Blood Orchid

29

Holly slept late and had a good breakfast. She dressed in her new clothes, the first she had bought since Jackson’s death, and took Daisy for a walk, then got into her car. She had nothing to do until evening, so she decided to have another go at Pedro Alvarez.

When she got to his shop, he was with a customer, and she waited, looking carefully at the displays of locks and burglar alarms. She was not surprised that two of the examples on display were identical to the equipment in her house.

Pedro said goodbye to the customer, then approached Holly. “What do you want now?” he asked, his tone unfriendly.

“I want to see Carlos’s guns,” she said.

“Do you have a warrant?” he asked.

“Oh, I can get a warrant, and very quickly,” she replied. “But let me tell you what happens if I get a warrant. I’ll bring a team in here, and we will dismantle this shop and take anything we like away with us, including all the guns we find. Then, if any of them has been used in a crime, or if we find any other violation of the law, I’ll have your locksmith’s license yanked. Now, how do you want to do this?”

“I’ll show you the gun,” he said.

“There’s more than one, Pedro.”

“Carlos had two, a nine-millimeter and a forty-caliber. One of them is missing.” He led her to a large safe in the back room and began opening it.

So Carlos had been carrying, and he might well have been shot with his own gun.

“Here is Carlos’s nine-millimeter,” he said, handing her a Beretta.

It was loaded. She popped out the magazine and ejected one from the breech. “Do you have a paper bag?” she asked.

“I didn’t say you could take it with you.”

“So you want me to get the warrant? I can phone it in, and we can wait together for the team to arrive.”

“All right, all right,” he said. He handed her a sheepskin-lined leather pouch, and she zipped the gun inside it, putting the cartridges in a pocket inside. She wrote a receipt on the back of her card and handed it to him.

“When will you return it?” he asked.

“When I’ve finished processing it. If it turns out to have been used in a crime, you won’t get it back.”

Pedro nodded.

“You must have been aware that Carlos was into something he shouldn’t have been.”

Pedro shook his head.

“Come on, Pedro. If you want us to find out who killed your cousin, you’re going to have to help us. Now we know that Carlos suddenly came into money. Where was he getting it?”

Pedro shook his head again. “I don’t know. When I asked Carlos about it, he told me that it was none of my affair, that, in fact, it would help our business.”

“Help your business how?”

“He said he was developing new contacts for alarm-system installations.”

“Business or residential?”

“There were going to be a number of new houses, he said.”

“In what town?”

“I don’t know. Not in our immediate area, though; he was talking about opening another shop.”

“Where?”

“He said he couldn’t tell me yet.”

“Did he indicate to you that his new work might be dangerous?”

“Just the reverse; he said it was a piece of cake.”

“Did Carlos mention any names to you?”

“No.”

“A nickname, maybe?”

“No, nothing.”

“What else did he tell you, Pedro?”

“I swear, that’s all he told me.”

“Did you tell this to the FBI agents who came to see you?”

“No, I didn’t tell them anything.”

“Did Carlos own a rifle?”

“No, but…” Pedro was staring into the middle distance, as if he remembered something. “Once I saw a leather rifle case in the van he borrowed.”

“What was his explanation?”

“I didn’t ask him about it; he had already told me that his outside work was none of my business.”

“How big a case? How long?”

“Just a standard zipper case, like one that would hold a hunting rifle or a shotgun.”

“How long ago?”

“I’m not sure; two or three weeks, maybe. I thought maybe he was taking it to the range, since it was his regular day to go.”

“Miami Bullseye?”

He looked at her in surprise. “Yes. He fired there every week.”

Holly nodded. “I’ll see you again, Pedro.” She left the shop and stowed the weapon in the lockable bin that held the spare tire in her SUV. Then she went back to the mall and went shopping again. It was lovely to be doing something so normal again, she thought as she shopped for shoes.

At her third stop in the mall, she became aware of a woman she had seen the morning before. She was thirtyish, dressed in a business suit, with fairly short brown hair. Holly felt she was beginning to see too much of her. As she continued through the mall, she kept seeing the woman, and when she came out of the Ralph Lauren store, her tail was sitting on a bench in the middle of the mall, pretending to read a magazine.

Holly went and sat down next to her. “Good morning,” she said.

The woman glanced at her, nodded, and went back to her magazine.

“How’s Harry Crisp these days?”

The woman looked at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“How’s old Harry? Your boss?”

“I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else,” the woman said.

“I’m afraid you have me confused with someone who can’t spot a tail,” Holly replied.

“I’m sorry?”

“I wouldn’t go as far as that, but you’re not very good. You were outside the church at the Alvarez funeral, weren’t you? You followed Pedro home after the burial.”

The woman was becoming flustered now. “I would appreciate it if you would leave me alone,” she said.

“Sure, I will,” Holly replied, “and I’ll give you a choice. You can vanish, then call Harry and tell him you lost me, or I’ll call him myself and tell him what a lousy job you’re doing.”

“Goodbye,” the woman said, getting up. She walked quickly away, toward an exit to the parking lot.

Holly resumed her shopping, but she kept an eye out for the woman’s partner, if she had one.