I felt curiously excited, and yet more peaceful with myself than I’d been in a long while. As though some troublesome problem had been resolved—which was hardly the case. My problems had only just begun. At least I could now enjoy these moments away from the cold and blowy North and even enjoy exploring the unexpected stranger I’d glimpsed inside me.
At home the glorious colors of spring would fade quickly, but here flowers bloomed the year round. I was a little like a plant myself, putting out new tendrils, exploring new territory.
I must have been smiling to myself, when a sound made me look around. A man I’d never seen before stood at one side of the garden, watching me. I had a feeling that he’d been trying to slip past without attracting my attention, but when I turned with a smile that wasn’t intended for him, he came a step or two toward me.
He was middle-aged, with sandy hair rimming his balding head, and a tanned, weathered face. He looked sinewy in khaki shorts that revealed knobby knees and a pair of hairy legs. And he was returning my smile with one of his own that seemed cherubic and incongruous in a face that was less than innocent.
I stopped smiling and stared in surprise.
“Hey,” he said, “you must be the big sister from up North. The one who’s got everything stirred up? Right?”
I didn’t like his easy, familiar tone, or anything else about him, but I felt no alarm. Not then.
“Who are you?” I asked.
His eyes were pale blue, and he had a trick of seeming to look far beyond me into the distance.
“Nobody you’ll be meeting around,” he said slyly. “But don’t worry—I got a right to come in here if I want. They all know me.”
“Would you like me to call someone to talk to you?”
“Nope. I can look out for myself. But you, now—do you know what you’re getting into coming down here where you ain’t wanted?”
“That’s hardly your business, Mr.—?”
He was shaking his head with its sparse circle of hair. “My name’s not your business. Thought maybe I can give you a tip. Just go easy while you’re here and stay out of trouble. Key West can be a rough place for anybody who gets in wrong. Maybe you better think about that.”
He strode off around the side of the house, and I noticed that he held one shoulder stiffly. My brief spell of calm had been disrupted, and I couldn’t recover the feeling of peace. His unpleasant words echoed in my mind—as if I’d been subtly threatened, though I had no idea why.
As I sat finishing my breakfast, the door of the orchid house opened and Alida Burch came out carrying a single white orchid in one hand. When she saw me, she walked toward my table.
“Good morning, Miss York.” As though she hadn’t seen me earlier. “May I sit down for a moment?”
“I wish you would. Did you see that man who was here just now?”
“What man?”
While I explained, she fetched another cup, poured coffee from the pot I offered, and sat stirring it thoughtfully, the white orchid resting on the table beside her.
“I know who you mean. Don’t worry. Sometimes he does odd jobs around here. But never mind him. I need to talk to you.”
This morning she had changed her amber beads and black dress for a navy skirt and white blouse. She wore coral around her throat and managed a certain dated elegance. Her short gray hair had again been brushed close to her head in the twenties style she affected, and any tear stains were gone from her cheeks.
“Yes?” I said, and waited.
“Not here.” She glanced uneasily around, as though expecting to find listeners in the shadows. “We need to talk away from the house.”
“All right. Shall we go for a walk in a little while?”
“Not together. Wait an hour and then walk down Duval Street to Mallory Square. You’ll find the Conch Train depot and benches where you can sit. I’ll find you there.” She picked up the white blossom, not waiting for my agreement. “I like to keep an orchid on my desk,” she added pensively. “To remind me of Poppy. Iris lets me help myself.”
She carried her cup inside, and I looked after her thoughtfully. Alida Burch was apt to be extravagantly mysterious, but I was willing to hear anything she had to tell me, and I would certainly meet her in Mallory Square.
“Hi, Laurel.” That was Fern, floating out of the kitchen in green muslin. “I’ll join you for a minute, though I never eat breakfast.” She dropped into the empty chair. “I must get to my orchids soon. My poor Tiger was injured last night. What was Mata Hari after just now?”
I smiled. That seemed a good name for Alida, but I wouldn’t tell anyone my plans. Until I knew what was up, I’d follow Alida’s directions and meet her quietly.
“She just came to get an orchid. Fern, I climbed to the roof with Marcus this morning. To see the sunrise. That’s why I’m up so early.”
“That’s a good beginning,” Fern said. “But Sunset is the real experience here. It’s a happening, and we always spell it with a capital S. When there’s going to be a fine one, I’ll take you to watch. What did you see from the roof—anything special?”
“It was all special to me. It’s a marvelous view to match a gorgeous morning. Marcus has invited me to go out to Derek’s wreck site this afternoon. You’ve been there, I suppose?”
This caught her attention, and Fern’s small face glowed. “Yes, of course I have. It’s very exciting. Derek’s going to be famous and rich, if things work out as he hopes. Not that he isn’t already rich, but treasure diving can eat up millions. Only this time he’s onto something pretty big.”
“Does he dive himself?”
“Sometimes—when there’s a real strike. Mostly he sends down divers he hires. Mostly men who have been with him for a long time. He’s taken me down in scuba gear a couple of times, and I loved it. Iris won’t go down. She’s not very brave, and deep water scares her. How brave are you, Laurel?”
