Written in Stone (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

especially when her thoughts seemed as vaporous as fog.
    “There’s a picnic table down this trail to the left,” Rawlings said after greeting his friends. “It’ll give us the privacy we need.”
    Her curiosity piqued, Olivia tried to elicit information from the chief as they walked, but he wouldn’t say a word until they were away from the rest of the public. Haviland jogged by the chief’s side and gazed up at him with smiling eyes.
    “I don’t know what you fed him yesterday,” Olivia said, pointing at her poodle, “but he’s obviously hoping for more.”
    “That’s a secret between us guys.” Rawlings gave Haviland an affectionate pat.
    The moment they reached the picnic table, Rawlings’ demeanor abruptly changed. His body stiffened and his shoulders and jaw tightened as he transformed from friend and fellow writer into Oyster Bay’s chief of police. Opening a manila folder, he pulled off his sunglasses and focused on the top sheet of a thick stack of papers. “You know this already, but let me just review it. Natalie Locklear died from complications that arose during surgery. She slipped and fractured a bone in her leg and died on the operating table.”
    “Does that report list her symptoms?” Olivia gestured at the file folder. “‘Complications’ is a vague term.”
    “Not in much detail,” Rawlings answered and looked at Olivia. “Why are you interested in her symptoms?”
    Olivia told him about Annette Stevens’ prescription.
    “That’s troublesome,” he mumbled.
    Laurel took her notebook out. “What happened to Mr. Locklear?”
    Rawlings searched for another piece of paper in his file. “Car accident. He was driving under the influence and plowed into a tractor-trailer. The truck driver wasn’t injured, but Bo Locklear died upon impact. Willis and Talley would have been fairly young when this happened. They probably don’t remember him much, if at all.”
    “This is a seriously unlucky family,” Harris pointed out.
    Millay sighed in exasperation. “Come on. Do you actually think the Locklears are cursed? That Munin was a real witch who had a set of Locklear family voodoo dolls? Or
maybe
”—she tapped her chin, her voice dripping with sarcasm—“these
unlucky
deaths have something to do with the piece of land they own?”
    “I spent half the night trying to put together a picture of this family,” Rawlings said. “Therefore, I don’t have much info on the land. But I can tell you this much. Grandpa Calvin Locklear never married. And when Bo was five years old, Calvin disappeared. He just up and vanished and no one ever heard from him again. Bo was raised in another county by a childless Lumbee couple. Right before he disappeared, Calvin bought a piece of land and eventually Bo came back to Maxton to live on it.” He tapped the stack of papers. “That’s not all, folks. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find a birth record for Bo that listed his mother’s name. The Locklear family really is shrouded in mystery.”
    “Weird.” Laurel was about to add to her sentence when the sounds of drums and a chant of “Go, Diego, go!” emitted from her cell phone. “The boys picked my ringtone.” She said, looking at the incoming caller’s number. “This is a colleague of mine from the
Robesonian.
I asked him to check into the casino deal. Ugh, I only have one bar.” Grabbing her notebook while answering her phone, she edged toward the main path, and then stopped, listening raptly. Two minutes later, she rejoined her friends.
    “Whatchya got, Brenda Starr?” Millay asked.
    “Lots. The land once belonged to the Dawson family. They ran a large, successful farm for many years, but fell on hard times in the early sixties and ended up selling the acreage and the house to Calvin Locklear for less than its appraised value. Here’s the kicker.” Laurel’s light blue eyes were dancing with excitement. “The Dawsons received offers from two other local parties prior to the sale. The Olsen and Stevens families.”
    Harris ran his hands through his ginger-colored hair. “I need one of those Red Bulls just to keep up with all of this.”
    Rawlings ticked off the names on his fingers. “Locklears, Olsens, Dawsons, Stevenses. What’s the connection? And why would the Dawsons undersell their land? With no income, they’d have to live on the money from the sale of their farm for years to come.”
    “There’s more.” Laurel paused to make sure she had their