Death of an Orchid Lover

by Nathan Walpow

  I found it a mile farther on. I parked on the side of the road, grabbed my pretzels, picked my way down the rock-strewn slope. There was a tiny beach, a little oasis of sand among the stones. I found a place just beyond where the sand was wet, kicked away a chunk of Styrofoam cooler, sat down on a round gray rock. I could smell the salt of the ocean, marred by a subtle undertone of rotting vegetation.

  Above me, gulls did their thing, swooping and calling. Down by the water, a couple of pelicans squatted on the beach. Just beyond the waterline, a sandpiper—or one of those birds I’ve always thought of as sandpipers—waded, constantly eyeing the surface and repeatedly plunging its beak in. It didn’t seem to be coming up with much.

  To my right a taller bird, with a crest on its head, a crane or an egret or a heron, stood on one leg. It looked at me and it looked away. I couldn’t figure out what it was doing there. There weren’t any fish up on the beach. Maybe it was checking out what I was doing there.

  I pulled a pretzel from the bag, scraped the salt off with a fingernail, threw a piece in the air. A gull caught it, dropped it, went after it on the ground. Another wheeled in for a landing. I threw it some too. More gulls clustered around, some gray with mottled feathers, others white with gray wings and an orange spot on their lower beaks. A couple of short-necked black ducks too. Or maybe they were loons.

  I crunched another pretzel and threw the fragments on the sand. A whirlpool of gulls erupted. One of the white ones opened its mouth and cried at the others, weep-weep-weep-weep-weep. Another picked up the call. Then a couple more.

  I tried thinking about Sharon. She’d said she’d talk to me. What was she going to say? I spent an hour formulating conversations in my head. They all ended badly.

  “Enough, I said aloud, and forced myself to move on to killers and victims and suspects.” I thought about Helen Gartner. About her husband, David.

  I thought about Yoichi Nakatani. I knew I ought to turn him in. I knew I wouldn’t.

  I’d gotten the feeling he was glad someone had found him out. But he probably could have gone on a long time without that happening. Why would anyone suspect him of being involved in plant smuggling?

  Then I remembered that someone had.

  Dottie Lennox had told me Yoichi was a smuggler. She’d actually said it was “a Japanese fellow, but even with all the Japanese-Americans in the orchid club, what were the chances more than one was a smuggler?”

  Where would she have come up with that nugget? Could it be that she wasn’t as crazy as I thought? Why had I been so quick to throw away everything she had to say, simply because she saw the Red Menace where no one else did?

  I went back over my conversation with her and realized something else. She’d known about, or at least suspected, the Gartner’s plan to turn tires into a growing medium. When I asked her about them, she told me, “Some people have funny ideas about orchid mix.” I’d dismissed it as pre-Alzheimerian free association.

  Maybe I’d been too quick to discount what she said. She’d been in the orchid group longer than anyone. If only I could ask the right questions, and not be so linear in interpreting the answers, maybe I could find out something about who killed Albert and Laura.

  I got up to go. Only one bird remained nearby. A different kind of gull, smaller than the others, with brownish-gray wings and gray spots on its chest. It waited shyly, hoping for a crumb.

  There was one pretzel left. I scraped off the salt, broke it in half, tossed the pieces at the bird. It gobbled one on the spot and flew off with the other. I climbed up the slope to the truck.

  I felt a little better, but not much. Maybe I had a plan in mind regarding the killings, but my love life was still a shambles.

  I stopped in Santa Monica to call my machine. Much as the idea of doing any more commercials pained me, I felt a responsibility to see if Elaine had come up with anything. She hadn’t. Nor had I gotten another miracle pardon from Sharon.

  But there was the next best thing. Gina had left a message. “Guess what? Your girlfriend called. You’re forgiven. And she wants me to come over for coffee so she can get to know me better. She says she has some issues to work through. Everyone has issues these days, when they used to have problems.” There was a pause. Any longer and the voice activation feature would have cut her off. “I don’t know what I was talking about last night. Maybe I am jealous. Anyway, I’m going over at four. I’ll let you know what happens.”

