Before Olivia could reply, Laurel took the chief by the arm and pulled him over to the sofa. “Are you having any luck cracking the robbery case? It happened in my neighborhood, you know.”
Rawlings looked stunned for a moment, as though the loss of a well-to-do suburbanite’s material possessions was the furthest thing from his mind.
“I know you’re out of uniform during these meetings, but I can’t stop thinking about guys in ski masks creeping around my subdivision. I haven’t slept well since it happened.” Laurel’s anxiety was obvious.
The chief had only made it to two critique nights thus far. His schedule was unpredictable and demanding and he’d been late on both occasions. At first, the other writers had peppered him with questions concerning his whereabouts until he’d chided them for acting like a suspicious wife. He had insisted upon being allowed to leave his job behind when he stepped over the threshold into the cottage’s cozy living room.
Olivia watched the lawman with interest. She knew Rawlings was a voracious reader, but he had turned out to be a skilled critic as well. Most of his comments were phrased as questions, and she wondered if he interrogated suspects with the same gentleness he’d displayed when pointing out flaws in the other writers’ work. She sensed he was eager to turn his attention to Harris’s chapter but was too much of a gentleman to leave Laurel’s question unanswered.
“I can’t say that I am aware of any updates regarding the burglaries,” Rawlings finally replied.
“Burglaries?” Laurel’s eyes went wide. “There’s been more than one?”
“We have two open cases. One in your neighborhood and another that occurred in Sandpiper Shores several weeks ago. Similar items were taken and there was no sign of forced entry.” He gave Laurel’s hand a paternal pat. “We’ll apprehend the thieves, don’t you worry. Just keep your doors locked and your eyes open.”
“The chief’s got more serious bad guys to chase than a few TV-swiping cat burglars, right, Chief?” This from Millay, the Asian American bartender who wrote young adult fantasy. Millay was an exotic beauty, with full lips, dark brown eyes, and tea-hued skin. The girl seemed to deliberately mar her loveliness with brow piercings, hair tint, and heavy makeup. Tonight, for example, she wore her customary knee-length leather boots, thigh-high striped socks, a metallic miniskirt, and a T-shirt bearing a “Little Miss Sunshine” iron-on. Her hair was gelled into sharp points that hovered over her shoulder, and each tip had been dyed an electric plum. Her eyes were rimmed with black eyeliner and she wore a thick coating of lipstick in a dark cherry shade. Examining her chipped nail polish, she gave the chief a falsely nonchalant glance. “Heard something pretty nasty washed up on the Point today.”
Rawlings clearly knew that he was being baited but couldn’t prevent the corners of his mouth from pulling down in irritation. “Has one of my men been tweeting about life on the Oyster Bay police force again?”
He tried to keep his voice light, but Millay shook her head. “Nah. I heard it standing in line behind some grandma in Stop ’n’ Shop. She was whispering about it to one of her bingo buddies. It’s gotta be all over town by now. Those biddies don’t have anything better to do with their time.” She tossed her skull-covered messenger bag onto the sofa. “She also told me I looked like a child of Satan and asked me if my mom knew I dressed like this.”
Instead of claiming the gossip to be false, Rawlings fixed Millay with a soft gaze. “We haven’t been able to ID the man. Will you keep an ear open to the talk circulating in Fish Nets over the next few days and let me know if anyone mentions a local having gone missing?” He leaned forward slightly, as though he and Millay were the only people in the room. “That woman may not understand your fashion sense, but I know you’re bright and observant no matter what you wear. I could use your help. Unofficially, of course.”
“Yeah, sure. No sweat.” Millay’s eyes twinkled. She was clearly pleased to be given the chief’s trust but didn’t want to let it show. The patrons of her smoke-filled drinking den weren’t as loose-tongued as the senior citizens shopping at Stop ’n’ Shop, but they often shared confidences with Millay. The young woman pretended she was uncomfortable with her role as confidante and chalked it up as an occupational hazard. “Goes with the territory,” she’d told them months ago. “I hear stuff their wives, best buddies, and ministers don’t even know. You give a man enough to drink and suddenly he’s your best friend.”
