A Deadly Cliche (32 page)

“Two days.” Betty sighed. “He had some broth this morning, but even then, with his eyes open, he wasn’t seeing anything. He’s drifting between worlds, confusing the past and the present, dreams and reality. Mumbles all sorts of fishing tales and whispers about some little dog and a storm.” Gathering up her crochet materials, she rose. “I’ll leave you alone. I’m sure you’ve got things to say and I truly think he’ll hear you. I’ve seen this kind of thing before.” She paused at the threshold. “I believe he’s been waiting for you so he can let go. Talk to him, honey. It’s not too late.”

Olivia accepted the counsel with a nod, but when the door shut behind Betty, she found she had nothing to say. She reached for Haviland, who had sniffed every nook and cranny of the room and was now sprawled at Olivia’s feet. He raised his head as she stroked the curly fur on his flank, a question in his ale brown eyes.

“No, Captain. It’s not time to go.”

She stared at her father for a long time, wondering in angry silence about his life on Okracoke. He’d landed on its flat shores, been received and cared for by the locals, and had come to marry one. Olivia felt freshly abandoned, but most of all she felt betrayed. She believed he might have lost his memory for a time, but eventually he had remembered that he had a daughter and that the woman he had loved was dead. He’d simply decided to do his best to forget them both.

Suddenly, Olivia wanted evidence of his other life. Assuming the room had been her father’s before his illness, she began to open drawers. It never occurred to her that it wasn’t right for her to rifle through his belongings. She’d had no chance to lay claim to this man for thirty years, but now that she was here, Olivia planned to exercise all the authority that a blood tie granted her.

If she’d expected to find a neat file of important documents, personal letters, or photographs, she was to be disappointed. Her father’s room was Spartan. The drawers and closet contained clothes. There were a few books and magazines, but Olivia’s father had never been much of a reader. She found a wooden toolbox filled with his whittling tools in the dresser and on top of a nightstand, a tin of tobacco, matches, and a pipe. The walls were decorated with vintage blueprints of famous sailing vessels.

Frustrated, Olivia paced around the room, stealing nervous glances at her father as though he might awaken to find her snooping through his things. She was certain he wouldn’t approve of that. Like her, he’d always been fiercely protective of his privacy.

“Didn’t
anyone
matter to you? Isn’t there a single piece of evidence that you shared your life with other human beings?” she addressed the motionless form in the bed. Strangely, it was all she could say to him. She no longer felt like ranting at him, accusing him, or trying to make him feel guilty for leaving her. She just wanted to know who he was, one adult to another, and it was far too late for that.

Olivia paused at the window, which faced west toward Oyster Bay. She wondered if Rawlings was back at the station tying up loose ends, how Laurel was handling Steve, whether Harris had been missed at his work meeting, and if Millay truly believed Olivia’s blood test meant that she was pregnant.

“I’m going to have to clarify that little detail as soon as I get back or Rawlings will think I’m carrying Flynn’s child,” Olivia remarked drily to Haviland.

Kneeling down to pet the poodle, Olivia furtively stuck her arm under her father’s bed. Her hand came in contact with something solid. It was a struggle to pull the object out with only one arm, but once her fingers closed around a handle she was able to drag it into the light.

It was an old suitcase. Olivia tried to pop open the central latch but it was locked.

Undeterred, she grabbed one of her father’s whittling knives and began working on the lock. It was difficult going with only one hand and she cursed aloud more than once, but eventually, the knife blade pried the lock loose and the latch snapped open.

She wasn’t prepared for what she found. Inside the suitcase, stacked in a tidy pile and tied with a piece of string, was a collection of letters written by Olivia’s grandmother. Olivia read the first one, which dated back to her first year in boarding school. Her grandmother had written to her son-in-law about Olivia’s recent activities. She’d even included a school photo of Olivia in her uniform, looking lovely and poised but far too serious for a girl her age. And so it went. Every six months there were updates, photographs, report cards, and occasionally, one of Olivia’s charcoal sketches or a copy of a poem she’d written for English class.