  Sometimes I suffer from bipolar disorder. What they used to call manic-depression before everything became so politically correct. It shows up only under certain circumstances. Like the epileptic who’s touched off by a flashing light, I needed a romance to set off my condition.

  At the words you’re forgiven, the gloom that had permeated my being evaporated. I went from woe to ecstasy in three seconds.

  A little voice in the back of my head said, Gee, Joe, if she was going to forgive you, wouldn’t she have called you first? Rather than let you hear it secondhand through Gina? I chose not to listen to it.

  I hit rush-hour traffic, and it was nearly six when I pulled up to the house on Grevillea Avenue. Dottie’s daughter, Maureen, was out front, wearing another Jane Austen dress. We got the hellos out of the way. “She’s not as crazy as she seems, I said.” Is she?

  “No. But I thought it best that you find out for yourself.”

  “Is she here?”

  “Where else?”

  “Can I see her?”

  “Of course.”

  I went through the house again, past the Hummels and the Wedgwood and the Oriental porcelain, all lovingly arranged in their cabinets. The door to the conservatory stood open, as if Dottie had known I was coming.

  I entered and stood just inside the door. She was raptly watching the Casio again. I cleared my throat.

  She looked up, waggled one frail hand in the air, waved me over. “Oh, goodie. Well, don’t just stand there.” Come in. Exactly how she’d greeted me the last time. She poked a button and cut off the TV. “Bring a chair, she said.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Suit yourself. I’d like my catasetum.”

  She pointed at a bench off to her left, where a small plant with a yellowish-green flower awaited. I brought it over and handed it to her. “They spit their pollen, you know. They have a little hair on the flower, and when you touch it they spit. Because they think you’re an insect.” She peered up at me. “I remembered why I was telling you about the bees and wasps.”

  It took a second to recall the surreal conversation we’d had days earlier. “Why?”

  “Because I was talking about those ancient Greeks. And what I wanted to tell you about was the bull semen and the horse semen.”

  What had I been thinking? Her pegging Yoichi as a smuggler must have been a lucky guess. I was wasting my time.

  “They thought bees came from dead bulls, and wasps from dead horses. And so they put that together with the orchid roots looking like testicles and they decided the ones whose flowers looked like bees came from where bull semen fell to the ground, and the ones whose flowers looked like wasps came from where horse semen fell.”

  “Oh, those Greeks,” “I said.”

  I tried to figure out how to leave gracefully. But before I could, she looked directly into my eyes. Her own were perfectly rational as she said, “You found out about the Japanese fellow.”

  Hmm, I thought. Let’s not be hasty. “Yes.”

  “You didn’t believe me when I told you.” She anticipated my apology, held up a hand to cut it off. “It’s all right. Sometimes I sound like I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “How did you know about him?”

  “I know everything that goes on in the orchid world.” Always have, always will. She shook her head slowly. “There aren’t many of us left now. From when the club began.” She smiled, closing her eyes, as if picturing those days. “There was a lot less paperwork then.” We had the plants and we showed them off.


  “You knew about him and Helen too?”

  Her eyes opened. “Then it’s true?”

  “If by” it you mean that they were seeing each other, yes.

  “I suspected as much. Now I know, thanks to you.”

  “You can’t tell anyone.”

  “Of course not. Do you see how it works? My grapevine?”

  “Are there other things I ought to know?”

  “About what?”

  “About who killed Albert. And Laura too.”

  “Why would I know about that?”

  “You said you knew everything that goes on in the orchid world.”

  “I did, did I? She held out the catasetum. I took it and put it back in its place. When I returned, she said,” Well, then. “Who do you think did it?”

  “I’m running out of new ideas.”

  “Tell me your old ones.”

