Orchid Beach hb-1

by Stuart Woods

  Hurst spoke to the policewoman. “Put them in the lockup.” He got up and left the room. A moment later, he walked into the observation room, where Wallace and Holly were. “They did it,” Hurst said. “I know it.”

  “What’s the evidence?”

  “Possession of the chief’s weapon, tire track matching the cast I took, no alibi for the time, and the thirty-two. It’s time to get the county attorney involved.”

  Holly turned to Wallace. “I want somebody to drive the thirty-two to the state lab in Tallahassee, wait while they do the test and phone us with the results. If they’re positive, then we’ll charge them.”

  “Right,” Wallace said, then left the room.

  “What about the Doherty murder?” Holly asked.

  “If the thirty-two ballistics match, I’ll get a confession,” Hurst replied. “Then they’ll cop to Hank’s murder, too.”

  “A very neat package,” Holly said. “I hope it holds together.” That was no lie: she wanted this to happen, so she could clear these cases and get them off her mind.

  Jane knocked and came into the room. “There’s a Mrs. Warner on the phone for you.”

  “I’ll take it in my office.” She turned to Hurst. “Good job. Let’s wrap this up real tight.” She went to her office and picked up the phone. “Mrs. Warner?”

  “Yes, Chief. We’re at the airport in Atlanta, and we’re leaving right now for Orchid Beach—my husband has an airplane. I wanted to know where I should go when we get there.”

  “What time do you expect to land?”

  “About eleven-thirty or twelve.”

  “I’ll meet you at the airport and drive you to Hank’s place.”

  “Thank you, that’s very kind of you.”

  “See you at eleven-thirty.” Holly hung up the phone and sighed. If she could just get through this day, if it went right, then she could relax and start to get a grip on her job.

  CHAPTER

  10

  H olly stood in front of the little airport terminal building and watched the Bonanza taxi to a halt and kill its engine. When the prop had stopped turning she walked to the airplane and waited while the two people inside unfastened their seat belts and stepped down. She walked up to them and stuck out a hand. “Mr. and Mrs. Warner? I’m Holly Barker, deputy chief of police.”

  “Oh, hello,” Mrs. Warner said. “I’m Eleanor, and this is Ed. We’d prefer first names. And thank you so much for meeting us.”

  “I’m glad to. Do you have any bags?”

  Ed Warner opened a rear door of the airplane and took out two overnight bags. “We’ve booked a motel room locally, so that we can stay until we get this sorted out.”

  “This is Daisy, your dad’s dog,” Holly said. Daisy allowed herself to be petted but remained distant, Holly thought. “Let’s get your bags into my car.” She stowed the bags in the rear of her Grand Cherokee, ushered the Warners into the backseat and put Daisy up front with her.

  “Have there been any developments?” Eleanor asked.

  “Yes, I’m glad to say. We’ve arrested two people, and we expect to charge them with the shooting of the chief, if the ballistics test on their gun is positive.”

  “I’m sorry? The chief?”

  “Forgive me, Eleanor, I haven’t brought you fully up to date. Chet Marley, the police chief, was shot shortly before your father was, and your father was shot with the chief’s shotgun, so we reckon that the perpetrators were the same in both cases. Right now, the evidence points to these two latter-day hippies in the chief’s shooting, and when we can prove that, we might get a confession to your dad’s murder, too.”

  “And the evidence is conclusive?” Ed asked.

  “Not yet, but if the ballistics tests pan out, that will help us a lot.”

  “When will you know?”

  “Later today, I hope.” She navigated toward the bridge to the barrier island, then crossed it and turned south toward Hank Doherty’s place.

  “My father was so alone,” Eleanor said. “We couldn’t get him to move to Atlanta, and I could tell from his letters that he was drinking a lot.”

  “The coronor confirmed that in the postmortem examination. Hank’s liver was pretty bad, and the doctor thought he wouldn’t have lived more than a few months in any case. I know that’s no consolation.”

  “It sounds as if you knew Daddy,” Eleanor said. “Did you?”

