Stuart Woods Holly Barker Collection

by Stuart Woods

  “Harry didn’t tell you that?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “He probably told you that he turned up that information, but he actually got a call from the guy at the GSA, Howard Singleton, who alerted him to the connection.”

  “Okay, let’s say that’s true. What of it?”

  “Wouldn’t it make sense that Singleton was murdered by the Pellegrinos for that very reason? Because he noticed something funny and tipped off the FBI? And because they don’t want it to happen again?”

  “Maybe, but how does popping Singleton solve their problem? Harry told me he was already working with Singleton’s successor, a guy named Willard Smith. He called Smith and asked if there were any other sales pending by the GSA that might be like the Blood Orchid sale, and Smith said no, nothing.”

  “So, what if Smith is the Pellegrinos’ inside guy at the GSA? What if he was all along? He knows the GSA has another deal brewing, and he tips off the Pellegrinos that Singleton is about to queer it by going to the FBI.”

  Grant nodded. “That makes sense. And when Harry calls Smith about any other pending sales, Smith tells him there’s nothing, just waves him off.”

  “You’re starting to look interested in my theory, Grant.”

  “I have to admit that it makes a kind of sense, but it still doesn’t mean that Shine tried to kill you.”

  They had reached Grant’s house and pulled into the driveway.

  “Turn around,” Holly said.

  “And go where?”

  “Back to Blood Orchid.”

  “Are you nuts? You think somebody there is trying to kill you, and you want to go back?”

  “I have an opportunity to be on the inside at Blood Orchid, and I think I can do more good there than on the outside. I’ve got you on the outside.”

  Grant turned around. “Well, if you go back, then maybe Shine won’t think you suspect him.”

  “Let’s hope not, but in the meantime, you’ve got to call your friend at Bureau headquarters and run a check on Ed that doesn’t get filtered through Harry Crisp. And you’ve got to do more than just an ordinary background check.”

  “What else do you want?”

  “Everything possible—credit history, education, every piece of information that might connect him to any other person or organization.”

  “That’s going to take manpower, and they’d want Harry’s approval for that.”

  “You’ve already been through Harry; can’t you get it done without his knowing?”

  Grant sighed. “I’ll have to call in every marker.”

  “Isn’t it worth it?”

  “I hope so.”

  They reached the Blood Orchid gate and were passed through. As they drove in, Holly looked back at the gate and saw the guard making a phone call. They drove to the airfield, picked up Holly’s car, and returned to the guest house.

  When they arrived at the house, Holly and Daisy jumped out. “Come on in for a minute,” she said. “I just thought of something.”

  He took her arm and stopped her. “Has it occurred to you that the house might be bugged?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Behave as if it is.”

  In the house, she went to the wet bar and opened the shutters that concealed it. The two glasses she and Ed had used for their drinks on her first day there sat on the marble counter, still unwashed. She sniffed the glasses. “That one was the scotch.” She got a Ziploc plastic bag from the kitchen, dropped the glass into it, and handed it to Grant. He held it up to the light, looked at it, and nodded.

  Outside, she said, “Don’t you want to look for bugs?”

  “Why bother?” he replied. “If we found one, we wouldn’t want to disable it; that would tip them off. Just don’t say anything in the house or on the phone that you wouldn’t want the bad guys to hear.”

  “Okay. Run the prints against every available database.”

  “Will do,” he said. He put an arm around her. “I don’t like leaving you here.”

  “I’ve got my cellphone,” she said, patting her pocket. “I can use it outside the house to call you if I need you. If you call me, it may take a few rings for me to get outside, so don’t hang up.”

  Grant gave Daisy a pat. “You take care of her, girl.”

  56

  Holly got a little sleep, and was awakened by the doorbell. She opened the door to find Ed Shine standing there.

  “Hi,” Ed said. “I tried to call you for dinner last night and didn’t get an answer. You been off the reservation?”

  “Come in, Ed,” Holly said, kissing him on the cheek. “I have a lot to tell you. I’ve got some coffee on; would you like some?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Ed said, settling on the living room sofa.

  Holly poured the coffee and brought milk and sugar.

  “The gate guard said somebody brought you back here.”

  “Yes, that was Grant Early, my neighbor. I’ve been seeing him.”

  “Is it okay for him to know where you are? I’ve been worried.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “So, what’s up?”

  Holly told him about her experience of the day before, and she watched his reaction closely. He appeared to be shocked.

  “That’s the most awful thing I’ve ever heard,” Ed said. “You think it was this Rodriguez fellow?”

  “Him or a friend of his.”

  “But how could he know that you were here? Have you told anybody?”

  “No, no one, until yesterday. I spent the night at Ham’s place. Grant picked me up and brought me back here. I still think this is the safest place I could be.”

  Ed picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Hurd? This is Ed. I’m over at guest house number two. Can you come over here right now? I need to talk to you. Good.” He hung up. “I want to get Hurd on this right away.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Holly said. “I haven’t told any of my people, but Hurd is like family.”

  “What happened to the airplane?” Ed asked.

  “They’ll remove the wings, load it onto a truck, and take it back to the Orchid Beach airport, where it will be repaired.”

