The Last Wild Orchid: An Islands Murder Mystery, #1

By D. J. Herda

When a mother-and-son research team gets too close to the grizzly truth, one of them must die. But which? With the cold blooded murderer still on the loose, Mark sets out to avenge his mother's death. But how will he recognize the killer? And when? What will he do to help bring him to justice? And who can he turn to for help once the police declare the case "cold" and close the books on it?

Living in a Caribbean Island paradise, Mark celebrates his twenty-first birthday while facing an uphill battle compounded by a deadbeat Private-Eye father who abandoned him twenty years earlier, a well-meaning but bungling director of marine mammal studies, an international espionage plot centered on the island of St. Lucia, an unrequited love, an aggressive and beautiful young soucouyant, a murderous underground black-magic cult, and a pod of rambunctious dolphins. The results are anything but Flipper in this multicultural tale based upon a true story.

This is the warm and touching yet harrowing and riveting story of a young man's dedicated love for his slain mother and his ongoing struggle to accept his absentee if well-meaning father. And--let's be honest--the sister he never knew he had before finding out that he never really did! It's the tale of eternal life, unfolding  in an action-packed universe filled with nonstop suspense, torrid romance, and Caribbean-style supernatural intrigue--a gritty look into another life, another world, and a unique reality, where only the last wild orchid grows.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elektra Press, LLC
• Release date: Aug 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780999157381

D. J. Herda

D.J. Herda is an award-winning freelance author, editor and photojournalist who has written several thousand articles, and more than 80 books, including Zen and the Art of Pond Building. He is an avid organic gardener and test grower and has been writing extensively about growing fruits and vegetables for over 40 years.

Book preview

One

She peered through the rain at the glistening road. A Caribbean squall had blown in from the east. The windmill palms lining the boulevard slapped against the bowing trees. The figs whirled wildly.

She moved her thumb beneath the control on the wheel, and the volume of the CD rose to greet her. The wipers kept time against the glass as the speakers spilled out the silken voice of Eddie Rabbitt.

Well, I love a rainy night,

I love a rainy night,

I love to hear the thunder,

Watch the lightning

When it lights up the sky.

You know it makes me feel good.

Denise smiled, comforted, and turned the corner. She let out a sigh when she saw her driveway looming ahead. She looked around—left, right, rear-view mirror. A lightning bolt split the sky, illuminating everything just her side of Heaven. Even in the dark, even in the storm, she was thankful. St. Lucia was the only place she'd ever felt comfortable calling home.

She edged the nose of her glistening new 2014 Land Rover up the drive as she had done a thousand times before. As she neared the house, she feathered the car to a stop inches from the garage door. She fumbled for the opener.

And then, from the corner of her eye, she saw a dark shadow knifing its way across the lawn. It was a man holding a newspaper over his head. As the man approached, Denise smiled and turned off the player. She reached for the button to roll down the window.

"What are you doing out this time of night?"

The man stopped alongside her, so close she could hear him panting.

You’re soaked, she said. Let me put the car in the garage. Come on in and dry off.

Suddenly the smile faded from her face as she let out a shriek and lunged for the power-window button.

Too late.

Two

Mark picked up a courtesy phone at Miami Dade and identified himself, and the airport operator put the call through. A security guard stood nearby, eyeing him cautiously. He shifted the phone to his right ear.

Hello?

The guard looked down at Mark’s shoes, then up again at his face. Mark turned away.

Yes. Hello, Marcie? It’s Mark. What’s up?

The voice on the other end of the line sounded frantic. There was trouble at the Institute. They needed him back right away.

What do you mean? What kind of trouble? It’s ... He checked his watch. It’s nearly four-thirty. I just landed.

Marcie was insistent. She had notified airport security that he would need help in getting his baggage back through Customs in time to catch a return flight to the islands.

What’s it all about? What’s wrong? Is mom okay?

She told him that she had to go and promised to pick him up at the airport when he arrived. The receiver went dead.

Mark set the phone in its cradle and stared out over the escalators leading to the lower level. He shook his head.

Mark Anderson?

He turned. Yes? I’m Mark Anderson.

Airport Security. I’ve been instructed to help you through Customs. You need to catch the next flight to St. Lucia. Virgin Air. It's scheduled to leave in twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes? Can you tell me what this is all about, officer?

I’m sorry, that’s all I know.

Mark picked up his duffle bag and flung it over his shoulder.

"I mean, I can’t believe this. I just freakin’ got here."

We’d better hurry, he said, and the two scurried off toward the baggage department.

