The Last Word (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

the painting, and Billinger tossed the debris from their lunch into the trash bin. Grabbing his suit jacket, he hurriedly collected the photographs and dropped them into a large envelope.
    “Bring the painting,” he told Olivia. “Who knows what flood of memories might come flowing from Mabel’s mind when she sees it.”
    Olivia shouldered the bag and pulled her cell phone from her purse. “I’m glad you’re driving. I need to put a call in to Oyster Bay’s police chief and have him put a detail on Harris’s house.”
    “You know the chief of police?” Billinger seemed impressed.
    Thinking of Rawlings’ brown eyes flecked with green and gold, his tacky Hawaiian shirts, his penchant for chocolate milk, and his undeniable skill as an artist, Olivia murmured, “Not as well as I’d like, but I plan to do something about that very soon.”

Chapter 13
    It is singular how soon we lose the
impression of what ceases to be constantly
before us. A year impairs, a
luster obliterates. There is little distinct
left without an effort of memory, then
indeed the lights are rekindled for a
moment—but who can be sure that the
Imagination is not the torch-bearer?
    —LORD BYRON

    R awlings was a step ahead of Olivia regarding Harris’s safety. He’d already established a rotation of drive-bys during the day and had offered overtime pay to any officers willing to sit in a squad car outside Harris’s house during the night.
    “I can’t afford to do this much longer,” Rawlings admitted. “Don’t have the budget for it. If I can’t break this case soon, Harris might be living with me.”
    Olivia would fund the cost of overtime herself if need be and told the chief as much. “Especially after dark. He’s more vulnerable then.”
    “Except that he always has company,” Rawlings said after a discreet pause. “It’s one thing to incapacitate a single person in order to search the house for hidden artwork, but to take two people out requires more planning.” Olivia heard a rustling at the other end of the phone as if the chief was sifting through sheaves of paperwork. “But the killer’s had enough time to plan, and that puts me on edge. I feel like Mr. Plumley’s murder only partially fulfilled his agenda and that he or she is ready to make a move. I believe that the countdown was initiated by that murder but is racing toward another act of violence.”
    Olivia had experienced the same prickling of unease, an unidentifiable sense of urgency that pushed at her like a wind at her back. Even now, on a wooded road north of Chapel Hill, Olivia felt the pressure building and intensifying like a wave preparing to crest. She tried not to fume at the ancient Chevy pickup in front of them, even though it forced them to drive below the speed limit.
    Billinger was lost in his own thoughts, but Olivia found his presence comforting. She hadn’t expected to have formed an immediate alliance with the professor, yet here he was, having put aside whatever plans he might have had for the rest of the afternoon, taking a chance on an old woman with an inconsistent mental state.
    Mabel was in a wheelchair in the garden of The Sunrise Retirement Community. Olivia almost made a caustic remark about the nursing home’s name, but held it back. She recognized a need to step into this insulated world with a positive attitude and could see that Billinger was well practiced in walking with soft footfalls and wearing a bright smile. He raised his hand and waved to a nurse watering a ceramic urn filled with red geraniums before approaching Mabel.
    “Good to see you, Professor!” The nurse greeted him warmly. “Mabel’s havin’ a good day. She’ll be right glad for some company.”
    The woman they’d come to visit was a tiny thing. Her body was so slight that it seemed as though she couldn’t hold herself upright without the support of the wheelchair. Mabel had tufts of white cotton-candy hair and rheumy blue eyes, but when she heard Billinger’s voice, she smiled and blinked away the fog of memory and held out a fragile hand, marked with age spots and swollen rivulets of blue veins, and reached for him.
    Billinger squatted down and looked at Mabel with genuine affection, accepting her hand and gently placing his over the thin flesh. He wheeled her alongside a nearby bench and gestured for Olivia to join them.
    The professor had told her that Mabel was only in her seventies, so Olivia was caught off guard by the woman’s