Orchid Beach (Holly Barker 1)
“Sorry, Bob,” she said. “I had it covered.”
“Don’t you think that when an FBI agent gets killed in this jurisdiction that I ought to be in on it?” he demanded.
“As a matter of fact,” she said, “nobody from this department is in on it. It’s a federal matter, and the FBI are handling it.”
“Even when it’s on our turf?”
“The United States of America is their turf, Bob, and when an FBI agent gets killed, the FBI investigates.”
“What was the FBI doing up here, anyway?”
“They wouldn’t tell me—some sort of investigation, I guess. They asked me to put out an APB for their missing agent yesterday, and I did. Apparently, she was working out at Palmetto Gardens on something. She checked out of there at three yesterday afternoon and disappeared. A fisherman found her car early this morning, and I called the agent in charge and went out there with him, as a courtesy.”
“How was she killed?”
“The FBI handled the autopsy; they didn’t share the results with me.”
Hurst looked at the floor.
“Bob, if it had been my call, I would have involved you, but it wasn’t.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry if I got huffy. You think this has anything to do with Marley and Doherty?”
Holly wrinkled her brow. “That hadn’t occurred to me. Why do you connect the two incidents?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. You think anybody at Palmetto Gardens had anything to do with the woman?”
He’s fishing, Holly thought. “I talked to Barney Noble. He checked his lists and said she left work around three P.M. with all the other domestic help. I’ve no reason to doubt him. If you want my take on this, she went for a drink somewhere after work and met the wrong guy.”
“You don’t think it was connected with what she was investigating?”
“I don’t know what she was investigating, so I can’t make that judgment.”
“Thanks, Chief,” he said, and went back to his desk.
Holly sat, wondering why Hurst had done that. He’d surely heard from the two patrolmen last night that the corpse was that of an FBI agent, and he’d known that another agent had been present and had ordered the autopsy. She dug Hurst’s personnel file out of the pile and opened it. She’d been through it a few days before, but she wanted a closer look now.
There was a new document in the file, one that hadn’t been there the last time Holly had seen it. Bob Hurst had gotten married, and he had filled out a form requesting that his new wife be added to his health insurance. The box requiring her name before the marriage read LINDA TOMKINS WALLACE and her address before the marriage had been on Egret Island, where Hurst also lived. Nobody had mentioned it to Holly, but Bob Hurst had married Hurd Wallace’s ex-wife. She thought about that for a moment. Something was gnawing at her memory, but she was tired, and she couldn’t bring it into her frontal lobe. Never mind, it would come to her.
She put down the file, picked up the next one and began reading. Then she stopped. There, staring at her from the file, was something so obvious that she was dazed. She went to the ladies’ room and splashed cold water on her face, staring at herself in the mirror, realizing how naive she had been.
Holly told Jane Grey that she was going to do some patrolling and left the station, taking Daisy with her. The dog sat in the front seat of the Jeep and stuck her nose into the wind through the partly open window. She was so enthusiastic about the experience that Holly was afraid to open the window more than three or four inches for fear Daisy would lean out too far and fall out of the car. Holly drove north aimlessly, thinking about what she had discovered and what it could mean and wondering why she hadn’t read those personnel files sooner. At the north end of the island, wanting to remain alone with her thoughts, she turned onto Jungle Trail and drove slowly along its deserted length, coming to a halt a few yards from the back gate to Palmetto Gardens.
“Stay, Daisy,” she said and got out of the car, leaving the motor running to keep the interior cool. She paced up and down beside the car, taking deep breaths and trying to calm herself, while Daisy poked her nose through the partly opened car window and watched her. This wasn’t what Holly had expected at all. She leaned against a tree. First, Hurd Wallace had seemed like the bad guy, then had turned out not to be—or was he? And now…She jumped as she realized somebody was standing only a few feet away from her.
“Well,” he said, “good afternoon, Chief.”
Holly looked at the gun in Cracker Mosely’s hand; it was pointed at her chest. “Why are you pointing a weapon at me, Mosely?” she asked. Her heart was pounding.
“Why, you’re trespassing, don’t you know that? You’re on Palmetto Gardens property.”
“No, I’m not. Point that gun somewhere else.” Holly realized that she was alone in a secluded spot with Mosely, and that Daisy couldn’t ge
t to her. A trickle of cold fear ran down her bowels.
Mosely walked quickly toward her and pressed his pistol up under her chin. He removed her own weapon from its holster and threw it away. Behind him, Daisy was going crazy, trying to get out of the car. “Shut the dog up,” Mosely said.
“Daisy! Quiet!” she said. Daisy stopped growling, but she was jumping back and forth from the front seat to the rear, trying to find a way out of the closed car.