  “No, I’ve only been in town for a few days, but Hank and my father, Hamilton Barker, served together in the army; they were in Vietnam together, so I knew about him. And your dad wasn’t that alone. He and Chet Marley were very close friends, spent a lot of time together. Chet hired me to come down here and be his deputy.”

  Holly pulled into Hank Doherty’s driveway and stopped. As they got out of the car a black woman left the house by the front door.

  “You must be Mr. and Mrs. Warner,” she said.

  “Yes, we are,” Eleanor replied. “Are you Mary White?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I took care of your daddy for a long time. He was a good man, and I’m going to miss him.”

  “Mary, will you stay with us a little longer? You could show us around the house.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’d be glad to.”

  Holly followed the three into the house, which was much more presentable than when she had last seen it. The bloodstains had been scrubbed from the floor and walls. The Warners were taken through each room, and Eleanor packed some family photographs and some other things into boxes with Mary’s help. When they had finished, they went back into Hank’s office.

  “Mary,” Eleanor said, “there’s a lot of stuff in this house, and if there’s any of it you want, I’d like you to have it. We don’t plan to take much back to Atlanta, so we’d just have to sell it anyway.”

  “Well, thank you,” Mary said. “There’s a lot I could use, and I expect my church could sell the rest at a tag sale they’ve got coming up this weekend.”

  “Fine, we’ll pick out what we want, then you can have the rest.” She turned to Holly. “Chief, is there anything here that you could make use of?”

  “Thank you, Eleanor, but I live in a trailer, and it’s pretty full.” She looked at the computer on Hank’s desk, a new-looking laptop with a compact printer next to it. “I wonder, would you like to sell the computer? That might fit into my place.”

  “Please let me give it to you,” Eleanor said. “We’ve got a houseful of computer stuff, and we won’t have any use for any more.”

  “I’d feel more comfortable if you’d let me buy it.”

  “All right, I’ll sell it to you for a hundred dollars, not a penny more.”

  “Thank you. I’ve got to get back to work. Tell you what, why don’t I loan you my car? I have a police vehicle at my disposal, and you could just leave the Jeep at the airport when you go.”

  “That’s very, very kind of you,” Eleanor said. “I think that we can remove what we want from here and put the house on the market right away. I have to make some arrangements for the cremation, but we ought to be able to fly home tomorrow night.”

  “Fine, keep it as long as you like.” Holly called the station and asked Jimmy Weathers to come and get her. She helped the Warners pack things until he arrived. “Well, I’ll be getting along,” she said. “Please call me before you go, and let me know if there’s anything I can do for you while you’re here.” She held out Daisy’s leash to Eleanor Warner. To her surprise, her throat was tightening, and she was blinking a lot.

  Eleanor shrank from taking the leash. “Oh, no, we can’t take Daisy back to Atlanta. We’ve got four kids from seven to fifteen, two Labrador retrievers and a cat. Another dog wouldn’t work at all. Do you know anyone who’d give her a good home? Perhaps yourself?”

  “Eleanor, Daisy seems to be a very special dog. I’m sure she’s quite valuable.”

  “I know all about Daisy,” Eleanor said. “Daddy wrote me lots of letters with all sorts of details about her. But he also said that
she wasn’t good with kids, and that she was a one-man dog. Looks to me like she’s become a one-woman dog. It would be a great relief to me if someone who likes her would take her.”

  Holly didn’t have to think long about that. “If you’ll let me buy her,” she said.

  “A hundred dollars, and not a penny more.” Eleanor wrote her address on a slip of paper and gave it to Holly. “You can send me a check for Daisy and the computer at your leisure. I’ll send you a bill of sale.”

  Holly felt an enormous sense of relief. Jimmy arrived and put the computer, the printer and the operator’s manuals in the trunk of the police car, and after warm handshakes, Holly drove away, leaving her car with the Warners.

  “Are they taking Daisy back to Atlanta with them?” Jimmy asked.

  “Nope,” Holly said, scratching Daisy behind the ear. “Daisy’s staying with me. I bought her from them, along with Hank’s computer.”

