Poisoned Prose (A Books by the Bay Mystery) (6 page)

“Are you even listening?” her friend demanded.

“I’m sorry that I told you to go home,” Olivia said, her words hoarse, her voice ragged. She took another swallow of water. “But the cops wouldn’t have let you back into the library anyway. You’d have waited outside until all hours of the morning to get a few aggrandized statements from members of the audience. No one could have told you anything of import.”

“But I still could have broken the story,” Laurel protested, but with less heat. “Anyway, it’s done now. You sound terrible, by the way.”

“I’ve felt better. Perhaps if I’d had more sleep . . .” She let the accusation hang in the air.

Laurel sighed. “Guess we’re even now. Listen, I have a bunch of background material on Violetta—stuff I’d compiled for her article. Do you think the chief could use it?”

“Absolutely. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to read it too.” Olivia closed her eyes for a moment, blocking out the sunlight and Haviland’s plaintive look. The poodle was hungry, and it was well past breakfast time. “I saw her last night, Laurel. And frankly, I’m relieved you weren’t there. All of that incredible energy, that powerful force that she was able to exude . . . it just vanished.”

“She told us she’d become a ghost,” Laurel whispered. “How did she know?”

Olivia thought back on the beginning of the performance. And then her eyes flew open and she sat up in bed. “Here’s another question. Who was she pointing at in the audience right after she raised the subject of the ghost?”

Laurel gasped. “Do you think she saw her killer? That she knew she was almost out of time?”

“Maybe. We should let the chief know who was seated there.”

Laurel didn’t reply. As the silence grew, Olivia could practically feel her friend’s reluctance to speak. “What is it, Laurel?”

“Don’t you remember who came in late and took the last seats on the end of that row? The exact place Violetta pointed to?”

Dread washed over Olivia. Its coldness was incongruent with the bright white sheets and the warm sunshine streaming through the windows. “Damn it all. It was Grumpy and Dixie.”

“Are you going to tell Rawlings?”

The question echoed the one Dixie had asked her the night before, and Olivia felt the sudden burden of it. “I have to,” she said miserably.

An hour later, she opened the door to the deck and stepped into the heat. The stark light had bleached the colors from the sand and sea oats. Except for the glassy ocean, the whole world had been rendered a dull beige. Cradling a mug of coffee, Olivia watched Haviland race down the path over the dunes, heading for the water’s edge. She tried calling Rawlings again, but he didn’t answer.

She showered, slipped into a gauzy sundress, and drove into town. The church bells were pealing, and people dressed in their Sunday best hurried from sanctuary to car, reluctant to be away from the luxury of air-conditioning for more than a moment. The noon sun perched high in a hazy blue sky, and the heat shimmered off the sidewalks in ripples.

The moment Olivia entered The Bayside Crab House, Haviland turned left for the kitchen. “No, you don’t,” she scolded. “We have paperwork to do.”

Haviland gave a sniff of disapproval but trotted into the manager’s office. Olivia liked to do her bookkeeping on Sundays when her sister-in-law, Kim, was home with her two kids. Kim handled the restaurant’s day-to-day operations, but Olivia made the major decisions. Settling into the desk chair, she placed orders, reviewed the budget, and e-mailed a Raleigh advertising firm about the restaurant’s fall campaign.

She’d just sent the e-mail when her half brother, Hudson, knocked on the office door. “Hungry?”

She smiled at the man she hadn’t known for very long. Hudson was gruff and taciturn like their father, but he had a softer heart than Willie Wade and adored his wife and children. He also wasn’t as enamored of whiskey as Willie had been. Hudson rarely drank, and when he did, a cold beer satisfied him. Her brother was a hard worker and an excellent cook, and over the past year, Olivia had grown quite fond of him.

He’s not your brother
, a voice whispered.

Olivia studied Hudson’s tall frame and dark eyes. They were Willie’s eyes, but they weren’t hard or angry. They were much kinder. Willie Wade was not known for his kindness.

He
is
my brother
.
No one knows that Charles Wade is my father. The facts don’t matter. What matters is that I need Hudson and his family, and they need me.

“I had a late breakfast,” she said, still smiling. “How about a salad?”

“You got it.” Haviland nudged Hudson with his paw and whined once. The big man studied the poodle. “I might have something for you too.”

He returned shortly with a grilled chicken Caesar salad for Olivia and a small bowl of ground beef mixed with peas for Haviland. “What do you think of the specials for next week?” he asked after serving Olivia her meal.

“I think the mahimahi and cilantro fish tacos will be a huge hit,” she said. “And the blackened grouper is always a top seller, but my favorite is the firecracker shrimp with a side of wasabi slaw.”

