Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
I slept until seven.
I want that on the record, because in ten years I had not once slept past five. Not through grief, not through fever, not through the dead of winter when there was no earthly reason to be up. My body kept tea shop hours whether I asked it to or not.
And here I’d gone and slept till seven on a Sunday like a woman with no conscience, and I knew exactly whose fault it was. A whole day on the water. A confession under the stars. The long warm dark of the ride home and a man’s mouth that I could still feel if I let myself.
Chowder was a lump under the spare pillow, one back leg sticking out, snoring with the deep commitment of a creature who had never once felt the pull of organized religion.
He cracked an eye when I sat up, took the measure of the situation, and burrowed deeper.
Sundays were not his concern. Chowder was a heathen, and he slept in like one.
“Lucky,” I told him, and went to make myself presentable in half the time I usually allowed.
There’s no leisure in a rushed morning. I did my face faster than I liked and pinned my hair while the curls were still damp, praying for the best. A navy shirtwaist with little white buttons because it forgave a hurried woman and didn’t need ironing.
Pearl studs. And red lipstick, which I would not skip if the building were on fire.
I made it to St. James Baptist Church at four minutes past nine, which on Grimm Island is a scandal all its own.
The doors were already shut. I slipped into a back pew while the congregation was still settling, and Mrs. Pinkerton turned clear around to mark the time of my arrival for whatever ledger she kept.
Dash was already there. He never sat with me. He stood at the back with his arms crossed, the way he had the first Sunday I ever noticed him, watchful even in the house of God, and when our eyes met across the sanctuary his mouth tipped just enough to tell me he’d clocked that I was late too.
Pastor Bruce preached on the parable of the talents, the one about the servants and what they did with what they’d been given.
I thought about Henry Wainwright the whole way through.
He’d been a deacon in this church, had worn out a spot on one of these same hard pews, a left-handed man with terrible handwriting and a soft place for people who couldn’t pay him.
We sang “Amazing Grace,” and I knew every word without the hymnal.
Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come.
I caught Dash watching me from the back, and I looked away before my face could give anything up.
And then I thought about the kiss and his declaration of love, and I knew there was nothing I could do to keep those thoughts off my face. I was a walking billboard for lust.
I used the bulletin to fan myself, and waited like I had ants in my pants for the final “Amen” so I could escape quickly.
Dash found me on the lawn afterward while the congregation milled and fanned and angled for a look. His hand started toward the small of my back, then remembered where we were and dropped.
“Late to church,” he tsked in my ear. “Must have had an interesting night. Dreams disturb your sleep?”
“Hush,” I said, my face flaming. “It was the sun. I got a little too much and I was worn out.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, grinning, and then he changed the subject.
“Josephine called the station this morning and the dispatcher patched her through to my cell. She had the storage boxes brought to her house yesterday from the storage building. She said we’re welcome to come by and pick them up when we’re available. ”
“No time like the present,” I said.
“My thoughts too,” he said. “Though I was hope to talk you into lunch.”
That was the problem with this man. He could talk me into anything.
I’d spent most of the night kicking myself for not taking him up on the trip to his house.
I’d even thought about calling him and asking if the offer was still good before my good sense took hold.
Maybe Pastor Bruce should have taught on temptation instead of the talents.
“We can drive through Sandy’s,” I said as a compromise.
Sandy’s on the Shore had the best burgers on the island and they were open on Sundays.
It was the kind of place where there was no indoor seating and you had to order at the counter.
Most people took their food back to their cars or found a picnic table.
We took my car, and Dash seemed affable about the lunch choice. We grabbed our burgers and ate in the car with the AC blowing full blast, while dialing into the AM radio station the restaurant advertised so we could listen to the fifties music they played.
“Okay,” Dash said. “My appetite is appeased. Ready for Josephine?”
“Her family home is over on Camellia Row,” I said.
“Very fancy.”
“Bea said the Wainwrights are longtime islanders, but no one with the name has lived on the island since Henry died. Josephine married a billionaire, so they have houses all over the world, but she’s kept the family home here. Apparently she’s been renting it out.”
