by Tom Lowe
“Correct, Sean,” he said. “However, many of these are indeed for sale. When, and if I believe they’re ready to move outside, I try to place them in the wild, sometimes building small wooden stands that I attach to trees. You may have noticed that driving on the property. I like to give my orchids a high elevation, so deer can’t eat them, and they can look around and see what’s coming.”
I said, “The eye of the orchid.”
“You’d be surprised what plants can see or at least feel with senses that humans don’t possess.” He pointed to the long bench behind me. “Every plant on that bench is for sale. The rest of these and some I have in the trailer behind the cabin are not for sale. The reason is that you’re looking at some of the rarest orchids in the world. To wealthy collectors, they’d be worth six figures. However, I don’t grow them for money. Never have. I grow them for the hope that I can use my experience to partner with nature to produce some of the most exotic flowers since Eden. That may sound pretentious, but I’ve spent a lifetime cultivating rare orchids from all over the world. There is a special quality about the orchid that holds a fascination with most folks. I’ve collaborated and worked with renowned botanists, biologists and research universities. And I’ve shared the flowers, photographs, and scientific data with thousands of interested people around the world. Regardless of all that, my ultimate goal is to replant the native orchids back into the Everglades. And I’ve made great headway, restocking a few thousand orchids.”
Callie used her left hand to brush off some potting soil from the table. “I’ve been helping Grandpa upload the photos and information to a website I built for him. I think I’ve convinced him to do a few podcasts, too.”
“We’ll see,” Chester said, propping his cane up against the bench. “Sean, tell me a little about your friend. Is she good with plants?”
“Yes, at least I think so. She has a lot of plants in her home, and she has a few on her back deck.”
“You mentioned she lives not too far from here, correct?”
“Close to the Seminole Indian reservation in northern big cypress.”
“Is she Seminole?”
“Her mother is full-blooded. Her dad was Irish-American.”
“Over the years, I’ve made friends with the Seminoles. However, many of the elders I knew have died. What I know about botany pales in comparison to some of them … especially those who studied to be medicine men. I’ve learned a lot from people like Sam Otter. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years. He’s in his nineties. Maybe older. When he passes, a wealth of knowledge about plants and the interaction of plants as medicine will go to his grave. Not a lot of today’s generation interested in that sort of thing.”
“I am,” Callie said, smiling.
“And you’re one of the exceptions. The study, care, and cultivation of plants, especially exotic flowers, is work. Hard work and dedication. For a generation that seems preoccupied with short-term results, well … to each his own I suppose.” He picked up his cane and shuffled around the table to a section of the bench and pointed to a tall orchid plant with purple and yellow petals. The center of the flower was scarlet red with flecks of pale yellow, like gold dust scattered at the entrance. He said, “That is an orchid I worked with Mother Nature to produce. About a decade ago. She’s patient with me. I’ve grown more than fifty since then, shipping some to botanical gardens and others to patrons of the arts. It’s living art. Perhaps your friend might enjoy that one.”
I said, “It’s very beautiful.”
“What’s her favorite color?”
I paused for a moment, my mind playing back the color of her clothes, the interior of her home, furniture, the color of her car. “I’m not sure. She seems to like wearing white and yellows. Blue as well, sometimes.”
Callie smiled and said, “A woman’s wardrobe is a good start. But that can be a lot of colors. Right next to the orchid Grandpa suggested is one I really love. I don’t know the scientific name off-hand without reading the card under the pot. But it seems to bloom often, and just look at the colors.” The flowers were snow white with teardrops of dark red and soft pinks in an alternating pattern.”
“Tough decision … so, I’ll take both of them.”
Callie and Chester grinned at the same time. “Excellent choice,” he said. “We’ll put them in a container, so they won’t tip over in your Jeep.”
• • •
The executive producer of Midday Live thanked Joe Thaxton for appearing on the program and walked him to the lobby of the television station. At the glass doors, she stopped and shook his hand, glancing outside to the parking lot. “Are you in the guest parking area?”
“Yes. I’m the only pickup truck parked there.”
