Garden of Evil

by Edna Buchanan

  “Down south, out in the ’glades? Why there?” My heart beat faster. Ochopee was only about sixty miles west of Miami.

  “They just had another skunk ape sightin’,” she said. “’Cordin’ to the paper. Tour guide and a buncha British tourists seen it.”

  No wonder police were confounded trying to track her. Her elusive trail was based on whatever curious events or tourist attractions captured her imagination.

  “Seven feet tall, covered with hair, and he smelled bad, like a skunk.” She glanced back at Joey in his car seat. “He was watchin’ ’em, lurkin’ behind a veil of Spanish moss and spidery air plants drippin’ off the cypress trees at the edge of the swamp.”

  “He’s Florida’s Bigfoot, the Sasquatch of the swamp, the Abominable Snowman of the subtropics,” I said. “There’ve been stories for years. He’s an urban myth that people see after a couple of six-packs.”

  “Has to be somethin’ out there. Everybody who seen it can’t be lyin’.”

  “Some reporters think it’s a local character playing games to scare tourists.”

  “Well, he better be fast and hold onto his ass, cuz one-a these days he’ll scare some tourist with a gun.”

  I visualized a headline: KISS-ME KILLER SLAYS SKUNK APE. Would they have sex first?

  I felt giddy. We were out of the woods and rolling south, toward home, toward Miami, wheels singing on the road. Buoyed by a sense of relief and optimism for the first time since we dropped Joey’s father down the sinkhole, I nearly joined in as she sang along with some country song on the radio about “wild whiskey and mm.”

  Then another news report on Ira Jonas plunged her into a tirade.

  “Somebody with balls could go right over there and bust him the hell out.”

  “Off Death Row?” I asked.

  “That guy in Texas escaped.”

  “Yeah, but they found him dead.”

  “At least he died trying, not when they decided he would die. He cheated ’em! Probably woulda made it if he had outside help. Bonnie and Clyde did it once. Broke in and rescued a cousin or somebody.”

  “But look what happened to them.”

  “Not till later. Jesus Christ, Britt! Land a chopper inside the walls, step off guns blazing, those corrections officers’d run like rabbits.”

  “Where would you get a helicopter?” I asked. “They cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. How would you fly it?”

  “You don’t go out and buy one, for Christ’s sake! You take a ride in one-a them sightseeing choppers, hold a gun to his head, and the pilot’ll do anythin’ you say. I swear, I don’t know how you’ve lived this long. You ain’t got a resourceful bone in your body.”

  Who cared enough to carry out her fantasy of a Death Row rescue? I wondered. No one who knew her.

  She lit a cigarette. “Death Row inmates don’t get to work like other prisoners. It’s a bitch. One shower a week. No exercise with the others. Fucking lousy. Specially when somebody don’t really belong there.”

  “Are you saying Jonas is innocent?”

  “Hell, I don’t know shit ’bout his case. I’m just sayin’ that sometimes somebody who’s there shouldn’t be.”

  She meant herself, I thought, incredulous at how she could think she was anything but a winning argument for capital punishment.

  Keppie exited the turnpike in Palm Beach, went east to the Atlantic Ocean, and drove along the beach. My eyes eagerly drank in the sight of endless blue water, always different, always the same. They had thirsted for that as much as my body had for water.

  South Florida is more year-round playground now than winter resort. We cruised with Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, and BMWs, down Worth Avenue, past small elegant arcades and Mizner buildings with tiny passageways and exclusive shops tucked beneath the stairs, past French bistros with New York waiters wearing black tie and white aprons down to their ankles.

  “This is my style,” Keppie said, and parked at the marina. We strolled along the boat slips to see the lavish multimillion-dollar pleasure craft from all over the world and the old money elegance of the yachtsmen in whites and navy blazers.

  “Let’s go,” Keppie said. “We got us some shopping to do…. Now, you listen,” she warned, as she strapped Joey into his little harness. “I’m dead serious. You run off or cause any kinda commotion and he’ll be with his daddy again quicker than this.” She briskly snapped her fingers. “Wanna take responsibility for that, you just try me, girl.”

