Page 28 of Scarred By Sin

“Mr. Seldon is in his office.” He pointed toward the far edge of the lot, where a single-wide trailer sat on a concrete pad beneath a canvas awning. “Just knock. He’s usually in there this time of day.”

“Appreciate it.”

Theo headed in that direction, navigating between a forklift loaded with pallets and a customer who was trying to wrestle a potted tree into the back of a minivan. The midday sun was relentless, and the gravel radiated heat upward in visible waves that distorted the air above the parking surface.

The trailer was older but well-maintained, with aluminum siding and a set of wooden steps leading up to the door. A window-mounted air conditioning unit hummed from the side panel, working hard enough to produce a thin stream of condensation that dripped steadily into a dark stain on the rocks below.

He climbed the steps and knocked.

“Come in,” a voice called from inside.

Theo opened the door and stepped into the trailer. The temperature dropped by at least fifteen degrees, and the relief of it settled over him immediately. The interior was a functioning office with filing cabinets along one wall, a desk covered with invoices and seed catalogs, and a calendar pinned above the phone with delivery dates circled in red marker. The space smelled like coffee and potting soil, an oddly pleasant combination that suggested Ward Seldon spent most of his waking hours in this room and had long since stopped distinguishing between work and life.

The man behind the desk matched the DMV photo Theo had pulled that very morning. Ward Seldon was in his late sixties, with a broad, weathered face and thinning gray hair combed neatly to one side. He wore a short-sleeved button-down with the nursery logo on the breast pocket and reading glasses pushed up onto his forehead. His hands were thick and calloused, resting on either side of an open ledger. He had the build of a man who had spent decades doing physical work and hadn’t found a reason to stop.

“Mr. Seldon?” Theo extended his hand. The man didn’t seem bothered by the eye patch. “Theo Neville. I’m with a firm called S&E Investigations. We’ve been brought in by the Bureau to consult on a case involving the Ellingham estate.”

Ward’s handshake was firm and unhurried. He gestured toward the chair across from the desk.

“I figured someone would be coming around.” Ward shook his head in remorse. “Everyone heard that a body had been found on the estate. Part of me can’t believe it, but it also makes sense. Nestor would never have left his daughter. Please, have a seat.”

Theo angled the chair so he would have more room, then sat down. The vinyl cushion exhaled beneath him with a slow, tired hiss. It was fortunate that word hadn’t spread through the area about the additional remains. Once those details leaked, which they surely would at some point, given that the forensics team was staying locally, Brook would need to release a statement on the Bureau’s behalf.

“I’d like to ask you some questions about your relationship with Nestor Ellingham, if you’re willing.”

“Of course.” Ward leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest, though the posture didn’t read as defensive. It was more the stance of a man settling in for a conversation he’d known was coming for a long time. “What would you like to know?”

“I’ll start with what I can share.” Theo kept his tone measured and direct. “We don’t believe Nestor died from natural causes.”

Ward didn’t respond right away. His gaze dropped to the surface of the desk, and the creases around his mouth deepened. The air conditioner cycled up with a shudder that rattled the window frame, and for a moment, it was the only sound in the trailer. Ward drew a slow breath through his nose and released it before speaking.

“Is there a chance you’re wrong?” Ward asked, his thumb tracing the edge of the ledger on his desk. “Thirty-some years is a long time. Everyone liked Nestor. He was brilliant. Genuinely a brilliant man. Not in the way people throw that word around, either. He wasn’t flashy about it, didn’t need everyone to know, but he could tell you the chemical composition of a soil sample just by running it through his fingers. He’d be right nine times out of ten.”

“How did the two of you meet?”

“Through the business, originally. He needed specialty soil and specific plant specimens for his research, and I was the closest supplier who could get him what he wanted. I started making deliveries out to the estate myself in the early days, before I had drivers on the route. We’d get to talking, and one thing led to another.”

Ward’s expression softened. He reached for a coffee mug on the corner of the desk and turned it between his hands without drinking from it, the way people fiddled when they needed something to fixate on while they spoke about someone they’d lost.

“We weren’t as close as he and Cal were. Those two were like brothers. Had been since they were young. Cal taught science at the high school for decades, and he and Nestor could talk for hours about things that would put the rest of us to sleep. But Nestor and I had our own thing. We shared a fondness for plants. I don’t just mean the science of them, but the act of growing them. There’s a patience to it that appeals to a certain kind of person.”

“You admired his research?”

“I did. Very much.” Ward released the mug to lean forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “After Claudine died, Nestor threw everything he had into finding a plant-based treatment for cancer. He believed certain hybrid compounds he was cultivating had cytotoxic properties. That they could target cancer cells without the devastating side effects of chemotherapy. The academic world didn’t take him seriously, of course. He lost funding early on, but he kept going. Funded it himself, worked out of that greenhouse around the clock. I supplied whatever he needed, sometimes at cost, sometimes below it. I believed in what he was doing.”

“Did he ever talk about his progress? Whether he was making headway?”

“He was cautious about that. Didn’t want to overstate anything.” Ward paused and rubbed the side of his jaw while he gazed out the side window. Theo followed his stare, noticing the kid in the green vest loading bags of mulch into a customer’s truck bed, the sun catching the dust that rose from each bag as it landed. “But I remember one evening, he called me to come take a look at something. He was excited, which was rare for Nestor. He said he’d isolated a compound that was showing real promise in his testing. I didn’t understand the details, of course. I’m a nurseryman, not a scientist, but I could tell from his face that he believed he was close to something.”

“Did anyone else know about that breakthrough? Cal, for instance?”

“Cal would have known,” Ward said with a nod. “As I said, those two talked about everything. And it would have meant the world to Cal, more than most people.”

“And why was that?”

“Cal lost his sister to cancer,” Ward shared as he removed his glasses and tossed them on the desk. “Margaret. She was younger than Cal by about ten years. Colon cancer, I believe. She fought it for a while, but it took her in the end.”

Theo pulled a small notepad from the front pocket of his dress shirt and jotted down the names and details. Ward’s expression shifted, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his face as though he wasn’t sure he should have shared something so personal. The discomfort pushed him to keep talking, though.