Murder Among the Angels (22 page)

“No. We’re the only commercial suppliers in the country. We started growing them back in the 1950s for one of Edward Archibald’s daughters.” She looked up at Charlotte. “Edward Archibald was the founder of Zion Hill. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”

Charlotte nodded. “Which Archibald daughter would that have been?”

“Lillian,” she said, as she scrolled through the records. “Lily of the valley was her favorite flower. I suppose it was because of her name. There’s a beautiful stained-glass window in the Zion Hill Church that shows her walking through a field of lilies of the valley.”

“I understand the church’s stained-glass windows are magnificent,” Charlotte commented as she peered over Lisa’s shoulder.

“They are,” Lisa agreed. “People come from all over to see them. Ah, here’s April,” she said. “Let’s see. Wedding, wedding, wedding. I can tell the weddings because they order other flowers too. Lilies of the valley are popular for weddings because they symbolize purity.”

In light of what Connie had just told her, lilies of the valley didn’t seem a very appropriate choice for Lily’s favorite flower, Charlotte thought.

“We don’t get that many non-wedding orders for lilies of the valley because they’re very expensive,” she added. She had stopped scrolling. “Ah, here we are. April twenty-sixth. A single order for a bouquet of two dozen.” She leaned back to allow Charlotte a better view of the screen.

The name and address of the buyer were spelled out in glowing green letters next to the date: Victor Louria, M.D., 300 River Road, Zion Hill, N.Y. The evidence was right in front of her eyes, but Charlotte still couldn’t believe it. “Dr. Louria?” she said stupidly.

The girl nodded. “He used to be one of our best customers for lilies of the valley. He used to buy them for his wife, who was the daughter of Lillian Archibald. They were her favorite flower too. He stopped buying them for a while after she died, then he started again.”

Charlotte jotted down the date. Liliana Doyle’s skull had been found on the headstone at the Zion Hill Cemetery on April twenty-seventh, the next day.

“What about last September?” Charlotte asked.

Tapping some more keys, Lisa called up the older records. “This might take a minute,” she said. “There are a lot of weddings in September.” Again, she scrolled through the sales records. “Here it is,” she said finally. “September fourteenth, Victor Louria, M.D.”

Charlotte couldn’t remember the date on which Kimberly’s skull had been found, but she did remember Dr. Louria saying she had disappeared just after Labor Day. If, as in the other cases, the skull had been found about ten days after the victim disappeared, then September fourteenth would be about right.

She wondered about Dr. Louria’s alibi. If he had been in Brazil at the time of Kimberly’s death, as he claimed, he couldn’t have put the skull in the cemetery. But maybe his alibi wouldn’t hold up.

Lisa looked up again at Charlotte. “I read that he was being questioned by the police in connection with the murder case,” she said. “This isn’t going to look good for him, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” Charlotte agreed.

“Do you want me to see if he placed any other orders?” she asked.

The telephone was ringing again, but Lisa didn’t answer it. “When you get a chance,” Charlotte replied. “There’s no need to do it right now. I’d like to know about every order he placed, starting in February 1990.”

“No problem,” Lisa replied, as they made their way back out to the conservatory. “The computer makes it pretty easy. I could probably get the information to you in a day or so.”

“That would be great,” Charlotte said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know if you get any other orders too.”

Lisa handed Charlotte her card. “If you don’t hear from me, give me a call. I’m apt to forget,” she added.

After paying for her flower baskets, Charlotte thanked Lisa and left.

So it
had
been Dr. Louria, Charlotte thought as she drove back to the police station with her hibiscus plants in the passenger seat. The iron mask had been removed, exposing this urbane Brazilian for the monster he really was. The lily of the valley bouquets were the artistic finale to a drama in which he had created the Lily look-alikes, then killed them, and dismembered them in the summer house. The choice of the summer house was hard to explain, unless he had chosen it for psychological reasons. Maybe it had been the scene of some unpleasant incident with his late wife for which he wanted to take his revenge. A bitter argument, perhaps, or plans for a romantic evening that had gone awry. She shivered at the grisliness of it all. How had he killed them? she wondered. She remembered the article she had read in his waiting room about botulinum toxin being used by plastic surgeons to paralyze facial tics. The article had talked about the dangers of using too large a dose. It had captured her interest because of the exotic nature of the botulinum toxin, but a doctor would have easy access to drugs that were more mundane, and almost as deadly. Curare, insulin, digitalis, and any number of barbiturates had all been used as murder weapons, and those were just the drugs that immediately occurred to her. “A little shot—just to help you relax,” and—finis—that was it.

