I’m Detective First Class Poached Yeggs.  I am in charge of vice, and I work homicide in the big city of Tracy.  My partner, Detective Sgt. First Class Jim Wednesday, helps my uncle, Lt. Deviled Yeggs, when he and I are not working a homicide case.

This case involves three stories.  The first is kind of an aftermath from the latest Pauline Niblick misadventure, Guests for Dinner.

Story 1

Baffing Spoon Niblick, Baffy for short, and Scarlett Ibis Yeggs, Ibie for short, think they are twins.  They have different mothers and different fathers.  They were born about two and a half months apart, but since Pauline Niblick and my wife, Callie, were both professors at T.R.U.S.T. and founding members of the Lily the Pink Mommies Club, they did a lot together before the girls were born and after.  The two mothers have become best friends, and they do not discourage the talk about the two children being “twins.”

In March, Baffy was trapped in a dog run when thugs from eastern Europe came to kidnap Pauline.  They thought getting Baffy as a bargaining chip might help.  It did not.  When they recently learned who among Mashie Niblick’s former bosses were the traitors, it brought back the old memories and the four parents thought that Baffy and Ibie having a three-day sleepover would help get things back to normal.  As it turned out, it was only two nights, but then Ibie went with Baffy back to the Niblicks for a few nights.

Everything was going great.  The two twins were playing and making noise like any two three-year-old girls would do, but Baffy seemed to be resilient.

Then, it got quiet enough for Blue to not be so fidgety.  That is our infant son, Blue Heron Yeggs.  You’d never guess that Callie has her doctorate in ornithology.  Anyway, Callie fed him and got him in bed.

What was happening in the meantime, Ibie and Baffy got into a pillow fight.  Since it was not her usual bedroom, Baffy ran around looking for pillows to throw.  She found pillows on the floor, and she started throwing them.

The pillows that she had found had been placed there by Ibie’s parents.  They should have gotten a better solution, but there was a depression in the floor, a hole of sorts.  It led to an airduct that connected with the security company that had rented space in our giant warehouse.  The duct was an intake to a HVAC system that had been removed in our renovations.  The contractor had done everything to our requirements except for blocking off the airduct to nowhere.

We filled our side with pillows, and Ibie new not to play with those pillows.  I know, pathetic.  We used pillows since a warehouse full of furniture has a few extra pillows that no one wants anyway.  The security company has an indoor tree in a planter on their end.  Safety issue resolved.

Until two three-year-olds start a pillow fight and the guest does not know that the pillows are off limits…

Then it came down to one pillow left in the hole, but it was stuck.  Baffy yanked really hard and the pillow ripped.  Pillow stuffing went flying, but at the same time, the metal grate that covered the air duct fell off the end of the duct with a clang.

With the harsh metallic noise, both girls climbed down into the hole and stared down the length of the duct.  They could see nothing but a smooth rectangle and light coming from the other side.

Ibie had been taught not to play with the pillows.  Baffy had done that.  But Ibie knew that going into the airduct was probably the real problem.  The way Mommy and Daddy had fixed it, she would not have known the duct was there.  But now she knew.

Baffy said, “Do you want to see what is at the other end of this tunnel?”

Ibie said, “I don’t think we should.  Mommy and Daddy did not want me to touch the pillows that were in this hole.  So, I don’t think they would want me to go in there.”

Baffy asked, “But did they say not to go in there?”

Ibie said, “No.  They only talked about the pillows.”

Baffy said, “I don’t think we would get in trouble if we went into the tunnel to find stuff and then come back out.  Your Mommy and Daddy would not even know!”

Ibie said, “It may be a long crawl.  I’ll get the bags of crackers that Mommy let us have for a snack.”

With that, they were off on their adventure.

At this point, Blue was asleep, and Callie’s internal Mommie clock was ringing an alarm.  Ibie did not take naps.  She had heard that Baffy did not take naps either.  Thus, no noise meant they were getting into some mischief.

Callie went to Ibie’s room.  She looked around the room and began to panic.  The girls were not there, but there were pillows everywhere, and there was even pillow fluff everywhere.  This was a royal mess.  She had not gotten any security alarms that someone had entered the house.  The girls had to have left on their own.  She was about to play a nasty version of hide and seek, before she realized that there were too many pillows in the room.  She ran to where the airduct was located, and there were no pillows in the hole.  The grate protecting the airduct was loose on the bottom of the hole.  And as she strained her ears, she heard faint giggling echoing down the airduct.  She nearly had to stand on her head to look down the duct.  They were past halfway.

