The Grave Diggers' Karma

Warning: Contains mention of a death.

Archie Duchesne irritated the shit out of me and probably did so to every person he met. And true to form, his body turned up during the biggest event our little horticulture group had ever hosted, thus grabbing the attention that should have gone to our greatest achievement.

Our group’s unique hybrid Corpse Flower was blooming. The Grave Diggers, as we called ourselves, had been cultivating this strain for nearly a century. Not the current members, of course, but our group had been breeding these delightful flowers over the years. We were so proud of our newest beauty and of ourselves. And then Archie turned up dead and ruined the day.

The Corpse Flower blooms at over three feet in diameter and is native around Sumatra. Our organization here in Texas houses our experiments in a climate-controlled area where tonight we host a press conference and event for amateur horticulturists. Our newest bloom tops the record for the largest Corpse Flower ever, at an expected six feet in diameter, and to add to her appeal, she sports unusual striped purple and pink petals and golden pistil. The achievement of a lifetime!

However, just as the first of the press corps arrived to set up cameras, a groundskeeper opened a trunk in a back storeroom and found Archie’s body, hacked up and stinking a lot like the Corpse Flowers in our collection.

“I was told to find the klieg lights we bought a few years ago in case the photographers needed them,” he said. “I opened the trunk and there he was.”

The Corpse Flower, despite its massive beauty, emits a disgusting rotten flesh odor, which attracts flies and beetles. And here lay Archie, doing the same. We’re all used to the odor, so Archie’s inappropriate stench hadn’t bothered us.

Jennifer Lexus, our president, held a quick meeting of the board while we all stared down at Archie in the crate.

“We need to call the police, but we can’t have reporters catching a whiff, pardon my pun, of what’s going on. We cannot have bad publicity for Athena. Agree?”

We named our hybrid experiments, and the current star, beautiful and already stinking like a rotting dog, was Athena.

We shook our heads in agreement.

“We can’t prevent the audience from seeing the cops going back there,” Harold Burbank said. “But I have an idea.” Harold, an accountant by trade, was soft-spoken and methodical, but tonight, his whisper was fierce and hoarse protecting our Athena.

“We tell everyone that there was a break-in and that the police are here investigating. We bring the police in the back door, and we tell them that we’ll move the event outside as soon as we can.” He paused and glanced around our circle. “We call in the troops and clear out that old greenhouse we use for storage. We get the bartender to set up in there and move people out and into the greenhouse quickly. Everyone will be happy to get away from the smell anyway.”

We all nodded. A clever idea, and the best and only one we had.

“I’ll start texting everyone. I think most of the members are here anyway. We start clearing the greenhouse,” said Jennifer. “Harold, you handle the police.”

She looked at me. “Deidre, go take that groundskeeper who found Archie a bottle of water and keep him company until the police arrive. Don’t let him talk to anybody.”

Our members understood the gravity of the situation as soon as they heard: bad press for Athena and our group. Every member quietly excused themselves and started moving pots and potting soil and sweeping the floor in the greenhouse.

Jennifer addressed the reporters and interested people gathered in the hall about our “break-in,” and Jack Lindsey, our treasurer, rolled his wheelchair over to the storeroom to guard Archie’s body from prying eyes.

When the cops arrived, Harold gave them the respirator masks we’d had made for the occasion, infused with essential oils to help deal with the smell. “Where’s the corpse?” was printed on the outside of the masks. The cops did not smile.

“I’m Detective Alice Milton.” Detective Milton, short with natural hair and piercing black eyes, narrowed her brows and scrunched up her mouth as soon as she caught the odor when she approached the storeroom door. “My God,” she exclaimed, “How long has he been here?”

Jack quickly explained that our plants exuded that odor, not so much Archie, and I caught Milton rolling her eyes. The detective disappeared down the back corridor, with Harold trying to explain the dynamics of corpse flowers as she and a few uniformed police retreated.

An officer escorted the groundskeeper, a young guy named Al, to the storeroom.

Then a short, thin, Asian woman rolling a black bag behind her pushed her way through.

Milton introduced her as Doctor Wu, the assistant coroner. Doctor Wu looked at Jack and me and said, “Corpse Flower?”

We smiled broadly. She knew!

“I saw the announcement for your event,” she said. “But I had to work. Who knew I’d be working here?”

Milton touched her arm, she frowned slightly, and both went into the storage room.

Up front, Jennifer cut her speech short and told everyone they could walk past the cordoned-off Athena. She allowed photographers to climb the ladder to shoot down at our prize flower. Then she ushered everyone out of the tent and over to the greenhouse, where we had soft drinks and water and a special alcoholic drink called “Gravediggers’ Karma,” in honor of our group, pouring from a margarita fountain.

I concocted the recipe based on a Halloween drink recipe I found online. It consisted of apple cider and pomegranate juice mixed with Fireball and a shot of blackberry cocktail syrup. The kicker was edible glitter. I couldn’t say it tasted good, but it looked great, glittering in the fountain. Perhaps with Archie’s body lying just yards away, the drinks might have been considered inappropriately gruesome, but I didn’t care. I’d worked hard to make that happen.

“Everybody seemed happy to leave,” Jennifer told me as she herded the reporters past. “I don’t think the masks were adequate for the average person.”

We both smiled. Nobody is prepared for the Corpse Flower’s disturbing scent.

Wu came out of the storeroom area with Milton following. “Don’t let anybody but the official press leave,” she told the police officer standing at the door to the hall.

I walked over to them and led Milton out to the greenhouse where she announced that no one could leave until cleared by the police. Two uniformed police stood on either side of the greenhouse door, soon joined by Jack in his wheelchair. Jack looked more formidable than the officers, frankly.