Her discovery that it was Dr. Louria who had ordered the lilies of the valley also solved another dilemma: what to do about her own surgery. There was no way she was going to be operated on by someone who was very possibly the murderer of three innocent young women. Coming up to a convenience store, she pulled in and parked next to a telephone booth. Then she dialed Dr. Louria’s office and told the receptionist that she had decided against having the surgery. Her feeling as she hung up was one of profound relief. If she’d gone ahead with it, she would always have felt dishonest, as if she were being deliberately misleading. Other people may have been deceived, but she never would be. The lines may have been erased, but she would never be able to look at her face without remembering where they had been.

A few minutes later, she had arrived at the police station. She met Jerry as she was heading in. One of his hands held the door open for her, the other cradled a round package under his elbow. “What took you so long?” he complained. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

She smiled mischievously. “I had lunch at Sebastian’s. I wanted to make you jealous.”

“You have,” he said. “I had a meatball sub at my desk. I’m headed up to the Octagon House.” He looked down at the package under his elbow. “I’ve got the skull of our third victim here. Do you want to come along? I’ll only be half an hour or so.”

Charlotte checked her watch; she wanted to make it back to the city by dinner, but it was only a little after three. “Sure,” she replied, and walked with him out to the police car.

Once they were under way, she said: “I’ve had a productive day,” and then proceeded to tell him about her meeting with the pastor, and his reference to a possible motive for Dr. Louria. Then she described her follow-up discussion with Connie. “Jerry,” she said, “it gives him a real motive.”

Jerry wasn’t overly impressed with the jealous rage theory, but his attitude changed when she told him about Dr. Louria’s purchases of the lily of the valley bouquets. “They have records of this?” he asked.

“It’s all on their computer,” she said, amused at seeing his detective’s brain kicking into gear.

“And when were the flowers purchased, exactly?” he asked.

Charlotte consulted her notes. “The second bouquet was purchased on April twenty-sixth, which I believe was the day before Liliana’s skull was discovered at the Zion Hill Cemetery.”

Jerry nodded. “It was found on the twenty-seventh.”

“And the first bouquet was purchased on September fourteenth. I couldn’t remember the exact date that Kimberly’s skull was found.”

“September fifteenth,” he said.

“The day after,” Charlotte said, “which was supposedly when Dr. Louria was still in Brazil. Have you confirmed his alibi?”

“One of the county detectives is working on it. He’s confirmed the airline reservations. But they could have’ been falsified. I’ve got him calling Dr. Louria’s friends and relatives now. By the way,” he continued, “I talked with the lawyers for Lily Louria’s estate.”

“And?” Charlotte said.

“They said her estate was valued at a little over two million. They also confirmed that Sebastian was her sole beneficiary.”

Charlotte whistled. “Not bad for a girl who didn’t care about material things,” she said, remembering what Lothian had said about Lily’s habit of wearing the same pair of blue jeans all week long. “I guess that puts Sebastian on our suspect list.”

“I’d say so,” Jerry said. “Especially since he’ll need to borrow against the inheritance to open his new restaurant.”

“Getting back to Dr. Louria,” she said. “He ordered two dozen flowers each time. Do you know how many were in the bouquets that were found in the cemeteries? The bouquet in the undercroft looked like about two dozen to me.”

Jerry shrugged. “We can check easily enough. We still have the bouquets in the evidence locker. We also have the crime scene photographs. Did you check the sales records for this month?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I figured that the murderer would simply have picked them, since they’re in bloom now. But I asked the clerk to check the records for all of Dr. Louria’s purchases dating back to the date of Lily Louria’s drowning.”

