Orchid Beach (Holly Barker 1)

“I’d like a beer, too, Daisy,” Holly said, and the dog brought her one.

“Did she close the refrigerator door?” he asked.

“You bet.” Holly reached inside the trailer, got an opener and cracked both bottles. She dragged up a couple of folding chairs and they sat and watched the Indian River.

“Hope this isn’t too much of a shock,” he said. “I mean, I hope I’m not being too persistent.”

“I like persistence in a man,” she replied. Involuntarily, she thought of Colonel James Bruno, then dismissed him from her mind. “Up to a point.”

“Point taken. You hungry yet?”

“Let’s finish our beer.”

“Good idea. I hear you’re an army brat.”

“Brat, filly and…older filly. Grew up in it, joined it, stayed twenty years.”

“You don’t look old enough to have done anything for twenty years.”

“I’m thirty-eight and a half, if you’re fishing. How old are you?”

“Forty-one.”

“How long you been practicing law?”

“Six years.”

She frowned. “You have trouble getting out of law school?”

“I had trouble getting in,” he replied. “Once in, I did okay.”

“What did you do before?”

“I was a cop in Miami.”

“What kind of cop?”

“Street, uniformed. I wasn’t suited to it.”

“How long did it take you to figure that out?”

“Oh, about eight years. They finally made it clear to me.”

“Who did?”

“All the other cops, especially my superiors.”

“What were your shortcomings as a police officer?”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

“I was too sensitive. I tended to feel for the people I arrested. I tended not to feel for most of the cops I knew.”

“How so?”

“Too many of them were unnecessarily violent, on the take. I saw them hurt people, lie to their superiors, perjure themselves in court.”