Hudson was clearly pleased. “It’s got quite a bite.”

They finished reviewing the menu and Hudson left to go back to the kitchen while Olivia ate and continued to work. As she completed her last task, images of Violetta invaded her thoughts. Turning to the computer, she typed Violetta’s name into Google’s search box.

“Who were you?” she asked. Over a dozen results appeared on the screen.

Most of these focused on Violetta’s performances, but Olivia finally found a site on the arts of Appalachia that had a link to the storyteller’s biography. Violetta Devereaux was born in 1958 in Whaley, North Carolina, to Josiah and Ira Devereaux. The fourth of five children, Violetta had three older sisters, Hattie, Mabel, and Flora, and a younger brother, Elijah.

Violetta’s father worked their mountain farm while her mother tended their two-room cabin and made rugs on her loom. She sold these, along with quilts and blankets, or traded them for goods. The children worked from the time they could walk. In addition to their regular chores, they were also tasked with gathering plants to sell to a wholesale drug company. “We collected Galax and goldenseal, witch hazel and snake root and more. We got paid the most for ginseng,” Violetta was quoted as saying. The direct quote gave Olivia pause, and she scrolled to the end of the piece to see who’d penned the biography.

“Alfred Hicks,” she spoke the name aloud for no reason in particular, but when she did, it sounded familiar. “How do I know you?”

Unable to recall the context, she resumed her reading. The Devereaux children didn’t have much in the way of formal schooling, and the family possessed very few books. Their chief entertainment came in the form of Bible readings and tale telling when the family gathered around the potbellied stove each night. Josiah was an avid storyteller, and Violetta soon learned to mimic his methods. As she grew into a young woman, Violetta began performing for neighbors and local church groups. People found her so captivating that she considered entering the regional competition. However, she couldn’t afford to travel. The family struggled financially. During a particularly lean winter, Violetta’s brother, Elijah, fell ill. The severely undernourished child died on Violetta’s eighteenth birthday. Wracked by grief, she made two vows. The first was to leave home and never return. The second was to never marry or bear children.

In the spring following Elijah’s death, Violetta packed up her few belongings and moved to the outskirts of Blowing Rock where she began her storyteller career in earnest. To supplement her income, she took in washing and continued to sell plants to local drug companies. Violetta survived, but she remained poor and relatively unknown until, during her late thirties, she competed in a major storyteller’s competition and was awarded a handsome grant. Violetta toured the state and later, the nation, performing for children and adults alike. She never reunited with her family following Elijah’s death. Those close to the Devereauxes claim that the character of Jack in Violetta’s stories was modeled after her late brother, but Violetta never confirmed this theory. When questioned about her reclusive nature and refusal to commit any of her stories to paper, Violetta responded by saying, “Some of my tales are about life and laughter, but others are dangerous. Cursed. Strung together, some of the lines and phrases can form a noose, strong enough to hang a man with.”

The article finished with a glowing review of Violetta’s performance at the National Storytelling Festival in Tennessee.

Olivia let the information sink in for a moment. She then opened a new window and typed Alfred Hicks’s name into the search box. She gasped when the first result announced that Hicks, a professor at Western Carolina University, had died last winter.

“‘Suffered fatal injuries resulting from a fall,’” Olivia murmured. Her words dropped like anchors into the empty air. “Lowell told Dixie the professor’s death was no accident. He claimed that it had been the work of a ghost.”

She stared at the screen again, trying to locate where Hicks had died. “A trail on Beech Mountain,” she said and opened yet another window. This time she used Google Maps to zoom in on Beech Mountain and its environs. Scanning the small towns close by, she saw that Violetta’s hometown of Whaley was practically at the mountain’s base.

“So what?” she asked the screen. “Is the connection important?”

Olivia was just about to conduct a search on Violetta’s estranged family when her cell phone rang. Recognizing the number, she answered at once.

“’Livia? Lowell’s here. At the house.” Dixie’s whisper was low and anxious. “I’m not gonna call the cops. I’m callin’ you.”

“Has he said anything?”

Dixie snorted. “Yeah. He said he wanted a beer. And then he said that he wanted another one. And another one after that. He’s as rattled as a loose shutter in a hurricane.”

Olivia tried to control her impatience. “Has he said anything of significance?”

“He told us about Violetta. About findin’ her. And about runnin’ away.”

“Why did he take off?”

Dixie hesitated. “He said he needs a place to hide. That if he doesn’t, he’ll be next.”

“He knows the killer’s identity?” Olivia couldn’t conceal her eagerness.

