Death in the Orchid Garden (13 page)

 

T
he woman at the back of the line boldly examined Louise, taking in her swept-back hair with a hibiscus blossom tucked behind the ear, the gaily-flowered muumuu, and the silver sandals. Apparently not impressed, she said, “Do you have a reservation?”

“Yes,” said Louise, adjusting her magenta flower. “I'm with them,” she said, nodding to the Corbins and John Batchelder, deep in conversation ahead of her in the line. “We're a party of four. Do you have reservations?”

“Of course,” said the woman, and fastened her gaze in on Louise's golden-tanned cohost. “This place always takes awhile to seat you, though.”

“They do seem busy,” said Louise. She looked out at the restaurant's charming garden. “A lovely garden, isn't it?”

The woman waved a hand on which reposed a large diamond ring. “It's like any garden, don't you think? But this place has excellent food; we come here several times each visit.”

“So you come to Kauai often?”

“For a month every year. Have you found any new good places to eat on the island?”

“We haven't been around much. We've had to stick pretty close to our hotel.”

“Kauai-by-the-Sea?”

“Yes.”

“We own a house in Poi Pu.”

“How nice.”

“Kauai-by-the-Sea is nice. But someone fell to their death last night right on the hotel grounds.”

Louise said, “I believe it happened adjacent to the hotel grounds.”

“Horrible thing. Maybe the man was drunk. I heard he was drunk. But I also heard the fall ripped his head off. Did you hear that?”

Louise said, “I don't know too much about it, but I don't think his head was quite ripped off. I only know I'm glad to be eating somewhere besides the hotel for a change.”

“It would be tiresome to eat there too much,” said the woman.

“I couldn't agree more. Tell me where you and your husband eat.”

“One of the best places is in Lihue. Aroma, it's called. We eat there at least twice while we're here, once on the way home, because we take the nine-thirty night flight.”

“I've heard of Aroma.”

“And of course there's the Gaylord Tavern. And a darling little Chinese place in Kapaa for lunch. It's right near the Safeway.”

“Hmm,” said Louise, taking the small notebook from her silver evening purse and jotting the new names down. Exchanging notes on culinary hot spots quite clearly ranked right up there with sunsets as important group activities in Kauai. “We had an excellent breakfast at Joe's on the Green,” she offered.

The woman sniffed dismissively, as if Louise had failed a test. She turned her back on her and addressed a couple who'd strolled up to the rear of the line. “Have you two found any new good places to eat this year?”

“We certainly have,” said the man, but just as Louise was about to get the scoop, Steffi yanked her by the arm.

“Hurry it up, Louise. Whatever are you doing? Our table's ready. Use it or lose it.”

The porch on which they were seated was dark and comforting, with lots of candles flickering here and there. “Isn't it delightful to be eating dinner in a new restaurant?” said Louise to her companions. “Though I do feel bad about missing sunset on the beach.”

“Hey, Louise, last time you did that you found the body,” said John. “Maybe you'd better give up sunsets on the beach.” Her cohost had a kind of permanent smile on his face; Louise knew he was waiting for someone to ask him why.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because I've had a good day.”

They gave their drink orders and Louise decided to try her first mai tai.

Marty congratulated her. “Good, Lou. You're really going native, dressing native for a change and drinking the native drinks.” Then he turned to John. “What was so good about today?” he asked. He and wife Steffi still were holding hands, so Louise decided they'd had a good day, too. The second honeymoon was still cooking.

“I've talked to just about everybody about the murder.”

Louise's heart sank.

“Oh, so it's definitely murder?” persisted Marty, running a hand through his curly dark hair.

“The cops don't say so, but Louise and I know, don't we, Louise?”

She sighed. If only they could talk of something besides what happened to poor Matthew Flynn! “What did you talk to everyone about, John?”

“I challenged them, told them you and I were doin' a little investigating. We are, aren't we, Louise?”

She shook her head. “No. John, why are you going around ruffling feathers? I ran into Nate Bernstein and Charles Reuter at the lagoon. They were very annoyed and guess who got the brunt of it? Me. What did you hope to learn by egging them on, implying they had a grudge against Flynn?”

“To get a rise, of course. I did that with everyone.” He sat forward and put his elbows on the table. “But Louise, my pièce de résistance, or whatever you want to call it, was this: I told the cops about George Wyant's machete.”

The machete. That was the reference to a knife that she'd tried to remember. Her colleague, she noted, was much quicker at putting these things together than she was.

