Poisoned Prose (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

should have been emptying cash registers.”
    Olivia noted that while Lowell’s accent was much like Dixie’s languid drawl, he didn’t cut the
g
’s off the end of his words like she did. He had her ale-brown eyes too, but his hair was darker and his forehead larger. There was a hardness to his jaw too. Dixie could be stubborn, but she was never hard. Her eyes always sparkled with humor, and she was usually on the brink of laughter. Not now. Lowell’s presence had her looking tense and haggard.
    “I’m sorry about Violetta,” Olivia told Lowell gently. She knew she had to tread carefully or Lowell would clam up, so she decided that courtesy was her safest move. “And I’m sorry that you had to be the one to find her.”
    Lowell, who’d been sitting on the edge of his chair, relaxed slightly. “I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe that was Violetta. She was . . . did you go back there?”
    “Yes.” Olivia glanced from him to Dixie. “It was awful. I was shocked to say the least.”
    Lowell seized on the word, as Olivia expected he would. She knew she needed to gain his trust if she wanted to learn anything of significance. “Shocked. Yeah, I was shocked too. That’s not even good enough to describe how I felt.” He passed a hand over his face. “The way her eyes were open, staring at nothing. And her mouth . . . I could tell she’d suffered. She wasn’t Violetta anymore. She was something out of a nightmare.”
    The comment surprised Olivia. Lowell had served jail time. He’d seen and done things most people hadn’t, and yet, the sight of his dead boss had caused him to come undone.
    It could all be an act
, she reminded herself. “Is that why you took off?”
    He nodded, his gaze sliding from her face to the woods.
    “Your reaction is completely understandable,” Olivia said. “So why not come forward? Is there more to the story?”
    When Lowell refused to answer, Dixie frowned at him. “Tell her what you told me. She’s not gonna laugh. She’s not like that.”
    Lowell’s eyes narrowed, and he stared at Olivia. “Do you believe in ghosts?” His question sounded like a challenge.
    She was feeling less and less sympathetic toward him by the moment. “No. I believe memories, regrets, or mistakes haunt people. But I don’t subscribe to the idea that restless spirits wander the earth. When you’re dead, you’re dead.”
    “I thought that once too,” Lowell said. “But not anymore.”
    Olivia threw out her hands in exasperation. “Are you going to talk to me or not? I have better things to do than sit here and try to pull words out of your mouth.”
    Lowell screwed his mouth into an ugly sneer, and Dixie put a hand over his. “If you don’t get this out, it’ll eat you up inside. And while that’s happenin’ the cops are gonna find you, and when they do, you’ll need this lady to put in a good word for you.”
    “I don’t need her help. I didn’t hurt Violetta. All I want to do is get out of town.”
    Now Olivia did sense fear in the small man. “Does this have to do with Professor Hicks? Were you working for Violetta when he died?”
    Lowell was silent for so long that Olivia didn’t think he would answer. All the anger and defensiveness had drained from his face. His eyes had gone glassy, as if he were hundreds of miles away, and the memory he became lost in was clearly an unpleasant one. “He wanted to write all of her stories down, but she didn’t care for that. She told him he could put the Jack tales on paper because they didn’t belong to her. They belonged to everyone.”
    “While the other stories, like the haint tales, didn’t?” Olivia guessed.
    “That’s right. Some of them were passed down from her daddy and granddaddy, and she made up a bunch too. The one about the ghost in the forest, the one where folks are looking for silver dollars, the one about the man going crazy and acting like a bear, and some others are hers. You can tell because she talks about places where she grew up. Landmarks and stuff.”
    Olivia nodded to show that she was listening.
    “Hicks was real persistent. He was like a pit bull hanging on another dog’s throat. Just wouldn’t let go. He followed Violetta. Wrote her letters. Left gifts at her doorstep. But she only let him in after he promised to dedicate his book to Elijah. That’s her brother who died when she was still living at home.”
    Now that Lowell had begun to talk, the words came pouring out. Olivia