  “God, you were lucky to get down in one piece.” He scratched Daisy behind the ears, and she reacted with pleasure.

  “I know we were lucky. Ginny’s a fine pilot, and she got us down safely; it could have turned out differently.”

  There was a knock on the door and Hurd Wallace entered. “Morning,” he said.

  “Hurd, sit down,” Ed said. “Holly’s got something to tell you.”

  Hurd listened calmly as Holly related the events of the day before. “I was on the practice tee, hitting some balls,” he said, “and I heard something that sounded like a string of firecrackers going off.”

  “It wasn’t firecrackers,” Holly said.

  Hurd stood up. “I want to go and take a look at the area around the airfield right now,” he said. “I’ll report back to you as soon as I can, Ed.”

  Ed nodded, and Hurd left the house.

  “What do you think all this means, Holly?”

  “Well, Trini Rodriguez has got to be behind it,” she replied. “And he knows that I’m the one who put the law on him.”

  “But how could he find you here?”

  “I don’t know. Have there been any people on the property the last couple of days that you don’t know?”

  “Just the construction crews,” Ed replied. He looked at his watch. “I have to be going in a minute; someone’s picking me up; I’m showing a house this morning.”

  “Ed, when I was waiting for Ginny to land, a business jet came in and dropped off some packages that were taken away by one of your vans. What would that have been?”

  “Let’s see,” Ed said, scratching his head. “Plumbing supplies, I expect; special-order stuff. We needed them in a hurry, and a friend sent them down from Atlanta in his airplane.”

  “And who were the pilot and copilot?”
/>
  “They work for my friend; they’re his regular crew. Why? Do you think they had something to do with this?”

  “I don’t know. One of them made a cellphone call just before it happened, and he had been looking at me.”

  “Oh, Holly, I don’t think he would have been involved. He was probably reporting to his base about having arrived here.”

  “I guess you’re right, Ed. Maybe I’m getting paranoid.”

  There was a knock on the door, and a man stepped inside—fiftyish, tall, slender, dressed in an expensive-looking suit. “Hi, Ed, you ready?”

  Ed Shine put down his coffee cup. “Yep. Holly, I’ll tell Hurd to come tell you if he found anything out there.”

  “Thanks, Ed.”

  “You want to come look at a house with us?”

  “Thanks, but I’m a little tired; think I’ll try to get in a nap.”

  “We’ll be going, then. Oh, Holly, this is Willard Smith. He’s thinking of retiring to Blood Orchid.”

  Smith held out his hand and gave her a little smile. “Everybody calls me Smitty,” he said.

  57

  Holly slept for an hour, then was wakened again by the doorbell. Hurd Wallace came in and tossed her a plastic bag with a shell casing inside. “I found that,” he said, “behind some bushes at the north end of the runway.”

  “Thirty-caliber,” Holly said, looking at the casing. “Military weapon, I guess.”

  “There’s a lot of surplus stuff on the weapons market,” Hurd said. “It could have come from anywhere. If somebody was firing on auto out there, he cleaned up after himself; I found just the one casing. What’s going on, Holly?”

  She tapped her ear with a finger and moved her hand in a circle.

  Hurd frowned, but he seemed to get her point.

  “It’s this guy Rodriguez,” she said. “There’s a statewide APB out for him.”

  “We got a fax from the state police,” Hurd said. “Nobody like that has been seen around Blood Orchid. There are so few people about that any visitor would be noticed.”

  “I guess so,” Holly said, handing him back the cartridge case. She took his arm and walked him outside.

  “You think the house is bugged?” Hurd asked.

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Who do you think would be listening?”

  “I don’t know, but somebody here tried to kill me, and that’s been happening way too often. I think I’m entitled to be a little paranoid.”

  “You suspect Ed Shine of being involved in something?”

  Holly didn’t hesitate. “No, Ed is the sweetest guy in the world, and he’s been great to me.” She wanted to trust Hurd, but she didn’t know how deeply Ed had his hooks into his security chief.

  “Me too,” Hurd said.

  “It may be that Rodriguez has just tracked me down. Will you keep an eye out for any strangers?”

  “Sure I will, and I’ll alert my whole force to do the same, all two of them.”

  Holly laughed.

  “Do you have a weapon?”

  “I’ve got my Beretta,” she replied.

  “Take an extra magazine,” he said, handing her one.

  “Thanks, Hurd.”

  “I’ll talk to you later, if I find out anything.”

  “Use my cellphone number,” she said. “You still have it?”

  “I know it by heart.”

  “Hurd, you remember that building over on the north side of the property that has the vaults?”

  “Yeah, I got a look at it once, after the Feds busted everybody.”

  “Do you know if there’s been any activity around that building?”

  Hurd blinked. “It’s back in the trees, and the driveway has a sawhorse across it and a No Trespassing sign.”

  “If you get a chance to do it discreetly, could you have a look at the place, see if there’s any sign that people have been in and out of it recently?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t let anybody see you.”

  “Okay, I’ll be careful. You want me to mention this to Ed?”

  “No, keep it to yourself.”

  “All right.” He got into his Range Rover and drove away.

