Chowder stopped to investigate a lamppost outside The Copper Pot, where the lunch crowd was visible through the windows—well-dressed tourists and locals mixing in that careful way Grimm Islanders had perfected, separate but cordial. The restaurant’s herb garden spilled over into the sidewalk, rosemary and thyme and basil creating a small oasis of green that smelled like Provence and summer dinners.
“This island,” Dash said, watching the careful choreography of people maintaining their social boundaries. “It’s like everyone knows exactly where they stand in relation to everyone else. There’s a hierarchy nobody talks about but everyone follows.”
“Old families, new money, locals, transplants, tourists,” I ticked off. “Everyone has their place. It’s very feudal, actually. The DuBoses and the Conroys and the Whitakers—they’re practically royalty. Patrick’s family on his mother’s side, the DuBoses, are one of the founding families. Then there are middle-class families who’ve been here for generations but aren’t quite old money. And then everyone else—people like me, whose parents moved here for work. My dad was military, so we moved around a lot before settling here when I was a teenager. I’ll always be an outsider, even after marrying Patrick.”
“Where do I fall?” he asked.
“Law enforcement occupies a strange middle ground,” I said. “Powerful but not necessarily respected unless you have a last name that predates the Civil War. You have authority, but you’ll never be invited to certain dinner parties.”
“That’s pretty typical for cops,” he said. “There’s a reason they only hang out with each other. It can be a lonely job.”
“Grimm Island specializes in certain kinds of loneliness,” I said, then immediately wished I hadn’t. It felt too revealing, like I’d exposed something raw.
But Dash just nodded, his hand brushing mine as we walked—brief, warm, possibly accidental. “It’s always lonely at the top,” he said quietly. “That’s something they don’t tell you when you’re working your way up through the ranks. You think making detective will be different, then sergeant, then lieutenant. You keep thinking the next promotion will change things, that you’ll finally be part of something.” He paused, watching a tourist family cross the street. “But the higher you climb, the more isolated you become. Can’t be friends with your subordinates—blurs the lines, compromises authority. Can’t talk about cases with civilians. Can’t let anyone see what the job does to you, because that’s weakness, and weakness gets people killed.”
His voice had gone flat, professional, but I heard something underneath it—years of holding things in, of carrying weight alone.
“So you learn to keep your private life private and your thoughts close to the vest,” he continued. “You become really good at being alone. Sometimes too good at it.” He glanced at me, something vulnerable flickering across his face before he shuttered it. “This island’s not that different from anywhere else I’ve been. The names change, the scenery changes, but the loneliness is pretty much the same.”
“Yeah,” I said softly, understanding more than he’d probably meant to reveal. “It is.”
We walked in silence for a moment, Chowder trotting between us, and I realized we’d just shared something—not just information, but the weight of carrying things alone. Of being isolated even in the middle of community.
Maybe that’s what drew us together. Two people who’d learned to be self-sufficient, who’d built walls so high we’d forgotten what it felt like to let anyone in.
We turned onto Broad Street, where the houses got larger and the gardens more elaborate. Old Charleston singles and Greek revivals, their piazzas facing south to catch the breeze, their gardens bursting with camellias and perfume of summer roses.
The Whitmore house sprawled behind an elaborate wrought-iron fence, its garden a testament to what unlimited money and good gardeners could accomplish. The Rutledge place sat directly across, equally impressive, equally maintained—two old families staring at each other across the street for generations, probably knowing each other’s secrets but keeping them out of some unspoken agreement.
“Patrick’s funeral was the worst day of my life,” I said suddenly, surprising myself. We’d been walking in comfortable silence, but the words came out anyway, pulled by the proximity to where we were going. “But Michael somehow made it feel less like an ending and more like…I don’t know. Like Patrick was still part of things, just in a different way.”
I hummed a few bars of “Someone to Watch Over Me” without quite meaning to, the melody slipping out the way it always did when I was nervous or processing something difficult.
“That’s a gift,” Dash said quietly. “Making people feel like death isn’t the end of connection.”
“A terrible gift to have,” I agreed. “Having to be everyone’s comfort when you’re carrying your own grief. Can you imagine? Every funeral he conducts, he’s probably thinking about his mother. About how he never got closure. About how the person who killed her just…walked away.”
Grimm Island Funeral Home materialized at the corner of Broad and Meeting—a Victorian mansion painted in shades of gray that managed to be both elegant and slightly oppressive, like a beautiful woman in mourning clothes. The gardens were immaculate, azaleas and camellias arranged with the kind of precision that suggested someone spent serious time and money on keeping death beautiful. Crepe myrtles lined the walkway, their bark smooth and pale as bone, their branches reaching up like supplicants.
A brass sign beside the door read Grimm Island Funeral Home—Serving The Community Since 1952. Below it, in smaller letters: Michael P. Bailey, Director.
Chowder paused at the gate, sniffing the air with intensity. His ears perked forward, and he looked up at me with those bulging eyes that somehow conveyed both alertness and judgment.
“You sense death?” I asked him. “Very atmospheric of you.”
He snorted and proceeded forward, his bow tie bobbing with each step.
“Michael inherited this place from his grandparents,” I said as we approached the door. “Ruby’s parents. Must be strange, preparing bodies for burial when your own mother’s murder was never solved. Seeing death professionally while carrying that personal loss.”
The front door opened before we could knock, as if Michael Bailey had been watching for us. He was tall—nearly six feet—with the kind of thin frame that suggested he forgot to eat when he was focused on work. His dark hair was graying at the temples in that distinguished way that some men achieved and others just looked old attempting. He had his mother’s striking green eyes—I’d seen photos of Ruby in the case file—and they held a sadness that comes from intimate acquaintance with grief, the professional sorrow of someone who guides others through loss while carrying his own.
It was like looking at a mirror—I recognized that expression because I’d worn it myself for years after Patrick died.
He wore a dark suit, impeccably tailored, with a burgundy tie that was the only splash of color in his otherwise monochromatic presentation. His hands were long-fingered and careful, the hands of someone who handles fragile things for a living—bodies, grief, the delicate art of making death presentable.
“Sheriff Beckett,” he said, his voice measured and soft, the kind of voice that could comfort the bereaved without ever actually promising that anything would get better. It was a voice that had been trained to absorb pain without reflecting it back. “Mrs. McCoy.” His gaze dropped to Chowder, and something in his expression softened. “And guest.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” I said. “He’s very well behaved.”
