Orchid Beach (Holly Barker 1)

“Please do that.”

“One of the things I think helps keep the peace is to keep a close watch on firearms in the community. Last week, with that in mind, I requested from the state licensing authority a list of every citizen of Orchid Beach who held a license to carry weapons. I have to tell you, I was very surprised to find that of the three hundred or so licensed individuals, a hundred and two of them had addresses at Palmetto Gardens.”

“I can explain that,” Barney said. He started to, but Holly held up a hand.

“Let me finish. I assumed that there were so many gun-toters out there because of what you had told me about your members liking overkill when it comes to security.”

“That’s right.”

“I accept that; I don’t have any problem with that.”

“Then why did you run criminal records checks on all those people?”

“Barney, I’m running a criminal records check on every person in Orchid Beach who has a firearms license, to make sure he’s entitled to one. Your people just got checked first, that’s all.”

“Sorry, I don’t understand what you hope to accomplish by checking three hundred people like that.”

“I’ll tell you. I’ve already discovered eighteen people in town who had felony convictions after they got the gun license, and I’m only halfway through the list,” she lied. “I’m going to have those licenses pulled and, if I can, confiscate the weapons.”

Barney started to speak, but Holly interrupted him again.

“I’m also going to check that, among the people with licenses, all their guns are licensed. By the way, you’ll be happy to know that none of your people had a conviction of any sort, and they all hold their licenses legally.”

Barney seemed to relax a little. “Well, of course they do; I ran checks on all of them when I hired them.”

“Good. Now what you might do is to tell them all that I’m going to check out their individual weapons, to make sure they’re legal. I’m not having any unlicensed assault weapons or machine guns in my jurisdiction.”

“Tell you what,” Barney said enthusiastically, “why don’t you let me do that for you with my people? I’ll check them out individually and make sure everything is kosher.”

“Why, thank you, Barney, I’d really appreciate that. You’d be taking care of a third of our work for us.”

“No problem, I’m glad to do it,” Barney said. “Say, I really enjoyed the golf with you and Ham. How’s he doing?”

“He’s doing really well,” Holly replied. “He’s moved into a nice place, and he’s reading and watching sports on TV a lot. He’s joining a golf club, too.”

“That’s great news,” Barney said. He got to his feet. “Well, I’d better get going.”

Holly had an idea. Now that she had reassured him, she wanted to stick a burr under his saddle. “Hang on a minute, Barney,” she said. “Sit down. There’s something I was going to call you about that’s troubled me, and we might as well talk about it now.”

“Sure,” he said. “What’s up?”

“You’ve got a man on your security force named Mosely, haven’t you?”

“Sure, Cracker Mosely. Good man. You got a problem with him? I’d like to know about it, if you have.”

“I’m just a little confused,” Holly said. “When I ran Mosely through the records check, he was clean.”

“Well, sure he was. He’s one of mine, and mine are all clean.”

Holly thought Noble was looking uncomfortable again.

“The problem is, I’ve come across some information that your man Mosely did time in state prison for manslaughter one.”

“That’s news to me,” Noble said, flustered.

“I can see how it would be,” Holly said, “after I ran him through the computer, and he came up clean. I expect it’s just some problem at the state level. Everybody makes mistakes.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”