“We appreciate your time today. You didn’t shy away from the issues or difficult questions. Live appearances like this help our viewers—the voters, to get a close-up look at the candidates. I wish you all the best.”
“Thank you for having me.”
“Where do you go from here?”
“We’re having a rally in Stuart. I hope there’s a good turnout. We’ve been getting larger and larger crowds. Seems people are very interested about the health of Florida’s waterways and beaches, and they want to protect them.”
“Absolutely. But with any hot issues, you’ll have your naysayers. A lot of the people who deny climate change will say pollution for Lake Okeechobee, the rerouting of water, does not cause toxic outbreaks and has no effect on the increase of red tide.”
“I believe these folks are in the minority. In any debate, the true facts trump opinion. In this case, the scientific data is there. If the naysayers will objectively look at the science, I think more and more of them will agree we have to start now to make the change.”
“You’re up against tremendous money from agriculture and the Big Sugar lobbyists. It’ll be a tough fight.”
“I’m used to that. Anything worthwhile takes time, drive and energy to change. I’m just hoping we raise the money to counter the attack ads we know are coming our way.”
The producer paused. She opened the entrance doors and stepped outside with Thaxton. She glanced at his pickup truck in the lot, her eyes scanning the parked cars. A UPS truck pulled up to the TV station. A news crew, reporter and camera operator hustled out the door and walked quickly to an awaiting news van, Channel Twelve Eyewitness News painted in blue and yellow on the sides. The producer looked at Thaxton. “It may be nothing, but I wanted to mention something to you.”
“What’s that?”
“We receive a lot of nut job calls from time to time when we have political guests live on the program. You’re not an exception to the general rule. You can’t please all the viewers all the time. I received a call from a viewer—a man. It sounded like he was trying to disguise his voice.”
“What’d he say?”
“He was angry that we had you on the program. He called you a freak and said he might come down and blow up the station. In the seven years I’ve worked here, we’ve had calls like these.” She glanced back at the main entrance. “We have great surveillance cameras all around the outside of the building. A security guard is on duty twenty-four-seven. So, it was probably just another arm-chair anarchist calling to spew hate. I think the Internet and the anonymity of social media has spawned these people. Nonetheless, I wanted to tell you.”
“Thank you. I hope it’s an isolated incident. But I know I’m hitting a nerve. My campaign headquarters has received a few hate calls. Nobody’s threatened to blow up our headquarters or a TV station for interviewing me, though. They just want me to shut up and go away. I’m called a tree hugger with an attitude. I can handle that.”
“Be careful. This caller sounded angrier than most.”
TEN
After I’d paid, and Callie helped me secure the orchids in the back of my Jeep, Chester said, “I promised to show you what, if it blooms, will be the rarest orchid in the world.”
“It’ll bloom, Grandpa.
I have faith in you,” Callie said.
“It’s not me anymore. I’ve done my best to help nature spread her wings. It’s up to the plant. It’s alive and seems to be doing well. Just no buds yet. Come on, Sean.”
With Max still in my arms, I followed the old man and his granddaughter to the left of the cabin, walking past an Airstream trailer, the silver exterior discolored and oxidized, tree sap blotted the roof, the door open, as if it had never been closed since it arrived and took root in the mire.
Chester pointed to the trailer. “I lived there for two years until I could rehab the old cabin. This high ground was put in as a work camp when they built the Tamiami Trail back in the late twenties. At one time, up through the fifties, there was a half-dozen shanties in here to house some of the workers. They used fill dirt from the canals to elevate these ten acres above the near constant water in the Big Cypress Swamp. I got lucky when I managed to buy it many years ago. Today, people can’t buy government land and build homes in here. When I die, I’d like to leave the property to the Nature Conservancy.”
Callie said, “Don’t you talk about dying. You have a lot of good years ahead of you, Grandpa.”
