Chapter 14 #2
“Of course,” he said. “Everyone on the island knows your house. See you soon.”
The line went dead, and I set the phone down carefully.
“Ten minutes,” Dash said, calling into dispatch. “I need unmarked units posted around the neighborhood. Stay out of sight.”
We arranged the evidence strategically—financial records visible but not obviously incriminating, the timeline prominent but incomplete, as if we were still trying to connect dots that wouldn’t quite align.
Exactly fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang with the punctuality of a man who believed tardiness was a sin just below embezzlement and murder.
I opened the door to find him in a black suit, his thin frame held with righteousness. He smelled of peppermint and old books, the scent of dusty absolution.
“Reverend, thank you for coming. Please come in and make yourself comfortable. We’re just baffled.”
He entered my home with confidence. The Silver Sleuths were arranged around the dining table, papers spread before them in artful confusion.
“You have quite the setup here,” he said, looking at the intricate murder board and the stacks of papers and interviews, financial letters, and the blown-up picture of the church picnic the summer before Pickering and Ruby were murdered.
“It’s fortunate it was only your tea shop that was damaged.
You had a lot more to lose here in your home. ”
“Yes, fortunate,” I agreed, trying to look relieved instead of like I wanted to stab him in the eyeball with one of the long toothpicks on the bar.
“Now what about this pattern you mentioned,” he said, moving to the board with the eagerness of a teacher about to correct particularly slow students.
I began carefully, gesturing to the board. “We’ve been trying to reconstruct that night, but there are so many gaps. Stephanie told us about her argument with Pickering at 9, but we can’t figure out what happened next.”
“A tragic evening,” Sutton said, moving closer to study our timeline. “What specifically puzzles you?”
“Well,” Dottie said, adjusting her purple cat-eye glasses, “When I did the autopsies, I placed time of death between 10 and midnight. The physical evidence confirmed they’d been intimate, but the positioning afterward—that staged embrace—that was done postmortem. Someone arranged them deliberately.”
“Like they were making a statement,” Walt said.
“But what puzzles me,” I said, studying the timeline, “Is that Stephanie saw Pickering at 9, argued with him, and left around 9:15. That means Ruby arrived after that, or was waiting somewhere nearby.”
“The killer had to have been watching,” Sutton offered, moving closer to the board. “Waiting for the right moment.”
“From where though?” Bea asked. “How do you watch without being seen?”
“Turtle Point has plenty of tree cover and marsh grass,” Sutton said smoothly. “The killer could have been anywhere. The moonlight that night was strong enough to see by, but it also creates deep shadows.”
“You remember the moonlight from that specific night?” Walt asked, and I could see him testing, probing.
Sutton didn’t miss a beat. “Everyone remembers that night, Mr. Garrison. The whole island was talking about the moon—unusually bright for September. Like God himself was providing a spotlight.” He paused, then added smoothly, “Or so people said at the time. You know how memories become collective on an island this small.”
He was right, of course. The police reports had noted the clear night, the nearly full moon. But there was something about the way he said it—too ready, too rehearsed.
“What we can’t figure out,” I said, redirecting before he got suspicious, “is why they folded their clothes. Frank Holloway told us the clothes were stacked neatly on Pickering’s back seat. Who does that in a moment of passion?”
“Perhaps they weren’t in a rush,” Sutton suggested. “If they thought they had all night…”
“Or someone else folded them,” Dottie said quietly. “After.”
The room went still for a moment, everyone playing their parts perfectly—confused investigators grateful for any insight their helpful pastor could provide.
“The money is what really puzzles us,” Walt said, tapping a financial record with deliberate frustration. “These deposits into the church building fund—they’re all over the place. Some Thursdays, some Fridays. No real pattern we can find.”
I watched Sutton’s shoulders relax slightly at Walt’s apparent confusion.
“Church finances were always complicated,” Sutton offered, his voice taking on a teaching tone. “Multiple donors, various fundraising events. George wasn’t the most organized bookkeeper.”
“That’s what Elder Crenshaw said,” I lied smoothly. “Though he was quite confused about the whole thing. Kept talking about someone named Doogie? Said it was important but couldn’t remember why.”
Sutton’s hand stilled on the edge of the table. Just for a second. Then he forced a chuckle. “Poor Matthias. His mind really is going. Doogie could be anyone—a donor, perhaps. Or nothing at all. You know how the elderly sometimes fixate on random details.”
