The Orchid Keeper: A Sean O'Brien Novel

by Tom Lowe

  He was dressed in an open Armani jacket, white oxford shirt, and a pair of Gucci jeans. He scanned through the channels, going from a business newscast, to national news, to local and state news. And then he stopped. The video showed aerial images of the Everglades, thousands of acres of sawgrass and a large alligator sliding from an embankment into dark water. The images cut to a man in a T-shirt and jeans leaving the sheriff’s office, TV news reporters following him.

  One reporter shouted, “Mr. Moffett, did you accidently shoot Joe Thaxton when you were hunting in the Everglades?” The man in the T-shirt, tattooed arms, didn’t respond. He was annoyed, looking as if he wanted to backhand the reporter.

  The man got into the driver’s side of a truck and sped away. A reporter’s narrative continued: “After Joe Moffett left the sheriff’s department with no charges filed, a joint news conference was held by the two police agencies investigating the death of Joe Thaxton—the county sheriff’s office and the Seminole Police Department. Lead investigator, Detective Wynona Osceola, said she doesn’t have the evidence to charge Moffett with murder or even manslaughter.

  Santiago sat straighter as the dark-haired female detective spoke. “Let’s disprove that it wasn’t a homicide before we focus on all the apparent reasons it could have been accidental. What we will look at is who might want Joe Thaxton dead … and why? Who could have the most to gain, financial or otherwise, upon his death? What did he do or what was he going to do that would have caused someone to kill him? If it was a homicide, was the shooting done by a hired hitman? Or was it done by the person who may have the most to lose had Joe Thaxton lived to be elected and make the sweeping environmental changes in office that he promised.”

  Santiago cracked his knuckles, looked through his glass doors to see if anyone was still in the office. He was alone. The reporter’s story continued. The video was of the Everglades and then images of flowers—orchids. “One of the areas Detective Osceola will look is in the direction an eyewitness gave her and the other detectives. World-renowned rare orchid expert, eighty-five-year old Chester Miller, lives in his cabin on thirteen acres deep in Big Cypress preserve. The day Thaxton died, Miller was replanting orchids in the Everglades and Big Cypress Preserve, something he’s done for years, when he said he heard a gunshot. Although it was the first day of hunting season, Miller said he only heard one shot in the area where he was at the time. He was the first to find the parked and locked truck owned by Joe Thaxton. And he saw something else—a man in an SUV, believed to be a black BMW coming from the direction of the parked truck.”

  The video cut to an interview with Miller. “I’d say he was in his early forties. Dark complexion. No beard. Shaved head. He had what you might call a prominent nose—a Roman nose, if you will. And he seemed in a real hurry to leave.”

  “If you saw him again, could you recognize him?”

  “I believe I could.”

  Simon Santiago stood from his desk, walked over to the bar in his office and poured two-fingers worth of thirty-year-old Balvenie scotch into a crystal glass. He took the first sip and waited for his personal phone to ring.

  He didn’t have to wait more than thirty seconds for his client’s number to appear on the screen. He took another sip, licked his wet lips, and answered.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  I couldn’t remember the last time I attended a funeral. But I felt a need to attend the funeral for Joe Thaxton. The services were being held almost five days after his body was found. Wynona had been following every lead she could uncover. She drove up to Stuart, and I met her in the parking lot of the Unity-By-The-Sea Methodist Church. “Look at the size of the crowd,” she said, as we walked through throngs of people outside the church. She wore an indigo dress and, even at a funeral, looked stunning.

  I estimated that more than four-hundred people—mourners, came to pay their respects to Joe Thaxton. They packed the large church, some choosing to remain outside in the sunshine and listen to the service from speakers that had been set up near the entrance. In a little while, they would line the long walkway to watch pallbearers carry the casket to the waiting hearse. All of the Thaxton campaign volunteers were inside the church, many softly crying as friends and family delivered heartfelt eulogies.