He smiled, the deep lines around his eyes crinkling. “We’ll see. Come on, our guest has orchids to deliver to his friend.” Max and I followed them to the right of the trailer. Chester pointed to a large cypress tree, it’s base submerged in a few inches of dark swamp water. “Big Cypress, and the ‘glades for that matter, are drying up. At any given time, you’d see at least sixteen inches of water around these cypress trees. Now it comes and goes like a bizarre tide. We don’t get the summer rains like we used to out here. I think some of it is climate change mixed with the rerouting of the natural water flow through South Florida. It’s hard to find wild orchids in the ‘glades and Big Cypress Preserve because of the changes.”
“Maybe things will eventually be restored,” I said.
“Not in my lifetime.” He motioned with the tip of his cane. “On that perch is the paphiopedilum quetzal. The scientific name for an orchid that I affectionately refer to as Persephone. She was the Greek goddess symbolic with the cycles of life and death … the change of seasons, from summer through winter and the renewal of life in the spring. I’ve gone through a lot of seasons with Persephone. Maybe this will be the year she awakens.”
“Why does it take so long to bloom?” I asked.
“Because it’s an extremely delicate breed—a hybrid of four of the world’s most rare and exotic orchids, the Shenzhen, the Kinabalu of Malaysia, the Rothschild, and the Dragon’s Mouth. It may never bloom. Inside the trailer is my mini-lab. Microscopes. Magnifying glasses. Tools as small as those a craftsman uses to build fine watches. In there are specimens of rare pollen I’ve collected from around the world, kept in sealed, air-tight containers.”
I pointed to a bush that was really more of a small tree. It was filled with what looked like tiny apples. Green and smaller than golf balls. “I’ve seen bushes like that. What is it?”
“That’s the manchineel. The Spanish called it manzanilla de la muerte, or little apples of death. The sap from that plant is deadly. The Calusa Indians, long ago annihilated from diseases the Europeans brought to Florida, shot Juan Ponce de Leon in the leg with an arrow dipped in the sap of a tree like that one. He died a slow death from the wound.”
“Did you ever consider cutting down that tree?”
“No. It was here before me. It has a right to be here after me. Also, it more or less protects the orchid in the cypress tree. If someone should disturb the orchid, as in stealing it, they’d most likely brush against the leaves and the forbidden fruit of the manchineel would cause burns. To those with severe plant allergies, it might cause death if they’re not treated in time.” He paused, glancing at Max and then raising his slate gray eyes to me. “It’s sort of like my watchdog. But this one makes no noise, the victim does.” He looked down at his bare feet for a second. “I could talk all day. But you have more important things to attend to. Callie and I hope that your friend enjoys the orchids, and that they bloom often for her.”
Callie stepped next to her grandfather and said, “If she doesn’t like them, we offer a money back guarantee. Oh, I’d told you a little about the first time I met Grandpa when he asked me if I was afraid of ghosts. What he was referring to at the time is a very rare and exotic orchid that lives in the Big Cypress Preserve and parts of the Everglades. I don’t know the scientific name, but Grandpa called it the ghost orchid.”
“Do you have any here?” I asked.
“No,” Chester said. “They’re so rare that when I do find them, I take pictures and document the locations and the numbers of orchids. It’s a sight to see, though, when I find one. I still get goose bumps in hundred-degree temperatures and humidity. The true canary in the mine for this land can be the ghost orchid. The more their habitat is changed or altered, the scarcer they become.”
“For people really interested in the preservation of ghost orchids, Grandpa will sometimes take people out in the swamps to see them up close. That might be a fun trip for you and your friend who’ll soon be gifted those beautiful orchids you just bought.”
“I may take you up on that, thanks.”
Chester reached in a front pocket of his overalls and pulled out a card. “If you’d like to go, call us. Callie will probably answer the phone. I might if I can hear it. I’d be delighted to host a tour for you and your lady friend. Do you have a card? Are you still employed with the Miami-Dade sheriff’s department?”
“I do have a card. But no, I don’t work there anymore. After my wife died, I decided on a new lease on life, a new way to make a living and a new place in Florida to call home. I sort of split my time between by cabin on the river in the center of the state and my old boat docked near Ponce Inlet.”
“What do you do now?” Callie asked.