“Matthew Flynn told us George Wyant cut through jungles like a knife through butter with his machete.”

“And you told the police about that?” This morning, she'd felt strangely protective toward young George Wyant. Now she wondered if she'd been wrong to feel that way.

“Yep,” said John. “I told them I thought he carried one with him. And that it could be the murder weapon. What else better to make a deep wound, as you described it, in the back of Flynn's sorry neck? I told Chief Hau that if they send divers out there, they might find it off the rock. He told me he was going to follow up on that.”

Marty, Steffi, and Louise looked at him in silence. Steffi said, “That's not bad detecting, John, dear. I bet the chief loves you.”

“He seemed really appreciative. I told him I'd keep him abreast of anything else I turned up.”

Louise had her nose in the menu. “I'd like to get abreast of a good dinner,” she said, smiling up weakly at her companions. “I'm overdosed on murder.”

They all ordered fish. To Louise the best part was the dessert, so complicated that just reading about it took her breath away. Baked Hawaii: coconut and passion fruit sorbet on a rich, Ghirardelli dark chocolate brownie encased in a golden baked Italian meringue and flambéed with framboise liqueur served on lilikoi creme.

John, who ordered double chocolate cake with caramel sauce, begged a bite of hers. “God, I wish I'd ordered that.”

Louise said, “When we come here again, you can order it.”

“But we're going home,” insisted Marty. “We oughta be out of here by Monday night, oughtn't we?”

Louise said, “I hope so.”

John walked beside her as they left the restaurant. The woman with whom Louise had talked while waiting in the line was seated with her husband, finishing her dinner. She cast an all-knowing look at Louise. Louise could practically hear what she was thinking.
Middle-aged, sex-starved woman gloms onto younger, dashing-looking man.
Just as they passed the table, Louise tucked her arm through John's, looked up at him with a tender expression, and said, “Where're we going next, baby?”

Confused and a little annoyed, John nevertheless didn't let loose of her arm and fortunately didn't react until they passed the couple's table. Then he said, “Quit pretending that you feel for me, Louise; I know you think I'm an odd duck. But you just watch, I'm going to show you the stuff I'm made of.”

When they arrived back at the hotel in their rental car, they ran into George Wyant striding through the lobby toward Options, the hotel's posh nightclub. Uncharacteristically, he had on long pants and looked like a normal tourist rather than a jungle cowboy. Louise thought he might stop for a word with her. Instead, he swung around and marched straight up to John Batchelder and practically bumped him in the chest.

Though John was tall, Wyant was a good three inches taller and more muscular as well. “You little prick,” he growled, “going around all day making snide cracks about everybody. Insinuating that I killed Matt, who mentored me and stuck by me even when others thought I was a lightweight and who's good to his widowed mother and unmarried sisters. You know, a regular, good person with decent principles. You're the one, aren't you, who tattled to the cops about my machete? Well, you'll be happy, you turd, that I'm in big trouble, because someone lifted my machete from my room.”

His bloodshot gaze flicked onto Marty, Steffi, then Louise. “It could have been anyone. And now they think it might be the murder weapon and that I killed my friend.” He poked John in the chest sending him stumbling backward. “And you, you creep, you're responsible for the whole thing. For all I know, it could have been you who stole it.” Another sharp poke with a strong finger: “How do you like it when the tables are turned, huh? Did you do it? Did you steal the machete? Did you kill Matt?” His voice had risen and people in the lobby turned and looked.

Wyant finally noticed the ruckus he was causing. He stepped back from John Batchelder and turned to Louise. “You're a nice lady, Louise. I don't know why you're hanging around with such bad company.” He spun around and resumed his way to the hotel nightclub.

Louise noticed one thing: George Wyant may have been on his way to getting drunk, but he wasn't high. It wasn't drugs doing the talking, it was right from the heart.

 

T
he phone rang, breaking the soft peace of morning sleep.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” said Louise's husband. “It's report time.”

“Hi, darling.”

“I have a lot of information for you, Louise,” said Bill. “But first, how are you? Did you sleep all right?”

“I slept in, with the aid of a little pink pill. And no dreams of poor Matthew Flynn. But it's hard to wake up.”

“Have the police figured out what happened to that poor guy? Maybe you don't need all the petty gossip I've collected.”

She sat up on the edge of the bed, pulled her white lawn nightie straight underneath her, and tried to concentrate. “The authorities haven't made much progress, or at least they haven't told us. They're diving for a weapon they think might have been thrown in the ocean.”

“My God,” said her husband, “talk about a needle in a haystack.”

