The Orchid Keeper: A Sean O'Brien Novel

by Tom Lowe

  “That’s not good enough. You’re the sheriff. At least for now.” He disconnected and called his most powerful client for the authority he needed to do what must be done. After that he’d call Michael Fazio and schedule another meeting.

  • • •

  Wynona couldn’t remember the last time she’d made as many calls in a brief period of time. She sat at her desk in the tribal police department, scratching notes on a yellow legal pad, marking through names and numbers, circling some. She’d worked her way through every BMW dealership on the east and west coasts of Florida. There were plenty of black SUVs in the service departments getting everything from an oil change to engine overhauls. But no one had repaired a cracked oil pan.

  She called repair shops that specialized in servicing BMWs, Mercedes, and Jaguars—expensive cars. Nothing. Her final call of the day was to a BMW dealer that had recently changed locations, buying a larger property with an expanded showroom. She was transferred to the service manager’s phone. When it connected, she heard, “This is Rusty Davidson, service manager.” Then there was a pause.

  Wynona said, “Mr. Davidson, my name’s Detective Wynona Osceola with the Seminole Police Department—”

  The voice continued. “I’m away from the phone, but your call is important to us. Please leave a detailed message, and I’ll call you back as soon as I can. Thank you.”

  At the beep, Wynona pursed her lips and said, “Mr. Davidson, my name is Detective Wynona Osceola. I’m with the Seminole Police Department. We are looking for some help, actually. Recently a BMW, we believe it’s one in the X series, black, probably all-wheel-drive. It was last seen in the Everglades and there was smoke coming from the vehicle. Maybe it had a cracked oil pan. We’re hoping you made the repairs or are repairing the car. Please call me. It’s urgent.” She left her number and said, “Thank you.”

  Wynona picked up her pen, putting a check mark next to the name of the dealership and then writing down the name of the service manager … Rusty Davidson. She leaned back and shifted her eyes over to a single orchid she had in a small ceramic pot on her desk. It was one of the orchids that Sean had given her—lavender and white blossoms. She thought about him, wished he were here to go to dinner. To talk. To simply be near her. Her head pounded and a slight wave of nausea moved up into her throat.

  • • •

  Michael Fazio, dressed in a tight-fitting black T-shirt, shorts and soft-leather loafers, sat at the bar in the rec room inside his complimentary ground-floor level condo. The rec room featured a top of the line Brunswick pool table, large-screen TV, overstuffed chairs and two couches. Music pulsed from hidden speakers, Bob Seger singing Night Moves.

  Fazio used a credit card to make two short lines of cocaine on the top of the bar. He reached into a small crystal bowl and lifted out a plastic straw trimmed short, about three inches. He placed the straw in his right nostril, pushed a finger against the side of the other nostril, leaned forward and snorted the drug.

  He did the same thing in his left nostril, sat straight, his hands tapping the bar like he was playing the drums. He picked up his laptop computer from the adjacent barstool and went online, his fingers pounding the keyboard. “What the shit …” Fazio mumbled. He re-entered his account information and got the same results. “Better not have cheated me, ass wipes.” He lowered the top to the laptop and pinched his nose, eyes dilated, jawline hard.

  He picked up his phone and made the call. When the man answered, Fazio said, “Santiago, where the hell is the second half of the money you owe me? It was supposed to have been deposited in the Caymans account two days ago.”

  Simon Santiago stood on the balcony of his high-rise condo overlooking the Atlantic, a white cruise ship returning from the Bahamas. He said, “I was about to call you.”

  “Heard that before.”

  “Chill, all right. We’ve never cheated you. You’re actually in luck.”

  “Don’t play me, dude.”

  “Listen! Okay? I spoke to my client. He spoke to his cartel. We have the go ahead to nip all of this shit in the bud.”

  “What is this shit?” Fazio stood from his barstool, pacing.

  “The extenuating problems stemming from the removal.”

