by Karen Harper
“Let’s go this way. Yes, Brit has a brother she doesn’t get along with and vice versa. Different goals in life, some of the usual sibling rivalry, I guess,” she told them, hoping that was the extent of it. Jace really cared for Brit, and she’d hate to have his future wife upset by not only losing her father but having to continually deal with an embittered brother.
Claire had to admit she was disappointed in the let’s-understand-and-forgive-Lane letter, but she’d told Nick that she’d never seen a so-called suicide note that was so difficult to deal with. First, that it was printed so she couldn’t compare it to what was called a “standard” script handwritten document by Ben, since Ann had only been able to show her Ben’s cursive writing.
Second, its ending was vague. Had Ben just been worried about their retirement finances, or did he really mean to kill himself, hoping his death looked like an accident so Ann and Brit could use his insurance policy? Had he meant to leave a more specific suicide note and that one was a draft? Had he finished it? Why hadn’t he signed it? This entire Tiger Cage Case was going everywhere and nowhere.
“Oh, look, so cute, Heck,” Gina was saying, tugging him back toward a table where an artist was drawing caricatures of people who were lined up to pose. The sketches he had displayed were simple pen and ink, but they captured the essence of his subjects.
“Listen, you two,” Claire told them, “I see the woman I want to talk to over there, and it might work better if I did it alone. But, Heck, just keep an eye on me, okay? If I put a hand on top of my head, come on over.”
“Sure. Sí. Nick said to watch you close. Guess this is close enough. He said if two big lugs come around, time for you to leave.”
Claire thanked them both and headed for the booth that did not need a sign. Its frame was draped with lovely, multihued orchids, most in wire baskets lined with sphagnum moss. If the plants weren’t in baskets, they dangled from what looked to be colored strings or fishing line strung from post to post. Swaying in the breeze, they looked so lovely, so innocent. Some were shaped like butterflies, others like dancers, slippers or even spiders. Claire waited while Gracie made a sale to two women who each walked away with a plant.
“I know who you are,” Gracie Cobham said, folding her thin arms over her flat chest. “Don’t have your friend tiger-girl with you, I hope.”
“Hello, Mrs. Cobham,” Claire said, trying to sound calm and even cheery. “No, I’m here with two other friends.”
“So you are friends with her.”
The word her dripped venom. Claire didn’t want the conversation to go that way. Those sharp blades her sons had were only to cut up dead possums, but she could yet recall the glint of them in the sun.
Claire plunged on. “I was delighted to hear there was to be an orchid display here, and what a coincidence it would be yours. You see, we just installed a tall fence around our backyard, and I could use some advice and some plants to soften the effect.”
“Glad to help,” she said, her wrinkled face softening a bit. “You just remember one thing. Orchid plants are not fragile and delicate, like they seem. Sure, they got to be treated right to bloom, but they are tough and strong.”
As she said that, she put both hands on her hips. Was she talking about orchids or herself? This woman was more clever—more tough and strong—than she had seemed to Claire at first.
“I see,” she told Gracie. “I really do see.”
“Good. Thunder was raised up with all kinds of orchids just outside his cage so he’d be calm and not riled. Fetched them in and out of my greenhouse every day for him. I bragged on him too much, and the park rangers come and took him—said that BAA cage was bigger and better for him.”
“I’m sorry. I know you tended and loved him.”
“How ’bout we can make some kind of deal,” she said, glancing in both directions as if they were about to commit espionage. “Free orchids—real pretty native ones I grow myself, since it’s been years the Glades orchids are off-limits—and you convince that girl at the BAA to feed my boy more possums.”
Claire wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “Perhaps something can be worked out, but I think Brittany learned in her college studies of wild animals that carcasses like that can transmit diseases to an animal.”
Gracie cussed under her breath and spit on the grass. Darn, just when she thought they might be coming to an understanding, this wasn’t going well again.
