Blood Orchid (Holly Barker 3)

“Blood Orchid Estates, now,” Holly reminded him.

“Right. That’s all we’ve got. No physical evidence, except for two cartridge cases, nothing else.”

“Harry Crisp says that two other companies bid on the property, both of them South American.”

Hurd’s eyebrows went up. “That kind of rings some bells, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, but only for the Feds. We don’t have the means or the budget to track down that kind of stuff, and they do.”

“I’ll bet it’s drug money.”

“You wouldn’t get odds from me,” Holly replied.

“I’ll bet it’s some of the same money that owned it before.”

“That’s what I just said to Harry, but what can we do? It’s Harry’s ball game; let him do the pitching and the fielding.”

Hurd stood up. “Right, it’s in the inactive drawer.” He went back to his office.

Holly found herself thinking of Jackson, something she used to do about once a minute and now did more like once a day. She wondered, as she sometimes did, what she would be doing now if Jackson were alive. Probably the same thing she was doing right this minute, she thought.

It wasn’t as though they would have pulled up stakes and moved to Paris the minute they were married; after all, Jackson had a law practice in Orchid Beach, and she had a good job. No, they’d probably be doing the same things until they got old.

She thought about the money. Jackson had left her the house, an insurance policy, and some investments. She was worth more than two million dollars now, and she had her salary and her pension from the Army. She could do whatever she wanted, she knew, but apparently what she wanted was just to do her job. It hurt less than anything else.

7

Holly let herself into her house, one arm filled with groceries, and closed the door behind her. She set the grocery bag on the kitchen counter, turned the air-conditioning down a few degrees, and answered Daisy’s call for supper.

Then, as Daisy dug into her meal, Holly noticed something odd: There was something different about the kitchen telephone. That morning, hurrying to get out, she had answered the phone and had had to stand very close to the set because the twelve-foot cord to the receiver had been hopelessly tangled. This was true of all the phones Holly used, and she only unwound the cords when she had to. She hadn’t done it that morning, but somebody had.

She stood in the kitchen and looked around, then over the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. Everything looked normal, but too neat. Holly was a neat person, but not obsessively so. But someone was.

On the living room coffee table, a group of magazines, previously tossed onto the table, was now neatly stacked and aligned with the corner of the table. Things on the kitchen counter, too, were neater than she had left them, and she was beginning to get a really creepy feeling. She unsnapped the keep on her holster and lifted the Sig Sauer 9mm that Ham had given her, flipping off the safety.

Daisy looked up at the sound, then went back to her dinner. Holly held the pistol at her side and walked around the counter into the living room, listening. The only sound was the rattle of Daisy’s collar against her bowl. The Doberman finished her dinner, drank some water, then looked up at Holly, who was starting up the stairs in her stocking feet, walking on the outside of the treads to avoid squeaking.

She stuck her head into her bedroom momentarily, then withdrew it. She heard the click of Daisy’s claws on the stairs. Daisy came and nuzzled her hand; she had not had dessert, and she wanted her cookie now.

Holly looked around the rest of the house carefully, here and there noting a spot of unaccustomed neatness. Her gun safe was closed and locked, and so was the safe in her dressing room, where she kept what jewelry she had. Finally, she walked back down the stairs, went to the cookie jar, and gave Daisy her dessert. Daisy walked to the back door and waited. After another look around the living room, Holly let her out onto the beach, and Daisy ran into the dunes for her evening ablutions.

Satisfied that no one was in the house, Holly went upstairs, undressed, showered, and slipped into a long T-shirt that she often wore around the house; then she went down to the kitchen to make her own dinner.

There was nothing missing, she mused, but someone had definitely been in the house between the time she’d left that morning and the time she’d returned. But why? Certainly it wasn’t a burglar; the TV and stereo were still in their usual places. Had someone come simply to sniff her underwear or shoes, then tidied up before leaving? Her underwear drawer looked the same, and her shoes were as she had left them in her dressing room. It didn’t make any sense.

Holly looked at the liquor cabinet and thought of pouring herself a bourbon, but she decided she wanted to remain alert to think about this. She took her salad and pasta on a tray into the living room and turned on the TV, looking for the evening news.

The hell with it, she thought. Why stay sober? She went back to the kitchen, opened a bottle of white wine, grabbed a glass, and returned to her dinner.

“The investigation of the murders of real estate moguls Steven Steinberg and Manuel Jimenez on the same day seems to have come to a complete stop,” a reporter was saying. He was standing on a golf course and pointing to the middle of the fairway. “That is the spot where Steinberg was shot as he played golf with a business associate. Miami homicide detectives say they have turned over the investigation to the FBI, but they won’t say what the federal connection to the case is, and neither will the FBI. Both the Steinberg and Jimenez families have demanded answers from the police, but they aren’t getting any. Marilyn Steinberg spoke to us earlier today.”

The scene changed to the country club deck overlooking the course, where a carefully coiffed and made-up woman in a flowered dress stood facing the reporter, a view of the golf course behind her. “We just don’t understand,” she said. “Steven had no enemies; he wasn’t involved in anything illegal; he never even met a mobster. Who would do this thing, and why won’t the Miami police department or the FBI tell us anything? They just say that their investigation is ongoing, and they’ll let us know when they have something.”

The reporter on the golf course was back. “So, that’s where we leave it—in the hands of the Feds, who have been uncommunicative. Back to the studio.”

Holly knew just how Marilyn Steinberg felt, she thought. The FBI wasn’t telling her anything either. One thing about police work: without evidence, you were nowhere; and she was nowhere. So was Harry Crisp, apparently, and the homicide detective she had talked to had seemed almost somnolent. The phone rang, and she picked up the receiver on the table beside her. “Hello?”

She heard some odd noises, then the line went dead—no dial tone, nothing. She put the receiver down and picked it up again. This time, she got a dial tone. She put down the receiver and pressed the button that brought up the caller ID log. The word “unavailable” presented itself for the last caller. The one before that was her office, the one before that was Ham. Maybe somebody had called from a cellphone and the call hadn’t quite gone through. Maybe he’d call back. She waited, but the phone didn’t ring again.