  “That’s great,” Jimmy said. “Nice to know Daisy will be around.”

  “It sure is,” Holly said. She hadn’t been so happy for a long time.

  When they got back to the station, Jane Grey met Holly, beaming. “The ballistics tests came back,” she said. “A good match. We’ve got the right people.”

  “That’s great,” Holly said, feeling vastly relieved. “Did they do the other test I asked for?”

  “I canceled it. Didn’t seem to be any reason for it now. Do you want me to reinstate the request?”

  “No,” Holly said. “You’re right, we’ve got our perpetrators. Tell Bob Hurst to get the county attorney over here pronto.”

  The first thing Holly did after that was to call Ham and tell him the news.

  CHAPTER

  11

  H olly picked up some groceries on the way home, avoiding an interesting-looking delicatessen that featured prepared dinners. She was determined not to get into the habit of not cooking her own meals. That way led to lazy habits and added pounds.

  She fed Daisy, then mixed herself a gin and tonic, got the little satellite dish pointed in the right direction and watched the news. Nothing there to cheer her up. Dealing with Hank Doherty’s daughter had worn on her more than she had expected, although she had the emotional lift of being Daisy’s new owner. After the news she started the grill and made herself a fat bacon cheeseburger. Maybe, she thought as she ate it, she would have been better off bringing something home from the deli. When she had finished she switched off the grill, washed the dishes and made another drink.

  Determined to keep work off her mind, she undressed, slipped into a long T-shirt and watched a pay-per-view movie beamed down to her trailer from a distant satellite, somewhere over the equator. She had another drink. She had noticed that she tended to drink a bit more when she was alone than when she was out with others. She’d have to watch that, she thought as she leaned back in bed, switched off the light, finished her drink and tried to concentrate on the movie.

  She was awakened by an unaccustomed noise, the growling of a dog. It took her a sleepy moment to remember that she, in fact, owned a dog, and that it was Daisy who was growling. It was a slight noise, down in the throat, almost as if the dog were whispering to her. Holly sat up, put her feet on the floor and listened. She thought she heard a metallic clank, but if she did, it was very faint. Daisy continued to make the noise.

  Holly picked up the remote control and turned down the volume on the TV, which was playing trailers of coming attractions on satellite broadcasting. If there was someone outside the trailer, she didn’t want to alert them by simply switching it off. She heard the clank again.

  She leaned over and whispered in Daisy’s ear, “Quiet, Daisy.”

  The dog was immediately silent.

  “Lie down.”

  The dog did.

  “Stay.” Holly got up quietly and went to where she had draped her uniform over a chair. She dug under the trousers and came up with her pistol. “Stay,” she whispered again to the dog. She walked toward the trailer door on bare feet. She didn’t want to expose her presence at the door, so she stopped short and stuck her head into the doorway, straining to see through the screen. She could see nothing, but a little breeze had sprung up and was making a hissing noise in the trees.

  Holly worked the action of the pistol, opened the screen door as quietly as she could and stepped out into the night, the gun at her side, her thumb on the safety. She didn’t really want to shoot anybody, especially for simply trespassing, but she was worried enough to be ready to defend herself. She stepped away from the trailer, feeling the breeze around her bare legs, and walked around the perimeter of the little clearing, peering into the dark woods. She saw nothing and heard nothing.

  Relieved, she started back toward the trailer, and, nearly simultaneously, two things happened. She heard a faint whump from somewhere nearby, and she smelled gas. Hadn’t she turned off the grill? She looked over to where it should have been, but it wasn’t there. A second later she saw it, standing hard against one end of the trailer. That was very peculiar, she thought, then the night sky lit up.

  She looked up and saw a ball of bright red fire descending slowly from a good hundred feet in the air. She watched it, mesmerized, as it floated toward her. She was beginning to get the feeling that she might have to dodge it. A parachute flare, she said to herself. Some boater on the river in difficulties. Then she smelled the gas again. “Holy shit,” she said aloud, and ran toward the trailer.

