The Orchid Keeper: A Sean O'Brien Novel

by Tom Lowe

  “Thanks, Flo, but at this point in time, I’ll pass. Who knows what the future holds, though?”

  “Speaking of future, the fella you met with in here, the guy running for office, Joe Thaxton … a lot of folks think he has a future in politics mostly because he says that’s the last thing he wants, but it’s a means to an end … an end to water pollution in Florida. Captain Roland Hatter is in here just about every day singing Joe Thaxton’s praises. Does he seem like the real deal to you, Sean? Or does he have a silver tongue for talkin’ the talk but not so much for walkin’ the walk?”

  “From what I can tell, he’s authentic. I think what you see is what you get.”

  “The question then is this … can he stay that way when the big money gets waved in his face?” She looked at Max. “Let’s see if I have a snack for you back here.” Flo walked behind the bar, singing and harmonizing with Buffett on the jukebox. My phone buzzed. I looked at the caller ID and the area code. It was a text, coming from Detective Cory Gilson. He wrote: We found Thaxton’s truck. Call me.

  I didn’t like the tone of the text. Not short and sweet, but short and rather ominous. I started to step outside to make the call to Gilson when Flo looked up at the wide-screen TV and asked, “Where’d I put the remote?” She glanced at me, finding the remote control under a menu. “Sean, take a look at the TV. It’s Joe Thaxton’s face.” She turned up the sound. The image cut from a picture of Joe Thaxton, the one most used in his campaign materials, to video scenes of a sheriff’s helicopter flying low above vast strands of cypress trees and open prairies of saw grass.

  The picture cut to a reporter standing on the side of a road with a Big Cypress National Preserve sign behind her. She wore a Channel Five bright yellow jacket, dark hair up. She looked into the camera and said, “Investigators say that a Ford-150 pickup truck, registered to Joe Thaxton, was found off an old road that was at one time used for lumber and drilling companies when crude oil was pumped from a few designated areas in the Everglades. At this point, sheriff’s deputies are taking to the air in search of Joe Thaxton who was reported to have entered the Everglades and possibly made his way into sections of Big Cypress Preserve. Thaxton is a first-time politician, running for state senate from Stuart. Investigators say they were told that Thaxton entered an extremely remote section of the Everglades because he was conducting water and soil sample tests, data presumably he was going to use in his campaign as a champion for cleaning up Florida’s polluted rivers and lakes. Reporting live from Big Cypress Preserve, this is Cynthia Martinez, Channel Five News. Now back to you in the studio.”

  Flo muted the sound and looked over at me. “That’s not good news. I hope he’s okay and just got lost in the glades.”

  “Could Max hang here for a couple of minutes? I need to step outside to make a call.”

  “Of course.” Flo shook her head. “I bet his wife’s worried sick. She seemed so nice when she was in here.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  I stood on the main dock outside the Tiki Bar and called Cory Gilson. As the phone rang, I watched a 44-foot Jeanneau sailboat motor quietly through the marina waters toward C-dock, sail covers on, diesel humming. A man with skin dark as a buckeye shell stood at the helm, the boat purring as it passed. Cory answered, and I said, “Got your message. What do you have?”

  “Let’s start with Joe Thaxton’s pickup truck. We found it way the hell off an old oil rig and logging road. Truck was locked. No sign of Thaxton and no indication of foul play either. We’ve been flying the chopper, crisscrossing the glades and Big Cypress.” Gilson stood next to two deputy sheriff’s cars, sawgrass and cabbage palms behind him, his tie loosened, tan sports coat slightly wrinkled below the lapels.

  “How long can you keep the aerial going?” I asked.

  “Until sunset. Spotlights don’t do a lot out here. So far, my guys haven’t seen anything from the air, at least anything that looks human. Lots of big damn gators, deer, bear, and a few wild boars running for cover. But no sign of Thaxton. We have a search team combing the interior of the area. Nothing so far, and it’s a challenge to follow tracks out here. Too much water. It’s hard to see tracks; and when you do, they often lead into knee-deep water that goes for miles. That kind of obstacle makes it tough for the dogs to maintain a scent and follow it very far. Remember when we worked homicide in Miami, how many bodies were dumped in the glades. Most were never recovered, at least all of the pieces. At one time, it was the biggest dumping ground for bodies in the nation.”