Callie fought the urge to yell for them to come back.  She knew that the duct was encased in concrete, so there was not much danger, but if the girls panicked due to her yelling at them, they might stay where they were where no normally sized adult could get to them.  This caused Callie to panic all the more, but she was not going to frighten the children.

She called their tenants on the other end, and some bodybuilders hefted the tree out of the hole in case the children chose to exit there.  Then, she called me.  I had to take some vacation hours, but I left work early.  I got home about the time that the girls emerged from the security company’s end of the duct.  The grating at that end was not bolted down either.

When they popped their head out of the hole in the floor, a secretary asked, “And who might you be?”

The “twins” giggled.  Baffy and Ibie said their nicknames.  And they said that they were twins.

The secretary said, “Okay, we can start with Ibie.  What is your entire name, and who are your parents?”  Ibie told her.  Then, the secretary asked Baffy.  One of the guys nearby said that a Baffing Spoon was a name for an ancient golf club, and a niblick was too.

Baffy said, “A Baffing Spoon is a club that heals your golf game.”

That confused everyone that had gathered around until someone a couple of desks over said, “I get it!  It’s a recovery club.  Like a 5-Wood, 7-Wood, or something like that.  Recovery, healing, that’s what she meant.”

Baffy threw her hands into the air, “Yeah!”

After more coaxing, they got the street name where they lived, but by then, I was walking up to the security employees who had gathered around the “twins.”

When Ibie saw me, and I was smiling, she ran into my arms.  She gave me a big hug, but then she pushed away.  Ibie asked, “Daddy, am I in trouble?”

I kept my voice calm and soothing, but I said something that is a sign that there is trouble.  “Scarlett Ibis Yeggs, what do you think?”

Ibie had heard her entire name.  That meant trouble, but Daddy was still smiling.  Ibie’s lip started to quiver.  Her eyes filled with tears.  As the tears rolled down her cheeks she said, “I didn’t touch the pillows.  Mommie said Baffy was sad, so I had to cheer her up.  She wanted to go through the hole, so I was just doing what Mommie said!”

I laughed, “Ibie, you should have asked Mommie first.  I will show you mercy.  You two girls are both safe.  Did you find any treasures in the airduct?”

Ibie said, “Yeah, Baffy found some circles.”

I asked, “What kind of circle?  Like a ball or like a plate?”

Ibie said, “Like a plate, they were smaller than a plate and flat.  Baffy said they were shiny.  I told her to put it back.  I didn’t know whose they were.  I didn’t want us getting in trouble for stealing.”  I groaned.  She started to cry again.  “Did I do wrong again, Daddy?”

I recovered a smile and said, “No, Sweetie, I like the way your mind works.  You try not to do bad things.”

Ibie hugged me, but I was thinking about the case that eventually led to Callie and I owning the building.  I had gone undercover, helping vice.  I befriended the son of the owner of the warehouse.  He had a failing furniture business.  He contracted with a maker of adult films who paid him generously.  After I got their confidence, I gathered the required evidence and arranged for the raid when they would have the most people working that night.  But something was wrong.  Since it was not my case, I was done once I gave evidence.  But something in the back of my brain was telling me that the vice squad did not get everything that they wanted.  Money missing, the connections to the people they were working with.  Something like that.

I took Ibie and Baffy back to the house.  Callie already had the grating and the pillows back in the hole.  We gave the girls a nice bubble bath.  And then, we all went out to dinner.  While waiting for our order, I texted Uncle Dev.

Story 2

I was at work early the next day, and Lt. Yeggs was calling me into his office as I walked in.

Lt. Yeggs said, “You said that Baffy Niblick found something round and shiny in an airduct that had not been used since the warehouse was a site for adult film production.  You were just the undercover guy and not part of the final report.  Sit down, I’ll fill you in.”  I sat, and I was joined by Jim Wednesday.

Lt. Yeggs reported, “The adult film caper was incomplete.  We had enough to send your friend away.  And since his mother liked you, you now have the warehouse for a fraction of the building’s worth.  With the rent that the security firm is paying, you make great money.  You even moonlight for them on occasion.  We put away the producer and the director.  The actors and camera crews did small time.”

