Murder Among the Angels (21 page)

Connie elaborated: “She liked the power of it. She kept track of her conquests, like the soldiers who notch their belts.” She paused, and then said: “She was my friend, but I hated her sometimes. We were friends because we went to angel school together; you come to think of yourself as a special breed.”

“Which means that you stick together,” Charlotte interjected, “even though you may not always have liked one another.”

She nodded. Then she continued: “Anyway, the more righteous and upstanding her quarry, the more intense was her pursuit. She claimed—don’t ask me if it’s true—but she
claimed
that she’d never had a failure. Some men took longer than others, but eventually they all cracked. Or so she said.”

Charlotte remembered the videotape. She had thought that the doctor had been indulging his fantasies in directing Kimberly to parade around the room in such a suggestive way, but that must have been how Lily had really walked.

“It doesn’t go with her angelic image, does it?” Connie asked, sensing Charlotte’s surprise. “But the image was part of her appeal. Did Hugh Hefner choose women who looked like call girls for his Playboy bunnies? No, he chose women who looked like Kansas cheerleaders.”

“Did she really act, or was she just talk?” Charlotte asked.

“She certainly acted before she was married,” she said. “She was—to put it crudely again—a slut. After her marriage, I don’t know. I do know that she liked to torment Victor with that possibility …”

“With what possibility?”

“That she was sleeping with other men. He was insanely jealous. He would check her mileage to see if the distances she traveled squared with her given destination, or he would time how long she was gone. Sometimes he’d even follow her.” She tilted her head back again to exhale.

“How do you know this?”

“Peter told me,” she said. “Peter De Vries,” she added. “He’s the sexton at the Zion Hill Church.”

“I’ve met him,” Charlotte said.

“He and Lily were very close.” A shadow slid across her face. “They were engaged to be married at one time. That was before Peter’s accident.”

“Was Dr. Louria jealous of Peter?”

“No. Peter was the one person he wasn’t jealous of. I guess he figured that—having rejected Peter once—Lily wouldn’t be attracted to him again. Which she wasn’t. In that way, anyway.”

“What about Peter?” she asked.

“Peter has always carried the torch for Lily,” she said. “Always has, and always will. He never got over her rejection of him. She ruined him,” she added bitterly. “He’s only a shell of the man he used to be.”

Hearing a rap on the pane of the French door, they looked up. Another waitress was standing at the window and pointing at her watch.

Connie stubbed out her cigarette. “I have to go now,” she said.

“Thanks,” Charlotte said, “I appreciate your help.”

10

A few moments later Charlotte was giving her order to Connie. She chose asparagus: cream of asparagus soup followed by an asparagus omelette. She figured that she might as well take advantage of asparagus season, though she wondered if in doing so she would henceforth be identified by Connie as “the asparagus.” Actually, it would be a better match than “the grilled lamb.” She liked lamb, but she loved asparagus, and the recent scientific finding that it contained a chemical that helped prevent cancer only added to its appeal. With the help of her cook, Julie (Charlotte herself being all but useless in the kitchen), she had once given an asparagus dinner party. She had taken the idea from a “Get Even” dinner she had attended when the movie
Jaws
was released by a studio she was then working for. A publicity stunt to promote the movie, the dinner had consisted of seven courses, all featuring shark. Instead, she had served seven courses of asparagus, from asparagus soup to asparagus soufflé. The dinner party had been a big hit, which, since only asparagus lovers had been invited, was no surprise. The conversation had ranged from the relative merits of thin stalks versus thick to the weighty question of whether asparagus should be eaten tip first or stem first. The latter question, which fell into the same category as that of whether corn on the cob should be eaten in a spiral or back and forth, was one on which her dinner guests had displayed strong opinions, the stem-firsters accusing the tip-firsters of harboring a streak of self-indulgence. As a tip-firster herself, Charlotte had been shocked that there were stem-firsters in their midst. To her, being anything but a tip-firster implied a certain diffidence in asparagus attitude that made them unworthy of being guests at a dinner party for asparagus lovers.

