Dash caught my wrist as I moved past him. “If Frank gets hostile, you let me handle it. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I said. “Though I doubt he’s going to attack us in broad daylight in his own hardware store.”
“Probably not. But people do surprising things when they’re cornered.” He released my wrist. “Let’s go talk to Mr. Holloway about his church attendance.”
Twenty minutes later, we were on Highway 17 heading toward Beaufort, the midday sun painting the marsh grasses in shades of gold and amber. Dash drove with one hand on the wheel, the other typing commands on the mobile data terminal.
“Got it,” he said finally. “Stephanie Michelle Chester, born January 12, 1963, in Charleston. Mother listed as Ruth Arceneaux Chester. Father listed as Raymond Chester.”
“So not connected to Mary Jane Goodall,” I said, disappointed.
“Keep digging,” he said, turning the laptop toward me. “Do a search on her father and see what comes up.”
I clicked on Raymond Chester’s name and watched the screen fill with information. “Born August 1930. Died April 2013. Married to Ruth Arceneaux in May of 1957 until her death in 1973… Well, well, well,” I said, my attention perking up. “Married Mary Jane Goodall in 1974.”
“That’s why you always keep digging,” he said, grinning. “Good work.”
My heart started beating faster. “So Stephanie Chester is Mary Jane’s stepdaughter.”
“Looks like it.”
“So when Pickering counseled Mary Jane about her daughter’s affair with a married man in 1984, he was talking about Stephanie.” The pieces clicked together with the satisfying finality of a lock turning. “Stephanie was having an affair, her mother went to Pickering for guidance, and then Pickering ended up dead.”
“Along with his own mistress,” Dash added. “Which makes Stephanie either a suspect or a witness. Either way, she lied to us when she said she barely knew Pickering.”
The highway stretched ahead of us, cutting through the low country like a promise or a threat—I couldn’t decide which. The marshes on either side shimmered in the noon sun, their tall grasses swaying in rhythms older than memory. Every few miles, a weathered church steeple punctured the horizon, white paint peeling like old secrets coming loose.
Somewhere ahead, Frank Holloway was probably ringing up a customer’s deck stain or explaining the difference between Phillips and flathead screws, thinking his careful omissions would hold for another day. Thinking we wouldn’t find the photograph. Thinking the past would stay buried where he’d helped plant it.
But the past had a way of resurfacing—not dramatically, not all at once, but in small revelations that accumulated like water behind a dam. One photograph. One inconsistency. One lie by omission. And suddenly the whole structure was trembling, ready to break.
“What if he runs?” I asked. “Frank, I mean. What if we spook him and he disappears?”
“Then we know he’s guilty of something,” Dash replied. “And we put out a BOLO and find him. But I don’t think he’ll run. He’s been here since 1986, built a life, a business. People who run don’t put down roots like that.”
“Unless the roots are the disguise,” I said. “What better way to look innocent than to stay in one place, be respectable, never draw attention?”
Dash’s hands remained steady on the wheel. “Then we’re about to find out which Frank Holloway is real—the honest ex-cop, or the man who’s been hiding a murder.”
CHAPTER
TWELVE
Holloway’s Hardware looked exactly the same as it had yesterday—same cheerful red letters, same brick façade that had probably been there since Eisenhower was president, same bell that announced our arrival with oblivious enthusiasm. But walking through that door felt different this time, like returning to a restaurant where you’d found a hair in your food. Everything appeared normal on the surface, but you couldn’t quite forget what lay beneath.
Frank Holloway glanced up from behind the counter, and I watched recognition hit him like a physical blow. His earnest expression—the one that had seemed so genuine during our first visit—flickered and died.
“Sheriff Beckett,” he said, his voice flat and unwelcoming. “Mrs. McCoy. Wasn’t expecting to see you folks again so soon.”
“Funny thing about photographs,” Dash said, pulling out the church picnic picture and laying it on the counter between a display of cabinet hinges and a bin of assorted washers. “They have a way of telling stories people forgot to mention.”
Frank’s face went through several interesting color changes—pale to flushed to pale again, like watching a very anxious traffic light. His hand moved toward the photograph, then stopped, hovering above it as if touching it might burn him.
“July 4, 1985,” I said, keeping my voice pleasant. “First Methodist Church. That’s you in the third row, isn’t it? Holding one of your daughters. Your wife, Sandra, beside you.”
The silence that followed felt about as comfortable as a mammogram.
“Jimmy,” Frank called toward the back of the store, his voice strained. “Can you handle the front for a bit? Need to talk to these folks in my office.”
