Reluctant Witness (61 page)

“Come this way,” he beckoned, taking us down
a narrow path where the songbirds chattered. Here the trees were
taller, and the leaf canopy thicker. The air was more humid now and
smelled faintly of composting leaves, bark, and soil. The vines
that wrapped around the trunks were almost ethereal in their
beauty, with winding shoots and tendrils that climbed with
determination. It reminded me of the forest primeval.

“And here we have our wild vanilla orchids,”
he said, pointing to one vine that had clusters of buds. “Most
people think orchids are native to the island, but the truth is
only three types originated here. The fancy orchids used to make
leis are actually cultivated.”

“I did not know that,” said Jeff,
surprised.

“These vines, as you can see, have been
trained to remain closer to the ground, for harvesting purposes. We
try to encourage them to grow horizontally, rather than vertically,
thus you will see the support cables.”

No wonder it appeared that the vines were
taking over the forest. As I looked closer, I could see they had
been carefully tended.

“These orchid plants grow forty or fifty
feet, sometimes more. If we let them grow straight up, they will
not produce blooms,” Étienne told us.

“Why is that?” Jeff wanted to know. I started
to laugh before I answered.

“It’s a birds and bees thing. The pollinators
like to stay closer to the ground,” I told him. Our host
nodded.

“Very good, Chris. This is the time of year
the vines in the wild will produce buds, usually in clusters of
about twenty or more. Every day, one blossom opens, expecting to be
pollinated.”

“Wild? Does that mean you normally do
something different with them?” P. J. asked.

“We have the bulk of our vanilla orchids in a
managed grove, but this is an experiment in wild organics.
Camille’s begun to plant gardens near these vines that will
eventually attract birds and insects, in the hopes we can increase
vanilla bean production the old-fashioned way, by letting nature
take its course. We don’t rely on the birds and the bees, at least
not yet, so we have to pollinate by hand. We only do this with
about half of them, and then, once the pods begin to grow, we keep
just five or six on each inflorescence. That way, the beans are
bigger and have a better flavor.”

He reached up and carefully exposed a section
of vine for us to examine, where there was a healthy cluster of
buds. Étienne pointed out a tiny pod that was only a couple of
inches long.

“How many beans do you get from each vine?”
P. J. wanted to know.

“It varies. Older vines, healthy ones, might
yield up to one hundred and fifty beans. Young vines might only
produce thirty or forty. We are constantly propagating new plants,
tucking them away in the forest for several years, until they are
mature enough to bear fruit. They need the right kind of light --
not too much sun, not too much shade.”

“How long does it take before the beans are
ready for harvest,” I wondered, “a month or two?”

“Good heavens, no.” Étienne shook his head,
amused. “It takes the better part of a year, maybe eight or nine
months after the flowers have been pollinated. Vanilla is a very
labor-intensive crop.”

“Wow, that’s much longer than I expected,” I
admitted. P. J. shared my interest in the answer.

“I assumed it was the same as an apple or
tomato,” he said. “A couple of months after the blossom falls off,
you’ve got fruit. How do you know when they’re ready to be
picked?”

“They turn yellow at the tips, and then it is
time to cure them. And to do that, we must first kill them by heat,
be it hot water or sunlight.”

Jeff shook his head. “I’m surprised. Much of
what I saw on Guadeloupe was the harvesting of the beans by
small-plot farmers. The plants looked a little different than
these.”

“Ah, those are Vanilla pompona orchids, grown
in the Caribbean. We grow Vanilla tahitensis....”

“Tahiti gold,” I interrupted.

“That is right. It is prized by cooks for its
cherry overtones.” Étienne’s eyes were watching me with amusement.
“You are a baker?”

“I am. It’s such a pleasure for me to see the
real thing growing here. It’s even more beautiful than I
imagined.”

“Ah, I think that is why Camille insisted on
planting them here. She loved her Guadeloupe rainforest. It was her
favorite place to hike.”

“I can understand that. I’m
also a fan of Serena Duvall. I loved
Vanilla Orchid Magic
.”

“You read my wife’s book?” Jeff’s father
looked at me with surprise and I suddenly realized my mistake. I
dreaded the next, inevitable question. “You know she’s not just
Lisbeth Causley; she’s also Serena Duvall.”