Olivia was floored by the realization that her grandmother had been communicating with her father throughout Olivia’s childhood. A fresh, hot wave of anger swept through her. Why hadn’t her grandmother told her that her father was alive? She’d let her grow up believing she was an orphan. It was so cruel, so heartless.

“I bet you didn’t want Daddy to get his hands on the Limoges trust fund,” she hissed at her grandmother’s perfect cursive. “You never liked him. You never wanted him to marry my mother. I bet you told him he could never raise me properly and he agreed. Maybe you were even right about that, but to let me believe, for all those years, that I had no family except for
you . . .”
Tears burned her eyes. “How could you do that to a little girl?”

Olivia sat very still for several minutes, trying to calm the cyclone of thoughts in her head. It was as if all she had known had been turned inside out, yet there was no going back. The past was over and done and the present was steadily slipping away.

She continued to look through the contents of the suitcase.

After her grandmother died, the letters ceased, but Olivia’s history lived on in yellowed newspaper clippings from the days in which the media followed her every move, hoping to catch the young and beautiful heiress doing something scandalous. Mostly, they detailed her presence at a museum gala or opening night at the Met, focusing on her escorts, who were usually handsome executives of the
Fortune 500
variety.

There was even a clipping from the
Oyster Bay Gazette
announcing Olivia’s revitalization projects downtown. Lastly, there was an object wrapped in an old towel and secured by two rubber bands.

With care, Olivia removed the rubber bands and unrolled the towel on her thighs. A pair of metal objects fell to the floor. Olivia recognized them right away. They were her parents’ wedding bands. Forever tied together on a piece of frayed blue yarn, they’d been tucked in a fold inside the towel.

Olivia clutched the rings briefly to her chest, cherishing the relics of happier times and then set them on the ground in order to continue unwrapping the towel. Peeling back the final fold, one of her father’s carvings was revealed. Olivia inhaled sharply, her eyes darting over the lines and indentations, the contours that formed the shape of a young girl standing in the shadow of a lighthouse, her hand shielding her eyes as she stared outward, searching, searching.

It was her girl-self and the lighthouse was not Okracoke’s, but Oyster Bay’s. The beacon that had guided William Wade home time after time after time.

“I’ve been so close!” she yelled at her father. “
Why?
”

Olivia began to cry. “Why didn’t you come?”

Cradling the carving in her hand, she sat in Betty’s chair and, after calming down, began to read her grandmother’s letters out loud. She relived a dozen years, explaining her version of events to her father. She spoke for over two hours, until the sun dipped below the waves.

Turning on a single lamp, she eventually stopped talking. She pulled her chair closer to the window and then eased it open a few inches, inviting the ocean breeze into the room.

Her father seemed to breathe easier as soon the sound of the water became audible. The rhythmic chant of the waves was faint, but to a man who’d lived a lifetime in tune to their music, it was enough to coax him into a more restful sleep.

Olivia briefly left the room to let Haviland outside and see to his dinner, but afterward she waved off Betty’s offer to stay with the patient through the night.

“I’m not going to give up our last bit of time,” she told the nurse.

Returning to the soft chair by the window, Olivia sat as the sky morphed from steel gray to soot black, nodding off here and there but still alert enough to welcome the ochre dawn.

The entire time she sat, listening as her father’s exhalations mingled with the lapping of the waves, she never released her hold on his carving. Olivia knew it was the only gift her father would ever give her, and even then, she’d had to discover it for herself.

To Olivia, who’d watched her father whittle dolphins, sharks, and mermaids in front of the fire for countless winters and yet had never carved a token for his only child, it was enough that he’d finally done so.

And he’d put all he had into that last carving; she could feel it in the wood. In the dawn light, it glowed with life, even as her father’s began to fade.

—MARK TWAIN

 

 

 

 

 

O
livia left her father’s side only when Betty insisted that she take a hot shower and eat some breakfast. Kim served her toast with cream cheese, bacon, and a bowl of fresh blueberries on the patio while Haviland explored the small garden behind the house.