“A weapon might have landed on an underwater shelf just beyond where I found Matt's body.”

“Well, that's better. So you call him ‘Matt,' huh?”

“I'm getting to know him better since he's dead than when he was alive. Bill, let me get my pad and pencil. I want to take notes.” She returned in a moment. “Ready.”

“Louise, none of this is going to blow you away. On the other hand, it's interesting. Who knows what small fact may turn out to be of value?”

“Who knows? What do you have?”

“First, I'll tell you I don't have a take on those people at the National Tropical Botanical Garden or the people from the Honolulu PBS station.”

“We can forget those young PBS freelancers; they didn't even know Matthew Flynn. But I need to know about the four from the tropical gardens. And now there's another dark horse—except he's very light-complexioned—Dr. Ralph Pinsky, p,i,n,s,k,y, director of the Greater Missouri Botanic Garden.”

“I'll see what I can get on him and on Schoonover et al. tomorrow. The rest of them have been checked out pretty thoroughly. Let's talk first about Anne Lansing and Christopher Bailey, Bruce Bouting's people. Anne Lansing has an impeccable reputation. She's the daughter of the prestigious Dr. Richard Lansing, head of the biology department at Northern. She got her BA degree there, then went on to Eastern for a master's degree. She's a ‘hands-on horticulturalist of note,' that's what one source told me. Along with writing she heads Bouting's new plant research. Maybe you know all of that.”

“As a matter of fact, I do. What about Christopher Bailey?”

“He and Anne are both candidates to succeed Bouting. Bouting apparently doesn't care that Bailey left academia. That happened after he was charged with falsifying the research on his dissertation at Washington University, where he also earned his undergraduate degrees. This incident drove him into commercial horticulture, where he's said to have a golden touch, plus a good business head.”

“Bouting claims that he's a genius at crossing plants and producing gorgeous new ones.”

“Yeah, if you say so. I don't know anything about crossing plants. I only know you don't cross
wives.”

“Very funny, Bill. Speaking of wives, what about their personal lives? Married? Divorced?”

“Bailey was married back a ways to someone he met at the university, but it didn't last long. Anne Lansing's never been married and if she gets interested in someone, it's known that the paternalistic Dr. Bouting will have to pass on the guy. He's very proprietary about her. According to one source, Anne and Christopher are both married to their careers.”

Louise nodded. “That seems right.”

“Anne Lansing has a penchant for publicity. If she isn't writing the article, someone else is writing about her, in
Garden Design
or
Architectural Digest
, since she designs the occasional garden for the rich and famous—that sort of thing.”

“A go-getter.”

“Very ambitious, it's said. However, Christopher Bailey is seen more with Bruce Bouting in the administrative offices. This is one of the largest horticultural firms in north America, did you realize that? Apparently, it's enormously profitable, privately held, and Bailey is being coached on how to keep it that way. From what I heard, Anne Lansing might be slated to take over the research and development end.”

“That wouldn't represent much of a change from what she does now,” said Louise.

“I guess not. Now, to move along to Nate Bernstein.
Dr.
Bernstein, rather, who did his graduate work at Berkeley in record time, with Dr. Reuter as his mentor. He's a brilliant young man, is thought to collaborate in—and I think that might mean ghost write—some of the best articles for his boss. Bernstein landed in jail once for environmental picketing in Sacramento, but not a big deal, I wouldn't think. All in all, he's respected and considered a comer in his field of environmental science.”

“That takes care of three of the four assistants. I need to know everything I can about the fourth, George Wyant. Apparently the police are zeroing in on him.” She told her husband about the missing machete.

Bill said, “The word I get on Wyant is that he's reasonably scholarly and promising, but that the life he and the deceased Matthew Flynn were leading was on the wild side. Though, as I intimated to you before, I think that's part of the game for your average, everyday ethnobotanist. Also, there's lots of trumpeting from Dr. Flynn and George Wyant about ‘medicinally valuable plants' that don't turn out to be medicinally valuable. However, Flynn's and Wyant's university, Eastern, doesn't seem to mind as long as they keep trying. Neither do their other money sources, such as the National Scientific Foundation, because once in a while they strike pay dirt. They think they're going to again with some other discovery now being analyzed for its alkaloids, or something . . .”

“It's a subspecies of
Uncaria quianensis.
”

“Hmm,” said Bill, “are you sure you don't know more than I do about these guys?”

“What else about George?”

“George, huh? Is Wyant a likeable fellow?”

