Stuart Woods - Orchid Blues

"I know Jackson's broker. I'll talk to him."

"Good idea. If you need any immediate funds, I can advance them to you."

"Thanks, Fred, but no."

"That's about it, then. Do you have any questions?"

"No, I don't think so."

They stood up, and he hugged her again. "You call me when you have questions of any kind. Have you made any arrangements for burial?"

"Ham's taking care of that. Jackson wanted to be cremated and scattered without ceremony."

"He told me the same thing."

"Thank you, Fred. I appreciate your help."

She kissed him on the cheek and left.

Holly drove up AIA with Daisy sticking her nose out the window, and across the north bridge, then took a left down a dirt road and arrived on Ham's little island. He had inherited the land and a small house from his old army buddy, who had been Holly's chief until he was murdered.

Ham walked out of the house and gave her a big hug, then held her at arm's length. "You look a little funny," he said, "kind of stunned."

"Stunned is right," she said. She told him about the meeting with Fred Ames.

"Well, I guess you and I are lucky in the people we choose to be close to. I've got my house, and now you've got yours."

"I guess so."

They went into the house and to the kitchen, where Ham had been cleaning fish.

"Fresh out of the Indian River," he said, gutting a sea trout. "The sun is over the yardarm; why don't you pour us a drink?"

Holly went to a kitchen cabinet and found a bottle of bourbon and two glasses. She got ice from the fridge and poured them both a stiff one. They clinked glasses.

Ham raised his glass. "Better times than these."

"I'll drink to that," she replied, sipping the whiskey. This had been their evening ritual since she had been old enough to drink, especially when they were serving on the same post. The bourbon tasted like comfort and friendship.

"You given any thought to what you're going to do?" Ham asked.

"Just what I'm doing," she said. "I'm going to find the people who killed Jackson, and put them in jail and see them tried and convicted, unless they find a way to make it necessary for me to shoot them, which I'd do with pleasure."

"Me, too," Ham said. "As a matter of fact, I was going to offer to do it for you, if you'd look the other way for a minute."

"Tell the truth, I'd rather see them rot in jail."

"I know you don't think much of the death penalty, for a cop, anyway."

She nodded. "That's right. What could be worse than rotting in a Florida prison? Dying would be fun in comparison."

"You got a point, though I favor the penalty, myself, even if I don't get to personally administer it. What about after that's all done? You're a woman of means now; you can do whatever."

"I'm just going to keep on being a cop and keep drinking with you, I guess."

Ham rolled a fillet of fish in flour and dropped it into a pan of hot oil, then he leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

"You sure know how to make an old man happy."

She kissed him back. "I don't see any old man."

"I'm gettin' there, sugar."

"Not you, Ham, not ever."

Ham blinked rapidly. "Oh, shut up and drink your bourbon."

The following morning Holly went back to work on the bank's personnel files.

Hurd Wallace came and leaned on her doorjamb. "Why do you think we'd be more interested in somebody who's new at the bank than somebody who'd been there for a long time?"

"Standard operating procedure," she said. "New employees are more likely to be involved in crimes against their employers than longtime ones. Didn't they cover that when you went to the academy?"

"Yes, they did," Hurd said, "but there's all kinds of reasons for an old employee to get involved: somebody has debts, maybe gambling or drugs; somebody has an affair and wants to run away with the new girlfriend and ditch the wife, needs funds."

"I agree," Holly said. "All I'm saying is let's start with the classically most likely employees and work our way down the list."

"There're two on your desk, there," Hurd said.

Holly picked up a folder. "Emily Harston?"

"Yep, and the other one is Franklin Morris. He's a new manager at the bank, been there four months."

Holly dug out the file. "Came from their home office in Miami; twenty-seven years old, married with a young child, senior loan officer. Would a loan officer know how much money was in the vault on any given day?"

"Probably not, unless he made it his business to know."

Holly turned to the other file. "Emily Harston has been there seven and a half months, a teller. Married, no kids, home address, P.O. Box 1990, Vero Beach."

"Kind of funny to have a post-office box as a home address," Hurd said.

"Good point." Holly turned to the next page. "Here we go: twelve Birch Street, Lake Winachobee. Where's Lake Winachobee?"

Hurd looked blank. "You got me, but there're a lot of lakes in Florida."

Holly got a Florida road atlas from a bookcase and spread it on her desk. Hurd came and looked over her shoulder.

"Well, we've got Lake Okeechobee, to the southwest," she said, pointing at it.

"Florida's largest lake." He pointed at a patch of water to the west. "What's this?"

Holly took a magnifying glass from her desk. "That's it; Lake Winachobee; about a tenth the size of Okeechobee." She looked more closely. "But there's no town by that name, and only one road going to the lake."

"Maybe she lives down that road somewhere."

"Could be. Who talked to her?"

"I'll find out." Hurd went into the squad room.

Holly continued looking at the area of the lake through her glass. Little lines indicated that it was a swampy area.

Hurd came back with Vicky Berg, one of her policewomen. "Here's your interrogator."

"Morning, Vicky. You talked to Emily, ah, what's her name?"

"Harston. Yes, I questioned her."

"What were your impressions?"

"She's late thirties, pretty in a plump sort of way, very quiet. And pregnant, I think, unless her weight just made her look pregnant."

"Anything else?"

"She answered my questions as best she could, gave me a good account of the robbery, but she didn't volunteer anything."

"She was reticent?"

"Yes, much more than the others. All the others I questioned couldn't stop talking about the robbery."

"Did you read anything into that?"

"Not really. I just thought she was probably shy or not a talkative person. She did strike me as being very bright, though; something in her eyes said that to me."

Holly looked back at Emily Harston's personnel file and read from a few lines at the bottom. "Mrs. Harston appears to be an intelligent person, and she has experience as a teller, having worked at a credit bureau at her former home in Idaho. Her former supervisor there gave her a very good recommendation, said she was honest, good at math and very competent." Holly peered at the signature at the bottom of the page. "Looks like it's signed J. Williams."

"His signature is on most of the forms. He must be a personnel officer."

"Has anyone interviewed Mr. Willams?"

"Not yet."

Holly stood up. "I think I'll go see him."

At the bank, Holly asked for Mr. J. Williams.

"That's Mrs. Joy Williams," the receptionist said. She made a quick call. "She's in. Just go up the stairs there; she's in room three-oh-eight."

Holly climbed the stairs, walked down a hallway and found the office. A fiftyish woman in a dark suit rose to greet her.

"Mrs. Williams?"

"Call me Joy, Chief. Have a seat."

Holly sat down.

"I expect you're investigating our robbery."

"I am."

"Well, that's about the most excitement we've ever had around here. I've been here fifteen years, and…" Her face fell. "Oh, my goodness, I'm so sorry. You lost-"