“Caitlyn’s keeping an eye on your dog,” Kim said, pouring herself a cup of coffee and sitting down across the table from Olivia. “He won’t run off, will he?”

Olivia shook her head. “He’s obedient and very gentle. You don’t have to worry about Haviland becoming aggressive toward Caitlyn or your guests. He
is
energetic though. I’ll need to take him for a quick walk before . . .” She trailed off. She didn’t want to say that she planned to spend the rest of the day watching the rise and fall of her father’s chest.

“How old is your daughter?” she asked instead.

Kim brightened. “Six. I thought she’d been our only one, but as you can see, we’re having a second. Betty says I’m going to have a boy. She’s got a way of knowing these things.” Her cheeks flushed. “I’m so sorry about the letter, about her asking you for money.”

“It’s not your fault,” Olivia assured her. “And I don’t have the energy to be angry with her. There’s too much going on in here.” She tapped at her chest, just above her heart.

Glancing across the garden, Olivia watched as Caitlyn hesitantly reached a hand out to Haviland. The poodle sniffed her palm and gave her a friendly lick. The girl’s face, heart-shaped and covered with freckles, glowed with delight. With the sunlight streaming over her long hair and a secretive smile on her face, she looked like a fairy among the flowers.

Olivia ran her finger around the rim of her coffee cup. “What does Betty say about my father? Does she have a sense about how much time he’s got left?”

Kim uttered a sympathetic sigh. “She said it’s only a matter of hours now. I wish it wasn’t happening so fast.”

“I should have been here sooner,” Olivia stated mournfully. She thanked Kim for breakfast, carried her plate to the sink, and called Haviland.

He obeyed reluctantly, sulking over having been forced to dine on dog food instead of bacon and eggs, but Olivia didn’t feel comfortable asking Kim if she could cook the poodle a meal using supplies meant for the restaurant.

Hudson intercepted Olivia at the garden gate. “Your town’s on TV. You might want to see this.” He gestured for her to follow him to the bar.

A reporter was standing in front of Oyster Bay’s marina. In a carefully somber tone, he gave a brief overview of the robberies and murders committed by the Donald siblings. The image then switched to a taped segment showing Rawlings speaking at a press conference. Olivia’s shoulders dropped a fraction in relief as the chief told a throng of journalists that Rutherford and Ellen Donald had signed detailed confessions and were now in the capable hands of the North Carolina court system.

The camera view returned to the docks and the reporter promised an exclusive interview with one of the Donalds’ robbery victims at noon. “We’ll also be hearing a chilling account from Laurel Hobbs, a staff writer for the local paper, who survived what could have been a fatal visit from Rutherford and Ellen Donald.” A photograph of Laurel appeared on the screen. “If not for the heroism of Hobbs’ friend, local entrepreneur Olivia Limoges, and officers of the Oyster Bay Police Department, Hobbs might not have lived to share her story with us today. Ms. Limoges could not be reached for comment.”

The reporter swiveled slightly as he spoke and Olivia saw that the live shot included her Range Rover. Someone must have tipped off the press about her sudden departure by boat. The media would now haunt the docks until she returned to claim her car. Olivia could already visualize the tabloid headlines: “Heiress Wounded in Knife Fight.”

She groaned.

“We’ve been reading about those robberies,” Kim whispered in awe. “Look. There’s a big article about it in
The News & Observer
. This reporter must not have known that you were involved, ’cause we sure didn’t see your name mentioned until just now.” She handed Olivia the Raleighbased newspaper. “Is that why your arm’s in a sling? You were there when that crazy brother and sister went after your friend?”

Olivia tucked the paper under her good arm and picked up her coffee cup. “If you want to know what happened, you’ll have to listen to the story upstairs. I’ve been gone too long already.”

Hudson and Kim trailed behind Haviland as he followed his mistress back to the sick room.

Betty had her crocheting out again. The morning light winked off her needles and Olivia recognized that she was making a baby blanket. It seemed unreal that this woman and the couple behind her were preparing to welcome a new life while her own reason for being there was to bear witness to the end of another.