Death in the Orchid Garden (7 page)

 

W
hen doing a weekly TV gardening show, it was hard for Marty Corbin or Louise or the associate producer to predict who would make a great on-camera guest. Marty, of course, wanted scintillating guests who would banish any fears that a show would bog down in too much garden minutiae.

Dr. Tom Schoonover, with his shaggy haircut, his lanky gait, and his professorial manner, had proved to have star power. Louise could tell this by watching Marty's growing enthusiasm as the shoot proceeded.

Why the scientist was so good on camera, she couldn't quite fathom, for he was a scientist through and through, given to exchanging dry jokes about “endemic subspecies” with his colleagues that one without a background in botany found hard to interpret. But he was an impressive guide, as he led Louise and the camera through a grove of native plants, explaining that the Hawaiian islands originally contained only one hundred species and that these had multiplied ten times over during centuries of isolation. Today's challenge, he said, was that the islands were crowded with hundreds of introduced plants that came by double canoe, sailboat, steamship, and airplane and tended to crowd out the natives.

As the videocam slowly circled it, he'd described a newly discovered species as if he were describing the Hope diamond. “We recently found it on an islet off Maui. This is the only plant of its kind that exists on earth. It's been named Kanaloa, after the Hawaiian god of the ocean.”

Schoonover went over to an
Ohia lehua
tree and told of the latest methods scientists used to fight the extermination of this valuable native specimen. By using high-altitude planes with infrared imaging spectroscopy, they could measure the nitrogen and water in a Hawaiian forest canopy and discover where invasive plants were crowding it out.

Eyes bright with enthusiasm, he talked about revolutionary new ways of classifying plants and animals. “Where we used to do it through intuition, we now unravel their relationships with great accuracy, using DNA, cladistics, and high-speed computers. In case you're not familiar with the word cladistics, it's a logical system that allows us, in systematic steps, to classify and then put plants in their evolutionary sequence.”

Smiling, he added, “Darwin would love the logical clarity of cladistics. It helps us understand the evolutionary history of these plants.” His goal now, he said, “is to encourage scientists working in this field to find out how the flowers and trees of the Hawaiian islands fit into this picture of life on the planet.”

After Schoonover's turn, Henry Hilaeo showed off his prowess. With tabis on his feet and Schoonover up top handling the ropes, Henry belayed down the cliff rich with native species and plucked a few plant samples, the videocam following his every move.

A few things went awry. Hilaeo's rope got fouled and it took a while to untangle it. The grip stumbled and nearly fell into one of the elegant garden ponds. The ID flap on Schoonover's hat was hanging out during the shoot, but it added a humanizing absent-minded-professor touch, so Louise hadn't mentioned it.

Now, the work was done and it was time for lunch for all who took part in the program. And not a moment too soon for Louise. Traipsing over cliff and dale with a camera-ready smile in that last segment had taken it out of her. She was exhausted, her on-camera denim dress sweat-soaked and wrinkled, her hair expanded by the humidity into an unruly swarm of curls. But still she was happy, for they were picnicking in a historic spot, the front yard of Emma's cottage by the sea. From her seat at the large picnic table, she looked up into the waving palm fronds, then lowered her gaze and stared across the emerald lawn into the calm Pacific. All the complicated history of these islands seemed encapsulated in this moment.

“Let's drink to the queen,” proposed Tom Schoonover, “and to Sam Folsom, who arranged this nice box lunch event—and to Tim Raddant, who rustled out a few bottles of wine he'd stashed at controlled temperatures with the plants in the herbarium.” Sam and Tim took a bow.

Marty Corbin lifted his glass and said, “I want to make my own toast, to all of you here who took part in a successful shoot, with three very diverse segments.” His gaze settled on the attractive Anne Lansing. “You folks from Bouting Horticulture did a good job of relating what you're doing at your giant nursery to a setting here in Hawaii. It was not an easy task.” He turned his attention next to Tom Schoonover. “Then we have Tom, here, who's turned out to be a real star. He's as good as Carl Sagan at explaining the obtuse—if anyone remembers Carl Sagan.”

