by Ellery Adams
The reporter murmured a question and the woman squared her shoulders and declared, “Of course I’m relieved to hear it’s still going through. I am a business owner, you know. Pink Lady Cleaners, that’s me. We have two locations, here and—”
But the woman’s plug was cut short when the reporter spotted Olivia and Haviland. Several cameras swung around to capture her image and she turned her head from the penetrating stares of their zooming lenses.
“Ms. Limoges! Ms. Limoges!” voices shouted, all vying for attention. “Is it true you aided the police in their investigation?”
“Is your dog a trained tracker?” another yelled.
“Are you romantically involved with Chief Rawlings?” she heard just before entering the relative quiet of the station’s lobby. After checking in with the desk officer, she and Haviland sat down and curiously observed the comings and goings of familiar faces. Ed Campbell appeared from a closed door off the lobby. He nodded at her deferentially and then steeled himself to exit the building. Marlene Gibbons arrived in the lobby shortly afterward. Upon seeing Olivia, she came over to say hello.
“For what it’s worth, I admire your passion concerning the preservation of our current ecosystem,” Olivia told her.
Marlene’s brows furrowed in anger. “Then why didn’t you vote against the development? I thought you were on my side. And the environment’s side.”
“I am, but I’m on the side of the townsfolk first,” Olivia retorted gently. “This development will create dozens of new jobs. Plenty of people need those jobs. As much as I like birds and snapping turtles, these people are my neighbors. They need this.”
Releasing a weary sigh, Marlene rose. “I’d always choose animals and plants over people. I just see them as being more worthy of existence, I suppose.” She smiled ruefully at Haviland. “You’re a fine example of such a noble creature. I wish I’d brought of few of my pets with me today. I’d have felt much more confident with my iguana sitting on my shoulder.” She ruffed Haviland’s ears. “Now I’m going to have to fend off the press with sharp words instead.”
Olivia wished Marlene good luck and resumed a pose of patience. However, she quickly grew restless as the station continued to hum with activity.
Finally, Officer Cook strode into the lobby and waved for her to follow him to his desk.
The young man’s appearance betrayed his exhaustion. The puffy skin around his eyes, his stubbly chin, and his rumpled uniform indicated an all-night shift.
“I should have brought you coffee,” Olivia began, attempting friendliness.
Cook waved off the suggestion. “I’ve had so much I can hardly hold my pen. I’m gonna fall flat on my face when I finally get home, but it’ll be worth it. I told you we’d nail the bastard.”
Olivia studied the smug gleam in the officer’s eyes. There was no way to explain to someone half her age that there was nothing to celebrate. Many lives had been destroyed or altered beyond repair. The arrest of Atlas Kraus would never restore the damage already done. Instead, she dipped her chin ever so slightly, gifting Officer Cook with a show of respect. “So you did, Officer. So you did.”
It took over an hour for Olivia to give her statement. Rawlings had put the fear of God in all his men, saying that each and every testimony, regardless of how brief or seemingly inaccurate, had to be recorded with the utmost precision. Olivia understood the chief’s position. After all, the cases were now a matter of national significance. Rawlings undoubtedly wanted to show the world that the members of the Oyster Bay Police Department knew how to wrap up a case with professional efficiency.
Despite her appreciation of the circumstances, Olivia was thoroughly cross by the time Cook reviewed her statement for the third time. “Just let me read it and I’ll tell you if it’s accurate!” she snapped.
At that moment, an officer walked by the desk and Haviland caught the scent lingering on his pant leg. He barked excitedly, causing all of the policemen in the room to shoot dirty glances at Cook.
“He smells Greta, your K-9 unit,” Olivia explained in defense of her dog’s unwelcome clamor. “Quiet, Haviland!” she hissed at the poodle. “Your parts don’t even function, so it would be a futile flirtation in any case!”
Haviland growled and stalked off after Greta’s partner.
Olivia grabbed the printed statement from Cook’s hands, signed her name with a flourish, and marched out in search of her mutinous poodle. Cook pushed back his chair with a jerk but was simply too tired to wrangle with the obstinate woman. Instead, he placed her statement in a file folder and turned toward the lobby in order to retrieve another witness.
