Written in Stone (19 page)

“Show me, please,” Rawlings said and the two men walked behind the shack. They remerged
minutes later, silent and angry.

“What will happen to this place?” Olivia asked Harlan.

He gestured outward with both arms. “When the lawmen are done poking around, the forest
will claim it.” He dusted off his hands and began to make his way toward the path.
Then he paused and looked at Olivia. “That would make her happy. She was as much a
part of these woods as the trees or the stream or the clay. She belongs to them now.”

Olivia liked the thought of that. She gave Harlan a grateful smile before he turned
away.

Together, the small party left the remains of Munin Cooper’s existence behind, bequeathing
her meager possessions to the wilderness.

*   *   *

Rawlings left Olivia at the dock and hurried off to contact Sheriff Poole. Harlan,
who had errands in town, tied up the Whaler and said his good-byes as well.

Finding herself suddenly alone, Olivia headed for The Boot Top. Though Hudson needed
to know that she’d seen their father’s double again, she didn’t want to tell him now.
Once again, her head was crowded with disjointed thoughts and she didn’t want to sort
out the question of her paternity at the moment. Instead, she headed straight to her
office at The Boot Top to look up the quote she’d found in Munin’s mug.

Typing the words into Google’s search box produced an instant result. The killer had
left the final four lines of a poem entitled “Inscription for Katrina’s Sun-Dial”
by Henry Van Dyke. Like the other poems the killer favored, this one focused on things
lost due to the passage of time. Olivia found it interesting that the poem actually
ended with a positive message about the enduring power of love. She had no doubt that
killer had omitted those lines because they didn’t mesh with his or her distorted
view of justice.

She was just about to search for a deeper analysis of the poem when Haviland issued
a low growl.

“What is it, Captain? Is someone here?”

Haviland rose to his feet, his ears raised.

“It’s me!” Millay called out and Haviland immediately stopped growling.

Millay appeared in the doorway and stopped. “I was hoping to find you here,” she said,
stuffing her hands in the pockets of a very short and very frayed jean skirt.

“Oh?” Olivia asked, momentarily flustered by her friend’s unexpected visit. “Have
you been to the hospital?”

Millay tugged at one of strings hanging from her skirt. “Yeah. Talley’s awake and
talking. Fletcher, Annette, and Judson are there, along with a few other people from
her tribe. I didn’t feel like I really belonged.” She snapped the thread and began
to wind it around her fingers. “I’m here because I have an idea.” Now she looked directly
at Olivia. “But I need Haviland.”

Involuntarily, Olivia put a hand on the poodle’s back. “What?”

Millay opened the flap of her messenger bag and withdrew a pack of cigarettes from
inside. “Clove.”

Olivia merely raised her eyebrows, silently inviting her friend to explain.

“I want to find the killer,” Millay said with forced nonchalance. “All three of our
major suspects are with Talley. All three of them are staying at the same hotel. Haviland
can track this scent. If it’s on their dirty clothes or sheets or whatever, he can
find it, right?”

“Yes, but . . .” Olivia trailed off. It was crazy to even entertain the idea of breaking
into three hotel rooms. Rawlings would be livid if he found out. Yet she was tired
of feeling useless, of believing that Willis’s murderer had rendered every member
of the local law enforcement as well as the Bayside Book Writers utterly inept. “How
do you plan on getting two women and a poodle into their rooms?”

Millay’s smile was blinding. She had an accomplice. “The hotel uses magnetized key
cards so I’ll either swipe a master key from housekeeping or go with Plan B.”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“Last night, I talked to some of my Fish Nets buddies about lock picking and let’s
just say one of them lent me a very handy tool. I’ve got it in a garment bag.” She
gestured at Haviland. “The toughest part will be sneaking him in.”

Olivia waved off the idea. “When I’m desperate, I tell people I have a medical condition
that Haviland is trained to respond to it.” She smirked. “I’ve only resorted to the
lie once or twice, but this is an emergency, isn’t it?”

Millay backed out of the doorway to allow Olivia and Haviland to exit. She averted
her eyes, overcome by a rare moment of shyness. “You know, I don’t admire many people,
but you’re on my short list.” She held out the clove cigarettes.

