Orchids for the Funeral: CD Grimes PI, #12

By C. D. Moulton

14 shorts. This book was originally compiled to help raise frunds for a scholarship in botany. The first several are previously published, but most were written for this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. D. Moulton
• Release date: Jul 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201046385

Book preview

Orchids to You

From C. D. Grimes, Detective Agency, Meet the Original. This is the original story where CD was introduced to orchids.

When I walked into the office I saw, #1, that Sheila (my wife) had brewed a pot of her homeground and mixed gourmet coffee, #2, she was nowhere to be seen, #3, she had propped a note written in red crayon in my chair: "We are holding your tramp of a wife for ransom and will return her to you unharmed if you do not place one million dollars in small bills in a brown paper bag and drop it in the wastebasket by lunch time.

P.S.: Check your phone calls for a change.

I sighed, checked the pink pad and sighed again.

The reason I never checked the damned thing was because it never had enough of the information I needed and too much that I didn't.

Date:3/5/51 Time: 8:22

Miss( ) Mrs( ) Mr(X):__Bernie___of:____?___

(X)telephoned ( )called while you were out:

__Call him._important__Ph._555-2612___

Bernie? Bernie who? About what? Was he some bill collector?

No. Sheel would have paid it.

I sighed again and called the number. I let it ring twelve times and hung up, had a cup of black coffee, called again (same result), read the paper, called again, still got no answer, said to hell with it and went back out back to finally mow the lawn and rake the leaves. We weren't likely to get too much snow this year and winter was warm so far, so I didn't have much excuse to leave it. Now that I was married to a socialite I guessed I would have to clean the place up a bit now and then. Sheel would suggest that we hire a professional to do it, but I couldn't see paying a gardener to take care of a lawn no bigger than twenty by fifty feet, half of which was a concrete slab. The front was about twice that without a concrete slab. Her old man had a staff of eight fulltime groundsmen to handle that kind of stuff.

I went in to find Sheel cooking lunch. She may be a pampered millionairess, but she's still one of the best cooks I ever met.

Did you call the guy? she asked.

Several times. No answer. Who is he?

I don't know. He just said it was of the utmost importance. He got your name and number from a mutual friend at the club and needed some advice.

"What club? I don't belong to any clubs! What did he sound like?

Maybe he's one of the guys from the Eight Ball Hall. They call it a club, but it's only a pool hall. I don't know anybody named Bernie anything there. Maybe Bernie `The Stick' Eggars, from Langston?

He sounded cultured. Clean up. You stink. Then we'll eat.

I showered and changed clothes, after which we had a great little lunch – if one can call roasted scallops in a white wine sauce, broccoli hollandaise, potatoes au gratin and peach cobbler a little lunch. – Oh, yeah. A quaint little Zinfandel with and cognac in the special coffee after.

So I'm spoiled. So what?

I was preparing to lay down for a short nap in the office when Sheriff Buford came in. I've got a strange one, he greeted. "Old guy died in his greenhouse from some sort of insecticide. It seems a clearcut enough thing, but I told the coroner not to touch anything yet. I think there's something fishy about it, but my hands are tied.

Want to come along and see what you think?

I didn't have anything else to do, so I told Sheel I'd be back and went with him. It would pass some time and maybe Buford's hunch was a straight one. They were, more often than not.

We pulled into a large estate and drove about three hundred miles across lawns that were smoother than the pool tables at the Eight Ball Hall. There were huge camellias in full bloom, borders of azaleas and every leaf on every bush and tree looked like it had been polished.

Hah! I said to Buford. My wife's father's estate would make this one look like....

Like what? he asked with a smirk.

"I don't know. This is class!"

He grinned at me as we pulled up in front of a neat little two hundred by forty greenhouse with a brass plaque by the entrance that said Orchids by Birn in goldleaf letters. There was the ambulance and two plain cars from Buford's department standing there. We went in past a uniformed cop at the door.

Birn was sitting in a chair by a potting bench where six or seven plants lay against some potting media. I read the tags Birn had just finished writing:

Slc. Birn's Pride Orange Flame FCC/AOS

Slc. Anzac Orchidhurst FCC/RHS

X

Lc. Gold Standard Birn's Prize AM/AOS

What does that mean?

A perfectly clothed (Almost a tux!) gentleman asked, What, Sir?

All that stuff on the tags. I know orchids have pedigrees. Is that what it means?

Well, yes, Sir, quite. The top name, Slc. Birn's Pride, is formed when you cross Anzac with Gold Standard. It is one of Mr. Birn's crosses – or at least, Mr. Birn had registered the cross.

What are the letters?

Which ones, Sir?

All of them.

"Well, Sir, the Slc. means sophrolaeliocattleya and the FCC means First Class Certificate. The AOS means the American Orchid Society. The RHS on Anzac means the Royal Horticultural Society.