Three

March 28, 2017. Dawn came early to St. Lucia on the heels of a silver-orange blaze of sky. Less than five hours had passed since his mother had dropped him off at the airport for his flight to Miami. It was also Mark’s favorite time of day—those few fleeting moments before the sun popped up onto the horizon and bathed everything in orange.

The morning breeze danced across the island, and the trees—battered and bruised from the squall that had blown through the night before—seemed glad to be alive. Palm fronds and the wilted flower heads from fragrant hibiscus and exotic wild orchids littered the road like confetti following a parade. Pampas-grass plumes lined the shoulder. It was a twenty-minute drive from the airport to the office, along the coast and up toward the hilly region of the island. Throughout it all, Marcie—behind classic good looks, a smiling Hispanic face, and a bright twinkle in her eye that said she loved life and everyone in it—stared straight ahead. The twinkle was gone.

We’re having a meeting?

She hesitated before nodding.

What’s up with her? he thought. Must be on the rag.

Mark stared out over the sea as the first rays of sun broke across the whitecaps. It was strange, the effect that storms have on the ocean. The winds begin churning up the waves long before the blunt of the beast strikes land, and they continue for hours after it has retreated. And mom will be there?

She flinched. I ... I don’t know.

Mark shook his head. "Isn’t anybody going to tell me what’s going on?"

She glanced at him before returning her gaze to the road. It’s ... it’s not my place, she said finally. Roly will explain.

He turned to stare out the window.

Mark had his father’s rugged good looks—at least that’s what people had told him from the photos they’d seen. Dark brown eyes, straight black hair tinged on the tips by the sun, a clear tawny complexion. Except for the Danish influence he’d inherited from his mother, he could have passed for Cuban.

Not that he wanted to.

He’d never seen his father in person. The man had taken off before Mark’s mother had even brought their son home from the hospital. Mark hadn’t heard a word from him since.

Dead, for all I care, he thought as a young boy. The world would be a better place without jackasses like that in it.

Mark had come to St. Lucia when his mother quit her job as a consultant for a large advertising agency in Miami. She accepted a year-long position as an underpaid assistant to a marine biologist who was setting up a program to study large mammals in the waters off the island. At 17, Mark was forced to leave behind everything he knew—friends, relatives, most of his belongings. There wasn’t any room in their new island digs for bicycles and boogie boards and workout machines.

He wasn’t exactly enamored with the move. He hated the thought of the isolation of life on an island. He hated not having friends his own age. He hated the afternoon storms, the beating of the waves at every turn, the feeling that he was living in a giant fishbowl. No matter where you went or what you did, you were constantly surrounded by water. And peppered by the fragility of your own mortal life.

And claustrophobia? he’d once wrote to one of his friends in the states. Forget about it. You travel a couple dozen miles in any direction, and there's another freakin’ ocean!

But when Roly—Dr. Steve Rolands—took him out on his boat and taught him how to dive, a whole lot of things changed. Fast. His grade-point average at the community college he’d enrolled in went from a low C to a high B. His minister wrote his mother about the breakthrough in his attitude he had recently seen in the boy. Even his mom had commented over breakfast one day upon how different, how much more relaxed and accepting he’d become.

Drugs, he replied. She swiped at him with her fork, and he laughed.

But it was true—about the change in attitude. He had felt it himself. From his very first dive, he had discovered an entirely new, surreal, exotic world just offshore, a remarkably complex and enchantingly beautiful world—and a deadly one, too—that he had only read about before and seen in movies. He had even begun forming a relationship with Steve, something he’d had trouble doing with any adult male before.

His mother had grown close to the older man, as well. Not in a sexual sense or anything like that, although you couldn’t have blamed her if she had. He carried a six-foot frame, weighed a trim 200 pounds, and had a muscular physique chiseled not from years of work in the gym but decades of labor both onshore and off. Years of carting around bulky SCUBA gear, unfurling billowing sails, fighting wicked underwater currents, working construction on the additions they had made to the Institute over the years—all had helped mold him into a rugged, handsome, well-engineered man. That combined with a winning personality made working for him a pleasure. How could his mom help but love her job? Love the mammals they were trying to protect from exploitation and even extinction! It had been her dream job come true.

By the time her year at the Institute was up, Roly thought so highly of her that he asked her to stay on to continue work as their new full-time executive administrator. She accepted the job, and when Mark finished junior college at eighteen, she made him her personal assistant and put him on the payroll.

