The weight of that settled over us like a blanket. Decades might have passed, but whoever had killed Ruby Bailey and George Pickering might still be walking these streets. Might still have power, connections, the ability to make things—or people—disappear.
“We need to be careful,” Dash said quietly. “Milton’s gone, but that doesn’t mean everyone who was involved in covering this up is dead or powerless. Someone has been keeping this secret for four decades. They’re not going to appreciate us digging it up.”
“Let them try to stop us,” Walt said with conviction. “We’ve faced worse than some geriatric church elder and his former daughter-in-law.”
“Have we though?” Hank asked mildly. “Because last time we investigated a murder, Mabel was kidnapped and tied up in a boathouse. I’d say we’re escalating, not improving our safety record.”
“Details.” Walt waved dismissively. “The point is, she survived. And we’ll all survive this too.”
Bea poured more sidecars, and even Walt accepted a glass, which suggested he was more worried than he was letting on. We sat there for another hour, refining plans, assigning tasks, trying to anticipate what we might find when we started pulling at these threads.
“Tomorrow,” Dash said, “Mabel and I will drive to Sea Pines to talk to Elder Crenshaw. Then we’ll head to Magnolia Gardens—it’s only about twenty minutes away. If Elsie Crawford is having one of her good days, we might get lucky.”
“And Holloway?” Walt asked.
Dash frowned. “That’s the problem. An ex-deputy who quit because he couldn’t stomach Milton’s corruption isn’t going to trust another sheriff. He’ll see the badge and shut down.”
“So we go without you,” Dottie said.
“You want to drive to Beaufort alone?” he asked.
“Not alone,” I said. “Dottie, Hank, and I will go. A retired medical examiner, a retired judge, and a tea shop owner aren’t exactly threatening. He’s more likely to talk to us than to you.”
“Especially law enforcement from Grimm Island,” Hank added. “He left for a reason.”
Dash didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded. “Fair point. Just—be careful. Call me when you’re done.”
Bea leaned forward. “So while you’re all running around the low country, what am I supposed to do?”
“Work on Jane Sutherland,” I said. “You’re both journalists. Appeal to that. Tell her we’re not trying to ruin her life—we just want to know what scared her badly enough to run.”
“And if she won’t talk?”
“Then we know she’s still scared,” Dash said. “Which tells us something on its own.”
Walt nodded, already making notes. “Dottie researches Stephanie Donaldson. I coordinate from here. Bea pursues Sutherland. Teams deploy for interviews.”
“It’s three conversations,” Hank said mildly.
“Exactly,” Walt agreed. “Precision operation.”
By the time the Silver Sleuths dispersed, full darkness had descended upon Grimm Island like a velvet curtain. The last of them—Bea, naturally—swept out in a rustle of turquoise silk and tinkling silver earrings, leaving behind the faint scent of her expensive perfume and the promise to track down Jane Sutherland by whatever means necessary.
Dash lingered in my dining room, surveying the murder board with the air of a general contemplating battle plans. The whiteboard had transformed over the course of the evening into something that looked rather like a spider’s web—strings connecting suspects to victims, dates to locations, secrets to lies. It was both beautiful and terrible in its complexity.
“I should help you clean up,” he said, though he made no move toward the table still littered with evidence folders and half-empty glasses.
“You should,” I agreed, equally immobile.
The thing was, neither of us seemed particularly motivated to end the evening. It hung between us, this moment, heavy with unspoken things and the weight of what tomorrow might bring. Tomorrow we would confront Elder Crenshaw. Tomorrow we would ask questions that had been buried for a long time. Tomorrow, someone might decide we were getting too close to truths that were meant to stay hidden.
But that was tomorrow.
Chowder, who had been dozing in his bed with the satisfied air of a dog who had supervised important detective work, lifted his head and regarded us with what could only be described as profound judgment. His bow tie had gone thoroughly askew during the evening’s proceedings, and he looked rather like a tiny, wrinkled professor who had fallen asleep during his own lecture.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I told him.
He snorted—a sound that conveyed volumes about what he thought of humans who couldn’t sort out their own romantic entanglements—and settled back down with a dramatic sigh.
