A Killer Plot (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

ground had finally returned beneath her feet.
    “To your seat, Captain,” she ordered while blinking back tears. She buckled his safety belt and turned toward home.
    Back at the cottage, she asked Harris to switch on the gas logs in the living room fireplace and for Millay to brew a pot of strong coffee. Laurel went straight for the phone set up in the small office adjacent to the living room. Olivia winced as she listened as the distraught younger woman sought solace from her husband, only to be denied.
    “Is that all you have to say to me after what I’ve been through?” she queried pitifully. But Steve’s reply obviously triggered something in Laurel and with a shout of anger, she slammed the phone receiver back into the cradle.
    “I’m sorry,” she told Olivia as she exited the office. “I just could not take one of his lectures on how I belong at home. Not tonight, no sir!”
    Olivia nodded, pleased to see that Laurel had more spunk than one might credit her with. “I understand. Why don’t you sit down in front of the fire and I’ll get you something warm to drink. We could all use something to steady our nerves.”
    As she hadn’t supplied the cottage with shot glasses, thinking they’d hardly be necessary for informal meetings, Olivia poured splashes of Chivas Regal into disposable coffee cups and distributed them to the others.
    “Down the hatch.” Millay raised her glass and tossed back the contents without as much as a flinch.
    Harris tried to emulate the motion, but couldn’t help from grimacing slightly after he’d swallowed. Laurel held her nose, downed her drink, and slapped the empty cup on the end table beside her.
    “I’d like another, please,” she said in a stronger voice.
    Olivia shook her head as Millay stood, heading for the bottle. “Why don’t I stir a little into our coffee this time around? We have to stay awake and alert in order to make our statements.”
    Hands cradling cups of laced coffee, the writers positioned themselves close to the fire and to one another. Each of them silently called Camden to mind.
    “He was so charming.” Laurel spoke first. “Everyone he met liked him from the get-go. Who’d want to hurt him?”
    “Maybe he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Harris suggested. “The crowd in that place looks like they could turn rough pretty quickly.”
    Millay snorted. “Yeah, like lightning-strike quick. I could pick out a half a dozen fishermen who might snap because you looked at them sideways. Shit, six or seven of them are totally capable of killing somebody. But to write poetry afterward? That’s not their MO. Seems more like a deranged college prof on an acid trip to me.”
    “But what was Camden doing in Fish Nets in the first place?” Laurel demanded. “It’s not like he’d go there to make new friends.”
    Olivia couldn’t help but smile. “If you’re referring to Camden making sexual advances to one of the patrons, I can’t see that happening either. Millay? Are you certain you saw him enter the bar?”
    Running slim fingers through her blue and black hair, Millay exhaled loudly in vexation. “No. Like I said before , I only saw him reaching out for the door handle. Then I drove past. I just figured he was buying cigarettes or something.” She shrugged. “I was, like, a mile away before I could even believe it was him. Camden and Fish Nets didn’t go together, ya know?”
    “Our eyes see what our brain expects them to see,” Harris said in her defense.
    A flicker of admiration entered Millay’s dark eyes. “Exactly.” She turned back to Olivia. “I wish I did know if he went inside for sure, but I don’t. I’ll ask around once the cops leave. No one’s going to tell them a thing. Those guys keep things close to the chest.”
    Laurel shifted in her seat, tucking her legs beneath her and smoothing out the fabric of her khaki linen trousers. Backlit by the flickering flames in the fireplace, her hair glowed like a golden crown and she instantly seemed years younger. Suddenly, the visage of another, even younger woman sprang into Olivia’s mind.
    “Wait a moment,” she said, nearly rising to her feet. “Camden and I listened in when Blake Talbot was discussing his plans for yesterday evening with his girlfriend. From what we overheard, Blake intended to meet some people at Fish Nets.”
    “And since Camden’s writing a book based on the Talbot family, he might have gone down there to find out