Car engines started in the driveway, and Olivia knew that a lone officer waited inside the remaining sedan. He would be sitting in the car for a long time, as Rawlings always lingered at a crime scene long after everyone else had left. He doled out assignments and his team leapt to work, but he chose not to focus on the raw data in the beginning of a case. His interest was in the story behind the crime.
He’d stand without speaking for a full thirty minutes in the place where violence had occurred. Whether a dank alley or a million-dollar home, he would become as still as a stone, close his eyes, and feel his way through the events leading to the crime.
Olivia watched him in silence and then eventually picked up the canvas bag containing Harris’s painting and stepped across the threshold of the open door. “I moved him,” she said softly. “He was facedown and I rolled him over. I couldn’t know that he was beyond help until then.”
He nodded, his gaze still on the book.
“May I come in?” she asked, examining the evidence of the police work. The body outline, the measurement marks on the floor, fingerprint and shoeprint dust, a scattering of sand.
“You seem to have a magnetic pull toward dead bodies, Ms. Limoges,” the chief remarked, his tone unbend-ingly formal. “Tell me what happened.”
They moved to Plumley’s kitchen, and Olivia began her recitation by describing how she’d first met Nick at Grumpy’s and continued by explaining the author’s unusual interest in Harris’s house.
“So your plan was to bring the painting here in order to elicit a response from Mr. Plumley?” Rawlings inquired.
“Yes,” Olivia answered. “By this point I’d put aside the theory that he had sinister motives. In fact, I felt guilty for assuming that he wasn’t sincere in his offer to help Harris polish his manuscript or provide the rest of us with tips on becoming published authors. Bringing the painting here was a peace offering, though Nick wouldn’t have realized that’s what it was meant to be. I did want to know whether it was pivotal to his research pertaining to the sequel to The Barbed Wire Flower, and if so, why hadn’t he just admitted that to Harris?”
Rawlings grew quiet, absorbing what she’d told him. He then unzipped the tote bag and spent a long time studying the winter scene.
Olivia was ready to get away from the beach house. The delayed shock of leaning over Plumley’s distorted face asserted itself now, turning her palms and forehead clammy. Unbidden, her mind flashed on a vision of her nephew lying in his incubator. A strange and unfamiliar emotion welled inside her, and she sucked in a deep breath to force it back down. Tiny babies, Plumley’s tortured corpse—those images didn’t belong on Olivia’s agenda. She should be concentrating on the hundreds of small details she needed to see to before Friday’s grand opening, but she couldn’t. Olivia squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus all of her senses on the feel of the cool glass tabletop beneath her palms.
“Hey.” Rawlings reached over and touched her wrist. “Are you okay?”
She flipped her hand over in order to grab hold of him. His skin was warm and solid beneath her touch. It calmed her instantly. “Sawyer, the last twenty-four hours have been hell.”
Rawlings listened as she told him about Anders, his hazel eyes softening as he witnessed her relive the fear and worry. When she had finished, his mouth curved into the hint of a smile. “This kind of emotional display could damage your ice queen reputation, you know.”
Pushing her chair away from the table, she put a hand on each of his cheeks and, after drinking in his scent of aftershave and coffee, leaned over and kissed him. “With your help, I may defrost yet,” she whispered, relishing the feel of his rough skin under her hands.
Carefully and with infinite tenderness, Rawlings pushed her away and rose to his feet. “I need to concentrate, Olivia.”
She nodded, unashamed, and pivoted until she faced the spot where Nick’s body had lain. Just touching Rawlings had brought her back to herself. She felt grounded again, in control of her feelings and ready to help him work through what had occurred in this living room.
After packing up the painting, Olivia said, “Plumley must have known his killer, to have invited someone in while wearing only a robe and boxer shorts.” She took a few steps forward and pointed at the book. “This was personal. Someone took pages from Nick’s own work and forced them into his mouth.” She hesitated and then asked, “Is that what killed him?”
“The medical examiner thinks he was strangled first. From behind. The pages were put in posthumously. That will have to be verified, of course, but that’s his initial assessment.”
Olivia felt a shiver of trepidation. “Feels like a crime of passion to me. The murderer choked the life out of Nick and then stuffed this own writing down his throat.”
“Made him eat his own words,” Rawlings declared solemnly. “Leaving us with the most significant question unanswered: Why? Who hated this man or his work enough to stop him from writing another word?”
There was no ready answer, of course. Olivia and Rawlings stood side by side for a long moment, and then he gave his gun belt a tug and gestured at the front door.
“I’d prefer your exit be less dramatic than your entrance,” he said with the ghost of a smile. “You made the right choice, Olivia, in coming to Mr. Plumley’s aid, but his killer could have still been inside. I wish you’d learn to curb your impetuousness.”
Olivia waved off his concern. “Haviland would have rescued me from harm, even if it meant shredding his paws on broken glass. I have complete faith in him.” She touched the chief’s shoulder before stepping outside. “And in you too.”
Pleasure flitted across the chief’s face, but he quickly hid it by sliding on a pair of mirrored sunglasses. The pair stepped outside, and Rawlings raised a hand at the officer waiting in the police cruiser. He then asked Olivia if she’d like a ride.
“No, thanks. I’ll provide an official statement when I come into town. I need to get to the hospital by eleven to give Hudson the key card for the hotel in Greenville.”
“You’re the only person in Oyster Bay who dictates when they’ll show up at the station.” Rawlings shook his head in mild exasperation. “Still, I know you’ll fit us into your schedule. And, Olivia, I might call on you to help dig up information on the previous inhabitants of Harris’s house.” His sunglasses glinted in the light. “I want to know what connection, if any, they had to that painting and, possibly, to Mr. Plumley.”
While Rawlings had been speaking, the other officer had eased out of the car, leaving the driver’s door open and the engine running. Obviously, it was now his task to watch over the house until it could be properly sealed, but he kept his distance until Rawlings made it clear that he was ready to leave both the crime scene and Olivia behind.
“I’d be glad to help, Chief,” Olivia replied, pleased that he’d asked. She kicked at some loose gravel, reluctant to part from Rawlings.
At that moment, Haviland ambled around the house from his napping place under the chaise lounge. He glanced at the chief and yawned widely, his white teeth gleaming in the midmorning sun.
Rawlings gave the poodle an affectionate pat on the flank.
“Keep her safe, Captain,” he murmured just loud enough for Olivia to hear. And with a professional nod in her direction, he climbed into the car.
Olivia watched the sedan reverse down the driveway in a cloud of sand-infused dust, gave a friendly but fatigued wave to the officer left in charge of the house, and climbed over the dunes toward home.