The Last Word

Chapter 11

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.

—NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Had Ray Hatcher shown up at the crowded bar of The Bayside Crab House, the patrons would have done a double take upon seeing his formidable figure. Then they’d have carved a path for him, staring at him out of the corner of their eyes as they drank exotic martinis or microbrews in chilled pint glasses.

In Fish Nets, Ray was just another guy. A few people cast mildly curious looks his way when he first walked in, but their attention quickly returned to their bottles of Bud, shots of whiskey, and games of darts or pool. Smoke hovered in the air like early-morning fog, and Hatcher’s head cut a swath through the white wisps as he moved toward Olivia.

She noticed that one or two locals greeted Hatcher with a nod or a brief clap on the shoulder. This welcome gave Olivia cause to relax. If the hardened fisherman and laborers of Fish Nets knew Raymond Hatcher, then he posed less of a threat to her. Olivia’s father had been one of these men, and as his child, she had a keen sense of the rhythm of their existence, of motoring to the deep waters well before dawn, of the backbreaking work beneath the unrelenting sun, of the thousand tiny cuts to the arms and hands from serrated fish scales. Every face in the bar was marked by the sea, the sun, and the struggle to make ends meet.

Olivia felt as comfortable among these locals as she did mingling with the wealthy and sophisticated diners at The Boot Top. In a sense, she was a child of both worlds, but her father’s confederates would defend and protect her in a way that none of her grandmother’s circle would. The upper-crust members of society that made up her grandmother’s set had been self-serving and remarkably uncharitable. They only rallied around one another to avoid scandal or the loss of assets. Olivia shared her grandmother’s love of the finer things, but she also felt a deep kinship with those whose lives depended on the fickle ocean. It was as though this community who breathed in the salty air and bathed in the cool water for countless years were set apart as a different species of human.

“Damn, you didn’t tell me you were meeting with Sasquatch,” Millay stated in admiration as Ray made his way to the empty barstool next to Olivia. “Good thing you left Haviland at The Boot Top. This could get ugly.”

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!”

Olivia shrank back in the face of his anger, yet she agreed with Raymond Hatcher. Nick Plumley had become rich and famous fictionalizing James Hatcher’s violent death, while Ray hadn’t received a single benefit except for an invitation to speak at the school’s annual fund-raiser.

“You’re right,” she said softly. “I’ll try to amend that. Is Dave still around?”

Hatcher shook his head. “His number came up in Korea. He was in the prime of his life. And he had nothing to leave me but his stories, and that’s why I’m not going to give them away. What happened to his daddy haunted him every day of his life. It haunted my life. That’s why folks owe me for what I know. A price was already paid, you got it? Now it’s my turn to get paid.”

“I do understand. Thank you for agreeing to see me, for sharing this much. It can’t have been easy,” Olivia told Hatcher with as much sincerity as she could and then watched his towering form disappear through the doorway, where it merged into the night shadows.

Millay handed one of her customers a beer and then put her forearms on the bar, bending at the waist to get closer to Olivia. “I hope you didn’t piss him off. That man could strangle you with his pinkie.”

“A sobering thought.” Olivia pushed her nearly full bottle of beer into Millay’s hand. “He may have gotten angry enough at Nick Plumley to have done exactly that.” She dug out her cell phone. “I’d better call Rawlings from outside. Thanks for your help.”

Sliding a new beer down the bar, where it was expertly caught by a shrimper Olivia recognized from her weekly trips to the docks, Millay frowned in puzzlement. “Why thank me? I didn’t do squat.”

Olivia placed a twenty on the bar. “But you would have. You had my back. That matters to me more than you know.”

Embarrassed, Millay began to wipe the bar with a frayed rag. “Somebody has to be your wingman when Haviland isn’t around. It was smart of you to leave him with Michel and the kitchen staff instead of bringing him in here. I’m not sure if he would have responded well to Hatcher’s body language. And I am not paid enough to mop up blood.” Millay pointed a finger at Olivia. “Keep me in the loop, okay?”

On her way to the door, Olivia stopped to exchange small talk with a few of the fishermen she knew from either her childhood or as suppliers to her restaurants. Several offered condolences on the loss of her father, saying that he was a fortunate man to have died in his bed with his family gathered around when all of Oyster Bay believed he’d been claimed by drink and the sea more than forty years ago.

“Part of him did die that night,” Olivia said to one of her father’s former crewmembers as she stood beneath the exit sign, a nimbus of neon red illuminating her pale hair. “That storm took my father and gave him another life, another family. And because of that, I gained a brother. I guess we made a good trade, the ocean and I.”

The man had met Hudson at the docks a few weeks before The Bayside Crab House had opened and now knew him as well as anyone. “You can tell he’s Willie’s boy from a mile off. Both of ’em got thunder in their eyes, but your brother has heart too. He’ll stick by you when you need him most. Sometimes it’s the quiet ones who have the most to say.”

