Blood Orchid (Holly Barker 3)

Holly found Harry Crisp on the other end of the phone.

“Afternoon, Harry,” she said.

“Hello, Holly.” His cold sounded a little worse. “Where did you get this tattoo you sent me?”

“From the guy who came to my house with pizza and tried to kill me,” she said. Somebody came into the room and handed her a report on the man’s fingerprints. “And his prints were on file with the INS.”

“What’s his name?”

“Alexei Bronsky. He emigrated to the States less than a year ago, supposedly resides in New York.”

“What else do you have on him?”

“Just his prints and the tattoo. The ME said he might have been a boxer at one time; there was evidence that he’d taken one or more beatings, although he looked like the kind of guy who’d be delivering them. What did you get on the tattoo?”

“This is really weird,” Harry said. “D.C. had only seen one other like it, also on a dead guy. They traced it back to a special branch of what used to be the KGB, a branch that was devoted to rough stuff. Your dead guy was probably not a very nice person.”

“That was my impression when he was shooting at me,” Holly replied. “You get anything yet on the background of Pio Pellegrino?”

“Nothing yet,” Harry said. “I’ll let you know.”

Harry didn’t sound very convincing.

“Harry, you’re not holding out on me, are you? Remember the two-way information highway?”

Harry ignored her. “I got the report from Sarasota about the double homicide.”

“Yeah. We’ve got to get Trini off the streets or we’ll be wading in blood.”

“I’ve got Lauderdale, Miami, and the state police all over it,” Harry said. “We’ll pick him up soon.”

“Harry, how did your tail lose Trini after I called you in?”

“They, uh, just lost him; the guy’s good.”

“How does a red Explorer just vanish?”

“Holly, let it go, will you? I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up.

Holly had the distinct feeling that the two-way information highway was running in only one direction again.

46

Holly arrived back at Grant’s house to find Grant and Marina having a drink in the living room. Marina was wearing her new clothes, but she still seemed very subdued.

“You look very nice,” Holly said, pouring herself a bourbon and sitting down.

“It’s a very nice mall—big discounts,” Marina said. “Holly, what am I going to do about burying my mother and my aunt?”

“There are certain procedures the Sarasota police will have to go through before the bodies can be released,” Holly said. “It will probably be a few days. Do you know of a funeral home in Lauderdale?”

“Yes, the one that buried Carlos,” Marina replied. “They were all right.”

“You might want to call them and put them in touch with the Sarasota police, so that they can bring the bodies home.”

“All right, I’ll call them tomorrow morning.”

“Remember not to tell them where you are.”