Hothouse Orchid (Holly Barker 6)

“Wait a minute, Holly. Jimmy and I together examined the contents of the box that held the panties and the vaccination gun, and he was wearing latex gloves. And he never touched it. Lauren observed; she can confirm that.”

“Maybe Jimmy touched the gun earlier,” Holly said. “Without gloves.”

“What are you saying, Holly?”

“Maybe he touched the v-gun when he was hiding it and the panties in the box in Bruno’s closet.”

Hurd was silent for a moment. “Good God,” he said finally.

49

Holly hung up the phone, and Josh went back to running the Cuisinart. When he was done, he poured the sauce into a pan and began thickening it, stirring very slowly.

Holly just stood there and thought. “Josh,” she said, “I think we’re back to square one.”

“And exactly where is square one?” he asked, taking the English muffins from the toaster oven, draping them with Canadian bacon and spooning a softly poached egg onto each.

“Square one is where we were with Bruno: we thought he did it, but we had no corroborating evidence.”

“So,” Josh said, pouring Hollandaise sauce over the muffins, “now we just substitute Jimmy’s name for Bruno’s?”

“That’s about it.”

“But you still haven’t proved that Bruno did not do the murders. Even if somebody came into the house and shot him while he was zonked out on Scotch and Ambien, then wrote a suicide note for him, Bruno could still be the killer.”

“When you put it that way, yes,” Holly said.

“Can you think of another way to put it?”

“No,” Holly said, “I can’t.”

Josh set the two plates on the table with a pitcher of orange juice, then opened half a bottle of champagne and held the chair for her.

“Mmmm, mimosas,” she said, as he poured champagne into her half-glass of juice.

“Or Buck’s fizzes,” Josh said, sitting down, “if you live in England.”

“That’s a nice name,” Holly said, sipping her Buck’s fizz.

“There’s another point you have to consider,” Josh said, cutting into his eggs Benedict.

“What’s that?”

“Even if Bruno is innocent and Jimmy Weathers murdered him and wrote his suicide note and planted the evidence, it seems unlikely that Jimmy is going to get caught.”

“Maybe the partial print on the v-gun will turn out to be Jimmy’s?”

“You think the DA would be willing to hang his whole case on that and a bunch of circumstantial evidence? By the way, what is circumstantial evidence, anyway?”

“Circumstances that strongly suggest guilt,” Holly said, “or words to that effect.”

“So, if it seems like Jimmy did it, he’s guilty?”

“It’s not as simple as that,” Holly said. “First, he would have to have no alibi for any of the killings.”

“Which all took place late at night?”

“Yes.”