  “I understand,” I said. “But why stop here? Why not just go on south?”

  “Because I am in the mood to shop,” she said.

  The first sales clerk did not take us seriously until Keppie had her wrap up a $400 pair of designer cargo pants and a silky little $320 blouse that went with it.

  The clerk snapped to attention.

  We shopped a swath along the avenue where pampered pooches lap fresh water from tiled doggie bars while strolling with their owners. Keppie used credit cards and cash, stopping three times to hit ATM machines, as we loaded the car with shopping bags and boxes. Keppie gravitated to casual chic: Lily Pulitzer pastels that showed off her tanned legs and sang out that the wearer was not a tourista and a little fifteen-hundred-dollar Nantucket handbag that was dainty but large enough to accommodate a gun.

  She kept Joey at her side. When his little harness raised eyebrows, she spoke sadly about his “disability.”

  “I have to keep him close by at all times,” she explained, her sweet face troubled. “It’s life-threatenin’. His seizures come on all of a sudden, just like that. I keep his medication right here.” Patting her purse, she turned to me, smiling. “He’s got my sister here to thank. Without her, he wouldn’t be alive today.”

  Tomorrow, I thought, we’ll be near Miami, on my turf. The advantage will be mine.

  At a motel, we filled our small room with her newly purchased treasures, including a five-pound box of Godiva chocolates, a sterling silver comb and brush set, handbags, high heels, and little strappy sandals.

  She had bought clothes for us all. Joey got cotton pjs in a puppy print and a three-piece ensemble: striped shirt, cotton pants, and a little fishing vest he would probably outgrow in weeks. We were Keppie’s captive audience as she modeled the clothes, striking poses, flashing new diamond stud earrings and a gold bangle bracelet.

  We bathed and dressed to go out. She fussed even more than usual with her hair and makeup; then we paraded to the car in our new clothes—on our way to dinner, I thought. Instead, Keppie drove to the big glassed-in convention center. On the marquee: 23RD ANNUAL ORCHID SHOW.

  “Always wanted to see one-a these,” she said, steering us to the box office.

  Perfume and aftershave mingled with the delicate fragrance of thousands of species on display. Orchids everywhere, in every shade.

  Only eighty miles from home, I scanned the crowd hoping to see a familiar face, while Keppie struck up a conversation with a stranger. The badge on his blazer identified him as a judge.

  “Were you aware that orchids are the largest family of flowering plants in the world, with about twenty thousand species?” he asked her.

  I did not hear her response, but the flirtatious lilt to her laugh chilled my blood. I turned to stare, and my mouth dropped open. I wanted a familiar face, but not his. The classic profile and prematurely silver hair belonged to Sanford Rutherford DeWitt, grandson of a robber baron, heir to a vast fortune, a senator’s son, a governor’s brother, and a criminal defendant.

  An oft-married playboy, DeWitt had been tried on a highly publicized rape charge three years earlier. The victim, a fledgling photographer at a little shiny sheet that covered Palm Beach high society, said he had invited her to photograph him at his mansion, where she was assaulted, overpowered, clothes torn, camera broken.

  Inexperienced prosecutors had been blitzed by his flamboyant defense team. They claimed the act was consensual, that she liked rough sex and he had merely accommodated her. The jury acquitted.

/>   “They embarrass me,” Keppie tittered shyly. “I can’t hardly bear to look at ’em.” She erupted in a bubbly giggle. Was she blushing?

  “Did you know,” he said, demeanor distinguished, mellifluous voice sly, “that the word orchid is from the Greek word orchis, which means testicle? See the way some of the bulbs are shaped? And see there”—he gestured toward a display—“that bloom resembles a vagina.”

  “I thought I was the only one who saw that.” Her shiny lips were wet. “I thought it was me! That I was oversexed.”

  The glitter in his eyes matched her own.

  I scrutinized a yellow orchid surrounded by beefy dark green leaves. The thing did resemble a pelvis. I’d never noticed that before. Some blossoms were pristine and virginal, others swollen, bloated, and conspicuously sexual.

