The Last Word (20 page)

Her Bounty Hunter gave a high-pitched signal, indicating the likely presence of an object made of silver. Tired of carrying the ungainly device, Olivia decided this was as good a place as any to dig and pulled her trench shovel from her backpack.

“Come help, Captain!”

Haviland was pleased to oblige, and together, they dug until they reached moist sand.

“Hold on a sec,” Olivia said, wondering whether they’d gone too far. She directed the metal detector at the pile of the discarded sand, but it stayed quiet. Placing it over the hole resulted in a bold chirp.

Discarding the shovel, Olivia used her fingers to comb through the damp sand. Eventually, she felt a tiny object beneath the nail of her index finger and pulled a coin from its cool, dark bed. Sitting back on her haunches, she brushed off granules of sand and held out the find to the sun.

“A dime,” she murmured. “But an unusual one.”

The coin needed cleaning. Olivia couldn’t make out the date, but despite the coating of dirt and grit on its face, she recognized that the profile did not belong to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Plus, it was heavier than a modern dime and felt solid in the middle of her palm.

Olivia slipped the coin into the pocket of her shorts and packed up her shovel.

“I prefer this sort of mystery, Captain,” she told her panting poodle. “Let’s go home, get you some water, and wash our find. Perhaps the ocean has something to tell me today.” She cast a covert glance at the sparkling waves. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a message.”

Untying her shoes, she added them to the backpack and waded past the gurgling sea foam, letting the waves lap at her ankles. Olivia walked back to her house this way, reconnecting with the sea like a mermaid who spent far too long on dry land.

 

 

Later that afternoon, before she headed downtown to check in at both of her restaurants, Olivia removed the dime from its vinegar bath. When she’d first found the coin, it had the dark gray hue of sharkskin, but now it had reclaimed much of its original silver shade along with a sheen of oil slick blue and green when held directly under the light. A true coin collector wouldn’t have cleaned the dime in this manner if they’d cleaned it at all, but Olivia didn’t sell her beach finds. They were placed in jumbo pickle jars labeled by the year. In the depths of winter, when it was hard to believe summer would ever return, she’d dump out the contents of a jar onto her living room rug and comb through the relics, rediscovering her simple treasures and reliving the hours having her shoulders doused with sunshine and her lungs infused with sea air.

Olivia carried the dime to her computer and pulled up a bookmarked site on coin identification. She scrolled to the section on U.S. dimes and spotted hers immediately. The female profile on her find was an exact match of the Winged Liberty Head wearing a Phrygian cap pictured on the website.

Haviland sat beside her and gazed at the screen with interest.

“That silly-looking hat is supposed to represent liberty and freedom,” she told the poodle. “And that bundle of branches tied together with an ax on the reverse is called a fasces. A Roman symbol indicating power. According to this article, however, it was supposed to indicate America’s readiness for war. Combined with the traditional olive branches shown on every dime, it was also supposed to portray our country’s desire to acquire peace.” She shook her head. “We always did take the other Roosevelt’s declaration to ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’ too much to heart.”

She put the Mercury dime beneath the lens of her magnifying glass and searched for the date.

“1941,” she read and then tilted the coin so that light from her desk lamp made it appear as though the goddess of Liberty was winking at her with her single eye. “So you were minted during the war. Whose pockets did you travel in? Did some poor fool about to be shipped to the front lose you when he stripped down to take one last swim in his home waters? Did you bear witness to the sinking of the German U-boat and the roundup of the first wave of prisoners? Or were you a little kid’s birthday money?”

Olivia glanced out the window, where the hazy, pink sky reminded her that she needed to get going. She turned off the lamp and looked down at the coin before dropping it into this year’s pickle jar. Liberty’s face was painted in shadow, smudges of dark gray that the vinegar bath had been unable to erase. The goddess looked solemn. Her gaze was firm and unwavering, but her mouth turned down at the corner into what looked like disapproval or even doubt.

“There must be a clue hidden in the past,” Olivia murmured and gave the jar a little shake, forcing the coin to rattle against the other metal trinkets inside. She screwed the lid on and quickly checked her e-mail. Harris had come through. He’d discovered the name of the New Bern prisoner guard’s son.

