Hothouse Orchid

48

Holly got back to the house and found Josh, wearing only an apron, in the kitchen.

“Did you get your question asked?”

“Yes, thank you.” She kissed him and pinched him on the ass.

“Gee, thanks. Get the answer you wanted?”

“Yep.”

“Happy now?”

“Nope.”

“Will eggs Benedict help?”

“Couldn’t hurt.”

“Then pull up a stool, have some orange juice and tell me your problem.”

Holly sat down and sipped her juice. “I don’t think Bruno was a suicide, but I’m not sure why I think that.”

“Do I get to play policeman again?”

“Yes, please.”

“Okay, who had a motive?”

“I did, and so did Lauren.”

“Do you want to answer the next question, or do you want a lawyer?”

“Ask.”

“Did you kill Bruno?”

“No,” she said.

“That leaves Lauren. Anything else I can do to help?”

“Lauren didn’t kill him; she’s living with Jack, and she would have to have left in the middle of the night and come back without waking him. Anyway, she didn’t do it. I know that.”

“Can you prove she didn’t do it?”

“If I had to. Just take my word for it.”

“Okay, Lauren is eliminated as a suspect on your personal say-so. Who else we got?”

“Nobody,” Holly said. “At least, nobody who makes any sense as a suspect.”

“Who else had anything to do with declaring Bruno a suicide?”

“Hurd Wallace and Jimmy Weathers were investigators. The medical examiner and a forensics guy were there, too.”

“Any of them got a motive?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Any of them have anything to gain by Bruno’s death?”

“No, I don’t…” she stopped.

“Think of somebody?”

“Well,” she said, “Jimmy got Bruno’s job.”

“I think this is where I’m supposed to say people have killed for less.”

“Yeah.”

“People have killed for less.”

“Good point, but I don’t make Jimmy for a murderer. Unless he had more motive than that.”

“Did he hate Bruno’s guts?”

“Any thinking person would.”

“Okay, that’s two motives.”

“But the time line doesn’t work. We talked about that before, right?”

“Right. Maybe he did it at a time that wasn’t our time line.”

“When?”

“When did the ME say that Bruno died?”

“Something like midnight to four a.m.”

“How’s that for a time line. Does that work for Jimmy?”

“If it did, that would have given him time to write the suicide note.”

“Does Jimmy live with anybody?”

“I don’t know.”

“I guess you ought to find out whether he has an alibi, then, ’cause I’m starting to like him for the homicide. Isn’t that what they say on the TV shows?”

“Yeah.” Holly got her address book and dialed up the home number for Jane Grey, who was the secretary at the station.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jane, it’s Holly. I’m sorry to disturb you on a Sunday morning.”

“That’s okay, Holly, but I’ve got to go to church in a minute.”

“I just have a couple of questions. Do you know if Jimmy Weathers lives with anybody?”

“Yes, he lives with his mother.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

“Not that I know of. He’s always looking for dates, though. I don’t think he gets many.”

“Okay, thanks, Jane. You go on to church.”

“Why do you want to know about Jimmy, Holly?”

“I can’t say right now, but please don’t tell him I asked.”

“All right. Bye-bye.” Jane hung up.

Josh turned on the Cuisinart and started adding butter to the egg yolks. “So?”

“Jimmy lives with his mother.”

“Didn’t you once say that one thing in the serial killer profile is that he would probably live with his mother?”

“Yes, I did. And something else: Jimmy doesn’t have a girlfriend, and he told me he did. When we were down at the marina after Daisy and I found that body on the beach. Jimmy lied to me, and Jimmy has a boat.”

“Maybe he just didn’t want to admit he didn’t have a girlfriend.”

“No. I didn’t ask him; he volunteered it. Said he and his girlfriend like to go out on his boat together.”

“So now do we suspect Jimmy of more than killing Bruno?”

“In theory,” Holly said. “I want to know if he has an alibi.”

“How are you going to find out?”

Holly checked her address book again and dialed, this time on speaker phone, so Josh could hear. She motioned for him to turn off the Cuisinart.

“Hurd Wallace.”

“Hurd, what are you doing at your desk on a Sunday morning?”

“Hey, Holly. You know how it is; I’m just going over all the reports on Bruno again.”

“Anything in there cast any doubt on the suicide?”

“Not exactly.”

“But you’re beginning to doubt it, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure why.”

“I’m thinking the same thing. Any anomalies in the reports?”

Josh spoke up. “Hurd, it’s Josh Harmon. In the ME’s report, what did the blood work say?”

There was a shuffling of papers on Hurd’s desk. “Blood alcohol was two point four, three times the legal limit for driving. And he had taken at least two Ambien.”

“There’s your anomaly,” Josh said.

“How’s that?” Hurd asked.

“Nobody could stay awake long with that combination in his bloodstream.”

“He could have shot himself before the Ambien took effect,” Hurd said.

“My point is,” Josh said, “anybody could have gone into Bruno’s house and stomped around all he liked, and Bruno would never have woken up. It would have been easy to kill him.”

“You still thinking suicide, Hurd?” Holly asked.

“It’s still possible, but I’m leaning the other way.”

“Did you do any work on Bruno’s signature on the note?”

“No experts, but there was an insurance card in the desk drawer with his signature on it, and they looked like they matched.”

“If you found that card, Hurd, maybe the killer did, too, and he used it to forge the signature.”

“That works for me,” Hurd replied, “but all we’ve got is the possibility of homicide. We don’t have a suspect.”

“Is there any other anomaly in the reports?”

“Well, there was a partial print on the vaccination gun that wasn’t Bruno’s. Forensics ran the print, but there wasn’t enough for a match in the database.”

“Then how do you know it wasn’t Bruno’s?”

“Because he had printed Bruno’s corpse and couldn’t match it to the right pinkie, which is the finger he said it was.”

“So if we had another suspect, he could do a direct comparison and maybe get a match?” Holly asked.

“That’s right.”

“Hurd,” Holly said, “pull Jimmy Weathers’s prints off the computer and have the guy do a direct comparison.”

“Wait a minute, Holly. Jimmy and I together examined the contents of the box that held the panties and the vaccination gun, and he was wearing latex gloves. And he never touched it. Lauren observed; she can confirm that.”

“Maybe Jimmy touched the gun earlier,” Holly said. “Without gloves.”

“What are you saying, Holly?”

“Maybe he touched the v-gun when he was hiding it and the panties in the box in Bruno’s closet.”

Hurd was silent for a moment. “Good God,” he said finally.