Hothouse Orchid

50

Hurd Wallace was sitting at his desk on Monday morning when Lauren knocked at his door. “Come in,” he said. Lauren sat down but didn’t speak.

“Good morning,” Hurd said, to break the silence.

“This is bad,” Lauren said. “The case, I mean.”

“It’s difficult, yes.”

“It’s impossible,” Lauren said, “unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless he kills again. Or tries to.”

“I don’t know that I’m comfortable with the idea of sitting around, waiting for Jimmy to murder another woman,” Hurd said.

“I’m not comfortable with it either,” Lauren said. “Not for a minute.”

“We’re in a difficult position,” Hurd said. “We’ve already announced to the press that Bruno committed suicide as well as all the murders, and everybody is just delighted with that.”

“You mean the governor is delighted.”

“I mean everybody: the press, the city council, the public and, yes, the governor.”

“So we can’t issue another press release saying that maybe it didn’t happen that way, that maybe the Orchid Beach chief of police did it all.”

Hurd managed a chuckle. “I don’t think so.”

“And we don’t want to wait for Jimmy to kill again.”

“No, we don’t, but, short of checking his alibis for the killings and waiting for word on the partial print to come back and, in general, continuing to work the case, there’s not much else we can do.”

“I think we should do all of that, but I think we should work on the basis that we’re stuck with Jimmy.”

“Without another alternative, yes,” Hurd said.

“There’s another alternative,” Lauren said.

Hurd shifted in his seat. “I’m all ears.”

“Maybe if I interest Jimmy in me…” Lauren said.

Hurd sat as if frozen and said nothing, just stared at her.

“Jimmy is attracted to me,” Lauren said. “He even asked me out a few days ago.”

“And how did you handle that?”

“I told him I’m seeing somebody, which is true, and he backed off.”

“Just tell me how you see this playing out, Lauren.”

“Okay. I let Jimmy know that I’m newly available.”

“That you’ve stopped seeing your friend?”

“No, I don’t think that’s the way. I think Jimmy should think that I’ll see him even though I’m seeing somebody else.”

“Then you’re forbidden fruit?”

“Exactly. I think he might find that more exciting.”

“I can’t disagree with that,” Hurd said, “but…”

“Yes, I know. There are a lot of buts.”

“But how do we control this? We could have a squad of people following you and Jimmy around, waiting for him to try…”

“Yes, and that would be awkward. And we have to remember that Jimmy is not stupid; I’d have to be a pretty good actress to pull this off.”

“And are you a pretty good actress?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not enough, Lauren. Jimmy is a big guy, over six feet, muscular. He looks like he spends a lot of time at the gym.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Why do you think you can handle him? Physically, I mean.”

“I’m not at all sure I could; I have to keep it from coming to that.”

“Let me tell you bluntly why I can’t authorize this,” Hurd said, “either officially or unofficially.”

“Tell me,” Lauren replied.

“In order to pull this off, you’re going to have to make Jimmy believe that he’s going to…”

“Yes.”

“He has to believe that you want him to fuck you.” Hurd blushed. “I said I’d be blunt.”

“It’s all right, Hurd; be blunt.”

“If he thinks that’s going to happen and you try and stop him, you could make him very angry.”

“That’s kind of the idea.”

“You’ve seen his victims. He wasn’t gentle with them before he killed them. There’s no reason to believe he would be gentle with you.”

“I suppose it would be up to me to control him,” Lauren said.

“And you think that, if you led him along, you could stop him from fucking you without… consequences?”

“The consequences would have to be for him.”

“Lauren, let me be even blunter. Are you willing to kill him?”

“As you say, he’s a big guy. I would probably have to kill him to stop him.”

Hurd blushed even more. “Are you willing to fuck him, just to break this case?”

“If I have to. I mean, if I kill him, there’d be no witnesses, and we’d need evidence that he raped me.”

“You mean semen.”

“Yes. Inside me.”

“What would your boyfriend say about this?”

“I have no intention of mentioning it to him.”

“And suppose you did fuck Jimmy. Is there any way to resolve the case without killing him?”

“I think that, if he were excited enough, he might well talk about what he’d done. Especially if he thought I knew and that I was excited about knowing.”

“Lauren,” Hurd said, “one more question, and I want a straight answer. After what you went through with Bruno, why would you want do this?”

Lauren regarded him evenly. “I think I want to do it because of what I went through with Bruno.”

Hurd swiveled his chair around and gazed at the wall for half a minute before turning back to her. “Here’s my decision, Lauren,” Hurd said. “I will not allow you to try this. In fact, I order you not to. Is that perfectly clear?”

“Perfectly,” Lauren replied.

“I want to explain why I’m giving you this order.”

“I understand. You don’t have to explain.”

“Yes, I do, and I have three very valid reasons. One: such an attempt would place you in mortal peril. Two: even if you survived, the chances of your getting a confession from him would be remote. Three: even if you survived and got a confession, it’s likely that either a judge would refuse to allow your evidence on grounds of entrapment, or the defense would characterize it as entrapment and say that Jimmy confessed only because he wanted so badly to fuck you.”

“I see your point,” Lauren said.

“Will you follow my order?”

Lauren hesitated.

“Lauren, unless you tell me that you will follow my order-and mean it-I will fire you out of hand right this minute, and then you will have no legal standing to attempt what you propose.”

Lauren regarded her shoes. “All right, Hurd, I accept your order. Really, I’ll table this plan.”

“It’s not a plan,” Hurd said. “It’s a dangerous fantasy. This is not how we solve homicides.”

“Then,” Lauren said, “we’re probably going to have to accept another murder. Maybe more than one.”

“We can’t control that,” Hurd said.

“Maybe we can,” Lauren replied.

“You have an alternate plan, then?”

“I do.”