The new positions meant a lot to them. Denise could finally afford to buy a cozy home overlooking the bay. She spent more of her time on administrative duties than she would have liked—traveling around the world, soliciting funds, and setting up ecological studies programs elsewhere—but that was okay as long as she had a warm home to welcome her back. While she was gone, Mark took charge of the Institute's day-to-day operations. He inventoried marine mammals, set up a rehabilitation program for sick and injured dolphins, and zipped around with Roly in the Institute’s eighteen-foot Boston Whaler.

He had just left the island for the states to take a crash course in mammal husbandry at the Florida Marine Botanical Station in Miami. He was on his way there when he had received the call at the airport to return home.

Marcie edged the Jeep through the gates leading to the S.E.A.L. Institute—the Southeastern Environmental Animal Laboratories—and pulled to a halt in front of the building. Belying its impressive-sounding name, the lab was small, of clapboard construction, with modest gray storm shudders to keep out the gray springtime storms and the white-hot summer sun. Roly was standing outside, waiting, as they drove up.

Marcie got out of the car first, and Mark followed her to the front porch. Hey, Roly, what’s happening? Couldn’t bear life without me, huh?

Dr. Rolands turned to his aide. You didn’t tell him?

Marcie looked at him sheepishly and shook her head. I ... just couldn’t.

Mark looked from one to the other and finally focused his attention on Roly. What is it? What’s going on?

The man took two steps forward and grabbed Mark by the shoulders. I’m afraid it’s ... it’s bad news.

Mark felt his stomach roll. What? Something has happened to the dolphins. Poachers? Is it poachers, again? If those damned bastards did anything to, to ...

Dr. Rolands shook his head. No. Not that. It’s about ... your mother.

Mom? What about her? Where is she? He peered over Roly’s shoulder. Is she sick? Is she okay?

Mark, I’m afraid your mother ... is dead.

Mark felt his knees buckle beneath him. "What? For a moment he thought he was going to faint. She ... she can’t be." For a second he thought it was some weird perverted sick joke, and then he looked into the man’s eyes. He forced himself to bend low from the waist, taking short, quick breaths as he struggled to steady himself with one hand against the porch.

I’m so sorry, Mark, to be the one to have to tell you. Believe me, if there was anything else ...

"But when ... h-h-how?"

He breathed in deeply, exhaling all in one quick breath. It happened last evening. She came back to the office after seeing you off at the airport and worked late into the night. The best anyone has been able to piece together is that she left here for home sometime between two and two-thirty. When she got there, she was ... shot.

"Oh, my God. No!"

The police say it was murder.

"No. No. It couldn’t be! She can’t be dead."

Marcie turned away and wiped the tears from her eyes.

We're so sorry to have to tell you. We feel awful about this. You know how much we thought of her.

Mark fought back the urge to cry. He knew if he started, he wouldn't be able to stop.

"How? Who? Who would want mom dead? Who?"

Dr. Rolands released his grip, and his hands fell awkwardly to his sides. He fought back several tears of his own before finally giving into them, wending their way down his cheeks, his neck—puddling in one large blot on his shirt just above his heart. Nobody knows. The police ... are still investigating.

"They ... they have some idea, don’t they, of who ... who would have done such a thing?"

"All they said was that she had arrived home in the middle of the storm. She stopped and rolled down her window. They think she must have recognized whoever the ... murderer was and considered him a friend. She was shot with a single bullet. She died instantly. When the police discovered her early this morning, the car was still running, and her purse was untouched at her side."

Mark slipped down to his knees and cradled his head in his hands. He shouted out; he kept deadly silent. He cursed whoever did it; he uttered not a sound. He wanted to scream out loud, but when he opened his mouth, nothing emerged. He began to sob. He sobbed so hard that his chest ached from the heaving. By the time he was able to pause long enough to catch his breath, he realized that Roly was kneeling beside him, holding him in his arms, cradling him like a baby. Mark looked up at him, at the tears rolling down the man’s face, and then at Marcie, standing over them both, sobbing.

Where is she? he asked.

Roly shook his head. I’m so sorry, Mark. I loved your mother so much. Everybody did. That’s what doesn’t make any sense. She didn’t have an enemy in the world.

"Where is she?" he repeated.

She’s at the morgue.

Mark hesitated. I’m going to see her.

No. No, it’s ... better that you don’t.

He looked up. Why?

Just believe me. It’s not ... pretty.

"They shot her ... in the head? They shot her in the head? he cried. Like some goddam wild animal? She rolled down her window to someone she knew and he just pulled out a gun and shot her in the head?" Mark clawed his way to his feet.

