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“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.”