Another long pause. “He says it’s the ghost. The one from the mountains that pushed the professor off the trail,” Dixie said. “I have no idea what to make of it. You’d best come over. He might talk to you. But just you.”

Olivia didn’t reply immediately. Dixie was asking her to have a friendly chat with the suspect in a murder investigation. She also wanted her to keep Lowell’s whereabouts from Rawlings. Olivia hated to deceive him, but she saw no other choice. Someone needed to hear Lowell’s story, especially if he was prepared to go underground like a crab scuttling into a burrow. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” she said.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think he did it.”

Olivia heard the doubt in her friend’s voice. “Are you sure?”

“No.” She hung up.

Reaching down to wake her sleeping poodle, Olivia held her hand on Haviland’s soft head. “It’s time for you to morph into guard-dog mode, Captain.”

Haviland sprang to his feet, instantly alert. Olivia felt a powerful rush of affection for him. She leaned over and kissed his black nose, breathing in the scent of his fur. He smelled of salt water and sunshine.

She then led her dog outside into the heat. And quite possibly into peril.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there; I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow.

—
M
ARY
F
RYE

T
he Weaver’s doublewide was at the end of a gravel road lined with loblolly pines and wax myrtle. Their yard was a southern redneck cliché. Scattered in between copses of weeds was a rusty sedan on cinder blocks, a kennel with a chain-link fence, stacks of tires, a flipped wheelbarrow, and an assortment of mismatched lawn chairs in various degrees of disrepair.

Dixie occupied one of three molded-plastic chairs positioned beneath a green awning that was attached to the roof of the mobile home. She raised her hand in greeting as Olivia pulled her Range Rover to a stop next to Grumpy’s Harley.

Olivia let Haviland out and he raced to Dixie. He licked her once and then sniffed her all over, as if he could smell her anxiety. She whispered briefly to him, and then stood up and walked to her outdoor refrigerator.

“Beer?” she asked Olivia, fishing out a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

“No, thanks. I’d love a glass of tap water though.”

Dixie turned to the trailer and hollered, “Come on out here, Lowell! And bring a glass of water with you! The McDonald’s cups are clean!”

“McDonald’s?” Olivia raised a brow and took the chair next to Dixie’s.

“They’re old as the hills, but we love ’em. They’ve got pictures of the Hamburglar. My kids were wild about him when they were little.”

Olivia shook her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You have lived a very sheltered life, my friend.” The door to the doublewide creaked open, and Lowell poked his head out. After peering nervously around the yard, he joined Dixie and Olivia under the awning. He presented Olivia with her water without meeting her inquisitive gaze. She thanked him and examined the glass she’d been given.

“See?” Dixie pointed at a dwarflike figure dressed in a black-and-white prisoner’s uniform and a black cape and hat. “That pint-sized bandit ran around stealin’ hamburgers. He was Lowell’s hero when we were kids. I used to have a whole set of these, but my boys have broken half of ’em.”

Considering Lowell had served more than one jail sentence for robbery, Olivia found it strange to be drinking from a glass decorated with a cartoonish thief.

As if reading her mind, Lowell gave her a wry smile. “Not only am I better looking than that guy, but I went after much cooler stuff. A patty of defrosted meat stuck between a pair of stale buns? He should have been emptying cash registers.”

Olivia noted that while Lowell’s accent was much like Dixie’s languid drawl, he didn’t cut the
g
’s off the end of his words like she did. He had her ale-brown eyes too, but his hair was darker and his forehead larger. There was a hardness to his jaw too. Dixie could be stubborn, but she was never hard. Her eyes always sparkled with humor, and she was usually on the brink of laughter. Not now. Lowell’s presence had her looking tense and haggard.

“I’m sorry about Violetta,” Olivia told Lowell gently. She knew she had to tread carefully or Lowell would clam up, so she decided that courtesy was her safest move. “And I’m sorry that you had to be the one to find her.”

Lowell, who’d been sitting on the edge of his chair, relaxed slightly. “I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe that was Violetta. She was . . . did you go back there?”

“Yes.” Olivia glanced from him to Dixie. “It was awful. I was shocked to say the least.”

Lowell seized on the word, as Olivia expected he would. She knew she needed to gain his trust if she wanted to learn anything of significance. “Shocked. Yeah, I was shocked too. That’s not even good enough to describe how I felt.” He passed a hand over his face. “The way her eyes were open, staring at nothing. And her mouth . . . I could tell she’d suffered. She wasn’t Violetta anymore. She was something out of a nightmare.”

