Orchid Blues

28

Holly was on the way to work when her cell phone rang. "Holly Barker," she said into the instrument.

"It's Hurd," he said. "Franklin Morris's car has been found."

"Where?"

"At the Pirate's Cove Marina, in Sebastian."

Sebastian was the next town north of Orchid Beach, on the Indian River. "He didn't go far, did he?"

"Nope."

"Grab the tech and meet me there."

"You know the place?"

"I know it. It's near that seafood restaurant, Captain Hiram's, isn't it?"

"That's the place."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes," she said, then punched off.

The Pirate's Cove Marina had fallen on hard times and had been closed for the better part of a year, not having found a buyer who would rescue it from bankruptcy. Holly remembered it from when she had first arrived in town, and, she thought, it had gone downhill fast. There was a chain at the entrance, with a sign saying, Strictly No Admittance. Trespassers Will Be Shot. The chain was lying in the dirt road.

Holly parked and got out of the car. A small group of people were standing down at the water, next to a boat ramp. A Sebastian police car was there, too, and a wrecker. Holly walked down to the ramp.

"Good morning, Sergeant," she said to the Sebastian cop. "I'm Chief Holly Barker from Orchid Beach."

"How you doin'?" he asked, looking her up and down.

Holly was used to that and ignored it. "I hear you found a car we've been looking for."

"There it comes," the cop said, nodding toward the water. The wrecker's cable stretched down the ramp and into the water, and the machinery was making terrible groaning sounds. A foot at a time, the Chrysler convertible backed up the ramp, leaking water. "That's too nice a car for somebody to do it that way," the cop said.

A man wearing a wet suit walked over, a set of fins in his hand. "That ain't all that's down there, Sergeant," he said. "There's a van and a trailer, too." He pointed. "Right about yonder."

"Well, that's the damndest thing I ever heard of," the cop said.

"We've been looking for all three," Holly said. She looked down at the rear end of the convertible. "Sergeant, would you do me a favor?"

"If I can," the sergeant replied.

"Will you run the plate on that convertible for me?"

"Sure," the cop said and went to his patrol car.

Holly watched the car continue its progress up the ramp. Finally, it was high and dry enough for the wrecker to tow it to one side. The man in the wet suit unhooked the cable from the convertible's rear bumper and began pulling the hook toward the ramp. "One down, two to go," he said, half to himself. A moment later, he pulled down his mask, put on his flippers and walked down the ramp until he disappeared underwater.

Hurd pulled up in his unmarked car, with the tech beside him in the front seat. He got out and walked over to where Holly stood, glancing at the convertible. "It got wet, huh?"

"Yep," Holly said, "and the van and the trailer are still out there." She turned to the tech. "See what you can find in the convertible," she said. "Sergeant, you mind if my tech goes over the car?"

"Well, if you'll share information, that'll be all right. Save our man a trip down here."

The horse trailer was backing up the ramp now, spilling water from between its slats. "Fully loaded with furniture," Holly said. "Now, I wonder where Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Morris could be?"

"Afoot, I reckon," Hurd said.

The sergeant came back from his patrol car. "The plate on the convertible belongs to a Buick in Fort Lauderdale," he said. "Reported stolen eight months ago-the plate, not the car."

"Thanks, Sergeant." She turned to Hurd. "Morris took a pretty big chance driving around with that plate on his car. If he'd been stopped for speeding or a broken taillight, he'd have been in trouble. Tell our man to get the VIN off the convertible, and let's run that. I'm sure the convertible must have been stolen, too."

The diver was going back into the water with the hook again.

"I don't get it," Hurd said. "If they were going to ditch the vehicles, why didn't they just walk away from the house and leave everything there. Why go to the trouble to pack everything up, then dump it all in the river?"

"Doesn't make any sense, does it," Holly said, half to herself. She was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

The van started up the ramp now, water pouring from an open driver's-side door.

"Come on, Hurd," she said, then started down the ramp. She approached the vehicle, taking care not to touch it. "Raymond!" she yelled, "get over here."

The tech trotted toward them, carrying his bag.

Holly stuck her head inside the van. The front seat was empty, but a woman's foot, wearing a sock, but shoeless, rested on the back of the passenger-side seat. Holly looked into the rear seat. "Mr. and Mrs. Morris, I presume."

An hour later the tech had finished. "They each took two in the head," he said, "small caliber, probably a twenty-two, maybe a twenty-five caliber. No exit wounds, so the ME will recover the lead. A lot of trauma about the head and shoulders, too-both of them."

"How long have they been in the water?" Holly asked.

"The ME will give us a final answer, but my best guess is, since the night they disappeared. They're pretty soggy but well preserved. The water is cool, down by the bottom, I reckon."

"I guess that tells us that Franklin Morris wasn't working independently," Holly said. "Whoever he was working with must have thought he was too much of a liability after the robbery."

"And who do you think that would be?" Hurd asked. "The folks out at Lake Winachobee?"

"This doesn't add up at all," Holly said.

29

Holly, in a phone conversation with the Sebastian chief of police, arranged for her department to take possession of the two bodies and three vehicles, then she had the bodies removed to the Orchid Beach medical examiner's offices and the vehicles taken to the police garage, with orders that no one was to touch them until she arrived. Then she went to her own office and called Harry Crisp.

"We've found Franklin Morris and his wife," she said.

"Locally?"

"Next town up. Both cars and the trailer had been rolled down a boat-launching ramp at a defunct marina. Both bodies were in the car."

"Cause of death?"

"My tech says two each in the head, but the ME hasn't done his report yet. You want to send somebody up here?"

Crisp thought for a moment. "How long have the bodies and the vehicles been in the water?"

"My tech says since the couple disappeared."

"Have you been over the vehicles yet?"

"No, I wanted to talk to you first."

"If they've been in the water for that long, we're unlikely to find anything useful. Why don't you have your man go over the vehicles, then send me his report, along with the ME's."

"Glad to do it," Holly said, relieved, as she didn't want to wait for Harry's people before starting on the vehicles.

"Get back to me," Harry said.

As she hung up, it occurred to Holly that the FBI wasn't much interested in the Morrises; they were small potatoes.

Holly went to see the medical examiner. The two bodies lay side-by-side on stainless-steel tables in the lab, with a sheet over each. On a smaller table nearby, two piles of clothing and possessions lay.

The ME took a deep breath and started. "Cause of death is easy: two gunshot wounds to the head of each."

"How long have they been dead?"

"Probably since soon after they left their rental house," he replied. "Before they were shot, their hands were secured behind them with duct tape, and they were pretty badly beaten up; you might say, tortured. Both show evidence of lots of blunt trauma, probably from fists and boots."