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  Orchid Beach

  ( Holly Barker - 1 )

  Stuart Woods

  Smart, attractive, and fiercely independent, Major Holly Barker, the army-brat daughter of a master sergeant, has been forced into early retirement at thirty-seven as the result of a scandalous sexual harassment case. With the help of her father, she makes the move to civilian life, becoming deputy chief of police in Orchid Beach, Florida, a small beach town.

  But below the calm, sunny surface of this sleepy, well-to-do coastal island city lies a web of evil and deceit that escalates when a colleague and another associate are brutally gunned down. Holly is alone, a green outsider with no clues to go on, and finding killers won’t be easy for her. Surrounded by a staff of officers she neither knows or trusts, Holly finds help from a most unexpected source – Daisy, a Doberman Pinscher of exceptional intelligence and loyalty who quickly becomes her inseparable companion and protector. But the closer she comes to unraveling the mystery of Orchid Beach, the more dangerous Holly’s life becomes.

  Orchid Beach ranks as one of Stuart Woods’ most inventive and brilliantly drawn works – an entertaining, nonstop tale that will keep readers on the edge of their seats as it races from the first page to its exhilarating conclusion.

  Orchid Beach Stuart Woods

  This book is for

  Carol Nelson and Harry de Polo

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Holly Barker, with the rest of the crowd, was called…

  Chapter 2

  Holly drove across the bridge over the sound at the…

  Chapter 3

  Holly found the municipal building half a block off the…

  Chapter 4

  Two minutes passed before Hurd Wallace made his entrance. Holly…

  Chapter 5

  Holly stopped by the station and took the trash bag…

  Chapter 6

  Holly waited a moment, then got down on her knees…

  Chapter 7

  Holly went through Hank Doherty’s safe and found three hundred…

  Chapter 8

  Holly went back to the station, taking Daisy with her.

  Chapter 9

  Holly lay in a deep sleep, dreaming of nothing in…

  Chapter 10

  Holly stood in front of the little airport terminal building…

  Chapter 11

  Holly picked up some groceries on the way home, avoiding…

  Chapter 12

  Holly was finishing a sandwich at her desk the following…

  Chapter 13

  Holly drove the chief’s car home after work. She stopped…

  Chapter 14

  Holly entered the courtroom and took a seat in the…

  Chapter 15

  Holly followed the two officers into her office and closed…

  Chapter 16

  Holly drove south on A1A and slowed at the spot…

  Chapter 17

  The car was a Toyota Camry, late eighties, before the…

  Chapter 18

  Holly started to change out of her uniform. “I’ve got…

  Chapter 19

  Holly slept alone, though Jackson Oxenhandler had made it clear…

  Chapter 20

  Back at her desk, Holly called in Hurd Wallace and…

  Chapter 21

  Holly drove north on A1A, with Daisy in the front…

  Chapter 22

  Holly worked seven days a week for her first two…

  Chapter 23

  Holly set down the drinks, got the Beretta from her…

  Chapter 24

  Holly heard the surf before she opened her eyes. Then…

  Chapter 25

  They showered together, then went for a walk on the…

  Chapter 26

  They drove north on A1A from the center of the…

  Chapter 27

  Holly nearly fell into the trailer, with Daisy snarling, trying…

  Chapter 28

  Holly woke up at nine forty-five and reached for Jackson,…

  Chapter 29

  Holly and Jackson led the way, followed by Ham and…

  Chapter 30

  Palmetto Gardens had only one listed phone number; apparently all…

  Chapter 31

  On Sunday afternoon Holly, Jackson and Ham took Chet Marley’s…

  Chapter 32

  Jackson used a card with a magnetic strip to open…

  Chapter 33

  Jackson set the little airplane down on the sand, cut…

  Chapter 34

  The middle of the following week, Holly had her job…

  Chapter 35

  Holly was sitting at her desk half an hour later…

  Chapter 36

  They were shown to a table overlooking the ocean and…

  Chapter 37

  Holly stood in the entrance hall of the municipal building,…

  Chapter 38

  Holly drove out A1A to Sebastian Inlet, and took a…

  Chapter 39

  Holly started the next day by asking Jane Grey to…

  Chapter 40

  Harry Crisp looked less like an FBI agent than Holly…

  Chapter 41

  Holly had begun going through the departmental personnel files, something…

  Chapter 42

  Holly didn’t have to wait long. When she got back…

  Chapter 43

  Holly worked late on the personnel files, then went home,…

  Chapter 44

  At eleven o’clock the phone on Holly’s desk rang. She…

  Chapter 45

  Holly sat and waited, staring at Mosely. Daisy made the…

  Chapter 46

  Holly went straight to Jackson’s house after work. One of…

  Chapter 47

  The next morning, Holly was back at her desk. She…

  Chapter 48

  After work, Holly drove out to Jackson’s house, with Hurd…

  Chapter 49

  Rita Morales showed up at the service gate to Palmetto…

  Chapter 50

  Holly sat at Jackson’s dining table and listened to Rita’s…

  Chapter 51

  Ham Barker got into bed and turned on the TV,…

  Chapter 52

  Rita turned up on time for work at Palmetto Gardens,…

  Chapter 53

  Harry Crisp looked at his wristwatch, then at the group…

  Chapter 54

  Holly was wakened from a deep sleep by the telephone.

