“Well, fiddlesticks and molasses.” Walt made a note with more force than necessary. “Though I can’t say I’m surprised. Anyone with half a brain lawyers up these days, guilty or innocent.”
“Where’s Dottie?” I asked, suddenly noticing her absence.
“Back with Hank,” Deidre said. “She won’t leave his side. Said she’d stay there even if he’s unconscious, just in case he wakes up confused and needs a familiar face.”
“I’m just glad they’re not sneaking around anymore,” Bea said, staring down at her nails. “Secret affairs are fun for a time, but it’s never long before someone catches you copping a feel in a storeroom.”
“Hmm,” I said, wondering how long Bea had known about Hank and Dottie. She’d made a living uncovering people’s secrets.
“So what did Stephanie say before she lawyered up?” Deidre asked.
“That she was at work that night,” I said. “That she knew about the affair because everyone did. That she didn’t know Ruby or George well, just knew of them through Matt’s father being on the church board.”
“But she fits the description,” Dash added. “Blond nurse, worked at Charleston Medical, drove a white sedan. Everything matches what Elsie Crawford told us about the woman at Turtle Point.”
“Matching a description isn’t proof,” Walt said, ever the pragmatist. “Not after forty years.”
“No,” I agreed. “But she was scared. Not just annoyed at being questioned—actually frightened. She denied being at Turtle Point, claimed she was at work, but she couldn’t meet our eyes when she said it.”
“So what’s next?” Bea asked, setting down her sandwich.
“We need to go through Pickering’s journal again,” Dash said. “Look deeper at the entries and the sins committed.”
“And Michael Bailey,” I added. “We’re going to his house to look through the box of his mother’s belongings. He said his grandparents gave it to him after the funeral but he’s never opened it. Could be letters, photographs, personal items—anything that might tell us what Ruby knew or who she was afraid of.”
“It’s getting late,” Deidre observed, glancing at her watch. “Will he see you?”
I pulled out my phone and dialed Michael Bailey’s number. He answered on the third ring.
“Mr. Bailey, it’s Mabel McCoy. I know it’s late, but we’d like to take you up on your offer—to look through that box of your mother’s things. Would tonight work?”
A pause. “You found something?”
“We’re following some new leads. And we think there might be something in your mother’s belongings that could help—letters, maybe, or notes. Anything that might tell us what she knew.”
“Come now,” Michael said. “I’ll be waiting.”
Michael Bailey lived on the north end of Grimm Island, in one of the newer developments that had sprung up in the nineties when the bridge made commuting to Charleston feasible. Not the old-money estates on the water, but respectable—the kind of neighborhood where doctors and lawyers and successful business owners built comfortable lives. His house was a two-story Colonial with black shutters and a wide front porch, set back from the street with mature landscaping that suggested he’d been here awhile.
The front yard had been converted into a vegetable garden—tomatoes already staked despite it being only May, beans climbing up trellises, herbs growing in neat rows that suggested someone who found comfort in making things grow.
He answered the door in jeans and a button-down shirt, barefoot, looking more human than he had at the funeral home in his professional armor. His hair was slightly mussed, and he held a coffee mug that suggested he’d been settling in for a quiet evening before we’d called.
“Come in,” he said, stepping aside. His living room was comfortable in an impersonal way—furniture chosen for durability rather than beauty, bookshelves lined with volumes about grief counseling and bereavement, everything neat and organized and slightly sterile. The home of someone who dealt with death professionally and didn’t want it bleeding into his personal space.
“I have to admit,” Michael said as we settled into chairs that were comfortable without being memorable, “when you called I hoped it meant good news. Progress.”
“We’ve found some things,” Dash said carefully. “Evidence that was buried by Sheriff Milton. We’re following new leads that suggest your mother’s murder might have been connected to problems with the church finances.”
Michael’s face went very still. “What kind of problems?”
“Money that went missing,” I said carefully. “Your mother was cleaning houses for church board members. She might have overheard something, seen documents, figured out something she wasn’t supposed to know.”
“And someone killed her for it.” Michael’s voice had gone flat. “Not because of the affair, but because she knew too much.”
“We don’t know that for certain yet,” Dash said. “But we’re trying to piece it together. That’s why we need to look through her belongings—see if she left any clues about what she knew or who she was afraid of.”
“The box is in the attic. I’ve never opened it. Never wanted to.” Michael stood abruptly. “I was ten when they gave it to me. Too young to know what to do with it. Then I just…kept putting it off. I’ve lived with the memory of her all this time, thinking that would be enough.”
