Chapter 6 #2
“Grimm Island specializes in certain kinds of loneliness,” I said, then immediately wished I hadn’t. It felt too revealing, like I’d exposed something raw.
But Dash just nodded, his hand brushing mine as we walked—brief, warm, possibly accidental.
“It’s always lonely at the top,” he said quietly.
“That’s something they don’t tell you when you’re working your way up through the ranks.
You think making detective will be different, then sergeant, then lieutenant.
You keep thinking the next promotion will change things, that you’ll finally be part of something.
” He paused, watching a tourist family cross the street.
“But the higher you climb, the more isolated you become. Can’t be friends with your subordinates—blurs the lines, compromises authority.
Can’t talk about cases with civilians. Can’t let anyone see what the job does to you, because that’s weakness, and weakness gets people killed. ”
His voice had gone flat, professional, but I heard something underneath it—years of holding things in, of carrying weight alone.
“So you learn to keep your private life private and your thoughts close to the vest,” he continued.
“You become really good at being alone. Sometimes too good at it.” He glanced at me, something vulnerable flickering across his face before he shuttered it.
“This island’s not that different from anywhere else I’ve been.
The names change, the scenery changes, but the loneliness is pretty much the same. ”
“Yeah,” I said softly, understanding more than he’d probably meant to reveal. “It is.”
We walked in silence for a moment, Chowder trotting between us, and I realized we’d just shared something—not just information, but the weight of carrying things alone. Of being isolated even in the middle of community.
Maybe that’s what drew us together. Two people who’d learned to be self-sufficient, who’d built walls so high we’d forgotten what it felt like to let anyone in.
We turned onto Broad Street, where the houses got larger and the gardens more elaborate. Old Charleston singles and Greek revivals, their piazzas facing south to catch the breeze, their gardens bursting with camellias and perfume of summer roses.
The Whitmore house sprawled behind an elaborate wrought-iron fence, its garden a testament to what unlimited money and good gardeners could accomplish.
The Rutledge place sat directly across, equally impressive, equally maintained—two old families staring at each other across the street for generations, probably knowing each other’s secrets but keeping them out of some unspoken agreement.
“Patrick’s funeral was the worst day of my life,” I said suddenly, surprising myself.
We’d been walking in comfortable silence, but the words came out anyway, pulled by the proximity to where we were going.
“But Michael somehow made it feel less like an ending and more like…I don’t know.
Like Patrick was still part of things, just in a different way. ”
I hummed a few bars of “Someone to Watch Over Me” without quite meaning to, the melody slipping out the way it always did when I was nervous or processing something difficult.
“That’s a gift,” Dash said quietly. “Making people feel like death isn’t the end of connection.”
“A terrible gift to have,” I agreed. “Having to be everyone’s comfort when you’re carrying your own grief. Can you imagine? Every funeral he conducts, he’s probably thinking about his mother. About how he never got closure. About how the person who killed her just…walked away.”
Grimm Island Funeral Home materialized at the corner of Broad and Meeting—a Victorian mansion painted in shades of gray that managed to be both elegant and slightly oppressive, like a beautiful woman in mourning clothes.
The gardens were immaculate, azaleas and camellias arranged with the kind of precision that suggested someone spent serious time and money on keeping death beautiful.
Crepe myrtles lined the walkway, their bark smooth and pale as bone, their branches reaching up like supplicants.
A brass sign beside the door read Grimm Island Funeral Home—Serving The Community Since 1952. Below it, in smaller letters: Michael P. Bailey, Director.
Chowder paused at the gate, sniffing the air with intensity. His ears perked forward, and he looked up at me with those bulging eyes that somehow conveyed both alertness and judgment.
“You sense death?” I asked him. “Very atmospheric of you.”
He snorted and proceeded forward, his bow tie bobbing with each step.
“Michael inherited this place from his grandparents,” I said as we approached the door. “Ruby’s parents. Must be strange, preparing bodies for burial when your own mother’s murder was never solved. Seeing death professionally while carrying that personal loss.”
