Death of an Orchid Lover

by Nathan Walpow

  [Nathan Walpow] is a hell of a writer!”

  —LEE CHILD, AUTHOR OF KILLING FLOOR, DIE TRYING AND TRIPWIRE

  PRAISE FOR

  Death of an Orchid Lover

  “The second Joe Portugal mystery is as much of a delight as the first. The mystery unfolds as beautifully as the orchids of the title. Walpow transports readers into his fabulous botanical world, populated with quirky characters who the reader will want to spend time with again and again. Death of an Orchid Lover is a winner.”

  —PAUL BISHOP, AUTHOR OF THE FEY CROAKER LAPD CRIME NOVELS

  “With great wit, Nathan Walpow offers up a hothouse of quirky plant-crazy suspects.”

  —JERRILYN FARMER, AUTHOR OF THE MADELINE BEAN MYSTERY SERIES

  “Death of an Orchid Lover is as complex and enthralling as orchids themselves…. Nathan Walpow’s Los Angeles has streets every bit as mean as Raymond Chandler’s, and his way with dry wit and great characters is every bit as original and entertaining as the master’s.”

  —HELEN CHAPPELL, AUTHOR OF THE HOLLIS AND SAM SERIES

  PRAISE FOR

  The Cactus Club Killings

  “Walpow brings the [gardening mystery] genre to the West Coast with short, snappy Chandleresque dialogue.”

  —LOS ANGELES TIMES

  “Crisp and witty dialogue makes a fast-paced read of Nathan Walpow’s spirited first mystery.”

  —ANN RIPLEY, AUTHOR OF MULCH AND DEATH OF A POLITICAL PLANT

  “The book is a delight. Mr. Walpow writes well—clearly, concisely, and with a wonderful subtle sense of humor.”

  —THE MYSTERY READER

  “Walpow has penned a mystery that anyone will find funny and riveting.”

  —THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

  Dell Books by Nathan Walpow

  The Cactus Club Killings

  Death of an Orchid Lover

  For Andrea …

  again and always

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks go out to the membership of the Malibu Orchid Society—especially Brian Derby, Richard Klug, and George Vasquez—and to Rod and Janet Carpenter, for their invaluable help with orchid lore.

  Thank you to the members of the Los Angeles and Internet Chapters of Sisters in Crime for constant support and clear thinking. To Linda Thrasher, without whom Death of an Orchid Lover might still be looking for a title. To Emy de la Fuente Jr., Kevin Burton Smith, and Jerry Wright for Web site stuff. To Alice Fundukian-Anmahouni and Vicken Anmahouni, for aboush.

  And thanks to my agent, Janet Manus, and my editor, Mike Shohl, for doing what they do.

  Thanks to my editor, Mike Shohl, for figuring out what was wrong with this book and showing me how to fix it.

  And special thanks to my agent, Janet Manus, for support and enthusiasm that continually go far beyond the call of duty.

  1

  THE SCENT EVOKED MEMORIES OF MY FATHER AT THE kitchen counter with a hammer and a brown hairy thing.

  “Coconut,” Gina said. “What smells like coconut?”

  The guy who looked like Humpty Dumpty overheard her. He snatched a potful of plant off a table and rushed over. It was a mass of long skinny leaves erupting from bulblike bases. Its flowers, maroon and yellow and about an inch across, resembled old-fashioned airplane propellers with spotted tongues.

  He stuck the thing in Gina’s face. “Maxillaria tenuifolia,” he said.

  “Very nice,” she said. “Would you please get it out of my nose?”

  Humpty’s forehead creased as he considered his faux pas. He pulled the plant back, cradling it against his substantial gut. “I only wanted you to enjoy the fullness of its fragrance.”

  “Which she couldn’t do with leaves in her nostrils,” said Sam Oliver.

  We were at the Palisades Orchid Society’s spring social. Throughout the spacious house overlooking Mulholland Drive, people darted from plant to plant, uttering “oohs” and “ahs” as they alit on one orchid or another. There were plenty for them to alight on. A pot or two on each table, a bunch on shelves near the windows and sliding glass doors. In a corner at least a hundred miniature plants grew under lights on an antique rack.