"That is in England, Sir.

"The Gold Standard is a laeliocattleya. Lc, you see. That is another of Mr. Birn's registrations. It is an Lc. Lee Langford cross, you see. It was awarded an Award of Merit, or AM, by the AOS.

Is that sufficiently clear?

Yeah. I'm sorry I asked, I said. He sniffed, so I added, My father-in-law raises pretty good orchids. Cymbidiums and Pay Fee Oh somethings.

Oh, really? He sniffed haughtily. Perhaps I would know the, er, gentleman?

Perhaps, I replied offhandedly. He's J. R. Crane.

He looked like he'd been swatted in the face with a dead fish. JR got that reaction from the snobbery crowd, seeing he owned most of this state and virtually all of this county.

I walked away from the snob. His chin almost fell to the clean concrete walkway as he stared at me.

Something was suddenly nagging at me – something I'd seen at that potting bench, but I couldn't place it.

I was reading the names of the plants on the benches. Most were in shades of red, yellow, green and orange. I'd never seen anything like them. Almost no two had the same name on the tag.

I came to one that took my breath away and stood staring at it. I didn't know there was any such thing as a blue orchid. I turned the tag around and read:

Lc. Birnie's Sapphire Blue Lagoon AM/AOS

Birnie! It hit me what was nagging at me at the potting bench all this time! I ran back, almost knocking Buford down. He was staring at me as I checked the old black phone sitting there by the tags Birn had been making. The center of the dial read:

orchid range

ring 2

555-2612

Now I knew why Bernie didn't answer when I called him back. I turned to Buford and said, This is very definitely murder!

The starched-shirted snob dropped a pot with an orchid that was bright yellow with a crimson lip and cried, My god! How do you know?!

He told me.

We got back to Buford's office before he said anything at all about my statement in the greenhouse. He poured me a cuppa strong creek mud from the big urn in the bureaucrat or fart room (All the typewriters and forms you filled out in quadruplicate every time you farted). It tasted awful, but then, it always did.

Okay. So tell me.

"I got a call this morning – it's written on my phone pad – that Sheel will file under unfinished business or something. It says to call Bernie at five, five, five, two, six, one, two. It was received at eight twenty two. All he said was that he got my name at the club and must speak with me on a matter of vital importance.

"I called back at five after nine, a quarter past and nine twenty five. No answer.

"I didn't think anything about it because I didn't know any Bernie.

The number on that phone in the greenhouse is five, five, five, two, six, one, two. He died very soon after calling me. You can say between eight thirty and eight forty, so you now know the exact time of death. The killer was probably counting on the heat in the hothouse making it indefinite. Otherwise, he would've very probably been killed elsewhere.

Smithers would have answered the phone, Buford pointed out.

Who's Smithers? The starched shirt?

Yes. He's been Birn's chief orchid man for years. His statement would have put him in the greenhouse until nine thirty – if I remember correctly.

He looked through the assorted papers on his desk, picked out Smithers' statement and handed it to me:

A: – I remained in the main range until approximately 9:30 when Mr. Birn had me drive to the station to receive a shipment from a large grower of stud plants in California. Mr. Birn was in his chair writing tags. He always insisted he couldn't read my writing so made the tags himself, though it was up to me to do everything else. The tags were for divisions of a plant named by Mr. Birn, Slc. Birn's Pride, though I made the cross and grew the seeds. Orange Flame was the first plant of the cross exhibited and had won the highest award given. It was used to name the cross. It is a good cross throughout and I'm quite sure will become a famous breeder. I wasn't....

Q: – Yes Mr. Smithers. You say he was all right when you left?

A: – So far as I could tell. He was in the chair and didn't say anything about being ill.

It went on like that for a few pages.

He didn't say he'd spoken to Birn before he left? He only said he saw him sitting in the chair?

Yes. In the statement. In person, he left the impression Birn told him to go pick up the plants, but it could be a regular delivery.

I didn't know too much about orchids maybe, but I knew one thing, just from common sense! These types of orchids aren't at all like those cymbidiums that come from the colder latitudes. The ones Birn raised were tropical. In simple terms, they freeze. Very easily. No shipper from California would make regular winter shipments of orchids. They would check the weather to send them when there was no chance of them freezing. It often froze here in winter – ergo, there were no regular shipments.

That didn't mean much, though. They could have known when the shipment was made and when it was scheduled to arrive. The cost of stud plants must be phenomenal.

We talked awhile, but nothing came of it, so I went home. I would meet with the coroner in the morning. Maybe he could tell me exactly what croaked the old guy.

Sheila met me at the door. I just heard about poor Birnie. I want to know if that's where you've been all day and if so, why?