“There’s a natural curse on folks what mistreat animals,” Gracie said. “See what happened to the owner of that place? Wasn’t Thunder’s fault he went in that cage.”
“No one at the BAA is blaming Thunder. Now, it’s so exciting to think that your orchids originally came from the Glades.”
“Used to be able to just take them, before the fancy State of Florida laid down laws in the ’50s about don’t touch. The gov’ment thinks it can run our lives, you know. But I had a lot of orchids by then, was breeding and growing my own. Here. Here’s some you might want for your fence.”
Gracie came around the table and proceeded to point out and describe orchids, some with unusual names like Shadow Witch. “Now off-limits,” she put in. “Them gold and white with the purple tongue are butterfly orchids, and that big one’s a Cowhorn, and you can see why with those two big, curved stems. Now this one here’s a spider orchid, rare even by the ’50s, but its red and yellow stripes always made me want to call it a tiger orchid.”
“They’re amazing. I can see why you’ve spent years growing them—saving them, if they’re endangered now.”
She nodded and seemed to sniff back tears, though she still looked steely-eyed. “Just like I was trying to save Thunder ’fore he got off-limits. And someone done paid for that.”
* * *
Stan drove a swamp buggy—a really nice one with a camouflage exterior—and Nick sat beside him while Grant and Bronco sat in the back.
“Proud to say we have our own taxidermy shop here, run by a really talented guy,” Stan told them as he gestured toward a good-sized wooden building.
“Always wanted to see how that was done,” Nick said. “I suppose you do mostly gators.”
“Some deer and wild boar too,” Stan said, “though I think our ‘artist in residence’ longs for something bigger.”
“Let’s stop for a minute and let them meet Drew,” Grant suggested, so Stan U-turned and parked at the back of the building. An air conditioner not only sat there but was running on this cool day. The building had quite an extension out the back, but it had no windows.
They got out and tramped around in front. Rather than just going in, Stan knocked. “Drew Hewitt, like I said, is an ‘artiste,’ but I can’t argue with the great work he does. We cut him some slack, lots of perks to keep him here rather than where he’d like to be doing exotic game.”
A slender man with wispy blond hair and pale blue eyes—maybe in his forties—answered the door and, after introductions, gestured them in. “And what trophies shall we preserve for you gentlemen?” he asked. His voice was gentle and a bit high-pitched, almost like a girl’s. Nick reminded himself never to stereotype people, since he’d expected some big, strong guy who could heft animals around, skin them, mount them.
Except for the sharp smell, it was like a gallery in here, only with mounted heads staring from the walls instead of framed art. “Polyester resin scent,” Drew told them as he pointed out some of the projects he was working on. Creepy, yet the end results were amazing.
Bronco was fascinated by the gator mounts, especially the ones with open jaws jammed full of terrible teeth. “Glad I never got snagged by one of those when we were hunting,” he told Nick.
“So, more of these in your big back room?” Bronco asked.
“Strictly storage and a state-of-the-art freeze dryer, a new trend in preservation. It absolutely mummifies small animals, often used for pets because it keeps the features
and form intact. I do some household pets on the side, but those clients never come here—I go to them.”
“Couldn’t quite afford someone this talented if I didn’t let him moonlight a bit,” Stan added after they thanked Hewitt and went out to the swamp buggy. “Though we have well-heeled guests here, the upkeep of this much land and our accommodations is expensive, so we’re always grateful to nature preservationists like Grant who underwrite us.”
* * *
“You did what?” Heck said as he and Gina helped Claire carry armfuls of hanging orchid pots to the car. “Boss ain’t—isn’t—gonna like that.”
“It’s my job to psych people out. She’s eccentric, she’s upset, but I trust her. I insisted on paying her for these. And yes, I told her where we live, and she’s coming out next week to bring some other orchids and help me arrange these.”
“Caramba, wait till he hears Gina and me was getting our caricature done when you did that.”
