Poisoned Prose (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

bring his catch into Ocracoke that night so it’d be fresh for the mornin’ market, but he sailed home with it instead.”
    No one laughed at her. Millay wiped off the bar and poured another round. “I’ve heard the name of that ship before. Would you tell me the whole story?”
    The woman nodded solemnly, but there was a gleam of excitement in her eyes. Olivia saw it and smiled to herself. She’d seen the same spark in her mother’s eyes every night at bedtime. Without fail, Olivia was sent to sleep with a spectrum of wonderful images and words floating through her mind. And though her childhood was long gone, a good story was no less magical to her now.
    “A long time ago, a ship full of folks from England sailed to Ocracoke,” the woman began.
    Olivia turned away from the storyteller, so she wouldn’t see her take out her phone. She quickly sent a text to Flynn, telling him she’d be glad to help defray the costs of the retreat, and then turned the phone off and put it back in her purse.
    When the woman was done with her tale of murder, robbery, and revenge, the talk returned to the weather, as it so often did at Fish Nets.
    “It’s hard to prepare for a dry season,” Lou Huckabee told one of the fishermen. “I can irrigate, but nothin’s the same as real rain.”
    “That’s true enough,” the other man agreed. “Much easier to get ready for a storm. You know they’re comin’, and you know that, by and by, they’ll pass on through.”
    Olivia sighed. “Still, we’ve had enough storms to last us a lifetime. I hope the big ones pass us over this year.”
    Captain Fergusson covered her hand with his, and Olivia sensed that he knew that she wasn’t referring to hurricanes, but to the number of violent deaths that had occurred in Oyster Bay during recent years.
    She squeezed his hand. “I could use a season of peace and quiet.”
    “It’s all right, my girl,” he said as tenderly as possible. “Life ain’t always easy and it ain’t always fair, but there’s beauty in every day. You just gotta know where to look.”
    Olivia considered this. She looked around the room and decided that he was right. Tonight, the beauty had been in a rough place filled with rough people. It had been in their lore and their legends and the way in which their stories bound them all together, weaving a spell that could never be broken.
    On impulse, Olivia told the captain about the storyteller’s retreat. “They’ll bring energy and tranquility and a little bit of magic to our town,” she said, smiling widely.
    For a long moment the old fisherman didn’t respond. Then he rubbed his bristly beard and slurred into his cup, “Outsiders tend to bring us things that we don’t want. Sure, stories can be like a fire on a cold night. But they can burn too. There ain’t nothin’ can cut deeper or sting with more poison than words can. You’d best keep that in mind, Miss Olivia. Words have power, and all things of power are dangerous.”
    And with that, he tossed back the last swallow of whiskey, slipped off his stool, and stumbled out into the night.

Chapter 2
    Find out what your hero or heroine wants.
    — R AY B RADBURY
    T he predictions of drought voiced by many of the locals at Fish Nets turned out to be true. Weeks passed with no rain, and Oyster Bay felt like it had been covered in a layer of salt-tinged dust. Plants withered and trees drooped. Even the grass in irrigated yards turned brown and brittle.
    The beach was more crowded than ever. People yearned to submerge themselves in the cool water, to wash the heat and sweat from their bodies. They floated, weightless and happy, in the lulling arms of the tide. They didn’t care if their noses and cheeks burned. They didn’t care if they were late for work appointments or dinner reservations. They only wanted to be wet and buoyant for a little while.
    Children splashed in the shallows and then lined up with their parents outside the Big Chill, where they pleaded for double scoops with rainbow sprinkles and extra cherries. They’d bounce with impatience on the sidewalk while their mothers and fathers complained about the wait and wondered if the thermometer would reach a hundred degrees by midafternoon. They’d gulp down low-fat yogurt smoothies and frown as dripping cones of rocky road ice cream soiled their kids’ new souvenir T-shirts.
    The locals tried to maintain an air of relaxed normalcy, but a drought put pressure on the businesses, and