Chapter 13 #2
The morning light streaming through my lace curtains painted everything in watercolor washes of gold and shadow, making even our grim purpose seem somehow softer, though I knew that was just another of the low country’s beautiful lies.
I filled them in on Inspector Morse’s findings, watching their faces shift from curiosity to anger as I described the crowbar marks on my back door, the deliberate pouring of gasoline in patterns meant to destroy everything we’d gathered.
“Inspector Morse said we were lucky last night. That group of people out for their evening walk called it in immediately when they saw the smoke. Another ten minutes and the fire would have breached the wall between the back room and main shop. The arsonist knew what they were doing—poured gasoline specifically in the back room where we’d been working, wanted those specific materials destroyed. ”
“What about security cameras?” Walt asked immediately, leaning forward with the intensity of a bloodhound catching scent.
“None in the back parking lot,” I said, my fingers wrapping around my coffee mug for warmth I didn’t really need. “But Morse said to check island gas stations. Someone bought a couple of gallons of gas somewhere, and in a town this small, someone might remember.”
The floorboards creaked—that particular spot three feet from the doorway that Patrick had always meant to fix but never gotten around to, one of those small imperfections that had become part of the house’s personality—and Dash materialized in the doorframe like he’d been conjured by our collective need for authority.
His uniform was crisp despite the early hour, but I could see the exhaustion written in the lines around his eyes, the slight shadow of stubble he’d not bothered to shave.
“We need to push harder on Stephanie Donaldson,” Dash said. “Jane Sutherland is dead. Hank’s in the hospital with a cracked skull. Your shop was torched. Someone’s panicking, trying to shut this investigation down. That means we’re close, and we need to push before they do something worse.”
He looked at me. “Stephanie wouldn’t be so worried if she was telling the truth about being at Turtle Point.
We’ve got to confront her with what we know about her being in Pickering’s journal.
With bodies piling up, we can’t afford to be gentle anymore.
She’s working today—her shift started at 9—I’ve already checked. ”
“What about us?” Walt asked, looking slightly offended at being left out of the action.
“Keep working the financial angle,” Dash said. “Go through those church records again, see if there’s anything we missed about the building fund. Check with your contacts about those board members who made interesting financial decisions just after the murders.”
“And Elder Crenshaw?” Deidre asked.
“We’ll go see him this afternoon after Stephanie,” Dash said. “No advance warning. The element of surprise might shake something loose, especially if he’s been sitting on information for forty years.”
* * *
We caught Stephanie in the hospital cafeteria during what must have been a late morning break.
She sat alone at a corner table, picking at a salad while scrolling through her phone.
The cafeteria buzzed with the controlled chaos of medical staff grabbing quick meals between crises—doctors in scrubs gulping coffee, administrators in suits discussing budgets, the constant flow of people trying to fuel themselves for whatever emergency came next.
She didn’t see us until we were already pulling out chairs at her table. Her fork stopped halfway to her mouth, a piece of lettuce dangling precariously.
“You can’t keep bothering—”
“Your stepmother Mary Jane went to Reverend Pickering for counseling,” Dash said quietly, sitting down with the casual authority of someone who belonged wherever he decided to be. “About your affair with a married man.”
The lettuce fell back onto her plate. Around us, the cafeteria bustled with a mixture of those who were worried or grieving and those who were picking at food to pass the time, but our table had become an island of tense silence.
“That’s not—” She stopped, looked around at the nearby tables. A group of residents sat three tables over, too exhausted to pay attention to anything but their coffee. “That was forty years ago. You don’t understand.”
“Then help us understand,” I said, keeping my voice gentle. “Pickering called you that Friday.”
Stephanie’s face flushed, then went pale. She set down her fork with excessive care, like it might shatter if she moved too quickly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Elsie Crawford saw you,” Dash said simply. “Nine o’clock. Blond woman in a white nurse’s uniform, arguing with Reverend Pickering by his car.”
“Who cares?” she shrugged. “Elsie Crawford has mashed potatoes for brains now.”
Dash smiled, but it was the kind of smile that sent shivers down the spine. It was a look I hadn’t seen before, and I held my breath as I waited for the standoff between them.