“Probably,” Bea agreed, then added with studied casualness, “Though it’s funny—Pickering wrote Doogie in his journal several times. Always connected to deposit slips.”
“May I?” Sutton asked, gesturing toward the journal we’d left strategically open.
“Please,” I said. “We’re hoping fresh eyes might see something we’re missing.”
He bent over the journal, and I watched his face as he read his own nickname in Pickering’s handwriting. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
“This could be anyone,” he said finally. “A code name, perhaps. George did like his little mysteries.”
“A code name,” Walt repeated thoughtfully. “For someone on the inside. Someone who had access to the church accounts.”
“The finance committee had six members,” Deidre said, consulting her notes. “You were on it, weren’t you, Reverend? As assistant pastor?”
“I handled some administrative duties, yes,” Sutton said carefully. “But George oversaw all the finances himself. Very particular about it.”
“Except someone was stealing,” I said softly. “And Ruby figured it out. That’s what got them killed, isn’t it? Not the affair—the money.”
Sutton straightened slowly, and for the first time, I saw calculation in his eyes as he reassessed the situation. We weren’t as lost as we’d appeared.
“That’s quite a leap,” he said, his voice still steady but missing its earlier warmth.
“Is it?’ Dash asked from his position by the window. “Union Theological Seminary in New York keeps good records. From 1976—Douglas ‘Doogie’ Sutton. Your alternate name in their files. Same man who became assistant pastor here in 1983.”
Sutton went completely still.
“And Ruby cleaned both of your offices,” I added, watching his face. “Yours and Pickering’s. She emptied your trash, saw the duplicate deposit slips. That’s what she meant when she told Pickering she knew where the money was going—she wasn’t talking about some bank account. She meant your office.”
“She could have meant anything,” Sutton said.
“The timeline keeps bothering me,” I said, crossing to where our evidence sprawled across the table like tea leaves waiting to be read.
“Pickering’s last journal entry—September 14—says they were meeting at Turtle Point to talk about leaving.
Not their usual Tuesday or Thursday at the Flamingo, but Sunday night. Someone knew exactly where they’d be.”
“Someone who’d been listening,” Dash said quietly from his position by the window, his voice carrying that edge of certainty when pieces finally click.
“Through a heating vent, perhaps,” Dottie said, adjusting her purple cat-eye glasses. “Your office shared one with Pickering’s, didn’t it, Reverend? You mentioned once how you could hear him practicing his sermons.”
The silence stretched taut as piano wire. Sutton’s eyes moved from face to face, calculating—measuring the distance to the door against six senior citizens who’d proven surprisingly adept at solving murders, weighing decades of successful deception against truth closing in from all sides.
“You made mistakes, Reverend,” Dash said, emphasizing his title.
“You thought you had the power because you knew things that could discredit those who might turn you in. Blackmail, if you will. You could have just sat on things and let the secret die with you. But you followed Hank and Dottie and Mabel to Beaufort. Haven’t you ever heard that curiosity killed the cat?
You followed Hank to that parking lot and hit him over the head. You could have killed him.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said stiffly.
“That’s the great thing about technology,” Dash said. “It’s really hard to get away with crimes nowadays. The toll road cameras caught your vehicle and license plate crossing the bridge into Beaufort.”
Sutton shrugged. “I let people borrow my car all the time,” he said. “Anyone who is in need, really. It’s part of my job to tend to my flock.”
“And then you really made a big mistake,” Dash continued on, as if Sutton hadn’t spoken at all.
“You killed Jane Sutherland. Ballistics came back showing that it’s the same gun that was used to kill Ruby and George.
I’ve got warrants for your house, car, and the church office.
There are cops going through your things as we speak.
Wonder what we’ll find? Not only is it the same weapon, but the crime-scene team found a partial fingerprint in the oils on our victim’s face.
Did you decide to absolve her of her sins? ”
“You know,” Sutton said finally, his voice different now—stripped raw, exposed as a nerve, “George always thought he was so clever. Writing everything down in that journal, collecting secrets like communion wafers. But he never realized the biggest secret was right next door, listening to every word through thin walls and shared ventilation.”
“The money,” Walt said. It wasn’t a question.