CHAPTER
ONE
The evidence box smelled like decades of mildew and neglect—that particular combination of damp paper and dust that made my sinuses revolt and definitely killed my appetite for lunch.
The Perfect Steep had been in my possession for exactly ten years and three months, and in all that time, I’d developed certain immutable truths about running a tea shop on Grimm Island. First, Mrs. Pinkerton would arrive at 7:15 sharp for her English Breakfast, never Ceylon, because Ceylon reminded her of her third husband who’d run off with a woman from Beaufort. Second, tourists would inevitably ask if we served sweet tea, at which point I’d have to explain that sweet tea and proper tea were entirely different creatures, like comparing a house cat to a tiger. And third, Sheriff Dashiell Beckett had started appearing at my counter with increasing frequency over the past three weeks, always ordering something different as if he were methodically working through my entire menu.
Today’s visit came with a moldering evidence box that he’d placed directly between my carefully arranged displays of imported teas and this morning’s batch of lemon scones.
My name is Mabel McCoy, though on Grimm Island, I was known by various other titles—Patrick’s widow, that tea shop woman, the one who’d helped solve the Calvert case, and most recently (according to Mrs. Pembroke’s gossiping circle), the sheriff’s latest interest. The last one made me uncomfortable in ways I wasn’t ready to examine, like probing a tooth that might be starting to ache.
The island itself was a peculiar place, shaped like a crooked finger pointing out into the Atlantic, thirty minutes from Charleston but a world unto itself. We had just over ten thousand permanent residents, one stoplight that nobody really obeyed, and more secrets per square mile than anywhere else in South Carolina. The Spanish moss that draped our live oaks wasn’t the only thing that hung heavy here—the past clung to everything like morning fog off the marsh.
“You can’t keep bringing your decomposing evidence to my place of business,” I told Dash, though my protest lacked conviction. In the three weeks since we’d closed the Calvert case, he’d developed this habit of treating The Perfect Steep as his auxiliary office. Last Tuesday, he’d spread crime-scene photos across my counter during the lunch rush, causing Mrs. Wilson to faint into her oolong. Thursday, he’d brought in a box of what he swore were just old files but turned out to contain someone’s collection of teeth. Human teeth, as Dottie Simmons had helpfully identified while examining them with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for Christmas presents.
“I brought provisions,” Dash said, producing a white box from Beaumont’s Bakery. “Apple turnovers. Still warm.”
It was deeply unfair how quickly he’d learned my weaknesses. Apple turnovers occupied a sacred space in my personal hierarchy of pleasures, right between finding a pristine 1940s dress at an estate sale and perfectly harmonizing with Ella Fitzgerald on “Dream a Little Dream.”
“Bribery is unbecoming of an officer of the law,” I said, but I was already opening the box, inhaling the scent of cinnamon and buttery pastry that temporarily overwhelmed whatever was fermenting in his evidence box.
Chowder, my French bulldog and self-appointed shop mascot, lifted his head from his designated window seat to investigate. Today he wore his new sailor suit—a navy-blue number with white piping and an actual sailor’s cap that I had special-ordered from a boutique pet store in Charleston. His closet now rivaled mine, filled with bow ties, vests, seasonal costumes, and formal wear for what he considered special occasions—meaning any day ending in Y.
“That’s new,” Dash observed, nodding at Chowder’s ensemble. “The hat’s a nice touch.”
“He’s got a photo shoot later,” I said, only half joking. The Grimm Island Gazette had started featuring Chowder in their weekly Island Pets column, and he’d developed quite a following. Last week, a tourist had asked for a selfie with him. Chowder had obliged.
The Perfect Steep occupied a corner building that had lived more lives than a cat with good health insurance. Built in 1892 as Grimm’s Pharmacy, where old Dr. Grimm (the founder’s son) had dispensed remedies that were equal parts medicine and moonshine, it had evolved through various incarnations. During Prohibition, it had masqueraded as a flower shop that sold suspiciously few flowers but moved impressive amounts of Canadian whisky through its back room. In the 1950s, it had been Eloise’s Dress Shop, where my grandmother had bought her wedding dress and where, according to island legend, Eloise had run a betting ring on horse races from the fitting rooms.
