Death in the Orchid Garden

by Ann Ripley

  After she put the rope back in the bag, they both ordered a gourmet omelet called the Hawaiian Sunrise Special. She said, “What is this urgent matter, Tom?”

  For a moment, he fidgeted back and forth on his filigree-backed iron chair until he hit a comfortable spot for his back. “Sore back this morning,” he explained cryptically. “Louise, this is what bothers me. I think you’re in a precarious spot. Randy Hau hasn’t said anything about it, but don’t you feel a little threatened?”

  “You mean by what happened last evening?”

  “Yes.”

  “I told my husband I was in no danger. Are you saying I am?”

  “Let’s think it over,” said Schoonover, leaning his arms forward on the table and looking her straight in the eye. “Even if two scientists have been the victims, that doesn’t mean this is some kind of deal where scientists get picked off, one by one. You know, one of those ‘Murder at the Mansion’ plots.”

  “Funny,” said Louise, “but I facetiously mentioned that very thing last night to Anne Lansing on the plane. You have to admit it’s less a joke now that two scientists are dead.”

  “You have a point there. But you also have to look at what happened to John and why he was there with Bouting last night.”

  She stared into the distance, not focusing on the lap swimmers in the pool nor the somnolent sunbathers lining its edges. “Tom, I think I know how John got into trouble. I bet he was snooping around. As you probably heard, he was determined to investigate Flynn’s death. He told practically everybody about it.”

  “And since you and John were sitting and talking together all the way to the Big Island, the perpetrator might think that you know everything that your friend John knew.” He gave her a somber look. “That could put you in jeopardy. I would hate to think of anything happening to you.”

  The memory of the plane trip clicked back into her mind. “John might have been on to something. A few minutes before we reached the Big Island, he went up front to use the restroom. He was excited when he came back, so he must have learned something up there. He said he had something he had to tell me.”

  “What was it?”

  “He didn’t tell me. Remember the turbulence when we started to land? John’s nervous about flying in the first place. He just held on and could hardly talk. Then, in the Volcano House restaurant, I asked him what it was that he had to tell me.”

  “What’d he say then?”

  “He said he couldn’t discuss it then. In fact, it didn’t seem important any more by that time.”

  The waitress brought their brunches, but neither was that interested in eating. Tom Schoonover said, “Let’s go back to the plane incident. Who was near him up in the front of the plane?”

  “Unfortunately, half the people in the plane. When Christopher came out of the bathroom, Bouting hurried up to the front and was animatedly talking to him, but in his usual whispery voice. Ralph Pinsky gave Bouting a dirty look and went into the restroom. John was right there, waiting behind Pinsky in line. Bouting seemed upset and Christopher was trying to soothe him. Anne Lansing came forward with a pill and a water bottle. Bouting took the pill and then she and Christopher helped him back to his seat.”

  Schoonover said, “I caught some of that action out of the corner of my eye, but I was pretty engrossed in my editing.”

  “All the while,” said Louise, “George Wyant was hunkered down in the front row seat within easy earshot. It’s unclear to me what upset Dr. Bouting, or what John heard, or from whom he heard it.”

  She picked up her fork and tried her omelet, a mélange of eggs, mushrooms, onions, chipotle bits, and green pepper. It made her long for the simplicity of breakfast at home.

  Schoonover said, “You were sitting pretty far forward, but you couldn’t hear what anyone was saying?”

  “No,” she said. “It was all very sotto voce.”

  Schoonover grinned at her, his hazel eyes crinkling. “I love it when you speak Italian.”

  “Very funny,” she said.

  He dug into his own omelet with gusto, consuming half of it in a matter of minutes.

  Later he said, “What you’ve told me doesn’t allay my concerns, Louise, it only exacerbates them.” The worry lines were in full force. “It tells me John could have picked up vital information. He carried that information with him and ended up nearly dead near the lava flow.”

