Death of an Orchid Lover Page 4

  “What kind of wounds?”

  “Gunshot. The first thing they asked me was whether I owned a gun. Of course I don’t own a gun. What kind of person owns a gun?”

  Gina and I exchanged looks. Gina owned a gun.

  “In any event,” Laura said, “the paramedics came, and the police, and the hours after that are a bit of a blur. Eventually they took me down to the station, and asked me the same questions over and over. When they were done I called you, but while we were on the phone that Casillas character came along, and he asked me the same questions yet again, along with some new ones.”

  “What kind of questions?” I asked.

  “Mostly about where I was tonight, and my relationship with Albert. And if anyone would have had any reason to kill him.”

  “What did you say to that?”

  “I couldn’t come up with anyone. Albert was a lovely man. He didn’t have any enemies that I knew of. He really had few contacts outside the orchid world. Orchids were his life.”

  “He ever have arguments with any of the people in the, uh, orchid world?”

  “He’s had disagreements with various members of the orchid society, but nothing serious. No one in the group gets along with everyone.” She shook her head. “No. I haven’t a clue who might have shot him.”

  Gina and I kept pushing Laura for someone who might have wanted Albert dead. She kept insisting she knew of no one. I also worked the conversation back to why she’d chosen me to call, but she insisted it was because of my previous association with the police. She seemed to be telling the truth, but she was, after all, an actress.

  Eventually she became less receptive to our questions. I drained my cold tea and stood. “We should get going. Come on, Gi.”

  Laura nodded. “I need to get to bed.” She got to her feet as well, and Gina followed suit. Laura led us to the door, but instead of opening it, she turned and leaned against it. “Could I ask a favor?” she said.

  “Sure thing,” I said.

  “It’s rather a big one.”

  “What is it?”

  “Would you find out who killed Albert?”

  “What makes you think I can do that?”

  “You did it once before.”

  “That was a fluke.”

  “Then why were you—and you, Gina—asking me all those questions?”

  “It seemed like the thing to do.”

  She managed a weak smile. Admit it, Joe, you’re intrigued by this. You want to ask more people more questions. I could see it in your face the whole time we were talking. Doesn’t he, “Gina?”

  “That would be my guess,” Gina said.

  “What?” I turned to her. “You’re ganging up on me.”

  “Maybe.”

  I drew a deep breath, faced Laura again. “I’ll see what I can scout up.”

  “That’s all I can ask,” she said. “There’s an orchid show at the Church of God in Torrance tomorrow. Maybe you could go there and find something out.” She pushed herself away from the door, opened it, let us out into the cool darkness. No hug, est or otherwise.

  When we got out to the curb, I realized Laura’s car was probably still up at Albert’s. I thought about going back and offering to help her get it. But she was a big girl. She’d figure something out.

  When we got back to the car, Gina said, “You don’t believe her, do you?”

  “Not totally. You think she killed the guy?”

  She shook her head. “My gut says no. But there’s something she’s not telling us.”

  “I got the same feeling.”

  By the time Gina dropped me off at home, it was nearly four. I set the clock for eight and went to bed.

  5

  THE REASON I SET MY CLOCK FOR EIGHT ON A SUNDAY morning, thus ensuring myself no more than four hours sleep, was that I was due at a yard dig in Westwood at ten, and I had to whip up a batch of my succulent eggplant salad before I left. I needed to prepare my signature dish because the Culver City Cactus Club—which I was president of—was having a board meeting at my place at seven that evening, and I’d promised to make the eggplant, and the other board members would whine if they didn’t get it. I could have waited until afternoon, but I didn’t know how long I’d be at the orchid show. Besides, the stuff tastes better when it sits in the refrigerator for a few hours. The flavors meld, and all that.

  I put on a robe and karate slippers and started some water for tea. I grabbed the two eggplants I’d bought the morning before, poked them with a fork, stuck them in the oven. When the water boiled, I made a cup of Darjeeling and carried it out the back door to the greenhouse.

