Page 25 of Skin and Bones

“Oh, lighten up, Walt,” Deidre said. “You know she’s teasing. And obviously those of us in this room can trust each other. Right?”

Deidre gave Walt a pointed stare and he glowered at her, caught between his training and good Southern manners. His eyebrows came together like a long bushy caterpillar and he sucked in his cheeks as he stared Deidre down.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll trust on a case-by-case basis.”

“Good,” Deidre said. “Now we can get down to business.” She wasted no time clearing the table and spreading blueprints across the mahogany surface, anchoring the corners with crystal candlesticks that had been a wedding gift from Patrick’s side of the family.

“The lighthouse plans,” she announced. “Original construction from 1879 and renovations from 2002.”

“Six years after Elizabeth died,” I noted.

“Exactly,” Deidre nodded. “She says in her diary she hid something there in 1996. We need to figure out what spaces might have existed then but been changed during renovation.”

“Or what might still be there that no one’s noticed,” Dottie added.

I turned through the copied pages Walt had given me until I got to the section I was looking for and then I read—“If anything happens to me, the proof is in the lighthouse. They’ll never think to look where I’ve hidden it. J doesn’t even know. It’s safer that way.

“So we know she hid something in the lighthouse, but I’m more curious to know who J is. If we can figure it out maybe he could give us some clues as to what we’re looking for.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Bea said immediately. “Jason Brooks. If I remember right, and I always do, they were seen together quite a lot that summer. There was a lot of speculation over their relationship, especially since she’d recently broken up with her boyfriend of several years. The Harrington boy.”

“Harrington,” I said, the name ringing a bell. “Clint Harrington?”

“The very same,” Bea said. “Harrington Construction. Junior took over the business a few years after Elizabeth’s death. Built this island into the juggernaut it is today.”

“I guess now we know who C and J are,” Dottie said, shaking her head. “Poor Clint.”

Bea scoffed. “Poor Clint? You mean poor Brenda,” she said, referring to his wife. “She’s the one who has to be married to Mr. Speedy. No wonder the woman always looks so grumpy.”

“Maybe he learned a thing or two over the last thirty years,” Deidre said, though the frown on her face indicated she doubted it. “He was always a smart kid if I remember right.”

“He’s also rich, powerful, and connected,” I said. “Was he close to Milton?”

“They detested each other,” Walt said. “Which shows Harrington has a heck of a lot more sense than his father did. If I remember right old Clinton Sr. did some business with Milton in the early days. Land development stuff, but all that ended when the son took over.”

“But he and Elizabeth were lovers,” I said. “We can’t take him off the suspect list. So what about Jason Brooks? I don’t recognize that name.”

“Ah, the stallion,” Bea said lasciviously.

“You probably wouldn’t recognize him,” Hank said. “Brooks was the assistant DA for the island at that time. Young and brilliant. Good looking like a Kennedy. Built for politics. Wasn’t he a distant cousin or whatnot of yours, Bea?”

“He was the cousin of my second husband Leonard’s niece,” Bea said offhandedly. “I don’t think they were blood relatives, but at least he had a tie to the island so it gave him an in when he started at the DA’s office. We should put him on the suspect list too, even though he is family. No allowances can be made. That’s how Milton got in the pickle he was in.”

“Among other things,” Dottie said slyly. “I think the problem was his pickle was getting dipped in too many jars.”

Deidre snorted out a laugh and Hank downright guffawed, slapping his hand on his knee until he turned red in the face. The corner of Walt’s mouth quirked in what could have been a smile. I realized at that point how little I knew about the goings-on around the island.

“I just want it noted that I broke several scandals about Milton over the last forty years and the people on this island chose to ignore them,” Bea said indignantly. “Told me I had no credibility because I was just a gossip columnist. Didn’t I have pictures of him shimmying out the window of Sharon Carter’s bedroom window? And the very next day all the charges against her son were dropped. Biggest drug dealer on the island and everyone knew it.”

“Well, Milton’s first wife must have believed your reporting,” Deidre said. “Because everyone remembers the morning Lucinda Milton packed her bags into the sheriff’s Cadillac and drove right through his prized flower beds on her way out of town.”

“They lived next door to me,” Dottie said. “I got a front row seat from my bedroom window. Of course, I got a front row seat to a lot of things happening in that house. Milton wasn’t the only one sneaking in and out of windows in the middle of the night. Can’t believe you missed that, Bea.”

“Oh, I knew,” Bea said, waving a hand. “But I always liked Lucinda. And figured she deserved what happiness she could get considering she had to wake up next to that bloated know-it-all of a man every morning. Roy Milton probably looked like a stuffed sausage naked. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.”

“Maybe if we could get back to more important matters,” Walt said primly. “I want to know if Mabel has heard from our sheriff.”

“Wouldn’t mind seeing him naked,” Bea muttered under her breath and I choked on my water.

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