We followed him past displays of power tools and paint cans stacked like colorful towers, into the small office that smelled like old coffee and unspoken confessions.
Frank sank into his desk chair, the old wood creaking under his weight like a sigh.
“Sandra and I were members,” he said, hands flat on the desk as if anchoring himself. “Joined about six months before I started working for Milton. She grew up Methodist. Wanted the girls raised in the church.”
“And you didn’t think to mention this when we came asking about a double homicide that happened at your church?” Dash’s voice was pleasant. Too pleasant. The kind of pleasant that meant someone was about to find themselves in very deep water.
“I didn’t think it mattered.” Frank pulled off his glasses, cleaned them with his flannel shirt—buying time to construct his defense. “Spent decades trying to forget I was ever part of that place. Sandra and I left six months after the murders. Couldn’t sit in those pews anymore, listening to whoever replaced Pickering talk about God’s love while everyone pretended two people hadn’t been executed and dumped on the beach.”
“But you knew them,” I said. “Ruby Bailey cleaned houses. Did she clean yours?”
“Once a week. Tuesdays.” Frank’s jaw tightened like a vise. “She was good at her job. Efficient. The girls liked her—she’d bring them little toys from the dollar store sometimes. Nothing expensive, just little things. Stickers. Cheap bracelets. Sandra used to make her lunch.”
“And Pickering?”
“I knew him the way you know a pastor. Shook his hand after service. Sat through his sermons. Brought covered dishes to potlucks.” Frank looked up at us with weary eyes. “But I didn’t know them. Not really. Didn’t know Ruby was being threatened by Crenshaw. Didn’t know about the embezzlement until Tommy started investigating. Just knew what everyone else knew—they were having an affair, and someone killed them for it.”
“Did you suspect who killed them?” Dash asked.
Frank was quiet for a long moment, wrestling with something internal. “Everyone suspected everyone. That’s what Milton’s circus accomplished—three different people confessing, all of them recanting, nobody knowing what was real anymore. But I didn’t have answers then, and I don’t have them now.”
The room felt heavy with the weight of old secrets and older guilt.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t more forthcoming,” Frank said finally. “I told myself it didn’t matter that I’d been there. That being a congregant didn’t make me complicit. But I see how it looks—like I was hiding something. I wasn’t. I was just trying to keep my distance from something that nearly destroyed my partner.”
Dash gathered the photograph, slid it back into the folder with deliberate precision. “If you think of anything else, call me.” He pulled out a business card, set it on Frank’s desk. “Someone’s already been hurt trying to stop this investigation. The next person might not be so lucky.”
Frank nodded, his face ashen. “I understand.”
We left him sitting in his office, surrounded by decades of paperwork and the ghosts of decisions made when he was young enough to think running away would solve anything.
Outside, the humidity hit like walking into a steam bath.
“He’s telling the truth,” I said, sliding into the passenger seat of Dash’s SUV. “He doesn’t know who killed them. He’s just scared and ashamed.”
“Yeah.” Dash started the engine with more force than necessary. “But he confirmed what we suspected. This wasn’t about passion. It was about money.”
The drive back to Grimm Island felt longer than usual, the highway stretching out through marsh and pine forest that all started looking the same after a while. Dash was quiet—that focused quiet where I could practically hear his brain working through evidence, sorting and cataloging possibilities.
“I want to review Tommy’s files tonight,” he said finally. “See if there’s anything that points more definitively at Crenshaw or the other board members.”
“What about Stephanie?”
“Her too. But I want leverage first. Real evidence, not just connections.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Scared people don’t talk unless silence becomes more dangerous than confession.”
We crossed back onto Grimm Island as the afternoon light started its slow fade toward evening. The familiar sight of live oaks and antebellum houses should have felt like coming home. Instead, it felt ominous—all that carefully maintained beauty hiding something festering underneath.
That’s when my phone rang. Dottie’s name flashed on the screen.
“Mabel,” she said without preamble. “Where are you?”
“Just crossed the bridge from Beaufort. What’s wrong?” The urgency in her voice made my stomach clench.
“It’s Jane Sutherland. Someone found her body an hour ago.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. “Where?”
“The Flamingo Motel.” Dottie’s voice had gone clinical—that medical examiner tone she used when things got too real for normal emotions. “Mabel, she was shot. Same caliber as Pickering and Bailey.”