The sudden question seemed less a challenge than an appeal, though I couldn’t tell what lay behind it.
“I’ve never had a chance to find out,” I told her.
This morning Fern’s tawny shock of hair was again caught decorously back with a green ribbon, though a few locks always escaped to dance around her cheeks with the quick movements of her head. Once more she studied me, and when she spoke her voice was low, all its sparkle gone.
“Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m living all alone in this house. As though there were only ghosts around me. I used to be close to my father—but not any more. Not since Poppy died. All he wants is to have her back, and that can’t be. Not for any of us. Even I know that, though sometimes I pretend.”
There seemed a need in this younger sister that made her terribly vulnerable. With her guard down, she looked forlorn and defenseless.
“We are sisters,” I reminded her gently. “And I hope we can be friends.”
Tears welled into her eyes, but she wouldn’t accept this self-betrayal—perhaps she didn’t trust me yet—and she ran across the garden and through the door of the orchid house.
I’d forgotten to ask her about the peculiar intruder whom Alida had dismissed so casually.
Had Cliff any idea, I wondered, of the hunger that existed in his younger daughter? Resentment against my father had a tendency to renew itself too easily.
When I’d carried my tray into the kitchen, I went upstairs for my handbag and sketch pad. Then I let myself out the front door. Having studied the town from the roof, I knew where Duval Street was and I walked toward it slowly, taking an irregular course down one street and up another. I had nearly an hour in which to explore before it was time to meet Alida in Mallory Square. I could move as slowly as I liked, looking at each house, while a sense of new adventuring came to life in me. Now and then I stopped to sketch a scene that caught my eye.
Behind similar white picket fences, each house was different from its neighbors. Touches of the Bahamas showed everywhere in scuttles and louvered shutters, and there were hints
of New England, the Creole, and the Victorian. Slim white columns were a reminder of the classic revival style in the South. On most of the houses wooden filigree offered its delicate, fanciful lace. I penciled an intricate bit of corner carving, pleased with the richness for an artist that I found on every hand.
Often there were fanlights over the front doors, some of which might still hold their original stained or frosted glass at the entranceways. Here and there an outside staircase slanted up from lower to upper veranda. Yet for all this imaginative construction, these houses had been set sturdily into coral rock, built to withstand hurricanes that blew in from ocean and gulf. They had stood for a long time.
One huge house—a perfect Queen Anne fantasy—was so fascinating in its complexity that I stopped to study its surfeit of gables, balconies, and turrets. This I must sketch! As I paused near a yellow elder that overhung the fence, a woman appeared in the doorway, and I stepped instinctively into deeper shade so she wouldn’t see me. Iris York emerged on the porch, speaking over her shoulder to someone out of sight.
“You’ve got to talk to him!” she cried. “He won’t listen to any of us, now that she’s here. If he goes ahead with this—” She broke off, and I could see that she was as agitated as she’d been last night in the orchid house.
Now the man she spoke to came through the door, and they descended the steps together. It was Marcus O’Neill. They stopped only a little way from where I stood, though neither saw me. I didn’t dare to move. This concerned me, and I had to know the meaning of Iris’s words.
6
Iris caught her breath and went on. “He’s using Laurel against us. We don’t think he’s quite sane any more—he’s so filled with these weird notions. He’s convinced himself that Poppy was murdered and that now there is some threat to him. And of course Fern has picked this up and is singing the same tune—only the threat is supposed to be against her!”
“Could what Cliff believes be true?” Marcus asked.
“Of course not!” She sounded furious. “It’s not like him. Not the way he used to be. Fern’s another matter—she’s always been off in another world. Poppy could keep her whimsies in line, but I can’t. And Cliff doesn’t even try.”
Marcus put his hand on her arm, and I could hear the tenderness in his voice. “Don’t mind so much, Iris. He’ll come out of this. Fern is well cared for, and you’ll escape when you marry Derek. If you marry Derek.”
“Of course I’ll marry him, but I won’t ever escape. You haven’t even begun to understand, Marcus. It’s the orchids—the orchids most of all! Oh, how can he do anything so wicked? Poppy’s orchids! You’ve got to talk to him, Marcus.”
“All right, I’ll try. But don’t count on anything.”
She whirled away and ran down the walk and through the gate. Marcus stood looking after her for a moment, and I saw the sadness in his face. Neither one had glimpsed me standing there, and by this time I didn’t dare to reveal myself. I’d heard too much—yet not enough.
When he’d gone back into the house and Iris was out of sight, I retraced my steps along the block, walking soberly toward Duval Street by another route. I could find very little meaning in what I’d heard, but the blight that even my mother had sensed lay heavily upon everyone in Cliff’s house. What was more, it seemed likely that Marcus was still in love with Iris.
My sense of adventure had evaporated, and I no longer wanted to sketch, though I kept up my pretense of being a curious tourist. At least this was a way of focusing my distracted thoughts.
On Duval Street renovation was still under way, and I moved from the shabby to the spruced-up. Restoration had brought about remarkable improvement in a town that only a few years ago had been run down and seedy. Yet in the coming days I would hear arguments both for and against the changes. There were those who preferred Key West in its own colorfully decayed state as an old seaport town. Individualism was what mattered most, and for the privilege of being oneself, people had been settling here for a long time. Influences that brought the pressure of change could be resisted and resented. When Key West called itself the Conch Republic, its tongue wasn’t always in its cheek.
