Pam immediately looked flustered. She nervously flipped through her notebook. When she got to the page she was searching for, she smoothed it with her palm, looked quickly at Caroline for support and said softly, “Patterson has an alibi for the time of the murder. Supposedly, he was sitting in the Windjammer watching a girlfriend perform for a CD release party.”
Bonneau looked at her sternly. “A girlfriend?”
Pam took a deep breath and said in a rush, “Maybe. I think so.”
He lifted a brow.
“I’ll ask!” she said quickly.
“What else?”
“I think that’s it. His entire defense is based on the fact that he has witnesses placing him somewhere else—on the other side of the city—at the time of the Jones murder.”
“Witnesses?”
“Sorry, one,” Pam amended.
“An ‘s’ can make all the difference in the world,” Bonneau told her. “Be specific.”
“Yeah, but let’s face it, Isle of Palms isn’t exactly Timbuktu,” Brad pointed out. “I mean, how long would it take to get there from James Island—especially now that we’ve got the Expressway?”
Everyone turned to look at Pam. She shrugged. “Maybe thirty minutes?” she said uncertainly.
“In bad traffic,” Brad scoffed.
“Well, if she is a girlfriend, she could be lying for him,” Bonneau suggested. “Find her and talk to her, Pam.”
“The witness?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Caroline placed her notebook on the table and her pen on top of it. “So where do we go from here?”
Frank considered her question a long moment, then said, “Let’s focus our story on Patterson and the new missing girl—what’s her name?”
Brad interjected at once. “Jennifer Williams.”
“I want to know everything about this Willams girl—when did she go missing? Has anyone heard from her? Did Patterson track her here from Murrells Inlet?”
Did he kill her?
The question hung in the air, though no one asked it.
“Just the facts,” Bonneau stressed. “No embellishment, no melodrama. I want to know every detail about his relationship with that girl and the details surrounding his leaving the church. Dig up everything. If it’s dirt, great. If it clears him, great. We just want the truth.”
“Who gets to write the story?” Brad asked. Caroline could almost feel the glee of his anticipation.
Frank looked at Caroline and she gave him a nod, hoping he was asking what she thought he was asking.
He gave her a nod back. “Pam,” he said definitively. “But I need you to help her.”
Brad sounded surprised, and maybe a little cross. “Do I get a byline?”
“We’ll talk about it,” Bonneau said, but didn’t promise, Caroline noted. “Let’s do it,” he directed and clapped his hands in a booming gesture Caroline was growing familiar with.
The man certainly loved his job and despite the nature of their story, she had to admit, sitting there, listening to Frank and surrounded by the commotion of building not just a story but a daily paper, she had never felt closer to her mother. At least now she understood Flo in a way she had never understood her before.
Chapter Nineteen
I
n the distance, a small boat motored by, a black speck moving against a blacker sky. The ripples in its wake swept toward the bank, flatlining as it moved toward the shore. It died slapping feebly at the inside of a disintegrating boat hull nearby.
For a moment, he stood staring at the rotten landmark, wondering how long it would remain there before the city decided to remove it.
Maybe forever.
Still . . . the thought of someone unearthing it . . . stumbling across his sacred burial ground . . . made his heart beat a little stronger. He had never cared if anyone knew . . . then again . . . he had never experienced such a thrill as he did knowing people feared him.
He was the boogeyman. The chupacabra. Michael Myers.
A legend.
But deadly real.
No one could stop him.
They hadn’t yet.
They hadn’t even known.
He flicked the sharp tip of his knife beneath his fingernails and smiled at the thought of what lay beneath the earth . . . where no one would ever think to look . . . so deep in the mire that not even the ploughmudders, who plucked their precious Lowcountry oysters from the prolific beds, dared to tread there.
Special soil for special people.
Hallowed ground.
He could almost feel the energy they channeled.
The remembered taste, the feeling of power, excited him and he unwittingly pressed the blade into the tender skin beneath his nail.
Blinking, he peered down at the knife in his hand, automatically bringing the fingertip to his lips, sucking the tinny taste of his own blood, and feeling the immediate stirring in his groin.