  Why we were there was Sam, the goateed elder statesman of the Culver City Cactus Club. A friend of his was hosting the event and had insisted he come. Sam—who wasn’t particularly into orchids—had dragged me along. I, in turn, had dragged Gina.

  I took the plant from Humpty. “Is this thing an orchid?”

  His eyes flitted from me to Gina to Sam and back to me again. Then, as plant people are apt to do, he spewed. “It is indeed. Not being orchidists, you probably think orchids all resemble the corsages teenagers wear to proms. But there’s an infinite variety. There are large orchids, small orchids, white orchids, red orchids, orchids of every hue. Except black. There are no black orchids. Not true black, anyway. Oh, some of your growers say they’ve created a black orchid, but it isn’t a true black, just as there isn’t a truly black rose.” He took back the plant, brought it to his nose, took a big whiff. “If you like scented plants you might consider Oncidium Sharry Baby, with a chocolate fragrance. And of course vanilla comes from an orchid, and—but I’m forgetting my manners.” He reached a pudgy hand over to me. “Albert Oberg.”

  “Our host,” Sam said.

  I took the hand. Albert surprised me with a solid grip. I’d expected a mackerel. “I’m Joe Portugal,” I said. “Gina Vela,” said Gina.

  Albert looked to be around sixty, though I suspected his chubby face was hiding a few years. His features were slightly too close together, accentuating his resemblance to one of those stuffed pantyhose dolls. His head sprouted an incongruous mushroom of luxurious blond hair. He was tall as well as round, several inches more than my five-ten, and he had one of the most impressive stomachs I’d ever seen. It wasn’t like a beer belly, suddenly erupting somewhere south of his nipples and hanging off him like he was about due for a cesarean. Instead, it slowly rose just below his shoulders, climbing smoothly to its full rotundity and tapering off equally gracefully, eventually beveling into his stick legs. He didn’t seem to have any room for genitals, but with looks like his, he probably didn’t need them very often.

  To his credit, he wasn’t one of those fat guys who wear size 34 pants by slinging them below their guts. His belt threaded directly across his huge expanse of stomach like a pipeline traversing the Alaskan wilderness. The pants were wide-wale corduroys. A herringbone sport jacket over a pale yellow dress shirt completed the picture.

  “Well, Albert,” I said. “I’m sure these are all fine orchids, and I’m sure there’s a lot of interesting things I could learn about them, but I’m more of a succulent kind of guy.”

  “Succulents?” He said the word like it was an expletive, like I’d told him I collected Nazi war helmets or Charles Manson memorabilia. “Succulents?” He turned to Sam, received a dirty look, came back to me. “What is it about those spiny things that makes them so attractive to some people?”

  “We’ve had this conversation a million times,” Sam said.

  “So we have. Well. Come along, Sam, I want to show you my new eulophia.”

  Sam turned to me. “Coming?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve seen enough eulophias for a while.”

  The two of them wandered off. “What’s a eulophia?” Gina asked.

  “I have no idea. Come on, let’s explore.”

  We walked into the living room, where a group had gathered around a big flameless stone fireplace. They had the look of plant people. Dressed subtly behind the times, with conventional hairstyles and earnest expressions. One pair stood out, a middle-aged woman standing behind an older one in a wheelchair. Each had a moon-shaped face, watery
gray eyes, and a British accent.

  Two guys were discussing fertilizers. One said he liked 1010-10, and the other told him that was fine for growth but not for blooming, and the first said, “Oh, you and your manure.” Mr. Manure retorted by saying a lot of the winners at the Santa Barbara show had been over-potashed.

  I listened awhile, nodding at appropriate places. When a woman wearing a muumuu decorated with Day-Glo hibiscus began haranguing a man in a priest’s collar about tissue culture, I caught Gina’s eye and we moved into the kitchen. There, three or four people were dissecting the cancellation of Ellen. Gina rolled her eyes and went outside to get a snack. I stood near the sink, looking busy fixing myself a Coke. Someone invaded my space. “Hi,” she said. “I think I know you.”