The comment surprised Olivia. Lowell had served jail time. He’d seen and done things most people hadn’t, and yet, the sight of his dead boss had caused him to come undone.

It could all be an act
, she reminded herself. “Is that why you took off?”

He nodded, his gaze sliding from her face to the woods.

“Your reaction is completely understandable,” Olivia said. “So why not come forward? Is there more to the story?”

When Lowell refused to answer, Dixie frowned at him. “Tell her what you told me. She’s not gonna laugh. She’s not like that.”

Lowell’s eyes narrowed, and he stared at Olivia. “Do you believe in ghosts?” His question sounded like a challenge.

She was feeling less and less sympathetic toward him by the moment. “No. I believe memories, regrets, or mistakes haunt people. But I don’t subscribe to the idea that restless spirits wander the earth. When you’re dead, you’re dead.”

“I thought that once too,” Lowell said. “But not anymore.”

Olivia threw out her hands in exasperation. “Are you going to talk to me or not? I have better things to do than sit here and try to pull words out of your mouth.”

Lowell screwed his mouth into an ugly sneer, and Dixie put a hand over his. “If you don’t get this out, it’ll eat you up inside. And while that’s happenin’ the cops are gonna find you, and when they do, you’ll need this lady to put in a good word for you.”

“I don’t need her help. I didn’t hurt Violetta. All I want to do is get out of town.”

Now Olivia did sense fear in the small man. “Does this have to do with Professor Hicks? Were you working for Violetta when he died?”

Lowell was silent for so long that Olivia didn’t think he would answer. All the anger and defensiveness had drained from his face. His eyes had gone glassy, as if he were hundreds of miles away, and the memory he became lost in was clearly an unpleasant one. “He wanted to write all of her stories down, but she didn’t care for that. She told him he could put the Jack tales on paper because they didn’t belong to her. They belonged to everyone.”

“While the other stories, like the haint tales, didn’t?” Olivia guessed.

“That’s right. Some of them were passed down from her daddy and granddaddy, and she made up a bunch too. The one about the ghost in the forest, the one where folks are looking for silver dollars, the one about the man going crazy and acting like a bear, and some others are hers. You can tell because she talks about places where she grew up. Landmarks and stuff.”

Olivia nodded to show that she was listening.

“Hicks was real persistent. He was like a pit bull hanging on another dog’s throat. Just wouldn’t let go. He followed Violetta. Wrote her letters. Left gifts at her doorstep. But she only let him in after he promised to dedicate his book to Elijah. That’s her brother who died when she was still living at home.”

Now that Lowell had begun to talk, the words came pouring out. Olivia suspected he’d been waiting to speak to someone about the professor for a long time. “I assume that she gave him permission to print her stories in the end,” Olivia said.

“Most of them,” Lowell said. “But I saw him during her shows. He attended them so he could write down the ones she didn’t want him to print. Even from the stage I could see him scribbling away.”

“Why? He couldn’t have published them without her permission.”

Lowell shrugged. “I asked him that same question, but he wouldn’t give me a straight answer. I didn’t want him pulling one over on Miss Violetta. She was good to me. A real classy lady.”

He sounded sincere, but Olivia decided it was time to push him. “What about the treasure Violetta alluded to? Did she mention it in all of her performances?”

Staring her right in the eye, Lowell shook his head. “Only when she felt the past calling to her. It’s just a made-up story anyhow. There’s no treasure.”

Olivia studied Lowell and came to the conclusion that he was an accomplished liar. She said nothing, letting the silence grow uncomfortable.

Dixie was the first to react. Downing the rest of her beer, she nudged Lowell with the empty can. “Tell her how the professor died.”

Lowell shot her a reproachful look and then pushed himself out of the chair. “I need a drink.”

To avoid watching his ungainly passage to the refrigerator, Olivia focused her attention on Haviland, who was stretched out behind her in a soft patch of grass. Their conversation and the buzz of insects had lulled him to sleep. His paws twitched as his dream self chased phantom prey.

The pop and hiss of a pull-tab puncturing aluminum caused Olivia to glance up. Lowell drank several swallows of beer and then burped loudly. “We were all up on Beech Mountain that night,” he began, his gaze fixed on the trees again. “Hicks wanted to follow the track of one of Violetta’s haint tales. It was about two young girls who were being shadowed by a ghost. They crossed a log bridge over the river to get away, because the mountain people believe ghosts can’t move over water. This haint was protecting the silver coins he’d hidden inside the heart of a hollowed-out trunk.”

“Was Hicks after the coins?” Olivia asked. “Are they the treasure?”