  Chapter 55

  Holly went into the office like a good girl, but…

  Chapter 56

  Holly got changed and fed Daisy. She still had a…

  Chapter 57

  Holly, Daisy, Hurd, Jackson, and Ham all arrived at the…

  Chapter 58

  At two A.M., after nearly eight hours of briefings and…

  Chapter 59

  Harry Crisp jumped out of his seat. “There’s five!” he…

  Chapter 60

  Holly sat in the dining room of the Palmetto Gardens…

  Chapter 61

  Holly waited for Hurd Wallace to arrive and take over…

  Chapter 62

  The evening was growing cool. Holly and Jackson sat on…

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Praise

  Other Books by Stuart Woods

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER

  1

  H olly Barker, with the rest of the crowd, was called to her feet as the panel of officers filed into the courtroom. She was a spectator now, no longer a witness, but she wanted to be here for this.

  Colonel James Bruno stood at the defe
nse table, ramrod straight, and watched his judges with beady eyes. For the first time since his trial had begun, he was not smiling.

  “Seats!” the clerk of the court called out, and all sat.

  The brigadier general, who was president of the court, cleared his throat. “The following three verdicts have been reached unanimously,” the general said. “As to the first charge, sexual harassment, we have reached a verdict of not guilty.”

  Holly’s stomach shrank into a knot. She locked her knees so that they would not buckle. She knew what could only come next.

  “As to the second charge, attempted rape, we have reached a verdict of not guilty,” the general said. “And as to the third charge, conduct unbecoming an officer, we have reached a verdict of not guilty.”

  “Yes!” screamed a woman in the front row.

  Holly recognized her as Colonel Bruno’s wife. It was the first time she had appeared in court.

  “Colonel Bruno,” the general said, “you are restored to duty. This court is adjourned.”

  Holly made her way slowly through the crowd, ignoring the reporters who were demanding her reaction to the verdict. On her way she came abreast of the young blond lieutenant who had been the other complainant in the case. Holly found her hand and squeezed. The woman was in tears.

  The cold outside air struck like a slap, reviving her, and she saw her father’s car at the curb. She got in beside him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He was dressed in his master sergeant’s uniform and wore the green beret of the special forces.

  “You knew, didn’t you?” she asked.

  Hamilton Barker nodded. “It was in the cards,” he said. “It was Bruno’s word against yours. He’s a West Pointer, and so were most of the court. They weren’t going to destroy his career.”

  “They’ve destroyed mine,” Holly said. She could see the gold oak leaf on her left shoulder out of the corner of her eye.

  “You can request a transfer, and they can’t deny it,” her father said.

  “Come on, Ham. They’d never let me forget it. I’d end up in some unit commanded by a classmate of Bruno’s, and I’d be repeatedly passed over for promotion on some pretext or other.”

  Her father said nothing.

  “I could get a job on a police force somewhere,” she said.

  “Funny you should mention that,” her father replied.

  They sat in a steak house near the base, the ruins of their dinner before them. The talk had been of army, Vietnam and army, and Holly had done all the listening.

  She liked Ham’s friend and old comrade-in-arms, Chet Marley; he was smaller and skinnier than Ham, but he had the same wiry toughness as her father, the same crow’s-feet around the eyes from squinting into the distance. And he seemed very smart.

  “Okay, enough of this old-soldier stuff,” Marley said suddenly. “I’ve got a problem, Holly, and I think you might be the person to help me solve it.”

  “Tell me, Chet,” Holly said.

  “I’m chief of a twenty-four-man force in Orchid Beach, Florida, and there’s a gaping hole where the number-two man ought to be.”

  “Don’t you believe in promoting from within?” Holly asked.

  “I believe in the best man for the job,” Marley said. “Or woman,” he added.

  “You short of good men?”

  “I’m short of experienced men. Most of them are in their twenties. I’ve got one man who’s forty and has experience, but I don’t trust him.”

  “Don’t trust him, how?” Holly asked.

  “He’s a politician, and I don’t like politicians. He thinks he should have my job, which is okay, I guess, except he’d screw it up if he had it.”

  “Why don’t you fire him?”

  “He’s never given me any real cause, and he’s connected with some of the city council.”

  “That’s bad, I guess,” Holly replied. “I’m no politician, but I can see how that could be difficult to deal with.”

  “I’m going to retire next year, and I don’t want him to have my job,” Marley said. “My idea is to bring in an experienced…person, somebody who can take charge and be ready when I go.”

  Holly nodded, but said nothing.

