“Mother filed for divorce the next morning and took him for every cent.And every last person who’d known for years stood around clutching their pearls like they’d had no idea.”She finished her wine.“That’s what polite society does best.It watches and does nothing until someone forces its hand.”
“What I want to know,” I said, “is how the neighbor in the book lived next door for twenty years and nobody connected him to what happened.The property dispute was public.”
“Because he was liked,” Walt said.“Coached Little League.Served on the town council.Brought casseroles to the memorial service.”
“You know what I’ve learned in six decades of living?”Bea asked.
“That no one on this planet would believe you’re only in your sixties?”Walt asked.
Bea narrowed her eyes at Walt.We all knew darn good and well that Bea had paid tens of thousands in plastic surgery to look just that.
“No,” she said frostily.“I’ve learned to watch the ones who show up with casseroles.Nobody works that hard at being neighborly unless they’ve got a reason.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Bea,” Dottie said.“Not everyone with a casserole is a murderer.”
“I didn’t say they were.I said they’re worth watching.It’s like when Edgar Burrows’ wife died and all those women showed up with casseroles so they could put their name in his dating hat.”
“That was a mess,” Deidre said.“Poor man got all those casseroles mixed up and ended up with Junie Stevens.Makes the driest tuna bake you’ve ever tasted.Should have gone with Sandra McCorkle.”
“She does have a good hand with cobblers,” Hank said.“Made me a cherry one that would knock your socks off after Eleanor died.”
“Hmm,” Walt said.“She brought a lasagna after Margaret’s wake.”
“Well, you both dodged a bullet there,” Bea said.“She’s poor as a church mouse now.Invested every penny she had in her son’s startup company and he took the money and moved to Costa Rica.”
“He was always a bad egg,” Walt said.“Used to tie firecrackers to cat’s tails when he was a kid.”
The conversation unwound from there.They argued about forensics and legal procedure and the willful blindness that let a community ignore what was right in front of it for twenty years.Bea and Dottie got into it over whether the wife had known, which turned into a sidebar about spousal intuition that Hank wisely stayed out of, and Deidre pulled three research papers from her tote bag that nobody had asked for but everybody ended up passing around.
These were the evenings I lived for.Not the books, though Deidre would argue otherwise.It was this.Five people who refused to look away from the ugly things, who’d spent their whole careers staring into the dark and hadn’t lost their nerve yet.
I let the discussion run until the sandwich tray was down to crumbs and the evening light through the screens had turned the garden golden.Deidre passed around butterscotch candies.July held on to its daylight like it had somewhere better to be, and the sun was still a half an hour from setting even though it felt like the evening should have been over by now.
When there was a lull in the conversation, I said, “I had a visitor this morning.”
“You mean other than our handsome sheriff?”Deidre asked.
I ignored the looks and powered through.“Yes.A woman named Josephine Wainwright Hale came to my door.Her brother was Dr.Henry Wainwright.He ran a medical practice here on the island for more than twenty-five years.”
“Henry was a good man,” Hank said.
“And an excellent physician,” Walt added.
“You knew him?”I asked them both.
“He was my doctor for fifteen years,” Walt said.“Gave me the physical that cleared me for my bypass surgery.Because of him my ticker is still ticking.”
“I’d venture to say anyone who’s lived on Grimm Island more than thirty years knows of Henry,” Dottie said.“He was attending physician on a few autopsies I’d done.”
“He treated half the island,” Bea said.“Or at least the sane half that didn’t go to that quack Middleton.Remember back then the island only had about two thousand full-time residents.His death was a terrible tragedy.”
“Never understood it,” Walt said gruffly.“A man like that taking his own life.He wasn’t a coward.Even after Charlotte died he didn’t stop living.He just changed the kind of living he did.”
“Got very involved in different charities if I recall,” Deidre said.“And sat on several boards.I remember Josephine too.She married very well and moved off island.I believe they had a home in Charleston as well as several others around the world.I heard something about him passing a decade or so ago.Why’d she come to see you?”
“Because she believes Henry didn’t kill himself.That he was murdered.She’s spent twenty-five years trying to get someone to listen, and after she read about us in theGazetteshe decided maybe we were the answer to her prayers.”
“Can’t say I’ve ever been the answer to anyone’s prayers,” Bea muttered.
