Blood Orchid

6

Holly arrived at work the following morning to find all the phones dead.

“They’re working on it,” Hurd Wallace told her. “We’ve been down for about half an hour, and they were here in about two minutes; I didn’t even have to call them, they were already in the neighborhood.”

“That’s good service,” Holly said. She worked on personnel efficiency reports for a while, deciding how her small budget increase could be distributed in pay raises. It was tough, and she hated doing it. Then she saw a light flash on her phone. She picked it up, got a dial tone, and called Harry Crisp at the FBI office in Miami.

“Good morning, Holly,” Harry said cheerfully.

“Morning, Harry. I have a little more for you on Blood Orchid Estates.”

“Shoot.”

“I confirmed that he paid sixty million for the place.”

“Did you find out why?”

“He says it will be a hobby for his old age. He can live there, run it, and maybe even make a buck.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“Harry, were there any other bids besides Ed’s and the two dead guys’ actually received?”

“Two, both inadequate.”

“Wouldn’t those two companies be a good place to look, since they were obviously trying to buy the property on the cheap?”

“We’ve already run that down,” Harry said.

“And you found out what?”

“They’re both South American, one registered in Brazil, one in Bolivia.”

“With Colombian ownership, maybe?”

“Maybe, but we haven’t been able to nail that down. Their company incorporation procedures are different from ours, and the ownership is harder to track.”

“I’ll bet you it’s some of the same drug money that owned the place before, trying to get it back.”

“Could very well be. You ever thought of becoming an FBI agent?”

Holly laughed. “I don’t think you could beat my current job, Harry.”

“Maybe I could. You go to the academy, and I’ll get you assigned to me. Life would be interesting.”

“Too interesting. I want to stay home with my dog and my daddy and have fun.”

“You having fun, Holly?” Harry asked.

That brought her up short. “Not yet,” she said.

“It’s been what, a year?”

“You sound like Ham.”

“Ham’s a smart guy.”

“It’s not that it’s too soon, it’s just that I haven’t felt like it.”

“Felt like what?”

“Having fun, Harry. Now leave me alone.”

“Okay, sweetheart. Let me know if you find out anything else that might be helpful.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in saying the same to you, Harry.”

“I do what I can, Holly. The Bureau frowns on excessive info sharing with local law enforcement.”

“Except when there’s something in it for the Bureau?”

“Something like that.”

“That’s what I thought. You ought to talk to them about that, Harry; you might get more local cooperation.”

“I get all I need, kiddo.”

“Bye, Harry.” She hung up. The Bureau annoyed her with its close-to-the-vest way of treating locals like her. She’d talked to some other small-town chiefs who felt the same way.

Hurd Wallace knocked on her door and took a seat.

“What’s up?”

“I’m at a dead end on who took a shot at Ed Shine,” he said. “There just isn’t anything else. I want to put the file into the inactive drawer.”

“Okay. If something else comes up, you can always take it out again. You have any personal theories?”

“Theories unsupported by any actual evidence?”

“Okay.”

Hurd shrugged. “What we know is that somebody took a shot at at least two, maybe three property developers, all of whom were bidding or intended to bid on Palmetto Gardens.”

“Blood Orchid Estates, now,” Holly reminded him.

“Right. That’s all we’ve got. No physical evidence, except for two cartridge cases, nothing else.”

“Harry Crisp says that two other companies bid on the property, both of them South American.”

Hurd’s eyebrows went up. “That kind of rings some bells, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, but only for the Feds. We don’t have the means or the budget to track down that kind of stuff, and they do.”

“I’ll bet it’s drug money.”

“You wouldn’t get odds from me,” Holly replied.

“I’ll bet it’s some of the same money that owned it before.”

“That’s what I just said to Harry, but what can we do? It’s Harry’s ball game; let him do the pitching and the fielding.”

Hurd stood up. “Right, it’s in the inactive drawer.” He went back to his office.

Holly found herself thinking of Jackson, something she used to do about once a minute and now did more like once a day. She wondered, as she sometimes did, what she would be doing now if Jackson were alive. Probably the same thing she was doing right this minute, she thought.

It wasn’t as though they would have pulled up stakes and moved to Paris the minute they were married; after all, Jackson had a law practice in Orchid Beach, and she had a good job. No, they’d probably be doing the same things until they got old.

She thought about the money. Jackson had left her the house, an insurance policy, and some investments. She was worth more than two million dollars now, and she had her salary and her pension from the Army. She could do whatever she wanted, she knew, but apparently what she wanted was just to do her job. It hurt less than anything else.