  She had a heavy feeling in her stomach. Maybe it was the food, or maybe it was her companion’s sober admonitions. “Heaven only knows what John found out,” she said. “I hope I can visit him soon and he can tell me. In the meantime, the police must be scratching their heads trying to come up with answers. For one thing, you scientists all know each other in a number of different ways. Bill says—”

  “Bill. Your husband.”

  “Yes, I talked to him this morning. He says there could be two killers hanging around this place.” She made a face. “Isn’t that cheery news?”

  He nodded. “He’s right. That’s a definite possibility.”

  She looked warily at her companion, for now she was getting into personal territory. “There are a hundred little reasons for disliking someone—for instance, the issue of someone taking credit for a plant discovery when he discovered the plant by underhanded means . . .”

  Schoonover gave her a sharp look and his eyebrow wrinkles deepened.

  “But it probably takes a bigger reason to kill someone than that,” she finished.

  “Mmm.”

  “Then there’s the hypothesis that a ‘true believer’ was knocking off a couple of people whom he considered unworthy to be scientists.”

  He broke into a hearty laugh. “I bet you number me among those true believers.”

  “Yes, though I don’t think you’d kill anyone.”

  “There’s another obvious theory.”

  “Obvious to you, maybe. What is it?”

  “Suppose on Friday evening that Flynn’s killer was observed by Bouting, either when gathering up a weapon—and I have no doubt that the police have now fished Wyant’s machete out of the Pacific Ocean and have the weapon—or when the two went up the Shipwreck Rock path. That would be a logical reason for the assassin to shove Bruce into a handy stream of red-hot liquid rock.”

  “And what about John?”

  “I hope John recovers so he can tell us. He could have been snooping—he probably was. He happened upon this dark deed and despite considerable personal fears did the courageous thing, plunged in there and tried to save this man’s life. He’d have had a better chance, of course, had Bouting been a smaller man.”

  “Did you know Bruce Bouting well? I mean, well enough to know about his health?”

  Tom shrugged. “I saw him intermittently over the years at conferences. I think I know what you’re getting at. I’m certain the man was suffering from early Alzheimer’s.”

  “That’s what Bill discovered. Bill’s with the State Department, so he’s been able to do a little checking on people.” Suddenly she was embarrassed. This opened up way too much of her personal life to a man she’d known for less than a week.

  “Hmm. Your husband’s checked people out? Obviously he wants to protect you from harm, Louise. I also want to protect you. So let’s talk about Bouting’s health. Here you had an older man who was suffering from a terrible malady and had the worst of it ahead of him. But I’m sure we both agree that, whether he was sick or not, falling into molten lava is not the way he wanted to die.”

  She sat back, feeling full of vague regrets. Maybe she’d said too much to this man. After all, Tom Schoonover was within the umbrella of suspects. He wasn’t even going to be restrained from leaving this hotel, since his home and his beloved gardens were just a few miles from here. What if she were wrong and she was talking to the killer?

  He leaned forward again, forearms on table, as if he were going to pour out an intimate secret. “I have one little piece of advice for you, in case you’re tempted to snoop around like y
our colleague did.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m guessing that the police have little physical evidence, since these are outdoor crimes. Now, the scientific method is a belief system that posits that you have been able to provide evidence that is physical and self-evident as far as the truth is concerned. If we rely on our senses, we’re in trouble, for the senses play tricks on us all the time. We know what happens when there’s an accident: Different witnesses to the event see different things. It’s easy to be mistaken by things we observe and even things we hypothesize. We must test our theories.”

  Not an intimate secret at all, she thought, but a science lesson and an intriguing one at that. She shoved her long brown hair back from her face. “But I don’t even have any theories.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said, “you just presented some of them to me. And if you think about it longer, you’ll have more. Just be careful. And remember, we’re never sure what happened in the past.” He laughed. “It’s much easier to predict what’s going to happen in the future.”

