The Last Word (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

“Things happen to you. Things that make most folks crumble into tiny pieces. Maybe that’s why death hangs ’round you. He knows you’re a match for any man, even one with a scythe.”
    Olivia pressed her palms against her coffee cup, intent on the warmth seeping into her skin. “That shadow has been hanging over my shoulder for a long time. If my mother hadn’t died the way she did—trying to make me happy—my life would have been different.” She took a sip of her coffee and glanced out the window. The sidewalks were bathed in strong light, and the streets were crowded with sunburned tourists and merry locals. “It was like the storm that ended her life left a mark on me, like a tattoo that no one can see.”
    Dixie was silent for a moment. A customer in the Phantom of the Opera booth signaled for his check, but the diner proprietor made no move to serve him. “Girlfriend, you’ve just dug on down to the heart of your own biggest problem.”
    Olivia cocked her head quizzically. “How so?”
    “You find a man that really sees you, shadows and all, and you’ll have the power to burn away the past. Take a match to it, light it up like a forest fire in July, and blow away the ashes.” Dixie scooted out of the booth, bent over, and retied the sparkling lace of her left roller skate. “You let that man in, and he’ll beat the past away with his bare hands. That’s what Grumpy did for me. It’s why I know our lives were meant to intertwine—we’re like a kudzu vine and a big ol’ pine tree.”
    “That’s a very romantic image, Dixie,” Olivia quipped in an effort to erase her momentary display of vulnerability. “So your advice is that I should go out in search of a tree? Unbending to the wind, unburned by the sun, dependable, and strong. Sounds like a rare find.”
    “Oh,” Dixie said as she began to skate backward toward her waiting customer. “I reckon you’ve already found him. You’re just too scared to invite him in. Get over yourself, ’Livia. It’s about damn time you did.”
    Olivia didn’t have the chance to be amazed by her friend’s perceptiveness, for while she was still digesting Dixie’s words, Millay entered the diner. She spotted Haviland snoozing on the floor of the window booth and took the seat Dixie had vacated seconds earlier.
    Millay’s short, black hair was relatively monochromatic this morning. There were three parrot green streaks in her bangs, but she wore less makeup than usual and had clearly not bothered to put on her rows of hoop earrings or cover both wrists with dozens of rubber bracelets. “Get this,” she began without preamble. “I was just at Bed, Bath and Beyond buying some storage containers and who should I see there but Miss Bubble Head.”
    Recalling that Miss Bubble Head was the moniker Millay had assigned to Estelle, Olivia grinned. “And?”
    “She was buying a set of bathroom towels with lace trim and embroidered seashells. Total Southern-princess-type crap.” Millay helped herself to Olivia’s water glass. “One of those furry toilet seat covers too. I thought only old people used those things.”
    Olivia pivoted in order to catch Dixie’s eye and then faced Millay again. “Admittedly, that style doesn’t appeal to my taste, but it’s Estelle we’re talking about. What do you expect? Her cell phone is covered in pink and purple rhinestones.”
    “That’s the thing!” Millay’s dark eyes narrowed dangerously. “She was buying that stuff for Harris’s house. I heard her talking to someone on her blinged-out Lady Gaga phone, and she said, and I quote, ‘I might as well buy what I like because it’ll be my house soon enough.’ ”
    Olivia’s expression of condemnation was interrupted by Dixie’s arrival with a pot of coffee for Millay. As she filled Millay’s mug, the diner proprietor gave her an indulgent smile. “What are you doin’ awake this side of noon, girl?”
    Millay took a grateful sip of black coffee and then pointed at the stainless steel carafe. “I don’t know what illegal drugs you put in your joe, Dixie, but you brew the best fuel in town. Bagels ’n’ Beans is good too, but you actually make it worth my while to be outside when the tourists are prowling the streets.”
    Dixie laughed, pleased by the compliment. “You make them sound like zombies comin’ to overtake Oyster Bay.”
    “Hey, as long as they stuff my tip jar, they’re free to feed on some of my least favorite townspeople. I have