Murder Quartet: CD Grimes PI, #4

By C. D. Moulton

CD gets some cases in Florida, falls in love with the place and builds a home there.

A developer is murdered. A stock broker is murdered. A young boy is murdered. Thereis a druggie execution that wasn't.

CD gets to know some of the continuing characters. The lifestyle is different from that in Nicely.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. D. Moulton
• Release date: Jul 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201500351

Book preview

CD Grimes

Book 4

Murder Quartet

4 parts

© 1987 & 2019 by C. D. Moulton

all rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any other information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder/ publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, or events is purely coincidental, except when noted.

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CD gets some cases in Florida, falls in love with the place and builds a home there

Critic comment

Rather standard fare. Well-done enough to hold the reader’s interest. The characters fit for a continuation. A bit too homey for my taste – JM **1/2

Contents

About the author

It Don’t Come Easy

A Hot Start

Florida

Ugh People

Why Arthur?

Wrap it Up

Centerpiece

Moving

Feud

Evidence

Wednesday

Getting Settled

A Point of Fact

Thanksgiving

Accident on Purpose

Heroes

Relaxing

No Turnaround

Case

About the author

CD was born in Lakeland, Florida, in 1938. He is educated in genetics and botany. He has traveled over much of the world, particularly when he was in music as a rock rhythm guitarist with some well-known bands in the late sixties and early seventies. He has worked as a high steel worker and as a longshoreman, clerk, orchidist, bar owner, salvage yard manager and landscaper – among other things.

CD began writing fiction in 1984 and has more than 300 books published as of 3/15/16 in SciFi, murder, orchid culture and various other fields.

He now resides in Gualaca, Chiriqui, Panamá, where he continues research into epiphytic plants and plays music with friends. He loves the culture of the indigenous people and counts a majority of his closer friends among that group. Several have adopted him as their father. He funds those he can afford through the universities where they have all excelled. The Indios are very intelligent people, they are simply too poor (in material things and money. Culturally, they are very wealthy) to pursue higher education.

CD loves Panamá and the people, despite horrendous experiences (Free e-book; Fading Paradise). He plans to spend the rest of his life in the paradise that is Panamá

- Estrelita Suarez V. de Jaramillo – 3/15/2016

CD is involved in research of natural cancer cure at this time. It has proven effective in all cases, so far. It is based on a plant that has been in use for thousands of years, is safe, available, and cheap. He has studied botany, and was cured of a serious lymphoma with use of the plant, Ambrosia peruviana.

Information about this cure is free on the FaceBook group, Natural medicine research. CD asks only that all who try it please report on its effectiveness on that group.

It Don't Come Easy

A Hot Start

It was hot. That was the first thing I noticed as I climbed out of bed.

I'm CD Grimes, detective, orchid grower, and bum.

The breeze, what there was of it, blew off of the lake and into the second story window. It was a hot breeze, stifling in its humidity. I picked up the phone to ask Cliff, my butler, to turn off the circulation fans and turn on the air conditioning, closed the windows in my room, then moved to close others in the adjoining rooms.

I could see Horace Greely (Not that one – our orchid grower) just then entering the cool house, where he would undoubtably worry himself sick until the large swamp coolers could bring the temperature down below 85 degrees. The automatics already had the vents wide and the misters were on. I could see the steam making the air dance at the vents.

I shook my head and went out to find Cliff 3 (I think of my partner as Cliff 3 and the butler, 3's father, as Cliff 2. Cliff 1 had been 2's father and my grandfather's butler, as well as my great grandfather's on my grandmother's side. See?) coming from the ell.

I closed them on that side, he said. You should have left it on overnight. It would be cheaper and faster than trying to cool it down after it already got hot.

I thought it'd cool down some at night, I explained. "I can't sleep in air conditioning. I told your dad to shut off the second floor, but he turns the whole system off.

I guess I'd better eat and get out there to help Horace. He's too old to have to do all that stuff. The kid can work the vents and worry about it.

