The Last Word (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

I’m half disgusted with myself for being here, but I knew this would hurt you. I didn’t want you to find out from anyone but me, but I can see that I’m already too late. I suppose your professor friend sent you this?”
    Olivia didn’t even hear the question. She dug her fingertips into the fabric of the chief’s uniform sleeve and squeezed him hard. “Let me be the one,” she begged, her voice hoarse and pitiful. “Let me go to him first.”
    Rawlings dropped his eyes. “I can’t allow that. You’d have him on the next plane, the next boat, anything to save him.”
    “Even if I offered, he wouldn’t run,” she whispered. “He didn’t want to before. Ziegler forced him to. Please, Sawyer. I want him to have a friend there when you come for him. He’s been on his own for so long.”
    The muscles in the chief’s jaw pulsed as he waged an internal battle over what was more important, following procedure and ensuring an airtight case or allowing another human being a moment of grace. In the end, he decided that Heinrich Kamler was worthy of a little compassion.
    “You have an hour,” he stated sternly. “And I’m trusting you, Olivia.”
    Too overwhelmed by emotion to respond, Olivia wiped the tears from her cheeks and gestured for Haviland to accompany her to the car. She backed out of the driveway, leaving sprays of dust and sand in her wake.
    Never had she imagined that the end of the investigation would lead to the door of a friend. She’d always assumed that the killer would be some cruel and twisted stranger, a vengeful, spiteful, or greedy man with a black heart. But this one was funny, kind, and hardworking. He was one of them. He belonged to them.
    Olivia sped through town, oblivious of everything around her. Five miles beyond the business district, she turned onto a narrow lane sloping down to the harbor. A small house with brown shingles sat perched on a gentle rise above the water. A worn path led to a small dock where a one-man fishing skiff was tethered, leisurely bobbing in the mild current.
    The sight of the tiny vessel nearly made Olivia stumble, but she managed to make it to the front door.
    There was no need to knock. Heinrich Kamler had seen her coming and had opened the door to welcome her inside.
    “I’m glad it’s you, ’Livia,” he said in a voice heavy with sorrow. “Of all the people in this town, I’d have chosen you to know the truth.”
    Olivia nodded, angry that she could not control the tears that rushed down her face.
    “There, there,” the man said and reached for her. “I reckon we’ve got time for a glass of sun tea before the chief comes for me.”
    She went to him, putting both arms around his back, taking in the frailty of his body. She traced the vertebrae of his spine and could feel his ribs through his thin, aged skin. Yet in her mind, she saw him as Evelyn White had seen him, a young man in the prime of life. A young man doomed by a lie.
    The only comfort she had to offer was this embrace.
    Olivia held him close. Haviland licked their hands and whined anxiously, as she whispered his name over and over again. “Wheeler . . . Wheeler . . .”

Chapter 17
    Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s
longing for itself.
    —KAHLIL GIBRAN

    W heeler led Olivia into his tidy kitchen. The room was Spartan, lacking the bric-a-brac, photographs, and souvenirs displayed by most people who’d lived for eight decades. Every surface was clean, and the scent of oranges and vinegar hung in the air.
    Three storage containers, a knife block, and a cutting board were lined up with mathematical precision on the countertop. Wheeler placed a lemon and a lime onto the board, cut the fruit into nearly transparent slices, and stuffed them on the bottom of a glass tumbler. He then smothered them with ice cubes, poured in his homemade sun tea, and beckoned Olivia to join him out on the small deck.
    They settled on a pair of chairs overlooking the harbor, and Olivia waited for Wheeler to speak, sipping the tea as though this was a relaxed social call, as if there wasn’t a phantom hourglass present, its grains of sand already falling.
    Wheeler sat for a few minutes, watching a sailboat pass beyond a pair of marker buoys. As the vessel headed for the open sea, he said, “Ziegler’s boy was the spittin’ image of his daddy. When he came into my place for breakfast, I thought I was seein’ a ghost. A ghost with glasses and