Mark, Marcie said. They’ll find him. Whoever did it. They’ll find him and they’ll make him pay. They’ll send him away for the rest of his life. They have to. There’s no other way. Believe me. They’ll find him. She grabbed him, cradled him in her arms, and for one brief moment, he was back with his mother, he was six again, and she had just finished reading him a story. He lay in her arms after the story was finished until he fell asleep. And while he was sleeping, he’d dreamt about what his mother had read to him, dreamt about all the wonderful and marvelous things the book had held. He’d dreamt about the dolphins and the whales, and he’d dreamt about how one woman was brave enough to put her life in jeopardy to save them.

Mark wiped his eyes in his shirt sleeve and slowly staggered on his feet. He held his hand down to help Roly up. I ... He sniffed. I think I’m going to go home.

Roly shook his head. The police have the house cordoned off. No one can get in until they’re finished with their investigation.

"Our house? Why are they investigating our house?"

Roly shook his head. I don’t know. Just routine, I guess.

Well, where will I go? To a motel? He felt suddenly alone, more so than he’d ever felt before in his life.

Marcie took him by the hand, and Roly placed his arm around his shoulder. We’ll stay right here, he said. "We’ll all stay right here. The three of us. We’ll stay right here until we get through this. Together."

Four

Mark cut a slice from a loaf of bread—the last one his mother had baked—and painted one side of it with butter. He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a bag of shaved ham, which he layered half an inch thick before topping it with a thin slice of warm, buttery Swiss. He folded the sandwich in half and raised it to his mouth. He stopped.

He set it down.

He leaned back against the refrigerator door. It had been two days since it had happened. He breathed in deeply and let out a long, low sigh. He realized why people who lose a loved one hold wakes and vigils and funerals and masses for the deceased. He used to think such activities were foolish and cruel, forcing the surviving family to relive the tears, to revisit the memories of their loved ones just so some half-baked, self-serving gawkers could salve their aching consciences by paying their last respects. Now he saw the benefits to all the grieving. It was all designed to allow the family, the survivors, time to heal. It was a way of preparing them for the emptiness that would face them after all of the well-wishers and relatives and coworkers and friends said goodbye and walked out the door. It was a way to allow the family time to brace itself for the inevitable loneliness that would creep into their lives and remain with them, possibly forever.

Mark’s two days had been filled with people, too. Not in the usual way: his mother had always said she wanted to be cremated and her ashes scattered across the sea. So, he didn’t have to deal with the usual well-wishers and funeral-gawkers. Instead, they were people who had known her. They telephoned Mark or the office, and they stopped in unannounced and e-mailed and dropped by the Institute to express their horror and their outrage that anyone would have done something so heinous, so callous and cold-blooded and cruel. People came from all across the Caribbean, from St. Kitt’s and St. Bart’s, From Jamaica and from Cuba, as far away as Venezuela. From everywhere, just about. They flew in and they arrived at the dock in boats. Those who couldn’t come in person telephoned or texted their anger and their sadness. He hadn’t known just how well respected and loved his mother was. He never had a reason to stop to wonder. But he knew now.

The local newspaper headlines were ablaze with condemnation, both for the act, itself, and for the perpetrators, raising the question that the gunman hadn’t acted alone. Gene Redmond, the reporter who had covered the story, demanded an in-depth investigation by the authorities, and he promised not to let the story rest until the murderer was found.

"Or murderers," Mark read softly.

He wiped back a tear and took another deep breath before walking out of the kitchen, through a small hallway, and into his mother’s bedroom. Everything was where he had seen it the night that he’d left for the states, the night his mother was killed.

Her iPod rested on a table next to her bed, next to the alarm clock with the built-in CD player and several discs of forest and ocean sounds, mood music, music to calm a troubled soul. Across the room from the bed, on a small cane chair, sat her cranberry cotton cable-knit Polo sweater—the one she had worn the night before when she had taken her son out to eat at one of their favorite outdoor restaurants called Doc’s. Mark crossed the room, reached down to pick the garment up, and held it against his face. It smelled of Safari, her favorite cologne. He put it back down as tears welled once again in his eyes.

Mark left the room, walked down the hall, and passed through another doorway. He switched on the overhead lights before crossing the room to the desk. He reached out and flicked on the desk lamp, and his mother’s memory sprang once more to life. He pulled out her swiveling wooden chair and slipped down into it. How many times had he seen her sitting in that chair, stooped over a speech she was preparing for some philanthropic organization or struggling to balance her checkbook? Too many to count! She was good at everything she ever did, everything she ever tried.

Except balancing that damned checkbook!