  “Problems? What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

  “Somebody saw you out there. A witness—”

  “No way! Give me a break. Nobody saw shit—”

  “Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna retain your services for more work. The price will remain the same. By this time tomorrow you will have one half deposited in the Caymans account. The rest when the job is done.”

  “Who is the lamb?”

  “There may be more than one. You know I never discuss those specifics over the phone. Meet me at the same restaurant tomorrow at one o’ clock. I’ll have my table reserved. After these are dispatched, my client has agreed to have you flown out of the country to Argentina … Buenos Aires. They have a large ranch and other properties down there. You’ll have your own hacienda for a few months ‘till this shit has faded away. It needs to happen quickly.”

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  The next morning, I met Dave and Nick for breakfast at a corner table in the Tiki Bar, Max leading the way across the restaurant as we arrived, Dave and Nick just taking their seats. Flo came around from the bar with three laminated menus in her hands. She smiled and said, “I can’t remember the last time all four of you were in here for breakfast, and I’m including Max because she has her one scrambled egg on a paper plate, and she never leaves a mess.”

  “I do,” Nick said, grinning. “But, since your food is so good, I leave nothin’ on my plate, just like my gal pal, Max.”

  “Nick, you get a pass. Y’all have a look at the menus. Lisa will be over in a few minutes to take your orders.” She smiled and left, greeting a family of tourists that just walked in, their pink faces glowing.

  Dave said, “If Charlie’s cooking, I’m ordering the stone crab omelet.”

  Lisa, a college-aged girl in a blonde ponytail, took our orders and filled mugs with steaming black coffee. I brought Dave and Nick up to speed with the investigation. I told them how my former colleague, Detective Cory Gilson, seemed quick to push for manslaughter charges and how that was bothering me. “When I knew Cory, he’d hold out until all the evidence was available. He hated to lose and wanted to give the prosecutor everything he had to win for the victim and the family.”

  “Sounds like the guy is overworked,” Nick said. “Too many cases. People on opioids causing all kinds of crime. Collier County is a damn big county. He’s got people cookin’ meth out in the sticks, the huge influx of seasonal tourists, and homeowners in the mix. Joe Thaxton’s death is probably one he’d like to see in his rearview mirror, if he’s got the physical evidence that points to this guy, Moffett, the dude they’ve questioned.”

  Dave sipped his coffee and said, “But knowing Wynona, the last place she wants to look is in her rearview mirror. She wants this thing in her high beams and driving straight for it. I concur with her. She’s got a witness who saw a person of interest retreating from the glades like the proverbial bat out of hell. What’s he running from or to? Who the hell is he, and what was he doing in the glades?”

  “We’re hoping the tire tread cast will answer questions if Wynona can find the BMW.”

  “Good luck with that,” Nick said, leaning back in his chair.

  Dave nodded. “That won’t be easy. The death of Joe Thaxton, if it was murder, is one of those unique cases where there is more than enough ample evidence to convict a convicted felon. Most of the time, detectives are thrilled to find small clues, such as carpet fiber, skin cells under the victim’s fingernails, a trace of blood. But that’s not the situation here. Lots of physical and forensics evidence. The possible perpetrator, Moffett, has no alibi because he’s there in the swamps allegedly hunting deer. Rather than prove a case, it’s as if Wynona has to disprove one that the sheriff is building so she can t
ruly get the right guy.”

  Nick sipped his coffee. “I got a ton of respect for Wynona. But man, she’s up against some big obstacles, and Thaxton’s followers are anxious for somebody to be charged with his killing.”

  “No doubt,” Dave said. “They’d like to see a head on a spike.”

  “I’m helping Wynona,” I said.

  “You are?” asked Dave.

  “Actually, I agreed to help Jessica Thaxton … well, sort of agreed. She saw me at Joe’s funeral, after the church service. Wynona and I didn’t go to the cemetery. It was later that day when Jessica called and asked me to help because she doesn’t want to see the wrong person charged with the death, and she’s afraid it’ll turn into a cold case.”

