“Good Lord.” Dottie set down her cup with exaggerated care. “Ruby Bailey and Reverend George Pickering. Found at Turtle Point, September 16, 1985. I did both autopsies.”
She stood and approached the counter with the measured stride of someone approaching a coffin. Even at seventy-eight, Dottie moved with purpose when something mattered.
“That case was wrong from the beginning,” she said, peering at the box like it might contain something contagious. “Three different people confessed. All three knew details that weren’t public. All three recanted within a week, claiming coercion. Evidence went missing. Witnesses changed their stories. The whole thing stank worse than a body left in a hot car in August.”
The morning light streaming through my lace curtains had taken on a different quality, like looking at the world through old glass. The usual sounds of Harbor Street—tourists chattering, seagulls arguing over stolen funnel cake, the distant toll of the marina bell—seemed muffled, as if the past was pressing in on the present, demanding attention.
“Tell me about Ruby,” I said, because in my limited experience with murder, it always came back to the victims. They were the ones who mattered, whose stories needed telling, whose voices had been silenced but whose truths had a way of surfacing like bodies in the marsh—inevitable, patient, refusing to stay buried.
“Ruby Bailey was thirty-two,” Dottie said, her clinical tone at odds with the emotion in her eyes. “Single mother, worked cleaning houses for the wealthy families on the island. She was pretty in that way that made certain men think they owned her, if you know what I mean. Dark hair, green eyes, a smile that could light up a room when she let it. Sang in the church choir and had a voice like an angel.”
She paused, and I could see her sifting through memories like photographs in an album, each one preserved in the strange amber of professional detachment.
“The autopsy showed defensive wounds on her hands and arms. She fought hard. Multiple contusions, a fractured orbital bone, three broken ribs.” Dottie’s voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “Someone cut out her tongue. Postmortem, thank God, but still.”
Marcus Wheeler’s newspaper rustled from the corner. He’d lowered it enough to peer over the top, his weathered face pale beneath its permanent sunburn.
“You’re talking about the Pickering–Bailey murders,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
We all turned to look at him. Marcus Wheeler, who’d been coming to my shop for three years and had never contributed more than a mumbled greeting and exact change, suddenly had our complete attention.
“My brother Tommy worked that case,” he continued, his voice rough with disuse or emotion. “Deputy Thomas Wheeler. Maybe you’ve seen his name in the files.”
Dash nodded slowly. “His reports are in here.”
“Tommy died in ’98. Heart attack, they said.” Marcus folded his newspaper with precise creases, the same way he’d probably been folding it for fifty years. “But he was never the same after that case. Used to wake up screaming about what he’d seen. Kept saying the real killer was still out there, walking around free, probably having Sunday dinner with their family like nothing had happened.”
He stood slowly, joints protesting with audible pops that sounded like punctuation marks to his story.
“Some things on this island are better left buried, Sheriff,” he said, shuffling toward the door. “But if you’re determined to dig them up, be careful who you trust. Forty years is a long time, but not long enough for some folks to forget. Or forgive.”
The door chimed as he left, the cheerful sound at odds with the weight of his warning.
“Well,” Dottie said after a moment. “That was sufficiently ominous.”
“Your autopsy report,” Dash said, pulling her attention back. “It mentions inconsistencies with the crime scene.”
“Everything about that scene was wrong,” Dottie said. “Reverend Pickering was on his knees when he died—single gunshot wound to the head execution style—the angle of the wound was clear. Ruby was shot multiple times in the chest, point-blank range. The killer was up close and personal. But the bodies were positioned. Staged. The killer moved them into a lover’s embrace, so they held each other in death.”
The shop had gone quiet in the way that happens when people are discussing the dead—a respectful hush, as if normal conversation might disturb them. Even the coffee maker seemed to percolate more softly, and the ceiling fan that usually squeaked on every third rotation had gone silent.
“Why would someone stage the scene like that?” I asked.
“Their relationship was a scandal,” Dottie said. “Reverend Pickering was married with children. And Ruby singing in the choir every Sunday and meeting him in the cover of night. There were whispers, of course. It’s hard to keep something like that quiet. You start to notice intimate looks and touches, and they weren’t too careful about it. My best guess is whoever killed them wanted everyone to know what they’d been up to outside of the pulpit.”
“Jealousy?” I asked. “Like the reverend’s wife?”
“That’s probably a good place to start,” Dash said.
The door chimed again, and we all turned with the guilty startle of children caught telling ghost stories. But it was just Bea Livingston, sweeping in wearing a caftan that could have doubled as a sail for a small yacht. Today’s was purple and gold with what appeared to be actual bells sewn into the hem, which announced her every movement like a one-woman parade.
“Whatever you’re all discussing looks serious enough to curdle milk,” she announced, making her way toward us with surprising grace for someone wearing what amounted to an entire fabric store. “Dottie’s got her death face on, and the sheriff looks like someone stole his patrol car.”
At eighty years of age, Bea had been married three times, widowed twice, divorced once, and was currently entertaining what she called “several gentleman callers,” though most of them were confined to the assisted-living facility on the mainland and could only call on days when the shuttle was running.
“The sheriff is reviewing cold cases,” I explained.
“Oh?” Bea’s eyes lit up with a gleam that meant gossip receptors had been activated. “Which one? Please tell me it’s juicy.”
