Death of an Orchid Lover (8 page)

“Yes.”

“Make me stop.”

She smiled. “You already have.”

Sharon went off to the rest room, and I went over what I’d seen. Aside from the higher prices and a slight modification in the ethnicity of the average attendee, there wasn’t a whole lot that was different from a cactus show. You had your pompous dealers pontificating on botanical trivia, and your perceptive ones who realized some customers just wanted something beautiful and easy to care for. You had folks who wore business suits on a Sunday afternoon rubbing shoulders with people schlepping shopping bags and holding conversations with themselves.

There were many familiar sights. Collectors running into each other and exchanging information about their latest discoveries. The looks of excitement on people’s faces when they stumbled across something they’d been looking for. The expressions of “Oh, what the hell” when that something cost more than they wanted to spend.

A plant caught my eye, a tiny specimen, with slightly succulent leaves, attached to a piece of tree bark. It was a common method of display, in both the show and sales areas, and I remembered seeing dozens of them in Albert’s greenhouse. The combination of plant and mounting had a certain gestalt that I thought would work well in my Jungle. The price sticker said nineteen dollars.

A guy with a persistent smile, maybe a few years older than I was, staffed the table. I plucked the plant from the
chicken wire it was hooked to, waited while he finished selling an orange-haired old lady two hundred dollars’ worth of plants that would have fit in a shoebox, and asked him if my choice was a rare species.

“No, not particularly rare.”

“Then why is it so much money?”

“There’s a lot of labor involved.”

“I see.” I checked out the orchid, a
Nanodes discolor
, more closely. A couple of the heads had the beginnings of flower spikes. “I’m just starting. I don’t know that I want to spend this much on such a tiny plant.”

“No problem.” He smiled, as if he were just as happy to have me look at the plant as to buy it.

I hung it back on the rack and said, “Maybe I’ll come back later.”

“You will be back. That plant’s meant for you.” He broadened his grin and turned to the young couple and their shirt-tugging kids who were clamoring for his attention.

Sharon came back. She’d taken the elastic thing off her ponytail and her hair hung handsomely on her shoulders. I found myself wondering what it would look like if she masked the gray.

I told her I was orchided out. She said she could use a rest too, and we found seats in the back of the auditorium. Over to the right, tiny snores escaped a sleeping man. He had the look of a plant spouse, dragged to the show by his significant other. He’d probably gamely walked the tables for ten minutes before sneaking off to napland.

I turned to Sharon. “So how did you get involved in orchids?”

“A friend. She was in the club, she brought me to a meeting.”

“I see.” I looked out at the crowd. “Funny to think one of those people might be a murderer.”

“Funny
isn’t the word I would have chosen.”

“You know what I mean. You’re sure you don’t know anyone who had it in for Albert?”

She looked at me. She seemed to be gauging whether to trust me. Then: “Well … no, it’s probably nothing.”

“Let me be the judge of that.” Right. Detective Portugal. Arbiter of who’s a valid murder suspect and who’s not.

“All right, if you insist. There’s a couple. Helen and David Gartner.”

“And?”

“It’s probably nothing.”

“You said that.”

“All right. They had some sort of business dealings with Albert.”

“Oh?”

“I overheard something at an orchid society meeting. Something about contracts.”

“And, what, you think these dealings went sour and these people got mad enough to whack Albert?”

She looked sheepish. “It does sound pretty silly.”

But, I thought, worth following up on. “Where would I find these people?”

“I could get their number from the membership list. They run a tire store in Reseda. Gartner’s Tires.”

Hearing the name again helped me make the connection. “Gartner, you said. Helen Gartner.”

“Yes. What about it?”

“That’s the woman Laura had dinner with last night.” “How coincidental.”

A heavy guy wearing a hideous checked jacket walked by
with a box full of plants. “See the one with the tall pseudo-bulb and the two little leaves at the top?” Sharon said.

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s a schomburgkia. Sometimes the pseudobulbs are hollow and ant colonies live in them.”

“We have those too.
Hydnophytum.
They call them ant plants. Would you be interested in going out with me sometime?”

She looked at me and smiled. “Nice segue.”

“I’m nervous.”

Her eyes looked sad. “I’m very flattered. But I don’t think so.”

I’d been so sure she’d say yes that when she didn’t, it took me several seconds to formulate a reply. When I did, it was no gem. “Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“It’s just that—well, it doesn’t matter what it is.”

“I see.” I got to my feet. “I ought to get going.”