“Raymond Hatcher.” Olivia smiled in satisfaction. “I look forward to meeting you.”

She sent Harris a short note of thanks, shut down her computer, and loaded Haviland into the Range Rover. It was time to review menus, see to paperwork, and have a cocktail. And not necessarily in that order.

 

 

Harris had also found out that Raymond Hatcher worked for a freight company in an industrial park outside of Grantsboro. Olivia waited until eleven thirty Monday morning before setting out for Hatcher’s place of employment. She hoped to intercept him en route to his lunch break.

She hadn’t called first. It was her experience that a few white lies, combined with an envelope of twenty-dollar bills, made even the most tight-lipped people transform into effusive chatterboxes. If Raymond wouldn’t meet with her today, she’d find a time and place more conducive to a lengthy chat.

Assuming that loading docks were not unlike fishing docks, Olivia bypassed the front entrance and drove around to the back of the mammoth steel structure. Dozens of tractor-trailers were backed up to deep bays, and the industrious whir and bleeps of forklifts maneuvering around the loading areas reverberated against the metal walls.

Olivia decided to leave Haviland in the car, so she parked the Range Rover on the shady side of the building, opened the windows, and handed him one of his favorite treats: dried tendons from grass-fed South African beef. His eyes glimmered as she placed three more snacks on the console. “I know they’re high in protein, but take your time. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

Ignoring her, Haviland took his prize to the back, sank onto his belly, set the tendon between his front paws, and got to work. His white teeth flashed, and the gleam in his eyes was that of a satisfied predator.

Shouldering her purse, Olivia walked into the nearest bay as though she frequented the business on a regular basis. She saw a middle-aged man with a kind face scrutinizing a sheet of paper on a clipboard and headed straight for him.

“Excuse me,” she said, giving him her most dazzling smile. “Could you tell me where to find Raymond Hatcher?”

“Sure thang, sweetheart.” The man ogled her appreciatively and then immediately caught himself. “Sorry. We don’t get fine-lookin’ women such as yourself in here every day.” He gestured at a pair of vending machines positioned near the back wall. “Ray’s gettin’ himself his tenth Mountain Dew of the mornin’. See him? He’s the big guy in the John Deere cap.”

Olivia thanked him and, skirting around idling forklifts and veritable mountains of boxes, she came to stand behind Raymond Hatcher. Her first impression was of his height. She was nearly six feet, but he probably had another five or six inches on her. He wasn’t lanky like many very tall people, but was as solid and heavily muscled as an NBA center. When he turned, she met his electric blue stare and momentarily felt at a loss for words. There was something familiar about his face, but she knew she’d never seen him before. His eyes alone were unforgettable, and one didn’t pass by a man in his midsixties of Raymond’s size without taking note.

“Hello,” she finally managed to say. “Are you Raymond Hatcher?”

He nodded, his gaze intense but not unfriendly. He said nothing.

“Do you have a moment? I’d like to talk to you about Nick Plumley.” She waited for the giant to react to the writer’s name, but he only cocked his head to one side like a curious bird. “I’m here because I’ll be ghostwriting the rest of the sequel to
The Barbed Wire Flower
,” she lied.

Instead of answering, he popped the tab of his soda, raised it to his lips, and took several long swallows. “I can’t talk now,” he said after lowering the can to his side. He gave it a little shake and then absently squeezed the metal with his fingertips. “I don’t have a break for another two hours. You’ll have to wait until my shift’s over.”

“When would that be?” Olivia asked, trying not to let her focus waver; the subtle cracks of the deflating soda can filled the air.

Raymond glanced at his watch. “I came on at eleven, so I’ll be here ’til eight.”

“Okay, then why don’t I buy you a beer? Are you familiar with a place called Fish Nets in Oyster Bay?”

He nodded. “I’ve been there a time or two.”

“How’s nine o’clock?”

One of the nearby forklift engines roared into life, startling Olivia. Raymond watched her jump to the side, and the shadow of a grin curved his mouth upward. “All right, but it’s not the kind of place I expect you visit much. Are you sure you wanna go there?”

