The Last Word (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

of the corner of their eyes as they drank exotic martinis or microbrews in chilled pint glasses.
    In Fish Nets, Ray was just another guy. A few people cast mildly curious looks his way when he first walked in, but their attention quickly returned to their bottles of Bud, shots of whiskey, and games of darts or pool. Smoke hovered in the air like early-morning fog, and Hatcher’s head cut a swath through the white wisps as he moved toward Olivia.
    She noticed that one or two locals greeted Hatcher with a nod or a brief clap on the shoulder. This welcome gave Olivia cause to relax. If the hardened fisherman and laborers of Fish Nets knew Raymond Hatcher, then he posed less of a threat to her. Olivia’s father had been one of these men, and as his child, she had a keen sense of the rhythm of their existence, of motoring to the deep waters well before dawn, of the backbreaking work beneath the unrelenting sun, of the thousand tiny cuts to the arms and hands from serrated fish scales. Every face in the bar was marked by the sea, the sun, and the struggle to make ends meet.
    Olivia felt as comfortable among these locals as she did mingling with the wealthy and sophisticated diners at The Boot Top. In a sense, she was a child of both worlds, but her father’s confederates would defend and protect her in a way that none of her grandmother’s circle would. The upper-crust members of society that made up her grandmother’s set had been self-serving and remarkably uncharitable. They only rallied around one another to avoid scandal or the loss of assets. Olivia shared her grandmother’s love of the finer things, but she also felt a deep kinship with those whose lives depended on the fickle ocean. It was as though this community who breathed in the salty air and bathed in the cool water for countless years were set apart as a different species of human.
    “Damn, you didn’t tell me you were meeting with Sasquatch,” Millay stated in admiration as Ray made his way to the empty barstool next to Olivia. “Good thing you left Haviland at The Boot Top. This could get ugly.”
    Ignoring Millay, whose hair was gelled into a cresting wave of black and silver down the center of her head, Olivia greeted Ray and asked him what he’d like to drink.
    “You buyin’?” he asked, his mouth curving into the hint of a smile.
    Olivia nodded. “That was part of the deal.”
    After requesting a whiskey and soda, Ray eased himself onto the stool, casting a nervous glance at his feet as the wood creaked and groaned in protest.
    “It’ll hold,” Millay said, serving Ray his drink. “Trust me, these old stools have borne more weight than you’re carrying. Guess it’s a good thing we don’t serve food.”
    Ray studied her. “You’ve got some wild hair. Reckon I like it.” He then pivoted his massive trunk so that he faced Olivia. “Tell me about this book you’re writing.”
    Olivia took a sip of beer and tried not to grimace. It had grown warm while she’d waited for Ray to arrive. “First, let me figure out how much you already know so I don’t waste your time. Did Nick Plumley interview you or make arrangements to do so?”
    “He called a time or two,” Ray answered cryptically.
    Undeterred, Olivia held his inscrutable gaze. “And?”
    Ray’s eyes slid away from hers and he took a slug of whiskey. “I went to his house. He wanted me to bring the pictures I have of the prison camp. See, my older brother Dave went to work with James most days when he was a kid. It was a long time ago, but I remember hearing all kinds of things about that place. Dave and I were real close, and he used to tell me about the men there when I was little, kind of like his own brand of bedtime stories, but I guess your writer friend wasn’t as interested in them as he let on.”
    Olivia tried to conceal her eagerness. This man had photographs of Camp New Bern? And Plumley hadn’t been interested? Suddenly, Olivia understood what had happened. “He wasn’t willing to pay your price,” she hazarded a guess.
    Swallowing the rest of his whiskey in one gulp, Ray slammed his glass against the bar, sending russet-colored droplets across the battered wood. “Look, lady, before you go judging me, let me give you a little glimpse of my life. I’m sixty-six and I drive a forklift for a living. I’m still making mortgage payments on my piece-of-crap house, and what’s left over from that at the end of the month is soaked up by the regular