  “I thought it might be David and Helen Gartner. Or one of them. Because I was told they’d had business dealings with Albert. But that turned out not to be true.”

  “Go on. Anyone else?”

  “Yoichi, but he was with Helen when Albert was shot. And for a while I thought Laura might have killed Albert, then someone else killed her.”

  “But you don’t think that anymore.”

  “No.”

  “Nor do I, young man. All right, then, put these bad things aside for the moment. I suppose you’ll be wanting to know about Sharon Turner.”

  “I will?”

  “You want to be her boyfriend.”

  “How did you know—”

  “The grapevine, young man. I hear things. What do you want to know?”

  “What do I need to know?” Why had I phrased it like that? Like there was something specific I’d missed.

  “She’s” a touch fragile, “don’t you think?” A vague gesture toward the house. “Like one of the figurines. You don’t really care for them, do you?”

  I smiled. “No. Not to my taste.”

  “Nor mine. But Mo likes them. So I endure them. The things parents do for their children.” She leaned forward. “Why do you want to be with her?”

  “She’s smart. That’s the main thing. I don’t have to dumb down my conversation for her.”

  “It’s odd, what you’ve found out and what you haven’t.”

  “What haven’t I found out?”

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “All right then. Go inside and ask Mo to give you volume six of the orchid society’s history.”

  Dottie found the place in the scrapbook full of photos and pasted-in sheets of lined composition paper. “‘Monday, March nineteenth, 1990. Monthly meeting.’” Darkness was descending quickly, but she seemed to have no trouble seeing the page. “‘Our speaker was Dr. Ghazarian, who gave a delightful talk on the orchids of Bolivia. His slides were, as always, fascinating. There were many lovely plants on the display table. As usual, several of the members whose turn it was to bring refreshments neglected to do so, but our historian provided several dozen shortbread cookies that took up the slack.’”

  She raised her head and smiled. “Before my hips went out on me, I was quite the baker.”

  “I’m sure you were.”

  “I’ll skip the treasury report and the part about the annual show. Let’s see. Ah, yes, here it is. ‘Three new members tonight. Tony Kleha’s wife Lorraine was one. Also a young woman who just moved here, by the name of Sharon Turner. The poor soul didn’t know anyone, so our historian took her in hand and showed her around.’”

  “She told me a friend brought her to her first meeting.”

  “As I said when I saw the two of you at the orchid society meeting, she was wrong about that. She didn’t know anybody.”

  Someone cracked a spigot in my gut. The first drop of acid fell onto my delicate stomach lining.

  Dottie closed her eyes and smiled. “The poor thing was living in a motel, so I introduced her to Mel Aspin.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “One of the old-time members. He died two years ago, some sort of brain thing. It was very sad, but the club auctioned off his collection, so some good came of it. He had a room to rent. Sharon rented it. At least for a while.”

  “Then what happened?”

  She leaned over, whispered, “She had men over.”

  The spigot in my abdomen opened a bit wider. “She told me—”

  “When Mel discovered a naked Negro in the kitchen, well, that clinched things. He told her to move out. It wasn’t the Negro part, of course. Mel liked people of all races. It was the naked part.”

  “But Sharon told me she didn’t see anybody after she moved here.”

  “Why wouldn’t she? She was a normal healthy girl. She had needs, you know.” She leaned back. “A girl doesn’t take care of her needs, she gets odd. Just look at Mo.”

  I didn’t want to look at Mo. I wanted to look at Sharon some more. “She dated, then?”

  “You’re being quite dense this afternoon, young man. Yes, she dated. And more.”

  Whoever was controlling the faucet in my stomach twisted it all the way. I felt like a ferret was gnawing on my innards, like I did back when I was twenty, the day I found my tripping girlfriend in my best friend’s water bed.

  Or like when I found out about the Samoan.

  I knew I’d reached the end of the road with Sharon. I could never trust a woman who had already lied as much as she had.

