As Roger was putting out the lookout for the retired cop, Sam began to slowly go through the photographs that he just scanned into his computer. It was interesting to watch the changes in hair styles, clothes and expressions on the faces of these college frat boys down through the ages. When he got to the period where he once again saw Anderson’s father, he studied the photos even closer. The only thing that was different about the four black men in the photos was that only three of the four had smiles on their faces in the different group photos. The fourth man never smiled. Sam wondered why.
In a photo taken in the largest room, Sam noticed something in the background and he used the magnification program on his computer to blow up the area in question. There was without a doubt yet again another orchid sitting in a vase all by itself on a corner table. Why were these orchids both in these photos and at the scenes of the murders?
He decided to begin to look more deeply into the orchid and see if he could find some meaning to the flower that was either hidden or of obvious meaning. For this kind of research, the internet’s search engines were perfect. At first Sam was overwhelmed by the number of different varieties of orchids and gave up trying to distinguish one from the other. He didn’t think that was necessarily what made the orchid a symbol for the murderer. Sam finally stumbled across something that was very interesting.
In Confucian ideology, the orchid was called one of the “four noble plants.” The orchid not only stands for beauty, sophistication, and delicate harmony, but was also compared to the “mind of a noble and cultivated scholar bureaucrat, who had transcended the greed-seeking of the secular world.”
“A noble bureaucrat who transcended the greed-seeking of the secular world?” Sam said out loud. Is there such a thing, Sam wondered. Was a judge a “noble bureaucrat”?
* * * *
“Anderson, there’s something I need to talk to you about,” Jack spoke and the seriousness in his voice pulled Anderson from fussing with the neck of his shirt to staring at his friend.
“I didn’t do it!”
Jack laughed, “Yeah right. But seriously. It’s about your father’s will.”
“What about it?”
“I was the lawyer he used to draw it up—well he had me oversee the other lawyer that did it. Just to make sure things were on the up and up.”
“What? How come you didn’t tell me?”
“Andy, calm down.”
Anderson pressed his eyes shut, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this!”
“Lawyer client privileges,” Jack pleaded. “You know that.”
Anderson was so angry that his head began throbbing slightly. He couldn’t believe his father and his best friend—one of his best friends—would keep something like that from him. But Anderson had to breathe. When his father wanted something, Jazmon tended to get what he wanted.
“There’s something else,” Jack called.
“Sure,” Anderson shrugged his shoulder helplessly. “It was my father. Why wouldn’t there be more?”
“It’s not—your father wants to be with your mother.”
Anderson felt the final betrayal and hung his head. Not only had he lost his father to death—murder—but he was going to lose his father to distance as well. He wouldn’t be able to visit the gravesite of his father like he had planned on doing. He would have to fly a few hours to a tropical country to do it. He felt as though he was alone and that was the most horrible feeling yet. Since his father’s death different emotions flowed through him. It was as though he was on a rollercoaster and he just wanted to get off. He wanted the weight of the world to leave his shoulders. He wanted peace.
Ignore the things that cannot be changed, Andy boy. Keep worrying about them and I’ll have to come visit you in the loony bin.
Byung had given Andy that advice since they were teenagers. Anderson rolled his shoulders and lifted his head. This was one of those things he knew he couldn’t change. He could have just ignored what Jazmon wanted and buried him in New York but then guilt would kill him.
“Andy,” Jack called.
“Yeah?”
“We cool?”
None of this was Jack’s fault. It was a job to him. Anderson smiled—it was a small one but he pushed it forward anyways causing the corners of his mouth to curl slightly. “Yeah, man. We’re cool.”
Jack stepped in for a hug and Anderson returned it. “All right,” Anderson inhaled. “Let’s go do this. Here take my keys and drive would you? I want to get some papers graded on our way.”
“You professors don’t have a social life, right?”
“Not really, no,” Anderson chuckled.
Even though Anderson was on his way down to begin preparations for his father’s funeral, he felt better than he had in a long time. Jack drove while Anderson sat in the passenger seat marking some papers on Homer. He had fallen behind in grading and though he had wanted to badly push from the bed the night before and get on that, Sam was there and he wasn’t about to leave his arms for some papers on some dead guy. He chuckled at that because if his father had heard that, Jazmon would have been furious.
“What’s so funny?” Jack wanted to know.
Anderson grinned but kept his eyes on a sentence that was way too long to be in a third year university student’s paper. “Nothing man,” he lied. “Nothing at all.”
He brought his mind back to the paper, scratching out words in red and adding the right ones above them. He frowned at the misuse of certain words and all that junk but his mind was really on Sam. Last night he had been tender, soft, almost loving and the sad part was Anderson didn’t know if he should read too much into that or none at all. He pressed back into the seat and closed his eyes—Sam was there stroking him as he had the night before and Anderson’s body arched slightly from the seat.
“You’re doing it again,” Jack called.
Anderson’s eyes snapped open and he turned to look at his lawyer and childhood friend. “Doing what?”
“That close your eyes and arched your back thing,” Jack waved a wrist airily. “Like you had some good sex last night and each time you think about it you relive the orgasms over and over.”