Now it was mine, painted the soft blue of a robin’s egg in spring, with white trim that I touched up religiously every March whether it needed it or not. The interior was a careful balance of chaos and comfort—mismatched vintage tables and chairs I’d rescued from estate sales, each wall in a different pastel, and shelves lined with tea canisters from around the world. The original heart pine floors creaked in three specific spots that I’d memorized like a map, allowing me to navigate the shop in complete darkness if necessary—a skill that had come in handy during Hurricane Matthew when the power had been out for four days.
“So what fresh horror have you brought me today?” I asked, gesturing at the evidence box with a butter knife I’d been using to spread clotted cream on a scone I’d probably never get to eat.
“Cold case from 1985,” Dash said, his fingers drumming against the box in that pattern I’d noticed he did when something was bothering him—three taps, pause, three taps, pause. “Double homicide. Never solved. I figured it would be perfect for you and the Silver Sleuths.”
The shop’s morning regulars had assumed their positions. Mrs. Pinkerton sat in the window seat she’d claimed as her own five years ago, working on another needlepoint sampler with inappropriate sayings. She liked to give them as bridal shower gifts. Most likely every married woman on Grimm Island had a needlepoint sampler from Iris Pinkerton. I had one hanging in my guest bathroom that said Don’t Be An…and then a picture of a donkey that must have taken her hours. It was a rite of passage for new brides.
Marcus Wheeler occupied the corner table, his newspaper folded to the obituaries—not because he was morbid, but because, as he’d once explained, it was the only section of the paper that couldn’t lie to you. People were either dead or they weren’t. There was a simple honesty to that which appealed to him after his wife had passed three years ago. He ordered the same thing every morning—Darjeeling with one sugar, no milk—and spent exactly ninety minutes pretending to read while actually dozing behind his paper.
And then there was Dottie Simmons, one of the members of the infamous Silver Sleuths, who’d commandeered the table nearest the counter and was regaling two trapped tourists with a detailed explanation of how different types of soil affected decomposition rates. The tourists—a young couple wearing matching I Survived Hurricane Season T-shirts they’d definitely bought at the tourist trap on Harbor Street—looked like they were reconsidering their survival.
“Sandy soil, like we have here on the island, creates interesting conditions,” Dottie was explaining, adjusting her green cat-eye glasses that had been out of style for so long they’d circled back to being almost fashionable. “The salinity acts as a natural preservative for certain tissues, while the moisture accelerates the breakdown of others. I once examined a body that had been buried in the marsh for six months, and the differential decomposition was absolutely fascinating?—”
“Dottie,” I called over. “You’re disrupting their digestion.”
“They asked what I did before retirement,” she protested with the wounded innocence of someone who genuinely didn’t understand why discussing putrefaction over breakfast might be considered inappropriate.
The tourists threw money on the table for a tip and fled. Dottie watched them go with the satisfaction of a cat who’d successfully defended her territory from interlopers.
“Forty years is nothing in the right conditions,” she continued, seamlessly transitioning her attention to us. “I’ve seen tissue samples from the Civil War that were still identifiable. There was this one case in Charleston where they were renovating an old church and found?—”
“The Pickering–Bailey case,” Dash interrupted, before Dottie could launch into what I knew from experience would be a forty-minute dissertation on historical preservation of human remains.
The change in Dottie was immediate and dramatic. She went from animated lecturer to stone-still sentinel, her teacup frozen halfway to her lips. I’d seen that look before—it was the expression she got when someone mentioned a case that had left marks on her psyche, the kind that visited her in the small hours of the night when the world was quiet and the dead felt closer.
“You’re reopening Pickering–Bailey?” Her voice had dropped an octave, losing its usual theatrical quality.
“I’ve been systematically reviewing all the cold cases,” Dash said. “This one stands out. I want you guys to take a look at it.”