  “I know about your record from your old man,” Marley said, “and I’ve asked around some, too, because I wouldn’t take his word for anything.” He grinned and cast a sideways glance at Ham Barker. “You’re already running more MPs than I’ve got cops. I’ve heard about your unit citations and the level of training and performance you demand from your people, and I like what I hear.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Of course, we’re not the army, and things have to be handled a little different in civilian life, but I think you could get used to that.”

  “I’m sure I could,” Holly said.

  “It’s a nice town, Orchid Beach. It sits on a barrier island halfway down the east coast of Florida, has a population of around twenty thousand, a lot of them retirees.”

  “Lots of tourists?”

  “No, not really tourists. We get the same folks back, year after year, most of them to family beach houses—folks from Atlanta and Charlotte and Birmingham, and a lot of northeasterners. We’ve got no high-rise hotels, no casinos and only a few motels. There’s a small black community and a stable blue-collar group, mostly construction workers, plumbers, electricians, and a few retired military folk. We’ve got a low crime rate and not much of a drug problem, until recently.”

  “How much of a drug problem?”

  “Less than in a lot of small towns, but it’s there, and it has to be dealt with. We don’t have the violent crime that comes with a bad drug problem.”

  “That’s good.”

  “You interested?”

  She certainly was. “Yes.”

  “I can pay you what you’re making as a major,” he said. “There’s no PX, but we’ve got health insurance and a pension plan.”

  “What’s the housing situation like?”

  “Not great. Prices are going up, and cheap houses are getting knocked down and replaced with more expensive stuff.”

  “I live in a trailer here,” Holly said.

  “Bring it with you. I’ve got a friend runs a real nice park south of town, on the river side of the island.”

  “This all sounds very good,” Holly said, her gloom beginning to lift. “Ham’s retiring one of these days, too, and I guess he wouldn’t mind moving south.”

  “Got any golf down there?” her father asked.

  “You bet. Got a great public course and six or eight good private ones—one or two a retired master sergeant could afford to join.”

  Ham turned to Holly. “Chet’s not a bad guy to work for,” he said. “I worked for him for three years, and I didn’t have to kill him.”

  “When can you start?” Marley asked.

  “Hang on, this is all kind of quick,” Holly said.

  “I like decisiveness in a…an officer.”

  Holly stuck out her hand. “You’re on,” she said, “as soon as I can get my resignation in and turn over my command in an orderly fashion.”

  Ham ordered another round of drinks. “My daughter, the cop,” he said, raising his glass.

  “Your daughter, the cop, has hardly ever been anything else,” Holly said, laughing.

  They drank deeply and sat in silence for a moment. Marley seemed to want to say something, but he was having trouble.

  “Was there something else, Chief?” Holly asked.

  “I don’t want to get into this too deep right now,” he said, “but I’ve got a problem you need to know about up front.”

  “Okay, shoot.”

  “Somebody on my force is working for somebody besides me,” he said. “I don’t know who it is, and I don’t know who he’s working for, but I’ve got some suspicions about that.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Could be. Could be more than that. Thing is, I don’t have anything like an internal-affairs depa
rtment, so in addition to all your other duties, you’re going to have to be it. You’ll come to the job without any slant on personalities or on who’s doing what, and I think you can be a lot more objective than I can.”

  “I see.”

  “Does this trouble you?”

  “On the contrary. It intrigues me.”

  Marley grinned. “Good. Like I say, I don’t want to go into all this right here and now, but I promise, your first day on the job I’ll brief you on everything I know. And by that time, I should know a lot more.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Marley sighed deeply. “I’m glad I got that off my chest. I was worried it might make some kind of difference to you.”

  “Not to worry,” Holly said. She lifted her glass. “To Orchid Beach.”

  They all drank again.

  CHAPTER

  2

  H olly drove across the bridge over the sound at the north end of the island and headed down Highway A1A onto the barrier island that contained Orchid Beach. She had already passed Melbourne and Sebastian; Vero Beach lay farther south, on the next island. It was early evening, and she had been driving all day and the day before that, with one uncomfortable night in a cheap motel in between. She was tired.

  At first there was little to see on either side of the road; then she began passing impressive sets of gates with the names of communities inscribed on them. At each there was a guard booth and a security officer to screen visitors. Usually, she couldn’t see much of what lay beyond the gates, but she caught an occasional glimpse of large, expensive houses peeking through the live oaks and palms. She rolled down her window and from the east she could hear the roll of the surf, a pleasant sound. The soft, warm subtropical air was a nice change from the cold weather she had left behind.

  She came to the business district of the town, with rows of neat small businesses on either side of the road and the occasional motel, usually with a NO VACANCY sign out front. Business looked good. She passed restaurants and dry cleaning establishments and a great many real estate offices; then she was back in residential territory, with small subdivisions that, while less ritzy than those on the north side of town, looked prosperous and comfortable. These usually had gates, but no guards, and the houses were more visible from the road.