Poisoned Prose (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

accused Violetta of faking the whole condition in order to win competitions. This woman also knew Professor Hicks. They went to grad school together, and she now teaches at Appalachian State, which isn’t too far from where Hicks taught at Western Carolina University.”
    Olivia knew that Sawyer Rawlings didn’t believe in coincidences, especially when it came to murder investigations, and made a mental note to share this detail with him. “And the other storyteller?”
    Laurel pulled a small notebook from her purse. “Greg Rapson. He grew furious when he talked about how Violetta had been dubbed ‘A Living Legend’ and the ‘Virtuoso of the Spoken Word.’ He said she was overrated.”
    “Furious? That’s a pretty strong emotion.”
    “I know. But he called Violetta really nasty names. Late-night cable terms, if you know what I mean. I was especially shocked because he teaches college kids. What kind of example is he setting for them?” She scratched behind Haviland’s ears, and he licked her hand in gratitude.
    Olivia nodded. “Okay, so he’s crass, but is he a murderer? Does he or Amabel have what it takes to win competitions?”
    “Apparently they do. They’ve both placed second behind Violetta a number of times.” Laurel jabbed her finger into the soft notebook paper. “The strange thing is that they acted pretty neutral about her at the beginning of our conversation. But after they’d had a few beers, they began to show their true colors. It was Millay’s idea to seek them out when they were drinking, so I tracked them down at that bar within walking distance of their B&B. I felt kind of slimy because I didn’t tell them I was a reporter, but I thought the chief should know what they said.”
    Dixie reappeared with a cup of tea and a softball-sized banana-nut muffin. After serving Laurel, she pulled a jar of honey out of her apron pocket and handed it to her. “This is the good stuff. I only give it to folks I like. Liquid gold, Grumpy calls it.” She eyed Olivia’s empty coffee mug. “All right then, you can come on back.”
    Grumpy was frying three eggs and half a rasher of bacon when Olivia entered the kitchen. She sat on a stool and watched him work without speaking. The bacon grease sizzled and spat, and Grumpy’s spatula clanked against the griddle, flashing silver like a startled trout. He plated the food and slid a pile of crisp hash browns next to the bacon. “Order up,” he said to Dixie. “Anything else?”
    “A short stack of blueberry pancakes. Sausage on the side.” She picked up the platter and skated out of the kitchen.
    Grumpy had the pancake batter all ready to go. He gave it a quick mix with a whisk and then poured three identical circles of batter onto the griddle. While air bubbles formed in the cooking pancakes, Grumpy strode into the walk-in and reemerged with a bowl of fresh blueberries. “My folks remembered Violetta’s family well enough,” he began. He put two sausage links on the griddle. “Decent, hardworking people. Kept to themselves, but that describes most folks on the mountain. Anyhow, my ma and pa only saw Josiah during wintertime. He didn’t go to church, and Ira handled all the town business. Word was that he had some kind of disease that forced him to stay covered up all the time.”
    He was blue
, Olivia thought, her pulse quickening. Was that the family’s secret? Was their blood disorder a treasure or a curse? And did it factor into Violetta’s murder? Or Hicks’s?
    Grumpy dropped blueberries onto the cooking pancakes. They sank into the dough, and he waited a moment before flipping them with practiced flicks of the wrist. He then gave each sausage a quarter turn. “Ma also told me something sad. And I want you to know that she’s not one to stretch the truth,” he added.
    Olivia could imagine Grumpy’s parents as plain, no-nonsense people who knew how to do hundreds of things most of contemporary society couldn’t do. His mother probably canned her own fruits and vegetables, dried her own herbs, and sewed most of their clothes and bedding while his father built their house from the ground up, raised livestock, grew most of their food, and could repair cars, appliances, and farm equipment.
    “Go on,” she said.
    “A few days after Elijah died, Ira Devereaux broke down in the general store. My ma was there and took her home and gave her coffee with whiskey. Ira told her that Elijah could have been saved had Josiah been