A Killer Plot (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

raging alcoholics by night?”
    “Do you want me to come down?” Olivia asked. “I can be there in ten minutes.”
    “No, no.” Cosmo sighed wearily. “They haven’t arrested anyone yet. Not a single soul saw Cam go inside the bar and only one person noticed him on the sidewalk. It’s like Cam was invisible that night. And their lone witness was already up to his gills in whiskey. Not exactly the picture of reliability. It’s too awful!”
    Olivia tried to distract Cosmo from becoming morose. “Did you ask Chief Rawlings about the cell phone and the laptop?”
    “No comment on the phone, but he’s letting me look at the laptop right now, but only because I promised to tell him if I saw any unusual files or emails,” Cosmo answered. “The emails are purely social and there are a few of mine on there I don’t want anyone to see!” He was clearly agitated over at the invasion of his privacy. “All of the Milano Cruise files are here and some facts on your darling little town. What you wanted me to look for is here too. Cam saved his manuscript under the name, ‘Book.’ How uncreative of him! I’m emailing it to you this second , and then I’ve got to go. I hear Rawlings down the hall and I don’t want him to catch me. Bye!”
    The connection was severed.
    “Well done, Cosmo,” Olivia said aloud, relieved that her work email address was printed on The Boot Top Bistro’s business card. Anxious to begin reading Camden’s manuscript immediately, she turned on the engine and backed out of the parking space. The speed of her reversal formed tornadoes of dust that briefly obscured her view out the windshield.

Chapter 8
     
    The writer’s duty is to keep on writing.
    —WILLLAM STYRON
     
     
     
     
     
    O livia forwarded the email containing Camden’s manuscript to the members of the Bayside Book Writers. She then opened all the windows in her spacious living room, switched on the overhead fans so they spun languidly overhead, and got comfortable on the sofa with half a tumbler full of Chivas Regal. She spent the evening carefully reading the dead writer’s work, only taking a break to eat a quick dinner of Michel’s famous sweet potato vichyssoise and a spoonful of chilled chicken salad mixed with grapes over a bed of chopped lettuce and tomatoes.
    The moment she was finished reading, Olivia began to call her fellow writers in order to plan a lunch meeting for the following day. She phoned Laurel first, assuming the young mother would need to make babysitting arrangements, but Laurel insisted she’d have to bring her children along.
    “Tomorrow’s Tuesday. Steve’ll be at work and I can’t hire a sitter unless we’re going out together for a date night,” she explained without embarrassment. “He’s a dentist but he just bought into a practice. I don’t understand it, but he says we really have to watch every penny. And the twins cost so much! The way they grow out of clothes and car seats—and they seem to eat all the time! I never thought having kids would be this expensive.”
    Plans foiled, Olivia tried to think of a suitable location in which four adults could hold a serious conversation while a pair of demanding, hyperactive toddlers played in relative safety. She tried to picture them in the lighthouse keeper’s cottage but found the thought incredibly distasteful.
    “There’s the playground at the beach,” Laurel suggested.
    Olivia predicted that the screeches of dozens of children would repeatedly interrupt their concentration. “We couldn’t talk to one another effectively sitting on those benches because they all face the playground. We need to gather around some kind of table,” Olivia reasoned. “Not only that, but an outdoor meeting at noon in June might be a tad warm.”
    “I don’t mind. I love the heat,” Laurel said.
    Olivia was pleased to know that another Oyster Bay native loved the summer weather as much as she did. “I do as well, but Millay doesn’t seem overly fond of daylight and I think the UV rays would be too harsh on Harris’s skin.”
    “You are so considerate,” Laurel gushed and then went tsk, tsk with her tongue. “Our Harris is such a handsome guy if you look beyond that rash, don’t you think? I wish there was a product to help clear up his face. I can only imagine the effect his condition has on his confidence.”
    “He seems to possess a solid level of self-assurance,” Olivia remarked, but even as she spoke she scribbled a