  Larry Garner and his wife sat in the front pews near Jessica Thaxton and Kristy, the coffin open to the left of the pulpit, two large photos of Joe on easels facing both sides of the congregation. Jessica wore a black dress. She wept. Her shoulders spasmed, hands trembling as she held a tissue to her eyes. Kristy sat stoic, as if the little girl could cry no more, her face filled with anxiety. A white-haired man—perhaps Jessica’s father, sat next to her. He put his arm around her shoulders and held her.

  Gubernatorial candidate Hal Duncan stepped up to the lectern. He looked at the crowd and said, “You all are an example of what I call the Joe Thaxton effect. He was a man who could bring people together … in life and here in death. Why? Because he had the unique ability to put people at ease. To truly listen to them. To engage them in meaningful conversation … to reach for a common and mutual goal. Joe, in a way, reminded me of Will Rogers … Rogers used to tell folks that he never met a man or woman he didn’t like. I believe it was the same for Joe. And after a few minutes with him, most folks went away liking him. You see, he wasn’t your average Joe … far from it. He was an extraordinary man.”

  Someone in a center pew sobbed. Duncan paused and nodded. “Although Joe and I differed in some areas of our politics, we shared a lot of the same ideas to move Florida forward to keep it the pristine state it’s supposed to be. I am honored to have known Joe Thaxton. My life will be richer for it. I don’t make campaign promises at funerals.” Duncan looked at the casket, pausing, blinking his eyes. “But I will promise my friend that I will do my best to carry out what we wanted to do together. His family deserves it. You deserve it, and so does Florida.”

  • • •

  At the end of the services, Wynona and I stood in the church lawn with hundreds of other people. There were TV news trucks and vans parked along the perimeter, reporters and camera operators keeping at a respectful distance. Two motorcycle police officers waited to escort the procession. Six pallbearers carried the polished wood casket down the church steps, along the sidewalk to the hearse, the funeral director opening the rear door. They loaded the casket and the door closed. The sound moved across the crowd with a somber note of finality.

  The funeral director nodded to a female member of his staff in a dark blue suit. She turned and watched as Jessica, Kristy, and the older man came down the walkway from the church steps to their car, dozens of mourners following behind them.

  Wynona and I watched them in silence, the afternoon sun growing warm, the scent of gardenias in the breeze. Jessica stopped near the end of the walkway, looked at the hearse, the heavy weight—the abrupt end of a life, burdened on her shoulders. Her husband, lying in a box in the back of the last vehicle anyone rides in, was about to be placed in a hole and covered with dirt.

  She looked at the mourners and well-wishers, like someone at the airport snatching a worn suitcase off the luggage carousel, turning to search the faces in the crowd for the person who was supposed to be there to pick them up … but that person never shows, and the people leave. There was the subtle look of desperation on her face.

  She saw me in the throng—her expression, for a brief second, changing from despair to a look of hope. There was almost a plea in her eyes as they welled with tears, lower lip trembling. The older man held Jessica by the arm, leading her to the waiting car.

  It was the first car in a line that would stretch the length of two football fields.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  Wynona and I didn’t go to the cemetery. There was no need to. We’d paid our respects, and we’d seen enough—enough pain and suffering. Joe Thaxton was not the only victim. The future of his child, wife, and extended family would forever be altered, And not for the better. Someone stole Joe’s life, bu
t they could never steal the memory of him from the people who loved him. That was evident.

  We sat under an umbrella at a sidewalk café in downtown Stuart’s river walk district. We had a view of the St. Lucie River, marina, and the Roosevelt Bridge. We sipped black coffee and ate fish ‘n chips. Wynona said, “I feel bad for Joe Thaxton’s wife and daughter. The grieving is so painful. Tomorrow, the next day, and the next week won’t be less painful, only a different form of grief that arrives when something Joe did or said is not there anymore. It’s often the little things that dig the big holes of pain—the void—that survivors fall into on their way to walk the dog or check the mailbox.”