“Yes, but he might have killed his mentor.”

“Well he's sensitive, it turns out. He was hospitalized for a month with a mental breakdown three years ago after a trip with your Dr. Matthew Flynn to the Amazon. Both caught a vicious little virus and it's thought George's addictive personality caught up with him that time, too.”

“Well. Anne Lansing must have met both Flynn and Wyant at Eastern. Or did she?”

“I didn't find that out,” said Bill. “But I got the impression that those people in the Massachusetts–New York– Pennsylvania corridor all know each other. That means Flynn, Wyant, Bouting, and Bouting's two assistants, Bailey and Lansing, were pretty well acquainted. In fact, they're all up-and-coming scientists, so I'm sure they crossed paths at national and international conferences.”

“Great research, Bill.”

“I've friends who helped with this. Next, let's go to the scientists, starting with the deceased. Matthew Flynn, a full professor at Eastern, made a huge splash when one of the first plants he brought back from South America turned out to have value for treating Parkinson's and other nerve diseases. He was kind of a showman, so lots of people think he was a phony. Quite the bachelor-about-town, too, in both Boston and New York. You didn't fall for his good looks, did you, Louise?”

“No, darling. So if he was a man-about-town, that must mean he was unattached. No family?”

“Just a divorced wife somewhere in his past and a mother and younger siblings he helped support. And though he had that Don Juan image, it was rumored that he had been smitten lately with one true love. Name of the woman, unknown. This could be important, according to that source, because it would mean an end to his adventuresome life.”

“Something George Wyant might not have liked?”

“Exactly.”

“Besides, Bill, I got a few other vibes from Wyant,” said Louise. “I had the feeling he was attached to Matthew Flynn as more than just a friend and assistant.”

“That thickens the plot a bit,” said her husband.

“Now who's next? Bouting?”

“No, Charles Reuter. Dr. Reuter has a strange past. He was charged by his wife with mental cruelty during a bitter divorce action a couple of years ago. But then they reconciled and now live together again, but ‘uneasily.' Hah,” barked her husband, “doesn't that describe most marriages?”

“Not ours, honey,” said Louise.

“I'm glad you think that. This Dr. Reuter's considered a troublemaker and excessive critic in the scientific community. He brooks no opposition, his opponents say; in other words, he
slaughters
'em.”

“Interesting, considering the way Matthew Flynn was killed.”

“But on the plus side, Reuter is the ultimate do-gooder, a great advocate of third world countries. He believes in giving back to them for snitching their plants.”

“He's talked about that a lot at this conference and during our shoot.”

“You're going to have trouble using that program, with one of the on-camera people dead and gone.”

“It's awkward. Marty's pretty upset about it. Fortunately we have a great interview with Tom Schoonover from the gardens. Bill, the only one left to talk about is Bruce Bouting.”

“I left the best for last. He's our multimillionaire headquartered there on a huge acreage in Bucks County not far from Philadelphia. You know all about how he's one of the busiest plant collectors in the country, spending lots of time abroad searching out new ones. You must know all about his research gardens and all that. After his wife of forty years died five years ago, he married another woman, but they were divorced last year. Even at that, he's rumored to be quite the womanizer. I have to salute him for that, Louise, for they say he's sixty-six.”

“Since when do you salute womanizers?”

“Actually, I'm just havin' a little fun with you. To be sure you stay alert during my report, I enliven it now and again with some racy stuff. Now, here comes the most interesting thing about Dr. Bouting: He's evidencing early signs of dementia, probably Alzheimer's disease.”

“That's pretty private. How did you weasel that information out?”

“The person who did probably got it from someone at the company who might be worried about its future and wants to see a change at the top. I don't believe I am unduly Machiavellian when I guess that the source is an ally of one of those two assistants out there in Kauai, Anne Lansing or Christopher Bailey. Maybe one or the other wants to hasten Dr. Bouting's leave taking.”

“Bill, this is great. How can I thank you?”

“When you come home, give me a lei.”

“My dear, you're funny. I'll do just that. So we agree we'll wait this out?”

“As long as you feel safe there. Do you?”

“Yes. No one's after me. Though John Batchelder has been acting a little odd . . .”

“Is that something new?”

She laughed. “He's going around playing detective.”

“Good, let him, as long as you don't. The only danger I see there for you is from Bruce Bouting. He's horny as a goat, they say. You already mentioned something about him being annoying, a polite way of saying the same thing. Watch your step; you aren't in danger of being murdered, just preyed on by a man old enough to be your father.”