Aloud, she quipped, “I suppose you had several volunteers willing to perform the lethal injection.”
Rawlings looked pained. “Half the town would prefer to bypass the court system entirely. As a society, we’re never as far away from lynch mobs as we’d like to think.”
He took a sip of his coffee and then caught a drip from the side of the cup with the tip of his finger and licked it away with a flicker of his tongue.
“How did this whole mess begin ... Sawyer?” Olivia tried out the chief’s given name. “How did Atlas become so estranged from his daughter?”
Picking up a thick case file from the surface of his desk, Rawlings smoothed the cover and shook his head, his eyes sorrowful. “Mr. Kraus was always going to lose his wife. Jessie Kraus had wanted to leave Atlas early on in their marriage. He’d roughed her up a bit over the years—not enough to create a paper trail, but enough to force her to tread carefully when she finally decided to divorce him.”
“And her maiden name was St. Claire?” Olivia surmised.
Rawlings nodded. “Well, she and Heidi moved out of their house one night while Atlas was at his favorite watering hole. The divorce papers were served early the next morning. Atlas tracked his wife and daughter from Iowa to Pasadena, California, where Jessie and Heidi had relocated to live with Jessie’s new man.”
“I can only imagine what happened when he found them,” Olivia stated anxiously.
“Luckily, Heidi was at school when her father showed up. Jessie’s fiance was at work, but she was home. Her new guy was a structural engineer, so she didn’t need to hold down a job anymore and she was happily folding laundry when her ex-husband arrived. By the time Atlas was done with her, she was so bruised and broken I couldn’t recognize her in the photos. She had ... imprints from the iron on her back and stomach.”
Olivia shuddered. “Why wasn’t he arrested?”
“He disappeared. Fled the state. He then picked up construction jobs, the kind involving hard labor. The kind where the bosses don’t ask too many questions. Atlas told me he’d routinely return to Pasadena between jobs in order to see what kind of woman Heidi was becoming. He even watched a few of her school plays, hiding in the back row with a hat pulled down over his brow. He told me he knew after the first play that she’d take Hollywood by storm. Looks like he was right.”
“Was it merely a coincidence that his brother-in-law lived in the same town where the Talbots owned a beach house?” Olivia asked in astonishment.
“Not quite. Roy never knew the specifics regarding Atlas’s familial strife and while his younger brother kept in contact over the years, their conversations were brief and sporadic. When Roy was thinking about purchasing a B&B, it was Atlas who steered him to purchasing a house in Oyster Bay. Atlas believed Heidi might visit here eventually, being that she’d had a crush on Blake since she first saw photos of him in some celebrity magazine. Atlas knew that Heidi had pictures of the boy all over her room and taped onto the covers of her schoolbooks.”
Olivia imagined Atlas inside his daughter’s bedroom, fingering her belongings, reading her diary, and inhaling her scent. The thought was repulsive. “Did he sneak into his ex-wife’s house to spy on Heidi as she grew up?”
“Several times,” Rawlings answered. “Even after Heidi was signed for that TV show, she admitted to members of the media that she couldn’t wait to meet Blake now that they traveled in similar circles. Atlas was irrationally jealous of Blake before Blake and Heidi even met and started dating. He wanted his daughter’s attention and resented how Heidi idolized and then, once they started dating, clearly loved Blake.”
Olivia frowned. She’d tried to work out how Atlas Kraus had approached Max Warfield or Blake Talbot as the two men came from remarkably different worlds than the blue-collar construction worker. “So who hired him as a hit man? Max or Blake?”
Rawlings hesitated. “Well, Mr. Kraus claims Blake was the puppet master in regards to the first two killings. Mr. Warfield and young Mr. Talbot wanted to take over Talbot Properties, but in order to do so, they needed to get rid of Dean. The two men hired Atlas to kill the real estate titan, but Atlas had his own agenda. He murdered Camden in hopes that Blake would be suspected of the crime. However, Atlas wasn’t aware of Blackwater’s unscheduled Vegas tour stop, providing our Mr. Talbot with an airtight alibi.” Rawlings paused. “Therefore, Atlas had to go along with the scheme to take Dean’s life, drawing Blake to Oyster Bay in time to attend the meeting at the town hall.”
“All of this to get his daughter to break up with an unsuitable boyfriend?” Olivia was astonished. She balled up her fists in anger. “Camden died because of a father’s crazed possessiveness? And Max died because he might have prevented Atlas from murdering Blake? What about the poems?”
“I took down the confession myself, Olivia. Atlas swears that young Mr. Talbot wrote the poems and sent them, along with other instructions, as text messages on a disposable cell phone. The phones were mailed in unmarked padded envelopes along with a wad of cash.” He placed the summer and autumn poems on the desk in front of her. “Of course these two were written by Atlas. He had grown accustomed to leaving them as a part of his tableau, so when he planned to kill Mr. Warfield and then Mr. Talbot, he wrote two poems in preparation for their deaths. The cycle of seasons would be complete and the threat of his daughter committing to an unsuitable young man would be over.”
“Atlas has confessed to all of this, but what about Blake?” Olivia inquired sharply. “That conniving little brat needs to spend a long time in jail.”
A disgruntled grumble emanated from Rawlings’ throat. “We found no evidence incriminating Mr. Talbot inside Atlas’s cottage at The Yellow Lady. It’s going to take us some time to acquire Mr. Talbot’s financial records and I can only hope that some serious amounts of money were withdrawn from his account close to the time of the murders.”
Olivia felt chilled. “So you can’t charge Blake with a crime?”
“I didn’t say that,” Rawlings chided. “And if Max Warfield was involved in the scheme, which, based on our listening in on his cell phone conversation at The Boot Top, I’d say he was, then he’s already received his sentence. That man has been judged by a higher court.”
The chief’s words seemed to fill up the room. An unnatural death created such complexities for their town, heretofore known only for its beauty and tranquility.
Now, reporters would invade the streets and shops. Tourists looking for sensationalism would fill any house, condo, or spare room for let at exorbitant rates. The police would be up to their elbows in paperwork. The lawyers would be circling like greedy gulls. Roy and Annie Kraus would lay low for months, unable to look their neighbors in the eye. Wherever they went, the couple would feel crushed by the weight of the knowledge that they were responsible for offering hospitality to a murderer and for unintentionally allowing him to take advantage of the people and the peaceful hamlet they’d grown to love.
“Oyster Bay will recover.” Rawlings spoke softly. He walked around his desk and took the chair next to Olivia’s. He didn’t take her hand, but placed his own on the arm of her chair. “And so will we. A good night’s sleep followed by a big breakfast, a solitary walk on the beach, a beautifully written book ...” He smiled at her. “Speaking of which, yours will be the next chapter we critique, will it not?”
Olivia’s cheeks grew warm. “In two weeks’ time, yes. We’ve decided to take this week off. Do you think you’ll be able to join us when we meet again?”
Now Rawlings did touch the back of her hand, but only for a moment. “You can count on me.”
Haviland woke from his nap and stretched his head toward the policeman, not wanting to miss the chance to be caressed. As the chief scratched the poodle under the chin, Olivia stood, slid her purse onto her shoulder, and returned Rawlings’ smile. “No matter what is said after the news of what’s happened here breaks, this town still counts on you, Chief.” She paused in the doorway. “And that includes me.”
Chapter 18