  I sipped my coffee and said, “And, when a letter has the deceased person’s name on it, that hurts. People think grief can be shared … maybe—to some extent. But, at the end of the day, the end of a life can be grieved in many different ways by mourners. I think each person carries sorrow alone in his or her heart. And I believe there is a different kind of grief that survivors of murdered victims feel. It’s not only that death robbed them of their loved one, it’s that someone chose to take the life—to play God and steal a gift that can never be returned. Those tears of pain spill into a pool of sacredness that leaves the ugliest stains. When I was a homicide detective, those stains and blemishes forced me to look into the mirror at my own imperfections before I could attempt to speak for the victims.”

  Wynona said nothing. She looked out the end of the pier and watched seagulls ride the wind. “One thing I’ve always admired about you, Sean, is your dedication to live life on your own terms, and you’ve set those terms pretty high.”

  “No higher than you do. And you’re still doing the job—hunting down the criminals. I checked out, at least in terms of going to the office, coming to the CID each morning and having cases assigned to me. Now I can live vicariously in your work and trying not to overstep boundaries.” I smiled.

  She laughed. “Feel free to overstep anytime you want. I could always use your help. I’m not getting a lot from the sheriff’s department.”

  “That’s not surprising. Physical and forensics evidence points to Moffett, but like a weathervane, it doesn’t always face directly into the storm. It points in the direction the wind is blowing at the moment.”

  “It’s been a week, and I’m not a lot closer to solving this thing than I was when I drew a line in the sand with Sheriff Ketcham. Speaking of boundaries … the sheriff and his staff are not exactly eager to provide much more than what they’ve done. Detective Gilson hasn’t returned my last phone call from two days ago. It’s as if they’ve washed their hands of the investigation and don’t want to dig in the dirt with me anymore.” She paused and watched a sailboat on the river. “I just can’t be complicit in leveling manslaughter charges at Craig Moffett until we can prove it wasn’t murder. Maybe Moffett did murder him. If so … who’s behind it? Who was the other man out there that day—the one Chester Miller saw? We have one of the tire molds but no car. There has to be thousands of BMW SUVs in Florida.”

  “But not all of them have a cracked oil pan.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was thinking about something Chester Miller mentioned. He said he saw smoke coming from behind the car as it sped away. New cars don’t smoke unless something is wrong with them. What if the driver hit an object out in the glades—a big rock, log, or some of those potholes? What if it cracked something under the engine and oil was leaking on the exhaust causing the smoke? Maybe the SUV is or was fixed at a shop or at a BMW dealer?”

  She considered the possibilities. “That’s an idea. I like it. Although it’ll be an intensive search. The driver could have taken it in for repairs anywhere, assuming that something did break out there. After he left the glades and got back on the Tamiami Trail, did he go west toward Naples, or east toward Miami? There’s a big difference between the number of auto repair shops and BMW dealers.”

  “If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on the Miami area.”

  “I thought you might say that. I need to get back to the office and work the phones.”

  “Wynona, something else I remembered in thinking back over the things that Craig Moffett told you and Cory in questioning.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Moffett mentioned he’d ridden to his hunting spot in Big Cypress on his ATV. The area where we believe the shot was fired … the place where the cigar and things were discarded … there were no ATV tracks that I could see. Was there a hard rain right after and washed the tracks away, or were they never there?”

  A breeze moved through Wynonna’s black hair. She used her hand to pull a strand behind one ear. “What if Moffett drove his ATV out there, maybe parked it behind a tree to keep game from seeing it. And then he could have walked to the hunting spot next to that fallen cypress tree where the things were found?”

  “That might be how it happened. You can ask him. I think he’ll tell you only what he wants to tell you if it benefits him. On the other hand, if there was another man in the area at that time, an assassin with his sights on Thaxton, maybe the killer came across the stuff Moffett tossed either while he was hunting or sitting on his ATV. Assuming Moffett had left, the killer could have carefully picked up the cigar and other things, walked back to where he’d taken the shot then left the stuff near there. For law enforcement, it’s great forensics, and its excellent physical evidence … but, if it’s been placed there, it means nothing except that Moffett isn’t your killer, accidental or murder. It’s someone else.”