Sebastian’s soup was delicious, a delicate blend of creamed asparagus with fresh herbs. As Charlotte savored it, she thought about what Connie had told her. In considering Dr. Louria as a suspect, they had thought he had murdered the young women because A. they hadn’t been perfect renditions of Lily, or B. it was a way of exerting his control over his late wife. Though the second was more plausible than the first, both of these hypotheses struck Charlotte as being weak. Why kill the young women who didn’t measure up? Why not just start over, as Dr. Louria himself had pointed out? Or, with regard to the control theory: Why kill the young women as a means of controlling Lily? Hadn’t Dr. Louria already controlled her? She had been bought and paid for as surely as he had bought and paid for the iron mask at the London auction. But the jealous rage theory: now
that
was a real motive, a motive that had proven itself over and over again as being sufficient to drive someone to murder. He could have killed the Lily look-alikes because his love had turned to rage. Rage over how she had manipulated him. Rage over how she had humiliated him. Rage over how she had betrayed him with other men. Then she had died, rejecting him again, for wasn’t death a form of rejection? With the object of his rage removed, he had simply created new Lilys to replace the fantasy he had lost, Lily voodoo dolls. But instead of sticking pins into them, he’d cut off their heads, and torn them limb from limb, preserving their skulls as trophies of his heinous acts. Then, he’d offered up his trophies. This was the part she still didn’t get. Out of guilt: as a form of atonement? That would explain the cemetery, sort of. Out of pride: as a form of showing off? Out of remorse: as a way of getting caught?

She was halfway through the omelette, and was sipping her glass of California chardonnay when she saw a curious figure turn up the brick walk leading to the front door. He had shoulder-length blond hair, and was wearing a full-length leather apron and a peculiar leather hat with a plastic visor to protect his head from the drizzle. In one hand, he carried a tall wooden staff. His other sleeve swung free.

It was Peter De Vries, the Leatherman.

When the pastor had told her the story of how a local boy had christened Peter the Leatherman, it hadn’t really made sense to her. His leather apron hadn’t seemed that out of place, and he hadn’t been wearing the hat or carrying the staff. But seeing him in full regalia, she now understood why his appearance would strike the imagination of a little boy.

Climbing the front steps with the slow, shuffling gait of a man absorbed in his own little world, he opened the door, and was greeted by the maître d’, who, after carefully placing his staff in an umbrella stand by the door, escorted him to a bar stool at the back. Though the other diners looked up when he entered, as they might for any new arrival, they barely noticed the bizarre figure who shuffled past their tables. It was clear that they were as accustomed to his presence as they were to that of any of the well-dressed suburbanites who made up the rest of the restaurant’s clientele.

Watching as Connie waited on him, Charlotte noted the care with which she set his place and the warmth with which she smiled at him, and thought of what the pastor had said about the high esteem in which the Leatherman had been held. But then it dawned on her that Connie’s attitude expressed more than just high esteem. Connie, she realized, was in love with him.

After lunch, Charlotte headed off to talk to the wholesale florists Jerry had referred her to. Following the dispatcher’s directions, she arrived at the largest of them a few minutes later. The business was located in a lovely old cast-iron conservatory, which was flanked by two long greenhouses. Behind the conservatory were a number of other greenhouses. A sign over the entrance read: “Winter Garden Florist, Wholesale and Retail Flowers Since 1906.” Entering the building, Charlotte passed through an anteroom into a miniature tropical paradise: the conservatory was filled with exotic plants of every description, from calla lilies to moth orchids. It had finally started to rain, and the sound of the raindrops thrumming on the curved glass of the roof added to the air of intimacy. On either side, doors opened into light-filled greenhouses in which baskets of plants and flowers hung from the ceilings, and pots filled with geraniums, impatiens; petunias, and the other bedding plants that were in big demand among home gardeners at this time of year covered the tables.

A young woman behind the counter was taking an order over the telephone. As Charlotte waited for her to finish, she savored the smell. There was nothing like the smell of a greenhouse, with its mixture of damp, moist earth and the sweet fragrance of flowers in bloom.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, once she had hung up the phone. She was a lively-looking young woman with short, curly, black hair, an olive complexion, and a ready smile.