“Good.” The face that looked out over the wheel was thoughtful. “It’s incriminating evidence, but I’m not sure it’s incriminating enough. There are probably dozens of florists where he could have bought the flowers.”

“Ah. That’s where you’re wrong. Winter Garden is the only supplier in the country for out-of-season lilies of the valley. They developed them as a specialty because they were Lillian Archibald’s favorite flower.”

“The only supplier in the country, huh?”

Charlotte nodded. “Other florists can get them, but they have to order them from Holland, and it takes a minimum of two weeks.”

“Which is longer than the interval between the disappearances and presumed deaths of the girls, and the flowers’ appearances with the skulls.” Jerry smiled widely and looked over at Charlotte. “Good work, Graham.”

No sooner had he spoken than he pulled the police car into the nearest driveway and backed it out in the opposite direction.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To see the good doctor,” Jerry replied. “I think we’ve got something concrete to talk with him about, thanks to you. Maybe he’ll confess; it would save us a lot of trouble.”

Five minutes later, they pulled into the driveway of Arch-field Hall. They planned to try the residence first, and then the office. After parking next to the fountain, they ascended the stone steps and rang the bell at the magnificent front door. The door was answered by the housekeeper, Marta, who had been questioned by Jerry the day before, and who now greeted him warmly. She escorted them to an elevator at the rear of the entrance foyer. “He’s in the tower,” she said as she pushed the button. A moment later, they could hear the elevator beginning its descent from an upper story. When it came to a stop, Marta opened the door, which was of clear glass in a frame of hammered monel, for Charlotte and Jerry. Then she entered the elevator behind them and pushed the button marked “tower.”

Her sweet face bore an anxious expression. “I’m so worried about the doctor,” she said as the creaky elevator started to rise. “He’s like he was after she die. He no go to work. He cancel all his appointments. All he do is sit in the tower and think. Think, and drink.”

A moment later, the elevator had lurched to a stop, and Charlotte and Jerry got out, followed by Marta, who announced: “Chief D’Angelo is here to see you.” Then she got back into the elevator and launched the antique conveyance on its downward journey.

The tower room was square, with a stone floor, a low ceiling of carved teak, and floor-to-ceiling windows on four sides that looked out through the columns of the triple-arched openings. A spiral staircase in one corner appeared to lead to an outdoor observation deck on the next level.

Dr. Louria was slouched on a rattan couch in front of a television set, holding a glass of whiskey in one hand. He was unshaven, and the front of his polo shirt was spotted with stains. The morning newspapers were spread out on the coffee table in front of him, along with an array of liquor bottles.

With a start, Charlotte noticed that he wasn’t wearing his artificial ear. A metal bracket was affixed to his skull at the rear of the scarred place where his ear should have been, but where there was only the opening for the ear canal. The ear lay on the table among the liquor bottles.

He glanced up at them, and then returned his attention to the television set. He was watching a golf tournament.

Walking over to one of the windows, they gazed out at the view beyond the hand-tooled metal railing. Tendrils of mist rose from the river, giving it the otherworldly air of Chinese landscape painting.

“Terrific view,” Jerry said.

Without taking his eyes off the television set, Dr. Louria waved an arm, as if to say, “Be my guest.”

After admiring the view, Charlotte and Jerry took seats in the rattan chairs on either side of the couch. Charlotte wondered if this was where Dr. Louria had watched the videos he had made of the Lily look-alikes.

A golfer was lining up a shot on the putting green. As they watched, he gently swung his putting iron, propelling the ball directly into the cup. As the audience clapped quietly, Jerry said: “I understand that your late wife liked lilies of the valley.”

Dr. Louria nodded.

“The clerk at Winter Garden Florist reports that you ordered bouquets of lilies of the valley on September fourteenth and April twenty-sixth.”

For the first time, Dr. Louria looked over at them.

Jerry continued: “Those dates immediately precede the dates on which the skulls of Kimberly Ferguson and Liliana Doyle were found in the cemeteries. On both occasions, the skulls were found with bouquets of lilies of the valley.”

The audience at the golf tournament was tense as the next player lined up his shot. “If he sinks this putt, he’ll have an eagle,” said the golf announcer’s hushed voice.