Reporters and photographers were already leaving, Jennifer said. “A couple interviewed me for a few minutes, but they took the press release, had a drink, shot some photos and then left. I’m not even sure any are still here. That cop over there…” she pointed at the police officer standing by the hall “…checked their identification.”

We board members clustered around Jennifer.

“Why the storeroom?” Harold asked as he wheeled over. “That wasn’t the plan.”

“Where else were we going to hide him,” Sam Linwood said. “Remember the big deep freeze broke down last month. We couldn’t just dump him out on the street.”

“You could have put him in it anyway.”

“Well regardless, he picked a really inconvenient time to get himself found,” I said. “And what the heck was the groundskeeper doing poking around in there?”

“My fault,” Jennifer said, “I told him to look for those damn lights.”

“Let’s not panic,” Harold said. “We stick to our story as much as possible. Okay, we hadn’t really expected Archie to turn up so soon, but it’s okay. Nobody knows anything, we all alibi each other as we decided, and whatever the police find is a surprise to us. Got it?” He looked at each of us. “Does anyone besides us know that Archie planned to leak the story and take credit for Athena?”

“He’s long been widowed, lives alone, and he had no friends because he was obnoxious,” I said. “If he hadn’t been so knowledgeable, we’d have kicked him out a long time ago. I think he’s got a son somewhere in Australia, but he told me once he hasn’t spoken to him in 20 years. He had nobody to tell.” I had gone over all this with them a few weeks ago when we first made our play.

“What about the trowels you guys used,” Jennifer asked. “What did you do with them?”

“We followed the plan, Sam said. “Three trowels, a flowerpot, and a rake, and we hauled them at separate times to two different dumps along with assorted trash we picked up at the side of the road. Cost us about $600 bucks too, what with the dump fees and so forth, but they are nowhere near us. The closest dump was nearly sixty miles away.”

He pointed at Henry Garza, our secretary. “Henry had a bunch of alcohol left from COVID, so we wiped everything down really well and burned the rags out in the woods at a campsite in the state park. And we used gloves at every step.”

“And his car?”

“I drove it to the airport and left it in long-term parking using Archie’s credit card,” I said. “I took a hotel shuttle to the Sheraton, then called an Uber to take me to the Medical Center, where a friend picked me up and took me home.”

“Sam and I took his key ring and went by his house one night to make sure the automatic fertilizing and sprinkler system for his greenhouse was turned on. It looks like he just left town,” Henry said.

Detective Milton approached us. “I hope none of you are thinking of leaving town,” she said.

That startled us, and we looked at each other and back to her. “Uh, what’s up?” Harold asked.

“We need you to answer a few questions,” she said. “You told me the victim was a member of your organization?”

“Yes, a board member,” Jennifer answered.

“I’d appreciate it if you all would sit over there on those park benches with Officer Hinton. Don’t talk about this with each other. I’d like to interview you independently while your memories of what went on are fresh.”

We silently moved to the park benches. “Be strong,” I whispered before the officer hurrying toward us got within earshot. “Stick to the plan.”

Five hours later, as night fell, Milton finally told us, “You can go now. But don’t leave town.”

“At Athena’s room tomorrow at noon,” Jennifer said quietly.

***

The next day we admired Athena, then clustered on the benches around her. Harold spoke first. “Let’s each report on what the police asked us.”

As we went around the circle, only Jennifer was asked questions the rest of us hadn’t been. “I think we’re in the clear for now,” she said. “It sounds routine. I was here when the last board had to get rid of Susan Mallory. Do any of you remember her?”

A few of us nodded. Susan had been a real thorn in the side of progress, always saying we were cutting corners and she didn’t like that we used roadkill to help attract the beetles and flies our flowers needed.

“Her murder is still listed as unsolved, and it’s been nearly ten years.”

“Yeah but didn’t they use her as fertilizer or something?” Jack added, “A woodchipper? I don’t remember. But I do remember she had a husband and he tried to make trouble for us. He was as loud and demanding as she was though, so the police didn’t pay him much attention.”

“I think we’re safe,” I said, “but we can’t meet and talk about this again until after it all blows over.”

Jennifer brought out a copy of the local daily newspaper. “I guess you saw this, right?” She held it up.

“Amateur horticulturist found murdered” screamed the headline. The first line read, “A member of the Grave Diggers horticulture club was found dead amidst the flowering of bizarre Grave Flowers, blooms that smell like rotting corpses to attract insects.”

“Missed the point entirely. Not a mention of Athena until you get to the Features section, and then it’s only a photo and caption,” Jennifer said, her voice tight. “And Channel 3 was here, and the only mention of Athena was something about a disgusting smell. The rest of the story was all about Archie.”

“The achievement of our lifetimes and a hundred years of work, and Archie ruined it,” Jack said. “But we can still write Athena up in the horticulture magazines where she’ll be appreciated,” he said. “Karma will make sure she alone is remembered.”

“In fact,” Sam said,” I can expand our website to include the story about her. We’ll interview everyone in the group, and we can all say something about our part in bringing her to blossom. We have lots of photos of her. Archie will be a footnote at the end. And every story we submit to magazines can include a link to the page.”

Murmurs of approval went around the circle. “Wonderful idea,” Jennifer said. “I know every single Grave Digger has photos of Athena’s development. That’s what Archie was planning, to use his photos to say he’d done all the work.”

We were excited. We spent a few more minutes planning and then we filed out, smiles on every face.

I saw a police car parked by the entrance to the yard, and I waved. We were the board, after all, and we’d just had a big event. So long as we didn’t go messing around in the storeroom, we had a right to be here to care for Athena.

“Stop flirting, Deidre,” Sam said, laughing. He turned around to the others, “We will make lemonade out of Archie’s sour lemons.”

Athena would still reign supreme.