A Killer Plot (2010)

Olivia noticed that Rawlings had chosen seasoned men to accompany him and was satisfied to find him taking the incident so seriously.

“Clear!” he called from the living room and disappeared upstairs.

Impatient to get down to the cottage, Olivia occupied herself by prepping the coffee machine to brew to its full capacity.

When the chief returned, his gun was holstered. “There’s no sign of an intruder and it doesn’t look as though anything’s been touched. Considering how tidy you are, Ms. Limoges, I’d think it would be obvious if someone had gone through your things. Would you care to check?”

Olivia shook her head. “No. It doesn’t feel like anyone’s been in the house. I believe I would know. Now let me show you where I found Haviland.”

The sand and grass-covered area in the lee of the cottage offered no clues except for the faintest boot print. Even that was a disappointment, being a shallow indentation no bigger that a two-inch square. The ridges were similar to the boots worn by both officers, and though the chief squatted down and studied the mark carefully, Olivia wasn’t hopeful that an arrest would be made based on a few lines in the sand. Half the men in Oyster Bay probably owned work boots that made similar imprints.

“There’s no indication of where he put the ground beef,” Rawlings commented, looking at Olivia. “Were you surprised to learn Haviland ate food given to him by a stranger?”

“First of all, there’s no way that bastard got close to him until whatever drugs he fed Haviland took effect,” Olivia protested. “He must have left out the meat nearby. If it smelled fresh and Haviland was hungry, which he was, he’d have eaten it. Despite the fact that his intelligence exceeds that of a great deal of Oyster Bay’s residents, Haviland is a dog.”

“He might have put the meat out closer to the water, sir,” one of the officers suggested. “The tide would have washed away all traces of the beef before Ms. Limoges ever found the dog. Even if our guy fed him right here, the flies, ants, and gulls would have cleaned up the scraps hours ago.”

Rawlings turned his face toward the sea. “Tonight’s meeting is important to him. I think he’s going to be there, as risky as that might be. He needs to see this thing come off without a hitch.”

Olivia followed his gaze. “He could have killed me, Chief. I was a sitting duck out here. I think he’s had a plan from the beginning. He knows his victims. I bet he’s had four poems written, four faces in his mind, and a single goal all along. I didn’t fit in his plan so he didn’t hurt me, but he doesn’t want me to spoil his vision either. That’s why he gave me a warning I couldn’t ignore. I just don’t understand why he took Haviland’s collar.”

Rawlings rubbed his chin and spent a few moments quietly thinking. “He may also have a code. Don’t kill women. Don’t hurt the innocent. He knocked your dog out, but he didn’t kill him.”

“Close enough,” Olivia growled.

Sending the two officers into the cottage for a quick search, Rawlings took Olivia’s elbow and held it. “Is it too much to ask you to be careful between now and tonight’s meeting?”

Olivia smiled at him. “Don’t worry about me, Chief. I’ll come into town to give you my fingerprints. Until then, I plan to find things to do at home.” Her smile vanished. “Such as cleaning my rifle.”

Chapter 15

In winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candle-light.

In summer quite the other way,

I have to go to bed by day.

—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

To her relief, Rawlings and his men declined Olivia’s offer of coffee, leaving her free to take a hot shower. Afterward, her hair curling against her forehead and the side of her cheeks in damp tendrils, Olivia placed a call to Diane.

“Haviland’s still asleep, but that’s to be expected,” the vet said. “It’s not the drug-induced sleep he was in a few hours ago. In fact, he’s dreaming. His paws are twitching as though he’s out on the beach chasing sandpipers.”

Reassured by this image, Olivia spread an old towel on the kitchen table and set out her rifle and gun cleaning kit. She switched on her living room stereo and felt a measure of the tension lodged between her shoulder blades slide away as the opening strains of Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” tiptoed into the room.

After pouring herself a large mug of coffee, Olivia laid out the contents of the gun cleaning kit like a surgeon organizing his instruments before a case. She looked over the folding ramrod, nitro solvent, gun oil, cleaning pads, and cloths and was satisfied with her supplies. Unloading the rifle, she carefully pulled the trigger off and then removed the bolt from the rifle body. She screwed together her collapsible ramrod, fed a folded cleaning pad through the hole, and dipped the tool into the solvent.

Gently easing the ramrod all the way into the barrel until it rubbed against the firing mechanism, Olivia worked the device in and out, stopping to change cleaning pads. Once the interior was clean, she dabbed a bit of oil on a soft cloth and began to wipe the pieces of metal on the outside of the gun. The task was calming. It gave Olivia a sense of control and as the music washed over her, she was able to focus on the riddle of the murderer’s identity.

Max Warfield has got to be involved, she thought as she began to reassemble the rifle. As soon as I pick up Haviland, I’m going to pay him a visit. And I think I’ll bring my weapon along.

Out on the deck, Olivia stared down the barrel of her gun. She zeroed in on twigs or dark-hued rocks sticking out of the sand and then let her eyes drift across the sparkling water. Recalling Haviland’s limp body lying in the dark, Olivia felt anger surge through her body—a fierce juxtaposition of the lazy roll of wavelets before her. Jaw clenched, she pumped the unloaded rifle and pressed the trigger, imagining a bullet puncturing the surface of the water, slicing through the blue gray depths until it drove beneath a layer of murk, forever embedded in the cold sea floor.

Having just cleaned the rifle, Olivia had no intention of sullying it by firing a round, no matter how much release she’d gain by doing so. Instead, she collected an unopened box of bullets, a covered bowl containing a healthy snack for Haviland, and a travel mug of coffee for herself.

At the police station, she informed the desk officer that her fingerprints were needed and, to her chagrin, Officer Cook appeared to take them.

“It’s you again,” he muttered, gesturing for her to follow him to the processing area in the building housing the jail. Neither spoke as they walked, but Cook glanced over his shoulder several times, as though a big, black poodle might overtake them at any moment.

Standing across from Olivia, the policeman rolled each of her fingers with the same roughness she imagined he’d use on the combative drunk driver. When he was finished, he tossed two packets of moist towelettes on the counter.

Olivia studied the young man dispassionately. She could only imagine the feelings of impotency the members of the police department must be experiencing with a pair of unsolved murders on their desks and a bevy of reporters crawling over every inch of the town.

“You’ll get him in the end,” she said as she began to clean her fingertips. As one moist cloth became stained