Poisoned Prose (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

departure. One of them bore a close resemblance to Fergusson.
    “Is that your son?” Olivia asked the captain. She’d never seen the young man before.
    A sadness surfaced in Fergusson’s eyes. “Aye. He’s joined the family business. Not by choice, by God. Not by choice.”
    Olivia sensed the subject was fraught with emotion, so she didn’t reply. Instead, she took the piece of lightning glass she’d found on the beach out of her purse. Peeling away the bubble wrap, she handed it to Fergusson. “Have you ever seen one of these?”
    “Once. They don’t come along too often.” He turned the fulgurite around and around. “The one I saw was black. A wicked-looking thing—all burned and jagged. You could still feel the lightning trapped inside. Belonged to a man who used to work for me, but I wouldn’t let him bring it aboard.”
    “That’s because you’re insanely superstitious,” said a voice from behind the captain. It was Fergusson’s son. He smiled indulgently at his father and then turned to Olivia. “Hi. I’m Toby.”
    He and Olivia shook hands. Close-up, she realized that he couldn’t be more than eighteen or nineteen, which meant that Fergusson was old enough to be his grandfather.
    “He’s our youngest by a decade,” Fergusson said, answering her unasked question. “A late-in-life surprise.”
    “That’s me.” Toby grinned. “The impressive product of a cold night and a few shots of whiskey.”
    “Mind your tongue, boy,” Fergusson growled, but his eyes glimmered with amusement.
    Olivia took an immediate liking to Toby. “Why haven’t I seen you before?”
    “I was away at college,” he explained, a cloud passing over his face. Gesturing at the lightning glass, he asked to hold it. He ran his finger over the gritty exterior and whispered, “Beautiful. I know a few professors who’d kill to see this.” He looked at Olivia. “I was studying to be a meteorologist.” He jerked a thumb at his father. “Growing up around this guy, I heard about the weather twenty-four/seven. But now I’ll get to see how it affects us firsthand.”
    “Go on back to work now, son,” Fergusson commanded, but not unkindly.
    When Toby had moved off to the stern, Olivia touched the old fisherman lightly on the arm. “That time in Fish Nets, when we were discussing a possible drought, you told me that words have power. Remember? You also said that words could be dangerous. Do words have something to do with why Toby is on this boat?”
    Fergusson’s eyes darkened with anger. “A lady cousin on my mama’s side passed away a few days before I saw you at the bar. Promised to leave enough money for Toby to finish college. He’d have been the only Fergusson to do that, but I guess we didn’t grovel enough, because my cousin gave all her money to a bird sanctuary. She wrote a letter saying that Toby would waste her money just like all us Fergussons waste money. She finished off by writing that Mary and me had been too old to have Toby and that we’d have to live with our mistake and not expect her to fix things for us.”
    “How nasty,” Olivia said.
    Fergusson clenched his jaw. “My boy heard every word of that woman’s poison. We never considered him a mistake. He’s been nothing but a blessing, but she made him doubt the truth of that. I hope the devil’s poking her in her bony ass with his sharpest pitchfork.”
    Olivia shook her head in disgust. “No one can hurt us like a family member. I’m sorry. For both your cousin’s cruelty and for the interruption of Toby’s education. Are there any scholarships or grants available?”
    Fergusson shrugged, shamefaced. “I don’t know about that kind of thing. I reckon Toby hasn’t looked into it because he thinks we need him on the boat. But we’ll be fine. We’re always fine. I want a different life for him. I want him to get out of this town and live big. His smarts are wasted on this boat. He’s meant to be more.”
    Olivia was moved by the captain’s distress. “Would you allow me to make a few phone calls on Toby’s behalf? See if there’s any money sitting around that your son might claim? He doesn’t even need to know unless I can come up with something useful.”
    Fergusson hesitated, and Olivia sensed he was wrestling with his pride. Finally, he gave her a single nod and walked off.
    Olivia watched Toby work for a moment, but her mind drifted to thoughts of other children: two sisters named Mabel and Vi who’d clawed