Death of an Orchid Lover Read online

  Hawthorne Boulevard had a small-town feel, a sense that two or three blocks to either side of the main drag the houses petered out and woods sprang up. Virtually nothing was more than two stories. The signs in and above the front windows had a certain quaintness. The taco stands and discount furniture places and used-car emporia emanated the aura of another era. The hard, crass edge of the nineties hadn’t reached the area yet. It was still steeped in the not so hard, not so crass edge of the seventies.

  Dave Leeper’s Baseball Academy marked the intersection of 138th and Hawthorne. I turned right, then left onto Grevillea Avenue. The trees were sporadic, the streets clean. Few of the vehicles were new. Not many sport utility vehicles, a definite plus.

  I found the house number and pulled up in front. Next door a couple of kids were playing something involving a soccer ball and a laundry basket. Across the street a little terrier yapped at me.

  The house needed a coat of paint but was otherwise well kept up. It was small and spare and simple, just a white stucco box with green trim, with a driveway along the side leading to a smaller white box, in front of which sat a green Econoline van. In the front, a couple of potted geraniums decorated the top of the ramp that had replaced the front steps.

  Great patches of the lawn had been removed to make room for neat rows of rosebushes. Floribundas, grandifloras, hybrid teas, many with big, gnarled stem bases that attested to how long they’d been there. They displayed hundreds of flowers in a grand range of colors. More roses lined the south side of the house, and two climbers lay claim to the front walls, each abundantly abloom, the one to the left of the door red, the right-hand one peach with splashes of yellow.

  Dottie’s daughter was out front, wearing a sunbonnet and a long summery dress with pale flowers on it. She held an oval basket. Six or seven roses lay in it.

  She saw me get out of the truck and came down the walk. “You were at Albert’s Saturday.”

  “Yes.” I introduced myself.

  “I’m Maureen Lennox.”

  “Also known as Mo.” “Only to my mother.”

  “Then Maureen it is. She said to drop in anytime.”

  “Yes.” Slight pause. “Have you heard about Laura Astaire?”

  Yes. “On the radio.” A small lie, to make things simpler.

  “A pity.” She sighed, put down her basket, removed her bonnet, inspected it. A ladybug crawled around its perimeter. She blew softly on it and it took to the air. “Ladybug, lady-bug, fly away home.” She put the hat back on. “How much time did you spend with Mother?”

  “Not much. A few minutes.”

  “I must warn you of something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She’s a bit of a case.”

  “What kind of a case?”

  “A nutcase, as they say.” She picked up her basket and moved to a bush full of gorgeous orange flowers. “I like this one, don’t you? It’s called Brandy.” Snip, snip. Two more roses joined their fellows in the basket. “Mother has always been a bit odd. It’s gotten worse over the last few years.” She smiled sweetly and moved toward the front door. “See for yourself. She’s in the back. In her conservatory. You can go through the house.”

  The living room was a wonderland of glass cabinets. A half dozen lined the walls, filling every available space between the rose-patterned slipcovered sofa and side chairs and the wide-screen TV. Each cabinet displayed a different kind of collectible. One had Hummel figurines, another some Oriental-looking porcelain. The largest, almost as tall as I was, held the nicest group of Wedgwood I’d ever seen. Not that I’d seen much Wedgwood.

  The hall was lined with photos. One showed an aviator about to climb into the cockpit of a World War II—vintage plane. Another man, in coveralls, stood at the nose of the plane, giving the thumb’s-up sign.

  The back door was open. I went through it, stopped, and stared.

  I’d thought when Maureen had said “conservatory” it was a figure of speech. I pictured a hobbyist’s greenhouse, more or less like mine, with fiberglass walls and a wood frame and shade cloth tacked around wherever it would do some good. I wasn’t prepared for the little piece of the Royal Botanic Gardens in the midst of this suburban backyard. It was fifteen feet across, shaped like an octagon, with white-painted walls up to bench level, glass above. Real glass, not some space-age plastic, some clear, some neatly whitewashed to minimize the sun streaming through. The vertical structural elements were painted white, too, leading up to a glass roof, with its eight faces sloping up to a point, atop which sat a miniature cupola with a red, green, and yellow pennant flying in the breeze.