  “Here’s a phalaenopsis,” he said, slowly and distinctly shaping each syllable. “It blooms for six weeks.” He leaned forward and spoke intimately in her ear. Her diamond earring, bought with blood money from one of her victims, twinkled and winked under the artificial lights.

  “Can’t say that ain’t stayin’ power,” she murmured seductively. She arched her back and brushed against him.

  Good grief, I thought. Both predators; they deserved each other.

  “Melody, Melody!” She caught my arm with girlish exuberance.

  Melody? Did I look like a Melody?

  “You hear what he just said?” She pointed to a display of baby plants, naked roots dangling. “Look at ’em, just look at ’em.” Her cheekbones reddened. “I can’t stand it.”

  “Hybrids, dendrobium,” he said. “See their little stamens and pistils?”

  She gave a delightful little shriek. “Oh, God! I can’t take it. I love it when you talk dirty.”

  Laughing, he barely glanced at me, so absorbed was he with Keppie.

  What if I fled into the crowd, out of the building, and flagged down a patrol car? Would she dare hurt Joey in front of all these people?

  Keppie turned, as though hearing my thoughts.

  “This is my cousin, Melody,” she told DeWitt, “and her little boy, Joey.”

  Joey gazed up, bewildered. He’d been talking less and less. Keppie whispered flirtatiously to DeWitt, her eyes meeting mine over his shoulder, the long fingers of her right hand curling around the nape of the child’s neck. Stoic, the little boy blinked but never flinched.

  She would do it. Joey would die for nothing, I told myself. We were so close to Miami and what I hoped was freedom. I believed she really was about to let us go.

  “Here, this is it,” DeWitt said, “the one that looks the most like the female sex organ.” He steered Keppie toward another booth, his hand at the small of her back. “It’s called the Dracula Vampira.”

  “Oh, God!” she gasped. “My favorite!”

  He stepped away briefly to confer with a matronly woman also wearing a judge’s badge. “Do you know who that is?” I muttered to Keppie.

  “I read the newspapers,” she murmured. “Ain’t it a hoot?” She glowed like a bride as he rejoined us. “I ’member where I’ve seen you,” she said, gazing up at him. “Yes, you must be a yachtsman. I’m sure I saw you at the marina.”

  He nodded, eyes relieved. “I do have a little pleasure craft moored there. You like to cruise?”

  “Oh, I’m dangerous out at sea. I feel so free and open, nothin’ but sky and water—and the right person, a-course.”

  Her eyes shone expectantly.

  “What about tomorrow?” she said. “I’d just love to see your…pleasure craft.” The words fell from her lips like an obscene phrase.

  A SWAT team could have swarmed the convention center, rounded up the usual suspects, and stomped every last obscene pistil and stamen to pulp beneath their boots and he would not have noticed.

  “Come hungry,” he said. “My chef will whip up something special.”

  “I’m always hungry,” she murmured, licking her lips. He kissed her hand; their eyes locked.

  “What about dinner?” I asked, as we climbed back into the SUV in the parking lot.

  “We’ll pick something up,” she said absently and checked the time.

  I unpacked the take-out chicken as Keppie parked in front of the TV. I had forgotten. Ira Jonas was to die tonight.

  Candlelight marchers protested outside prison walls. They held hands and sang “We Shall Overcome.”

  “They’re almost all relatives, pastors, and loved ones of Death Row inmates, people with an ax to grind,” I commented.

  Across the street, kept at a distance by deputies, death penalty supporters shouted insults and carried signs saying AN EYE FOR AN EYE, JUSTICE!, and REMEMBER THE VICTIMS.

  “A lot of them are cops, relatives, or victims’ rights advocates,” I said.

  Keppie didn’t answer. Eyes glued to the screen, she sat cross-legged on the bed closer to the door, the gun tucked between her legs under a pillow she rested her elbows on, the tequila on her nightstand.

  Her hits on the bottle became more frequent as a perky girl reporter did a live stand-up outside the prison disclosing the menu for the condemned man’s last meal. He would not die hungry. He had ordered a dozen shrimp with cocktail sauce, rare prime rib, baked potato with sour cream, corn on the cob, and a hot fudge sundae.