“Same goes for you,” Olivia said and put the pack to her nose. If she’d felt any hesitation
over breaking and entering, it vanished the moment the powerful scent hit her nasal
passages. She closed her eyes and could almost feel the sun on her shoulders and hear
the din of the powwow crowd. Those last moments with Willis rushed through her mind.
Not as he lay dying, but of the time beforehand, when he was talking and gesturing
animatedly, his face aglow with vitality.

Olivia gripped the cigarette pack hard and opened her eyes. She looked at Millay and
found the same quiet rage reflected in her friend’s gaze.

Nodding, the two women marched outside, determined to gain the upper hand at last,
even if it meant committing a crime.

*   *   *

As Olivia entered the town of Havelock, the storm that had been moving in from the
Atlantic made itself known. The sky rumbled with thunder and a hard, saturating rain
fell from a wall of charcoal gray clouds. She parked the Range Rover and, eschewing
an umbrella, she, Millay, and Haviland ran for cover.

The hotel lobby was nearly deserted when they strode in through the sliding glass
doors. A lone desk clerk was preoccupied showing an elderly couple how to reach a
landmark on their road map. None of them looked up as Millay, Olivia, and Haviland
turned down the first corridor in search of the stairwell.

“Do you know their room numbers?” Olivia asked as they climbed the stairs to the second
floor.

“Pretty much,” Millay replied smugly. “This morning Annette mentioned that her room
had a little balcony that overlooked the pool and she could hear the ice maker going
at it in the middle of the night. That means it backs up against her room. The men
will either be on the same side or across the hall from her. It’s easier for housekeeping
that way.”

Olivia mulled this over. “And the mention of the balcony versus a patio is why we’re
headed to the second floor.”

“Yep. Hotels save the ground floor for seniors and the handicapped. Couples and families
get the higher floors.” Millay tapped her head. “Amazing what you can find on the
Internet. I even watched a YouTube video on how to use my handy break-in gadget.”

Millay had shown the tool to Olivia in the privacy of the Range Rover. It looked like
an oversized coat hanger and was meant to slip beneath the door and then curl up on
the other side, grabbing hold of the handle.

However, when they reached the niche where the ice maker and a pair of vending machines
stood, Millay spied a housekeeper coming out from a room two doors down and decided
to appeal to her first. She claimed to have been sent to get an insurance card for
her aunt who’d landed in the hospital and made quite of show of being both worried
and rushed.

The housekeeper repeated the words “hospital” and “insurance” in English and then
murmured to herself in Spanish. She quickly nodded her head and opened what they suspected
was Annette’s door with her master key. She then pointed at Haviland and raised her
pencil-thin brows in question.

“She needs a dog.” Millay jerked a thumb at Olivia and adopted a pained expression.
“Very sick.”

That was all the housekeeper needed to hear. She gave the two women a tight smile
and quickly pushed her cart in the opposite direction, her orthopedic shoes squeaking
as she hustled down the hall.

“Now she thinks I have the plague,” Olivia said and pushed past Millay into the room.
“Check the closet. See if you recognize Annette’s clothes.”

While Millay shut the door and turned to the closet, Olivia took the clove cigarettes
out of her purse and held them under Haviland’s nose. “Find,” she commanded.

He sniffed the open pack, sneezed, and shook his head in distaste, but then got to
work.

“She wore this shirt yesterday.” Millay pointed into the closet and then stepped aside
as Haviland stuck his head into the space. He backed out again and entered the bathroom.
Olivia watched him carefully while Millay spent her time opening and closing drawers
and flipping through the pages of the novel on Annette’s bed.

After five minutes of deliberate sniffing, Haviland returned to Olivia’s side and
sat down on his haunches. He hadn’t found the scent anywhere in Annette’s room.

“Now what?” Olivia asked though she already knew the answer.

“Keep an eye out for the housekeeper and I’ll open the room next door.”

Olivia moved to the center of the corridor and kept watch as Millay got on her knees,
slipped the wire tool from the bag, and slid it under the door. She then pulled back
on the wire in a movement that reminded Olivia of an archer nocking an arrow on a
bow, and maneuvered the hooklike piece on the other side of the door until it caught
hold of the handle. Within thirty seconds, Millay had gained access to the room.