The blade was eight inches of forged Solingen steel, polished until it gleamed. Some people called it an Arkansas toothpick . . . he thought the name was derogatory. It was a sacred tool that, so far, had only been employed to slice the tender muscle from inside their mouths . . . but last night . . . in his dreams he saw the Hutto girl rise up from the bog and vomit putrid black bile. So he’d come here to make certain they were undisturbed.
Not so much as a breeze stirred the sticky night air . . . and now that the boat had passed, the water was a sheet of ebony glass.
Maybe the demons were still inside them?
Maybe if he slid his knife inside them and sliced them in two, helping them peel off and discard their carcasses like dirty cicadas, he could leave them with the certainty of peace.
But he couldn’t be sure.
He was still learning.
Still seeking the source of peace . . . a tranquility that eluded him except in these moments of communion. Only now did the voices leave him in peace . . . in the waning seconds of the witching hour.
Some folks claimed the veil between the spiritual and physical world was thinnest between the hours of three and four
A.M.
. . . so that’s when he buried them.
And sometimes when he stood here after, surrounded by a mantle of fog, watching the plough mud mold itself around his offering, like a snake’s mouth enveloping a rat, he could feel a connection with every one of them.
And he was God.
The clock on the bedside table read three-o-seven
A.M.
Caroline awoke to the sound of Savannah’s voice as she crawled into the bed next to her. “Everything’s fine,” Savannah whispered as she slid under the covers. “Just a bad dream.” Drawing the covers up, she snuggled close.
Caroline was too exhausted to acknowledge her with much more than a weary groan. She hadn’t even closed her eyes until almost one o’clock because she’d been poring over financials on her laptop until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer.
Shivering, Savannah scooted closer, burying her face into the back of Caroline’s hair . . . just like she used to do when she was a little girl.
“You okay?” Caroline asked sleepily.
“Just a bad dream,” Savannah repeated, shivering again.
The blinds were three-quarters of the way down and moonlight slid in beneath them, spilling across the knotted wood floor. Tango lay facing the bed, his muzzle bookended by both of her mother’s shoes.
Because Caroline wouldn’t allow the shoes on the bed, he’d taken to sleeping on the floor beside them, but she could see by the moonlight that he wasn’t asleep right now. Savannah had awakened him. But he remained quiet and mostly still, his tail swishing softly when Caroline met his gaze.
Caroline had nearly forgotten her sister had the night terrors.
As a child, she’d had them nearly every night, dreams so real she had been completely inconsolable at times. She had spent many a dark night shivering in Caroline’s bed, strangling the breath out of Caroline with a death grip around her ribs that shouldn’t have been possible coming from the arms of such a skinny little girl.
“Are they still the same? The dreams?”
“Not so bad anymore,” Savannah whispered, but she shivered again.
“Want to tell me about it?”
“Not really.”
“Was it scary?”
“Yes.”
“Wouldn’t it help?”
“No,” she entreated. “I just want to sleep.”
Caroline turned over onto her back to stare at the unlit ceiling, suddenly awake and left with a feeling she wasn’t quite certain how to interpret.
On the one hand, she was glad Savannah had instinctively come to her. It was familiar, made her feel connected to her sister in a way she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. But Savannah’s silence only highlighted the fact that their closeness was an illusion.
Too many years were wedged between them.
At five, Savannah would ramble on about her dreams, reliving every terrifying second through colorful details, drawing Caroline into her stories as though she had been there to witness it all. Together, they had learned to revise her dreams while she was awake, so that she could go back to sleep with a happy ending.
Like Caroline, Savannah had always had a knack for words and it had been no surprise to anyone that she had become a writer—exchanging real-life tales for the safer world of fiction. Caroline imagined it was Savannah’s way of trying to control her world. In a way, they were the same—both of them shutting their windows and doors to the outside world. Except that Caroline did it by shutting out people and Savannah accomplished the same by creating fantasy.
What a mess they were—all of them!
As though she sensed Caroline’s troubled thoughts, Savannah slid an arm around her, hugging her. “Good night,” she whispered, and Caroline thought she felt moisture from Savannah’s lashes on her bare shoulder, but couldn’t find her voice to ask.
She didn’t move.
And despite the fact that she had never been able to sleep easily lying on her back, she didn’t turn over either. Not for a long time, and then she turned to face her sister, throwing her arm protectively over her shoulders.
They fell asleep huddled like they were telling secrets beneath the blankets . . . just as they had when Savannah was five and Caroline was eight.