  “Let’s try not to go there with Joe Thaxton. There are no parallels, at least not yet. He drove into the glades. He wasn’t dumped there. Maybe your search team will come across something. Have you spoken with his wife yet?”

  “I left a brief message on her phone. Told her that we’d located his truck. I was hoping to call her later with some good news. You know me, Sean, a born optimist in spite of my profession. The news media, of course, are all over this because of Thaxton’s notoriety.”

  “Thanks for getting out there and finding his truck. I hope you can find him, and when you do … I hope Joe Thaxton’s alive.”

  • • •

  Callie Hogan thought there was a car accident on the Tamiami Trail. Flashing blue and white emergency lights in the distance. Deputy sheriff’s cruisers on both sides of the road as she passed Big Cypress National Preserve. She drove her car east from Naples back to her grandfather’s property, slowing when she came closer to the emergency lights and commotion. She could see no evidence of an accident. She did see a sheriff’s helicopter in the sky, flying low and in a half circle.

  She put both hands on the steering wheel, driving slowly through the spectacle, deputies hunched in small groups, looking at maps, speaking into radio microphones. A static crackle of disjointed police commands in the air. Two deputies watched Callie edging by in her car, one deputy using quick hand motions to direct her through the scene. She almost expected them to stop and check her car.

  Maybe they were searching for an escaped prisoner or someone who’d just committed a heinous crime. She made a dry swallow, thinking of her grandfather and wondering if there was a crime scene somewhere close.

  Once she cleared the area, Callie looked in her rearview mirror, the flashing lights and noise of a helicopter like a movie scene behind her. She drove the speed limit, her thoughts racing, anxious to get back to her grandfather. Wondering if he knew what was happening and why.

  • • •

  Jessica Thaxton walked into her kitchen, picked up her phone and listened to the voice mail. She immediately called Detective Cory Gilson. When he answered, she said, “Detective Gilson, it’s Jessica Thaxton. I got your message. Have you found my husband?”

  “No, but we did find his truck.”

  “Oh, dear God. Where?”

  “About twenty-three miles north of Highway 41. The truck was found at the end of a narrow old logging road that’s primarily used today by hunters mostly on ATVs. The truck was locked. We found no signs whatsoever of foul play. We’re hoping he wandered out and got lost in the glades or those sloughs and swamps in Big Cypress. It happens a lot more than you might think.”

  “It’s getting dark. I’m so afraid for my husband.”

  “We have search crews combing the area, and we’ve been using one of our helicopters for aerial surveillance, too. If he’s in here, we’ll find him. I’ll call you the moment we learn anything more, okay?”

  “Okay. Thank you.” The detective disconnected, and Jessica held the phone to her ear for a few long seconds. Her thoughts jumbled, racing into places she didn’t want to enter. She slowly set her phone down, looked at a framed picture on the wall of Joe, Kristy and herself at the beach. It was taken when Kristy was two, a sky the deep shade of blueberries. The sand was white as new piano keys, water clear and inviting. The framed photograph humanized Joe’s campaign—no, his crusade.

  She thought about one of the last things he said to her over the phone, I forgot today is
the first or second day of hunting season. So, I’m not seeing the game and birds I’d like to see from the drone or just by standing still here. It almost feels like nature is afraid to come out and play.

  FORTY-NINE

  Max and I walked down L dock, watching the sun set like a red match smoldering in the crevices of dark clouds far beyond the mangroves and the Halifax River. I didn’t know if Cory Gilson had spoken with Jessica Thaxton yet, but I didn’t envy him, the “eternal optimist,” trying to build hope in what could prove to be a false dawn. Maybe I was wrong, and Joe Thaxton would walk out of the glades. But he hadn’t appeared to me as a man who could have easily become lost. Too much of a survivalist instinct. He’d clocked too many years guiding people to lose himself.

  Maybe I was wrong.

  Max strutted ahead of me, her rump swaying like a quarter horse trotting. She made an abrupt stop to sniff a fish scale the size of a quarter near the dock railing. She resumed her parade, scurrying a little faster the closer we got to Nick’s boat, St. Michael. She stopped near the transom, staring at the open salon door. There was not the usual music or scent of Greek cooking. Max looked back at me, her face and eyes confused or sad—maybe a little of both.