“But what we never got was their connection to big money.  They made a fortune off those films, but we never found the kind of money that we were expecting.  We think they had an angel.  You know, someone who supported them financially and then they ran off with the profits, but we never connected them with anyone.  Maybe “angel” should be demon under the circumstances.  All that communication is missing.  So, money, no bankroll, and the masters of most of the films were missing.  You said that Baffy found a circle.  Callie showed her a DvD and Baffy confirmed it.  It could be the missing masters of the films that we were missing, but if it was a DvD of financial records, it might give us a clue as to the people these film makers were working with.  It might even point to people connected to the Rotten Apples, although Gala is dead, Fuji is missing, and Empire was on the East Coast when all this went down.  Poached, could an adult crawl through that airduct?”

I replied, “I don’t think so.  Who is the officer with the smallest frame?”

Lt. Yeggs said, “Ruthie Toody is the smallest.  If she can’t, Sophia is available tomorrow.  She has a softball game tonight.  And I talked to her this morning when she was getting ready to go to school.  She might talk Arabella into coming along.  Arabella talks the story of a girl who is scared to do anything, but then she does it anyway.  All I want is as many of the DvD and CD as she can find at the halfway point.  We will have them in coveralls and a rope fished through the length of the airduct.  Hook onto the rope and we can pull our explorer in and out.”

As planned, we waited until the next morning.  We used the grating for the measurement of the duct.

When we placed the grating across Ruthie’s chest, she said, “Oo!  Oo!  If I stripped naked and Trevor oils me down, I would barely fit even then.”

Everyone laughed, but Lt. Yeggs said, “Ruthie, we are going to have a heart to heart on Monday.”

She sheepishly said, “Yes, Sir.”

Sophia also declined.  She could make it without much trouble, but she would not be able to turn and look for the DvD cache.  It was up to Arabella.

They had fished a rope the length of the duct with a police crew on either end. They used a fishing tape that plumbers often used.  The rope had a carabiner D-ring on the end.  They hooked the D-ring to Arabella’s coveralls, and then another D-ring and rope to pull her back out.  Arabella went through her usual histrionics.  “This is crazy!  This is crazy!”  But then she was fine once she was at the spot where the “Pirate Booty” was located.

Then she said that she had all the treasure except for one disc that was wedged into the side wall.  We heard some grunting and then a metallic clang.

I yelled, “Belle, are you okay?”

Arabella answered over her phone, “Yeah.  The CD was wedged into the wall to keep a false wall panel in place.  From my flashlight, there is a landing just outside the airduct.  Give me some slack and I’ll do some exploring.  This looks like a basement.  There are stairs going down.  I am going to hook the two ropes together.  You can take up the slack now.  Wow!  This room looks like a decent size.”  There was a pause and then a blood-curdling scream.  “I’m going back up the stairs.  I need to get out of here.  Sophie, come in here quick!  I need to get out!  Now!  It’s horrible!”

Sophie asked, “What is horrible, Arabella?”

Arabella said, “Bones!  People bones!  Lots of people bones!  Like little shrines for each one!  We fell into a mass murderer’s basement of horrors.  I have to get out of here!”

They pulled the rope back to Ibie’s bedroom.  Sophie hooked into both carabiner D-rings.  For her to fit in the duct, she turned onto her back and slid her upper body into the duct and then as they slowly pulled her in, she could straighten her legs.  Then the police on the security company side pulled until she said to stop.  With the wall panel off, there was room for her to roll onto the landing at the top of the stairs.  Arabella was nearly in hysterics.  Sophie hugged her for a while.  As Arabella lined up in the duct for a quick exit, she tried to tell Sophie what she saw, but she was too much of a basket case.

When they began to pull the rope, Arabella screamed again.  “I’m not taffy!  One side pulls and the other side lets go of the rope.  My head is pointed toward Poached.”

Callie was ready with some hot cocoa and a big hug.  Arabella handed me all the discs she had collected.  The one that was jammed into the wall panel was blank.  It was damaged, so I doubt if we could have read much if there was something on the disc.