  It was cool out, with a cloud cover that threatened rain. The last remnants of El Niño, I supposed. I pulled my robe tighter around me, stepped into the greenhouse, began my rounds. I did this every morning, checking for buds and bugs, inspecting for new growth and unexpected flowers, drawing strength from the plants.

  It was that glorious time of year when most of them were breaking dormancy. A couple of pachypodiums had already popped their yellow flowers, and the rest were leafing out, ending the close resemblance to cacti they bore when they were asleep. The Madagascar euphorbias were adding leaves too, and many of the cacti had the lighter green at their crowns that marked the resumption of growth.

  It was time for my semiannual application of Cygon. It was the only thing that would keep scale and mealybugs from feasting on all the new growth. But I knew I was going to skip the dousing, as I’d missed the one the previous fall. I’d have to find some other, less noxious way to control the pests. The horrid odor of Cygon would forever be associated with Brenda’s death in my mind.

  I found a surprise among the discocacti. They’re small globular species from Brazil, equipped with cephalia—furry flower-bearing heads that sit atop their bodies—and remarkable for how quickly their buds develop. One morning you’ll see a white cone, the tip of a bud, poking out of the cephalium. A couple of hours later it’s noticeably longer. By that evening it’s a couple of inches long, and it blooms and fills the greenhouse with its almost sickly sweet scent. The next morning it’s a limp cylinder of tissue. As Sharon, the woman I’d met at Albert’s, had pointed out, one of the problems with growing cacti. Ephemeral flowers.

  The surprise was on my Discocactus nigrisaetosus. A bud peeked from its cephalium. I made a mental note to check back that evening. But I knew I would forget. As the Big Five-O had begun looming in my consciousness, I’d become more and more aware that I was forgetting things. They had a name for my condition. CRS. Can’t Remember Shit.

  I went in the house, checked the eggplants. Not soft enough yet. I visited the canary room, dealt with food and water, changed the paper at the bottom of the floor-to-ceiling cage. I had a little conversation with the birds. As usual, I did most of the talking. I asked them if they missed their mommy. Brenda’d been their mommy. I’d taken the birds in when she died. I was thinking of Brenda a lot that morning.

  I took a shower, washed away some of the lack-of-sleep feeling, returned to the kitchen. The eggplants still weren’t cooperating. I chopped the tomatoes and scallions and mixed the spices. While I was squeezing the lemon, I noticed a couple of ants wandering along the wall above the counter. Argentine ants, merely an eighth of an inch long. They’re ubiquitous in the Los Angeles area, digging their tunnels all over your yard, carrying their little larvae and pupae to safety every time you run the sprinkler. They habitually wandered into my kitchen, occasionally causing a problem big enough for me to do something about, but I hadn’t seen any in weeks. There weren’t enough yet to worry about, and often they’d go away by themselves.

  The eggplants, I decided, were done enough. I took them out and left them to cool. I filled a bowl with Grape-Nuts, tore off a banana, poured a glass of Trader Joe’s pear juice. I went out to the Jungle, which is my banal name for the patio on the south side of my house, the place I’d mentioned to Sharon. It’s shaded by an immense elm tree next door, and on it I grow a lo
t of epiphytic cacti and viny ceropegias and other plants that don’t need a lot of sun.

  I lasted only a couple of minutes out there. The extended family of weirdos next door was playing The Best of Iron Butterfly at a volume of eleven. Too much for a guy with four hours sleep. I went inside and ate at the coffee table, then threw together the salad, got dressed, and went off to the yard dig.

  Once a year or so some club member or previously unknown succulent enthusiast got tired of collecting, or got old and couldn’t care for their plants, or died. Someone would contact us, and we’d dig up the stuff for our collections or to sell at the annual show. Without the proper direction, most of the members would wander around aimlessly and get themselves spined. As president of the CCCC, it was my responsibility to see that they didn’t.