Cliff grinned and we went down to the kitchen, where Mrs. Cliff (As everyone calls her) had a delicious cold breakfast spread set out for us. It was a recipe from my grandmother (On my father's side) that consisted of roast beef, boiled eggs, pickled beets – thinly sliced, filled thickly into french mild garlic bread that had been split lengthwise where sweet onions and mushrooms steamed in gravy, sour cream with chives was poured on thinly, so that it was on the roast beef, but not on the bread.

I was always fascinated that the onions could be the thing that made it so sweet and sour.

Pineapple, banana, and maraschino cherries on iceberg lettuce, with a dollop of homemade mayonnaise, and coffee with a hint of mint and vanilla made it complete.

Gourmet fare wasn't necessarily expensive.

Cliff and I then went to the seedling house, where we spent awhile manipulating the vents, the swamp coolers and the misters until we had the temperature under control.

It's true a great many orchids are tropical, but very few of them like a hot, stuffy atmosphere. They grow high in trees or on rock faces high on cliffs where they are in cool breezes, most of the time. The few that will tolerate hot, wet, close atmosphere were in a special hot house.

The seedling house was cool on one end and Cattleya on the other. (Cattleyas are the most common corsage orchids, and most want medium conditions.) Two crosses were coming into bloom for the first time, so room would have to be made for them in the mature houses or, in a few cases, stud house. One, a paphiopedalum, would need cool house, and the other, a modern sophrolaeliocattleya (Slc, or sophronitis X laelia X cattleya) intergeneric.

Orchids are also one of the few things that can be crossed multigenerically, as the hybrids aren't usually sterile. Slc's are famous for reds, yellows and very intense pinks cross.

See?

My fantastic wife, Alma, was due back. She had been to see her father and to attend the regional AOS (American Orchid Society) show in Atlanta where, according to her call late the evening before, she had named the new blue Lc. (Laeliocattleya) cross Cerulean Sea, and had taken three AM's and one HCC (Award of Merit and Highly Commended Certificate) for four of the clones exhibited. As was a general rule, Grimes Orchids won best of show with one of the parents of Lc. Cerulean Sea, Lc. C. D. Grimes Sheila FCC/AOS.

FCC is First Class Certificate, and is the highest award given an orchid. Lc. C. D. Grimes Sheila had been awarded in 1976 and was still considered to be the finest blue in the world, having won the Australian Silver Trophy as a seedling. The cross had won the AQ (Award of Quality) in general. Its progeny bred true, a rare feat in blues.

Now that you're completely bored, this is where Horace Greely came in to announce I was wanted on the phone. Long distance.

CD Grimes here, I said into the phone.

CD? This is Arthur Flannery, from the club?

Yes?

I'm in Tampa, Florida, Flannery said. "I have a place down outside of Englewood, on the island.

"I knew your grandfather – he did some work for me and told me you were being trained to take over the agency. I know about some of your work and think perhaps you could see some sense in all this. I don't know anything about it. It never occurred to me that any such thing could happen in this family, but then, it happened even in the Crane family, I guess.

Can you come?

Don't you think it's a pretty big jump from `I'm in Florida' to `can you come?' I asked. There just has to be something in between.

I'm going crazy! Flannery cried. "Tom, my brother, has been murdered! It's not possible, and the police here.... They're really pretty good – for down here – but I think the family is just too resented.... That's not fair either. There just doesn't seem to be any evidence. I don't know what to do! Please!

"You can fly to the airport in Sarasota. You can land the jet there and I'll have your car waiting for you. I own the Pontiac dealership there in Nicely, so I can work a trade agreement with the one here.

I'm messing this up. Please come!

I pictured Flannery. Tall, military bearing, very white hair, piercing grey eyes and used a cane (more for effect than from need). Generally talked in a quick, clipped, sharp fashion. If he had affected an accent and called himself The Major or something ,one would think he would have very easily fit the stereotype of the retired foreign officer of English fiction.