  “Sounds good,” the solemn anchorman said, promising to return later for more live reports from the death watch.

  Keppie peeled off her new clothes, carelessly tossing them into a corner, unlike her usual fastidious behavior. She paced the room in panties and a lacy bra, gun in one hand, bottle in the other, drinking, smoking, ignoring the weather and sports reports. Joey and I brushed our teeth and I tried to tell him a bedtime story, but, unnerved by her erratic pacing, I couldn’t think of one.

  “Tell me.” He touched my cheek as we lay together on the bed.

  “It’s your turn,” I said. “You tell me a story, sweetheart.”

  “Mommy is looking for me and Daddy,” he began, as I cradled him in my arms. “She’s crying ’cause she can’t find us anywhere. The good angels are crying too. Their wings shine and they live in the blue water. They wanna save all the good boys and girls. But the bad angels hide in the woods. They have blood on ’em and they’re strong. If you let ’em see your face, they kill you.” He nodded solemnly. “They’re fighting.”

  “And who wins in the end?” I asked.

  “Nobody knows,” he said.

  I didn’t remember fairy tales being that grim.

  “Gimme your wrist.” Cigarette smoke spiraled around Keppie as she stood over us.

  “Do you have to do this?” I pleaded. “I’m not going to give you any problems. I’ve got enough to write the story now. We’re almost finished.”

  She snapped the cuff around my wrist without answering, locked me to the grillwork of the ornate headboard, and took her seat for another live report from the prison.

  “With no word from the governor,” the anchorman said, “it appears as though the death sentence will be carried out on schedule tonight.”

  It was.

  The lights dimmed, and a long slow sigh rose from the protesters. Supporters, still relegated to the far side of the street, cheered.

  A department of corrections spokeswoman stepped into the TV lights to announce that the execution had proceeded smoothly, without a hitch. Jonas spoke no last words and was pronounced dead three and a half minutes after the first jolt of electricity.

  The prison gates swung open minutes later and a white hearse glided into the dark, amid jeers and sweet voices raised in “Amazing Grace.”

  A death-chamber witness was interviewed, the victims’ grandson, a boy who grew into manhood awaiting justice.

  “I looked him right in the eye,” he said. “He knew who I was. Our family finally has closure, tonight.” I hoped they did.

  “Why did they kill the man?” Joey asked. I didn’t think he had been paying attention.

  “Because he was bad,”
I said softly.

  “Was my daddy bad?”

  “No.” I hugged him. “He wasn’t bad, sweetheart. Sometimes bad things happen to nice people.”

  Keppie shot me a sharp look, pointed the remote, and abruptly turned off the TV, plunging the room into darkness. “Shut up and go to sleep,” she said, words slightly slurred.

  This was the first time I had seen her feel the liquor. It worried me that she was still walking around with the gun.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “No. Life is shit, then you die.”

  “Other than that?”

  “Scattered,” she said, sounding weary. “I’m just scattered tonight.” Her cigarette glowed in the dark. “I’m just fucking pissed.”

  “At who?”

  “The whole fucking system that screwed me over.”

  I heard her take another hit from the bottle. She hadn’t touched the food.

  “There’s chicken left,” I said. “Why don’t you eat something?”

  “At least he got his goddamn last meal.”

  “Why did Jonas upset you?” My free hand groped for my notebook and pen.

  “I goddamn guarantee you, I don’t give a flying fuck about him.” The cigarette flared. “See DeWitt tonight? Hot to trot, huh? Son of a bitch really raped that girl, didn’t he?”

  “Probably,” I said quietly. “I believed her.”

  “Money and politics. See how fucked the system is? He walks free and my mother’s in her grave.”

  “How did your mother die, Keppie?”

  “I was just a little girl. Nothing I could do. She loved me.”

  “I’m sure she did. You must have been a beautiful child.”

  “Everybody says I take after her. Look just like her.”

  “What was her cause of death?”

  “They took her from me.”

  “Was it sudden? How did she die?

  “The bastards took her.”

  “Who?”

  “Said terrible things ’bout ’er. Just like all the things they say about me.”

  A chill swept my body.

  “What did they say about her?” I whispered.