  As usual, most of the folks who showed up were old and frail. Austin Richman and I were the only ones capable of any significant work. Austin was the club’s vice president and librarian, and a living relic of the sixties, a guy who could say things like “out of sight” and get away with it. His blond hair, parted in the middle, hung down the back of his overalls to the top of his butt.

  I’d been there about an hour, supervising the removal of everything from giant columnar euphorbias to tiny rosettes of echeveria, dumping stuff in boxes and loading up station wagons, when Sam showed up. He grunted a hello to a few people and started in on a big patch of a climbing aloe that had gotten itself entwined in an oleander. I let him have a few minutes, moseyed over, waited until everyone else was out of earshot. “I have some bad news,” I said.

  He snipped off an aloe stem with a pair of pruners. Another cutting for the freebie table at the next meeting. “About Albert? I know already.”

  “How?”

  “Heard about it on the radio.”

  “How much do you know?”

  “Just that they found him shot and they have a suspect.”

  “They don’t have a suspect. They have an aggrieved girlfriend.” I filled him in.

  When I was done, he shook his head. “I’m probably next.”

  “What, you think there’s a serial plant-lover killer on the loose?”

  “Not from the maniac who killed Albert. Just from whatever.”

  “Sam, you’ll live to be a hundred and fifty.”

  “Right.” “He attacked another recalcitrant stem, had it undone, accidentally broke off the tip. Damn.”

  “This has you a little more upset than I expected.”

  “Albert was a good friend.”

  “When Brenda died you acted as if nothing had happened. Said something about spending the morning feeling bad being all you could afford.”

  “It’s still morning. Stroke of noon, I lighten up. You want to ask me a bunch of questions, don’t you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  Let me save you the trouble. Here’s what I know about Albert. He’s been collecting orchids for a long time. “He moved here eight or nine years ago.”

  “I already know that.”

  He fixed me with a look. “Fine, then. I’ll just work on this goddamned aloe and keep my mouth shut.”

  “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “I first met him five years ago at one of the cactus clubs, I forget which. He gave a talk on CITES.” The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Big shot that I am, I thought I was up on all that stuff, so I wasn’t paying much attention, but suddenly I realized I was hearing information and views I hadn’t heard before. “I—young man, will you please stand still?”

  “Sorry.” I was doing my dance-around-like-a-nitwit routine, keeping my distance from the yellow jacket that had flown in to see what Sam was up to. Finally it lost interest and flew off. “You were saying?”

  Sam glared at me. “He had a lot to say, is what I was saying, so I collared him after the meeting and we went for coffee. We’ve been friends ever since. He always tries to get me interested in orchids, and of course I am, you know me, I have some of everything around the place, but he wants to get me interested in them. And I never let him forget about succulents. About the only thing we have in common, plantwise, is eulophias.”

  “Right. He was showing you one at his place.”

  “It’s a genus of terrestrial orchids. They grow with succulents in South Africa, and have big pseudobulbs.” He saw my look. “The thickened part at the bottom of the stem.” He climbed to his feet. “My boy, I’m going to leave that aloe for someone younger.”

  “I’ve never heard you say that before.”

  “There’s a first time for everything.” He stripped off his garden gloves. “We write letters and we go to meetings and probably none of it ever saved one species. Sometimes I think CITES is a big joke.”

  “You think the people you’re working against have anything to do with his death?”

  “I suppose it’s possible. Didn’t we go down this route with Brenda?”

  “We did. Can you think of anyone else who might have held a grudge against Albert?”

  He mulled it over. “It sounds ridiculous, but …”

  “What?”

  “Albert’s an orchid judge. A couple of times he’s said things to me about someone who didn’t like the way their plant was judged. Somebody will act like a jerk because they don’t get the right score.”

  I wondered if Sam knew he was still talking about Albert as if he were still alive.