“I’d like to buy some hanging flower baskets,” Charlotte said. As long as she was here, she might as well get some flowers for her patio, she thought. She also figured that the clerk would be more likely to answer questions that were put to her by a paying customer.

“Our hanging flower baskets are in this greenhouse,” she said, heading off toward the greenhouse on the left. “We have geraniums, lantana, impatiens. What else?” she asked herself. “Petunias, cineraria, blue lace flower.”

Charlotte followed her down the center aisle, marveling at the heady riot of color, with its promise of bright summer days, that contrasted so starkly with the grayness of the weather outside.

“Stop me if you see something you like,” the girl said. “Also, watch out for the buckets,” she said, indicating the buckets that had been placed on the floor to catch the rain from the leaky roof.

“Here,” Charlotte replied, stopping at a plant with funnel-shaped flowers of a lovely lemon-yellow color. “Are these hibiscus?”

She nodded. “They’re very unusual. We have a lot of unusual plants here.” She stopped to wipe a drop of rain from her nose. “We also have a lot of broken glass,” she added.

Charlotte looked up at the exposed sky, “So I see,” she said.

“We have eleven houses, so it’s hard to keep up with the breaks. We get a lot of breakage from kids throwing balls; we have a big housing development next door.” She looked up at the broken glass. “This isn’t so hard to replace, but the curved glass in the conservatory takes someone with special skills.”

“Actually, I’m surprised that these old greenhouses are still standing,” Charlotte said. “It seems as if a lot of the older ones have deteriorated to the point where they’re beyond repair.”

“Those are the wooden ones. Our glazing bars are made of cast iron. The manufacturer was from England. They built a lot of conservatories around here. Iron requires a lot more maintenance than wood, but if you take care of it, it’ll last forever.” She looked up at the flowers. “How many would you like?”

“Three, please,” Charlotte said.

As the girl took down three of the hanging baskets, Charlotte introduced herself and explained that she was helping the local police with their investigation into the look-alike murders.

The young woman in turn gave her name as Lisa Gennaro and explained that she was the daughter of the owner.

Then Charlotte asked her about the lilies of the valley: “I realize that it wouldn’t be a problem to get lilies of the valley at this time of year. But I was wondering about the other two incidents. Where would someone have gotten them in September or in April?”

“You’ve come to the right place,” Lisa said. “We specialize in growing lilies of the valley.”

Charlotte raised an eyebrow.

“You can get lilies of the valley from any wholesale florist,” she explained. “But because they’re flown over from Holland, you wouldn’t be able to get them right away. You’d have to order a couple of weeks in advance. We have them available all the time. We grow them right here.”

“How do you get them to bloom out of season?”

“We dig the pips from our fields, plant them in pots, and set them in bulb crates, which are held in a suspended state in our coolers. After three months, they’re ready for forcing. They bloom eighteen to twenty-one days after they come out. We take some out every day, so we always have some in bloom.”

“Would you be able to tell me who might have ordered some in September and in April?” she asked. “It was probably someone local,” she added.

“That shouldn’t be too hard. We’re computerized now. I’d be happy to look it up for you.” Picking up the hanging baskets, the young woman led Charlotte back to the conservatory, where she set the baskets on the front counter. Then she picked up a brochure and handed it to Charlotte.

The cover of the brochure read: “Lilies of the Valley, From the Finest Imported German Pips.” It went on to read: “We offer only ‘extra select’ grade: strong, twelve- to fifteen-inch stems; ten to fifteen bells to a stem.” The rest of the brochure gave price and ordering information.

When Charlotte had finished looking at the brochure, Lisa led her down a hall lined with colorful posters advertising Holland-grown bulbs into an office at the rear and sat down at a computer terminal. As Charlotte looked on, she called up the sales records for the previous month.

“Most of our orders for lilies of the valley are for weddings,” she said as she tapped the keys on the keyboard. “So it shouldn’t be hard to single out the orders that aren’t wedding-connected.”

“Do any other local greenhouses grow lilies of the valley?”