Haviland had followed Greta’s partner into the station’s kitchen and was sitting in front of the refrigerator in a posture of angelic expectation.
“Manners,” Olivia remonstrated, and together, they continued down the hall toward the exit. As they passed Rawlings’ office, the door opened. Roy and Annie Kraus stepped out into the hallway. They wore the numb expressions of car-accident survivors. Annie’s glazed eyes met Olivia’s but then the other woman rapidly looked away. She took her husband’s arm and hung on as though she couldn’t stand of her own volition. Roy put his hand on Annie’s lower back and Olivia noticed that every one of the cuticles on his free hand had been shredded. Several drops of blood beaded at the base of his index finger and Olivia wondered if Roy had been gnawing at his fingers throughout the entire interview with Rawlings.
“Ms. Limoges,” Roy croaked, staring at some point beyond her head.
Part of Olivia wanted to move toward the couple, but she recalled all too well how she’d felt after her mother’s death and her father’s disappearance. She didn’t want to speak a word or have anyone reach out to her. She only wanted to wander alone with her grief, her pain visible only to the anonymous ocean. Olivia was always deeply grateful to her grandmother for providing her with both safety and solitude. Jacqueline Limoges did not speak unless absolutely necessary and Olivia valued the long stretches of silence
“I’m sorry,” Olivia said, knowing full well that the words were insufficient.
Mechanically, the couple nodded and shuffled toward the lobby. Olivia ducked into the chief’s office and exclaimed, “You can’t let them go out the front! The press will swarm all over them!”
Rawlings raced after the Krauses without comment. While he was redirecting the shell-shocked couple to the back door, Olivia and Haviland settled in his office to wait for his return.
“Coffee?” Rawlings placed a mug on the desk in front of Olivia. “Thank you for helping them avoid the media. They have enough to deal with without having microphones and cameras shoved into their faces.”
As the chief sank into his chair, Olivia scrutinized him. With more than twenty years on Cook, Rawlings looked much the worse for wear than his junior officer. The skin on the chief’s face was gray tinged, his salt-and-pepper hair was plastered to his scalp, and coffee stains were sprinkled across the front of his shirt.
“This is the miserable part of being a cop,” he said as he cupped his hands around his mug. “Times like these. I will see the hidden emotions and the private and often unpleasant faces of the people in this community. They’ll come in here over the course of the next twenty-four hours—drunk, cursing, elaborating, glory-seeking, and, like Roy and Annie back there, completely sucker-punched.” He pressed his palms against his eyes. “At least you’re a straight shooter, Olivia. Just having you sitting across from me allows me a moment to breathe.”
Olivia was surprised to find the restlessness she’d felt in Cook’s presence had passed now that she was with Rawlings.
I feel so at ease with this man, she thought once again and was looking forward to the time when he would join the writer’s group, not as the chief of police, but as another writer. And as a friend.
Aloud, she quipped, “I suppose you had several volunteers willing to perform the lethal injection.”
Rawlings looked pained. “Half the town w
ould prefer to bypass the court system entirely. As a society, we’re never as far away from lynch mobs as we’d like to think.”
He took a sip of his coffee and then caught a drip from the side of the cup with the tip of his finger and licked it away with a flicker of his tongue.
“How did this whole mess begin ... Sawyer?” Olivia tried out the chief’s given name. “How did Atlas become so estranged from his daughter?”
Picking up a thick case file from the surface of his desk, Rawlings smoothed the cover and shook his head, his eyes sorrowful. “Mr. Kraus was always going to lose his wife. Jessie Kraus had wanted to leave Atlas early on in their marriage. He’d roughed her up a bit over the years—not enough to create a paper trail, but enough to force her to tread carefully when she finally decided to divorce him.”
“And her maiden name was St. Claire?” Olivia surmised.
Rawlings nodded. “Well, she and Heidi moved out of their house one night while Atlas was at his favorite watering hole. The divorce papers were served early the next morning. Atlas tracked his wife and daughter from Iowa to Pasadena, California, where Jessie and Heidi had relocated to live with Jessie’s new man.”
