Orchid Beach (Holly Barker 1)

“So you have a list of the security people?”

“Yep.”

Wallace shook his head. “You might have told me that a few minutes ago and saved me all these questions.”

“I wanted to see what questions you’d ask, Hurd.”

“Well, my next question is, does anybody else with a criminal record belong to the Palmetto Gardens security department?”

Wallace was now only a step from where Holly’s curiosity had taken her, and she saw that it would cost her nothing to make it easier for him.

“Well, yes and no,” she said.

There was a tiny ripple of anger across Wallace’s placid face.

Holly held up a hand. “There are a hundred and two people at Palmetto Gardens who are licensed to carry weapons.”

“A hundred and two?”

“That’s right. Only fifteen of them are security guards, in the formal sense.”

“Have you checked to see if any of them has a criminal rec

ord, like Mosely?”

“None of them shows a criminal record in the state computer system.”

“Yeah, but neither did Mosely.”

Holly took a deep breath and let it all out. “Seventy-one of them show up in the national crime computer as having criminal records.”

Wallace stared blankly at her for a moment while he digested that information.

“What do you think I ought to do, Hurd?” Holly asked.

“I think you ought to call the fucking FBI,” he said. “Right now,” he said, pointing. “There’s the phone.”

Holly laughed. She would have thought Wallace incapable of such an outburst.

“Let me tell you my problem, Hurd,” she said. There was no point in holding this back any longer. “Chet Marley thought there was someone in this department who was working with…somebody outside this department.”

Wallace’s mouth dropped open. “And you thought it was me?”

“I thought it was a possibility,” Holly said. “The same possibility applies to everybody else in the department.” Then Wallace did something Holly thought she would never see. He burst out laughing.

CHAPTER

48

A fter work, Holly drove out to Jackson’s house, with Hurd Wallace following in his own car. She looked in her rearview mirror from time to time, wondering if she were doing the right thing. Hurd, she admitted to herself, had been her prime suspect, and she had not gotten used to the idea that he might be on her side of this thing. She had made the decision, late in the afternoon, to bring him inside the investigation, and she had made it on little more than some newly informed intuition.

She turned into Jackson’s driveway, drove down the narrow lane and parked next to one of the FBI vans. It appeared that the whole team would be present. She waved Hurd inside and came upon a scene that was, by now, all too familiar. Harry Crisp was on the phone, the agents were drinking beer and watching sports on television and Jackson was out back, grilling something. She stuck her head outside and told him there’d be one more for dinner.

Harry hung up the phone. “Who’s this?” he asked, clearly uncomfortable with the new face.

“Harry,” Holly said, “this is my deputy chief, Hurd Wallace.” She introduced all the other team members.

“Forgive me, Holly,” Harry said, “but I’m a little confused at this turn of events. Isn’t this the guy…”