The Last Word (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

showing a group of prisoners posing for the camera with the frank, open stares of schoolchildren, she paused for a long while. These young men were as fresh-faced and wholesome as any group of American soldiers. They stood straight-backed and proud in the back row. In the front row, they knelt, one arm slung casually over a raised knee, as though they’d been interrupted in the middle of playing baseball or dancing with a pretty girl.
    Olivia looked into their eyes, all rendered into dark pools by the black-and-white film, and wondered which of these men had returned to their homes, which had been shipped to another camp, and which had died before the armistice.
    She felt the waste of war in her hands, and suddenly, the photographs felt very heavy. The images of these boys, both foreign and American, whose lives had been turned inside out by circumstances beyond their control, filled her with sorrow. A part of her felt foolish too. She lived so close to Camp New Bern and had never known about its existence or that prisoners from other countries had toiled to put food on the tables of her fellow North Carolinians.
    “Very few of these guys were Nazis, you know,” Billinger said, misreading her frown. “Many were coerced into joining the army. Threatened. Some wanted to defend their homeland even though they didn’t support Hitler. Nothing about war is as black-and-white as these photographs.”
    His words echoed Olivia’s feelings exactly. War, like a murder investigation, was a mess of emotion, conflicting stories, and useless violence. The pair fell silent for a moment. Haviland yawned and gazed up at them, his eyes conveying his interest in procuring a midday meal.
    “Why don’t you tell me how I can help while we eat?” Billinger suggested, ruffling Haviland’s ears. “I picked up some muffulettas from one of my favorite sandwich shops, and I have bottles of Perrier in my dorm fridge. Please.” He pulled a chair up to the table by the window and held the back, waiting for Olivia to be seated. “I brought Haviland organic chicken breast. That all right?”
    “Perfect,” Olivia answered, warming to the professor more and more as the hour progressed. The sandwich was delicious. Her fear of being forced to swallow processed meat and cheese disappeared the moment she tasted salami, ham, mortadella, mozzarella, provolone, and a tangy olive spread piled between round slices of fresh Italian bread.
    Billinger poured Perrier into two coffee mugs and clinked the rim of his cup against hers. “So what are you looking for, Olivia? What does Nick Plumley’s death have to do with Kamler’s painting or the New Bern camp?”
    She swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. “As I said over the phone, Nick Plumley didn’t just die; he was murdered. I can only assume that he changed his name from Ziegler to Plumley because he was ashamed to be the son of an escaped prisoner. Either that, or his father had adopted the surname Plumley in order to avoid capture. Whatever the reason, Nick’s father must have given him a firsthand account of life in the camp, his and Kamler’s escape, and how Kamler killed the prison guard, so why was Plumley searching for additional accounts?”
    Picking a wayward sesame seed from his shirt, Billinger looked thoughtful. “Since listening to your voice mail, I’ve wondered about that as well. I’m writing a nonfiction book on the POW camps in North Carolina, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned as a historian, it’s that one cannot find the facts without also sifting through a heap of gossip and rumor. Sometimes, rumor leads to fact. I wonder if that might be the case with your murder investigation.”
    Olivia put down her sandwich. “Please explain.”
    “Mabel, the woman I mentioned, was also the child of a prison guard. Like our mutual friend Raymond Hatcher, Mabel was a terrific source for personal accounts of life at Camp New Bern from a young person’s perspective. In fact, Mabel was a teenager then, so her memories are more detailed than the ones Mr. Hatcher recalls his older brother having told him. Mabel and Evelyn White were best friends.”
    This revelation caused Olivia to lean forward in her chair, anxious for the professor to keep talking.
    Billinger took a sip of Perrier, as though he needed a moment to pluck up the courage to continue. “Mabel repeatedly told me that Evelyn and Heinrich Kamler were lovers. She also refused to accept that Kamler murdered Hatcher.