  Wynona smiled. “Did I ever tell you I like the way your mind works?”

  “Often it doesn’t work, at least not before coffee.”

  She laughed, looking across the river. The sailboat now a white dot in the distance. “I so miss the time we had on Dragonfly. I’m glad you decided to keep the boat. Maybe, when this is over, we can go sailing. I hear the Keys are lovely this time of year.”

  “They’re lovely anytime of the year. Sounds like a plan.” My phone buzzed. I looked at the caller ID with no intention of answering it unless it was Joe Billie calling. I didn’t want to spoil the moment with Wynona. It was Jessica Thaxton’s number. I glanced up at Wynona. “I need to take this.” She nodded.

  I answered, and Jessica said, “Sean, I saw you at Joe’s funeral. I wanted to thank you for coming. We buried him, and then, after lots of hugs and tears with friends and family, I returned to an empty home with Kristy. I heard that police are looking at the possibility of charging a man with manslaughter for what they say was an accidental shooting on the first day of hunting season. It was no accident. Joe was murdered. Whoever pulled the trigger intended to kill my husband … and I think, in your heart, you know that.”

  “The manslaughter charges against Craig Moffett haven’t been filed yet. It’s not only the county sheriff’s department in the investigation. Seminole Police are involved, too.”

  “I just don’t want the police to take the path of least resistance. Joe never did, and I have a feeling you don’t either. Can you do something to keep this from becoming a cold case? Not for me or Kristy, but in Joe’s memory and everything he stood for. Please, it would mean a lot. Joe liked you, and I think you liked him or at least what he was trying to do. Please don’t let them get away with it. One thing I’ve learned through the campaign is that big money quietly buys people. Joe couldn’t be bought. I don’t think you can either. In my heart, I believe someone deliberately did this … someone inside the industries Joe threatened by standing up to them. Can you please help?”

  “Jessica, I need to make something clear to you. I’m a PI and not part of the police or sheriff’s unit investigation teams. From the sidelines, I’ll do what I can, but I can’t make you any promises. Also, anything you can think of that Joe or anyone from the campaign headquarters may have said, please call Wynona Osceola at the Seminole PD. She’s the lead investigator on the case.”

  “I understand. But, anything you can do might
help, too; and maybe, in some way, the results might influence the upcoming elections. Thank you, Sean. God bless you.” She disconnected.

  Wynona said, “Sounds like you’ve decided to step over those boundaries. Welcome to the wild side. As I mentioned earlier, I could use your help. But it seems like it takes two women to convince you.” She laughed and sipped her coffee.

  “You heard me tell Jessica that I can’t make any promises to her. That applies to you as well. I have no illusions. This is a tough case. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  Wynona smiled and reached for my hand. “That’s enough, and that’s all I ask.”

  SEVENTY-THREE

  Sheriff Dwight Ketcham didn’t expect the call, at least not yet. He looked at his phone screen, got up from behind his desk and closed his office door. He answered and said, “Good morning. How’s the view of Biscayne Bay.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had time to look out my damn window since Thaxton’s funeral. You’re supposed to squelch this, and now it’s got more national attention. This train is out of control. That Seminole bitch detective is on a freakin’ warpath. You need to get this back under your wing.”

  “What the hell do you want me to do? I can’t exactly tell her to go away.”

  “Grow some balls! You’re the damn sheriff. A lot of my client’s support and money has helped put you there and to keep you there. You need to perform.”

  “I’m hoping that Wynona Osceola gets frustrated, sees the wisdom of a second-degree manslaughter case against Moffett, and goes along with filing the charges.”

  “You’re hoping she gets frustrated? That could take months. We don’t have that kind of time … nor do you. Am I clear?”

  “Yeah. I can only do so much. She’s tenacious, and she’s got a witness. Those kinds of circumstances don’t leave me a lot of wriggle room. I’ll do what I can.”