by Ellery Adams
No one else spoke. Laurel was crying and Harris had his arm around her. He looked wide-eyed and pale, while Millay’s gaze was fastened on the ground. Her arms were crossed around her chest in a protective posture. No one seemed keen to move just yet.
“Listen,” Olivia began again, forcing gentleness into her tone. “Someone did this to him. To Camden. I know we’re all trying to understand what happened tonight and nothing makes any sense at this moment, but we have to clear out and let the chief do his job.” She removed her car keys from her purse. “And we need to help by writing down anything that might be important while it’s still fresh in our minds.”
“I’m scared!” Laurel exclaimed, her lips quivering. “What if the murderer’s still around? He could be in the bar or driving through one of our neighborhoods this very second! He could know us or have seen us with Camden!” Her eyes darted around the parking lot. “Who would do that to another human being? Millay said his throat...” She couldn’t continue.
Olivia reached out and put a hand on Laurel’s shoulder. “Don’t think about that now. We’ll focus on any details we know about Camden. About his life, not his death. Okay?”
The tender touch seemed to make Laurel cry all the harder and Olivia felt herself whispering, “Hush, hush,” as though she were trying to calm a bereft child. “Come on, everyone. We’ll go back to my place and make some coffee. Let’s get out of the night.”
That last statement echoed with Laurel. “That-that sounds good,” she stammered. “I’ll call Steve from the cottage so he won’t worry.”
Everyone piled into Olivia’s SUV. Haviland stepped onto the center console and nuzzled Olivia with his head. She put an arm around him, and for a moment, buried her face in the fur of his neck, inhaling his familiar scent of wet sand and fresh soil and eucalyptus shampoo. When she released her hold of the poodle, she felt as though the ground had finally returned beneath her feet.
“To your seat, Captain,” she ordered while blinking back tears. She buckled his safety belt and turned toward home.
Back at the cottage, she asked Harris to switch on the gas logs in the living room fireplace and for Millay to brew a pot of strong coffee. Laurel went straight for the phone set up in the small office adjacent to the living room. Olivia winced as she listened as the distraught younger woman sought solace from her husband, only to be denied.
“Is that all you have to say to me after what I’ve been through?” she queried pitifully. But Steve’s reply obviously triggered something in Laurel and with a shout of anger, she slammed the phone receiver back into the cradle.
“I’m sorry,” she told Olivia as she exited the office. “I just could not take one of his lectures on how I belong at home. Not tonight, no sir!”
Olivia nodded, pleased to see that Laurel had more spunk than one might credit her with. “I understand. Why don’t you sit down in front of the fire and I’ll get you something warm to drink. We could all use something to steady our nerves.”
As she hadn’t supplied the cottage with shot glasses, thinking they’d hardly be necessary for informal meetings, Olivia poured splashes of Chivas Regal into disposable coffee cups and distributed them to the others.
“Down the hatch.” Millay raised her glass and tossed back the contents without as much as a flinch.
Harris tried to emulate the motion, but couldn’t help from grimacing slightly after he’d swallowed. Laurel held her nose, downed her drink, and slapped the empty cup on the end table beside her.
“I’d like another, please,” she said in a stronger voice.
Olivia shook her head as Millay stood, heading for the bottle. “Why don’t I stir a little into our coffee this time around? We have to stay awake and alert in order to make our statements.”
Hands cradling cups of laced coffee, the writers positioned themselves close to the fire and to one another. Each of them silently called Camden to mind.
“He was so charming.” Laurel spoke first. “Everyone he met liked him from the get-go. Who’d want to hurt him?”
“Maybe he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Harris suggested. “The crowd in that place looks like they could turn rough pretty quickly.”
Millay snorted. “Yeah, like lightning-strike quick. I could pick out a half a dozen fishermen who might snap because you looked at them sideways. Shit, six or seven of them are totally capable of killing somebody. But to write poetry afterward? That’s not their MO. Seems more like a deranged college prof on an acid trip to me.”