“We don’t need Elsie’s testimony,” Dash said.
“Do you think we’d be here talking about your affair if we didn’t have something else?
And guess what, Jane Sutherland was murdered yesterday.
You’re going to need to give me a very good alibi for where you were between the hours of midnight and 3 a.m Wednesday morning.
Because otherwise, I can hold you for seventy-two hours in a cell while we get things sorted out.
There’s no statute of limitations on murder, Ms. Donaldson. ”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” she said, her face paling and panic evident in her eyes.
“Then I’d start talking,” Dash said.
She looked around the cafeteria as if searching for an escape route.
A doctor at the next table glanced over, and she forced a smile that looked more like a grimace.
Stephanie’s hands trembled as she reached for her water glass.
She took a sip, then another, buying time while her world tilted on its axis.
“You don’t understand what it was like,” she finally said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Being twenty-two and stupid and thinking you’re in love with someone who keeps promising to leave his wife.
Sure I was dating Matt Crenshaw, but that was obligation.
Our families were friends. He was easy. But I never loved him.
And obviously we weren’t meant to be. I’m still amazed I made it ten years with that sniveling wimp. ”
She laughed, bitter and short, and pushed the hair that had fallen over her forehead back behind her ear.
“Pickering called me that Friday afternoon. Said Mary Jane had come to him, begged him to intervene. She asked him to counsel me about my iniquities.” The words came out like shards of glass. “That’s what he called it.
“I wore my white uniform. I was supposed to be off shift at 7, but we had an emergency come in and everyone was stuck at the hospital. I slipped out as soon as I could. No one noticed with all the chaos.” Her voice had gone flat, emotionless.
“Pickering was there by his car when I arrived. Standing in the moonlight looking so righteous, so disappointed. Like he had any right to judge when everyone knew about him and Ruby Bailey.”
“What did you talk about?”
“He said I was destroying my family. That Mary Jane was heartbroken. That I needed to end it immediately or he’d tell everyone—the hospital board, Greg’s wife, the whole island.”
Her knuckles were white against the coffee cup. “I told him he was a hypocrite. Carrying on with Ruby while his wife sat home. He said it was different—he was planning to leave June, make things right with Ruby, get married.”
“You argued,” I said, not a question.
“I laughed at him. Told him he was deluding himself if he thought the church would let him divorce and remarry his mistress. That Ruby was smarter than him—she knew he’d never leave June and the respectability.
” Stephanie’s eyes opened, focusing on something beyond us.
“He got angry. Said I didn’t understand real love, that what he and Ruby had was blessed despite the circumstances.
And that the elders wouldn’t have a choice in the matter if they knew what was good for them. ”
“Then what?” Dash’s voice was gentle but insistent.
“I left. Got in my car and drove away.” She met our eyes then, and I saw truth mixed with four decades of fear.
“I stopped at a payphone and called into the hospital. The nurse who answered was one of my good friends and I told her I forgot to clock out. She clocked out for me at just after 9:30. She didn’t know she’d given me an alibi.
“I was the last person to see Reverend Pickering alive. When I heard the next morning—both of them dead, shot at Turtle Point—I knew how it would look if I said anything.”
“So you said nothing,” Dash said.
“I said nothing. Ended the affair with Greg. Married Matt two years later—someone safe from a good family.” Her laugh was hollow. “Matt never knew about any of it. Still doesn’t. I built my whole life on that silence.”
“Did you see anyone else?” I asked. “Another car?”
She thought, her forehead creasing. “There was a dark sedan parked down the beach. But I was so angry, so focused on leaving, I didn’t really look.”
“Make? Model?”
“Dark. Four doors. That’s all I remember.” She straightened, pulling herself together like armor. “I’ve told you everything. I left George Pickering alive and arguing with God about his hypocrisy. Someone else killed him and Ruby. Someone else cut out her tongue.”
The detail made me shiver. She’d said it so matter-of-factly, but the violence of it—silencing Ruby even in death—spoke of rage beyond simple murder.
“Go back to your rounds,” Dash said finally. “But stay available. We may have more questions.”
Stephanie took her food tray and walked away, dumping the half-eaten salad in the trash. She didn’t look back.