Olivia paused, one hand on the door. She was intrigued by the fisherman’s words. Nodding at him in recognition of his wisdom, she stepped outside and was surprised by the feel of rain against her skin. Shallow puddles reflected the streetlights and electric store signs, and the sidewalks had emptied of people. Olivia walked unhurriedly to the Range Rover, relishing the warm rain and the mingling scents of moist pavement and ocean air. She felt both invigorated and poignantly lonely, and the moment she was inside the dry cabin of her car, she dialed Rawlings’ number.

When he answered, she could hear the din of conversation in the background.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she began, experiencing a pang of disappointment. She’d wanted Rawlings to be alone, to be available to her need, but he clearly wasn’t.

“Hold on,” he commanded, and she could sense him distancing himself from the noise, seeking out a quiet, private place. After a few seconds he said, “I never thought I’d see Haviland without you.”

Olivia started the car and turned her headlights on, shimmering raindrops refracting in the beams. “You’re at The Boot Top?”

“It’s Jeannie’s birthday. This is where she wanted to come, and since it’s the big five-oh, her husband said the sky was the limit. We’re just finishing up dessert now.”

Imagining Rawlings’ kindhearted sister enjoying a slice of Michel’s decadent hazelnut chocolate mousse cake, Olivia pushed down on the accelerator, rocketing the Range Rover through an intersection, water splashing from her tires onto the shiny, black road. “Can we meet for an after-dinner drink in the bar?”

“As long as we stick to coffee,” Rawlings agreed. “I have more work to do tonight.”

Olivia said, “I’ll order coffee for you, but I need something with a little more kick.”

The Boot Top’s parking lot was far from full, but it was past nine on a Monday night, and most of the restaurant’s patrons would have finished with their meals. There were others, however, like Jeannie and her family, who were still lingering over coffee and dessert.

Lately, Michel’s cakes, tarts, and mousses had become even more seductive than usual, and he took great pride in his artistic presentation. His reputation was growing to such an extent that he refused to take any time off, and Olivia worried he might soon collapse from sheer exhaustion.

Entering by the front door, Olivia immediately sought out the hostess and gave her instructions to tell Jeannie’s waiter to comp their entire meal. She then made her way to the bar, where Rawlings waited for her at one of the intimate side tables. A steaming coffee mug sat on a cocktail napkin in front of him and a tumbler of Chivas Regal waited for her.

“You’re a saint,” she told him and took a grateful sip before even bothering to sit down.

Rawlings watched her, his eyes glinting with curiosity. “What’s on your mind?”

“I have another suspect for you,” she said and, without further preamble, told the chief about her conversation with Raymond Hatcher. When she was done, Olivia concentrated on her cocktail, giving Rawlings the silence he needed to digest all she’d imparted.

After two or three very long minutes, the chief put his elbows on the side of his chair, made a temple with his fingers, and rested his chin on his fingertips. “We got the lab results back. The fibers found on Mr. Plumley’s neck matched those on his robe. In other words, he was strangled by the sash of his own robe.”

Olivia recalled the red welt striping the flesh of Nick Plumley’s throat. She said nothing and waited for Rawlings to continue.

“I believe the killer wore latex gloves. Trace amounts of latex were found beneath Mr. Plumley’s fingernails, along with bits of bread and cream cheese from his breakfast.” The chief frowned. “But there’s something odd about these results.”

“Such as?”

Rawlings stood up and walked behind Olivia’s chair. He leaned over, close enough for her to smell coffee and chocolate cake, and put his forearm around her right shoulder. He then pressed his arm backward into the soft flesh of her throat.

“Pretend I wasn’t being gentle,” he whispered into her hair, his breath caressing her neck and sending a pulse of desire through her body. “What would you do?”

Olivia curled her hands and reached for the chief’s ropy forearms. She locked her hands on to his flesh, attempting to free herself from his hold, when in truth, she longed for him to put his lips on the skin just below her jaw line. She wanted to turn her head and capture his mouth in hers, to lock her fingers in his thick hair, pushing the world and all of its interferences away for just a moment.

“See? You’d scratch and claw at my arm, desperate to breathe, doing anything in your power to break free.” Rawlings resumed his seat across from Olivia. He averted his gaze, and she knew he’d felt her hunger for him, that it had shocked him with electricity, like water dripping onto a live wire.

Reaching for her glass, Olivia nodded. “You expected to find the killer’s skin under Nick’s nails.”

“Yes. The nails obviously weren’t cleaned, so I’ve begun to believe that Mr. Plumley also wore gloves.”

Several thoughts vied for attention once the chief voiced this theory. Olivia remembered Shala Knowles and her fellow curators donning their white gloves to examine Harris’s painting. She also envisioned Ray Hatcher showing up at Nick’s house with the photographs the author was so desperate to examine. Plumley would have gladly put on a pair of latex gloves in exchange for the right to view images of Camp New Bern.

Rawlings had come to the same conclusion. “I need to pay a visit to Mr. Hatcher tonight. There are far too many suspects in this case, too many people who’d take a risk in the hope of walking away with a pile of money.”