  She dropped the gun and fell to her knees before the grill, as if it were some pagan altar. She twisted the knobs, but they were all in the off position. She dove behind the grill, feeling her way down the rubber hose toward the tank, and she found that she had the loose end of the hose in her fingers. She looked up; the flare was no more than fifty feet above her, seeming to home in on where she knelt. Panicked, she groped for the valve, to close the tank, but there was no valve, simply the opening through which gas was pouring, freezing her fingers.

  Then she felt the gas stop coming. She leapt to her feet, grabbed a lawn chair and batted at the flare, sending it toward the perimeter of the clearing, where it hit the ground and lay there, sizzling, in the dirt. She watched, mesmerized, as it burned itself out, and she was surprised to learn that she had the pistol again, and that she was pointing it at the dying flare.

  She took a deep breath and discovered that she couldn’t smell gas anymore. She stepped inside the trailer and got a flashlight. Daisy was lying there, watching her intently. “Good girl,” she said. “Stay.” She went to the grill and switched on the flashlight. The valve from the top of the tank lay on the ground, a dent in one side of it.

  It was clear to her that she was looking at a case of sabotage. Someone had removed the hose from the tank, opened it, then knocked the valve handle off so it couldn’t be closed. She remembered that when she had cooked her burger, the tank had seemed nearly empty. Thank God for that, she thought. The combination of gas in the air, the parachute flare and the shrapnel from the exploding tank would have reduced her trailer to a smoking ruin, after she had burned to death in the explosion.

  Her first impulse was to call the station and report the incident, but she held herself back. She sat down on the trailer’s doorstep and thought about it. She would keep it to herself for the time being.

  Daisy made a small noise. “Okay, Daisy, come to me,” Holly said, opening the screen door.

  Daisy came and leaned against her, sniffing the night air.

  CHAPTER

  12

  H olly was finishing a sandwich at her desk the following noon when the county attorney arrived, accompanied by a tall, slender, dark-haired man in a rumpled suit who needed a haircut. Jane made the introductions.

  “Chief, this is Marty Skene, the county attorney, and the tall one is Jackson Oxenhandler, a public defender.”

  “Did they ask for a lawyer?” Holly asked, shaking hands with both men.

  “No,” Skene said, “but it seemed like a good time to do it.
I want everything on the up-and-up.”

  “Sure,” Holly said. “Mr. Oxhander…”

  “It’s Oxenhandler,” the tall man said. “There was apparently some livestock in the family history.”

  “Oxenhandler, sorry. Have you met your clients?”

  “Not yet.”

  “They’re with Bob Hurst, right now, being questioned on another matter.”

  “Another matter?” Oxenhandler asked, furrowing his brow.

  “The murder of Hank Doherty.”

  “You didn’t tell me this was a double shooting,” the lawyer said to the prosecutor.

  “I didn’t know myself until this minute.”

  “I want questioning ended now,” the lawyer said, “until I’ve had a chance to consult with my clients.”

  Holly motioned toward the interrogation room. “Jane, ask Bob to come out here right now.”

  “What’s the evidence against my clients?” Oxenhandler asked.

  “Their tire tracks at the scene of the crime, possession of the victim’s weapon and a positive ballistics match between the bullet taken from the chief’s head and a thirty-two Smith and Wesson revolver found in the glove compartment of the accused’s van.”

  “You go talk to your clients,” Skene said, “and then maybe you’ll want to discuss a plea. I’d like to wrap this up as soon as possible.”

  Jackson Oxenhandler nodded and walked toward the interrogation room, passing Bob Hurst along the way. He stopped at the door of the adjoining room, looked in, then went on to the door of the interrogation room. He turned back and called out, “I’d like that room kept empty while we talk.” He disappeared into the interrogation room.

  Holly turned to Hurst. “How’d you do with the Doherty murder?”

  “They denied everything,” Hurst said.

  “Come into my office for a minute,” Holly said, ushering him in and closing the door behind him.

  Hurst took a seat. “What’s up?”

  “I didn’t want to bring this up until now, but I’m extremely annoyed with you.”