  Dave exhaled and looked toward the kitchen. He turned toward me. “Sean, where are you going to begin? You don’t even know if the guy that Chester Miller saw in the glades was out there to dump a body from a separate killing. You told us that, when you worked with Miami-Dade PD, the glades were where a lot of contract killers dropped bodies for two reasons—it’s a million-and-half acres, and the swamps have a way of decomposing human remains quickly.”

  • • •

  Chester Miller leaned over a microscope in his workshop and examined pollen on a slide. He did the same thing with another slide, sitting on a wooden stool at his rustic work bench and writing notes on three-by-five index cards. He paused to sip sweet tea from a canning jar when Callie stuck her head in the open door. “Grandpa, I’m riding into Naples to buy a small storage drive. I’m almost out of room on my other two drives. Shooting pictures and video takes a lot of space. But the good news is I’m just about done. The new website will be so cool when it’s live.”

  The old man turned around on his stool and smiled, sunlight streaming through two windows near him, a dozen tall orchids in clay pots. “Tell me this … how in the world does something digital be called live? I can see it with plants, mammals, humans, even with our stubborn Persephone on her perch in the tree. She’s alive, just slow to develop. But how is a website live, or for that matter, how is anything on the world wide web live unless it’s a live event streaming?”

  Callie grinned. “A website going live is just a figure of speech. I’m not sure, but I think it was a phrase coined in the wild west days of the Internet, before I was born.”

  “Oh, so last century.” He chuckled. “While you’re in town, young lady, can you pick up a few groceries? I’ll make a list. You can add to it if you want. I know you have a sweet tooth.” Chester used a lined index card to write out a short list of grocery items. He signed a check, removed it from a checkbook and gave it to Callie. “I left the amount blank. Try not to buy out the store, okay?” He gave her the check.

  “Okay. You know me, Grandpa. I’m fiscally responsible.”

  “I’d have to agree with that.” He stood, reached for his cane, and went outside with Callie, walking over to her car. “You drive safe. I’ll see you in a few hours.” He glanced at the Persephone orchid in the cypress tree. “You think our website will go live before we see live blossoms on our shy goddess up there?”

  Callie laughed. “Don’t take me wrong, Grandpa, but you’ve been waiting more than fifteen years for that one to bloom. I was just out of diapers when you started your vigil … your Persephone watch. I know you’ve grown some of the world’s most beautiful and rare orchids in that time, but nothing is as stubborn as our friend in the tree.”

  “You too, Callie, had a rather stubborn streak at one time in your life. For the most part, you grew out of it. I think our indomitable lady in the tree will do the same.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “For the most part, I did grow out of it. If I have one smidgeon of stubbornness in my body, though, I get it from you.” She hugged him and got in her car, windows rolled down. “Are you doing any replanting in the glades or Big Cypress today?”

  “No. I’m going to be here all day. I set today aside to do research and pollination.”

  “When I leave, do you want me to lock the gate? If you’re working inside the lab or greenhouse, maybe you don’t want to be disturbed.”

  “You can swing it shut, but you don’t need to lock it. If it’s dark or getting dark when you return, I don’t want you to have to use your headlights to unlock the chain. If we get a customer, maybe they’ll blow their horn, and I’ll grab my cane and come as fast as a three-legged man can walk. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  Joe Billie pulled his ten-year-old, black Chevy truck into his hardpacked dirt driveway next to his Airstream trailer, parked and got out. The bed of the truck was loaded with palm fronds he’d cut deep in the wilderness on property east of Inverness, Florida, near the Withlacoochee River. It was land that, two-hundred years earlier, Seminole leader Osceola used as his last refugee from U.S. Army soldiers. Billie felt a peace there, often eating his lunch atop an earthen mound left behind centuries ago by the Calusa, a race of people long extinct from Florida.

  In his mid-fifties, Billie stood over six feet, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt. He was thick in the chest, olive skin face, with creases around the eyes from spending most of his life outdoors in the sunlight. His shoulder-length hair, gray mixed with the black, was pulled back in a ponytail. He leaned over the truck panel and picked up a machete that was wedged between the palm fronds and the interior side of the truck.