  Orchid judging’s far more rigorous than what we do. “And they do it more often. Some clubs have judging at every meeting.” He took a look at the aloe, put his gloves back on, knelt down to renew the attack. “They have a fancy point scale, and if you get a certain number of points you get to put some letters after the name of the plant, and if you get more points you get better letters. Pain in the ass, if you ask me. But the letters make the plants more attractive to buyers, so I guess if someone were pissed off enough at their score they could hold it against the judge.”

  “He jerked the stem from the ground, said, Aha,” stood back up. “You’re going to play detective again, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t want to, but Laura asked me to.”

  “Of course you want to.”

  “I do?”

  Yes. You enjoyed it last time, my boy. “I’ve never seen you so excited.”

  “Well … I was sort of thinking of going to the orchid show in Torrance.”

  “See? You’re at it already.” He licked his lips. “They have anything to drink around here?”

  “There’s some water over on the patio.”

  I think I’ll go get some. And you’d better see what those two ladies over there are doing. “It doesn’t look good.”

  I turned. Rowena Small and Vera Berg, two of the more problematic members of the club, had somehow managed to unearth a six-foot Lemaireocereus marginatus, a.k.a. fence post cactus. They were carrying it God knew where and had managed to get Vera pinned up against a yucca.

  I went to the rescue. They both emerged unscathed. I came out of it with a spine in my thumb.

  6

  I STOPPED AT HOME, TOOK A QUICK SHOWER, MADE IT TO the Church of God in Torrance by a quarter after one. The name seemed redundant. Who else would it have been a church of?

  A big orange sign with black lettering was propped up outside the boxy beige building:

  ORCHID SHOW TODAY

  .50 CENTS ADMISSION

  GET READY FOR MOTHER’S DAY

  The colors said get ready for Halloween. And someone had gotten hold of some black crepe paper and made a border around the edges, twisting the paper over and over to give it a kind of unintended—I hoped—festive look. Up in the corner someone had hand-lettered TODAY’S SHOW IS IN MEMORIUM OF ALBERT OBERG. Plant club people are not known for their spelling.

  I stopped at a table in the lobby to give up my .50 cents admission. I was tempted to give the woman seated there a penny and ask for my .50 cents change, but didn’t think it was a good time to be irritating the orchid p
eople. So I handed in a dollar bill and got back two quarters and a little red ticket. “It’s for the door prizes,” the woman said. “We have some nice cymbidiums.”

  “My favorites,” I said.

  I walked into the display area, a small auditorium, and began checking out the show plants. I stopped at a table labeled CATTLEYA ALLIANCE. I asked an Asian woman with a name badge—I was beginning to realize a lot of Asians went for orchids—what the alliance thing was about. She said an alliance was a group of genera centered around one popular one. So the cattleya alliance included not only Cattleya, the big, frilly orchids they put in corsages, but also Brassavola and Laelia and several more, botanically similar and all judged together in the show. She pronounced the genus “cat-lee-uh,” with the emphasis on the “cat.” Whenever I’d seen it in plant books, I’d thought it was “cattle-yuh” and thought of cows.

  I moved on to phalaenopsis, the moth orchids Albert had shown me in his greenhouse. The crewcut guy guarding the table told me, “They sell more of these than everything else put together.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  A voice from behind me answered. “Flower shops. Supermarkets. People at swap meets.”

  It was Sharon Turner, the woman from Albert’s I’d vaguely considered asking out. She had on a T-shirt commemorating an orchid show and, again, black jeans. Her gray hair was in a ponytail. “Phals are easy to grow,” she said. “They bloom well in indoor light. Visitors say, ‘Ooh, what pretty flowers.’” She shrugged.

  The crewcut guy nodded solemnly and turned back to his table. Not your favorites, “I take it?” I said to Sharon.

  She smiled, a nice, even smile that showed nice, even teeth. “They’re just so …common.”

  “Yet Albert, the big orchid expert, went for them.”

  “He went for everything. Now I have it.”

  “Have what?”