Death in the Orchid Garden (8 page)

13

 

L
ouise dressed casually for dinner in a light blue cotton blouse and tan skirt and her waterproof sandals. They were suitable for a predinner walk she intended to take on the beach. If she followed the path toward Shipwreck Rock, she'd get a better view of the setting sun. In fact, she would've liked to climb the rock, as John had done, but not today. The light was fading fast and though not particularly afraid of heights, she'd prefer not to be up there after sunset.

As she approached the rock, she saw a small sign attached to a bush. It read, S
HIPWRECK
R
OCK
PATH TEMPORARILY CLOSED
. She changed directions and walked straight out onto the beach and waited with a few others for the fiery planet's moment of glory.

A few minutes later, the golden globe had disappeared. Like spectators at the conclusion of an Oberammergau passion play, people stood in a group and respectfully critiqued the performance: “Couldn't see the green streak,” said one. “I was hoping there'd be a green streak.”

“It's because of that mist on the horizon,” said the same bronzed surfer who had been there two nights ago. To Louise, the man seemed like an oracle, a rather chatty oracle at that, who made predictions on weather and anything else that might be going on in Kauai. “Mist and clouds ruin the effect. I'm sure we'll have better luck tomorrow night—I've scoped out the weather pattern and it's good. So, same time, same place.” He cheerfully bade them good-bye and disappeared down the beach. Before the others walked off into the gloom, they said good night to Louise, who was beginning to feel a camaraderie with them.

To kill a few minutes before meeting the Corbins and John, Louise found a small rock outcropping and sat on it. She stared aimlessly out to sea and watched the light fade. Her gaze was drawn upward to the top of Shipwreck Rock. If she had binoculars, she might have been able to figure out why the path was closed.

Her interest piqued, she walked closer to the base of the rock. Erosion had cut into the bottom portion, but the base shelf still extended out a short distance beyond the top of the rock. This meant that the young swimmers who used the precipice like a high diving board must have to leap out in an arc to avoid this shelf and land safely in deep sea water. Dangerous, she thought.

Following the curve of the beach, Louise walked toward the rock face, not bothered when an occasional wave washed over her feet, but vigilant lest a bigger wave come in and knock her down. Distracted in this way, she didn't realize how close she was to the big rock until she looked up and there it was, immediately in front of her.

Through the dimness, she could see what looked like a form on the stone shelf at the base of the cliff. Her heartbeat sped up until she realized that she must have come upon another monk seal. Sighing with relief, she realized she'd have to report its presence to hotel security so they could set up a privacy area for the animal while it took its nap.

But something wasn't quite as it seemed. A few steps more and she realized her mistake. This was not a monk seal, for the silhouette was irregular, not smooth and hump-like. Though her heart was speeding again, she tried to stay calm as she plodded onward across the sand. Soon she could see that it was a person crumpled on the shelf.

She pulled in a terrified gasp as she recognized Matthew Flynn's distinctive new explorer's hat lying a few feet from the prostrate form. Her mind began to race. All she could think of was that Flynn had tumbled off the top of the cliff and needed CPR. She made a shortcut through the shallow water and nearly fell down in the strong surf. Regaining her balance, she determinedly slogged through the waves until she reached the shelf and clambered up it.

She ran to where the scientist lay faceup on the protruding rim of the stone ledge, his eyes open. Some blood appeared to be trickling from the back of his head. Kneeling down, she gently pressed his wrist and felt no pulse. Hurriedly, she pulled her cell phone from her purse and dialed 911.

“Hurry,” she muttered, until seconds later a voice came on the line and she reported the incident. “I'm going to try to help him,” she told the operator.

“Do you know CPR?”

“I know the basics. I'll do what I can.”

Louise looked down and realized how close he lay to the edge of the rock. Beyond the edge was deep ocean water. A sense of vertigo overcame her, but she steeled herself. There was no time for panic: she had work to do.

