A Killer Plot (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

you sure? I could stay ... keep you company.” He gave Haviland a pat on the head. “I know you’ve got your trusty hound with you, but two-legged friends have their uses too.”
    Olivia smiled. “Thank you for the chivalrous gesture, but the chief just wants to know why Dean Talbot planned to have dinner with me tonight. I don’t know what Talbot’s intentions were, but I agreed to break bread with him because I wanted to ferret out more information on Blake, the new housing development, or anything else that could be relevant to Camden’s death.”
    “Won’t the chief be ticked off when you tell him you planned to investigate on your own?” Harris asked nervously.
    “I’m not going to confess that latter bit to him,” Olivia admitted. “In any case, it makes sense that I’d be questioning Talbot about the development. After all, our Planning Board meets in three nights. Now go on with you. If you don’t hear from me tonight, call me tomorrow. There’s something unrelated to tonight’s incident that I’d like to discuss with you.”
    Harris raised his eyebrows. “Sounds interesting.”
    “That’s a good word for it,” Olivia said, and then wished Harris good night.
    Less than a minute later, the chief’s figure detached itself from a shadow of trees toward her left. “I thought we could talk now,” she called as she moved forward to meet him, ignoring the threatening posture of the junior officer. She lowered her voice as Rawlings drew alongside. “I wanted to set your mind at ease about why my name was written in Mr. Talbot’s appointment book, and since our writer’s group meeting has ended, here I am.”
    Rawlings tugged a flashlight from his utility belt and pointed it in the direction of the gazebo. “Let’s take a seat.”
    As they walked, their footsteps were obscured by the noises of nighttime creatures. Frogs, owls, crickets, and dozens of other insects filled the darkness with their musical autographs. A mild breeze ruffed tree leaves and whispered through the reeds by the riverbank. A whir of mosquito wings buzzed behind her ear and Haviland snapped at an unseen invader near his hindquarters. Fireflies blinked like miniature stars all around them.
    “It seems too peaceful for someone to be lying dead so close by,” Olivia murmured. Rawlings remained quiet, his eyes moving away from Olivia’s face as he watched a white moth flutter across the beam cast by his flashlight.
    Once again, Olivia was struck by how comfortable she felt with the policeman. He knew how to relish a precious moment of tranquility and beauty, even when it did not appear at what others might deem a suitable time. In fact, she reflected, most men would fill the silence with demands, explanations, or boasts, but not this man. He knew how to be still and Olivia admired that quality.
    “I was sitting right here when I last spoke to Mr. Talbot,” she said and proceeded to tell Rawlings of her exchange with Dean and Max Warfield. She omitted nothing and went so far as to include the mens’ expressions and postures as she observed them during their conversation.
    Rawlings watched Olivia intently as she spoke, and when she finished, he simply nodded.
    “It’s strikes me as unlikely that Dean Talbot fell down those stairs,” Olivia stated plainly.
    Surprisingly, Rawlings dipped his chin in mute agreement. “At the moment, however, we have no evidence to tell us otherwise. What I’ve got is a dislodged hunk of cement, traces of cement embedded in the soles of Mr. Talbot’s shoes, and a corpse with a broken neck.” He sighed. “This will be the last time I’ll be gazing at fireflies for a while. Once the media gets wind of this ...” He left the thought unfinished.
    Olivia felt a pang of sympathy for the chief. “Have you talked to Max Warfield yet?”
    Rawlings nodded. “One of my officers paid him a personal call. Mr. Warfield was entertaining a young lady in his hotel room all afternoon. He was still, ah, preoccupied, when my man arrived. The coroner believes Mr. Talbot experienced his fatal slip between three and four o’clock.”
    “So if it was murder, both Warfield and Jethro Bragg are in the clear.”
    Groaning almost inaudibly, Rawlings scratched his neck. “Actually, Mr. Bragg was released yesterday. His handwriting was not a match with that of the spray-painted poem. There aren’t many forensic handwriting experts doing graffiti analysis, but I happen to know one of the best. Though