“Trust me, I’ve been to Fish Nets more times than I care to remember, but I happen to know the bartender. She’ll take good care of us.”

Raymond slipped a finger beneath the brim of his baseball cap and scratched his temple, his grin widening a fraction. “You can call me Ray.”

“I’m Olivia,” she said and held out her hand. He shook it carefully, nodded at her, and then walked away. Several men observed his progress and then turned their attention toward her, clearly interested in why this beautiful, sophisticated woman had paid their coworker a visit.

Olivia was accustomed to being the object of people’s stares. They did not trouble her. What did trouble her was that she considered herself an astute judge of character. She believed she had a gift for reading people and that everyone had a tell. Raymond Hatcher was an exception, however. Olivia couldn’t glean the slightest sense of his personality. She didn’t like that. In fact, it made her nervous.

Inside the Range Rover, Haviland was obediently pacing himself and still had a full beef tendon left to eat. Olivia let him be. Turning on the car, she commanded her dashboard phone to dial Millay’s number.

“You demonstrated a great deal of skill Saturday night,” she told her friend. “I hope you’re prepared for an encore performance.”

Olivia paused to listen to the bartender’s confident answer. “This one’s different,” she warned Millay. “We need to tread carefully.”

—NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

 

 

 

 

 

H
ad Ray Hatcher shown up at the crowded bar of The Bayside Crab House, the patrons would have done a double take upon seeing his formidable figure. Then they’d have carved a path for him, staring at him out of the corner of their eyes as they drank exotic martinis or microbrews in chilled pint glasses.

In Fish Nets, Ray was just another guy. A few people cast mildly curious looks his way when he first walked in, but their attention quickly returned to their bottles of Bud, shots of whiskey, and games of darts or pool. Smoke hovered in the air like early-morning fog, and Hatcher’s head cut a swath through the white wisps as he moved toward Olivia.

She noticed that one or two locals greeted Hatcher with a nod or a brief clap on the shoulder. This welcome gave Olivia cause to relax. If the hardened fisherman and laborers of Fish Nets knew Raymond Hatcher, then he posed less of a threat to her. Olivia’s father had been one of these men, and as his child, she had a keen sense of the rhythm of their existence, of motoring to the deep waters well before dawn, of the backbreaking work beneath the unrelenting sun, of the thousand tiny cuts to the arms and hands from serrated fish scales. Every face in the bar was marked by the sea, the sun, and the struggle to make ends meet.

Olivia felt as comfortable among these locals as she did mingling with the wealthy and sophisticated diners at The Boot Top. In a sense, she was a child of both worlds, but her father’s confederates would defend and protect her in a way that none of her grandmother’s circle would. The upper-crust members of society that made up her grandmother’s set had been self-serving and remarkably uncharitable. They only rallied around one another to avoid scandal or the loss of assets. Olivia shared her grandmother’s love of the finer things, but she also felt a deep kinship with those whose lives depended on the fickle ocean. It was as though this community who breathed in the salty air and bathed in the cool water for countless years were set apart as a different species of human.

“Damn, you didn’t tell me you were meeting with Sasquatch,” Millay stated in admiration as Ray made his way to the empty barstool next to Olivia. “Good thing you left Haviland at The Boot Top. This could get ugly.”

Ignoring Millay, whose hair was gelled into a cresting wave of black and silver down the center of her head, Olivia greeted Ray and asked him what he’d like to drink.

“You buyin’?” he asked, his mouth curving into the hint of a smile.

Olivia nodded. “That was part of the deal.”

After requesting a whiskey and soda, Ray eased himself onto the stool, casting a nervous glance at his feet as the wood creaked and groaned in protest.

“It’ll hold,” Millay said, serving Ray his drink. “Trust me, these old stools have borne more weight than you’re carrying. Guess it’s a good thing we don’t serve food.”

Ray studied her. “You’ve got some wild hair. Reckon I like it.” He then pivoted his massive trunk so that he faced Olivia. “Tell me about this book you’re writing.”