Ignoring Millay, whose hair was gelled into a cresting wave of black and silver down the center of her head, Olivia greeted Ray and asked him what he’d like to drink.
“You buyin’?” he asked, his mouth curving into the hint of a smile.
Olivia nodded. “That was part of the deal.”
After requesting a whiskey and soda, Ray eased himself onto the stool, casting a nervous glance at his feet as the wood creaked and groaned in protest.
“It’ll hold,” Millay said, serving Ray his drink. “Trust me, these old stools have borne more weight than you’re carrying. Guess it’s a good thing we don’t serve food.”
Ray studied her. “You’ve got some wild hair. Reckon I like it.” He then pivoted his massive trunk so that he faced Olivia. “Tell me about this book you’re writing.”
Olivia took a sip of beer and tried not to grimace. It had grown warm while she’d waited for Ray to arrive. “First, let me figure out how much you already know so I don’t waste your time. Did Nick Plumley interview you or make arrangements to do so?”
“He called a time or two,” Ray answered cryptically.
Undeterred, Olivia held his inscrutable gaze. “And?”
Ray’s eyes slid away from hers and he took a slug of whiskey. “I went to his house. He wanted me to bring the pictures I have of the prison camp. See, my older brother Dave went to work with James most days when he was a kid. It was a long time ago, but I remember hearing all kinds of things about that place. Dave and I were real close, and he used to tell me about the men there when I was little, kind of like his own brand of bedtime stories, but I guess your writer friend wasn’t as interested in them as he let on.”
Olivia tried to conceal her eagerness. This man had photographs of Camp New Bern? And Plumley hadn’t been interested? Suddenly, Olivia understood what had happened. “He wasn’t willing to pay your price,” she hazarded a guess.
Swallowing the rest of his whiskey in one gulp, Ray slammed his glass against the bar, sending russet-colored droplets across the battered wood. “Look, lady, before you go judging me, let me give you a little glimpse of my life. I’m sixty-six and I drive a forklift for a living. I’m still making mortgage payments on my piece-of-crap house, and what’s left over from that at the end of the month is soaked up by the regular bills.” Warming to his subject, he leaned toward Olivia, breathing whiskey in her face. “I’ve got nothin’ saved for a rainy day, let alone my so-called retirement. At this rate, I’ll die on that goddamn forklift. Forty years I’ve done that job. All I want is a break.”
Scanning the room, Olivia wondered how many of the grizzled men and women felt as Ray Hatcher did. Life wasn’t easy, but for some of the Fish Nets patrons, it had been especially tough.
In a place like this, most people wore their physical and emotional scars with pride, but Ray had passed beyond that point. He was weary of the struggle, and Olivia was aware that this could make him especially dangerous. If he had nothing to lose, he might very well take a serious gamble to get what he wanted. Clearly, what he desired most was money, and Nick Plumley had refused to pay.
“I’m not judging you,” she assured Ray. “Information is a commodity. You possess photographs and personal experiences that no one else does. I can understand why you’d be unwilling to sell them cheaply.” Furrowing her brows, she suddenly asked, “Why did you call him James? You didn’t say ‘my father.’ ”
“’Cause he wasn’t. James Hatcher died before I was born.”
Completely intrigued, Olivia put her palm on the bar, signaling for Millay to refill Ray’s glass. “Would you entertain another offer? For both the photos and your memories?”
Ray made a point of thanking Millay for his drink and then shrugged. “I can tell you plenty of stories.” He tapped his temple. “Those are safe in storage and I’ll sell you as many as you want, but the pictures are with a college professor right now. He’s kind of . . . renting them out. So if you want to pay to see them too, it’s fine by me, but you’ll have to wait.”
“Is he at UNC?” Olivia asked.
“How’d you know that?” Ray’s expression became instantly suspicious.
Olivia decided to be honest. “I stumbled across his name on the Internet while searching for yours. Professor Billinger, right?” It was obvious from Ray’s frown that she was correct. “Look, I’d love to see the photos. I can pay you immediately for the right to examine them. If it’s okay with Professor Billinger, I’ll just drive to his office in Chapel Hill and ask for a quick viewing. I’m sure he won’t mind.”
“He might, seeing as he’s also writing a book.”
Placing an envelope on the bar, partway between her bottle of beer and Ray’s glass of whiskey, Olivia said, “I’ll take my chances. Do I have your permission to contact Professor Billinger?”
Ray palmed the envelope, dropped it down to his lap, and hunched his shoulders so that he could quickly count the money without drawing attention to his actions. He seemed satisfied by the contents. “It’ll do.”
Olivia decided to take advantage of the moment. “Did Plumley share any details with you about his sequel?”
Ray regarded her curiously. “You’d know more about that than me.”
“Please,” she said. “His notes and laptop are missing. I’m working blind here.”
While swirling the dregs of whiskey in his glass, Ray seemed to be deciding how much to tell her. “James Hatcher was killed when those Krauts escaped. Everyone’s always asked me about that night, wondering what my brother Dave remembers, but Plumley told me he’d already written about it in his first book. Said he was more interested in what the prisoners were like before they decided to murder an innocent man. What life was like when things were peaceful at the camp. He had it in his head there was a local woman involved with one of the German scums that got away in ’45. He was going to write about how they fell in love.”
The note on the back of Heinrich Kamler’s painting surfaced in Olivia’s mind. “A local woman. Was her name Evelyn White?” she said.
Ray narrowed his eyes angrily. “Like I said, your writer didn’t take me up on my offer, so I didn’t answer any of his questions any more than I’m going to sit here and answer yours. This is payment for looking at the photos. That’s it.” He stood abruptly. “You know where to find me when you’re ready to get down to business.” He waved the envelope at her. “And it’ll take more than this.”
“Please, I don’t mean to sound callous,” Olivia said after a brief hesitation. “And I know you said that you were very close to Dave. But James, a man you’d never met, died before you were born. Why does this affect you so much?”
Olivia expected Hatcher to explode with rage, but he seemed to welcome the question. “Agnes Hatcher adopted me when I was only a few weeks old. She’d gone to the orphanage looking for a sweet little girl. A pretty thing to take her mind off her grief, but she picked me instead. She and Dave were the only family I’ve ever known. Times were real tough for the Hatcher clan after James was killed, but I don’t remember much of that. All I know was that Kraut Kamler stabbed their husband and daddy in the back like a yellow-bellied coward. I watched that loss tear them up inside with every year that passed.”
Olivia watched as Hatcher’s fingernails dug into the bar and a deep, slow-burning rage surfaced in his eyes. She could see that Plumley had awakened sleeping demons by contacting this man. Hatcher had gone silent for a moment, but then he directed his ire at Olivia. “Because of Kamler, I never had a chance to have a father. And you people are almost as bad—you write your books and make money off of James Hatcher’s murder. Money nobody in the Hatcher family ever sees! You’re a bunch of leeches!”