“Or for the chance at possessing an original work by Heimlich Kamler,” Olivia pointed out. “There must have been half a dozen art aficionados in the curator’s office. Who knows how many people they told about the painting? They knew my name and that I’d come to Raleigh from Oyster Bay. I would have been easy to find . . .” She trailed off, feeling foolish.

The chief dismissed the notion. “The murderer wanted Nick dead, not you. I don’t know how the painting fits into the case or if it has any connection at all, but I need to find Hatcher before it gets any later.”

He put his hand on her shoulder in passing. “Nice work, Olivia.”

Without turning, she felt him leave. It was as if the room grew suddenly duller, the warmth on her skin where his breath and fingers had touched her was replaced by the cool exhalation of air-conditioning. Even the candle sputtered, sending fractured shadows onto the table where Rawlings’ empty coffee cup sat.

At that moment his sister entered the bar, her cheeks flushed from an evening of celebration. “There you are!” she exclaimed merrily. “You shouldn’t have paid for my birthday supper! We barely know each other.”

Olivia smiled. “Fifty is a milestone. I couldn’t resist the chance to do something to contribute to your party.”

“And maybe impress my brother at the same time?” Jeannie winked impishly.

Holding her hands out in surrender, Olivia had to laugh. “You got me. I did have an ulterior motive.”

Jeannie squeezed her on the arm. “Thank you all the same. We’d better be going so you all can close. I’ve never been the last person in a restaurant before, but it sure makes me feel young and adventurous. Good night!”

“Wait! Please.” Olivia put out her right hand, hoping to impede the woman’s departure.

The chief’s sister drew close again. “Go on, I can see that you want to ask me something about Sawyer.”

Olivia cast her gaze down. “I screwed up with him. He was willing to be with me, but . . . well . . . I pushed him away,” she confessed miserably. “How can I prove that I’m ready now, that I know I made a mistake the morning I let him go?”

Jeannie took a long time answering. She seemed to be deciding whether Olivia Limoges was worthy of her brother. Finally, her eyes softened. “He was torn in two when Helen died, so he’s not going to come knockin’ on your door if you’ve already shut it in his face once. He’s going to protect his heart now. You want to claim him?”

Uncomfortable in the face of such a direct question, Olivia clenched her jaw to hold in the uprising of feeling and nodded, her sea blue eyes glittering with intensity.

“Well, then. You’re going to have to do something big. And I don’t mean buy him a yacht or write his name across the sky. Something big is something that scares the life out of you, that makes you tremble in your shoes because it’s chock-full of risk. You show Sawyer what you’re letting me see and he’ll never let you go again.” She raised a finger in warning. “But don’t you mess around with his heart, Olivia. I might be a plump, God-fearing wife and mother, but I’ll tear you to pieces with my bare hands if you hurt him.”

Olivia believed her. “I read you loud and clear. He’s lucky to have such a devoted sister.”

Jeannie shrugged, merriment instantly returning to her round cheeks. “Trust me, I wasn’t always nice to him. He did some terrible things to my doll collection, and I held that against him for years.” She smiled. “Word has it that you have a brother too.”

“Hudson. He and his wife, Kim, and their daughter, Caitlyn, all live here now. And they just had a baby. A boy named Anders.” Olivia felt a pang when she spoke his name. She had an inexplicable urge to get in the car and drive to Greenville, to see the infant’s little face and to watch the steady rise and fall of his small chest. Instead, she silently vowed to call Kim first thing in the morning.

“Whatever it is, the child’ll be just fine,” Jeannie said, correctly sensing Olivia’s anxiety. “Babies are tougher than they look.” A movement near the hostess podium caught her attention. “There’s my gang, waiting on me as usual.” She patted Olivia’s hand. “You take care.”

Olivia watched as Jeannie’s husband slid an arm around her waist and kissed her several times on the brow and then once on the lips. Their teenage children followed behind, looking both embarrassed and protected by their father’s open display of affection.

When they’d gone, the emptiness of the restaurant resonated around Olivia. It was only when the waitstaff turned up the lights in the dining room and set about their closing tasks that Olivia was able to shake off her stupor and head through the swinging doors to greet Haviland.

In the kitchen, the sous-chefs weren’t exchanging their usual insults and lighthearted banter. Instead, they were strangely silent. The dishwasher’s banging and splashing reverberated against metal pans and mixing bowls, and no one looked up when she approached.

Olivia paused, glancing from her office door, which was closed, to the sous-chefs. They wouldn’t meet her inquisitive gaze, but their hands betrayed their feelings, straying to twist water from a dishrag or to diligently polish an already gleaming knife blade.

Without bothering to knock, Olivia threw open the door to her office and let out an involuntary gasp.

There was Michel, one arm wrapped around a woman’s back, his free hand stroking her wheat blond hair. Her face was buried in the chef’s neck, and though Olivia couldn’t quite hear the words she whispered, the raw desire behind them was clear enough, tainting the air with a heady, cloying perfume like that of a million jasmine blossoms opening at once.

Haviland bounded up from his position on the floor and gave Olivia a toothy smile. She reached for him and, at the same time, found her voice.

“Laurel Hobbs! What the hell is going on here?”