  “Come on, kiddo. Let’s share with Dave what we know about a non-politician, a non-conformist statesman, who ventured into the heart of the Everglades and has yet to reappear. This is worrying me, Max.” We walked down the narrow gangway parallel to Gibraltar, the soulful jazz trumpet of Miles Davis coming from the trawler’s salon, the poignant song, Seven Steps to Heaven.

  I could hear Dave and Nick discussing the art of cooking a T-bone steak in an iron skillet, Dave insisting butter was the preferred frying ingredient over olive oil. Nick vehemently disagreeing. “Butter can’t handle the heat,” Nick said. “You need a very hot skillet to cook the meat the right way to lock in the juices.”

  Max scampered over the steps from the dock to the cockpit. “Hot Dawg!” Nick said. “Where you come from … outta the blue?”

  I said, “She’s here to weigh in on the art of pan-frying a steak, something that some carnivores might prefer not to do.”

  “That’s because they’re meat snobs,” Dave said. “Doesn’t matter if it’s cooked on a hot grill or a hot pan, the meat will be succulent if the chef knows how to season and cook it.”

  “There is a difference,” Nick said, grinning. “Butter’s for bagels. Extra virgin olive oil from Greece is all the grease you’ll ever need. That’s what I think.”

  Dave said, “I think it’s time for a cocktail. Sun has gone to sleep and so shall I in a few short hours. Join us, Sean.” Dave got off his couch and ambled across the salon to his bar. “He poured a glass of Hendrick’s Gin over ice and cut his eyes over to me. “You have that look.”

  “What look?”

  “Like you misplaced your cell phone.”

  “Perceptive of you. I am thinking about cell phones, but not mine.”

  Nick said, “When I misplace my phone I start to twitch.”

  I said, “The phones I’m referring to are those of Joe Thaxton and his wife, Jessica.”

  “What about them?” Dave asked.

  “The cell tower ping of those phones may be the best lead police have in locating Joe Thaxton.”

  “Oh shit,” Nick said. “The P—word … police doesn’t sound good. What happened?”

  “Actually, it’s the S—word for sheriff. Thaxton hasn’t been seen since early morning yesterday when he ventured deep into the Everglades to do scientific water and soil sample research. He spoke with his wife midday from somewhere in the glades or the Big Cypress National Preserve.” I told them as much as I knew and said, “I feel bad about this because Thaxton and his wife came to me asking for help, and I gave them advice instead.”

  Dave stirred his drink. “Sean, what the hell else could you have done?”

  “I don’t know, maybe more than I did.”

  “It was truly a police matter at that time, and it probably remains so. We don’t know if foul play was involved. You said they found his truck, not his body. With all the pressure Thaxton’s under, he could have had a heart attack walking through that thick terrain. The muck in some places is like walking through wet cement. A water moccasin or diamondback might have bitten him. There are some big cougars in there, too.”

  I said, “I doubt that’s a factor.”

  “Okay, putting all the natural challenges aside, the most dangerous thing in the swamps can be an inexperienced or careless hunter on the first day of season. Too often, he’s some guy pumped up on caffeine, testosterone, and his perception of his own huntsman prowess. Taking down a big buck or five-hundred-pound wild boar on the opening day of the season earns bragging rights. In the ancestral sense, it establishes who has the best hunting skills to provide for the well-being of the tribe.”

  I said, “I’d like to think we’re not a nation of tribes. Regardless, today you can have almost any food, including venison, delivered to your door. You can shop for wines, gourmet cheese, and meats online, but yet the hero’s journey begins every fall from the mountains of upstate New York to the glades and beyond. There is nothing wrong with true hunting. Hunting done responsibly. There is something inherently wrong about killing in the name of hunting. It has nothing to do with putting food on the table. It has everything to do with the thrill of the kill. The trophy. The blood sport of death. Too often leaving the carcass to rot where it fell.”

