? It’s an endless loop. He would say the right path is to focus on your own enlightenment.”

  He’d never heard any teacher—neither Theravadan nor Mayahanan—express the views Matsuo held. They felt alien to him. And very wrong, viscerally wrong. The monk was watching his face.

  “I think I need to meditate on this, Roshi.”

  “I see. But, that’s only half the answer.”

  Typical Zen master, Bodhi thought as he smothered a grin. “Oh?”

  “Yes. The great difficulty is in taking a stand without anger.”

  Just then the kitchen door opened, and Feng came in from the backyard. He drew up short when he saw Matsuo and Bodhi sitting on the bench. He smoothed out his startled expression and bowed his head.

  “Roshi, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “It’s no matter, Feng. Have a peaceful evening.”

  The novice bobbed his head again. Then he slipped off his shoes, lined them up squarely in the rack by the door, and walked through the kitchen into the front of the house. No doubt he was going to join the Dharma talk in progress.

  Matsuo watched him leave. Bodhi thought he saw a shadow in the monk’s eyes as he tracked Feng’s movements.

  “Take, for instance, Feng,” Matsuo said in a quiet voice.

  “What about him?”

  “Feng burns with a righteous anger. He believes that some of our neighbors are violating the bija niyama, the germinal order, which is the law of physical organic things.”

  “From a rice seed, only rice.”

  “Yes, and from a corn seed, only corn.”

  He tilted his head. “He objects to the GMOs?”

  “He takes issue with al
l the hybrid lines of corn. The ones hybridized for sweetness, for yield, for pesticide-resistance. It offends him, as if it is a perversion. He protests, he educates about sustainable organic farming, he makes his voice heard in the community. This is all good. But he does so in anger. That’s bad karma for him—not the seed company, not the farmers. Do you see?”

  Actually, he did see. In his experience, it was rare to leave a conversation with a Zen teacher with a sense of greater clarity. But in this case, it had happened.

  “Yes, I do. Thank you for talking with me.”

  Matsuo beamed at him. “Thanks for talking with me, friend.” He stood and walked gracefully toward the front of the house. “May you be happy, well, and find peace, Bodhi.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bette rocked back in the wooden rocking chair on her deck and tilted her head up. Her nightly vodka tonic sat on the small side table at her elbow. The Pleiades star cluster was especially bright tonight.

  She found six of the Seven Sisters easily thanks to a clear night and plenty of experience gazing up at the sky and focusing on the cozy group the sisters formed together. Then she spotted shy Pleione, the mother, hiding behind her brighter, bolder husband Atlas. Only Asterope evaded detection.

  She’d find the dim star. It was a matter of perseverance and patience.

  She glanced away, sipped her drink, and looked back, found Maia again and allowed her eyes to shift up and left. She looked away again then back—and there—she made out the faint gleam of Asterope.

  Gotcha!

  She smiled up at the shimmery light then took another drink of her cocktail.

  After a moment, she laughed softly, thinking of her own sisters. Growing up in a town much like this one, they’d spent too many nights to count lying on their backs studying the constellations overhead. Telling each other stories about the Seven Sisters, based loosely on Greek mythology, as the stars sparkled above them. Trading secret wishes and fears. Weaving big dreams of fantasy futures.

  Now one sister lived in a tasteful flat in Paris, married to an international banker; she spent her days drinking good coffee and painting vivid images on big canvases in a studio overlooking the Seine.