“Screaming about the money, about her son, about God knows what. So I shot her before she could draw attention. You never know who might be hidden nearby.” He laughed, somewhat maniacally, and it brought chills to my skin.
“I shot her again. She fell to the ground, but she was still making so much noise. Even as the blood darkened the sand beneath her. Then I shot her again and there was nothing but silence. Not even the birds or the trees made a sound. I cut out her tongue, just to make sure she couldn’t make any more noise.”
“Then you positioned them,” Walt said grimly. “Made it look like a crime of passion.”
“Everyone expected it. Jealous spouse, outraged church member—the narrative wrote itself.” He seemed almost proud. “I even provided the perfect evidence to guide the investigation. George’s journal. Witness statements suggesting other suspects. For forty years, it worked perfectly.”
“Douglas Sutton,” Dash said formally, pulling out his handcuffs, “You’re under arrest for the murders of George Pickering, Ruby Bailey, and Jane Sutherland, and the attempted murder of Hank Hardeman.”
Sutton lunged sideways with surprising agility, making for the door. But Chowder—my brilliant, brave, fearless boy—had been waiting. He launched himself at Sutton’s ankle with the precision of a heat-seeking missile, his teeth finding their mark just above the dress shoe.
Sutton went down hard, his knee cracking against the hardwood floor with a sound like judgment day. “Get him off! Get this hellhound off me!”
“Good boy, Chowder,” I said calmly, though my heart was racing. “That’s enough now.”
Chowder released his grip but maintained his position, standing over the fallen reverend with the dignity of a small but victorious gladiator.
Dash cuffed Sutton while reading him his rights, the metal clicking with the finality of a church bell tolling for the last time. Through the window, I could see Mrs. Pembroke practically pressed against her fence, her watering can forgotten, as the cops that had been waiting for this moment descended through the front door.
“Forty years,” Sutton muttered. “Forty years of being this island’s moral compass, and you destroy it all for a whore and her hypocrite lover.”
“No,” I said, meeting his eyes steadily. “You’re not judge, jury and executioner. Someone in your position should know that better than anyone.”
By 7:30, the murder board bore Walt’s neat inscription—CASE CLOSED. The sidecars had given way to champagne—Bea had hidden a bottle in my refrigerator when she’d first come in. Apparently, she’d had a feeling we were going to need it tonight.
“Dom Pérignon 1996,” she announced. “Been saving it for something special. Figured catching a killer qualifies.”
“Almost anything qualifies for you to take a drink, Bea,” Deidre said.
“You used to be a lot more fun before you became a stick in the mud,” Bea shot back.
The celebration continued, warm and wonderful. But as the evening wore on, Dash caught my arm gently, drawing me aside near the window where Mrs. Pembroke couldn’t quite see us through her curtains.
“I need to head out soon,” he said quietly, his thumb brushing against my wrist in that way that made my pulse skip. “Got to process Sutton properly, and the media have this all over the ten o’clock news. Forty-year-old murder solved by the Silver Sleuths. They’ll be camped outside the station.”
“Of course,” I said, though I felt a small pang of disappointment. “Duty calls.”
“Breakfast tomorrow?” he asked, and there was something hopeful in his eyes that made my stomach perform its familiar acrobatics. “You’ll have mornings off for a little while, until the tea shop opens back up.”
“We can get pastries and coffee from Beaumont’s and have a waterfront picnic.”
“Romantic,” he said, mouth quirking in a half smile. “We need to talk, Mabel.” His voice dropped lower, more intimate despite the celebration happening around us. “About us. About what this is becoming. I meant what I said before—I’m finding it difficult to leave you at the end of each day.”
I remembered that conversation, the intensity of it, the promise of something more that we’d been dancing around since this investigation began.
“Tomorrow then,” I agreed. “Breakfast and…conversation.”
Twenty minutes later, after Dash had left with a final look that promised tomorrow’s conversation would change things between us, Bea caught my eye and nodded toward the kitchen.
She ushered me toward the mudroom, where no one could hear us. The celebration noises faded to a distant hum, like happiness happening in another room, another life.
“Sugar,” she said, and her voice had lost all its theatrical flair. This was Bea stripped of performance, and somehow that made her words heavier. “We need to talk about your sheriff.”
“Now?” I asked, though I knew the answer. Some conversations chose their own timing.
She reached into her purse—that magical repository that seemed to exist in more dimensions than physics should allow—and pulled out a manila envelope, thick with who knew what. The weight of it in her manicured hands felt like holding someone else’s tragedy.
“I do what I do,” she said simply. “I dig into people’s lives. Can’t help myself—it’s like breathing or mixing cocktails. Compulsive. And honey, Dashiell Beckett…” She paused, choosing her words like selecting bullets. “He has secrets that would make your blood run cold.”