“I can only imagine what happened when he found them,” Olivia stated anxiously.
“Luckily, Heidi was at school when her father showed up. Jessie’s fiance was at work, but she was home. Her new guy was a structural engineer, so she didn’t need to hold down a job anymore and she was happily folding laundry when her ex-husband arrived. By the time Atlas was done with her, she was so bruised and broken I couldn’t recognize her in the photos. She had ... imprints from the iron on her back and stomach.”
Olivia shuddered. “Why wasn’t he arrested?”
“He disappeared. Fled the state. He then picked up construction jobs, the kind involving hard labor. The kind where the bosses don’t ask too many questions. Atlas told me he’d routinely return to Pasadena between jobs in order to see what kind of woman Heidi was becoming. He even watched a few of her school plays, hiding in the back row with a hat pulled down over his brow. He told me he knew after the first play that she’d take Hollywood by storm. Looks like he was right.”
“Was it merely a coincidence that his brother-in-law lived in the same town where the Talbots owned a beach house?” Olivia asked in astonishment.
“Not quite. Roy never knew the specifics regarding Atlas’s familial strife and while his younger brother kept in contact over the years, their conversations were brief and sporadic. When Roy was thinking about purchasing a B&B, it was Atlas who steered him to purchasing a house in Oyster Bay. Atlas believed Heidi might visit here eventually, being that she’d had a crush on Blake since she first saw photos of him in some celebrity magazine. Atlas knew that Heidi had pictures of the boy all over her room and taped onto the covers of her schoolbooks.”
Olivia imagined Atlas inside his daughter’s bedroom, fingering her belongings, reading her diary, and inhaling her scent. The thought was repulsive. “Did he sneak into his ex-wife’s house to spy on Heidi as she grew up?”
“Several times,” Rawlings answered. “Even after Heidi was signed for that TV show, she admitted to members of the media that she couldn’t wait to meet Blake now that they traveled in similar circles. Atlas was irrationally jealous of Blake before Blake and Heidi even met and started dating. He wanted his daughter’s attention and resented how Heidi idolized and then, once they started dating, clearly loved Blake.”
Olivia frowned. She’d tried to work out how Atlas Kraus had approached Max Warfield or Blake Talbot as the two men came from remarkably different worlds than the blue-collar construction worker. “So who hired him as a hit man? Max or Blake?”
Rawlings hesitated. “Well, Mr. Kraus claims Blake was the puppet master in regards to the first two killings. Mr. Warfield and young Mr. Talbot wanted to take over Talbot Properties, but in order to do so, they needed to get rid of Dean. The two men hired Atlas to kill the real estate titan, but Atlas had his own agenda. He murdered Camden in hopes that Blake would be suspected of the crime. However, Atlas wasn’t aware of Blackwater’s unscheduled Vegas tour stop, providing our Mr. Talbot with an airtight alibi.” Rawlings paused. “Therefore, Atlas had to go along with the scheme to take Dean’s life, drawing Blake to Oyster Bay in time to attend the meeting at the town hall.”
“All of this to get his daughter to break up with an unsuitable boyfriend?” Olivia was astonished. She balled up her fists in anger. “Camden died because of a father’s crazed possessiveness? And Max died because he might have prevented Atlas from murdering Blake? What about the poems?”
“I took down the confession myself, Olivia. Atlas swears that young Mr. Talbot wrote the poems and sent them, along with other instructions, as text messages on a disposable cell phone. The phones were mailed in unmarked padded envelopes along with a wad of cash.” He placed the summer and autumn poems on the desk in front of her. “Of course these two were written by Atlas. He had grown accustomed to leaving them as a part of his tableau, so when he planned to kill Mr. Warfield and then Mr. Talbot, he wrote two poems in preparation for their deaths. The cycle of seasons would be complete and the threat of his daughter committing to an unsuitable young man would be over.”
“Atlas has confessed to all of this, but what about Blake?” Olivia inquired sharply. “That conniving little brat needs to spend a long time in jail.”