Grabbing at Flynn's shirt and arm, she pulled him a little farther from the dangerous edge, then straddled him. His blank eyes stared up at her.
The man is gone
, said a voice in her head. Stifling this thought, she began her work, using a method she'd recently heard about that called for pressing the center of the chest one hundred times per minute. “Help me,” she whispered, as she rocked back and forth and counted. It didn't take long for fatigue to overcome her; there was nothing she would have liked to do better than to lie down beside the prostrate man and rest. But she could hear people in the distance. They would have machinery to bring back a pulse. She didn't dare stop.

“. . . fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen . . .” She avoided looking at Flynn or the roiling ocean below her and concentrated on her counting, hoping her timing was correct so that she could save the man's life.

So intent was she on her task that when the rock dropped from above, it took her a moment to comprehend its meaning. It struck the scientist's shoulder and ricocheted onto her right hand. “Ow!” she cried, holding her stinging hand with the left one. “What's happening?”

The slab of rock, a foot long and only a few inches thick, would have struck her head, she realized, had she not at that moment been squatting back before leaning forward to apply pressure to the victim's chest. She carefully lifted it off the prostrate scientist and set it aside.

With an arm out to shield her face, Louise looked up, but could see nothing but navy blue sky. Had the rock just tumbled down, or had someone thrown it?

Now rescuers were near and lights began to play around her on the rock. A whining siren sounded close, so an ambulance would soon be at hand. Though her hand was badly scraped, she continued her CPR efforts. But in her heart she knew that Flynn was dead.

She continued pumping Matthew Flynn's chest until one of the EMTs said, “It's all right now, ma'am—you can stop,” and gently helped her stand up. She watched as two men lifted Flynn off the ground to put him onto a stretcher. To her horror, his unsupported head lolled unnaturally to one side. She could see the deep, gouged-out wound at the base of his skull.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, and put a hand over her mouth. She didn't believe a fall from a cliff could nearly tear a man's head off. After reaching this certainty, her mind went numb. An emergency worker quietly led her off the rock and to safety.

 

T
he acting coroner, Dr. Henry Bartky, looked soberly over the dead body at Kauai County Police Chief Randy Hau. Hau was dark haired and muscular, with a broad, impassive face that showed no fatigue. This was a good thing, since it was two in the morning and the young chief, only forty to Bartky's sixty-five, had spent hours that evening questioning witnesses.

“Look, friend,” said the coroner, “as you might already have guessed, your Dr. Flynn's injuries are not consistent with a fall from that cliff. Sure, you'd think his skull fracture could be due to the fall, but no, I say it was from a deliberate blow.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm pretty sure,” said Dr. Bartky. “Someone may have wanted it to look like an accident, but made a couple of errors. I surmise that after the victim was knocked unconscious, the killer bent his head forward, which gave the person access to the foramen magnum . . . right there.” Bartky pointed to the base of the corpse's skull.

“And the foramen magnum is what?” asked the police chief.

“It's the large opening at the base of the skull through which the spinal cord passes to the cranial cavity.” He shot a canny look at the policeman. “Actually, our opening is farther underneath the head than in the great apes”—he cupped his hand near the very base of the corpse's skull—“which means to hold our heads up we don't need the huge neck muscles that they do.”

“So, what about this opening?”

“The murderer was not ignorant of anatomy—he reached in with some sharp tool and gouged out the brain stem. It probably caused a quick death if the blow hadn't already killed him.”

“So the perp wanted to be darned sure he didn't survive.”

“No question of it,” said Dr. Bartky. “Probably the killer intended for the body to land in the deep water with all those sharp, submerged rocks, thus providing an explanation for the neck wound. But instead it landed on the very edge of that shelf. In a sense, I'd say what you have here is a murder three times over. When it's daylight, I'll venture you find the man's blood at the top of the cliff. He was bashed, gouged, then shoved off into space.”

Hau silently mouthed a word, which the coroner thought was probably “darn,” for the police chief was a mild-mannered man. Bartky knew Hau must be frustrated—he was scheduled to go on a vacation during his children's spring break from school. A murder was not on his schedule.

“This might turn out to be simple to solve,” said the policeman.

“How so?”

