Blood Orchid (Holly Barker 3)

“What can I do for you, Chief?”

“I read a news report of the two property developers who were homicides yesterday. Are you handling both cases?”

“I am. You got something to tell me about them?”

“No, but last night we had something similar up here. Somebody took a shot at a local man who is a retired developer from New York. The weapon was a twenty-two rifle, magnum cartridge.”

“Hollow point?”

“We couldn’t tell from the casing, but a silencer was used, so we assume a hired killer. He’d probably use a hollow-point slug.”

“That’s what killed my golfer yesterday; made a real mess of him. You have any reason to think there’s a connection between my killings and your attempt?”

“Only that they’re all three property developers,” she said. “The intended victim swears he has no enemies, but you never know about a thing like that.”

“Both my victims’ wives said the same thing. They can’t think of anybody who’d want to hurt their husbands. Closest I could come to an enemy was the golfer’s playing partner, who thought he was being hustled by the victim. But he’s not a suspect.”

“I’d be very interested to know what your two developers had in common.”

“Same business, is all,” the detective replied. “They didn’t even know each other, best we can tell.”

“Were they direct competitors?”

“We’re still working on that. Why don’t you send me your shell casing, and I’ll compare it to the one we found.”

He hadn’t mentioned a shell casing before. “After we’ve had a look at it,” she replied. She took note of his mailing address. “Would you let me know if you come up with a connection between the two victims? I’d like to see if it relates to my case.”

“Sure, I’ll give you a call.” He hung up before she could give him her number.

4

Howard Singleton, head of the Miami office of the federal government’s General Services Administration, went through the papers on his desk slowly, then he looked up at one of his people, Willard Smith, who was sitting across the desk from him. “Is this all we got?” he asked.

“Three bids,” Smith replied.

“I don’t get it, Smitty,” Singleton said. “This is prime real estate.”

“Well, it’s not exactly Palm Beach,” the man replied. “Orchid Beach is just some backwater. I looked into it; it’s pretty, but there’s no big-league shopping, only a few decent restaurants, and none of the other stuff you’d expect to find where there’s high-end construction going on—very few interior decorators, upscale furniture stores, and all that. Not much in the way of entertainment, either.”

“But still, this property has three golf courses, fifty houses already built, a clubhouse.”

“There’s no beachfront property attached; it’s all west of A1A; that holds down the value. Fact is, Orchid Beach isn’t the sort of town to support the kind of big-time development that this property would require if someone is going to turn a profit. It’s over the top, and by a long way.”

“Well, two of these bids are not credible, as far as I’m concerned. Did you read the backup paperwork?”

“Yes, and I agree. There’s only one bid that we could properly accept, I think, and it’s this BOP, Blood Orchid Properties.”

“Weren’t we expecting bids from a couple of big Miami developers?”

“Sure, but don’t you read the papers?”

“What do you mean?”

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“I mean that Manny and Steven Steinberg are both dead. We’ve had serious interest from both of them, and I was anticipating bids.”

“What, they just dropped dead? Both these guys were in their forties, weren’t they?”