“I saw you give your grandfather the checkbook. And I saw Tim take the baskets to one of the volunteers. That leaves whatever you put in the golf cart. I think it was too big to be a check and too small to be a basket. Is there some reason you don’t want to tell me?”
“Yes.” I started walking down the beach. All around us, volunteers were feverishly trying to get things set up for the next day. I thought about Chuck Sparks and Jerry Richards trying to get ready for the auction tomorrow. Was what I found at Mary Lou’s house enough to prevent the auction from happening?
“All right.” He stayed beside me as I walked, the wild Atlantic breeze tousling his hair. “This must be really bad.”
I didn’t respond, trying to weigh what might happen if I told him about the dress and wig. He could demand that I tell the chief, as Tim wanted me to do. He could decide to confront Mary Lou. I didn’t like that scenario any better.
“Am I on the suspect list?”
I stopped walking. No one was close to where we were standing, and I thought the noise from the ocean and the gulls would mask anything I said. “I found something at Mary Lou’s house that might implicate her in Miss Elizabeth’s murder. But I don’t want to tell the chief because we didn’t have a search warrant and Tim says it’s crazy anyway. And I don’t want to confront Mary Lou and embarrass everyone. Gramps would never forgive me.”
He moved closer. “What did you find?”
I told him about the dress and wig. “I know it’s important. You’d think after all these years Tim would trust me enough to believe I find things. Everyone knows I find things. I didn’t want to find this. But I did, and I don’t know what to do.”
We sat down on a large gray rock that was underwater during high tide. There were still a few starfish clinging to the bottom where the rock was wet. Tiny crabs scuttled away when we sat down. The sun had warmed the stone, and the cool water reaching the shore felt good on my toes as I dipped them, and my sandals, into the surf.
“What do you want to do with the information?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I feel sure this is why Miss Mildred thought she saw her sister’s ghost. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but we know someone set her up.”
“And you think Mary Lou was the one?”
“I don’t want to think it.” I glanced at him, narrowing my eyes as I faced the sun. “What do you think?”
He considered it. “I think unless she confesses, it would be hard to make a case out of this. Was there any animosity between Mary Lou and Miss Elizabeth?”
“Not as far as I know. Mary Lou helped out at her house a lot. They seemed to be friends. I can’t imagine her hurting Miss Elizabeth. But there’s something else too.” I nodded to one of the workers a few yards away. “Those blue gloves over there are like the kind that were in Miss Elizabeth’s purse. And those little stainless steel shovels they all use could be the same kind that killed her.”
“Of course, those shovels and gloves are sold everywhere on the island,” he reminded me. “That wouldn’t be enough to reopen the investigation.”
“What would be?”
“New DNA evidence. Or a confession.”
“I don’t know how to get new DNA evidence.” I thought about what I was saying with my head and not my heart. If Mary Lou was guilty of killing Miss Elizabeth, even if it was an accident, she needed to explain herself and rescue Miss Mildred. “But I might know how to get a confession.”
“What do you have in mind?”
It was well past midnight, not a time I’m used to being out and about. Traffic on Duck Road had slowed to only a few cars. There was the faint sound of music coming from some of the bars and restaurants. A few crickets chirped, and the breezes rushed through the bushes around me. I looked at the dark shadow of Mary Lou’s house and felt a terrible chill.
What if I was wrong? What if Mary Lou had nothing to do with what happened to Miss Elizabeth and I was only too eager to pin it on anyone to save Miss Mildred? What if I ended up convincing Mary Lou that she’d done something wrong when she hadn’t?
“What are you doing out there, Mayor?”
The voice was coming from the earpiece I was wearing. It was Agent Walker, who was waiting in a surveillance van not even half a block away. Kevin had convinced me (though I’m not sure how) that we needed help. He’d told Agent Walker my plan to get a confession from Mary Lou, and surprisingly, he’d agreed.
“You have to go into the house,” he said. “I don’t think you can scare a confession out of her from the backyard.”
I didn’t want to respond to his prodding. I had a bad case of cold feet. Making Mary Lou believe I was Miss Elizabeth’s ghost had seemed like a good idea when I suggested it on the beach yesterday. But that was before I actually had to do it. “Maybe we should wait,” I whispered.
“The auction is only a few hours away,” he reminded me. “This was your idea. Are you saying now you don’t think Mary Lou had anything to do with what happened to Mrs. Simpson?”
I had been amazed that Kevin and Agent Walker thought scaring Mary Lou into a confession was a good idea. I was still amazed that they even considered she could be involved. Agent Walker had confessed, when Kevin and I told him a few hours ago, that he’d felt through the whole investigation that something wasn’t right.
Of course, I felt completely guilty that I hadn’t told the chief and asked for his help. Tim’s reaction had surprised me yesterday. I was afraid the chief would feel the same way, and the truth, whatever it was, would never come out. More than a small part of me wished I had told the chief and he’d talked me out of the whole thing.
I wasn’t too pleased to be standing in Mary Lou’s backyard in the middle of the night. I was wearing the black dress with the little pink hearts—sort of. I’d had to cut out the back to fit into it (who knew Mary Lou was so much smaller than me?) and then pin it on over my bathing suit to keep it from falling off. I’d put on some white makeup from last Halloween and arranged the gray wig on my head so she couldn’t see my hair.
I’d felt the first twinge of doubt when I looked at myself in the mirror at my house. Would this getup scare Mary Lou to death? Would she admit to killing someone because she was terrified? The whole thing had suddenly seemed like a bad idea.
I would’ve backed out. Really, I didn’t have the backbone that Agent Walker assured me I had. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. And I didn’t like to think how Gramps was going to feel when he found out I’d done this. Whether Mary Lou was guilty or not, I knew he’d find out.
“Are you ready to move in? We can’t sit here all night. We only have this van for a few hours,” Agent Walker’s voice prodded from my ear.
“I’m going. I can’t talk anymore.”
It was really Kevin who’d convinced me (again) to go through with it. When he pinned the small microphone and receiver on my dress, he looked into my eyes and told me, emphatically, “You can do this, Dae. You might be the only one who can.”
That, and that funny fluttery feeling I got around him, sent me out the van door and into the warm, humid night. But that was as far as it had gotten me. Now, I was standing under the bushes, watching Mary Lou’s house, wondering again whether I was doing the right thing.
Then I thought about Miss Mildred and Miss Elizabeth and Wild Johnny Simpson. All of their lives had been built on mistakes and misunderstandings. I had to make sure this wasn’t one of them. I couldn’t allow myself to be scared. I had to find out the truth.