Olivia supposed there was some truth to that, but she also imagined that Millay’s beauty had more than a little to do with the number of secrets she became privy to over her eight P.M. to two A.M. shift.
“Did I miss anything?” Harris asked as he walked in and helped himself to a beer.
Olivia pointed at the pages she held in her hand and shot Laurel a warning look. It was time to get down to business. “We were just jawing a bit, but now that you’re here we can begin. Grab some food and settle in.”
Harris took an unusually large slug of beer and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The science fiction writer was thirty but didn’t look a day over twenty-one. Boyishly handsome, he had ginger hair, an angular chin, rose red lips, and a playful laugh. He reminded Olivia of Peter Pan. Harris was more bashful than the leader of the Lost Boys, however, due to a chronic case of rosacea. As a result, he spent too much time alone with only cyber friends as company.
Over the summer Olivia had convinced Harris to try a new laser treatment offered by her aesthetician, with excellent results. The skin on Harris’s face now resembled a blush instead of an angry crimson. He’d already attended a few social functions with coworkers from the computer software company where he worked developing background graphics for video games. Harris had another treatment scheduled in two weeks and Olivia hoped he’d continue to fall for the aesthetician’s assurances that his treatments were free because she was conducting a clinical trial.
“Should I strap on my suit of armor?” Harris asked the other writers nervously and opened a notebook featuring UFOs on the cover.
As soon as Olivia set a platter of desserts on the coffee table, Harris lurched forward and loaded up on chocolate mousse served in white chocolate cups, miniature key lime pies, and homemade shortbread.
“I’ll go first,” Olivia began. “As you know, I am not a fan of science fiction. But it doesn’t matter that this story is set in the future. What matters is that I am invested in Zenobia. In the beginning of chapter one I found her a little cold—a sheltered and spoiled child. At this point in the narrative, however, I empathize with this young woman and hope she can find a way to grieve while having to represent the calm and controlled face of the nobility. I think you’ve done a good job illustrating the difficulty she’s having managing both her anger and her sorrow. Her loneliness is almost tangible and I think readers will root for her to find genuine companionship in the next few chapters.” She paused, scanning over her written comments. “I’m curious about the tattoo on her palm as well. I wonder if the Hunter is based on the Orion constellation.”
Harris grinned. “It is. There’s a connection to the Chosen Ones and Earth. Of course, Earth has been depleted of all it natural resources, but Zenobia’s people have the technology to completely restore the planet. But they won’t search for our galaxy in this book. This one concentrates on Zenobia coming into her own and figuring out how to make Zulton the new home of her people.”
Millay studied Harris. “I like that your heroine’s not some prissy princess type. The martial arts training scene was way cool.” Harris flushed a deeper shade of red at the praise. Olivia sensed the young man would do anything to gain the favor of the beautiful barkeep. “But you have
got
to change some of Zenobia’s dialogue.” Millay traced her hand down a page, looking for the right notation. “For example, Zenobia says she’s going to squash her simulation opponent ‘flat as a pancake
.
’ I don’t see pancakes as a futuristic food and it’s a total cliché anyway. You do it again later on. Zenobia’s ‘seeing red’ when she notices the Regent on her father’s throne and she tells her advisor not to ‘pull her leg.’ Those terms don’t mesh with your genre at all.”
Harris looked horrified. Sticking his hands into his wavy, ginger hair, he moaned. “Ugh, those clichés really stand out now that I’m hearing them aloud.”
Laurel gave Harris a kind smile. “You know what you do wonderfully in this chapter?” She held out his pages. “You make me view things through Zenobia’s eyes. That scene where she walks into the throne room and looks up at the seven moons and the starry sky through that enormous glass ceiling . . .” She glanced out the cottage window where daytime was fading into twilight. The horizon over the ocean was blurred by the humidity, and the sky was a nearly colorless yellow. “I could see those moons and the star clusters and the nebulae as if they were right out that window. Whenever you described the setting using terms I understood, I was able to get
completely
lost in the scene.” She hesitated. Laurel did her best to deliver criticism with a gentle touch. “But whenever you used too many futuristic terms, I couldn’t visualize what you were writing about any longer. For example, I got the description of the fighting simulator, but when you started talking about Zenobia’s weapons I was totally confused.”