That caused Anderson to clutch the papers to his lap and laughed. He laughed so hard he thought tears would seep from his eyes. He watched as Jack sped through an amber light and made it to the next light then stopped. “Yes I did, but it wasn’t sex. It was…it was…” he stopped digging hard to find the real word.
“Orgasmic?”
“Nah, J, that’s not the word. It was more of an out-of-body experience.”
It was Jack’s turn to laugh, “Now who’s being a drama king.”
“I’m serious,” Anderson placed the papers flat in his lap and twisted his body slightly. “It was gentle and rough-- my whole body was just floating and I can’t believe I’m explaining this to you.”
“We’re friends, Andy, relax,” Jack shook his head and Anderson went back to his papers. “Sam Morgan?”
Anderson nodded without looking up. “It’s like—just when I thought it was perfectly all right to hate him he does something like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like last night. He didn’t say anything; all he did was hug me and it was over. There is something wrong there man. I don’t want to read too much into it but how can I not?”
Jack sighed, “All right. Treat it like another booty call.”
“Can’t,” Anderson shrugged his shoulders. “I am getting too old for booty calls. If this doesn’t work out I am over men—done, finito, fin.”
“You said that after Carlos, remember?” Jack reached a hand from the wheel to jab Anderson with a long finger.
“I remember,” Anderson frowned. “The truth is I was sabotaging what Sam and I had—or didn’t have… I didn’t want to feel the way Carlos made me feel again or Jackson or any of the other pricks I had dated over the years.”
Carlos was a bad idea from the start. Anderson knew that
from the get go. He felt that Carlos was no good and though everyone around him told him as much, Anderson simply ignored them all. Carlos as so unlike anyone the professor would date. The man loved his booze and his parties. He loved his little twinks hanging around him eating up his every word. But Anderson was no twink and wouldn’t become one to please anyone. Anderson should have known that Carlos wasn’t being faithful but what could he do? He thought he was in love with the prick. Everything else meant nothing to him at the time. He had missed a few days of school but luckily it didn’t go on for long. Anderson was sent home sick one day from lectures—he didn’t want to leave because he felt that he owed his students. They all told him they didn’t want his cold and that they would love to go early anyways and that he should go home. He had smiled and told them that they won. That little ‘tiff’ placed a smile on his face as he thought that Carlos would come over, take care of him and then Anderson could return the favor in a rather delicious way.
Carlos was home, all right. Carlos was busy when Anderson got home—balls deep in the mailman. In his anger, Anderson had gotten his hockey stick and begun swinging…
“All right, dreamer boy, we’re here,” Jack shook Anderson. “Put the papers on the front seat, grab the rest of your shit and go in there while I go look about your father’s will.”
“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this.”
“Client…”
“Yeah, yeah, confidentiality, blah, blah, blah.”
Anderson walked through the door of the funeral home and instantly felt sick. He never ever wanted to be doing this but someone had made that decision for him. He took the moment to speak with the receptionist who quickly escorted him into an office that looked like death. The wall was painted in a strange kind of blue—it was obvious that someone had tried making the room a little more comforting but hadn’t succeeded. The wooden chairs before the desk for guests only added to the discomfort of the whole place. Anderson sat down and winced but said nothing.
“Mr. Anderson, I am sorry for your loss,” the overly fat man wheezed. “Though we here at Saunders and Ashton are in the death business, it’s always especially hard when someone’s life was taken the way your father’s was. The truth is, we never get used to that.”
If finding a dismembered body was a regular thing, our society would really be in trouble.
Anderson gritted his teeth, willing himself to behave. “Thank you, Mr. Saunders. About my father’s burial, I do not want any expenses spared. He is to have the best.”
The man nodded but with his size he had no neck to be seen so it looked as though he was rocking back and forth, “We will take good care of him. You were saying something about cremating your father. We’d like you to go through these brochures and pick anything you’d like. I myself would recommend this package …”
At that moment Anderson found himself looking at the man and wondering when the last time was that the man had seen his penis. It was a sick thought but his size was not healthy. Forcing himself to turn his mind to the task at hand, Anderson glanced where the man’s chubby finger was jabbing and had to admit, the man had some good taste. He settled for the recommended package. “My father will be cremated and his ashes spread in Jamaica at the same place my mother’s ashes were spread. That’s what he wanted. So please do this carefully.”
With the plans made, Anderson took a moment to see his father one last time. Though he was dismembered, the funeral home had taken great pains to put him back together again. Anderson made a mental note of thanks to the person who had done that and sat beside his father’s freezer. “We’re trying to find who did this, Dad,” Anderson spoke alone in the cold room. “You haven’t exactly made it easy you know. I mean, everything we’ve found so far, well Sam has found so far, leads to more and more questions. Like why Mom never liked Percy and how you became a member of this cult when you were a black man—” Anderson stopped and rubbed his tired eyes. “I miss you, you know. And after this whole thing, I’m going to miss you more because you want to be spread with Mom—all the way down in Jamaica.”
