Orchid Beach (Holly Barker 1)

“Of course. He was innocent. One of his fruit pickers had used his car to transport the goods when the boss was out of town. The owner returned unexpectedly, before the man had a chance to transfer the dope. It took me nearly a year to get him off, and he ran up quite a legal bill. I took this property in exchange for services, then I saw something in the paper about an old Florida farmhouse that was about to be torn down and was being offered practically free to anyone who would move it. I took a look at it, paid a hundred bucks for it, had it sawn in half, moved down here and reassembled. A couple of hundred grand later, it is as you see it. I had to get a mortgage, but it was quite a bargain.”

“It’s just grand,” she said. “How’d you ever get the house down that driveway?”

“There was no driveway when I moved it, just open land. I planted all that foliage you drove through. Things grow fast around here. Take a rocking chair, and I’ll get you a drink. What would you like?”

“You decide,” she said, plopping down in a chair. Daisy curled up at her feet.

Jackson went away, and Holly took in the sky and ocean before her. The setting sun lit the huge cumulus clouds and turned them pink, and the blue water reflected the color. Jackson was back in a couple of minutes with a cocktail shaker and two glasses.

He strained a clear, green-tinted liquid into the glasses and handed her one. “Your continued good health,” he said, raising a glass.

“And yours,” she replied, sipping the lime-flavored cocktail. “What is this?”

“Vodka gimlet,” he said. “Vodka and Rose’s Sweetened Lime Juice, shaken very cold.”

“Delicious,” she said. “What did you mean, my continued good health?”

“You’re healthy—I’d like to see you remain that way.”

“Do you have some reason to believe I might not?”

“To tell you the truth, after your story about the gas bottle and the flare, I’ve half expected to hear that something had happened to you. That would have explained why you didn’t call, and anyway, I figured that nothing short of hospitalization would have stopped you.”

She laughed. “I did have to stop myself,” she said.

“If you’re worried about what the city council thinks about us, don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Let’s take them one at a time: Charlie Peterson is a sweet guy and couldn’t care less; Howard Goldman is a mensch; you know what that means?”

“Yiddish for a sweet guy?”

“Right. Frank Hessian, the vet, is just indifferent, couldn’t care less.”

“What about John Westover and Irma Taggert?”

“They’re the least of your worries, since they’ve been screwing each other for years, unbeknownst to his wife and her husband.”

“You’re kidding! Westover and that prim lady?”

“She’s apparently not so prim. Guy I know walked into Westover’s office at the car dealership one day and interrupted John and Irma in the middle of a quickie.”

Holly nearly choked on her drink. “I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it.”

From somewhere inside the house, a single chime rang.

“Excuse me a minute,” Jackson said. He set down his drink, got up and went into the house. It was becoming a little chilly, so Holly followed, bringing their drinks. To her surprise, he went to an umbrella stand beside the back door and retrieved from it a pump shotgun, a riot gun with an eighteen-and-a-half-inch barrel, the kind the police use. He pumped the shotgun once, held it behind him, opened the door a couple of inches and peered down the driveway.

“What’s going on?” Holly asked, alarmed.

“Visitors,” Jackson said. “Are you armed?”

“In my handbag.”

“Get it, please.”