“But what was Camden doing in Fish Nets in the first place?” Laurel demanded. “It’s not like he’d go there to make new friends.”
Olivia couldn’t help but smile. “If you’re referring to Camden making sexual advances to one of the patrons, I can’t see that happening either. Millay? Are you certain you saw him enter the bar?”
Running slim fingers through her blue and black hair, Millay exhaled loudly in vexation. “No. Like I said before, I only saw him reaching out for the door handle. Then I drove past. I just figured he was buying cigarettes or something.” She shrugged. “I was, like, a mile away before I could even believe it was him. Camden and Fish Nets didn’t go together, ya know?”
“Our eyes see what our brain expects them to see,” Harris said in her defense.
A flicker of admiration entered Millay’s dark eyes. “Exactly.” She turned back to Olivia. “I wish I did know if he went inside for sure, but I don’t. I’ll ask around once the cops leave. No one’s going to tell them a thing. Those guys keep things close to the chest.”
Laurel shifted in her seat, tucking her legs beneath her and smoothing out the fabric of her khaki linen trousers. Backlit by the flickering flames in the fireplace, her hair glowed like a golden crown and she instantly seemed years younger. Suddenly, the visage of another, even younger woman sprang into Olivia’s mind.
“Wait a moment,” she said, nearly rising to her feet. “Camden and I listened in when Blake Talbot was discussing his plans for yesterday evening with his girlfriend. From what we overheard, Blake intended to meet some people at Fish Nets.”
“And since Camden’s writing a book based on the Talbot family, he might have gone down there to find out what Blake had been doing there?” Laurel deduced.
Millay shook her head. “No way a rich kid like Blake shows up at my bar. His kind does not hang out there. They’d be at The Cleat and Anchor or the Dorsal Fin, guzzling their microbrews and checking out the waitresses while they stuff their faces with calamari or lobster bites or whatever you eat when you make more dough than all the drinkers in my bar put together.”
The other writers took notice of the proprietary tone in Millay’s voice.
Olivia cleared her throat. “No one’s assuming one of your regular, ah, patrons, is responsible for Camden’s death, Millay. On the contrary, I can’t see that any of those men and women would have had a connection with him at all. Whoever did this wanted to make a point. Thus, the poem.”
“What did it say?” Laurel asked nervously.
“Something about orchards and apples,” Millay replied angrily. “A bunch of crap that made absolutely no sense!”
Recalling that she’d written the haiku in the small notebook she kept in her purse, Olivia dug it out and reread what she had written, frowning over the odd, horticultural imagery.
“What if Camden never went inside?” Harris wondered aloud, his eyes fixed on the shivering flames. “What if he found some clue in the alley?”
“You may be on to something there, Harris. Blake implied that the ‘business dealings’ he planned for last night were rather on the shady side.” Olivia laid the notebook on the sofa and Millay instantly picked it up and began to study the poem. “Perhaps Camden found something not meant for his ears.”
“Or his pen.” Millay stabbed at the paper with her index finger. Olivia noticed that the young woman’s nails bore the remnants of a deep purple polish and were clipped very short, as though to pre
vent her from chewing them. “The first line of the poem says, ‘His words are silences.’”
A little gasp escaped Laurel’s throat. The fear in her eyes shimmered in the firelight. “That can only mean one thing,” she breathed. “The killer knew what Camden did for a living.”
“And there aren’t too many people in Oyster Bay who’d be threatened by the appearance of a celebrity gossip writer,” Harris pointed out. “Except maybe Blake or one of the other Talbots.”
Olivia gestured at the notebook in Millay’s hands. “Either Blake Talbot’s educational background included instruction on how to pen this particular form of poetry, or he had dealings with another person who couldn’t afford to be exposed and has been watching Camden’s every move.”
“Someone who created an impromptu haiku?” Harris seemed doubtful.
There was an authoritative rap on the front door and Olivia turned her head toward the sound but made no other move. She was too busy thinking. “It doesn’t read like a spontaneous piece of writing. It feels specific, tailored, and ...” She glanced anxiously at the other writers. “Premeditated.”
