“Do you wanna know it all?” Wheeler asked, and Olivia knew that he hoped she’d say no.
“I do,” she answered without pause. “We’ve all been involved, my friends and I, in some way or another. I need to know.”
Wheeler hesitated. “I hate to have you look at me with different eyes, but it’s too late to fret about that now.” He took a long drink of sun tea, and Olivia was aware that she had never heard Wheeler speak as much as he had for the past few minutes. The effort was draining him, the paper-thin wrinkles beneath his eyes drooped lower on his cheek and his breath was slightly labored.
“I didn’t have a plan,” he began slowly. “Just spent the whole night imaginin’ how Plumley had killed Evie. They didn’t whisper about that part, he and that Cora woman, and I only heard as much as I did because she thought he wasn’t gonna pay up anymore. She started hollerin’ at him when I was in the kitchen diggin’ around for more coffee filters, but I heard. I heard her mention Evie and what Plumley did to her with her own pillow. I nearly went blind with hate. It crippled me, or I would have killed the man then and there.”
“Cora Vickers,” Olivia said. “She and Boyd came to Oyster Bay to collect Cora’s scheduled payment. Plumley had to pay or she’d sell the story of what he’d done to Evelyn to the highest bidder.”
“I don’t know the ins and outs, but Plumley was stallin’, tellin’ her to be patient. Guess he’d been burnin’ through his book money real quick—seems he was a gambler and not a very good one—and had to wait for some check to come in. That’s when his ex said Evie’s name, and I felt like Ziegler had sucker punched me all over again.” He put his glass down, hard, and strung his fingers together. “The next mornin’, I grabbed Plumley’s favorite bagel and drove over to the big house he was rentin’ near yours.” He frowned. “I never thought you’d find him,’Livia. If there’s somethin’ I really regret, that’s it.”
Olivia touched him on the arm. “Go on.”
Wheeler nodded. “He was in his robe with a cup of coffee in his hand when I rang the bell. He was surprised to see me, but he asked me in. I sat across from him at the table and told him my real name. I told him how Evelyn White had been the shinin’ star, the brightest memory of my life and how a day didn’t go by that I didn’t think of her.”
“Wow.”
“I asked him if what that Cora woman said was true. For a second he thought about lyin’, but he knew I’d already seen the answer in his eyes.”
It was impossible for Olivia to imagine how Nick’s confession had impacted Wheeler, and she listened in astonishment as her old friend continued to talk about the moments leading up to Nick Plumley’s death.
“He told me how she’d read his book and nearly lost her mind. She was that upset. He promised that he’d just wanted to get her to hush up, and that before he even knew it, he’d killed her.” Wheeler’s hands curled into fists. “He acted sorry while I was starin’ him down, but then he managed to finish most of his breakfast. What kind of man can do that?”
Turning her gaze to the horizon, where smudges of gray clouds hung low in the sky, Olivia thought about Wheeler’s question. “A man who could no longer separate fact from fiction. I think Plumley had come to believe his own version of the truth. It allowed him to survive, to act normal.”
Wheeler didn’t acknowledge Olivia’s reply. “Seein’ him eat with the same hands he’d used to snuff the life outta my Evie . . . I felt myself growin’ cold all over, deep into my bones. Every part of me was cold. I thought I’d surely see my own breath . . . I had the gloves I use for handlin’ food in my pocket and I put them on. Then I unrolled a painting I’d done when I was in prison. It was nothin’ special. Just a bunch of guys smokin’ and play-in’ cards, but I told Plumley he needed to wear gloves if he wanted to touch it.”
“And he put them on?”
Wheeler said nothing. The answer was obvious. “Then I walked behind him while he was porin’ over the painting, slid the belt off his robe, and paid him in kind for what he’d done to my sweet, darlin’ girl.”
After a moment, he placed his hands on his chest. “I know I don’t look strong, but I’ve worked every day of my life. It was over quick enough, but it felt like I was watchin’ myself from far away. I barely remember doin’ it. Then I saw the book . . .”
“You stopped to read the scene in The Barbed Wire Flower, the one that had upset Evelyn so much, the one depicting you as the villain,” Olivia finished for him. When he still didn’t say anything, she said, “It brought back all you’d lost.”
But Wheeler had retreated somewhere within himself, and Olivia didn’t try to draw him out. Her time was almost up and she wanted to say something comforting and poignant before Rawlings arrived, but when she most wanted to have the right words at her power, they zipped off like dragonflies.
“Evelyn always believed in your innocence,” she spoke into the silence. “I visited her old friend Mabel in a nursing home. She told us that Evie never doubted you.”
A light surfaced in Wheeler’s eyes. “We showed her the painting Evelyn hid inside her house,” Olivia continued. “Do you remember it?”
Wheeler smiled. “It was her favorite. She’d never seen snow, so I made her snow. She wanted me to paint a place in the woods, a place we’d build someday up in the mountains. Every time we had an art lesson, she’d ask me what a snowflake felt like. If they were really as different as stars. I promised her a million snowfalls as soon as the war was over.” He sighed heavily, decades of sorrow in his breath.
“It’s a beautiful piece,” Olivia said softly. “People all over the country admire your work. Your paintings are worth tens of thousands of dollars.”
At this, Wheeler released a dry laugh. “There’s a sucker born every minute. I’ve got a pile of them in the bedroom. Besides fishing, it’s how I pass the time. You can have the lot, ’Livia. I won’t be takin’ them with me.”
Olivia heard the rumble of a car engine and knew that her hour was up. She needed to tell Wheeler that Evelyn had given birth to a child, his child, but she was still taking in everything he’d told her. She was overwhelmed by stories and images, by the past and the frightening future that would become the present the moment Chief Rawlings knocked on Wheeler’s door.
Wheeler stood up and made his way to the bedroom. He walked over to a large pine storage chest and lifted the lid. Removing a stack of unframed watercolors tucked between two pieces of cardboard, he untied the twine securing the package and fanned out a half dozen paintings on the top of the pile, Olivia observing him in mute awe.
There were scenes of men working at a paper mill, men and women harvesting peanuts, fishermen at the docks, shopkeepers sweeping their sidewalks, and a baker kneading dough. Olivia’s favorite was a landscape featuring an elderly couple strolling hand in hand on a white beach. They were just smudges of peach skin and gray hair, disappearing into a large blur of blue sea and sky, but she couldn’t take her eyes from them.
“Take it,” Wheeler said tiredly. “Take ’em all.”
Olivia stared unblinkingly at the watercolor couple, walking shoulder to stooped shoulder, two people who’d loved a lifetime together and knew how to take the time to enjoy a moment of peace and beauty.
She could not condone what Wheeler had done. Even in the name of revenge, even after what he’d suffered, she could not support his act of violence. Yet, his crime did not blot out the other things she knew about him, the other ways she knew him—all the years they’d shared snippets of gossip, laughter, or quiet conversation. He was still the man who supported a Little League team each year, who donated the day’s leftover bagels and pastries to the food bank, who supported local artists by hanging their work on the café’s walls. He’d always spoiled Haviland and treated Olivia like a daughter.