Chapter Twenty
“I
’m so bored!” Augusta announced at breakfast.
Except for Wednesdays, Sadie had somehow managed to keep herself out of the Aldridge kitchen for most of the first month of their return home, but gradually, she began showing up more and more, and now it seemed she was flipping French toast or eggs more mornings than not.
Caroline stopped making any pretense at complaining. She actually liked it, and if Sadie wasn’t inclined to stop, then Caroline decided maybe she liked it too much to make her.
This morning, Sadie brought over a dozen pasture-raised chicken eggs to highlight the difference in taste over the grocery-store variety and she painstakingly produced plates for taste tests that included one of each kind—without revealing which was which.
All three of them sat at the kitchen island, with Tango at their feet, and one by one, Sadie shoved plates of Southern goodness in front of them—grits, bacon and eggs, sunny-side up, with fat slices of sourdough toast topped with apple butter.
“Bored and getting fat,” Augusta added, when Sadie produced her plate.
Caroline laughed at her sister’s wide-eyed expression. “You could just not eat,” Caroline suggested.
“Are you kidding? And turn this away? I have absolutely no willpower!” she exclaimed as she tore a piece of bacon off.
It seemed to Caroline that Augusta had been born with more than enough willpower for all three of them, but she didn’t say so. “How’s the inventory coming along?”
“Fine, but B.O.R.I.N.G.—boring!”
Savannah kept eating, without addressing Augusta’s complaint, making a quiet production of dipping her thick slices of toast into the egg yolk.
How had she eaten breakfast alone every day of her life for the last ten years? That was what was boring, Caroline decided.
Augusta and Savannah were both working out of the house. Caroline wondered if there was tension between them. She felt a bit of it, but if they were fighting, neither shared that information with her.
“You are bored because you’re focusing on
things
rather than
actions
, eah,” Sadie interjected, grabbing her own plate and bringing it over to join them at the kitchen island.
Caroline eyed Sadie’s plate, noticing she had two very bright yellow eggs sitting prettily on it.
“Those look like Caroline’s boobs,” Augusta said dryly.
Caroline furrowed her brow, uncertain whether that was a compliment or an insult. “Did you get two of the pasture-raised instead of one?” she asked Sadie.
“Of course!” Sadie said, with a tiny smile. “I don’t need convincing!”
Caroline laughed. “Honestly, if you brought us a plate of Tango’s poo and told us it was good for us, we’d probably eat it, Sadie. That’s how much we trust you.”
Sadie lifted a brow. “That so?” she asked, then went about the task of piling her entire meal onto her toast.
“Yep, definitely true,” Savannah chimed in.
“So wait a minute,” Augusta interjected. “I think Sadie’s onto something and you guys are changing the subject.” She waved her fork in the air. “I want to talk more about me!”
Even Savannah laughed at that.
“Okay, so you’re bored,” Caroline said. “What can we do to help Augusta Marie Aldridge no longer be bored?”
“Give the girl a damned cause,” Sadie suggested. “Something public spirited so she can appease her social conscience.”
Caroline shoveled a bite of food into her mouth. “Good point. Augie hasn’t bled enough since she’s been here.”
And bleeding was what Augie did best. If it demanded self-sacrifice, Augie was all in; if there was an earthquake, a flood or a hurricane, she was right there to pitch in and help—she would, in fact, go anywhere and do anything that would make her feel like a “better person.” Caroline understood that about her sister better than Augie seemed to realize it herself.
“I don’t need to bleed,” Augusta countered, denying the accusation, “but Sadie does have a point. I can’t sit here all day counting the eggs in my basket without feeling really shitty about the people who don’t even have baskets to put eggs in. Do you realize that Mom probably has a million bucks’ worth of furniture in storage alone? Original antiques and ridiculously expensive paintings.”
“Would you feel better if you just gave it all away?”
The kitchen went silent.
Caroline was being flippant, but she realized almost as soon as she said it that Augusta was considering the question seriously.
“Well . . . we wouldn’t have to give it all away, but how would you guys feel about selling some of it and maybe starting a foundation in honor of Sammy?”
Sadie’s attention perked at that. “Oh! I like that idea, and I think your mama would too, Augusta!”