“I tried my hand at working as a charter boat captain. I wasn’t good at finding fish. I wound up giving a few of the customers their money back. Now, I’m a free-lancer of sort. I can’t find fish, but often I’m okay at finding stuff for people, or even finding people who’ve fallen off the radar.” I handed Chester my card.
He looked through his smudged bifocals, grunted. “Sean O’Brien … and only a phone number. From what you said, I gather that you are a private investigator, correct? Seems like a tough way to earn a living.”
“I don’t do it for the money. I do it if someone’s in dire straits to find something that might correct a life that’s gone dramatically off course.”
Callie smiled. “Rather than hunt the ghost orchids—you search for a different kind of ghost … people or I’d guess bodies, too.”
“Sometimes. Law enforcement officers usually find the bodies. They don’t always find the person who did it. Occasionally, a case grows cold and the files are put way on the back burner due to a lot of things. Sometimes I get lucky and can help. Not always.”
Chester handed my card to his granddaughter and said, “Well, at least you try hard. That’s noble, and about all anyone can ask of a person. I have a feeling that you might solve more than you don’t.” He grinned. “Maybe you ought to help the rangers in the Everglades National Park find the elusive pythons that are crawling amuck and swallowing deer and rabbits.”
Callie said, “Those snakes are only out there because people who bought baby pythons as pets couldn’t handle them as they grew too big for apartments and houses. They’d release the snakes into the ‘glades. Some can get twenty feet in length.”
Chester said, “Once they grow too big for the gators, the pythons have no natural enemies. Most people can be standing just a few feet away from one out here and never see it in the sawgrass because the snakes blend in so well. A python can come out of the brush and snatch your pup before you can blink. You’re a big guy, Sean. But even you would have a very difficult time prying one of those snakes off once they coiled around something and started constricting. You’d have to s
hoot the serpent in the head.”
I said, “I’ll remember that.” Then looking at Max, I said, “Come on, Max, we have flowers to deliver.”
ELEVEN
Joe Thaxton drove to his next event a little faster than the posted speed limit. He would be speaking with supporters at a town hall meeting that his election committee coordinated. His campaign manager and two members of his volunteer staff were already there. Jessica planned to join him, too. Pulling onto I-95 north, he glanced into his rearview mirror, spotting a black Ford SUV and someone on a motorcycle. Within a mile on the interstate, the motorcycle roared past, the SUV staying behind him. Thaxton accelerated, moving close to eighty-miles-per-hour. The SUV accelerated, keeping within sight.
Ten miles later, the SUV kept the distance.
Thaxton thought about what the TV news producer had said, Be careful. This caller sounded angrier than most. He called his wife, the call going to her voice-mail. At the beep, he said, “Just checking in to see if you’re going to be heading out to the rally soon. Did you catch the Midday Live program? Call me. Love you.” He disconnected, looked in the rearview mirror, the SUV behind one car, but still in sight.
Thaxton turned on his radio, moving the FM dial to a talk radio station. The host, a man with a deep voice said, “In this hour of our discussion we’re talking about the state-wide races and the race for a new governor. The current occupant of the governor’s mansion has his sights set on a seat in the U. S. Senate. Two men are vying for the job in a race that’s getting deeply personal and ugly. Before we get into that, let’s see if any callers have opinions on the flurry of new appointments the governor has been making in the last couple of months of his administration. Ron, from Miami is on the line to join the conversation. What’s on your mind, Ron?”
“Those eleventh-hour appointments are nothing but pure crony politics. Look at who he put on the South Florida Water Management Board. Not scientists or anyone seriously knowledgeable about the hydrology in the state. He appointed his pals—lawyers and corporate cronies to these positions. It’s the worst case of the fox watching the henhouse. I hope that’ll change with a new governor in Tallahassee. But right now, the best candidate we have to even suggest these changes isn’t running for governor, although he should. He’s running for a state senate seat. Joe Thaxton from Stuart, which is the epicenter for toxic algae blooms on the east coast. He’s not afraid to call it like he sees it, and that’s pointing to the fat-cat lobbyists working for corporate agriculture.”