“Flynn's sidekick, a Mr. George Wyant, could have done it. We couldn't locate him last night; he's temporarily disappeared. That's a little suspicious, you have to admit.” He heaved a big sigh. “Then there's always my erstwhile buddy, Bobby Rankin—maybe you know him. He teaches surfing and lives on the beach or in his car. He showed up right after we got out there last night. Bobby's expert at gutting fish, turtles, frogs—ever seen him do it? Destroying a human being's brain stem would pose no problem for him. But I've grilled him. He didn't know the man and has no motive, even if he does have the know-how.”

The chief shot a gloomy look at Bartky. “So if it's not one of those two, that leaves all the people at Kauai-by-the-Sea. Do you realize how many are holed up at that hotel?”

“Whatever number it is, consider yourself lucky that the crowd's been off a little this week. Still, your crime squad's gonna have a lot of work. I hear the dead man was a scientist.”

“A botanist, to be exact. Dr. Matthew P. Flynn. There was this elite conference for twelve of 'em this past Wednesday through today. Or rather, eight out-of-town scientists and four of their assistants, plus some of our local scientists. I'm told Dr. Flynn is well known for his work in the Amazon jungle.”

“Is that so?” said Bartky, who was taking off his latex gloves and washing his hands.

“Why do you say that?”

“That might account for why the man appeared to be high on something.”

“Drugs. Are you sure he didn't just get dizzy and fall off and hit some crazy-shaped rocks when he landed?”

The doctor peered over his half-glasses at the young police chief, who was fairly new in Kauai. Although he was said to be bright, he was not experienced in murder, which didn't happen much on the island. “I'd be inclined to think that except for these extraordinary injuries. Also, you can't discount the woman's story. What's her name?”

“Mrs. Louise Eldridge.”

“Yeah. She told you how that rock tumbled off, right on top of the prostrate Dr. Flynn's shoulder. What happened is that it smashed his rotator cuff, so the thing could have killed her if she hadn't been in the sitting-up position at that moment.”

“So, bashed, gouged, and shoved into space, huh?” said the chief. “Pretty disgusting. Then the perp tried to kill Mrs. Eldridge because she might have seen them together. Also, the murderer rightly figured she saw the ‘closed' sign on the path up to the cliff. The sign was nowhere in sight less than an hour later when we came on the scene. Nor was there a sign on the other path up the rock. That indicates that someone got Flynn up there and closed the entries to other visitors. This Eldridge woman would have figured that out, so she had to be taken out.”

Dr. Bartky said, “News of the murder of a visitor isn't going to go over well with the locals.”

Randy Hau slowly nodded. “Especially not with the folks who run this hotel. How about if we keep a lid on the fact that it's murder for a day or two, until hopefully we find the perp?”

“Fine with me,” said the coroner. He thoughtfully scratched his beard. “One other thing before you go. I take it that Mrs. Eldridge knew this Dr. Flynn.”

“She wasn't well acquainted,” said Randy Hau. “I guess you'd say she was
barely
acquainted with the deceased. She met him two days ago.”

Dr. Bartky pointed to Matthew Flynn's effects. “Check out that note.” It was a small, white sealed envelope that had been placed in a plastic bag. “It's got Louise Eldridge's name on the front of it.”

“That's a good one. One of the last things Matthew Flynn does before he dies is write a stranger a note.” He carefully lifted it off the pile of effects, which also included Flynn's wallet, threadbare red bandanna, pocket knife, nearly empty jar of Carmex, waterproof container with a small amount of marijuana, roller papers, change, and a small magnifying glass. “We'll just keep this for a while, fingerprint it, and tell her later.”

 

“B
ill, it's me.” She sat on the edge of the bed and pressed the cell phone to her left ear with her left hand. Her right hand, with its modest square bandage, lay unused in her lap.

“Hi, honey,” said her husband in a matter-of-fact tone. She could tell instantly that she'd interrupted something. A soft tapping noise came through the phone. He said, “Great to hear from you. Uh, how's it going?”

“Bill, I wish you were here.”