The front door opened before we could knock, as if Michael Bailey had been watching for us.
He was tall—nearly six feet—with the kind of thin frame that suggested he forgot to eat when he was focused on work.
His dark hair was graying at the temples in that distinguished way that some men achieved and others just looked old attempting.
He had his mother’s striking green eyes—I’d seen photos of Ruby in the case file—and they held a sadness that comes from intimate acquaintance with grief, the professional sorrow of someone who guides others through loss while carrying his own.
It was like looking at a mirror—I recognized that expression because I’d worn it myself for years after Patrick died.
He wore a dark suit, impeccably tailored, with a burgundy tie that was the only splash of color in his otherwise monochromatic presentation.
His hands were long-fingered and careful, the hands of someone who handles fragile things for a living—bodies, grief, the delicate art of making death presentable.
“Sheriff Beckett,” he said, his voice measured and soft, the kind of voice that could comfort the bereaved without ever actually promising that anything would get better.
It was a voice that had been trained to absorb pain without reflecting it back.
“Mrs. McCoy.” His gaze dropped to Chowder, and something in his expression softened. “And guest.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” I said. “He’s very well behaved.”
“I like dogs,” Michael said simply. “They understand grief better than most humans. They don’t try to fix it or talk you out of it. They just…sit with you in it.” He stepped back, gesturing us inside. “Please, come in.”
The interior of Grimm Island Funeral Home smelled like furniture polish and lilies, with an underlying chemical scent that I recognized from Patrick’s funeral—formaldehyde, disguised but never quite eliminated.
No matter how much air freshener or how many flowers, that smell always lurked underneath, a reminder of what the business actually involved.
The entry hall was all dark wood and thick carpeting that absorbed sound, making every footstep feel muffled and somehow guilty, like we were intruding on sacred space.
Chowder’s nails clicked against the hardwood in the foyer before we moved onto carpet, each click echoing in the high-ceilinged space.
Victorian furniture lined the walls—uncomfortable-looking chairs that probably cost a fortune, side tables with elaborate flower arrangements, paintings of peaceful landscapes that were meant to be soothing but somehow just emphasized the unnaturalness of the whole enterprise.
Michael led us past the viewing rooms—doors discreetly closed, but I knew what lay beyond them from my own experience.
Rooms set up to look like living rooms, as if the dead person had just decided to take a nap in their best clothes.
The elaborate fiction we constructed around death, pretending it was sleep or peace or any number of euphemisms that avoided the stark reality of cessation.
His office was at the back of the building, overlooking the gardens through tall windows that let in afternoon light.
It was a room lined with leather-bound volumes about grief and loss, grief counseling, the psychology of mourning, books with titles like Understanding Bereavement and The Art of Funeral Direction.
A massive mahogany desk dominated the space, probably weighing more than my car, its surface clear except for a single photograph and a leather desk pad.
Family photos covered one wall—black-and-white images of Baileys going back generations, all wearing the same expression of professional sympathy.
It was like looking at a timeline of grief—Grandfather Bailey in his 1950s suit, Grandmother Bailey in her proper dress, Father Bailey (who I realized must have been Ruby’s father), all of them with that same carefully neutral expression that said I’m here for you without promising anything more.
One photograph stood apart from the others—a color picture, slightly faded with that particular quality of 1980s photography, of a young woman with dark hair, laughing at something outside the frame.
She wore a simple yellow dress, and she held a small boy’s hand.
Both of them looked radiantly, impossibly happy, caught in one of those perfect moments that you don’t recognize as perfect until they’re over.
“That’s the only picture I have where she’s truly smiling,” Michael said, catching me looking.
His voice had gone soft, almost reverent.
“Most photos from back then, she looks tired. Worn down. Like the world was pressing on her and she was too polite to complain. This was taken at my eighth birthday party, two years before she died. She’d gotten a raise that week—Mrs. Watson had given her an extra fifty dollars for doing such good work—and Mama said we were going to celebrate properly.
We went to the Dairy Queen in Charleston, got banana splits, stayed until they closed. ”