  I walked down a gravel path to the doorway, pushed it open, peered through. Benches full of orchids lined the periphery. The flowers’ colorful shapes stood out boldly against the white of the wood. Unlike Albert’s greenhouse, or my own, or any other hobbyist’s I’d ever been in, each plant had a bit of breathing room, its own little domain. Like they were being displayed, rather than just grown.

  Dottie sat in her wheelchair in the open area in the center of the conservatory, clad in a sweater and a dark blue dress. The chair rested on a small rug, octagonal like the structure, patterned with yellow whirls and loops on a forest-green background. Next to Dottie was a tiny table, no more than a foot across, with a china teapot, two dainty cups, and accessories.

  Dottie’s attention was focused on her lap; she seemed to be reading. She looked up when I knocked. Oh, goodie. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come in.”

  I swung the door wide and entered. I heard a faint voice. I realized what was in Dottie’s lap wasn’t a book, but rather one of those tiny TVs from Casio or whoever. I heard the words your boyfriend and your own sister before she snapped the device off.

  A large fan was mounted in one of the walls, and opposite it a set of louvers let the outside in, but it was still ten or fifteen degrees warmer inside. How Dottie sat there in a sweater was a mystery. I’d been in the place ten seconds and already wanted to take my shirt off.

  She watched me approach. When I stopped a couple of feet away, she said, “Have a seat.”

  I looked around. “There isn’t one.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Right. I keep meaning to get a guest chair, but I keep forgetting.”

  I’d noticed a couple of cheap plastic chairs outside. I ran back out and retrieved one, placed it on the redwood planking just beyond the edge of the rug, sat down.

  “You’ll be wanting some tea,” said Dottie. She reached for the pot.

  “Oh, that won’t—” At the raise of her eyebrows, I said, “Yes, that would be lovely.”

  “Nothing like a nice cup of tea on a spring afternoon.” She poured one for me. “Milk? Sugar? I’m afraid I haven’t any lemon, though you could pick one from the neighbors’ tree. They won’t mind.”

  “Straight, please.”

  She handed over the cup. I took a sip. It was good tea, though it had been in the pot too long.

  “Nice setup you’ve got here,” I said.

  “It is lovely, isn’t it? Charles knew his way around a tool-shed.”

  “Charles was Mr. Lennox?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s gone now, but he certainly knew his way around a toolshed.”

  “A good thing to know.”

  “He was good with wood, but better with metal. From working on the airplanes.”

  “He was an airplane mechanic?”

  “And a damned fine one. When the war was over, Hughes Aircraft hired him, and over the pond we came.”

  She looked into her cup, brought it a few inches from her face as if making sure there was nothing left in the bottom. She poured some more tea, added milk, stirred, sipped. “Testicles,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  Testicles. That’s where the word orchid comes from. The Greek word for testicles. Because the first orchids that were discovered came from Greece and their tubers look like testicles. “Oh, those Greeks.”

  “I didn’t know that.”
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  “Some orchids, the ophrys come to mind, look like bees.”

  True enough. I’d seen one in Albert’s greenhouse.

  “Some resemble wasps.”

  “How nice. I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s to fool the insects into pollinating them. Insects aren’t very bright. It was the Communists, you know.”

  Whoa, Dottie. Slow down, there. “What was the Communists?”

  “That killed Albert.”

  It was bound to happen sooner or later. Eventually, if I was going to go around poking into homicides, I had to run across a total wacko. How do you know “I’m interested in who killed Albert?”

  “I know these things.”

  I see. “I tried to look thoughtful. I hadn’t thought of that possibility. The Communists.”