“There’s no damn treasure!” Lowell yelled, lurching to his feet.

Haviland jerked awake with a growl and bared his teeth at the small man.

Olivia put a hand on her dog’s head. “It’s all right, boy.”

Lowell slowly resumed his seat, his expression guarded.

“Let me ask a different question, then,” Olivia said. “Why did Hicks go at night? And why were you with him?”

There was a long pause. “The haint tale took place just after twilight. In the dead of winter. Hicks said he wasn’t just gathering Violetta’s stories. He wanted to write a book about mountain people too. Claimed he had to live some of her tales if he was going to get the words right.”

Olivia made an encouraging noise.

“So there we were. The professor, a local man Hicks hired as a guide, and me. I’d lived up in the mountains for a few months, but I didn’t know my way around the place where Violetta grew up. She wouldn’t go near it herself. There was still a little daylight when we left the cabin Hicks was renting, but it got dark real quick. I went out of curiosity and because I didn’t really trust the guy, but if I knew how things would end, I never would have gone.” He slapped his thighs. “I don’t exactly have legs for hiking. Always thought Dixie’s way of getting around was the smartest. Stay on flat ground and roll on four wheels.”

Dixie nudged him with her bare foot. “Then what in hell’s name were you doin’ in those hills? You like fast cars and loud bikes. Hot meals and warm beds. Soft women and all-night bars. Why’d you take that job?”

“Not many folks were looking to hire an ex-con. The money was fair and Violetta was a good boss. She didn’t treat me like a freak. She knew what it felt like to be different. As it turned out, I liked being onstage.” A smile played around the corners of his mouth. “People stared at me because I wanted them to. They weren’t the kind of stares we’re used to, Dix. I wanted them to look at me.”

Dixie flashed him a grin. “I get that. Why do you think I wear rainbow kneesocks and tutus? I want folks to know that I’m more than a dwarf. I’m a diva on wheels.”

He smiled back at her, and Olivia could see that the two cousins genuinely cared for each other. There was tenderness in Lowell’s eyes when he looked at Dixie that made Olivia want to know him better.

“It must have been so cold that night,” she said softly, hoping to return to the scene of Hicks’s death.

Lowell took the bait. “My breath froze as soon as it left my mouth. After an hour or two, I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes or certain other parts of my body. Important parts.”

That earned another smile from Dixie, but Olivia wasn’t interested in levity. “Go on,” she said.

“The sky was coal black, but there was a full moon. We had just enough light to see by. When we finally got close to the place where Hicks thought the hollowed-out trunk was, it started to snow. Not the pretty Christmas kind of flakes, but the wet, get-under-your-collar stuff.” He gestured at the dry yard with his beer can. “Hard to imagine how cold it was in this kind of heat. How wet and icy cold. I kept saying that I was turning back, but I didn’t. I was worried about bears. Coyotes too.”

“I thought bears hibernate in the winter,” Dixie teased. “You think they’d wake up just to snack on your scrawny hide?”

Lowell didn’t laugh. “They don’t go into a deep sleep like bears in the North, and I didn’t want to take any chances.”

Olivia tried to picture the scene. An isolated mountain covered with dark trees, long shadows, and snow. Three shivering men following the landmarks described in Violetta’s story, climbing up and up as the night wore on.

“When we couldn’t tell the difference between a log and a stone, the guide called it quits. Hicks refused to leave, so we started going down without him. He was yelling something to us from a crag when . . .” He paused to finish his drink. “When he was pushed.”

He twisted the beer can in his hands until a silver gash appeared in its side. “I know it sounds crazy, but when I looked up, I saw something move toward Hicks. It was more like the outline of a person than a real person. A shape with huge black eyes. It put its hands out, and next thing I knew, Hicks was falling.”

Dixie shuddered. Olivia waited for Lowell to continue, but his eyes had gone glassy again.

“Did the guide see the shape too?” she asked.

“No. He was focused on the trail.” Lowell fingered the jagged edge of his can and then dropped it on the ground. “I didn’t think it was real. With the snow and the moonlight, I thought my eyes had played tricks on me. But I saw it. And I saw him fall. I see it over and over every night. I can’t sleep for seeing it.”

Olivia believed Lowell’s account of Hicks’s death. He’d witnessed something that hadn’t made sense to him. It had frightened him to the core.

“Did you tell the police about the figure?”

Lowell snorted. “Come on, lady. They’d have thought I’d been into the white lightning.”

Dixie and Olivia exchanged befuddled glances.

“Mule kick?” Lowell said. “Hillbilly pop, wild cat, blue John, bush liquor—”