A silence flowed over the room. Anderson needed that time with his father. He needed that space to spill his heart as a form of therapy. What he needed was Sam, to hold him and tell him everything was going to turn out right, that he wasn’t being punished. He glanced at his father one more time and could still hear his father’s voice.
“If you’re going to do something, Andy,” Jazmon smiled and picked up the basketball. “Do it right. It doesn’t make sense to do it halfway and it has to be done over again.”
That bit of life wisdom came after Anderson had tried mowing the lawn for the first time had failed miserably because he wasn’t really paying attention. The older man had then thrown the basketball with practiced ease. Anderson looked up from where he was sitting beside his dead father and watched the ball slide through the net. His jaws dropped even then. It shocked Anderson that his father could do that and since that day, Jazmon was superman.
“But Superman doesn’t die,” Anderson whispered and the silence swallowed him once more.
Anderson walked from the room and grinned at his father who was sitting at the computer and frowning deeply at a case file. “Tadaa!” Anderson called out happily.
His father turned around and removed his glasses. The older Williams stood up and walked to his son. Jazmon fixed Anderson’s tie silently before stepping back. There was something in his eyes and Anderson wondered what it was.
“Prom night,” Jazmon smiled. “I never thought I’d see the day. My boy is all grown up.”
“Dad…”
Jazmon smiled. “But no matter how old you get you’re still my boy,” the older man told him. “Now a few things about prom night. No sex without this…” He dug into his pocket and whipped out a condom.
Anderson eyed it incredulously, “Dad!”
“I’m not a fool, Anderson. I know what happens after the dancing at proms. I was young too once, remember. If your date wants to have sex he can damn well use a condom.”
Anderson’s cheeks burnt but to stop the very scary conversation he took the condom and promised his father that he would be careful. After that Jazmon hugged him and Anderson felt on top of the world. He had graduated the top of his class, with honors and Jazmon was absolutely gushing about it.
When he stepped out the door to his date, Anderson stopped and looked back to see his father at the door waving. That one moment, Anderson wanted to feel what he had felt so many times growing up. He wanted to feel like daddy’s little boy again. Taking a deep breath he took the chance.
“I love you,” Anderson called.
Jazmon smiled and nodded his head, “I love you first,” Jazmon spoke proudly.
That was it. That was what he wanted to hear. It made him feel like his father’s son again—a deeper, truer version.
* * * *
Sam could find nothing else in his internet search that was of any use to him. He got up and refreshed his coffee as Roger was coming back into the office. When he returned, he found his partner talking away on the phone and soon figured out that it was dispatch on the other end.
When he hung up, he looked at Sam and said, “They spotted him on 42nd street but he ducked into some dive and they lost him.”
“Did the suspect know the cops were after him?” Sam asked with a worried look.
“They don’t think so. It was plain clothes that spotted him and they didn’t think he made them. They’ve sent at least another dozen officers into the area to try and pick him up. We’re getting close Sam!” Roger replied with a big smile.
“Why don’t we head down into the area as well? Remember, we got a more than likely armed retired cop that we’re hunting. It could get out of hand easily,” said Sam.
They grabbed a radio and shot out of the office and into their cruiser. With the grill lights flashing and siren wailing, they were off to join the hunt for a “person of interest,” who they fel
t was more than likely a serial killer. The press, in their infinite wisdom, dubbed the murderer “The Orchid Slasher.” Anything to sell newspapers was justifiable in their view.
Trying to get anywhere in New York City with or without a police car was frustrating at best. Cars refused to move aside, buses were unyielding of any territory, and pedestrians all had a secret death wish. But finally, after much work, they arrived in the general vicinity and decided to cruise the area until another sighting came in to dispatch.
When an hour passed, Sam and Roger decided to get lunch at a corner greasy spoon where the food was hot and the prices were right. They walked in and took their seats in a booth and smiled at the waitress when she brought them menus. As Sam was trying to decide between a cheeseburger and a Rueben sandwich, he looked over Roger’s shoulder while asking for an opinion. If he had been drinking something at that moment, he would have sprayed his partner with the liquid from his mouth. There sitting on the opposite side, three booths down was none other than one retired cop from New Haven.
“Roger, you’ll never believe this, but I’m gonna tell ya anyway: our suspect is sitting a matter of a few feet from us at this moment.”
Roger looked up and when he saw that Sam wasn’t joking, he asked, “How do you wanna handle this? A couple of the other booths have people in them as well. The last thing we need is for a bystander to get hurt in a shootout.”
“Well, from what I can tell, he just ordered coffee from the waitress, so we have a few minutes. One booth is leaving now, that leaves one more besides our suspect. Maybe our waitress can be of a little help to us,” Sam replied.
When Thelma came over to take their order, Sam said to her in a low voice, “Now listen Thelma, we’re police. I don’t want anyone else sat in this section. Is there any way for you to move the lady with the two kids sitting two booths back out of here without letting the single male in the opposite booth know anything is going on?”
“I’ll check on that sir, and be right back,” she said.
The Orchid Murders Page 14