  Schoonover said, “And I have a prediction, Louise. Two people have been killed right under your nose.” He opened his arms wide, as if to encompass the world. “The mystery of it is as fascinating for you as finding a new species would be for me.” He hunched forward again. “I predict you can’t stop yourself from delving into the matter. And I’m telling you to be darned careful when you do.”

  36

  As Louise walked into the office to meet with Chief Randy Hau, she saw that the room bore the hallmark of the publicity director. She’d only run into the woman briefly during the embarrassing parrot incident, but knew she favored lime green. The two visitor chairs were done in this color, while the draperies were a lime background with wild accents of pink, yellow, and royal blue. Good thing that this was Hawaii, thought Louise, where over-the-top colors and patterns in furnishings and clothes seemed quite in harmony with the over-the-top colors and patterns in nature.

  The police chief got up from his borrowed executive chair and stood behind the blond desk. “Mrs. Eldridge, please sit down.” She did and was surprised at how comfortable the chair was. He picked up a white envelope off the desk and handed it across to her. “I want to give this to you before I forget. We found it in the pocket of Matthew Flynn’s shorts the night he died.”

  “I suppose you read it.”

  “Yes, we had to, of course. It’s perplexing. Maybe you can explain it and how you came to know this man. After this mysterious message, there’s a list of island restaurants and their locations.”

  She slipped out the small note paper and read.

  Louise—

  From one gourmet eater to another—keep your mind open and your eyes, too. And if something should happen to me, check out the equipment! Matt

  Then followed a list of seven restaurants on the island, all with Chinese, Japanese, or Hawaiian names. He’d written rough directions to each, including the homey landmarks that the islanders tended to use as guides: “Turn left at the Exxon station and go about a half a block. Then hang a right and go til you see a big Sago palm in a yard on the left—that’s it.” As Louise remembered from living in London as a foreign service wife, Brits did the same thing. They started out by pointing a finger firmly in some direction: “Go about three blocks that way, luv, to the old church. The name of the street will change, but don’t get a stitch in your knickers over that. Then take a left for a ways, past the greengrocer . . .”

  Louise gazed thoughtfully over at Chief Randy Hau. “What on earth could he have meant?”

  Hau said, “It’s odd. In fact, it’s ominous. And it indicates to me that you must have been acquainted with this Dr. Flynn, something you didn’t tell me after we found him dead.”

  “But I wasn’t acquainted. I only met him when I came to this hotel.”

  The chief’s eyes were slightly narrowed. “You’re sure of this? Your friends will say the same thing?”

  “Of course. I only talked to him, let’s see, four times, once on Thursday and three times on Friday. And never at length and never alone.”

  The chief waved his hand, as if in dismissal. “Okay. Then that’s settled. You and I have other things to talk about. First of all, tell me about last night and about what John Batchelder said to you when they were putting him into the ambulance. In fact, tell me everything you can think of from last night. Then let’s talk about what your husband learned about these people.”

  When she related John’s words about “it was all for love” the policeman looked puzzled. She told him how she found the two men near the lava, being sure to describe how her foot collided with Bouting’s cane, which she’d inadvertently kicked closer to the two.

  Hau nodded solemnly again. “And what did you conclude from that?”

  “Bouting didn’t get that close to the lava all on his own. Someone persuaded him in there and shoved him the rest of the way.”

  “When the police heard that from you last night, they came to the same conclusion.”

  Soon they got around to the subject of Bill’s background checks. The chief knew many of the same things Bill’s efforts had uncovered through his Washington, D.C., sources, but not all. He was unaware that Matthew Flynn was going to discontinue his work in the Amazon, nor did he know that Ralph Pinsky had terminal lung cancer. He had heard that Bruce Bouting was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. He also had heard about the succession plans at Bouting Horticulture, where it was thought Christopher Bailey would take over the top position and Anne Lansing would share in management.