  Maureen had been right. The woman was a nutcase. I wanted to just get up and leave. Some semblance of manners kept me there. “How did you find out about this?”

  Albert told me. “It was at his house one night. He’d invited us up, Mo and me, for dinner and to see some of his new orchids.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Last autumn. Albert had some new miniatures that he was very excited about. From one of those countries in Asia, Vietnam or one of those. There was one in particular he liked very much. It was such a dark purple, with a little beard and hairs that came off the sides. And it was scented with nutmeg. He held it out and said, ‘It’s so hard to get things from there because the Communists are in power.’” She shrugged. “Communists, that’s who it was. Trying to keep their orchids in their country.”

  She leaned forward and adopted a conspiratorial tone. “I had Mo take me to the library, and I did some research on the World Wide Web.” You could hear her pronounce the initial capitals. “Soon I knew everything.”

  So that was her inspiration. The Internet. A place where any crackpot could share his or her delusions with the world. Sometimes, when there was nothing watchable on TV and the video store was out of Jackie Chan, Gina would take me on surfing expeditions. We would drop in on the flatearthers, the moon-landing-was-fake crew, the Bert-Parks-was-Jesus crowd. It was a perfect place for little old ladies to have their brains messed with.

  Again I thought to leave. But as long as I was there already … “Have you heard about Laura Astaire?”

  “Breaking news.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I was viewing Jerry Springer, and they came in and said, ‘Breaking news.’ They said she was dead. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a Communist.” She reached out and took my wrist with a bony, yet strong grip. “I think she killed Albert.”

  “Why?”

  I see it all now. “Her Communist superiors had her do it.”

  “Because of the orchids from Southeast Asia.”

  She nodded furiously. “It makes perfect sense, don’t you think? Then they had her killed as well. To cover their trail.” She still had her hand on my wrist. It was cutting off my circulation. The old lady was surprisingly strong. Maybe she’d killed Albert. The wheelchair was a front.

  “Who else is a Communist?” I said. “How about Helen and David Gartner?” I didn’t feel right encouraging her, yet I couldn’t help myself. It was as if she’d injected some of her daftness when she wrapped her hand around my wrist.

  She let go her death grip, wheeled to a bench, plucked off a small pot, began worrying the bark at the surface with her fingers. “Do you like my mix?”

  I cast a glance around the conservatory. “It seems to work.”

  Of course it works. I’ve been using it for thirty years. “Some people have funny ideas about orchid mix.”

  I like free association as much as the next guy. But this was getting ridiculous. It was time to escape. I drained my tea and got to my feet.

  She put down the plant and wheeled back onto her rug. “I know everything about the orchid society,” she said. And if I don’t know, well, it’s all in the archives. You’d be amazed at what goes on. A couple of the members are drug addicts. And there’s a Japanese fellow who’s a smuggler. And of course several of them are homosexuals. But you know what “I say.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Live and let live, that’s what I say.” She picked up her tea, sipped, made a face. Well. I’m tired now, but come back again, young man. Anytime. I have many stories to tell. I’ve been in the orchid society longer than anyone. “I’m the club historian, you know.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “See that you do,” she said. “It will be worth your while.” She looked down into her lap, moved a pale finger. Tinny voices came from the Casio.

  I went outside, shut the door behind me. The beginnings of an overcast had come in from the west. As I stood there, a cloud drifted over the sun and threw everything into dull shadow.

  Maureen was in the kitchen, putting together a meal. “How was she?”

  “She thinks Communists killed Albert.”

  “Oh, that again. She hasn’t been on Communists for a month or two.”

  “How do you deal with it?”

  She smiled and spread her hands apart, as if to say, what can I do. “Her health is good, except for her hips. And her delusions aren’t harmful. She’s my mother. I have to take care her. It’s really not a burden. You were thinking it was a burden, weren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Of course you were, and please don’t. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I won’t.” I said goodbye and left.