I felt I could use a bit of a vacation away from Nicely, but Florida? It was too hot and close to breathe, even up here! Go south?

Alma wanted to visit her sister in New Orleans, and I felt we could bounce right over there from Atlanta for a week.

Might as well!

Give me the details. I'll be there tomorrow morning, I said.

I'll leave a marked map in the car for you. It's about a half hour's drive from Sarasota airport if you stay on 41, Flannery said. I'll meet you at the house in the morning. I need a drink.

I hung up and grimaced, then called Alma, who was happy to go to New Orleans. It was just too hot in Nicely. When we took off in the morning the temperature was 103 degrees and the humidity was 72%.

Florida

As I deplaned to ask where I could anchor my jet, a fellow drove up in a red Jeep, asked if I were Grimes, and said to taxi over by the private hangar and he'd anchor. This was a private field that seemed almost as informal as the High Flyers Airfield back in Nicely (God, but I hate that name!). I didn't understand the size of the tie down blocks or the way they were so heavily anchored. The shock cables were more than twice as heavy as seemed necessary and there were two more than I could see a purpose for, though I’d learned a very long time ago not to question such things. There were no mountains nor even low hills here, so a very small wind could probably build a hell of a large wallop.

There had evidently been a rain during the night, as the ditch was almost full of water – but there were water lilies blooming in it, so there was always water in it.

My grandmother and grandfather were two of the world's most respected authorities on orchids, so I had been raised to notice plants and what they said about a given area. Since I was a very small child I had gone on collecting expeditions in such diverse wild places as Colombia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Australia, India – all over the world. Though orchids were the main concern, we collected and studied many things.

There were zephyranthes and spider lilies, some kind of ditch crinum, what looked like a white jonquil with long pale green sepals and petals, tiger lilies, three colors of morning glories, wild passion vines, some kind of large lilac-colored pea and a smaller dark maroon one, wild phlocks, three or four kinds of daisies – all in a space not more than ten by twenty along the ditch.

There were blue flags, white spatterdock, cattails, a blue water lily, a yellow water lily, a pink water lily and the more common large white Marlborough variety, pink and white things that looked like little snapdragons sticking on stems above the water and yellow things that laid close along the surface, along with the white flowers of the fish bowl weed that we pay a dollar and a half a little bunch for at home. Anacris. It's a problem weed here, I understand. There was enough in that ditch to supply the whole rest of the country! The floating water hyacinths, though I know they're the most noxious weed in Florida waters (They can choke and kill a large lake or river in less than a year) were startlingly beautiful.

There were little green orchids blooming above them, growing in their floating roots and a yellow thing I thought was a mallow or hibiscus, but later found was another problem weed. Against the bank on the airport side were pogonia orchids, spiranthes and a smaller white orchid that looked like a miniature variety of spiranthes. Xeuxine. And Eulophia alta.

There is a lone large water (laurel oak) oak by the door to the airport office. I looked up to see a mass of green and brown with dark purple splotches surrounding a plant bigger than a washtub. The fragrance was not strong, but pleasant.

Epidendrum tampense! The Florida orchid from this area! I had two pieces of tree fern with plants that were maybe six inches across in my warm cattleya house and here was a huge one growing wild!

There were the little green Epidendrum conopseum and several varieties of Tillandsia bromelliads. I hadn't seen such a variety of wild plants anywhere in the US before.

The fellow from the Jeep who had helped me tie down, a jovial redheaded frecklefaced (And all over for that matter. He was wearing cutoff jeans) kid about twenty years old, saw me looking at the plants in the tree and told me, Shirley, the secretary, put them there a couple of years ago if you're looking at the wild orchids. They were on a tree that blew over that they were going to cut up to burn.

Oh, I said. I thought I'd actually seen a wild one in its natural state.

He laughed, pointed and said, Just cross the street. There are thousands of them over there! He was pointing at the oak forest there. Don't pull any, though. It's against the law and some of us want them to stay exactly where they are. If everyone who comes to this little field takes `just one' there wouldn't be any in a year.