“I hope I haven’t hurt your feelings.”

“No,” I said. “Not at all. I just have to get home to check on my eggplant.”

L
OTS OF PEOPLE BUY THINGS WHEN THEY’VE SUFFERED DISAPPOINTMENTS
. Clothing. Banana splits. BMWs. I buy plants. I found the vendor with the little plaques and bought the one I’d been looking at. His name was Yoichi Nakatani, and he invited me to visit his nursery. “The address is on the receipt,” he said. “I’m usually there.” I glanced down. His place was in Stanton in Orange County. The receipt was written with that peculiar slant some left-handed people have.

When I got home, I hung the orchid in the Jungle, then took the Sunday
Times
into the canary room. I sat with the paper unopened, wondering why Sharon had turned me down, finally deciding it was her loss, not mine. Yeah, right, I told myself. And if you believe that, I’ve got some swampland in Fresno to sell you.

I pulled out the Calendar section and read Robert Hilburn’s facile ramblings about the rock music flavor of the month. In Opinion I discovered that crime was down and learned why the experts thought that was. I looked in the
magazine section and read about a restaurant I would never go to.

I put the paper down and stared out the window. Shadows crept up the wall as I listened to the canaries’ chirping, wondering what it would be like not to have to worry about anything except where your next dish of seed was coming from.

I got up and called Gina. “I was just getting in the shower,” she said. “Jill’s back and she’ll be over in twenty minutes.”

“You want to hear about my detecting adventure today?”

“I’d love to, but I’m standing here naked—”

“Oh, baby.”

“—and I’m freezing my ass off. So call me in the morning.” The phone clicked.

I put out the eggplant salad and some pita bread and chips and pretzels, arranged soft drinks and beer in the fridge. I dug out Laura’s card, gave her a ring, got her machine. Very concise, very professional. None of the show tunes or whooping birds actors like to put on their recordings. No piteous supplications on the order of “If this is a producer or casting director, please, please,
please
find me.”

I began to leave a message. Laura picked up. “I’ve been screening my calls. So many people have been calling. Reporters. Can you believe it?”

“I can,” I said. “Look, I think we should talk some more.”

“Now?”

“No, I’m tied up. How about tomorrow sometime? I’ve got an audition in the morning at Stoneburg Studios, not far from you. I could come over after that.”

“I’m working on a scene with my scene partner at nine. How about eleven?”

“Sounds good.”

The doorbell rang. I looked at the clock. Seven on the nose. I said goodbye to Laura and hung up.

Vera Berg was at the door. Vera wasn’t on the board, but we always made a point of inviting all the club members to board meetings. No one who wasn’t on the board ever came, except Vera, who would commandeer the chair most convenient to the snacks and spend the evening hogging them.

Some more people showed, including Austin and his wife, Vicki Neidhardt, she of the beautiful red hair. She wasn’t on the board. She wasn’t even a member. But she was an investment banker—which somehow meshed with Austin’s hippie routine—and she was going to advise us on what to do with five thousand dollars recently willed to the club by a member who’d gone to that big cactus garden in the sky.

Rowena Small came in next. She has radar. It homes in on whoever’s least interested in hearing her chatter. Much of the time this is me.

“Did you hear?” she asked.

“Hear what?”

“About that orchid man who was killed.”

“Yes, Rowena, I heard about that orchid man who was killed.”

“But did you hear the latest?”

“The latest?” Okay, I was interested. “What’s the latest?”

“It was on the six o’clock news. The police think a ring of plant thieves might be responsible for his death.”

“You mean smugglers?”

“No, Mr. Smarty-Pants, I mean thieves. They think someone came to his house to steal his plants and he found them and …” She mimed shooting a gun. She appeared to be enjoying it.

I tuned Rowena out—not difficult with all the practice I’d
had—and thought about what she’d said. I’d heard the tales through the years. How the cycads disappeared from Manny Singer’s place in the Valley. How a huge bursera walked out the door at Grigsby’s in San Diego. How several hundred valuable seedlings were stolen from Arid Lands in Tucson. These seemed isolated incidents, but what Rowena had said might have merit. What if there were organized plant thieves? Orchids would be a better target than succulents. The plants were more valuable. And they probably traveled better; dump a bunch of succulents in a loot bag and they’ll all spine each other. Suppose someone had invaded Albert’s greenhouse to glom on to some of his plants. He stumbled upon them. They panicked, shot him, and ran away without any booty. The theory had a sort of simplistic attraction.