  She was blond, average height, a few years older than my forty-five, with a look of ethereal intensity. She wore a well-tailored lavender blouse and cream-colored pants. She seemed vaguely familiar, but anyone will if you look at them long enough.

  “I’m Laura,” she said.

  “Joe. Wait. I’ve got it. The Altair. Boondale, right?” “That’s it.” We managed a half-assed hug. “How are you?”

  Fifteen or so years before, when I managed the Altair Theater, Laura Astaire—no relation to Fred—had done two shows there. The first, about the decline and fall of a West Virginia coal mining town, was called Last Train to Boondale. It was one of the occasional plays I acted in, portraying Laura’s brother, a ne’er-do-well who ended up getting run over by the eponymous train.

  Laura followed that with a fine turn in the title role in Lysistrata, one of our rare dips into the classics. She’d been an excellent actress. It was a pity that she was mired in the Equity-Waiver scene.

  “I’m good,” I said. “And you? Still acting?”

  “I am. Things have never been better. I did the lead in an Unsolved Mysteries last year.”

  I hadn’t seen her in fifteen years and the best she could come up with was an Unsolved Mysteries? Things couldn’t be that much better.

  “And how is your career going?” she asked.

  “I’m not into acting anymore.”

  “Then what do you do?”

  “I grow cacti and succulents.”

  “For a living? How unusual.”

  “For pleasure.”

  “Then what work do you do?”

  “I kind of make a living doing commercials.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t into acting.”

  “You call commercials acting?”

  “Good point. What does ‘kind of make’ mean?”

  “It means if I didn’t live in my parents’ house I would have to find real work, but since I do, I don’t.”

  “You live with your parents?”

  “No. My mom’s dead. My father lives in another house.” I remembered one of the things I’d most associated with Laura. “You still into est?”

  Back at the Altair I’d suffered a plague of actors who were into pop-psych crazes, of which est was the worst. I couldn’t go an hour without one of them buttonholing me with talk of commitment and intention and keeping your word and the great works of Werner Erhard, the movement’s founder. One show we did, five out of six actors were into the thing.

  I didn’t know if est had survived into the late nineties. It seemed to have been replaced by Scientology as the acting fraternity’s pop-psych drug of choice. Maybe poor Laura here was the last remnant, still spouting commitment and intention, a sad reminder of something deservedly left in the past.

  “No,” she said, to my considerable relief. “I stuck with it for several more years. Then I somehow stopped being involved.”

  “I see. So are you an orchid person now?”

  “I’m becoming one. Isn’t it odd? For half a century I wasn’t at all interested in plants, and now suddenly I’m starting to know about cymbidiums and dendrobiums and all those other -iums.” She looked around. “Too noisy here. Let’s go outside.”

  We passed through a den of sorts, filled with more orchids and featuring a big array of framed diplomas on the wall, like you’d see in a doctor’s office. An open door led us out into the fabulous mid-April day. Up above, a cloudless sky promised a fine growing season. A windstorm the night before had blown away most of the smog, and I got a good view of the mountains, with a smidgen of snow still on their peaks.

  The place was landscaped to the hilt. Mostly tropicals, not the kind of stuff a succulent guy like me generally goes for, but I had to admit it was gorgeous. There were mature palms and huge split-leaf philodendrons. An enormous clump of giant bird of paradise lorded over one corner of the lot. At the far end of the property, an impressive greenhouse sat reflecting the midday sun.

  We stopped in the shade of a big king palm. Unseen speakers played classical music. Several blooming orchids sat on a small wrought-iron table. One had a three-foot stalk with scores of inch-wide yellow and red flowers. The inflorescences on the others were much shorter, with roughly half a dozen blooms apiece.

  Laura reached into her purse, pulled out a pack of Virginia Slims, gracefully lit one. “You really should think about acting again,” she said. “Real acting. Not just commercials.”

  “Oh?”

  “No one ever really stops being an actor.”

  “Is this going to turn into some airy-fairy thing?”

  “No. You were good. I hate to see talent going to waste.”