  More clouds were coming in. As I drove toward the freeway, the late afternoon sky turned gloomy. Appropriate to my mood. I could see from street level that the 405 north was jammed, so I continued west and picked up Sepulveda. By the time I approached LAX, the clouds had given the day a surrealistic cast. In the middle distance I could see the old control tower, undergoing renovations, swathed in white plastic like a Christo project.

  There’s a piece of Sepulveda that dips to travel under one of the runways. Just as I entered the underground section, a 747 rumbled over, from some airline I’d never heard of, from Malaysia or Indonesia or one of those places, all filled with Malaysians or Indonesians or whoever come to America for streets paved with something good.

  The behemoth overhead evoked some primal fear of being crushed under tons of concrete. I shrank down into my seat and stayed that way until, thirty endless seconds later, I exited the tunnel.

  14

  ELAINE HAD PHONED. I HAD A CALLBACK AT THREE-THIRTY the next afternoon for the toilet bowl cleaner commercial. I took down the pertinent info and called her back to confirm. She said I sounded funny. I said it was allergies. She reminded me I didn’t have any. I said I must be developing some.

  French Market Place is a funky complex on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. It’s two stories, with the central area, where the restaurant is, going all the way to the roof. There’s a horseshoe of offices on the second floor; on the first a variety of shops surrounds the restaurant. A card place, a swimsuit store, stuff like that.

  The restaurant has a New Orleans theme, with low brick walls, and vegetation hanging over the tables. It sounds like it should be tacky, but it’s not. Somehow it works. Or it is tacky and it works anyway.

  Gina was waiting up front when I ran in from the rain that had erupted from the cloud cover. She was wearing a yellow slicker and reading a copy of the L.A. Weekly from a stack near the door. When she saw me she snapped it closed, started to put it under her arm, instead threw it back on the pile. “I have enough crap to read already,” she said.

  A guy in a black apron, with a shaved head and nine, count ‘em, nine earrings in his left ear, escorted us to a table in the corner, under a ficus that was standing in for a magnolia. A waiter came over half a minute later to ask what we wanted to drink. Gina told him she was ready to order. I said I hadn’t quite decided yet. Gina glared at me. I ordered a hamburger. Gina had a Denver omelet.

  “I suppose you know a
bout Laura,” I said.

  “What about her?”

  “She’s dead. Someone shot her. I figured you knew because everyone in the world seems to have heard about it.”

  “I’ve been out of touch.” She stared at me. “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  “I don’t kid about stuff like that.”

  “Then that’s it.”

  “Then what’s what?”

  “That’s it. No more looking into murders.”

  “But I promised Laura, and now that she’s dead—”

  Fuck Laura. You don’t owe her anything. “There’s someone dangerous out there and I don’t want them killing you too.”

  I watched her, tried to think of a clever response. I couldn’t. Because she was perfectly correct.

  “You won’t back off, will you?”she said.

  “Probably not.”

  She nodded. All right. I’ve played the voice of reason. “Tell me about Laura.”

  I told her everything. When that got too depressing, I moved on to my upcoming date with Sharon.

  Later when we got back to her place, Gina asked if I wanted to come up. I said no. She didn’t put up any resistance. I drove home in a continuing drizzle, listening to the Beatles. “All you need is love,” they told me. It sounded so simple.

  I awoke Wednesday morning a little after seven. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still low. I switched on the TV to check the weather and found all the stations were running live coverage of some guy who’d stopped his pickup on the freeway, gotten out, and begun taking potshots at passing motorists with a shotgun. They’d blocked off the freeway—causing a traffic jam more massive than usual—and had hostage negotiators talking to him, even though there wasn’t a hostage.

  Finally, after an hour, just when it looked like the guy was about to give himself up, he pointed the shotgun at his head and blew his brains to smithereens. The Channel 6 traffic chopper got a fine shot of it. One second his head was there, the next it wasn’t. The anchor apologized for letting us see such graphic footage. Then they showed it again. I turned off the TV.