  Walking to his front door, he could sense the recent presence of a visitor. Maybe it was one of his fish-camp neighbors. He looked down at the soil. No visible tracks. Nothing looked disturbed. The garden appeared as he’d left it a week ago. The chair near the door had not been moved. And then he saw the paper sticking out of the doorframe. Billie removed and read it. The note was from Sean O’Brien, requesting that he call him. Billie unlocked his door, walked inside the trailer, finding his phone on the kitchen counter. He looked at the screen. Dead. He plugged a charger wire into the base of his phone and set it in the corner.

  • • •

  Returning from Naples, Callie Hogan slowed her car as she approached the entrance to her grandfather’s gravel driveway. She glanced in the rearview mirror, the last deep orange tinges of sunset in the west behind the jagged tree line. She put on her turn signal even though there was no car behind her, turning off the Tamiami Trail onto to the driveway. She drove a few feet, stopping to open the gate she’d closed but not locked six hours earlier.

  The gate’s open.

  She played back the conversations with her grandfather. She didn’t recall him saying he was leaving the property.

  Are you doing any replanting in the glades or Big Cypress today?

  No. I’m going to be here all day. I set today aside to do research and pollination.

  Callie licked her lips, turned on the car’s headlights in the murky darkness as twilight descended over the cypress and oak trees, a full moon rising in the east. She drove across the entrance, stopped her car and got out. She closed the gate, locking it. A mosquito whined in her face, the deep-throated bellow of a frog coming from the canal that ran alongside the paved highway, the heat of the day quickly fading.

  She got back in her car and drove down the gravel road, her headlights raking across the trees and orchids Grandpa had planted through the years along both sides of the driveway. There was a movement up ahead, near the first bend in the drive. A young deer stood and stared into the lights, the deer jumped over two orchids and was lost in the veil of darkness.

  Callie turned the car radio off, the rock music suddenly distractive, almost alien in the primal environment. She kept both hands on the wheel, the sound of gravel and small sticks under her tires. For some unknown reason, her heart beat a little faster. There was no real reason for her to be anxious. Maybe her grandfather had gone somewhere and left the gate open for her when he returned. Maybe he’d had a customer.

  She drove the last fifty yards as the driveway made its final twist and led to the compoun
d. Her grandfather’s truck seemed to be exactly where it was parked before she left. But something didn’t feel right. She realized there were no lights on in the cabin. Grandpa always turned on the flood lights when she was coming home after dark to make it easier for her to park and see around her car. Not tonight.

  But there were lights coming from the greenhouse.

  She parked and got out, putting her purse strap over her shoulder, leaving the grocery bags in the car. “Grandpa!” She waited, the only sound coming from cicadas in the woods. “Grandpa!” Nothing. She put her car keys in her purse, leaving the headlights on as she walked down the gravel path to the greenhouse. The door was partially ajar. She reached for the handle and opened the door. “Grandpa … are you in here?”

  No response.

  She entered, quickly looking at the length of the long greenhouse. Some of the LED grow lights were on, casting shadows among the hundreds of orchids. She couldn’t see her grandfather anywhere. She walked down the center aisle, toward the workbench where he’d labor to cross-pollinate plants.

  Her heart beat faster, the heady scent of the flowers was thicker than usual, less perfumed and now muskier. It was an odd odor. Something she had never smelled in the greenhouse before now. Callie knew that dogs can smell fear from other animals and even humans. Could flowers—orchids do the same thing? It was as if they’d secreted pheromones of distress, the heavy collective smell of gloom … maybe death.

  She spotted his hand first. It was clenched in a fist. Just visible on the floor in a short aisle leading to the workbench. “Grandpa!” She ran the rest of the way, stopping to look down at her grandfather’s body lying on the old wooden floor.

  Callie froze. She held her hand to her mouth. She couldn’t speak. She stared at her grandfather’s body, his eyes open, face ashen, a dark stain of blood near his heart, soaked into his khaki shirt. Finally, her vocal cords opened. At the top of her lungs, she released a long, primal scream.