“I can explain to him. Now, let’s get back. We’ll just hang some of these on the fence before the kids arrive. The scuba diver friend of Darcy’s is coming early. Several of the parents are coming too, because I think this is going to be a great lesson for everyone. The responsible parents—like Duncan’s mother, Marta—will learn the hand signals too. Talk about endangered orchids. Those kids still can be too.”
Gina turned around in the front seat to face Claire as they pulled out of the parking lot of a nearby elementary school. “It’s true. I think it is so great what you are trying. The whole family suffers when one of the kids is sick. And home violence is worse than being sick. I’m glad some of the parents are coming today. I will stay and help. You helped me, you believed in me, and it kept me going when we had to leave Cuba. I am on your side even if Nick, he gets upset.”
“Thank you for that vote of confidence, Gina. We women know how to stick together and support each other, wherever we come from, whatever our ages or crazy passions—like tigers and orchids.”
Claire saw Heck shake his head and knew he was thinking Nick would be upset with him and her. But she was being careful. Nick had hired her in the first place for her good instincts and people-savviness. She’d finessed a bad start with Bronco. Things were much better between her and Jace. She felt sure of herself right now, carrying this baby she was so excited about. Tough and strong, like Gracie’s orchids.
15
Jace landed the plane, grabbed a late lunch and headed for the BAA. He wanted to see how Ann and Brit were doing, but he had to talk to Brit alone after her morning meltdown. He could accept she’d be emotionally strung out with all she’d been through. But she’d said she’d gone to see Stan Helter and had been hiding that from him—maybe from Ann too. She’d been too distraught for him to have it out with her this morning.
He found her at the tiger cage, alone on a bench, eating a granola bar, just staring—maybe glaring—at the cage where Tiberia seemed content to sit and yawn, then put his head down on his big paws to doze. Not a care in the world, that natural killer.
“I can’t believe you’re here now,” Brit greeted him, sliding over so he could sit.
He didn’t hug or kiss her, but threw one arm on the back of the bench behind her shoulders and crossed one ankle on the other leg, with his knee almost touching her.
“Too preoccupied to fly this afternoon.”
“You? After your Middle East battles, the war you’ve been through?”
“Are we at war now, Brit?”
“What?” She turned to face him. Her lids were swollen and her eyes red-rimmed. She sounded stuffed up. “What are you talking about? I need your help and support and—”
“Then tell me the rest about the battle plans you must have cooked up for keeping this place afloat. Undercover bargaining with the enemy?”
“Okay, okay. I met Stan Helter on neutral ground, at the Cracker Barrel near the I-75 entrance to Alligator Alley.”
“Without your parents’ knowledge? Or mine. Obviously, it was before the tragedy.”
“Yes, it was a few days before Dad died. But I could tell he was so worried about finances, about losing the BAA. It was my parents’ dream as well as mine. So I figured I could make a long-term deal with Stan Helter. He would agree to own the place, because the land deed was in my name, so they wouldn’t have to sign or even know. But Helter would have to promise not to control or absorb the land into the ranch until both of my parents were retired or—or gone. It sounded so good on the surface. I could tell them I got a research grant with the money, dole it out so it didn’t look like so much. He was agreeable—he offered a lot, but then, since Dad died soon after...”
She sucked in a big breath and blinked back tears. “I realize now I might have—might have made a mistake trusting Helter. What if he was afraid Dad would find out or make me renege on the deal?”
“And why, since Helter has so much land already, is he so set on owning this fairly small piece? Just because it sits up a little higher here than his water lands? I realized after I did a flyover that might be it. But what I really want to know is did the bastard want you to go beyond meeting at a family restaurant and sign on the secret dotted line to settle this deal?”
“You—you mean his reputation with women? I’ve seen women being driven into the ranch, but they’re staff who clean and cook, so I’ve heard. No, he didn’t make that kind of move. But didn’t you hear me? What if Helter decided to make sure that he only had to bargain with me—and not deal with Dad—by harming him? And that would be absolutely my fault—like I gave him that fatal shove.”