The blast of the foghorn woke Olivia the next morning. The deep, resonating noise caused her to imagine a trumpeting leviathan surfacing from the cold depths of the sea.
Still weary from the night before, she stayed in bed another thirty minutes, listening to the steady, repetitive tolls as the horn warned incoming vessels of the proximity of the shallows.
To Olivia, the sound was as familiar as the beat of her own heart. She remembered, after she’d moved away, how the noises in other parts of the world failed to offer the same level of comfort as the rush of the incoming tide, the blare of a foghorn, the high squawk of a gull, or the clanging of a ship’s bell.
Haviland jumped up on the bed and burrowed under the covers in search of his mistress’s hand. Olivia stuffed it under the pillow, knowing her poodle would lick her palm until she rose and served him breakfast.
“Five more minutes,” she promised, briefly reaching out to scratch Haviland beneath the chin. She watched the tangerine-colored light filter through the bare glass of the master bedroom’s wall of windows.
The foghorn fell silent and Olivia continued to pat Haviland, thinking of Camden.
Last night, when she’d answered the knock on the door of the lighthouse keeper’s cottage, a fresh-faced officer named Cook had strutted in. He assessed them with a cocky glance and bossed them about as though they were schoolchildren. He’d taken their statements and asked a few standard questions, but his mind was clearly elsewhere. Olivia had the feeling the young lawman viewed his being sent out to the lighthouse when the real action was happening downtown an insult to his abilities.
Irritated by his arrogance and disinterest in their observations, Olivia strongly suggested he radio Chief Rawlings and track down Blake Talbot as soon as possible.
“Officer Cook.” Olivia walked over to the policeman and did her best to stand even taller than her five-eleven frame. “You might be handing the chief a suspect on a silver platter. Camden Ford was our friend and we want to see justice done. We’ve told you all we know, now please share our information with your superior.”
Cook bristled at her choice of words and informed the writer’s group that he knew how to do his job.
Millay rose from her position on the couch and came to stand next to Olivia. “Then prove it! Stop pissing around here and find out what Blake Talbot was up to over the last twenty-four hours!” she shouted. “I believe that’s called ‘chasing down an alibi’ in cop talk.”
Listening to Millay, Olivia had to fight to keep from smiling.
Thus bullied by the pair of aggressive women, Cook retreated, but only after issuing a final command that the Bayside Book Writers needed to make an appearance at the station first thing in the morning to review and sign their official statements.
“We’ll be there,” Harris promised. He opened the door and practically shoved the truculent officer out.
After Cook had left, Laurel began to weep again. “I’m sorry, everybody. I’m just so tired. All I want to do is put on my nightgown and sleep for a week. It’s selfish, I know, but I’m scared and mixed up and mad all at once.” She gazed at Olivia with moist eyes. “I wish I could be strong like you.”
“Go on home,” Olivia had answered quietly. “There’s nothing else we can do tonight, and though it might not show, I’m every bit as muddled and shaken, I assure you.”
As the tumult of emotions reflecting the onset of grief assaulted the writers, they said good night to one another and dispersed.
Now, only a handful of hours later, Olivia watched the light turn from an orange pink to a yellow-tinged white. Finally, she kicked off her covers and went into the kitchen to brew coffee. Haviland sat in front of the door, waiting to be let outside.
“Make it brief, Captain. I’m going to fix your breakfast and we’ll have a quick walk before we have to go into town.”
Olivia removed a covered casserole dish filled with organic ground beef cooked in beef broth from the refrigerator. She put water on to boil and poured herself a cup of coffee. While she waited for the water, she placed a bowl of instant grits in the microwave. By the time she’d cooked a cup of rice and mixed it with some fresh peas in a large stockpot, she was done with her cereal. As soon as Haviland reappeared, panting and shaking his ears friskily, she served him his meal and then walked out to the deck to eat a peach.
