A Deadly Cliche (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

probably had been for hours, but he had thieves and murderers to catch and it was probably too early to call Laurel. She wondered if Laurel had managed to turn in her articles to the Gazette editor before having to attend to the needs of her family.
    “I’ll call her later,” Olivia told Haviland as she served him breakfast.
    Feeling restless, Olivia waited for Haviland to finish eating and then the pair set off for a walk. On this occasion, the metal detector was left at home and Olivia carried nothing in her arms. She walked to the end of the Point where a narrow and irregular spit of sand jutted out into the ocean like an arthritic finger. While the sea stirring on both sides and the wind whipped her hair off her face, Olivia stared east across the water. East toward Okracoke.
    It wouldn’t take me long to get there, she thought, still a little surprised that she hadn’t jumped in the car the moment Will Hamilton had finished speaking. Yet there was something preventing her from acting, an irrational fear that she would once again become the frightened, reclusive girl of her childhood should she come face-toface with her father.
    The morning sun soon gained in strength until Olivia had to turn away from its powerful rays. Back inside her cool house, she peeled a tangerine and sat at her desk, Rawlings’ chapter before her. She took a bite of the ripe fruit and closed her eyes, reveling in its sweetness. Uncapping a pen, she hesitated. What would the chief’s writing lay bare? Would his chapter reveal a flaw Olivia would be unable to accept or be filled with intimate memories of his late wife? Would there be a darkness she hadn’t sensed before or, even worse, a lack of substance?
    Casting aside such ridiculous thoughts, she began to read.
    Grandfather spoke of treasure until his dying day.
    It was what I remembered most about him. No matter how much he was told he was a foolish old man by his wife and, later, by his daughter and son-in-law, he believed in its existence.
    “Pirates!” my mother scoffed in exaggerated disgust the day they moved my grandfather into a nursing home. “He’s wasted half of his life on these damned pirates. He’s studied hundreds of books and letters and maps, and what’s he got to show for it? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!”
    I knew my mother wasn’t really angry about my grandfather’s obsession. She was upset because he’d taken early retirement to conduct research on two of North Carolina’s most infamous buccaneers and in doing so had squandered every cent of his savings buying rare books and documents from auction houses across the country. My parents were thus forced into inviting him to move into our small house.
    At first, they thought having Grandfather around could prove useful. He would be readily available to watch us kids while my folks worked extra shifts or went out on a rare dinner date, but after a few months it became clear that the old man couldn’t look after himself, let alone three hellions.
    Grandfather was eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and my parents’ anger turned bitter. My father paid for my grandfather’s nursing home, complaining about the cost each and every time the bill was pushed through our brass mail slot. My mother stopped visiting him altogether.
    I was seventeen when he died.
    I was alone with him in his sad room with its gray carpeting and faded butterfly wallpaper. The smell of mold and rot clung to every surface. But I was there—the only one to hear his final words.
    I was seventeen and didn’t pay much attention to what he said. I was heading off to college in a few weeks where I’d study a little, party a lot, and decide that I didn’t want to be a doctor or a lawyer or any of the other respectable professions my parents hoped I’d pursue. I wanted to be a cop. And after that, I wanted to figure out what my grandfather had been talking about when he muttered, “Look in . . . Ruth’s . . . log . . .” and shuddered as though he felt a sudden chill.
    After that final quiver, he died.
    I sat there for a while, staring not at his slack face or the line of spittle near the corner of his mouth but at the hundreds of tiny butterflies on the wallpaper, forever trapped in a field of dirty white.

    Olivia hadn’t expected to encounter Rawlings as a young man. She knew she was reading fiction, of course, but wondered which elements might have been pulled from the chief’s actual childhood. Perhaps an aging