  Nick picked at a callus on his thumb and said, “Even if he was accidently shot, or snake bit … you’d think that, with a helicopter, deputies and bloodhounds, they’d have spotted a body out there … if it was out there. I know it’s a big damn place, the glades, but the way you described the cell tower hits, seems to narrow it down to maybe thirty square miles.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but that’s still a lot to cover, and much of it is swampy, heavy with a lot of old growth cypress trees with thick canopies of limbs. Makes it hard to see from the air, and difficult to get to on the ground. Could be that Thaxton is injured, a broken leg maybe, and he can’t walk back to his truck.”

  Dave nodded. “Unless he managed to crawl into some kind of natural clearing, he’d be hard to spot.”

  I mentioned that an old colleague of mine from Miami-Dade PD, now with Collier County, spoke with Jessica Thaxton. She told him that Joe was using his drone to shoot aerial video of the glades and its water levels. “Between that gear and what he was packing with water and soil testing equipment, that’s even more material for searchers to spot from the air and ground. Something is not making sense … as if he vanished.”

  Nick said, “Somebody could have stuck a gun in his back and took him hostage in a separate vehicle, even a helicopter if they had the dough.”

  Dave stood behind his bar and nodded. “You might be on to something, Nick. The big money Thaxton’s up against can afford their own damn rocket to shoot Thaxton to Mars if they want to.” Dave stirred his drink. He looked beyond the transom to boat lights reflecting off the dark water. “Thus far, Joe Thaxton has definitely been a burr under the saddle of powerful farming interests, but to my knowledge he hasn’t made any personal or direct accusations against those in charge. He hasn’t named names in connection to possible culpable or willful and woeful negligence in terms of water pollution. If, as Nick suggests, he disappeared like Jimmy Hoffa did, then that will speak volumes … but there will be no dead body, meaning no proof of murder.”

  I said, “Thaxton doesn’t have to name names. He’s zeroed in on an industry that, for the most part, has been off-limits to political criticism and restrictive economic sanctions. It’s as if a sacred cow has been grazing for miles on land with no fences. Thaxton’s assertions that the sugar subsidies should end thus putting the industry on an even playing field in terms of regulations is probably enough to anger the growers. If he doesn’t win the election, his rhetoric goes away. But is that a chance these people will take?”

  My phone bu
zzed. I pulled it out of my pocket, looked at the screen, and answered. Cory Gilson said, “We found Joe Thaxton’s backpack and what appears to be controls to an aerial drone.” Cory’s voice faded, his cell signal weak.

  FIFTY

  I moved from Gibraltar’s salon to the open cockpit and said, “Cory, you’re fading out. Can you hear me?”

  “Yes. Sounds like you’re shouting, Sean.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Still in the glades. We’re calling it a night because a ground fog off the water is making in next to impossible to see ten feet in front of you. We’ll resume at daybreak.”

  “Where’d you find Thaxton’s things?”

  “About three miles from where we located his truck. No sign of him, though. Before it got too damn dark and foggy, one of my deputies discovered what appears to be blood on the ground near his backpack and drone console. Our forensics guy bagged it. He’ll run an analysis.”

  “Does it look like Thaxton was shot?”

  “All we found was the blood. Not much of it. Maybe three spots the size of dimes. If Thaxton was shot, it looks like he might have been trying to put some distance between him and the shooter. If it was a deer hunter, and if it was an accident, nobody’s stepped up to the plate to report it. In my book, that’s like a hit-and-run.”

  “You mentioned that you found his drone controls … how about the drone itself. Did you find it?”

  “No. No sign of that. If he was flying the drone at the time he was shot, the thing could have flown off to Timbuctoo. If Thaxton was shot, maybe he tried to make it to Alligator Alley to flag down a motorist to get him to the hospital.”

  “If he had the strength to do that, why didn’t he call for help on his phone?”

  “Could have been because he was bleeding out, like a deer that’s gut shot. He may not have been thinking straight. Probably running from the direction of the bullet. But the biggest reason is because it’s hard to get a clear cell signal out here. We’ll be back at it in the morning. Looks like your missing person’s report has taken a hell of a turn for the worst. When I call his wife, I wish I could give her hope … but that’s where my eternal optimistic approach collides with the reality of a bad situation. Get some sleep, Sean. You sound like you just finished a marathon.”