“Damn,” Olivia breathed once they were safely inside. “You’re way too good at that.”

Millay shrugged. “I practiced it like fifty times after work. I want to nail this
bastard and I wasn’t going to let some locked hotel door stand in my way.”

The next room appeared to be Fletcher’s. It was easy to identify his clothing, and
the leather travel case in the bathroom bore his initials in gold lettering. Millay
carefully rummaged through his drawers, Haviland investigated every nook and corner
in an attempt to track the aroma of cloves, and Olivia examined the stack of papers
on the desk. “There are copies of Natalie’s medical records detailing Talley’s birth,”
she told Millay. “Looks like the same stuff the sheriff asked Judson to fax him.”

At that moment, Olivia’s phone buzzed. She had an incoming call from Laurel. Deciding
that it wasn’t the best time to talk, she motioned for Millay. “Let’s go. There’s
nothing here.”

Once again, she took up a position in the hall while Millay opened the door to the
next room. It became clear right away that they’d entered the wrong room.

“No way this is Judson’s.” Olivia pointed at the pink nightie and floral robe thrown
across the unmade bed. A set of hot rollers and an enormous cosmetics bag in the bathroom
confirmed their error.

Back in the hall, the women paused. They could try for the last room on the row or
pick one of the rooms across from Annette’s. Before they could decide, the elevator
beep sounded and a couple carrying a sleeping toddler headed in their direction.

Olivia and Millay quickly pretended to be studying something on Millay’s phone. The
couple entered the room opposite Fletcher’s.

“End of the hall it is,” Millay said.

Hesitating, Olivia whispered. “What if that family comes back out?”

“Get Haviland to foam at the mouth.” Millay tried to sound cavalier, but Olivia could
tell she was just as nervous. “We’ve got to finish what we came here to do.”

And with that, she crouched down in front of the last door. The instant they got inside,
Olivia’s phone vibrated again. Laurel was calling for the second time. “Let me see
what she wants.”

“Where are you?” Laurel demanded. “I’ve been calling all of your regular haunts and
no one’s seen you.”

“Millay and I are doing some recon.” Olivia crossed the room and began to open the
nightstand drawers.

Laurel grunted. “Well, the twins are watching cartoons and Steve’s absorbed in some
preseason NFL show, so I had a chance to type up my notes from Saturday. I found something,
Olivia.” After her dramatic pause she continued. “Of course I had to research the
Battle of Hayes Pond again to make sure that I wasn’t seeing things, but I know what
Munin’s clues mean.”

Olivia waved for Millay to join her by the window. “I’m going to put you on speaker.”

“Remember how Rawlings told us about the woman whose husband ran off and left her
behind after the Lumbee showed up at the KKK rally and gave the Klansmen what for?”
Laurel’s excitement practically leapt through the phone speaker.

“Yeah?” Millay drummed her fingers against her skirt.

“Her name was Mrs. Marjorie Dawson, but her maiden name was Ware.” Laurel fell silent,
waiting for her friends to catch on.

Suddenly, the skin on Olivia’s arms erupted in goose bumps. “Jesus. Judson. His last
name is Ware.”

“You got it!” Laurel cried as if Olivia was her star pupil. “He’s the son of Mr. and
Mrs. Virgil Dawson. He wasn’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye when his daddy dashed
off and his mama drove her car into a ditch. But I found out that he was born in 1960
and we’re all familiar with where he lived. That is, until his parents ran out of
money and sold their place for pennies on the dollar.”

“Talley’s house,” Millay breathed.

Olivia passed the phone to Millay and held the cigarettes out in front of Haviland’s
quivering nose. “Find,” she whispered, unashamed of her shaking fingers or the dread
she felt as she stared at a pair of Judson’s shoes.

“The school ring. The one from the memory jug,” Millay said dully. “It was from the
class of 1970-something, right? Did Judson go to Littleton?”

“Yes, but why do you two sound so stressed out?” Laurel’s tone was tight with concern.
“Where are you?”

From within the small bathroom, Haviland barked once, signaling that he’d located
the scent.

Millay and Olivia exchanged a long look.

They were standing in the killer’s room.

And by the time Olivia saw the flash of movement reflected in the window glass, it
was too late to leave.