“Why would I arrest you?”
She clasped the lapels of her robe and looked to the house, as if she was afraid they might be interrupted by someone.
“Mrs. Lyons, is your husband home?”
“No,” she said softly. “He’s out of town.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know exactly,” she said. “He’s hunting. He hunts those big awful pigs in the Everglades. They go every year.”
“Who goes?” Louis asked. “Who does your husband hunt with?”
Again she looked to the house. Louis followed her gaze. A maid stood near the French doors, watching them.
“Harriet is watching us,” Tink whispered. “She’ll tell Dickie you were here. He won’t like that.”
“That’s okay,” Louis said. “I’ll deal with your husband. Now, tell me, who does he hunt with?”
“Well, there’s Bus Hamilton and George McMillan and-”
“Does he ever hunt with Tucker Osborn?”
Tink looked up, her eyes suddenly clear and bright blue, as if she’d just realized she was being interrogated and had said too much.
“You need to go now,” she said. “You need to go and never come back. I haven’t done anything wrong. I was only lonely. There’s nothing illegal about being lonely. Now, go. Or I’ll call Chief Hewitt to come and remove you.”
Louis wanted to pursue her “loneliness,” but he didn’t need a confrontation with Swann’s boss, nor did he need to be exiled from the island at this stage of the investigation. He backed away from Tink and bent down to slip the humidor back into the Saks bag.
Tink reached for it. “That’s Dickie’s,” she said. “He’ll want it back.”
“Not yet,” Louis said, pushing her hand aside. “It’s evidence in a murder case.”
“Whose murder?”
“Mark Durand,” Louis said.
Tink stared at him, her faded pink lips agape.
“You remember good old Mark, don’t you, Tink? I heard you two were real good friends.”
“How dare you insinuate that I knew that despicable man,” she said.
Hell, he had come this far. What did he have to lose?
“Oh, you knew him,” Louis said. “Problem was, Dickie found out about you two. And he didn’t like that very much, did he?”
Tink Lyons did her best to puff herself up with indignation, but there was a real look of fear in her eyes.
“Get out,” she said.
Louis picked up the Saks bag, and with a small bow, he turned and started back through the jungle. He was almost back to the house when a spot of fire red caught his eye.
It was a good three feet tall, sitting on a table in the shade. The exact same red orchid he had seen in the Osborn house.
With a glance back toward the pool, he broke off one of the flowered sprigs and stuck it in his pocket.
He felt the weight of someone’s stare and spun. It was just the Afghan. It was sitting three feet away, its sleepy eyes fixed on him.
Louis retraced his steps through the house, listening to the click-click of the dog’s nails as it followed him. There was no sign of the butler. After a few false turns, Louis finally found the front door and let himself out. The Afghan came out with him and watched him every step of the way.
After leaving Tink Lyons’s home, he headed straight to Clean amp; Green in West Palm Beach. He showed the owner, Chuck Green, the red blossom he had taken from Tink’s patio. Green was surprised to see the orchid.
“You recognize it?” Louis asked.
“It’s a vandaceous hybrid called Renanthera diabolus,” Green said.
“Is it expensive?”
Green nodded. “They’re expensive because they’re really rare. They used to grow wild in the Everglades, but the damn poachers nearly made them extinct. So, the state put them on an endangered list. Now, only a handful of growers are allowed to propagate them from seeds. I get good money for them.”
“You have them here?”
Again he nodded, this time with pride. “I’m the only one in the county who grows them. They take a lot of patience and love. You have to wait a long time for them to bloom.”
Louis thought suddenly of the red flowering plant he had seen hanging over Rosa’s front door. He couldn’t remember if it was an orchid or not. “Mr. Green, could Emilio Labastide have had one of these?”
Green thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, he was really interested in orchids. It’s possible I might have given him a keiki.”
“Keiki?”
“That’s a Hawaiian word for ‘baby.’ That’s what we call orchid cuttings.” He held up the sprig. “Where’d you get this?”
“From a home over in Palm Beach,” Louis said. “Do you sell these orchids to anyone there?”
“Nope,” Green said. Seeing Louis’s disappointment, Green smiled. “But I do supply them to a flower shop on Worth Avenue. It’s called Fleur de Lee. Talk to Bianca Lee, the owner. She’s a regular buyer of my devil orchids.”
Louis was writing in his notebook and looked up. “Devil orchid?”
“Yeah,” Green said. “That’s its common name. Renanthera diabolus. Devil orchid.” He held out the sprig to Louis. “Look closely. The flower looks just like the devil’s head.”
On the drive back to Palm Beach, Louis had tried to make sense of it-three luxury items seemingly unconnected that were undoubtedly parts of a big puzzle. What the hell did an old humidor, an antique sword, and a rare orchid have in common? And maybe it was just a coincidence that the orchid had the same name as the place where Mark Durand had been murdered. But it was a damned intriguing one.
Fleur de Lee was a tiny shop not far from the antique military store. Inside, Louis took off his sunglasses and stood perfectly still, afraid that if he moved, he’d break something. The place was stuffed with plants and flowers, including orchids of every size and color.
Except red.
As he waited for the owner, he pulled the sprig out of his pocket and stared hard at one of the tiny blossoms. Green was right. Its center looked exactly like a devil’s face.
“Can I help you?”
Louis turned. The woman who had come out of the back was small and dark-haired, in her forties, and exotically attractive. She wore a green smock over dark slacks and a sweater and was carrying shears.
When she saw him, she stopped cold. Louis had gotten used to people staring at him here. But the look on Bianca Lee’s face was different. It was just a flash, but it was there before the mask went up. It reminded him of the cheating husband he had caught last month coming out of the Days Inn in Fort Myers.
Busted. But for what? Selling flowers?
Louis palmed the orchid sprig. As he introduced himself, Bianca Lee nodded. “You’re the one who’s working for Reggie Kent,” she said with one of those patented Bizarro World smiles. “He seemed like such a nice man, but you can never tell about people, can you? Imagine, cutting off a man’s head.”
“A man is innocent until proven guilty,” Louis said.
“So they say,” she said. “Now, what can I do for you?”
“I’m interested in orchids,” Louis said.
“Really? Cut flowers or a plant? I have some lovely phalaenopsis that are quite reasonable.”
“Do you have a devil orchid?” Louis asked.
Bianca Lee’s smooth olive face went a shade lighter. She carefully set the shears down before she looked back up at Louis. “Devil orchid,” she said. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“Well, I don’t know the fancy Latin name,” Louis said. He uncurled his hand. “But it looks like this.”
Bianca took the sprig and gave Louis a wide smile. “Oh, yes, Renanthera diabolus. I didn’t know it had another name.”
“Do you carry them?”
She nodded. “Yes, but we don’t have any right now. I could probably order one for you. But it’s frightfully expensive. I’m sure you would rather have-”
“Nope, I’m really interested in devil orchids.”
Bianca stared at him, then held out the sprig. “Maybe you could check back later.” Her smile was gone. There was ice in her voice.