Orchid Beach

the station and ask for Hurd Wallace.

“Deputy Chief Wallace,” he said.

“Hurd, it’s Holly.”

“You sound winded. Are you all right?”

“I’m all right. Listen to me: out on Jungle Trail, near the north gate to Palmetto Gardens, Cracker Mosely attacked me, but I managed to shoot him. He’s dead. Get out there and work the scene. Photograph everything, then call an ambulance and get the body out of here. Clean up the scene. Do it all as quietly as you can, and don’t say anything to anybody about it. You got that?”

“Holly, we can’t just let a shooting go,” Wallace said.

“We’re not letting it go. I’m reporting it to the police, right?”

“Right, I guess so.”

“Register the body at the hospital as a John Doe. I don’t want anybody to know he’s dead.”

“All right.”

“Do you know where the community college gymnasium is?”

“Yes.”

“Meet me there at sundown, but don’t try to enter the gym or even the parking lot; just wait for me on the road. I’ll fill you in then.”

“Are you all right, Holly?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, I’ll get out to Jungle Trail right now.”

“And, for God’s sake, don’t let anybody, and I mean anybody, know where you’re going. And when you get out here, watch out for Mosely’s people. There may be more of them around.”

“I’m on my way.”

Holly drove toward Riverside Park and her trailer. She had to get cleaned up. She didn’t want anybody to know what had happened to her. She thought about Rita Morales and realized how lucky she had been.

“Daisy,” she said, rubbing the dog’s head, “you are a wonderful human being.”

CHAPTER

56

Holly got changed and fed Daisy. She still had a couple of hours before dark. She drove north on A1A and turned into Jungle Trail. Maybe Hurd was still there. She drove rapidly along, then came around a corner and saw a police car and an ambulance. The body was being loaded, and Hurd had a garbage bag in his hand. Holly parked off the road to allow the ambulance to pass, then got out of the car and approached Hurd.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Hurd asked.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“What happened here, Holly? I found your underwear. Were you raped?”

“Almost,” she said, then she gave him a terse account of what had happened while, at her insistence, he took notes.

She went to the car, got Mosely’s gun and handed it to Hurd. “This is what I shot him with.”

Hurd took the gun, released the clip and looked at the ammunition. “Hollowpoints,” he said. “That accounts for the condition of the body.”

“Did anybody show up here from Palmetto Gardens?” she asked.

“I was here for about fifteen minutes alone before the ambulance came,” he replied. “A Range Rover drove up to the gate from the inside, sat there for a minute, then left. Nobody got out.”

“Did they see your car?”

“I don’t think so,” Hurd said. “It was parked where it is now, out of the way.” He pointed. “And the brush would have made Mosely’s body hard to see.”

“I wonder what Mosely was doing out here,” Holly said. “He certainly wasn’t looking for me, because nobody knew I would be here. I didn’t know myself until I arrived.”

“He was wearing sweatclothes and sneakers,” Hurd replied. “Maybe he was jogging along the outside of the fence.”

Holly realized that she had not even thought about what kind of clothes he was wearing. “Maybe so. But who would wear a gun while jogging?”

“Somebody who hoped to shoot something,” Hurd said. “There are deer and other wildife out here. Maybe Mosely just liked to kill things.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that,” she said. “Tell me, did you let anyone know you were coming out here?”

“No, you said not to.”

“Good. There’s something else I have to ask you about, Hurd. I’m sorry if it seems like prying.”

“Shoot.”

“Did Bob Hurst have anything to do with your divorce?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, was he having an affair with your wife?”

Hurd shook his head. “I don’t believe he was. They started seeing each other after we separated. He told me that himself. Our house was just down the street from his, and we had socialized a little while I was still married. Bob had been divorced some years ago. He was lonely, I guess. I wasn’t suprised that he and Linda got married.”

“So, after Bob started seeing your wife, he would have had access to her house?”

“Yes, I suppose so. I had moved out, into an apartment, and like I said, he lived just down the street. Why are you asking about this?”

“Because I think Hurst stole the Smith and Wesson thirty-two from her house, the one Chet Marley was killed with.”

“That makes some kind of sense, I guess. It was Bob who filed the burglary report for Linda.”

“A smart move,” Holly said. “Let me ask you this: remember the tape we heard of the bug in Barney Noble’s car?”

“Yeah.”

“You think that could have been Hurst in the backseat?”

“I honestly don’t know. It was impossible to identify a voice from what we heard. Wasn’t the FBI going to try to clean up the tape and improve the quality?”

“Yes, but I don’t know if it’s been done yet. I haven’t heard anything.”

“I think we ought to go talk to Bob Hurst,” Hurd said, looking at his watch. “He might still be at the station.”

“We don’t really have anything on him yet. The tape isn’t good enough, unless the FBI can work wonders with it.”

“He doesn’t know how good the tape is,” Hurd said.

“You’ve got a point. Let’s go.”

As they walked into the police station, Bob Hurst was walking out.

“Got a minute, Bob?” Holly asked.

Hurst looked at his watch. “My wife’s expecting me for dinner.”

“You’re going to be late,” Holly said. She led Hurst to interview room one, with Hurd Wallace bringing up the rear, and closed the door behind them. “Sit down,” she said.