“So do I,” said Bill. “I've really missed you. But I'll see you Tuesday morning, won't I? I'm gonna be at Dulles promptly at five-twenty. That's why I'm sitting home hurrying to get some work out of the way.”

Louise could hear the continued click of computer keys. Her husband had the phone supported by his shoulder and must still be finishing an idea. She had interrupted something serious.

“The thing is, Bill, I don't think I'll be there Tuesday morning. Something's happened.” She looked down at her rather insignificant bandage, as if to verify this truth. Something
had
happened and her husband wasn't going to welcome the news.

“Huh,” said Bill. “What is it? Are you staying longer on the Big Island?” Click, click, click went the keys.

“Can't you stop what you're doing? Something terrible has happened. I have to make it fast; I'm already late for a meeting with the police downstairs.”

The clicking noise abruptly stopped. “The police? What's happened?”

“Remember I told you about our three scientists, the ones appearing on our show?”

“I don't remember their names, but you described them well enough. The expansive millionaire nursery owner. The cute, kooky ethnobotanist. The righteous environmentalist. Has something happened to one of them?”

“Yes. To Matthew Flynn. The ethnobotanist. He's dead.” Her voice broke.

“Don't tell me, let me guess. Someone threw him off a cliff up there in the Na Pali coast.”

“No, it happened right here at the hotel. They have a little cliff out on the beach. It's a leftover piece of lava shelf. Kids dive off it into the ocean.”

“Well, then, why didn't he think to dive, if someone shoved him? Maybe he would have lived.”

She was getting angry at her beloved husband. “Because the back of his neck was gashed open by somebody up there on the cliff.”

“How could you know that for sure, Louise? Let's not be overdramatic and make every accident into a crime.”

Hurt by this remark, Louise felt tears coming to her eyes. Her voice choked up. “I know because I saw it when the medics picked him up and put him on the stretcher. His head seemed barely attached to his body.”

Bill slowly said, “Louise, wait a minute. What are you saying . . .”

“I tried CPR. But I couldn't save him.”

Silence at her husband's end of the phone. “I am so sorry, dear. Forgive me. You poor thing. Quite frankly, I was so engrossed here writing this paper that I . . . I didn't mean to be unkind. What a terrible ordeal for you to go through. So it wasn't the fall that killed him?”

With an effort, she held back her tears and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “That's what I was trying to tell you. It was an awful wound. And there are other things that were odd. For one thing, there was the sign on the path.”

“A sign?”

“I saw a ‘path closed' sign that kept me and everyone else from going up that cliff last night. After I found Matthew Flynn, the police and I walked back and there was no sign around. So that might mean that a murderer lured him up on the cliff . . .”

“Yes?”

“. . . And then put up the sign, hurried back up and killed him. Or something like that. Then there's the rock that fell down on him when I was giving him CPR.”

“
Louise.
”

“It landed on him, not me,” she said. Her voice choked again.

“Was this person trying to kill you, too?”

“I'm beginning to think so. I'd been working on Flynn for about ten minutes when this rock came down. I happened to be sitting back on my haunches at that second or it would have—well, at least hurt me a lot. Bill, it must have weighed fifteen pounds.”

Silence on the other end of the phone. “My God,” said her husband slowly. “But why would someone want to kill
you?”

“Police Chief Hau isn't sure. Maybe the killer thought I saw him. And it might have been treated as an accident if I hadn't come along and seen that sign, which was later removed. So if they'd found me dead, too, they might just think that Dr. Flynn and I . . . well, I don't know what people would have thought.”

“Me neither, Louise. I'd better come over there.”

“Why don't we wait and see if the police can find out what's behind this. The scientists and the Corbins and John and I might have to stay on an extra day or so while they investigate. Needless to say, they questioned me a lot last night. We sat there in this big, empty conference room going over the details time after time. I need to get off the phone because they want to meet with us again at ten. It's after ten already, but I couldn't seem to get going this morning.”

“Louise, hold on.” From the rustling sounds, she guessed Bill was looking for the hand computer he carried in his suit jacket. While he did this, she went to the closet and retrieved tan capri pants and a sleeveless white blouse to wear.