  Her cellphone vibrated in her pocket, and she answered it.

  “Hi, it’s Grant. You okay?”

  “Yep.”

  “I pulled some prints off your glass—”

  “You mean you have a Junior-G-Man fingerprint kit with you at all times?”

  “Sort of. Now listen.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “They’re already working on it. We should have some answers tomorrow.”

  “Have you talked to Harry today?”

  “Yes, and there’s nothing new down there.”

  “Well, there’s something new here,” Holly said. “Ed came by this morning and introduced me to a man who’s thinking of buying a retirement home here. His name is Willard Smith.”

  “The guy from the GSA?”

  “How many Willard Smiths can there be?”

  “I’d better get back to Harry with that.”

  “Are you sure you should, Grant? I mean, in light of our conversation last night?”

  “It’s something Harry ought to know,” Grant said.

  “It’s something Harry may already know,” Holly replied. “If he’s dirty.”

  “I’m going to have to think about that. The guy you met may not be the GSA Willard Smith, you know.”

  “Call the GSA and ask for Smith,” Holly said. “I’m betting that he’s not at work today.”

  “All right, I’ll do that.”

  “Get back to me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Bye.”

  “Bye.” Holly punched off and went back into the house. Daisy was waiting, her leash in her mouth.

  “Okay, baby,” Holly said. “Let’s take a walk.”

  They started out from the house, and Holly had an idea. The golf course outside her door was empty, so she cut across it, letting Daisy off her leash. The happy dog ran in big circles, enjoying the open space, just as she did on the beach. Holly looked around and still saw nobody, except a man in the distance mowing a green.

  She reached the other side of the golf course and clipped the leash onto Daisy’s collar again, as they walked along the road, heading north. Her recollection was that the driveway to the vault building was around a curve ahead of her, about a quarter of a mile along. Then she heard an airplane overhead.

  She looked up to see a twin-engine turboprop circling to land at the Blood Orchid airfield. It wasn’t Ed Shine’s King Air; it looked more like a Piper Cheyenne. Holly crossed the road and walked into the woods far enough that she couldn’t readily be seen from the road. Then she sat down with her back against a tree and waited, with Daisy lying beside her.

  Nearly half an hour passed, and Holly saw a Blood Orchid van drive past. She and Daisy ran back to the road and just far enough to see around the big curve in the road.

  The van had stopped, and a man got out of the passenger seat and moved aside the sawhorse blocking the drive. The van drove in, the sawhorse was replaced, and the van disappeared down the driveway.

  Holly went back into the woods. “Come on, Daisy,” she said, “we’re going to do a little spying.”

  58

  Holly walked through the woods with Daisy, keeping roughly parallel to the road, toward where she remembered the building to be. There had been two floors of administrative offices, she recalled, then the basement with vaults.

  She saw the building through the trees and brush sooner than she had expected, and she realized that she was approaching it from the rear. She began to work her way to her left, in order to circle the building and see what was happening on the front side. Noise became a factor now, and she made her way slowly through the woods, keeping Daisy on a short leash and being as quiet as possible. Soon, she could hear voices.

  There wasn’t much in the way of conversation, just grunts and
a word or two here and there about work. Holly turned more to her left, lest she come upon them too quickly and be spotted.

  Finally, she moved past a corner of the building and could see what was taking place out front. Two men were unloading the van and moving the contents inside the building. This time there were no boxes, but an odd collection of old briefcases, suitcases, and trunks, all strapped shut with duct tape. Some could be carried by one man, others required a hand truck.

  The unloading was going slowly, and this was what was causing what little conversation there was, mostly complaining. Holly wanted to see inside the front doors of the building, so she continued to work her way to the north, giving the parking area a wide berth. Once she had covered some ground, she could see three cars parked in the lot, all of which had been screened from her view by the van. She could see through the open doors of the building, too.

  Not that there was much to see. The two men were loading the cases and trunks into an elevator. Then one of the men got on with them and pressed a button. The doors closed, and the lights above indicated the car was going to the basement. That left one man dealing with the remaining cargo.

  Then Holly saw something that interested her. Half a dozen cases had been unloaded from the van and were waiting to be carried inside. The one man left was struggling with a footlocker-sized trunk that seemed to be very heavy, and next to the rear of the van sat a good-sized plastic briefcase—like the others, taped shut.

  Holly turned to Daisy. “Down, Daisy,” she said, and the dog lay down. She dropped the leash on the ground and, holding up a hand, said firmly, “Stay. Stay, Daisy.”

  The dog looked at her and waited for a further signal.

  Holly turned back toward the van; five yards of woods and twenty yards of parking lot separated her from it. The man was still struggling with the footlocker—the hand truck must be in the elevator, she reckoned, and the other man would be unloading the elevator in the basement. She worked her way left, until the van was between her and the second man, then she moved as silently as she could through the brush and ran for the van.

  Reaching it, she stood beside the left rear wheel of the vehicle so her feet would be hidden from anyone on the other side who happened to look under it. She could hear the man dragging the trunk into the building. She darted her head out a foot, then back again. Through the window of the rear door, she caught a glimpse of the building’s doorway, and the man could no longer be seen.