Tolerance for others who lived here was something of a creed. Gays had been coming to the island for years, to become part of a community that accepted them for their worth as individuals and to which they could contribute their own notable gifts of imagination and creativity. All these things I would learn in bits and pieces in the days to come.
After the early business of “wrecking” died out, due to changes in the laws and with better lighthouse protection, cigar making had taken over, with tobacco shipped from nearby Havana. Then sponging had its turn until the sponge field died. Now even the fish and the fishermen had vanished, and shrimping—pink gold—had moved to Stock Island. For better or worse, the real business of Key West was now tourism.
Even early in the morning, this was evident as I walked past the shops on Duval Street and reached Mallory Square at its foot. Eager visitors with cameras slung around their necks were already about, their dress apt to be even more colorful and informal than that of Key Westers. Around Mallory Square architecture became a jumble of styles, ranging from the modest to the more dignified and distinguished. One old building of red brick displayed a handsome wrought-iron balcony right out of New Orleans or Savannah. A tiny eating place presented two or three tables outside, where the breakfast rendezvous appeared to be common.
I found the Conch Train depot easily—a long, roofed wooden structure, open on all sides, with the benches Alida had mentioned—and I sat down to watch the first loading of the train that wasn’t a train, but a jeep masquerading as an engine and pulling a string of cars behind. It would tour the island, offering visitors a way of getting an overall picture.
Mostly, though, my thoughts were on the disturbing snatch of conversation I’d heard between Iris and Marcus. Perhaps I should have confronted them and demanded to know what it was that concerned me. Most of all, I kept hearing Iris’s voice when she’d said that Cliff believed Poppy had been murdered. She’d dismissed the idea so fervently, yet I’d had the feeling earlier that Marcus too was worried.
When Alida came into sight she was a block away, and I noticed the restraint of her walk. Here was a woman who used no swinging stride, but moved with short steps that constantly hesitated. An uneasy walk, as though each step was unsure—as if it might plunge her into some treacherous abyss.
She didn’t speak, but nodded for me to follow as she walked by. We crossed a narrow, busy street, and Alida led the way past the walls of what looked like an old ruin. An iron gate closed an opening to the space beyond, and we went around to another gate, where we could enter an enclosed area of mottled sunshine and shade. High brick walls surrounded what looked like a small one-room fort. Trees had entangled great roots in the crumbling walls, their branches overhanging to cast patches of shadow across bricks that made a patio of the enclosure. In one corner red hibiscus brightened the shade.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“It’s been turned into a garden, but originally it was a cistern. All the water Key West had in the days before the pipeline was collected in cisterns all over the island. When it’s raining you can stand outside and hear the sound of water clattering into this old receptacle. Though of course the water’s not held here anymore.”
The island was full of memories of a long gone time. Away from narrow, busy streets, the little garden was so quiet that I could hear Alida’s deep-drawn breath. A small greenish lizard clung to brick, flicking its tongue at an insect now and then.
“Why are we here?” I asked with intentional directness.
“I wonder if I can trust you, Miss York?”
There was that word “trust” again—with a question behind it.
“Call me Laurel, to start with. Perhaps that will help. Though how can I tell if you can trust me until I know what you mean by trust?”
She clasped her hands nervo
usly and then as quickly unclasped them. “I don’t know what to do! I think I must tell you. Even though you won’t thank me for it.”
“I’m listening,” I said.
“It’s about the day Poppy died. Perhaps you know that I found her?”
I nodded, thinking again of what Iris had said.
“When I went to the orchid house to look for her, I couldn’t open the door at first because it was jammed shut.”
“Yes—my father told me that.”
“It was jammed because a metal wedge had been pounded in between frame and door, so it couldn’t be opened from the inside. I managed to pull out the wedge, and when I went in I found Poppy lying there, white as paper in her own blood.”
Alida covered her face with her hands, and I waited, too shocked to say anything.
After a moment she went on. “I was too late. She was already dead. I ran inside the house calling for Cliff. He had come downstairs and heard me. Thank God he could handle everything. What was happening—what had happened—didn’t hit him until later. When he’d called the hospital and the police, I told him about the door and showed him the metal wedge. He said not to tell anyone what I’d found. I should simply say the door had jammed—as it sometimes did.”
“Why didn’t he want you to tell the truth?”
“He said the wedge must have been put in the door to annoy Poppy. Anyone might have done that. But if the police knew about it, there might even be a murder charge when they found the person who did it. So Cliff didn’t even tell Derek Phillips when he came around the side of the house to find us there. He’d been ringing the doorbell, with no answer because Angela and Pedro had gone home. So no one else knows about this—except you.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because—oh, I don’t know! I’m not sure your father even wants to take care of himself any more. Though he thinks about that wedge and he’s afraid. I know he’s afraid. Whoever jammed that door is sure that I pulled out the wedge to get in, and that I would have told Cliff. Someone may be getting worried.”
Dream of Orchids Page 10