I looked at him with respect, which seemed to puzzle him. He was built like a running back, but it wasn't respect for the fact he could break me in half and he knew it.

I raise orchids, I explained. "I've been all over the world collecting them with Gramps and was taught never to take a whole plant from anywhere, and never to take one just to be taking it.

I'm surprised there are any wild ones left. I'd think the tourists would've wiped them out by now.

They've wiped out most of Florida, he agreed. "The people who rented your space and left the car for you are pretty much hated by us natives. That crooked bunch cuts down every tree in sight to build condominiums and shopping centers where there's no water, it's too low for sewage and there aren't any roads to handle the extra traffic. They've destroyed all the beaches and woods.

Find a spot that's worth going to and they'll flatten it to put up a high rise. They already got more money than they know what to do with. Still, they'd sell their own mother for a couple more bucks!

It was a challenge of some sort that I didn't understand.

Look, I said. I'm CD. CD Grimes. I came here because Arthur Flannery wants me to find who killed his brother, not to rape Florida.

He grinned. I'm Mike Nelson, he said. I tend to get a bit hyper about those kind of trash. About the only response you'll get from the natives is that whoever did it screwed up big time. He should've taken out the whole bunch of those leeches!

We went into the office to see the all-American girl in blue jeans and a T-shirt behind the desk. She had black hair, a medium light complexion (Without the smallest blemish) and startling grey/blue eyes. I immediately decided she was Irish all the way.

Shirl, this is Mr. Grimes, Mr. Grimes, Shirley Bock, Mike introduced. Got the keys to the car for him?

I said to call me CD as she stood to get the car keys from the key rack. She had a body that would put almost anybody I’d ever seen, short of my wife, to shame and seemed totally unaware of it! She turned, handed me a set of keys and smiled at me. I couldn't believe the effect she was having. She seemed totally oblivious to it. Her voice was soft and firm, like her ... I'm very married and I like it that way, damn it!

There you go, CD! It's the red Trans Am over to the side there. Have fun, and be sure to be careful. Lots of people on the roads gawking and not payin' attention to what they're doin'! You got to drive for five people here. Yourself, the one behind you, the one ahead of you and the two about to hit you from the sides!

I laughed and said, I know what you mean. They don't drive that way where they come from. They'd be dead in five minutes.

It's more than that, she said gaily. "They're lookin', not drivin' the car.

"Be real extra careful when it rains. They think you drive in the rain on flat ground like you drive in the mountains on ice or somethin' or they think, seein' as it's flat, there ain't no big danger so they go flat-out.

"The worst part is when it first starts because all the oil floats to the top and it's worse than ice. You can't stop at all and if you hang a corner you'll be swimmin' in a ditch.

After a coupl'a minutes it washes off and ain't quite so bad. Survive the first two times and you'll learn!

Her eyes sparkled when she smiled. I had to get out of there before I forgot why I was here.

I'll bear that in mind, I promised. It doesn't look much like it's likely to rain today. There's not a cloud in the sky.

It comes in fast, she answered. It'll be real hot today, prob'ly more'n ninety, and it'll rain at a quarter to four and dry off by five. It'll be kinda nice tonight, though. Real clear. Prob'ly stay hot all night. Won't go under seventy five, I'd say.

Hah! It was a hundred and three when I left Nicely this morning and didn't get cooler than eighty five all night, I said.

I know, she said. I was in Asheville when I was married for two years. Hottest place in the summer and coldest in the winter I ever saw!

The phone rang. She smiled again and picked it up. I got out of there. Mike grinned as he walked to the car with me.

Don't let Shirley mess up your head, he counseled. "She isn't really flirting, it's just her way. It'd shock hell out of her to know what men think of when they look at her. She's just too damned friendly for her own good. We all sort of watch out for her around here since she was married to that bum. Son of a bitch was lucky he bought it when he did 'cause if any of us'd known we'd of killed the bastard. You don't treat a good woman like that. Not if you had any kind of upbringing, you don't.