A Killer Plot (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

other side of the room.
    As there were no speakers where Olivia stood, she could not have misheard the old man in a pair of stained overalls. “If it ain’t Willy Wade’s lassie. All grown up now, ain’t ya? I’d know that white hair and those ocean eyes anywhere. You still lookin’ for your papa, girlie?” He took a deep draught of his beer. “’Cause he ain’t ever comin’ home. The fog carried him back to the sea. It’s how men like us are meant to go.” He pointed a gnarled hand at Olivia. “You can’t take from the sea all your life and not have ’er claim somethin’ as payment. ’Tis always been that way.”
    Stepping away from the man, Olivia crossed her arms protectively over her chest and rubbed at the goose bumps that had sprouted across the surface of her skin. The man drank his beer and stared at her. She never thought she’d be so relieved to see the indigo tint of Millay’s hair appear before her.
    “Mack didn’t see Camden himself. He was too busy, but he heard Camden was in the alley, which seems kinda weird,” Millay said with a frown. “There’s nothing back there but the Dumpster, empty kegs, and the scratch, scratch of mongo rats slinking around.”
    Laurel uttered a little groan. “I’m not too fond of rats.”
    “I’m not either,” Olivia sympathized. “But we’ve come this far. Lead on, Millay.”
    Avoiding the sharp, curious eyes of the fishermen, she propelled the young woman forward and then trod closely on Millay’s heels as the crowd parted before them, casting unfriendly looks their way.
    The back door was unlocked. As Millay pushed on it, the solid metal slammed against the exterior brick wall with a loud clang. A cloud of smoke escaped from within and quickly mingled with the salt-tinged night air. The rear of the building was dark and the sky was moonless. Olivia could barely make out the shape of the Dumpster twenty yards away and she certainly saw no sign of Camden. All was silent.
    “There’s no one here now,” Harris pointed out, looking to the left and right.
    Laurel repeated the motion. “Are there any lights back here?” she asked Millay.
    “Yeah. Right he—” Her words were cut short. “Well, there used to be a light. The bulb’s been smashed.” She kicked at some fragments with the tip of her boot.
    Olivia didn’t like the sound of that.
    “Someone did that recently?” Laurel knit her hands together. Her voice sounded shrill and small in the darkness.
    Millay shrugged, as though acts of vandalism were a natural part of the bar environment. “It was fine as of two this morning. I should know. I’m the one who took out the trash.”
    Harris turned to the right and began to walk the length of the building. The others followed, but Olivia moved off to the left. Something propelled her in the opposite direction.
    Around the corner of Fish Nets, in a narrow alley separating the bar from the pizza parlor next door, she found Camden.
    His back was against the wall and his head sagged over his chest. Even in the dark, Olivia knew that the black stain spread across the center of Camden’s shirt was blood. For a moment, she couldn’t shake the thought that the slick blemish covering his upper torso resembled a pair of distorted butterfly wings.
    The amount of blood and the slackness of Camden’s body told Olivia that her friend was dead—that his throat had probably been slit. She waited for a powerful feeling of horror or grief or anger to flood her, but she was completely overtaken by numbness.
    Suddenly, she was a girl again. She saw the police car pull in front of the house, saw the pair of solemn officers remove their hats, heard the exchange of mumbles in the hall as the news was delivered to her father. She watched from her bedroom window as he walked down the path to the dock, heading toward the dinghy—a bottle of whiskey in one hand and her mother’s purse in the other. He rowed away without even glancing up at the cottage where his daughter was facing the greatest shock of her young life. Alone.
    Olivia shook herself free from the grip of memory but couldn’t move a muscle. She was paralyzed by the numbness, trapped between the past and the present.
    She didn’t know how long she stood staring down at Camden’s body when Millay’s voice finally pierced the stillness. After releasing a string of high-pitched expletives, the younger woman grabbed on to Olivia’s arm, hard.
    “Olivia!” She tugged until the older woman