“Oh?” There was a long pause as I scrambled
to cover my misstep. “Is she?”

“How did that come about?” Jeff’s father
pressed on. As our eyes met, I suddenly thought there was no
deceiving this man, not without some effort. I stuck as closely to
the truth as I could.

“Ah...I started with
The Secret of White Jasmine
. A friend of mine shared her copy with me and after that, I
was hooked.”

“Right,” the history professor from Cornell
smiled, glancing at his son knowingly. “Of course.”

“So, how did you two meet?” Étienne suddenly
asked. Jeff immediately stepped in and answered the question for
me.

“Chris joined us for dinner last night and I
was lucky enough to convince her to come with us today.”

“Is that your story and you’re sticking to
it?” he wanted to know. Jeff and I both looked at the Frenchman in
alarm. Étienne waved his hands, dismissing our concerns with a
good-natured chuckle. “Do not worry. Your secret is safe with me.
But if I were to give you one piece of advice, it would be this.
Don’t look directly at each other. Every time you do, it is as if
you cannot take your eyes off one another. That is a dead
giveaway.”

Chapter Fifty
Four

“Is it that obvious?” Jeff asked. His father
shrugged good-naturedly.

“To all but the blind, perhaps.”

“You can’t tell anyone, not without
endangering Chris. No one can know we met anywhere but here in
Hawaii.”

“Not to worry,” Étienne promised. “We shall
cover for you.”

“If it’s any consolation, son, your mother
believes in love at first sight. This morning Liz said to me, ‘I
think Jeff has met his Nora.’ My wife is a romantic,” P. J.
confided to me. “Once she gets an idea like that in her head, she
will not let it go. She’s convinced that the women who chase Jeff
are just after his money, and therefore, they are never worthy of
her boy. For some reason, Chris, she believes you might be a
potential bride for Jefferson; hence, her heavy-handed effort to
play matchmaker. Of course, she actually thinks you two just met
last night and fell instantly in love. Rather naive, if you ask
me.”

“That’s fine by me,” I grinned, “as long as
she doesn’t hate me for stealing her son away.”

“She’ll want to know if family matters to
you,” P. J. told me. “If you pass that test, you’re in.”

“Dad, Étienne, Chris has been through so
much...too much. I promised her a great life. I intend to make that
happen, but I’ll need your help to get it done.”

For the Frenchman, it was an easy sell. “Ah,
say no more. A man in love will move heaven and earth for the woman
who captures his heart. Tell me what you need from me, mon
ami.”

Jeff outlined the plan he and Rocky concocted
to convince people our meeting took place on Kauai. As I stood
there listening, I realized that P. J. knew more about Jeff’s
business than I expected. It was as if the two men were cut from
the same cloth. Maybe the apple really didn’t fall all that far
from the tree. And maybe Lisbeth Causley wasn’t the greatest
influence on the Cornwall boys, despite tales to the contrary.

“Shall we rejoin the others?” our host
suggested. We piled back into the golf cart and he drove us to the
house, where he gave us a tour of the charming home he shared with
Camille and their children.

We had lunch on the covered lanai, a feast
Camille prepared ahead of our arrival. There were cold salads,
freshly baked breads, and sliced meats to pass around the table. We
had Hawaiian wine with our meal, one made from grapes and guava,
bottled on the Big Island.

Étienne and I helped Camille clear the table
as the others talked. Her kitchen was a chef’s dream. I took the
plates and forks out to the lanai while she cut slices of cake and
arranged them on a cut glass platter. Her husband hovered over the
sink, doing the washing-up. They followed me out to the porch a
short time later with dessert and coffee.

“What smells so divine?” Liz wanted to
know.

“We call it ‘Camille’s Paradise Cake’,”
Étienne replied. “It’s one of her most memorable concoctions. It’s
full of bananas, pineapple, shredded coconut, macadamia
nuts....”

“Such an ordinary-looking cake, it hides in
plain sight,” the baker told us with a smile, as she passed the
platter. “You might be tempted to pass it by without a second
glance. But when you bite into it, you are transported to paradise.
It is a tropical wonder, right down to the spices we grow here on
our land.”

“Delicious,” P. J. declared as he took
another bite. “It’s like an unforgettable woman in cake form,
powerful enough to make a man want to surrender.”

