Written in Stone (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

food with a guilty expression. “It seems totally impossible. He was so young.”
    Olivia didn’t want their gathering to turn morose, so she nodded and then gazed expectantly at Laurel. “Any luck with the jug?”
    Laurel pulled out her notebook and began flipping through the pages. “One woman thought she’d seen the insect on the high school ring before. She said it wasn’t a bee, but she couldn’t remember the right name.”
    “A wasp?” Millay guessed.
    “No,” Olivia said. “I looked up every high school in the state with a wasp or bee mascot. They don’t match the green stone.”
    Glancing at her notes, Laurel said, “I asked the woman about wasps too. It wasn’t the bug she was thinking of.”
    Rawlings rubbed his chin pensively. “Could it be a hornet?”
    “I suppose,” Olivia said. “I never checked for a hornet mascot.”
    Harris took out his phone and gave it a little shake. “You guys keep talking while my fingers do the walking.”
    Millay rolled her eyes and then focused on Laurel again. “What did people say about Willis?”
    “Only good things. In fact, I heard the same descriptions over and over—that Willis was energetic, fun loving, hard working, and devoted to the tribe and his sister.”
    “Nothing more personal?” Olivia asked in surprise. “Did he have a girlfriend? What happened to his parents?”
    Laurel’s shoulders slumped. “I tried to find out. Believe me, I did my best to dig deeper, but that’s all I got. I know most of the tribe is still in shock, but I didn’t hear one silly story from childhood or teenage antics or anything.”
    “There’s something weird about that. Why would people want to paint him in such a perfect light? That’s not how I want to be remembered,” Millay said, dumping her messenger bag on the table. Beer sloshed over the side of Harris’s glass and puddled next to his plate. When he protested, Millay told him to drink faster. She then removed a pad of paper from the bag and tapped her handwritten notes. “There’s a reason why everyone knows Willis and Talley. In the tribe, they’re, like, famous. They were about to become rich too. In a few weeks, Willis could have told Michel or you to ‘take your job and shove it.’ Now, Talley will get an even bigger piece of the pie. If the deal goes through, that is.” She took a gulp of beer and gazed at her friends through hooded lids, enjoying the moment of suspense.
    “Since we know you won’t continue until one of us of asks, I’ll ask,” Rawlings said. “What deal?”
    “Willis and Talley own a piece of land that’s going to be the future home of the Golden Eagle Resort and Casino.” Millay’s mouth curved upward into an impish grin. “Forget Vegas, baby. What happens in Lumberton stays in Lumberton.”
    “A casino?” Laurel was stunned. “Is that even legal?”
    Harris held out his finger, signaling that he was in the process of searching for an answer to that very question. He swiped at his phone’s screen a few times and then read a dense block of text. “A Cherokee casino in the western part of the state was recently granted permission to have poker tables and to serve alcohol. Before that, they were more like a glorified bingo hall.”
    “Lumberton’s right off I-95,” Rawlings said. “Tons of travelers could be lured into a casino.”
    Millay refilled her empty beer glass. “According to the newspaper article I read, the people from Maxton are totally on board with the whole thing. To them, the Golden Eagle means new jobs, a new life for their town. Right now, Maxton is just some dot on the map. If this casino goes up, they’ll have something going for them.”
    Olivia jumped at the mention of the town’s name. “Maxton?” She looked at Rawlings. “Isn’t that where the Battle of Hayes Pond took place?”
    “Whoa! There’s a heavy dose of poetic justice for you.” Harris chuckled. “First the Lumbee make the Klan look like the Caped Cowards of Carolina and now—because of legalized gambling—they are going to become the most influential people in Robeson County! Eat your heart out, Sopranos.”
    Laurel, who’d been writing furiously in her notebook, paused and tapped her lips with her pen. “I can’t explain it, but I think Olivia’s onto something. There must be a connection between the Locklear family, the Battle of Hayes Pond, and Munin’s jug.”
    “Why? None of the objects link Willis or Talley to Munin,” Rawlings argued