Laughter greeted this remark. “I still don't know what cladistics is—only that it's something good.” He turned to Henry Hilaeo. “And thanks to you, Henry, for risking life and limb for us.”

Hilaeo's browned face cracked with laughter. “Not hardly, Marty. It would take a lot more than that to kill me.”

As Louise looked around the table, she saw that almost everyone was worn out and grimy from the morning's efforts. But not Anne Lansing. She held her head high and looked cool and dignified, while others seemed ready for an afternoon nap. Anne, thought Louise, had the air of a queen herself. In fact, she was a queen, in that rarified little world of garden writers in which she flourished.

The woman had chosen a place between Marty Corbin and Dr. Bouting, two men guaranteed to give her constant attention. Bouting intermittently whispered in her ear, then turned and spoke softly to Christopher Bailey; Louise decided this was the way he conveyed instructions to his aides.

While they munched their sandwiches and drank their wine, attention turned to the sun-burnished Sam Folsom. His aspect immediately changed from the bantering scientist into the dedicated professor, as he gave them a brief but poignant history of the queen and the cottage. Louise loved hearing about the cosmopolitan monarch. Here was a woman who'd traveled across the world and been received by both Queen Victoria and President Andrew Johnson. After both her husband and only child died, she visited the beautiful Lawai Kai valley, fell in love with it, and built the cottage on the seaside cliff above where they now sat; it was later reverentially moved down into the valley near the stream.

“She admitted she had a mania for planting,” said Sam, eyeing them over his half-glasses, “and the evidence is all around us. Her nurseries, one here and one in Honolulu, provided the parent stock for many of the plants you see today in the islands. But she cared for the people as much as she did for the plants, establishing the first public hospital, a girls' school, and a cathedral. She was never too queenly to relate to people. When she was here in Kauai, she would go out and work with them in the taro patches.”

On a historic trip to the mountains, said the historian, Queen Emma traveled a perilous, muddy trail until she reached the overlook to the rugged Waimea canyon. “She was accompanied by a retinue of one hundred people,” he said, “including hula girls, retainers, and musicians. After that trip, she insisted that a proper trail be built to reach this wild spot.”

What touched Louise most was Emma's love of nature. Sam read from a letter she'd sent from Kauai: “
The cattle have so often played music to my ears. The lowing comes so sweetly on the air when the calf is called back to its supper of sweet milk at twilight
.”

When he recounted another note that the queen wrote to a friend in Kauai after her links with the island were severed, it brought tears to Louise's eyes. “
Tell me the old and new things of Koloa,
” wrote the queen, “
from natives, haoles, wild plants, animals, your flowers, and all. I do not hear of our place these days.
”

In her enthusiasm for plants, it sounded to Louise as if Emma had an innocent role in imperiling the species of her precious island retreat. She had brought in bougainvillea, as well as many other eager, exotic plants. Some grew lavishly and overwhelmed the native species.

While the rest of the people at the table paid rapt attention, Anne couldn't seem to stay focused. She began talking to Marty Corbin in a low voice—probably thanking the producer for the interview. Louise shot her boss a shocked look and he didn't continue the disruptive conversation.

But Sam Folsom kept his history lesson brief. He ended with a joke about how if people actually understood history, they wouldn't keep repeating the bad parts.

As she looked down the table, Louise noticed a couple of interesting things: Bruce Bouting behaved like Anne Lansing's doting father, laying an occasional hand on her bare shoulder, almost as if he were protecting her. And perhaps this was warranted—the woman emanated a sexual aura only partially masked by her businesslike “scientist” repartee. Louise wondered if it was that bright red retro lipstick that did it. Many men responded to her, John Batchelder among them—and Matthew Flynn and his assistant, George Wyant, but in quite a different way. The Amazonian specialists observed her warily, like animals either on the hunt or being hunted. They no doubt lumped her with their professional enemy, Bruce Bouting. On the other hand, they seemed to be old friends with Bouting's other assistant, Christopher Bailey.

Louise turned her attention to Tom Schoonover and the other resident scientists, as well as the able young crew members from the university. They were busy talking of other things and laughing it up with Marty's jovial wife, Steffi. For a moment, Louise felt a pang of loneliness, wishing that her husband had come on the trip.

