A Killer Plot (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

what Blake had been doing there?” Laurel deduced.
    Millay shook her head. “No way a rich kid like Blake shows up at my bar. His kind does not hang out there. They’d be at The Cleat and Anchor or the Dorsal Fin, guzzling their microbrews and checking out the waitresses while they stuff their faces with calamari or lobster bites or whatever you eat when you make more dough than all the drinkers in my bar put together.”
    The other writers took notice of the proprietary tone in Millay’s voice.
    Olivia cleared her throat. “No one’s assuming one of your regular, ah, patrons, is responsible for Camden’s death, Millay. On the contrary, I can’t see that any of those men and women would have had a connection with him at all. Whoever did this wanted to make a point. Thus, the poem.”
    “What did it say?” Laurel asked nervously.
    “Something about orchards and apples,” Millay replied angrily. “A bunch of crap that made absolutely no sense!”
    Recalling that she’d written the haiku in the small notebook she kept in her purse, Olivia dug it out and reread what she had written, frowning over the odd, horticultural imagery.
    “What if Camden never went inside?” Harris wondered aloud, his eyes fixed on the shivering flames. “What if he found some clue in the alley?”
    “You may be on to something there, Harris. Blake implied that the ‘business dealings’ he planned for last night were rather on the shady side.” Olivia laid the notebook on the sofa and Millay instantly picked it up and began to study the poem. “Perhaps Camden found something not meant for his ears.”
    “Or his pen.” Millay stabbed at the paper with her index finger. Olivia noticed that the young woman’s nails bore the remnants of a deep purple polish and were clipped very short, as though to prevent her from chewing them. “The first line of the poem says, ‘His words are silences.’”
    A little gasp escaped Laurel’s throat. The fear in her eyes shimmered in the firelight. “That can only mean one thing,” she breathed. “The killer knew what Camden did for a living.”
    “And there aren’t too many people in Oyster Bay who’d be threatened by the appearance of a celebrity gossip writer,” Harris pointed out. “Except maybe Blake or one of the other Talbots.”
    Olivia gestured at the notebook in Millay’s hands. “Either Blake Talbot’s educational background included instruction on how to pen this particular form of poetry, or he had dealings with another person who couldn’t afford to be exposed and has been watching Camden’s every move.”
    “Someone who created an impromptu haiku?” Harris seemed doubtful.
    There was an authoritative rap on the front door and Olivia turned her head toward the sound but made no other move. She was too busy thinking. “It doesn’t read like a spontaneous piece of writing. It feels specific, tailored, and ...” She glanced anxiously at the other writers. “Premeditated.”
     
     
    The blast of the foghorn woke Olivia the next morning. The deep, resonating noise caused her to imagine a trumpeting leviathan surfacing from the cold depths of the sea.
    Still weary from the night before, she stayed in bed another thirty minutes, listening to the steady, repetitive tolls as the horn warned incoming vessels of the proximity of the shallows.
    To Olivia, the sound was as familiar as the beat of her own heart. She remembered, after she’d moved away, how the noises in other parts of the world failed to offer the same level of comfort as the rush of the incoming tide, the blare of a foghorn, the high squawk of a gull, or the clanging of a ship’s bell.
    Haviland jumped up on the bed and burrowed under the covers in search of his mistress’s hand. Olivia stuffed it under the pillow, knowing her poodle would lick her palm until she rose and served him breakfast.
    “Five more minutes,” she promised, briefly reaching out to scratch Haviland beneath the chin. She watched the tangerine-colored light filter through the bare glass of the master bedroom’s wall of windows.
    The foghorn fell silent and Olivia continued to pat Haviland, thinking of Camden.
    Last night, when she’d answered the knock on the door of the lighthouse keeper’s cottage, a fresh-faced officer named Cook had strutted in. He assessed them with a cocky glance and bossed them about as though they were schoolchildren. He’d taken their statements and asked a few standard questions, but his mind