  They exchanged a look. It was the first time she felt the man might actually like her. He said, “We both realize the problem. There are dozens of theories that we could develop out of all these small bits of information.”

  “That’s true. If it was a single killer, it could be an obsessed environmentalist who thought Flynn and Bouting both were frauds. As for Matthew Flynn, it could be someone who resented him for ending his work in the Amazon, or for getting there first to discover a rare plant . . . especially someone who’s dying and doesn’t appreciate being cheated out of a final big discovery. Or another plant explorer beaten out of a discovery on his own Hawaiian turf.”

  “And in the case of Bruce Bouting, there’s always the theory that Anne Lansing and Christopher Bailey wanted to hurry up the changes at the top. If there are two killers, it makes it doubly complicated.” He scratched his head and frowned. “The trouble is that there’s so little physical evidence. We have Matthew Flynn’s blood up on Shipwreck Rock and nothing else. The park rangers have scoured the site of last night’s incident in Volcanoes National Park and have come up with nothing except Bouting’s cane. We have you to thank for telling us where it originally was lying.”

  “There’s also the machete,” she said guilelessly. “Have you found it?”

  When he hesitated, she said, “You might as well tell me. If you don’t, the beach oracle will.”

  He smiled a little. “Oh, I get it. Bobby Rankin. Is that what you call him? He’s supposed to keep anything he found to himself, but there were lots of spectators on the beach when he came up with it Sunday afternoon.”

  “Was that helpful, finding the machete?”

  Hau fidgeted in the high-backed chair. “There are no fingerprints, of course. Unfortunately, anyone could have taken it from Wyant’s room, including Wyant. The maid has told us that those two gentlemen, Flynn and Wyant, always kept their room door propped open, apparently because they were used to living in the out-of-doors and couldn’t stand locks and dead bolts. Wyant solemnly denies he did it, of course.”

  Louise stared into the middle distance, where her eye was caught by the pink, yellow, and royal blue pattern in the drapes. So disorderly, like a conclusion reached through evidence of the senses. It reminded her of her talk with Tom Schoonover about the scientific method. “Tom Schoonover says you can make a ton of mistakes relying on your senses and even your hypotheses. He says that what yo
u need is to test your theories.” She didn’t mention that Tom thought she might be in danger; she was trying to keep this thought at bay.

  “I’ll go along with that, but it’s not that easy to test theories.”

  “Here’s this disparate group,” she said, “consigned to the hotel grounds. Why don’t we use some ruse to get everyone together tonight? Could you call another meeting?”

  Chief Randy Hau cleared his throat and considered her idea. “That may seem a little odd, since we just had one this morning. But there may be another way to do this. Now, as you might guess, Kauai-by-the-Sea hates having a murder investigation taking place in its midst, much less having guests held against their will. Melanie Sando, who’s a very uptight lady at this point, tells me the hotel is anxious to do something to preserve its image. She’s suggesting that they throw a little dinner party for you folks tonight.”

  “That’s a perfect way to get people together.”

  He sat forward with a hopefulness Louise hadn’t observed before. “There’s a great singer, Joan Clayton, booked into Options this week. Melanie calls her a chanteuse.”

  “She’s wonderful,” said Louise. “She sings all those old romantic Cole Porter numbers.”

  The chief said, “Melanie thinks she could talk this woman into singing, what do you call it, a little group of songs . . .”

  “A set?” suggested Louise.

  “Yeah, a set, ”said the chief. “She could sing a set . . .”

  “Do a set, I think they say.”

  “Yeah. Do a set, a special little entertainment deal, for after the dinner. Think that’s too hokey?”

  “Everyone will love it.”

  “We’ll tell them the hotel thinks of it as a farewell dinner and it is; we hope to get you folks on your way by tomorrow night—that is, if we feel we have enough information from everybody.”

  “Marty Corbin would help. He’s a great master of ceremonies. Nobody will ever suspect you’re trying to learn something. Maybe he could whip up a program with audience participation.”