“Now you understand why I had to marry her,”
Étienne smiled.

“Was that my husband speaking?” Liz sat back
in her chair. “Did he actually just say something bordering on
romantic?”

“You’re not the only one who can wax poetic
in the family, dear wife. Perhaps I shall one day take up my pen
and write a hot, heart-throbbing novel of my own,” he teased.
“Alas, it will be for the male sensibility.”

“What does that mean?” Liz asked. “We shall
see lots of manly blustering, hemming and hawing about the fairer
sex?

“No, no. My hard-boiled hero is going to play
hard to get. Let the woman romance him for a change.”

“Oh, like that will happen,” she scoffed.
“Would you really respect a woman who chases you and indulges your
every whim? How quickly you would grow tired of her!”

“Spoken like a woman who still knows what
makes you tick, Pop,” Jeff laughed.

“Well, Liz has never been known to be
boring,” P. J. agreed, winking at his wife. “Exhausting on
occasion, but never boring. She certainly keeps me on my toes.”

The subject of marriage We got into a
discussion about the trend of many of the area farms to start side
businesses to draw visitors in.

“Several of the local farms operate produce
stands and sell baked goods, and I know of three that also have bed
and breakfast accommodations,” Camille told us. “Molly Zimmer wants
to start a wedding service at hers. She thinks creating a small
wedding venue would be a hit, especially for couples wanting to
elope.”

“Chris, didn’t you tell me you have some
experience as a party planner?” Jeff asked. “You must have done
weddings.”

Feeling like a deer in the headlights, I
froze momentarily. What was I supposed to say in response?

“She has,” my father acknowledged proudly.
“She’s an expert.”

I was careful not to look in Jeff’s direction
as I answered, still mindful of Étienne’s advice. “Well, I’ve done
a few.”

“Oh?” Camille was very interested. “Tell us
about your last one.”

As I glanced at her eager face, I found
myself wondering if she was in on Jeff’s plan. Had he spoken with
her before we arrived, convincing her to sell the story to Liz and
the others? If she was the real Nora, perhaps Jeff had played a far
more significant role in her escape from Guadeloupe than I
knew.

“My last one? That was in California.” I
thought about Clovis and David’s wedding, suddenly caught up in the
sentimentality of their story. By the time I shared the details of
Julie’s situation and Clovis’s walk down the aisle, Camille
insisted on introducing me to Molly before I left the island.

“She is more than able to pay your consulting
fee,” my hostess informed me with a conspiratorial wink. That’s
when I knew she and Jeff were working together to keep me in Hawaii
a little longer.

The six of us bid Camille and Étienne
farewell and drove back to the resort just after one o’clock. The
ladies went off to change into their suits for a trip to the pool.
P. J. and my dad decided to go to Kapa’a Beach Park for some
shoreline fishing. That gave Jeff and me a chance to spend some
time together.

“Fancy a drive up to Princeville? I’ll show
you some of the sights.”

We stopped by the pool to let the ladies know
we were leaving the resort. They were lounging in the shade. Liz
was in a respectable black tank suit, wearing sunglasses, flipping
pages on her e-reader. Lara was in a vibrant pink skirted suit and
a straw hat, her eyes closed while she rested beside her. They
looked like what they were, a couple of long-time, middle-aged
friends on vacation.

“You’ll be back here for dinner, I presume.”
Liz looked up at her son expectantly. I could feel Jeff’s
hesitation, even when he tried to mask it.

“Sure, Mom. We’ll be here.”

“Good. I’ll make a reservation for all of us
at Hukilau Lanai.”

“Great,” he replied, with all the enthusiasm
of a dental patient facing root canal. That didn’t seem to deter
Liz.

“Toodle-oo. Have fun,” she called after
us.

Cooper came along for the ride up to
Princeville. He sat on my lap, his eyes on the scenery going by. We
stopped at Shave Ice Paradise for guava and passion fruit treats
before we parked the Explorer and strolled down to magnificent
Hanalei Bay. Enraptured by the scenery, I assumed we were there for
a little romance, especially as we walked hand in hand, like
several other couples did. But Jeff came to the point about his
reason for bringing me to this favorite beach, a discussion of the
future -- our future, to be exact.