Augie turned to consider Sadie, surprised by the show of support from unexpected quarters. She and Sadie had a long history of strife—mostly Augusta’s doing. Like Josh, Augusta felt, in this day and age, that Sadie’s continued employment at Oyster Point perpetuated or somehow condoned the injustices of the past, but Sadie had insisted that no one could understand their bond but her and Flo. As far as Caroline was concerned, it was Sadie’s decision, just as it was her decision to continue caring for them despite the fact that Flo was no longer around. Good thing too, because her apple butter was to die for.
“Caroline?”
She noticed everyone was staring at her, waiting for a response, and she realized she’d tuned them out.
“What do you think?” Augie persisted.
“I’m not attached to anything here. I haven’t even seen most of these things for almost a decade, so I’m good with selling stuff if you guys are. But we should make sure we’re not breaching the will somehow.”
“I will talk to Daniel!” Sadie said excitedly and wiggled a little in her chair.
Caroline smiled to herself, realizing that Sadie probably would love any excuse to see Daniel, particularly since his Saturday visits to the house had come to a halt since Flo’s death. Maybe for Sadie’s sake, she would reinstate them. Besides, it couldn’t hurt to touch base weekly. She had so much to learn.
“There are things I’d like to get rid of at the office too,” Caroline admitted. “Can we all agree to make decisions together?”
“Absolutely!” Augie agreed. She elbowed Savannah, who was still eating, and Savannah dropped her bacon on the floor.
Caroline had forgotten Tango was even there. He leapt up so fast to snap up the bacon that he shoved Savannah’s stool out from under her with his massive rear end. She went flying backward, landing with a thud, attempting to break her fall with her left arm. They heard the crack of her bone as it bent beneath her.
“Jesus!” I’m so sorry,” Augusta said yet again.
Augusta, Savannah, Caroline and Sadie all sat patiently in the ER, waiting for the doctor to call Savannah back. If their mother had been alive, there would be no way they would have endured this long wait. Flo would have moved heaven and Earth and gotten immediate treatment, but today, accompanied by Sadie, they got a little taste of what it meant to be just another patient in a busy hospital.
For the tenth time, Savannah reassured her. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like you planned it or anything.”
Augusta wasn’t appeased. Even after Savannah was called back for X rays, she continued to beat herself over the head with guilt.
“She’s going to be fine,” Sadie assured, patting Augusta’s leg. “Eah me?”
Caroline had to admit that, for the first time in so long, despite Savannah’s black-and-blue swollen wrist, they all seemed as healthy as they had ever been—open and forgiving. Barriers were down, and she hoped they would remain that way—in fact, she would do everything in her power to bring them down further. It felt great to be reconnected.
Finally, after about two hours, Savannah was called back and while they waited for her to return, they hashed out a plan for the event Augusta would oversee—an auction, maybe.
Sadie was still executor of the will and as long as the final stipulations had yet to be met, she would, ultimately, be in charge of any final decisions—although she assured them fervently that as long as they were “loving each other,” she didn’t give a damn what they did with their material possessions.
So Augusta planned to continue her inventory, but with the intention of setting aside anything she deemed to be “disposable.” Then the four of them, together, would decide what from her original list they would sell.
Augusta agreed, without prompting, not to put items of obvious sentimental value in the to-be-sold column. And just like that, Augusta’s mood lifted, albeit still guilt-ridden over Savannah’s broken wrist.
When there was a lull in conversation, Caroline told them about her visit to the cemetery . . . about the roses on Sam’s grave.
Sadie remained quiet, listening.
“Wow,” Augusta said. “I don’t remember Mom ever once taking me there after Dad died.”
“Me either,” Caroline said.
Sadie nodded soberly. “Your mama wasn’t the sort to talk about things that made her heart sore, but she missed Sammy desperately.”
Both Augusta and Caroline shared a look and probably the same thought, but neither of them voiced it. Flo had been so busy missing her son that she had never realized how much her daughters were missing her, too. But that was water under the proverbial bridge.
Savannah emerged another two hours later with a small cast on her left arm. The intra-articular fracture was minor enough that they were able to treat it without resetting it, but she would be wearing her new wrist jewelry for about six to eight weeks.
They gathered their belongings, and it wasn’t until they got into the car that Savannah admitted, “Thank God I don’t have to try to write for a while!”