Stuart Woods - Hothouse Orchid

“Sure, I will,” Jimmy replied. “See you later, Lauren; I’ve got to check by Bruno’s house and see if he’s all right; he’s late for a meeting, and he can’t be found.”

“Well, we can always hope, can’t we? If you find him, question him about his whereabouts last night, and see if he has an alibi.”

“Will do,” Jimmy replied. He got into his car and headed for Bruno’s neighborhood.

Bruno’s car was in the driveway, so why wasn’t he answering his phones? Jimmy got out of his car and rang the doorbell. He waited a moment, then tried the knob. The door was unlocked; he pushed it open and stuck his head inside. “Chief Bruno?” he called out. “It’s Jimmy.” He yelled again, but got no response, so he let himself into the house.

He walked down the central hall a few paces and called out again, then he looked into the study and saw a note on the desk. He walked over and read it without touching it. “Uh, oh,” he said aloud.

He left the room as he found it and walked down the hall to the rear bedroom. Bruno was lying peacefully in bed, and there was a Glock on the floor beside him. Jimmy walked over to Bruno and looked into his face. “My God,” he said.

He turned and walked out of the house and to his car. Once there he got out his cell phone and called Lauren Cade.

“Sergeant Cade.”

“This is Jimmy, Lauren. Bruno is dead in his house. Would you do me a favor and call the ME and the criminalist and bring them over here?” He gave her the address. “Maybe Hurd might like to be here, too.”

“Will do, Jimmy, and I’m on my way.”

Jimmy hung up and opened the trunk of his car. He lifted the lid over the spare tire and removed a paper bag, then closed the lid again. He took a roll of yellow crime scene tape from the trunk and walked back to the house. He went inside and walked down the hall to Bruno’s bedroom, then stood and looked around for a moment. He went to a closet and opened the sliding door. Bruno’s uniforms and some civilian clothes hung neatly inside. On the top shelf was a shoe box.

Jimmy put on some latex gloves and took down the shoe box, which was half full of some old photographs, some showing Bruno in army uniform. Jimmy opened the paper bag he had brought and shook the contents into the shoe box, then he put the top on, replaced it on the shelf and put the wadded paper bag in his pocket.

He went back outside and taped the entrance to the house, then he ran some more tape across the driveway between two trees. He went around to the rear of the house and taped the rear entrance as well, depositing the paper bag in his pocket in a garbage can by the door, under some beer cans. Then he walked carefully around the backyard, checking the ground.

He returned to the front yard in time to greet Lauren, who was followed shortly by the ME and the criminalist.

“Hurd’s on his way,” Lauren said.

Jimmy told them of his arrival at the house and the discovery of the body. “I didn’t touch anything,” he said, “so we’ve got a good crime scene here. Come inside, and I’ll walk you through where I was.”

He led them to the study and pointed out the note on the desk, next to the typewriter. “Read that,” he said, then waited while they did. “The bedroom is down the hall to your left. I walked inside, looked at the body and walked around the bedroom. There’s a Glock on the floor beside the bed and a shell casing on the floor between the bed and the chest of drawers. I’ll wait here while you do your work.”

Lauren looked into the room from the door but did not enter. “He ate his gun?”

“Looks that way,” Jimmy said. “Come on, let’s have a seat in the living room while they do their thing.”

As they sat down, Hurd Wallace entered the house, and Lauren briefed him while Jimmy called police headquarters and told the secretary what had happened.

“I guess you’re in charge, then, Jimmy,” she said. “Chief Bruno never got around to hiring a deputy chief, and you’re the senior officer. You better call the city council people and let them know what’s happened.”

“All right, I will.”

Hurd spoke up. “We don’t need a search warrant now, so let’s go through this place thoroughly.”

“What are we looking for, Hurd?” Jimmy asked.

“Any evidence that might connect Bruno to these murders. Jimmy, you take the kitchen; Lauren, you take the bedroom.”

“I don’t want to go in there, Hurd,” Lauren said. “I’ll take the study and the second guest room.”

“All right,” Hurd said, “I’ll take Bruno’s bedroom as soon as the body is out of there.”

Jimmy went into the kitchen and carefully searched every cabinet, the pantry and the refrigerator, then he walked back into the hallway.

Lauren was coming out of the study. “Nothing I could find in there,” she said, “except the suicide note.”

They stood back and allowed the ME and a forensics guy to wheel the corpse past on a gurney.

“I’ll be right back and give you my preliminary,” the ME said.

Hurd, Lauren and Jimmy waited in the hallway. “What did you find?” Hurd asked.

“Nothing in the study, except the suicide note,” Lauren said.

“The only thing of any significance in the kitchen was half a case of Famous Grouse Scotch and a refrigerator with at least a case of beer in it. Looks like Bruno was drinking a lot.”

“There’s half a bottle of Scotch and a glass on the bedside table,” Hurd said.

The ME returned. “All right, death was by a single gunshot wound through the mouth, apparently self-inflicted; Forensics found the slug in the pillow, and he’s taken charge of the gun, the shell casing and the slug. He’ll run ballistics on all that today. I found some Ambien, a sleeping pill, in the bathroom medicine chest, one left from a prescription of twenty-five, and there’s a booze bottle by the bed, so my guess is I’ll find both of those things in the stomach contents.”

“Can you do the Bruno autopsy first, before the woman victim?” Hurd asked.

“If you like.”

“Call me when you’re done,” Hurd said.

“Call me, too,” Jimmy added. The ME left.

“Okay, time for the bedroom,” Hurd said. “Lauren, you can wait in the living room; Jimmy, with me.” He led the way into the bedroom.

“I’ll take the chest of drawers,” Jimmy said.

“All right.”

Jimmy began opening drawers and emptying the contents of each, one at a time, on top of the chest, returning them to the drawer after his search. He was on the bottom drawer when Hurd, who was searching the closet, spoke up.

“Jimmy, I’ve got something here,” he said. “Lauren, come in here!” he yelled.

Lauren came to the door. “I don’t want to come in there.”

“Get your ass in here,” Hurd said quietly. “I want you to witness this.” He set an open shoe box on the bed. “I found this on the closet shelf.”

Jimmy and Lauren came in close and watched.

“Give me an evidence bag,” Hurd said. “No, two, and big ones.”

Lauren opened her large purse and produced the plastic bags.

“We’ve got two, four, six pairs of women’s panties,” Hurd said, dropping them one at a time into an evidence bag. “We’ll want DNA from those.” He held up something the size of a staple gun with a small bottle attached to it. “And we’ve got a vaccination gun with a chemical attached.” He dropped it into the second bag, then emptied the shoe box onto the bed. “Nothing else but some old photographs,” Hurd said, poking through them. Finally, he returned them to the shoe box and replaced the cover.

“Ten to one, that’s a Rohypnol solution in the plastic bottle attached to the gun,” Lauren said.