Hothouse Orchid (Holly Barker 6)

Hurd turned to Rankin. “Ed?”

“Sure. We can look at the interior of the car better with her gone.”

The ME and his assistant removed the body from the car, loaded it on a gurney and put it into his truck. Shortly, they were gone.

“We got a handbag,” Rankin said, holding it up by a strap. It was on the seat under the body. He walked to the front of the car and emptied the bag onto the hood. “We got a wallet,” he said, opening it, “and a driver’s license.” Rankin took the license from the wallet and peered at it. “Oh, shit,” he said.

“What?” Lauren asked.

“I know her. Jeanine Clark. She sells tickets at the mall movie theater. My oldest boy went to high school with her. The family lived a couple of blocks from us.”

“How late would she work at the movie theater?” Hurd asked.

“I think they have shows as late as midnight,” Rankin replied. “I’ll check out there and see what time she left last night; that’ll probably give us a t

ime of death, and I’ll bet it agrees with the ME’s estimate.”

Lauren stepped away from the car and made a phone call.

“Detective Weathers,” Jimmy said.

“It’s Lauren. We’ve got another one.”

“Where?”

“In the Vero jurisdiction, out at the fairgrounds.”

“He’s moving around, then.”

“Yes. I want to know where Bruno was last night. Can you find out without alerting him that he’s a suspect?”

“I already know,” Jimmy said. “I left here a little after midnight, and he had just arrived, said he was going to be working all night on personnel files. He’s gone, now; probably at home asleep.”

“That’s interesting,” Lauren said. “Was anybody else in the station last night?”

“Just the switchboard operator; everybody else would have been on patrol until the shift change, at eight a.m.”

“Would the operator have seen Bruno there?”

“Probably not; she’s in her own space, with the door closed. She has to stay by the switchboard in case of a nine-one-one call, and she has her own john back there.”

“What does Bruno drive?”

“An unmarked Crown Vic cruiser, dark blue. I noticed when I left last night that the keys were in it. I suppose you could make a case that somebody took the car and returned it later, but that’s kind of far-fetched, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“You need me out there?”

“No, I’ll ask the DIC, Ed Rankin, to fax you a copy of his report. The ME just left; you can get his report later today, probably. I’ll talk to you later, Jimmy.” Lauren closed her phone and noticed that Hurd Wallace was standing a few yards away, looking down. She walked over to him. “Got something?”

“Maybe we got lucky,” Hurd said, pointing down. “There was some rain last evening, and there’s a bare spot in the grass right here. Look at that tire print.”

Lauren looked down. “Nice and clear,” she said, “and it looks like there’s a cut in the tire.” She moved along a few feet. “Here it is again, from when the tire turned. It’s a right tire.”

“Let’s get a cast of that track,” Hurd said.

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