Then Sophie’s report came in clearly over the phone.  She said, “Dad, I have the bones of 37 people.  Each one has a photo of the deceased and a name.  There is a filing cabinet.  In the top drawer is a contract between the film producer and Baldwin Apple.  The film producer used this basement to dissolve the bodies of women that Baldwin killed.  But in talking to Aunt Pink, she did not have three dozen ladies that tried to escape.  And Cassie said there was less than ten that used her help to get away.  Cassie had a signal by mail.  The escaped lady would use a particular code in the return address.  Then Cassie would burn the empty, unopened envelope before going back into the Big House.  But the numbers do not add up.  I think the film producer had some business on the side.  It is weird how he carefully piled up the bones.  He laid the skull in front, and he put the identifying information under the skull.  His own museum or trophy case.”

There was a pause.  Sophia got back on the phone.  “Dad, could the missing money be converted into gold?  There is a chest full of collector gold coins.  I’ll put two in my pocket.  Make a note of that.  I have no witness with me, but we need to know if these things are legit.  And Dad, looking back toward the west.  There is a tunnel and there seems to be a cave in.  Poached could do a little digging and the entire department could just walk in.  Other than some barrels that are sealed, I have seen all I need to see.  I took photos with my phone.  I am coming out with one lady’s ID and two coins and the contract.”

Lt. Yeggs looked at me.  “You live here.  You bought this place.  You had a contractor tear out the old HVAC and set up the three different systems.  How did you not know that there was a tunnel on the west side of the building going to a hidden basement?”

I blinked a few times.  “The contractor removed the huge system.  The airduct Sophie and Arabella were just in was the return duct to the HVAC.  There was a long concrete skid that supported the HVAC.  Sodded earth around the skid.  We had the HVAC removed, the airduct blocked off.  The contractor was supposed to fix the holes on either end, but we did not notice until the contractor was paid and gone.  The work was complete before Ibie was born.  Callie and I were leapfrogging bedrooms until they finished.  That was my screw up, but if I had not screwed up, we would have never found the mess down there.  But back to the concrete skid.  We backfilled dirt and sodded over the skid.  It never dawned on me that the skid was really the roof for a tunnel.  I would want our team to cut the sod off and save it, but we could jackhammer through that skid into the tunnel.”

Lt. Yeggs nodded, “That gets into the basement to get a ton of evidence out, how did the entrance get sealed?  It was probably disguised as being part of the HVAC.  I’m not sure, but I think it was sulfuric acid that a murderer used to remove flesh in a mass murder case in England.  But you open that panel that Arabella found, and the air from the basement goes straight into the HVAC intake air, through filters, maybe a scent system to knock down the stench.  Who knows what we will find.  But they had no reason to have a tunnel cave in and cover up the basement entrance until after the raid, and then they were all in jail.  Who did it?”

I suggested, “But Sophie found a written agreement with Baldwin, not really a contract.  Baldwin, or some Rotten Apple goon, could have caved in the entrance and sodded the area to make it look like it had been there for a while.  Remember, there was a sizable gap between the raid on the adult film operation and the raid on Lily the Pink to rid ourselves of Baldwin.”

Lt. Yeggs nodded, “If not, we have a third party that is still at large.  I do not want to think about that, but if this guy loves to kill women and dissolve their flesh, we have not had a marked change in teen female runaways.  The third party might have moved his operations to another city, if this third party exists.  But Poached, do not tell your mother, that is Pink, until we have the evidence and we have recovered all the remains.  She will go down a dark hole when she finds out.”

I nodded.

Story 3

Sophie had found 37 sets of bones. Twenty-six of the dead were former prostitutes at Lily the Pink.  Mom, Pink Lady, had records of 34 ladies who tried to escape.

Mom was nearly catatonic.  Jim Wednesday took over the investigation so that I could deal with family.  Callie wanted to move.  She had been sleeping on top of a gravesite, of sorts.  I had two distraught women in my life that needed to get away from the situation.  Dad suggested a vacation, but I had no idea where to go.

Then, Cassie, First Lady of Tracy, gave me a call.  Before she married Boaz, she was head of Lily the Pink security.  The only way for someone to successfully escape was to have some innocent help from security.  She had set up a signal.  Since she got the mail each day, they were to reach a coast, anywhere.  Mail a self-addressed envelope, nothing inside, with a code in the return address.  Cassie would burn the envelope upon arrival, before even going back in the Big House.  She set up the security cameras.  She knew where the dead spots were.

