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 prevent 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.