Orchid Beach

CHAPTER

25

They showered together, then went for a walk on the beach. It was warm and breezy, and Daisy seemed to go berserk, running at top speed, disappearing into the dunes, then tearing across the beach and running into the surf. Jackson found a stick, and Daisy loved chasing it.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

“A small town in Georgia called Delano.”

“Where’s that?”

“About forty miles east of Columbus.”

“That’s funny, I was born in Columbus—or rather, at Fort Benning. I grew up on half a dozen military bases, from Fort Bragg to Mannheim, in Germany.”

“I grew up in Delano.”

“Your folks still there?”

“Both dead, Mom eight years ago, Dad six. He didn’t take much interest in living after she went.”

“My mom’s gone, too, but Ham had the army to keep him going.”

“Dad was a lawyer, but he didn’t love it enough for it to keep him going. A month after she died, he closed the office, and after that, he hardly left the house. Not even golf could keep him interested, and he had always been an enthusiastic golfer.”

“My dad, too. Just loves it. Barney Noble told me to bring him out to Palmetto Gardens to play sometime. Oh, I forgot to tell you, they knew each other in the army—they served in the same outfit in Vietnam.”

“Connections, connections,” Jackson said absently. “I belong to the Dunes Club; tell your dad I’ll take him there when he visits.” He looked at her. “You said you play?”

“Yeah, but it’s been almost a year.”

“You got clubs?”

“Yeah. Ham gave them to me for Christmas last year, I think hoping to get me out on the course more, but I was always working.”

“You want to play this afternoon?”

“Sure, why not? You know, this is the first day I haven’t worked since I got here.”

“You got a handle on the job yet?”

“Pretty much. Chet had the department superbly organized. What I have to do mostly is not screw it up. What I haven’t got a handle on is these shootings.”

“You sound discouraged.”

“I’m at a dead end. The department has done the job it was supposed to, but we just don’t have anything to go on.”

“You have no idea why somebody might want to kill Chet and Hank?”

She looked at him closely. “This doesn’t go any further.”

“Right.”

“When Chet hired me he intimated that he had a serious problem that he would brief me on when I arrived in town. Wouldn’t say more than that. Then, the evening I arrived, we talked on the phone, and he told me that he was meeting somebody, and he’d have a lot to tell me the following morning, when I reported for work.”

“He didn’t give you any idea what it was about?”

She shook her head. “Not much. Part of the problem was that there was somebody in the department who was working both sides of the street. He said he had an idea, but he didn’t tell me.”

“You have any idea now?”

“No, not really. It could be anybody.”

“Have you told anybody on the force—anybody at all in Orchid—about this?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“I’m afraid I’ll tell the wrong person. I’ve been all through Chet’s office, looking for some notes or something, but there was nothing.” She looked at Jackson. “I wonder if he could have left something with his lawyer, just in case.”

“He didn’t do that,” Jackson replied.

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m his lawyer.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“It didn’t come up. Mind you, all I’ve ever done for him was to close the sale of his house a couple of years ago, and draw up his will.”

“When did he make the will?”

“He signed it about ten days before he was shot.”

“You think he thought his life was in danger?”

“He didn’t give any indication of that, but who knows? It was pretty simple and straightforward. He left everything…” Jackson stopped. “I’m sorry. That, of course, is a client-attorney confidence.”

“Did Chet have any family you know of? I haven’t been able to discover any.”

“No.”

“I see. You’d have thought that if Chet was worried enough to make a will, he’d have told somebody else what was going on, or at least, left some evidence with somebody.”

“Maybe he did,” Jackson said.

“You got any ideas?”

“It could only have been Hank Doherty.”

“Of course. That has to be the motive for Hank’s murder.”

“Did you go through Hank’s place?”

“With a fine-toothed comb. I went through his desk and his safe myself. The safe was open.”

“So, somebody shoots Chet, then thinks, holy shit, he might have told Hank Doherty something, so he goes over there and kills Hank.”

“And finds whatever Chet gave him, which is why I didn’t find it.”

“And you’re sure it couldn’t still be there?”

“Don’t see how it could be. The house has been cleaned out. Hank’s daughter took some memorabilia, and his housemaid took the rest. Her church sold some of it at a tag sale the following weekend.”

“So everything is now scattered.”

“Irretrievably, I would think.”

“Did you search Chet’s house?”

Holly stopped walking. “No. It wasn’t a crime scene, so it just didn’t occur to me. Boy, am I stupid!”

“I’ve got a key.”

“Then let’s get over there,” she said, starting for the house.

“Hang on,” he said, catching her wrist. “I don’t know that I’d go out there in broad daylight. You never know who’s watching. Let’s wait until tonight.”

“Okay, I guess it can wait until then.”

“Besides, you and I have a golf date.”

Holly did some stretching, then took a couple of practice swings and addressed the ball. She tried to relax and make an easy swing. There was the sound of a metal driver striking the ball, and she looked up to see it going high and straight down the fairway.

“Very nice,” Jackson said. “That’s a good two hundred and ten yards.” He stepped up to the ball, went through his routine and swung mightily.

“That’s a good two hundred and fifty yards,” Holly said. “Trouble is, it’s in the trees. Take a mulligan.”

Jackson made a grumbling sound.

“And don’t hit it so hard this time.”

He swung again; this time his slice was gentler. The ball landed ten yards beyond Holly’s but to the right of the fairway. They got into the cart and started driving.

For seventeen holes, they remained more or less even, trading the lead hole by hole. They were tied going into the eighteenth, and they both had good drives, but Holly’s second shot went into a bunker, while Jackson made the green in two. It took Holly two strokes to get out of the sand, and she three-putted, for a double bogey. Jackson parred the hole.

Jackson totted up their scores. “You had a ninety-one, I had an eighty-nine.”

Holly thought she had never seen a man so relieved, but she couldn’t resist puncturing his balloon. “What’s your handicap?” she asked.

“Twelve.”

“Mine’s fifteen. You owe me three strokes.”

His face fell. “It’s rude to beat your host, you know.”

“I know, and I’m so sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I know. I lied.”

They both burst out laughing.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get some dinner, then we’ll go out to Chet’s house.”