“I thought everyone knew about photon laser pistols,” Harris answered in genuine surprise.
Rawlings laughed. “At least you’re crediting your readers with intelligence. I researched the pistol and the bolt staff on the computer and found a fascinating site on sci-fi weapons that are being developed as prototypes by the army. After looking at drawings, I was able to imagine exactly how Zenobia’s weapons operated, but you can’t expect that of all your readers. I just happen to be interested in that sort of thing.” He gestured around the room. “You’ve got to do the work for us. It would only take a sentence or two to describe the light and energy of the photon pistol or the burst of concentrated electricity from the bolt staff. Keep it short and simple.”
Harris nodded. “I can do that. Would you write down that website for me? It sounds awesome!”
Handing him a piece of paper, Rawlings grinned. “I figured you might ask.”
Finishing his beer, Harris sank back against the cushions with a sigh of relief. “That went better than the last chapter. I’ve really benefitted from our meetings. When I sit down to write, I’ve got you all in my head, acting like virtual editors. It’s exciting to know you’re going to help me shape my book into something decent. Before, I was anxious about letting you guys read it. Now, I can’t wait until it’s my turn again.” His eyes shone. “If we keep going like this, we might all be ready to submit to agents in a year’s time!”
Laurel clapped her hands and bounced up and down on the sofa. Olivia feared her friend would try to lead them in a spontaneous cheer. “Wouldn’t that be something? If one of us actually got a publishing contract? We could say, ‘I knew Harris
way
before he made the
New York Times
list.’”
“I don’t know about that.” Harris’s optimism deflated somewhat. “Sci-fi isn’t any easy genre to break into. Millay has a better chance with young adult fantasy or the chief here with his thriller.”
Rawlings laughed again. “You’re assuming my work is actually engaging.”
“We’ll find out this week, won’t we?” Olivia asked. She couldn’t wait to read the lawman’s chapter. She wondered if yet another side of his complex personality would be revealed in his writing and whether she’d find it as attractive as his paintings or as repellent as the orange Hawaiian shirt he was wearing.
As the other writers packed up and headed out into the warm night, Rawlings lingered. “How are you doing?”
Olivia knew what he meant by the question. “I think I’ll be haunted by that man’s ruined face for quite a while.” She poured them both another splash of scotch and led Rawlings out to the back deck. They settled on wooden rockers and watched Haviland sprint down the beach to the water line. The dunes were covered in shadow as the sky continued to darken. Olivia and Rawlings listened to the buzz of insects and the whisper of the waves. The chief’s ability to cherish the silence, to sit and open his senses to the world around him, was, in Olivia’s opinion, his finest quality. She knew very few people who didn’t feel the need to fill up the quiet with the sound of their own voice.
“I feel angry,” she spoke softly. “Over how the victim was turned from a man to a repulsive
thing
. Someone knew that would be the result. Only a person with a cold, deep rage could deliberately do that to another human being.”
Rawlings let her words settle around them before replying. “He was also buried in the nude, holding a plastic toy sand shovel. Another degrading act. We couldn’t get good prints either, as his fingertips were severely damaged. Too much skin had been sloughed off by the water and wet sand. We’ll try to work on dental records come Monday, but I don’t think he visited a dentist regularly.”
“How old was he?”
“Barely thirty, I’d say. I thought he was older at first, but that effect was created by his rapid decomposition.” Rawlings sipped from the tumbler. “I only have the ME’s initial report, but the victim seemed to be in good physical condition. Looks like he was drugged before he was buried, but it’s unsure at this point whether he became conscious after the killer was done . . . positioning him.”
Olivia looked at the chief in horror. “Do you mean he could have been paralyzed by the drugs or the weight of the sand but cognizant of what was happening?”
Rawlings nodded. “I don’t mean to upset you. In fact, I’m only talking to you about the case . . . well, because it helps me. I’m being selfish. You’re a smart woman, Olivia, and I trust your discretion. I used to tell my wife details about open investigations because she’d ask a question or make a comment and I was able to see things more clearly. The story would start to unfold, to reveal its beginning and middle. There’s always a story behind every crime. And even though I’m there at the ending, it’s my job to discover the source. That’s how I catch the bad guys.”