her. Gradually, the town gave way to a kind of suburbia, studded with the gates of upscale subdivisions. She turned into the first one she came to. There was a guardhouse, empty, and a keypad-operated gate, open. She drove down a typical upper-middle-class street, lined with roomy but unpretentious houses on half-acre lots. There were a pair of tennis courts at the end of the block, apparently serving the whole neighborhood. At a T junction, a cross street ran parallel with the beach, and the houses on the ocean were larger and sited on more land. Visits to two more such subdivisions revealed a similar layout. Daisy lost interest, curled up and went to sleep.
As she drove north the subdivisions grew in size, and one or two of them had an actual guard posted in the gatehouse, who waved her in when they saw her police uniform. In these neighborhoods, the lots were an acre or more and the houses more elaborate, some with white columns out front and circular driveways. Here the tennis courts were behind individual houses, and the beach houses were well into the million-dollar bracket, she reckoned.
She continued north and came to a state park, which turned out to be nothing more than a beach with a parking lot and rest rooms. Back on the road, the subdivisions were becoming more spectacular. She visited one, the reason for which seemed to be polo, and there were actually people on horseback swinging mallets at balls. “We’re in the two-million-dollar category now,” she said aloud to herself.
She drove all the way up to the Sebastian Inlet, where the river emptied into the sea under a large bridge; then she turned around and started south toward town. Now she visited subdivisions on the river side of the islands, most of which had marinas and golf courses, sometimes more than one. She thought of her father and how he loved his golf. She had played with him a lot and enjoyed it, but she had been working too hard to have the time to play often. Nothing had changed in that regard.
Now she came to a subdivision that was different from the others in several respects. It was larger, if the length of the twenty-foot-high hedge along the road was any indication; there was more than a mile of it before and after the main gate. Behind the guardhouse, she saw as she turned off the road, the interior of the development was shielded from the main road by an equally high hedge. The place was visually sealed off from the rest of Orchid Beach. There was a live guard at work, too, and this one was armed, the first time she’d seen that. She pulled to a stop next to the guardhouse. Ahead of her was an electrically operated wrought-iron barrier, and a few feet beyond that, steel claws erupted from the pavement. Anybody attempting to crash the gate would quickly lose all his tires to that contraption.
“Good afternoon,” she said to the guard.
He nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“I’m Deputy Chief Holly Barker from the Orchid Beach Police Department,” she said. “I’d like to take a look around inside. I’m new and just getting to know the territory.”
“Sorry, miss,” he said, avoiding using her rank. “Residents only.”
“I don’t think you understand,” she said. “I’m a police officer, and this development is in my jurisdiction.”
“Sorry, no one is allowed inside without a resident’s sticker or an employee’s badge.”
“Who is your chief?” she asked.
“Captain Noble,” he said.
“Get him on the phone.”
The man looked at her for a moment. He was large, muscular and very fit looking. His uniform fit him like a glove, and he looked capable of handling anything that might come along. He picked up a phone and, turning his back on Holly, spoke into it, then hung up. “Captain Noble will come down and speak to you,” he said. “Pull right over there and park your car.” He indicated a parking spot a few yards away.
Holly parked her car and got out, stretching her legs. Daisy sat up and looked around, then lay down and curled up again. Nothing happened. She waited five minutes, then walked over to the guardhouse. “So where is he?”
“On his way, miss.”
As she was about to turn away, she glanced down and through the open door, saw an Armalite assault rifle in a rack under the countertop where the guard sat. She was about to mention it when the exit gate opened. A white Range Rover pulled out, made a U-turn and stopped at the guardhouse. On each front door of the vehicle was painted a symbol, a palmetto plant.
“You’re Deputy Chief Barker?” the driver asked.
“That’s right,” Holly replied.
“I’m Barney Noble,” the man said, smiling and sticking his hand out the window. “I run the security operation at Palmetto Gardens.”
Holly shook the hand, which was hard and cool. “Good to meet you. I was just driving around, getting to know the area, and I thought I’d take a look at Palmetto Gardens. Little did I know,” she said, indicating the guard.
Barney Noble grinned. “I run a pretty tight ship,” he said. “Hop in, and I’ll show you around.”
“Just a minute,” she said. Holly walked over to her car and said to Daisy. “Stay, Daisy. Guard the car.” She made sure the car was well ventilated, then she walked back to the Range Rover and got in. The gate ahead of them opened, the steel claws retracted into the pavement and the car moved forward.
“Welcome to Orchid,” Noble said. “I’d heard you’d arrived in town.”
“Yes, just last weekend.”
“How’s Chet Marley doing?”
“Not well,” she said. “He’s still in a coma.”
“I heard he came out of it,” Noble said.
That was interesting to Holly. How did he know that? “For a few minutes, then he went under again.”
“Sorry to hear it. Chet’s a good man. We played a little poker once in a while.”
They had passed the barrier hedge now, and the landscape opened up in a wonderful way. They were driving along the shore of a large lake on one side of the road and a golf course on the other.
“This is beautiful,” Holly said.
“Just between you and me, it’s the most beautiful real estate development in Florida, and I’ve seen most of them in my line of work.”
“Why have I never heard of it?” she asked.
“The folks who live here like to lead a quiet life. They’re among the richer people in this country—CEOs of large corporations, heads of conglomerates, billionaires of every stripe. It’s a private club, really; we don’t advertise for customers. It’s all word of mouth among friends. You’d recognize a lot of the names of the members, but I’m not allowed to mention them.”
“What sort of security force do you have?”
“I’ve got fifteen men—twelve usually on duty or on call—there’s always somebody on vacation or out sick or something.”
“Are they all armed?” she asked.
“All armed and very well trained to use their weapons,” he replied. “We’ve got our own firing range back in the woods there.” He waved a hand vaguely to his right.
They passed what looked like the business district of a tiny village—grocery, drugstore, news shop, dry cleaner, doctor, dentist.
“We’ve got just about everything we need here,” Noble said. “None of our members ever has to go to town.” He slowed and pointed at a low building. “That’s my bailiwick right there. It’s like a small-town police station, really. We’ve got a small lockup and the usual equipment.”
“Does that include assault weapons?”
“Of course,” he said.
“I assume everything is properly licensed.”
“Sure. Florida as a state is pretty liberal about gun ownership, and we’re licensed by the state as a private security service.”
They drove through the village, and homes began to appear on both sides of the road, at widely separated intervals—or rather, gates began to appear. The houses were nearly invisible behind lush tropical plantings.
“How long has this place been in business?” Holly asked.
“A little over twenty years,” Noble replied. “The first five was mostly the construction of the village and the