Bill came back on the phone. “I'm looking at my schedule,” he said. “This comes at a hectic time, which, you know, is the reason I didn't come to Hawaii with you in the first place. I have a big strategy meeting first thing Monday morning. Maybe by Monday night you'll know if you can fly home Tuesday. If that doesn't happen, all bets are off and I'll fly over and get you.”

“Another thing, Bill . . .” She was going to tell him about the injury to her hand, which had required a brief trip to the hotel's in-house medical clinic. Though located in a corner basement room of the hotel, it was well equipped with a staff nurse, an X-ray machine, and a jovial, gray-haired doctor. He had quickly slapped a bandage on her, told her to keep it dry, and sent her on her way.

As if her husband were reading her mind, he said, “Are you really all right? You didn't get hurt last night, did you?”

“I have abrasions on one hand is all. Otherwise, I'm okay.”

He said, “Good. Take a sleeping pill if you're having nightmares about that scene on the beach. It isn't fun dealing with dead bodies, even if you didn't know the guy very well.”

“I'll do that. I'll admit I didn't sleep well. Waking or sleeping, I still see those lifeless eyes. Bill, I didn't realize how badly he was hurt until the emergency crew turned their lights on him, or I might not have tried to save him.”

“Aw, Louise,” commiserated her husband, “I wish you hadn't had to go through that. Tell me, what kind of a man was he, this Dr. Matthew Flynn?”

“What kind of a man? I'm not sure. He was a loose cannon in the eyes of some in the scientific community. But he was likable and he believed in the work he did down there in the Amazon; in fact, he seemed to be obsessed with the desire to catalog all the plants in that region before many of them became extinct. He did discover at least one plant that turned out to be valuable to medicine, I hear, but flunked out on a lot of others. He seemed to like to shock people—he had to tell us all about his and his sidekick's use of hallucinogenics in the jungle, that sort of thing.”

“That's part of what they do,” said Bill. “There's a book called
The River
, all about Dr. Richard Schultes, the dignified Harvard prof who was the best known of that bunch. He plunged into the study of those drugs and was one of the first to learn of the effects of the peyote mushroom, only by sampling it himself. Scientists like him have made incredibly valuable discoveries among those jungle plants.”

“Yes, we heard all about that,” she said wearily. “I think Flynn's assistant, George Wyant, still uses mushrooms, if you know what I mean.”

“A drug user, eh? I guess I'm not surprised. But let's get back to you, Louise. You sound tired. And no wonder—trying to resuscitate that poor Flynn must have really taken it out of you. You were very brave to try to save him.”

“Anyone would have done what I did.”

“I wonder if that's true. But now, looking forward, Louise, the usual caveats apply.”

She laughed. “They do?”

“Yes, darling.”

“You sound like Soames again.” When Bill fell into his bossy mode, she reminded him he was acting like the difficult husband in
The Forsyte Saga
and it usually brought him out of it. “You're telling me the conditions under which I may remain in Hawaii.”

“Not exactly. What husband would dare tell his wife what to do?”

She laughed weakly.

“Look, my sweet,” continued Bill, “I don't want to sound officious. I love you and I want you to come home in one piece. You know this is for your own good. You've lived through a terrible summer; you don't need more of the same or you'll have to go somewhere for a rest cure. Ironically, I thought it would be restful for you to go to Hawaii.”

“So did I. It has been relaxing, up until now.”

“All I'm saying, darling, is try to let the cops there do the investigating and stay out of it.”

“I'll try my best.”

“Now give me the names of the other people involved. I'll do background checks on them.”

With his vast network of contacts in government, especially in his role as an undercover CIA agent with State Department cover, Bill could usually pull in favors.

“But I thought you said I was to stay out of it.”

“Louise, I know you. It'll be impossible for you not to do some looking around. I don't want you messing with people who might be dangerous. And obviously, at least one of them is dangerous. The least I can do is help you to know who you're up against.”

She smiled, as she quickly donned her clothes. Her husband knew her better than she knew herself.