Book of the Dead

he says. “There’s not a funeral home in South Carolina that doesn’t want my business. Including Lucious Meddick’s. I don’t believe for one minute he truly thought your carriage house was the morgue. Even if he read the wrong address somewhere.”

“Why would he want to hurt me? I don’t even know him.”

“That’s your answer. He doesn’t view you as a source of revenue because, and this is just my guess, you aren’t doing anything to help him,” Hollings says.

“I don’t do marketing.”

“If you’ll allow me, I’ll send an e-mail to every coroner, funeral home, and removal service you might deal with and make sure they have your correct address.”

“That’s not necessary. I can do it myself.” The nicer he is, the less she trusts him.

“Frankly, it’s better if it comes from me. It sends the message that you and I are working together. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“Gianni Lupano,” she says.

His expression is blank.

“Drew Martin’s tennis coach.”

“I’m sure you know I have absolutely no jurisdiction in her case. No information beyond what’s been in the news,” Hollings says.

“He’s visited your funeral home in the past. At least once.”

“If he came here to ask questions about her, I most assuredly would be aware of it.”

“He’s been here for some reason,” she says.

“Might I ask how you can know that for a fact? Perhaps you’ve heard more Charleston gossip than I have.”

“At the very least, he’s been in your parking lot, let me put it that way,” she says.

“I see.” He nods. “I suppose the police or someone looked at the GPS in his car and my address was in there. And that would lead me to ask if he’s a suspect in her murder.”

“I imagine everyone associated with her is being questioned. Or will be. And you said ‘his car.’ How do you know he has a car in Charleston?”

“Because I happen to know he has an apartment here,” he says.

“Most people — including people in his building — don’t know he has an apartment here. I’m wondering why you do.”

“We keep a guest book,” he says. “It’s always on a podium outside the chapel, so those who attend a wake or a service can sign in. Perhaps he attended a funeral here. You’re welcome to look at the book. Or books. Going back as far as you’d like.”

“The last two years would be fine,” she says.

Shackles attached to a wooden chair inside an interrogation room.

Madelisa Dooley wonders if she’ll end up in that room next. For lying.

“A lot of drugs, but we’ve got everything,” Investigator Turkington says as she and Ashley follow him past one unsettling room after another inside the southern branch of the Beaufort County Sheriff’s office. “Burglaries, robberies, homicides.”

It’s larger than she imagined, because it never occurred to her there might be crime on Hilton Head Island. But according to Turkington, there’s enough of it south of the Broad River to keep sixty sworn officers, including eight investigators, busy around the clock.

“Last year,” he says, “we worked more than six hundred serious crimes.”

Madelisa wonders how many of them were trespassing and lying.

“I can’t tell you how shocked I am,” she nervously says. “We thought it was so safe here, haven’t even bothered locking our door.”

He leads them into a conference room and says, “You’d be amazed how many people think just because they’re rich, they’re immune to anything bad happening to them.”

It flatters Madelisa that he must assume she and Ashley are rich. She can’t think of anybody who’s ever thought that about them, and she’s happy for a moment until she remembers why they’re here. Any minute, this young man in his smart suit and tie will figure out the truth about Mr. and Mrs. Ashley Dooley’s economic status. He’ll put two and two together when he finds out about their unimpressive North Charleston address and the cheap town house they rented here, so far back in the pine trees one can’t even see a hint of the ocean.

“Please have a seat.” He pulls out a chair for her.

“You sure are right,” she says. “Money certainly doesn’t make you happy or cause people to get along.” As if she knows.

“That’s quite a camcorder you’ve got there,” he says to Ashley. “How much that set you back? At least a thousand.” He indicates for Ashley to hand it over to him.

“I don’t know why you’ve got to take it from me,” he says. “Why can’t you just look at what I got real quick?”

“What I’m still unclear about”—Turkington’s pale eyes stare right at her—“is why you went up to that house to begin with. Why you walked right on to that property, even though there’s a No Trespassing sign.”

“She was looking for the owner,” Ashley replies, as if he’s talking to his camcorder on the table.

“Mr. Dooley, please don’t answer for your wife. According to what she told me, you weren’t a witness, were out on the beach when she found what she did in the house.”

“I don’t see why you’ve got to keep it.” Ashley obsesses about his camcorder while Madelisa obsesses about the basset hound all alone in the car.

She left the windows cracked so he could get air, and thank God it’s not hot out. Oh, please, don’t let him bark. She loves that dog already. Poor baby. What he’s been through, and she remembers touching the sticky blood on his fur. She can’t mention the dog, even if it might help her explain that the only reason she went near house was to find his owner. If the police discover she has that poor, sweet puppy, they’ll take him, and he’ll end up in the pound and eventually be put to sleep. Just like Frisbee.

“Looking for the owner of the house. So you’ve said a number of times. I’m still unclear as to why you were looking for the owner.” Turkington’s pale eyes are fixed on her again, his pen resting on the legal pad he’s writing on as he continues to make a record of her lies.

“It’s such a beautiful house,” she says. “I wanted Ashley to film it but didn’t think that was right without permission. So I looked for people out by the pool, looked for anybody who might be home.”

“There aren’t many people here this time of year, not up there where you were. A lot of those big places are second, third homes for very wealthy people and they don’t rent them and it’s off-season.”

“That’s exactly true,” she agrees.

“But you assumed someone was home because you said you saw something cooking on the grill?”

“That’s exactly right.”

“How’d you see that from the beach?”

“I saw smoke.”

“You saw smoke from the grill and maybe smelled what was being barbecued.” He writes it down.

“That’s exactly right.”

“What was it?”

“What was what?”

“What was being cooked on the grill?”

“Meat. Pork, maybe. Could have been London broil, I guess.”

“And you took it upon yourself to walk right into the house.” He makes more notes, then the pen goes still and he looks up at her. “You know, that’s the part that I still can’t figure out.”

It’s the part she’s had a hard time figuring out, too, no matter how much she’s thought about it. What lie can she tell that will have the ring of truth?

“Like I told you over the phone,” she says, “I was looking for the owner and then started getting worried. Started imagining some rich old person barbecuing and all of a sudden having a heart attack. Why else would you put something on the grill and then disappear? So I kept calling ‘Anybody home?’ Then I found the laundry-room