“Heck of a rent house,” he said.
“I looked it up on Zillow. Only fifteen thousand a month.”
He grinned. “Sounds like a steal.”
“In this area, it probably is. I guess it’s been empty the last year or so though except for maintenance staff.”
There was the new money side of the island, where I lived, and then there was the old money side of the island. Even past the grand mansions near the park where Deidre’s and Henry Wainwright’s homes were.
The closer we got to Camellia Row the higher and thicker the fences became, so the mansions behind the walls weren’t even visible from the street. Palm trees lined the drives and hundreds of years of oaks shaded manicured lawns.
I turned into the driveway and the gates opened automatically, and my tires crunched over the crushed-shell drive all the way to the house.
I’m not sure house was the right description.
“I had no idea this was back here,” Dash said.
“Don’t feel bad,” I said. “I’ve lived here since I was a teenager and I had no idea this was back here.”
Josephine’s home was multiple levels of white stucco with black shutters and gardens kept by somebody who knew what they were doing. It had the European traditional double grand staircase leading to a second-floor entrance, and each wing had its own piazzas.
She met us at the door in slate-gray linen and pearls, and the air-conditioning rolled out around her so cold it raised the hair on my arms.
“Y’all come on in,” she said once we got out of the car. “Now I remember why Joseph and I spent summers in the French Riviera. This humidity should be outlawed.”
I agreed.
She stepped back to let us in.
“This is a beautiful home,” I said.
“It is,” she agreed. “Henry and I were very privileged to grow up here. I’m quite sad to sell it.
Joseph is gone, and our only son was killed in a car accident twenty years ago.
We’ve got two grandsons, but they’re both well established and felt like the house would be more of a burden to them than an asset, so…
” She sighed like she was talking herself into it. “I’m selling.”
“I’m sorry,” I told her and we followed her through straight to the back of the house across white marbled floors into a sitting room that overlooked more extensive gardens and the river.
“Oh, it’s just nostalgia on my part,” she said. “But I know it’s for the best. And maybe going through all Henry’s things has made me a bit maudlin.”
Twenty or so banker’s boxes stood along the wall, three of them open, the lids set aside in a neat stack.
She’d set out a silver tray on a low table. Tea, three cups, and a plate of shortbread. The performance of hospitality from a woman who needed something to do with her hands.
“Sit, please.” She poured without asking whether we wanted it, and her hand was steady, which told me she’d done her crying earlier. “I started in on these around four this morning. I couldn’t sleep. I’ve made a mess of any order they were in, I’m afraid.”
“Is this all from Henry’s office?” Dash asked.
“His home office and his office at the clinic,” she said.
“Henry lived for his work. Everything that was important to him was in one of the two places. After Charlotte died, he rarely used the rest of the house except for the bedroom to sleep and the kitchen to eat. I had an estate sale shortly after he passed and got rid of his clothes and the furniture. But Joseph and I packed up his office. I didn’t go through anything then.
It was too painful. So we packed everything and put it in storage. ”
I looked at the boxes and felt the size of the thing settle on me. And then I thought about the whiskey decanter and glasses that were in the crime-scene photos and wondered if she’d packed those as well.
“Do you mind if we take these with us?” Dash asked.
“Of course not,” Josephine said. “It’s time someone went through everything. And I’m not that person. It’s still painful to see his handwriting or the little reminders he always made for himself. He and I were very close.”
“We’ll take good care of it,” Dash assured her. “These boxes will never fit in the car.” He already had his phone out. “Let me get a couple of deputies out here to transport.” He stepped toward the windows to make the call.
I sat back down across from Josephine.
“I do want to ask you about the woman Henry was seeing.”
“I told you everything I know about her,” she said.
“You did,” I agreed. “You said he called you the evening he died. That he’d found out something unforgivable about a person he trusted, and that he meant to put it right.”
“Yes.”
“And in that same call, he told you he’d met someone. Those are two big things in one phone call. The unforgivable thing and a new love interest. Did they feel connected when he said them?”
Josephine was quiet a moment.