Stuart Woods - Hothouse Orchid

He picked up volume two of Winston Churchill’s The Second World War, which he was rereading, settled into a comfortable chair and began to read, but he could not concentrate. His mind kept wandering to Adele Mason and her untimely death.

Teddy was accustomed to righting what he considered to be wrongs, and without any help from law enforcement. He would have liked very much to deal with Adele’s murderer, he thought, but he was not by nature an investigator, and he had no access to what the police knew. This was a new kind of frustration for him, and he did not like being frustrated.

He put down the book and picked up the local newspaper instead. There was an article about the latest murder and a brief obituary. The funeral was the following day, and Teddy decided to be there.

A few miles up the beach, Holly Barker was restive, too. The silence of her newly fortified home made her feel that she was a flower in a hothouse, so she opened the sliding doors to the beach and sacrificed air-conditioning for the sound of the light surf lapping against her beach.

Bored, she unlocked her little office, logged on to the Agency computer and began to read cable traffic to Lance’s office. It was a remarkably quiet day out in the stations around the world, and she found nothing worthy of her interest, so she logged off, locked the office and looked for a decent movie on television. A couple of hours with The Maltese Falcon, which she had seen at least a dozen times, made her feel better.

Teddy sat in his parked car across the street from the church and watched the people arrive. Seeing no familiar faces, he locked his car, went inside and took a seat in a rear pew.

The casket was open at the front of the church, and people wandered past it, viewing the corpse. Teddy had always found this practice distasteful; if he had been fond of the deceased, he preferred his last memory of the person to be one in which the person was alive, not dead. Finally, the undertaker closed the casket, and the service began.

Teddy looked at the backs of the heads of the other mourners and wondered if one of them had murdered Adele Mason. It was said that killers sometimes attended the funerals of their victims. Then he looked to one side and saw the female detective, Lauren Cade, standing to one side near the front of the church, facing the pews, and on the other side of the church, the male detective, Weathers, and another man, doing the same. Apparently, great minds thought alike.

Teddy took in the man standing next to Weathers. He was fiftyish, a little over six feet tall, a hundred and eighty pounds and unusually fit-looking for a man his age. Another cop, probably, maybe Weathers’s boss. Weathers whispered something to him, and the man leaned toward him to listen but kept his eyes on the pews.

The mourners were asked to stand for a hymn, and Teddy took the opportunity to leave the church, tucking a funeral program into his pocket. He stood outside on the steps for a moment, and, as he did, Detective Weathers came outside, too.

“Good morning, Mr. Smithson,” he said. “I’m Jimmy Weathers; we spoke…”

“Yes, I remember,” Teddy said, and the other man joined them.

“This is my chief, James Bruno,” Weathers said.

Teddy shook the man’s hand and found that he had too strong a grip. He didn’t like gym rats who tried to prove their manhood by crushing others’ hands. “How do you do?” he said.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Smithson?” Bruno said. “Weren’t you enjoying the service?”

“Was I supposed to?” Teddy replied.

“Well, no, but…”

“Do you think Ms. Mason’s murderer is inside?” Teddy asked.

“You never know,” Bruno replied.

“No, I guess you don’t. I’m new in town, so I don’t know anybody-except Adele, of course-so I’m not into guessing who it might be. I hope you get the bastard.”

“So do we,” Weathers said.

“Good day to you,” Teddy said, then walked down the steps of the church, crossed the street and got into his car. When he drove away, Weathers and Bruno were still standing there, watching him.

Teddy took the funeral program from his pocket and looked at the back page. Burial was to be at a local cemetery, and there was a map. He began to follow it.

He found the cemetery with no problems. He parked the Toyota and walked toward the hearse, where the coffin was being unloaded, and people were starting to gather. He stood perhaps fifty yards away and watched the brief service. He saw Lauren Cade and the two local cops standing apart, viewing the gathering as he was.

Finally, the coffin was lowered into the grave, and the group started to walk back to their cars. Teddy watched until Lauren Cade and the two cops moved, too, then he walked back to his car and drove away.

Teddy stopped at the Vero Beach Book Center and went inside. He needed a book more absorbing than a second reading of Winston Churchill to take his mind off Adele Mason, now lying in the sandy Florida soil.

He was impressed. It was a very large bookstore, with everything he could have asked for in reading matter. He bought a New York Times and, after half an hour’s browsing, a new biography of Andrew Jackson. A review of the book had stirred his interest, and he didn’t know a lot about Jackson’s period of American history. When he walked up to the counter to pay for his purchases, he was surprised to find Lauren Cade ahead of him in line.

She bought a novel, and when she turned was equally surprised to see him. “Hello, Mr. Smithson,” she said.

“Good morning, Ms. Cade.” He laid his purchases on the counter, along with some cash.

“I saw you at the funeral,” she said, “and again at the burial. Why did you stand so far back?”

“For the same reason you did,” Teddy replied.

“And what would that be?”

“To see if I could spot the killer in the crowd.”

She smiled. “Well, you never know. It was worth the effort, I think.”

Teddy took his purchases and walked with her to the parking lot. “Did you spot him?”

“No,” she said. “Did you?”

“I’m afraid my instincts misled me,” Teddy said.

“How so?”

“I saw a man who struck me as a possible suspect, but he turned out to be a police officer-the chief, in fact.”

Lauren looked at him sharply. “Why do you say that?”

“I can’t explain it; I just didn’t like the look of him, and when Detective Weathers introduced him to me outside the church, I liked him even less.”

“That’s very interesting,” she said.

“You suspect him, too?”

“I shouldn’t talk about it,” she replied.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I suppose you consider me a suspect as well.”

“Off the record, I don’t,” she said. “Everything you told us turned out to be true when we checked. Much of it was confirmed by Ms. Mason’s diary.”

“Are there any suspects besides this Bruno character?”

“No,” she said, “and I can’t concentrate too much on him, because I have personal issues with him that might cloud my judgment.”

Teddy didn’t ask what they were. “Ms. Cade, as long as I’m not a suspect, is there any reason why you and I couldn’t have dinner this evening?” He looked at his watch. “It’s past six, and I don’t mind dining a little early.”

“Neither do I,” she said. “There’s a very good restaurant called Carmel’s just over there,” she said, pointing across the parking lot.

They had no trouble getting a table so early, and soon they had drinks and were perusing the menu. Teddy wondered how old she was: midthirties, he guessed. He also wondered how she felt about older men.