Cassie told me the system, and then she said, “Poached, why don’t you go to Beaufort, SC?  If Mom can make contact with Shawna, she can hang her hat on one that made it out safely.  I only got mail from six ladies.  Either the other two have been killed at a remote location, or they just did not trust my message system.  I have tried to keep up with those six through the internet, local news from that area, no phone calls or emails.  It is not totally certain, but I think Shawna married a policeman.  The policeman was killed on duty.  If I have my information right, she is a widow, two grown children from her husband’s first marriage and two children still at home.  But if I am wrong, there would have to be too many coincidences for it to be believable.”

I replied, “Uncle Dev says there is no such thing as a coincidence.  I’ll call the Beaufort police on the way.  Shawna may greet us with a shotgun if she sees a pink van pull into the driveway.”

Pink had Easy’s grease monkeys modify the fourteen-passenger van weeks ago.  Instead of being a fourteen-seater, it was a twelve-seater with a little more luggage space and a larger refrigerator than in the Pink 6 party wagon.  We had Pink, the four of us, Pink’s three little ones, and Pauline Niblick with her two little ones.  We were followed by Grannie Fannie, Lancelot, and Lancelot’s three children in Lancelot’s car.  We had walkie talkies to communicate in case we found dead spots in the cell coverage.

In all, we had six adults and ten children.  The children were a little upset.  They would miss about a week of preschool, but Pink thought road games would make up for it.  Finding the letters of the alphabet on road signs was laborious.  The younger children were just starting to recognize letters.  Each car had their own list and at a scheduled gas, food, and bathroom break, Grannie Fannie said she was at the letter “T”, looking for a “U”.  Pink got huffy.  She was stuck on “Q.”  Somehow the children did not find the “Q” that Liam Allott had found.  They also played “I spy with my little eye.”  That way they could reinforce colors and shapes.  Of course, the first one was a green rectangle, what you see a lot of on the interstate highways of the USA.

When we got to Beaufort, I pulled into the police station, having called ahead.  I showed my credentials.  They confirmed that Xena was waiting but would only come out of her house if we had a policeman with us.  The patrol car led the way to Harbor Island.  Xena was standing at her front door.

After a few awkward moments to ensure Pink did not want her to return, we were welcomed into her home.  Introductions took a while.  Kanok did her usual bow and Xena (Shawna) tried to mimic her.

Pink is my stepmother, but she never uses the step part.  Pink had been a prisoner when Lily the Pink was a brothel.  Boaz had been born and sent to the monastery before Xena (Shawna) had been kidnapped and forced to be a prostitute.  For background, Shawna was working as a cook at a Murphy Burger restaurant.  The general manager had an affair with underaged Shawna.  Somehow Baldwin found out and literally grabbed Shawna and took her from the Murphy Burger kitchen.  Shawna had worked for Pink as a bottler, since Pink’s concession was for all prostitutes to work half-time at the cider house.  Shawna found out that the only people who successfully escaped were friends with Sandy Beech, now Cassie Yeggs, First Lady of Tracy.  Wrapping her head around Sandy now being married to Pink’s son that she did not know existed was mindboggling to Xena (Shawna).

Cassie (Sandy) had ensured Shawna had enough money for bus fare to reach the coast, either coast.  She had handed Shawna an envelope to mail.  Shawna needed to identify herself in some way on the return address.  The code was already there.  She would then put down the town.  Of course, the envelope was cancelled at the post office for confirmation.  But then, Shawna had walked to Hunting Island, between Harbor Island and Fripp Island.  She sat on the beach, penniless, wondering if she should go for a swim and not come back to shore.  Then a policeman approached.  After a short conversation, he suggested that he could take her to jail for vagrancy.  At least, she would have a roof over her head and three square meals.  She cried, telling him she had been kidnapped as a teenager, forced into prostitution, and all she wanted was to escape, not end up in jail.  The policeman, whose wife had died the previous year, suggested that the “jail” could be his home, if Shawna would agree to take care of his two teenaged children.  A few months later, they were married and they had two children of their own.

We waited long enough to see her children get off the bus, a twelve-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl.  Xena (Shawna) spent a lot of time talking to Grannie Fannie.  Pink was the boss, but Fannie had been a close friend.

Xena told us how tragedy came to the quiet community soon after her little girl had started first grade.  Xena (Shawna) lost her husband when he found drug smugglers bringing cocaine onto the beach of Hunting Island.  Xena had a few good years with her husband, and now she was working as a cook, at a seafood shack walking distance from the house.  And being a police widow had its benefits.  If she needed any work done around the house, she had any number of policemen who would help, and they were always coming by to check up on her.  Enough police presence to make her block crime free.