His phone number's five, five, five, two, six, one, two. He raises orchids and he was murdered, but we may not be able to prove it.

Oh! He got the orchid plants for Dad! It never occurred to me that he could be the Bernie on the phone. I would've found you for him!

We had a nice little dinner and went to bed early, then I got up and watched some TV for awhile. I won't bore you with the details of the little supper or of the stuff that's none of your damned business anyhow.

Just before noon the next morning I went with Buford over to the coroner's office where the little man was washing up.

"I can't fix the time of death even close. I don't know when he ate breakfast and the temperature in that hothouse was almost ninety, so cooling means next to nothing.

The isolation spectrometer will tell us what the poison was. These people will fool with insecticides when they don't know a solitary thing about them! My assistant will tell us when the analysis is complete. Let's go over to The Trucker and get some lunch.

Test the stomach contents for poisons.

Don't tell me my job! I always test stomach contents. I doubt he drank the stuff.

We have every reason to believe this was a murder, Doc, Buford explained. CD is trying to be sure nothing is overlooked.

Why don't you believe it was insecticide? Dr. Moore asked.

Cholinesterase inhibition, which is primary cause of death from insecticides, is pretty painful. He wouldn't have been sitting in that chair. Not so casually, he wouldn't!

Moore grinned at me. Studied it, did you? Some of them can be very fast.

Smithers was the one who used insecticides in the orchid range, not Birn, Buford supplied.

Good point, Dr. Moore said. We'll see.

After lunch we went back where the assistant gave Doc the reports. We sat a few minutes to study them.

He died of parathion poisoning! Moore cried. They've known the danger of that stuff for years now!

But it wasn't from absorption, I replied. It doesn't work that fast and it's very damned painful. I took a guy to the hospital with parathion poisoning five years ago. We thought he was having a heart attack. Severe chest pains.

Look at this, Moore said and handed me a sheet. It was a liver analysis. Almost zero parathion.

Well, you know what you have to look for. C'mon, Buford. We have to find a way to prove it.

Look for what? Prove what?

Look for the injection point, Moore replied. It would be in the liver if it was absorbed. Lots of it, meaning it had to be injected. Birn died of anaphylaxis. Fast. Almost as quick as cyanide.

He went into the back and Buford said, Where to?

We drove onto the estate and went to the house where we met the sons, daughter and widow of the deceased. Their mourning seemed real enough, but I never thought there was more than one suspect. I just didn't know how to prove it.

Mrs. Birn gave us free access to any part of the estate, so we started in the sheds spotted around the grounds. It was possible the parathion was still around for use on the camellias and other outside plants. It wouldn't be near the orchid house. I saw when we were in the range that Diazinon and Malathion were the two main insecticides in evidence. There were also some strong fungicides, such as Zineb and Natriphene, but everything was in locked cases.

We found 20% parathion in a shed. Locked. In a locked bin.

There was a full set of keys to the various gardening sheds hanging above the potting bench pigeonholes with the tags and clips.

We found syringes and atropine in the shed, along with the parathion. There was evidence everything was run carefully along the latest scientific lines. There was a book of symptoms and uses with the antidotes for the various poisons and toxic dose charts.

This was easy murder if we hadn't looked more than at the surface. I wondered how long the planning was.

Sheel knew something about orchids and had given me a few ideas, so I looked around the greenhouse until I found the thick book called Sander's List of Orchid Hybrids and spent two full hours copying items out of it, then roamed around the immaculate greenhouse until Buford came back inside. I talked with him for a time, making our plans, then he went back to the potting bench and into the cabinet next to it where the smocks were kept. I sat at the work bench to study some old  American Orchid Society Bulletins.

Smithers came in about half an hour or so later to demand, What are you doing in here?!

"I just wanted to ask you some things about orchids. I know you must know something about them and want to impress JR with a couple of gifts. I know Mr. Birn made a lot of great crosses and that some of them are really in demand. Maybe you can tell me which ones I should get him. I know he doesn't have any of the Cat-uh-lay-uhs, so he should get pretty interested easy enough. He has the time to work with them."

"Please! They're Cat-lee-uhs! And we don't want to give someone like J. R. Crane just anything! I have some fine crosses he will find easy and rewarding."

"I want to get him something Birn crossed,. I've heard of a few, like the Gold Standard thing and the Birnie's Pride.

Are the blues as easy as the others?

I made those crosses, not Mr. Birn!

All I know is I looked through Sanders and didn't see your name anywhere. Say! What about one of these Birn's Pride things? That's one of his best, I hear. It was really a brilliant idea to use Anzac with the Gold Standard because of the Cattleya Iris and bicolor in the early parentage. Birn must have really studied the backgrounds of the things before he made the crosses!

"No! That was my