He picked the book up, felt the cobbled imitation leather skin of the cover, and tapped it on the wooden desktop. "At least you won’t have to worry about that anymore," he whispered. He looked across the desk, past her computer, to several framed photographs hanging crooked on the wall. One, his favorite, was of his mother holding him when he was still a child. She was wearing a bathing suit and standing waist-deep in the ocean. His feet were dangling in the water, and he was laughing hysterically.

What was I laughing at? he asked her from time to time when he’d come into her office to talk or ask her a question or simply to see that she was still okay.

She’d smile. Nothing in particular. You were just a happy child.

Happy. He set the picture down and let his gaze wander across the desktop. Another photo caught his eye. It showed a beautiful woman, light of skin, fair-haired, smiling, laughing, and her son. He had darker straighter hair, the hair of his Hispanic father, the hair of a Cuban-American. And the tawny skin. And deep-set laughing eyes.

Mark’s mother had told him stories about his father. More, still, about his grandfather, his father’s father, along with life in Cuba before Castro had invaded the country and seized control of the government in the name of social justice. Mark’s grandfather, Ruiz, had known a Cuban named Gregorio Fuentes, who operated a fishing boat owned by American novelist Ernest Hemingway—Ernesto, Gregorio called him. Ruiz frequently went on marlin-fishing junkets with Gregorio and the author. Sometimes, they brought back the bacon. Sometimes they arrived back at the dock empty-handed. But even then, as Mark’s father had relayed to his mother, they were full of life, of stories, of living, of the humanity of human bonding and shared goals. Gregorio and Ruiz and Hemingway. The three musketeers.

One day, years later, Hemingway went on to write a story featuring Gregorio as the main character, a man lost at sea in a small vessel. It was The Old Man and the Sea. Mark’s father often thought the main character was not Gregorio at all—as most people believed—but rather Mark’s grandfather, Ruiz.

But stories, especially second-hand tales told by people far removed from the reality of the action, are rarely real. Who knew what was real, or who Hemingway had patterned his main character after. Was it Gregorio? Was it Ruiz? Or was it a combination of the two?

Suddenly the phone rang. Mark jumped, hesitating before picking it up. It rang again, and the answering machine kicked in.

Please leave a message at the tone.

A second or two passed, and the tone sounded.

Hi, Mark? Just calling to make sure everything is all right ....

Mark grabbed the receiver. Roly? Yeah, it’s me. Yes, everything is fine. I’m just ... you know, going through some of mom’s things, trying to sort things out. You know, just trying to get used to being alone.

There was a pause on the other end. Mark, maybe you shouldn’t do that.

Do what?

I mean, go through her things. It’s so soon. All those memories. Just leave her stuff for now. I’ll have Marcie go over and sort through her things in the morning, pack them up in some boxes. It’s just too soon for you. You can sort through the boxes later after you’ve had a chance to ... settle in. You know.

He shook his head. I guess it just seems as if I should ... He paused. Well, we’ll see. Maybe you’re right.

"I know I am."

Roly asked if Mark wanted to stay with him for a few days so he wouldn’t have to face the flood of emotions so recently ignited, but Mark declined.

I really need to go, Mark said. I appreciate the offer, but I just need to be alone for a while. You know? It’s just something I have to do.

Roly cleared his throat. I understand, he said. And I’ll call Marcie and tell her to stop by tomorrow and pack up your mother’s files and bring them down to the office. I’m sure she’d be happy to do that.

Thanks, Roly.

"Don’t mention it. And, don’t forget, I’m always here for you, Mark. Anytime. We all are."

Mark felt a warm glow inside as he slipped the receiver back into its cradle—a warm glow inside a hollow cave. It was nice to know that people cared. Cared about his mother ... cared about him. He stared at the blinking red light of the machine, hit the Play button, and struck Erase after Roly’s voice came on. He turned away, and then he turned back. The light was still blinking. He hit Play again.

Wednesday, March 26, 6:15 p.m. You have no new messages and two old messages.

That’s strange. Mom always erased her old messages.

The machine continued. A man’s voice, soft and studied, said, "The waves must end. Now." Mark pressed Stop and the machine clicked off. He hit Play and listened to the message again before he finally hit Erase.

What a nut, he said out loud. "That’ll be the day when the ocean has no more waves. When that day comes, we’ll all be buzzard bait."

He looked over his mother’s belongings on the desktop, moved some papers around, and for a brief moment felt as if he were doing something wrong; but he knew that, sooner or later, someone would have to go through it all. Marcie would pack up his mother's papers and files and other material and take it all back to the Institute. But he would need to go through