  And I was sure she had lied. Because that voice in the back of my head, the one that had asked earlier why Sharon would tell Gina, not me, that she forgave me, was back, and now I was listening. It was wondering why I was believing what this strange old woman was saying, rather than what Sharon had told me.

  And I said to it, it doesn’t matter why. It just matters that I do.

  Dottie cleared her throat. “You should probably hear the rest of what’s here in the archives.”

  “No, I think I’ve heard—”

  “You need to listen to this too.”

  There was something about her tone. “Go ahead,” I said.

  “That’s better. Now where was I?” She zigzagged a finger across the page, found her place. “Yes, here it is. ‘Our third new addition this evening also just moved here from New York. He is rather an expert, and will make a fine addition to the society. His name is Doctor Albert Oberg.’”

  What a coincidence, was my first reaction. Sharon and Albert joined on the same night.

  But a second or two later the rest of my brain kicked in, and I realized she’d said “Doctor, and before that” New York, and I knew it wasn’t a coincidence at all.

  30

  MAUREEN WAS IN THE KITCHEN. SHE SMILED, WIPING HER hands on a towel. “Did you find out what you needed?”

  “The phone. Where is it?”

  “Right there. On the wall.”

  I grabbed it, dialed Gina’s cell number. It rang once, twice, before it was picked up. “Hello?” Not Gina’s voice. Sharon’s.

  “It’s Joe.”

  “Hi, Joe.”

  “Let me speak to Gina.”

  “I’m afraid she can’t come to the phone now.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t she be? She’s just in the bathroom, and asked me to get her phone.”

  “What have you done to her?”

  Silence on the other end. Then, “Well. It sounds like you’ve figured it out. This puts a bit of a crimp in things.”

  “Let me talk to Gina.”

  “She’s a bit indisposed.” We had a lovely kaffeeklatsch, but it ended badly. Gina thought it was time for her to go. I thought it wasn’t.

  “What do you mean, ‘indisposed’?”

  “I’m sure a little TLC will make everything fine. I’m sure you’ll be able to take care of it when you get over here. You are coming over here, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll be right there. Please don’t do anything else to Gina.�
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  “There’s a bit of a whine in your voice, Joe. I don’t think I like that. See if you can take control of it before you get here. It’s probably improper breathing. You learned how to breathe properly when you were an actor, didn’t you? Oh, and Joe? Make sure you’re alone. Make sure you don’t call the police.” Click.

  I was an idiot. Worse, I was an idiot on two levels.

  My grand idiocy was that I’d been led down the widest of garden paths by a lying, scheming murderer. If I got through all this, I’d look back and shake my head at how magnificently stupid I was.

  But there was a more immediate problem to deal with, related to my second level of folly: I’d let on to Sharon that I knew what she’d done. If I’d just kept my cool, acted as if everything were okay, I could have called the cops and gotten them over to Sharon’s and rescued Gina.

  But I’d blown that possibility nicely, thus giving up any advantage I may have had. And thus generating a specific warning not to bring the cops in.

  “Something wrong?” Maureen said.

  “No.” I ran out the door. Halfway down the ramp, I stopped.

  If I went over to Sharon’s alone, chances were very good that she was going to kill both Gina and me.

  Like she killed Albert. I knew why she’d done that.

  Like she killed Laura. I wasn’t sure about why she’d done that.

  I almost ran back in and called the cops. Burns, to be specific, because I didn’t trust anyone else not to bring in a thousand SWAT team members with assault rifles and battering rams, thus prompting Sharon to blow Gina’s brains out.

  But I couldn’t really be sure that if I called Burns, she could guarantee what would happen. She might agree to go along with me, but she was a good cop, and she would do things right, and there would be backup. And I didn’t know who that backup might be, and I just couldn’t take the chance that they might induce Sharon to start shooting.

  Maybe I should have called anyway. But I wasn’t thinking straight. All I could think of was Gina.