A disgruntled grumble emanated from Rawlings’ throat. “We found no evidence incriminating Mr. Talbot inside Atlas’s cottage at The Yellow Lady. It’s going to take us some time to acquire Mr. Talbot’s financial records and I can only hope that some serious amounts of money were withdrawn from his account close to the time of the murders.”
Olivia felt chilled. “So you can’t charge Blake with a crime?”
“I didn’t say that,” Rawlings chided. “And if Max Warfield was involved in the scheme, which, based on our listening in on his cell phone conversation at The Boot Top, I’d say he was, then he’s already received his sentence. That man has been judged by a higher court.”
The chief’s words seemed to fill up the room. An unnatural death created such complexities for their town, heretofore known only for its beauty and tranquility.
Now, reporters would invade the streets and shops. Tourists looking for sensationalism would fill any house, condo, or spare room for let at exorbitant rates. The police would be up to their elbows in paperwork. The lawyers would be circling like greedy gulls. Roy and Annie Kraus would lay low for months, unable to look their neighbors in the eye. Wherever they went, the couple would feel crushed by the weight of the knowledge that they were responsible for offering hospitality to a murderer and for unintentionally allowing him to take advantage of the people and the peaceful hamlet they’d grown to love.
“Oyster Bay will recover.” Rawlings spoke softly. He walked around his desk and took the chair next to Olivia’s. He didn’t take her hand, but placed his own on the arm of her chair. “And so will we. A good night’s sleep followed by a big breakfast, a solitary walk on the beach, a beautifully written book ...” He smiled at her. “Speaking of which, yours will be the next chapter we critique, will it not?”
Olivia’s cheeks grew warm. “In two weeks’ time, yes. We’ve decided to take this week off. Do you think you’ll be able to join us when we meet again?”
Now Rawlings did touch the back of her hand, but only for a moment. “You can count on me.”
Haviland woke from his nap and stretched his head toward the policeman, not wanting to miss the chance to be caressed. As the chief scratched the poodle under the chin, Olivia stood, slid her purse onto her shoulder, and returned Rawlings’ smile. “No matter what is said after the news of what’s happened here breaks, this town still counts on you, Chief.” She paused in the doorway. “And that includes me.”
Chapter 18
Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, theforget-me-nots of the angels
.
—HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Two weeks later, Olivia prepared for a meeting of the Bayside Book Writers. It was July fourth and there had been a parade in town earlier that day. For the first time since she was a child, Olivia and Haviland stood on the sidewalk and watched the spectacle.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Harris and Millay, the three friends waved little American flags and cheered as the Best Decorated Stroller contestants kicked off the parade. When Laurel strode past, her jogging stroller transformed with the use of Hefty bags and reconstructed wicker baskets into Blackbeard’s pirate ship, the three writers hooted and hollered in delight.
Dallas and Dermot carried plastic cutlasses and growled “arrgghs” at the onlookers. Olivia had to laugh as she took note of their skull and crossbones bandanas, mascara-drawn goatees, and clip-on hoop earrings. Dressed as a pirate captive, Laurel hurled candy coins into the crowd. The gold foil wrapping of the chocolates winked in the sunlight, and for a moment, it seemed as though Laurel was tossing lit sparklers to the eager children lining the sidewalk. Her face aglow with pride, Laurel was by far the loveliest mother in the parade.
The strollers were followed by tricycles and Big Wheels and Haviland howled in discomfort as toddlers rang shrill bike bells while their boisterous parents tooted air horns. Older children pedaled on the heels of this group, impatient with the slow pace. Their ten-speeds were covered with red, white, and blue streamers, flags, balloons, and quotations on liberty by America’s forefathers. One boy was dressed in a full Uncle Sam uniform and was performing tricks on his mountain bike. When he pivoted in a circle using only one wheel, the crowd shouted in amazement.
“I’d say Sam is a shoe-in to win his category,” Harris remarked, looking boyishly exuberant.
Millay glanced after the performing child. “What do they get for a prize? Anything good?”