Callie and I opted to camp on the beach on Hunting Island for a couple of days.  Since Blue is on breast milk, he stayed with us.  Callie got photos of herons, egrets, a cormorant, sandpipers, and the usual mourning doves and wrens that you might find further inland.  The rest of the crew, including Ibie, “camped” at a luxury hotel in a presidential suite.  That way, they were all in one big collection of rooms.  Xena’s children and our children got to play together.  Xena thought the two “twins” were precious.  Xena also saw that the one who “took charge” was Kanok.

Xena could not get over Pink Lady Apple, now being a Yeggs, having six children and four grandchildren.  Then Xena had two grandchildren of her own.  With the fear of Baldwin gone, Xena let Pink know who her parents were.  If they were still alive, they should know she was safe.

Mom (Pink) went gaga when we passed a cider and coffee shoppe between Beaufort and Harbor Island.  She left a few bottles of Lily the Pink and sampled and bought some of the Lowcountry Cider.  Of course, Joon had to sample their donuts, as well as several other donut places in Beaufort.  Beaufort has a wide range of amenities with Parris Island being about twelve miles away.

The trip revived Mom.  She had cider to bring back to Aunt Gwen.  She held tightly to the thought that there were more like Xena (Shawna).  Now it was time to return home and prepare a memorial service for twenty-six former employees.  She would still grieve, but she was back to her old self, business-like with a streak of impish fun.

In all, we were only gone six days.

Then, the fear was on Callie’s face.  She did not want to go home.  That is when Mom handed us the keys to a four-bedroom apartment on the third floor of the main apartment building.  Dad, Jim Kaiser’s maintenance crew, and a few engineers who worked in the Turtle Bay, including the grease monkeys, had moved our things into the new apartment.  And I told Callie that I was close to buying a two-story house near where Babs and Harold Dykstra lived, only a block over.  There would be pink bus transportation if needed.  Callie loved the idea that she would be riding in the same bus with Pauline and Naomi Yeggs, Uncle Dev’s wife.  But Callie would get off at the main campus while Pauline and Naomi went further, to the south campus.

We were on our way to a new normal.  And the security firm is buying the warehouse.  The living space will be the home of the custodian that they were hiring, someone from the homeless community that wanted to live in a real house for a while.  Now that the bones of 37 women were gone, that news did not bother him at all.

Although we were only going to be at Lily the Pink a short time, I was wondering what to do with the fourth bedroom.  But Callie and I could use it as an office.  When I opened the door the first time, all those plans went out the window.  The room had nothing in it other than two mountains of pillows.  Ibie and Baffy squealed with delight.  They ran into the room and started throwing pillows at each other.  I scanned the room, and there were no airducts big enough for them to explore.  With Blue asleep in his new bedroom, Callie and I joined the pillow fight.

Credits

When using a contractor, make a careful inspection.  Look behind doors.  And when there were several items, especially unrelated items, right a list in the beginning and check each item carefully.  What the contractor failed to do or did not do properly becomes what is known as a “punch list,” which should be complete before final payment is made.

Baffy’s quest for adventure starts with asking Ibie questions along the lines of “Did your parents really say that?”  This is probably the earliest questions we ask when our heart is ready for mischief.  It is basically what Satan asked Eve in the Garden.

When your parent uses your entire name, it usually means you are in trouble.  But they usually are angry at the time.  A calm voice and a full name sent mixed signals.

John George Haigh is known as the acid bath murderer.  He killed women from 1944 to 1949, dissolving their flesh in a drum full of sulfuric acid.  They confirmed six deaths, but upon capture, Haigh claimed there were nine victims.

Parris Island is a Marine Corps Recruit Depot outside Port Royal, South Carolina. The road leading to Fripp Island (a gated community) travels across St. Helena Island, where Lowcountry Cider Co. is located, then to Harbor Island, Hunting Island, and Fripp Island.  When we visited there, Hunting Island had practically no structures on it, a quiet State Park with access to the beach.  And when we visited, we were one of only a few on the island.  Now decades later, it might be a crowded beach like the rest of them.

Cassie had tracked Beaufort, SC news.  The wedding of Xena and her husband was a few months after she got the envelope.  The identification Xena had placed on the return address identified Beaufort and the name was “Shaw to Xe,” nothing else.