She listened to the rush of the waves curling onto the shore and relished the ripe, tender fruit. She felt a sudden, unexpected pang of guilt for experiencing such a moment of pleasure and peace.
“Poor Camden,” she whispered into the faint, salty breeze.
Later, she and Haviland took a brisk walk along the shoreline and then Olivia changed out of her sweatpants and dressed in black cotton slacks and a chartreuse scoop-neck T-shirt for her trip to the station.
As she neared Main Street, the bells from the Methodist church began to chime. A second later, those from the Baptist church rang out and the two melodies overlapped each other. Instead of sounding disjointed, the effect was that of a melodious echo and Olivia rolled down her window in order to welcome the music into her car.
On such a morning, she thought, it doesn’t seem possible that last night truly happened.
The Oyster Bay Police Department had been located in the same charming brick building since the late forties. Complete with large arched windows and a façade covered by ivy, it stood across the street from the modern, boxlike two-story building that housed the sheriff’s department and the county jail.
One could walk out the side door of the police station and arrive at a small square with neatly trimmed grass, carefully tended flower beds, sets of wooden benches, and a flagpole flying both the American and the state of North Carolina flags. Just beyond this tidy little park was the county courthouse. Renovated within the last fifteen years, the courthouse was a Greek-revival structure with a corner-stone dated 1836. It was whitewashed brick with chunky white Ionic columns and a frieze carved with an image of the state seal. By far the most impressive building in Oyster Bay, it basked in the early summer sun as though enjoying a well-deserved day of rest.
“You can accompany me into the station, Captain,” Olivia informed her delighted poodle as she pulled into a spot near the courthouse. “They have a K-9 unit, after all, so they can’t protest your presence. Do you remember Officer Greta? We ran into her during your last grooming appointment.”
Haviland barked excitedly. “Quite an attractive and intelligent German shepherd, I would agree. But she’s on the clock when she’s here, Captain, so no flirting. This is all business. Understood?”
Snorting his assent, Haviland trotted next to Olivia. He’d never taken to a leash and, from the time he was a puppy, had responded to verbal commands with incredible acuity. Since her return to Oyster Bay, Olivia had been chastised about leash laws by policemen, fretful mothers, and a bevy of delive
rymen (the most vocal being a terrified UPS driver), but she would rather pay a host of fines than force her poodle to wear such an undignified contraption.
“My dog is smarter than most humans,” was her customary answer, but if someone persisted in lecturing her on leash laws, Olivia would launch into a list of classes she and Haviland had taken to ensure that he’d received top-level training in both hand signals and voice commands. If she felt especially talkative, Olivia would brag about Haviland’s agility and tracking abilities, citing the number of awards he’d won in the canine classroom.
The locals had grown accustomed to seeing Haviland walking alongside his mistress, so when the pair entered the station, their gaits perfectly matched, the female desk sergeant blinked in surprise but said nothing. Olivia wondered if she had Chief Rawlings to thank for receiving no argument regarding Haviland’s presence in the building.
“I’m here to give a formal statement about last night,” Olivia informed the middle-aged woman wearing a snug uniform. “I’d prefer to see Chief Rawlings if I may.”
The woman shook her head and set her lips into a firm, uncompromising line. “Sorry, but he’s real busy.”
“Of course,” Olivia capitulated and took a seat in one of the lobby’s uncomfortable wooden chairs. Haviland sat on his haunches next to her right leg, his soft, brown eyes alight with curiosity.
Five minutes later, Olivia looked up to see who would be taking her formal statement and was most unhappy to be met with the surly visage of Officer Cook.
“Long night?” she asked by way of greeting.
“Yeah.” The policeman eyed Haviland distrustfully for a moment, even though he’d seen the poodle the evening before, and gestured for Olivia to follow him down the carpeted hallway.
They passed by several offices and when Olivia spotted a placard with Chief Rawlings’ name, she peeked around the partially closed door. The chief was on the phone, but he caught the movement from the corner of his eye and waved her inside.
