“Tommy thought so. They’d talk sometimes, late at night when they were on patrol together. Frank would say things like ‘this whole case stinks’ or ‘someone’s pulling strings we can’t see.’ But he never said anything concrete, at least not that Tommy told me about.” Marcus paused and rubbed at his temple. “After Frank left, Tommy tried to keep in touch with him. Called him a few times, but Frank wouldn’t talk about it. Said he’d put Grimm Island behind him and wanted to keep it there.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“Last I heard, he was living in Beaufort. Opened a hardware store. Got out of law enforcement completely.” Marcus looked up at me, his eyes sharp despite his years. “If anyone knows what really happened with that investigation, it would be Frank Holloway. He was there, he saw things, and he got out because he wasn’t willing to be part of whatever Milton was running.”
“Would he talk to us?” I asked.
Marcus shrugged slowly. “That’s the question, isn’t it? Man doesn’t quit his career and leave town because he wants to chat about old times. But Tommy always said Frank was a good man at heart. Maybe if you approached him right, told him you were trying to give Ruby Bailey and that preacher justice after all these years…” He trailed off. “Maybe he’d finally tell what he knows.”
He stood slowly, leaving exact change plus his usual generous tip. “Frank Holloway. Beaufort. That’s all I can give you. What you do with it is up to you and your sheriff.”
After he left, I stood holding his teacup, staring at the dregs as if they might reveal something useful. The old tradition of reading tea leaves had always seemed like wishful thinking to me, seeing patterns in random distribution. But maybe that’s exactly what we were doing with this case—trying to find meaning in chaos, patterns in violence, sense in something that might just be senseless.
At 1:55, I checked with Carly to make sure she was good handling the shop alone for the afternoon. The lunch crowd had thinned to just a few tables—Mrs. Pinkerton with her needlepoint, a couple of tourists lingering over their tea, nothing Carly couldn’t manage with her eyes closed.
“Take your time,” she said, already wiping down the counter with practiced efficiency. “I’ve got this.”
I grabbed my cardigan and found Chowder waiting by the back door with his leash in his mouth. He’d somehow sensed we were going somewhere and had positioned himself with the determination of a French bulldog who would not be left behind.
“You want to come investigate a murder?” I asked him, fastening his walking harness and straightening his bow tie.
He snorted his affirmative, his expression suggesting that obviously he should come—who else would provide the necessary gravitas?
Dash arrived at precisely two o’clock, and his face lit up when he saw Chowder ready to go. “There’s my guy,” he said, crouching down to Chowder’s level. “Looking very dapper today. Is that a new bow tie? Very Sherlock Holmes. You here to help us solve a murder?”
Chowder’s entire rear end wiggled with pleasure at being addressed properly.
“Of course he’s coming,” Dash said to me, standing back up. “Look at him. He’s dressed for detective work.”
“The tweed cap really completes the look,” I agreed, adjusting said cap on Chowder’s head.
“Elementary, my dear Chowder,” Dash said seriously to the dog, and I caught the full smile that transformed his face.
We walked rather than drove—the funeral home was only four blocks away, and the afternoon had turned beautiful in the way May afternoons sometimes do in the low country, when the heat hasn’t yet become oppressive and the humidity sits at that perfect threshold between comfortable and sweltering. The kind of weather that makes you forget July is coming, when breathing feels like work and the air conditioner becomes your best friend.
Harbor Street was busy with the lunch crowd dispersing and the afternoon shoppers arriving. We passed Beaumont’s Bakery first, where the smell of fresh bread and butter made my stomach remind me I’d forgotten lunch. Through the French doors, I could see Clarence Beaumont arranging pastries in the display case with the precision of someone creating art rather than merely selling baked goods.
“You ever wonder why he charges so much for an éclair?” Dash asked.
“Because tourists will pay it,” I said. “And because they’re genuinely that good. I’ve tried to replicate his technique—it’s the ratio of butter to flour in the pâte à choux. He won’t tell anyone the exact measurement.”
“Trade secrets?”
“Baking secrets,” I corrected. “Which on Grimm Island are taken as seriously as state secrets.”
Next came Nature’s Remedy, where Eugene Bradshaw was arranging crystals in his window display with the concentration of someone defusing a bomb. Today’s arrangement appeared to be organized by color—amethyst fading into rose quartz, which melted into citrine, creating a rainbow effect that was admittedly beautiful even if you didn’t believe in crystal healing.
“You think crystals actually do anything?” Dash asked.
“I think Eugene’s crystals work about as well as his attempt to heal that pothole on Harbor Street with sage smudging,” I said. “The pothole’s still there. It’s just spiritually aligned now.”
“He tried to heal a pothole?”
“With crystals and incense. The town council had to physically remove him so the road crew could actually fix it. He kept insisting the pavement needed to ‘release its trauma’ first.” I shook my head. “Last month he told Bea Livingston that her aura was blocked and tried to sell her a crystal the size of a grapefruit for two hundred dollars. She told him the only thing blocking her aura was his prices.”
Dash laughed—that real laugh that made his whole face change. “What happened?”
“She bought it anyway. Uses it as a doorstop.”