  “I didn’t have that much talent. Not like you.”

  “Thanks. But I just think you ought to consider—” I smiled and shook my head. “Just drop it, okay? I’m not going back to the stage.”

  She didn’t say any more, but I got the feeling I hadn’t heard the end of the conversation. She reached out and plucked an orchid off the table. The flowers were three inches across, shaped sort of like moths, mostly white with some dull red around their throats. There were only two leaves, straplike, hugging the surface of the potting mix. Laura reached a finger out toward one of the blossoms, stopped a fraction of an inch short. “One mustn’t touch the flowers,” she said, in the tone of a child who’s just learned some important rule. “Our fingers have oils.”

  She carefully replaced the pot. “He gave me a few seedlings and keikis. That’s how I got started.”

  “Who did?”

  “Albert. He’s always giving people plants. Hello.”

  Gina had magically appeared at my side. I made the introductions. Then: “Maybe you two met at the Altair. Gina worked there too.”

  “Actress?” Laura said.

  “Set design,” Gina said.

  “Do you still do that?”

  “Not exactly. I’m an interior designer.”

  “I see. So are you two…”

  “We’re just friends,” I said.

  Laura looked amused. “Well,” she said. “I suppose I ought to mingle some more. But I’d love to get together, talk about old times. Let me give you my card.” She looked at her cigarette, which she hadn’t puffed on since she lit it, rubbed it out on the underside of the table, laid it down. She produced a business card from her purse. Above a phone number with a Hollywood prefix, it said, Laura Astaire, then, Actor. There weren’t any actresses anymore, it seemed. The Screen Actors Guild had awards for best performance by a male actor, and best by a female actor. Not that I’d ever be up for any of them, but by virtue of my commercial work I got to vote on them.

  Laura handed over the card. She waited for me to produce one of my own.

  “I don’t have one,” I said.

  “My, my. You really are out of the game.” Out of her purse came a pen and tiny leatherbound pad. “Tell me your number.”

  I did. She wrote it down, snapped the pad closed, made it disappear. Suddenly her arms were around me. The est people were into hugging. This was a typical est hug, where you stick your butt out in the air so there’s no possibility of any midbody contact. “Good to see you again, Joe. I’ll give you a call. We’ll talk about acting.” She looke
d at Gina, who seemed horrified at the prospect of being hugged, picked up the dead cigarette, and walked back toward the house.

  “You want her,” Gina said.

  “I don’t think so. A little too brittle for me.” I looked her in the eye. “Do you?”

  “Probably not. Anyway, I’m being faithful to Jill.” Something put my radar up. “Trouble in paradise?” She shook her head a mite too quickly. “No. Everything’s great. Come on, let’s go get some ribs.”

  We moved on to the food area and filled our plates. Albert had brought in mass quantities of barbecued ribs and chicken. The rest was potluck. We found a couple of relatively isolated lawn chairs, but in a few minutes we were surrounded by the orchid people. They did their best to draw us into conversation. We did our best to stick to our own. We didn’t do badly, except for a woman who told us more than we’d ever care to know about pleurothallids, whatever they were.

  2

  SAM CAME OVER HALF AN HOUR BEFORE I WAS DUE TO LEAVE for a bug-salesman gig at Beverly Center. “Albert wants to make sure you don’t go without seeing the greenhouse.”

  I got up from the soft patch of grass I’d found myself and looked around for Gina. She was deep in conversation with one of the guys from the kitchen. They were discussing bull-nose edges. Interior design talk.

  I walked to the greenhouse, a structure maybe fifty feet long and twenty-five wide, with the summit of its peaked roof eight feet or so above my head. The clear parts were glass, and the metal frame looked like it could have withstood an 8 on the Richter scale. Quite a difference from my flimsy construction of fiberglass and two-by-fours.

  A sign asked that I close the door behind me. I complied. Then I turned and wandered through, taking in the spectacle.

  There must have been several thousand orchid plants. There were white flowers and purple ones and more white ones and more purple ones. Big red ones and little yellow ones and some in a peculiar pale green. Some had two colors and some had three, and the count went up from there.