Orchid Blues

19

The house was a neatly kept 1950s ranch house in an older section of town, near a golf course. It was made of pink stucco with a concrete tile roof, like more than half the houses in Orchid Beach. Most of those that hadn't been built of these materials had been remodeled in them. She parked in the driveway, walked up the front flagstone path and rang the doorbell.

She hadn't expected an answer. She tried looking through the front window, but the Venetian blinds had been closed. Through a crack at the end, she could see a corner of what appeared to be an empty living room. She walked around to the back of the house and flipped open her cell phone and called Hurd. "Hurd Wallace."

"I'm at the Franklin Morris residence, and I want you to go over to the courthouse and get a search warrant." She gave him the address. "What's my probable cause?"

"A bank officer has left town abruptly a few days after the bank was robbed. I think that ought to do it. When you get the warrant, bring it over here and bring the tech with you."

"Will do." Hurd hung up.

Holly tried looking in through the rear windows, but each was covered either by Venetian blinds or a shade. There was a small pool in the backyard, and she noted that it was clean and that the grass around it had been recently mowed. In fact, the whole place seemed to be very well kept She sat down in a poolside lounge chair and closed her eyes for a minute.

"Sorry to wake you," somebody said.

Holly opened her eyes to find Hurd and the tech standing there. "Oh, I thought I'd close my eyes for a minute, and I guess I must have dozed off."

"We've tried all the doors. They're locked."

"Okay, then, let's break in."

"Can I do it?" the tech asked. "I love this part."

"Try not to knock the house down," Holly said. His name was Tommy Ross, and he was a sweet, if naive, kid.

Tommy approached the back door of the house, which had glass panes over a wooden bottom. He made ready to kick it in.

"Tommy," Hurd said, "just break a pane and reach inside."

Tommy looked disappointed, but he found a brick bordering a flower bed and broke the pane. A moment later, they were in the kitchen.

"Nice kitchen," Hurd said. "The owner must have replaced it when he remodeled the house." He went to a cork bulletin board in the kitchen and looked closely at the notes posted. "A grocery list, and a list of chores around the house." He took a thumbtack from the board and pinned the search warrant to the cork.

Holly pulled on some latex gloves and motioned for Hurd and Tommy to do the same. Then she began opening drawers and cabinet doors. "Well, they took the dishes, but not the cleaning stuff under the sink," she said.

Tommy stood at one end of the kitchen counter and sighted down it from a low angle. "This looks clean as a whistle," he said. "It's been wiped down, probably with some sort of cleaner."

"One of the ones under the sink," Holly said. "Go find the master bathroom and check that."

Tommy left the room, and Holly and Hurd walked into the living room. The place was broom clean and, except for some abandoned things-an ashtray, some bad art on the walls-was empty.

Tommy returned. "No luck; been wiped down."

"Try the front doorknob," Hurd suggested. "That would have been the last thing they touched."

Tommy checked and came back, shaking his head. "Clean."

"Dust some surfaces," Holly said. "Try the doorknobs and the mantel."

"This looks like our inside guy," Hurd said.

"It does," Holly agreed. "I wonder if he's in cahoots with the Harston woman, or if we were just barking up the wrong tree."

"I don't suppose there was some legitimate reason for them to move in a hurry?" Hurd said.

"Let me fill you in," Holly replied. "Morris, if that's his name, was hired on the strength of a recommendation from the president of a nonexistent bank in Miami. He moved up here, bringing a wife and a small child with him, and he stayed until the bank was robbed, then he disappeared without a word to anybody sometime between Friday afternoon, when he left work, and this morning. Probably on Saturday night, since he didn't show up for church. I wonder how much furniture they had."

"That's a thought," Hurd said. "I'll check the truck rental places in town." His cell phone rang. "Hurd Wallace," he said, then he listened. "Thanks." He hung up.

"What?"

"The fingerprints on the card in Morris's personnel file belonged to a security guard at the bank."

Holly laughed ruefully. "Morris is smart. He must have gotten the guard to give him a demonstration of fingerprinting, then filched the card. Anything on the desk prints?"

"The secretary and Morris's boss. Apparently both left this morning."

"So Morris cleaned up after himself there, too."

"Looks that way."

Tommy came back again, looking frustrated. "Zip," he said. "Absolutely zero."

"Try the lawn furniture in the backyard," Holly said. "Oops, my prints will be on the one I sat in, but only on the armrests."

Tommy disappeared again.

Hurd called the station and ordered the detectives to start phoning truck rental places. "He had to move his stuff somehow," he said.

"Let's go talk to the neighbors," Holly said. They walked out the front door. "You go left, I'll go right."

Holly rang the first bell and got a young mother with a baby on her hip. "Good morning," she said. "I wonder if you saw the folks next door over the weekend?"

"No, we were at my parents' house in Orlando this weekend. Is everything all right over there?"

"Apparently, they've left town," Holly said.

"Really? I played bridge with her on Thursday afternoon, and she didn't say a word."

"Do you know what kind of car they drove?"

"He had one of those convertibles-Chrysler, I think-and she had a van. I'm afraid all vans look alike to me. I hate them."

"Colors?"

"The convertible was white, and the van was a kind of wine color."

"Have you been inside the Morrises' house?" Holly asked.

"A couple of times. They didn't have a lot of furniture yet, so she didn't really have people over."

"How much furniture did she have?"

"They had a sofa and a recliner in the living room, and a pretty big TV, and I guess they had a bed. She said they were saving up to buy more; that the bank frowned on its people carrying too much credit card debt."

"Thanks," Holly said, handing her a card. "If you should hear from them, would you give us a call?"

"Sure."

Holly walked on, talking to the neighbors. Finally, at the house directly across the street, she got lucky. The owner, a man in his late seventies or early eighties, remembered something.

"I fell asleep in front of the TV on Saturday night," he said, "and I woke up in the middle of the night. I do that a lot, since my wife died. I got up to turn off the lights, and I happened to look out the window, and I saw two cars and a trailer pull away from the Morris house."

"What kind of cars?"

"Their cars, a convertible and a van."

"And the trailer?"

"It didn't have any markings, like those U-Haul things. Looked like a horse trailer to me. Wooden sides."

She thanked the man, then returned and reported to Hurd.

"You got more than I did," he said.

"When you get back, put out a report on the two cars and the trailer. I guess the van would have been pulling the trailer."

"If they left Saturday night, they could be well out of the state by now."

"Yes, they could. Alert the state patrol in Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas."

"You know," Hurd said, "I don't think I've ever run into one like this."

"That's what Harry Crisp said," Holly replied.