He’d figured she was guilt-ridden over her final fight with her father, but he felt pain too for the same reason. Could Brit’s argument with Ben, then his right after that, have triggered the man’s suicide? Ben became such a different person when he drank that who knew what he could plan or do?
He hugged her sideways to him. “Brit, don’t torture yourself like this. As for the Helter-as-killer theory, you mean he flew over the fence, shoved Ben in, then flew back over the fence, actually two tall fences?”
“That’s it—I mean, that’s the catch, one of the holes in my theory. I just pray Dad didn’t know I went behind his back, that Helter didn’t tell him and cause him to step into that cage to get the insurance money so I wouldn’t sell to Helter. Dad had to have done it himself in that case, but I still think Helter could have triggered it somehow. Maybe the fact I was so—so desperate to keep this place at any cost scared Dad. I didn’t tell Mother, I didn’t tell anyone—but now you...”
She dropped her half-eaten granola bar on her lap, covered her face with both hands and sobbed so hard she shook him too when he put both arms around her.
* * *
Though Claire was only able to quickly hang a few of the orchids along the fence before the Comfort Zone kids arrived, she loved the look of it, the way it softened the area and seemed to draw the foliage from the empty lot behind their property inward. But she had little time to admire it since she had to greet their scuba diver guest and speaker, Sean Armstrong. He looked to be in his late twenties, a tall blond with spiky hair and a friendly face.
“So any of these signs you want me to emphasize with the kids?” he asked as he sat in a lounge chair by the pool to unpack his gear. “Here, a list of them with sketches.”
She studied the laminated plastic sheet he handed her. So many of them, so it would be best to select just a few. Standard Diving Hand Signals, they were called. “Since these are at-risk kids,” she told him, “we definitely want the signals that indicate distress or ‘I need help.’”
“Okay. That would include the wagging finger one for ‘something is wrong.’ Also the big arm sweep for ‘distress’ or ‘help.’”
“Good. ‘Come here’ and the ‘watch me’ ones could be useful too. If you have time, maybe this double-pointed hand one that means, ‘you lead, I’ll f
ollow.’ I told you several of the parents, foster parents or caregivers will be here, so keep that in mind if you mention circumstances where children might need help.”
“Got it. Will do. This is a good idea about silent signals for abused or endangered kids. You ought to write it up or post it online or something like that.”
“Well, let’s see how it goes first.”
Darcy arrived with two of the children who did not have an adult coming, and with Jilly and Lexi, who ran inside to change into their swimsuits. Claire was glad to see that Marta had come with Duncan, who was already eyeing the pool and talking to Sean about trying on his mask.
“I wish I had a mask to hide sometimes,” Claire overheard him confide to Sean. But she could tell the boy felt safe here. For once, he didn’t keep glancing around as if looking for someone.
When everyone had arrived, Gina and Heck came back to the pool from greeting the guests.
“I wish Nick was here to see this,” Claire told them.
Heck rolled his eyes. “I s’pose him and Bronco’ll be back soon from the Trophy Ranch. Hope he doesn’t have my head for a trophy when he hears the old tiger woman’s coming here. She say when? What if she shows up during this lesson, now that she has your address?”
“Heck, calm down,” Claire told him. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to have Gracie on our territory instead of the other way around. And nothing bad happened.”
Heck nodded, but it annoyed her that he rolled his eyes again, as if he was expecting something to go wrong. She left him to Gina and hurried back to the edge of the pool to help keep an eye on the kids.
* * *
After a great brunch served in the lodge, Bronco, Nick, Grant and Stan ventured out over what Stan jokingly called “the back forty”—vast grasslands, swamps and glades. They saw animals, sometimes spooking them to move or even groups of them to stampede. But they stopped at a sign that said STAY OUT.
“What’s so special about the land beyond this sign?” Nick asked, lifting himself out of his seat to survey it in the bright, crisp October air.
