“If Elsie saw this woman with Pickering at 9,” Hank said, working through the timeline, “And the murders happened between 10 and 2…”
“The blond woman could be our killer,” Walt finished.
“Or a witness who never came forward,” Dottie suggested.
“In 1985, who would have been wearing a nurse’s uniform?” I asked.
“Someone from the medical center,” Dottie said. “Or someone pretending to be a nurse. Uniforms aren’t hard to acquire.”
“I’ve done it myself when I needed to go undercover for a story,” Bea said, referring to her days as a reporter.
Walt added this to our murder board, which was beginning to look like the fever dream of someone who’d watched too much true crime television. Colored strings connected victims to witnesses to suspects, creating a web that somehow made the case both clearer and more confusing.
“June Pickering picked up and left town a few weeks after the murder,” Bea said. “Took the kids and moved to Charleston with her sister. The parsonage belonged to the church and whoever they hired to replace George, so she was out on her keister. I heard through the grapevine that there were a couple of members of the church board who blamed June because if she was fulfilling her wifely duties then George wouldn’t have strayed elsewhere.”
“What a bunch of hooey,” Deidre said. “June could’ve presented herself like a Thanksgiving turkey and George still would’ve gone somewhere else for dinner. He had a wandering eye from the start.”
“That talk of turkey is making me hungry,” Hank said.
“You’re always hungry, dear,” Dottie said and patted him on the shoulder.
I raised my brow at the ease of the show of affection. I’d had an inkling that something had been going on between Hank and Dottie for a few weeks now, but they’d always been very discreet.
Outside, Grimm Island was waking to its Saturday routines—tourists heading for beach rentals, locals walking dogs, the eternal rhythm of a place that had learned to carry its secrets as easily as the tide carried shells.
“We need to find Elsie Crawford,” Walt declared, breaking the spell. “If she’s still alive.”
“And identify the blond woman,” Hank added.
“And talk to Michael Bailey,” I said. “Ruby’s son.”
“He’s a strange one,” Deidre said.
“He stayed, though,” Dottie observed. “That takes either courage or…” She trailed off.
“Or what?” I asked.
“Or a reason,” she finished quietly.
Chowder wandered in then, his Hawaiian shirt slightly askew from his morning adventures. He surveyed our work with the patience of a dog who recognized the signs of human obsession, then settled at Bea’s feet with a dramatic sigh that suggested we were all making things unnecessarily complicated.
“Monday,” Walt announced, as if declaring war. “We start interviews Monday. Everyone takes the weekend to review their assignments.”
As they prepared to leave, carefully packing their notes and evidence copies, I stood before our murder board. Ruby Bailey and George Pickering stared back from their photographs—two people who’d found each other in a place that didn’t approve, who’d carved out their small rebellion in room twelve of the Flamingo Motel, who’d died together on a beach while someone watched, someone who might still be walking these streets, sitting in these churches, shopping at the Piggly Wiggly like any other resident of Grimm Island.
“We’ll find out what happened,” I told their photos, then found myself humming “Amazing Grace”—for Ruby who’d sung in the choir, for Pickering who’d preached redemption but couldn’t find it for himself, for all the secrets Grimm Island held like pearls in tightly closed oysters, waiting for someone brave enough to pry them open.
CHAPTER
FOUR
Sunday morning descended upon Grimm Island with the reverence of a benediction, golden light filtering through the live oaks like heaven’s own approval of our small corner of creation. I stood before my wardrobe contemplating the eternal question of what one wore to investigate a murder after worship—a dilemma that Emily Post had inexplicably failed to address in her etiquette guides.
I selected a dove-gray dress with ivory piping along the collar and cuffs, the sort of dress that suggested I took both God and fashion seriously but not to the point of ostentation. The pearl buttons caught the morning light, and the full skirt moved with the kind of grace that made walking feel like floating—essential for maintaining dignity during the post-service social gauntlet.
The doorbell rang at precisely 9:15, as it had every Sunday for the past three weeks. Through the peephole, Dash stood on my porch in his navy suit—not his first-day-in-court suit or his meeting-with-the-mayor suit, but what I’d come to think of as his Sunday suit, the one that made him look like he’d stepped out of a Graham Greene novel about complicated men with complicated pasts.
“Morning,” he said when I opened the door, his eyes taking in my dress with an appreciation that made my stomach perform acrobatics.