Tom blessedly leaned over and said, “C'mon, Louise, stop being shy and join our conversation. We want to know the inside skinny on this. Do cameramen
never
trip up when they're walking backward for miles during these shoots, or is it only grips?” He laughed. “We've decided that if so, they must constitute a different subspecies.”

 

L
ouise, Marty, and Steffi were conducting their post-mortem in the orchid garden over drinks. After forty-eight hours on Kauai, Louise decided that half of the island's income from tourism came from drinks with umbrellas in them.

“Don't worry, Marty,” she told her producer, “we have plenty of B roll, with fabulous vistas—giant banyans, huge, wormlike cacti crawling up walls, plenty of shots of blooming plumeria and pandanus . . .”

“How is B roll gonna help us integrate those three segments?” grumped her producer and took a big gulp of his mai tai.

“It probably isn't,” Louise admitted. “I think we should take the Bouting Horticulture people's interview tape and shelve it. Then we schedule an early summer trip to Pennsylvania and do it right. Maybe the Kauai interview can be used, but I doubt it. We'll start afresh and do a whole program there, including all those great research gardens Bruce Bouting likes to talk about. That business is well worth a special trip. We both know we'd have done it before, except that Bouting has been so publicity shy.”

“You're probably right,” said Marty. “Then his insisting on us taping that interview with Anne and Christopher was just an exercise in will power; me against that big prick who thinks he can con everybody.” His face was red with anger.

Steffi reached out her hand and grabbed Marty's. “Honey, blood pressure. Don't ruin our trip tomorrow by getting all upset.”

Louise looked inquiringly at Steffi. “To the Big Island, as we'd planned?”

“No,” said Steffi, shifting a little in her chair. “Louise, we decided to go off by ourselves to Princeville Resort. It's supposed to have a great beach, where we can just cuddle, and if we feel really ambitious, go into the surf at Hanalei. I'm sorry if I didn't warn you we were changing our plans.”

“That's no problem, Steffi. I think it's great you're going off by yourselves.” And great, thought Louise, that Steffi was looking lovelier each day she was in Kauai.

She pushed back in her chair. “Speaking of swimming, I need to take a dip in the lagoon before sunset.” She grinned at the pair—Marty had calmed down as soon as Steffi took his hand and they were still holding hands. “Will I see you there on the edge of the terrace, when the big orb meets the horizon in a blaze of bright green?”

Marty gave his wife a meaningful look. “At six-thirty or so? Maybe not. Give us another half-hour. We'll be down by seven and then we can skip out for a change and have dinner away from this hotel.”

Louise sauntered off, happy that things were working out for the couple on this trip. The shoot today with the three prima donnas had been almost everything they wanted. And the Corbins' marriage, it seemed, might be getting back on an even keel.

Amidst a cluster of other guests, she strode down the hall and made a quick calculation as she went. It was five here and ten o'clock in Washington, D.C. She should have called her husband before this, but she'd been too preoccupied. Bill would be happy to hear that all was well on the visit to Kauai, especially since she'd expressed misgivings about having to spend five days with John Batchelder. She pulled out her cell phone and speed dialed her home number.

Bill didn't answer; a cavernous voice gave her her options. Louise was disappointed not to be able to talk to him, but he'd warned her he would be busy at work. She sat down on a large stone bench near the elevators and listened for the beep. She said, “Bill, I'm sorry I missed you. I just wanted you to know everything is great here. The shoot went better than we ever thought it would. Oh, granted that there were a couple of glitches that raised Marty's blood pressure a few points, but nothing serious. John and I are getting along just fine. After all, how can you wrangle with your colleague when you're in a place like this? As for Marty and Steffi, they're having a great time, if you know what I mean . . .”

She looked up and her face reddened as she saw a couple smiling down on her. They were waiting for the elevator and drinking in every word, though she wasn't talking in a loud voice. She gave them a frosty look and raised her chin a little. Into the phone she whispered, “Talk to you soon, dear,” then snapped it shut.