Death of an Orchid Lover (37 page)

“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.

M
AUREEN WAS IN THE KITCHEN.
S
HE 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.”

“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.

Sharon was wearing a red blouse open at the neck to show the barest hint of cleavage. Farther down was a black skirt that revealed several inches of thigh. Her earrings resembled little African sculptures. Her hair seemed to have a bit of extra body. Its gray color wasn’t intriguing anymore. It was just … gray.

She looked out at me, made sure I was alone, opened the door wide. That’s when I saw the gun. I thought it was Gina’s. I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t actually seen it in a while, just had my hand on it a couple of nights before.

Sharon took a step back, waved me in with the gun, looked out into the darkness, closed and locked the door.