“I was aggravated at myself. Mad at Olivia. I drove back to Isle of Palms and waited for the eight-thirty ferry. The babysitter couldn’t stay past nine.”
“Getting back to the body,” I said. “Olivia, when you saw it, why didn’t you call 911 right then?”
Mean Olivia reared her head. “Because then my children would’ve read in the paper that their daddy died in a whorehouse and their mamma owned it.”
Colleen said, “You mortals would be so much happier if you would get over your obsession with what other people think. What other people do. What other people have. Like my granny always said, ‘Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy.’”
Why, oh why had I said “no thank you” to that wine?
“Olivia,” I said, “Campbell and Shelby are six and four if memory serves. I’m guessing they don’t read The Post and Courier much.”
Olivia straightened, nostrils flared, all puffed up like a cobra ready to strike. “Oh, you know exactly what I mean.”
I would’ve argued the point further, how somebody needed medical help, could maybe have been saved, except I remained unconvinced there’d been a body. I’d seen no evidence of it. I kept my voice calm. “What happened next?”
She cut me with a nasty look, then turned to Robert. “I checked for a pulse. Several times. On his neck, his wrist. There. Was. No. Pulse. Whoever that was is as dead as a doornail. There was a gash in the back of his head. A big ole wooden pineapple with blood on it was on the floor beside him. I panicked. I ran out to the car and called Liz. A decision I deeply regret at this moment.”
“Why didn’t you go get your Aunt Dean?” I asked. “And why didn’t you tell her about all of this afterwards, when we went back into the house?”
“Aunt Dean has a bad heart.” Something about her tone did not have the pure ring of truth.
“I can check on that, you know,” I said.
“Why are you not on my side here?” she practically screamed at me. “You’re supposed to be my friend.”
“Is she drinking that bourbon?” Colleen asked. “She needs a little more.”
Robert said, “Olivia. Get ahold of yourself. You’ll wake the children. Besides that, if Liz wasn’t on your side, she wouldn’t have come and gotten you.”
Nate’s easygoing tone had an edge. “I believe Liz has gone above and beyond the duties of friendship this evening.”
I knew Olivia well. She was hiding something. Something else. “Why didn’t you tell your aunt?”
She looked at Robert, then Nate, then me. I could feel the heat from how fast the wheels were spinning in her head. Finally, she said, “Because I wasn’t sure she wasn’t a party to whatever was going on.”
My eyes locked on hers. “Come again?”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Colleen.
“She was upstairs with me, yes,” Olivia said. “But I’ve heard things…from a few of the residents I’ve spent time with since Aunt Mary passed. Aunt Dean insisted I get to know them. At first I flat refused. But then I thought maybe I’d find out something I could use against Seth. And I guess I did, but I’ve been too afraid to do anything about it. I’m told occasionally a ‘suitor’ gets out of hand. Over the years other…situations have come up. Aunt Dean relies on Seth to deal with any problems.”
“And by dealing with these problems, you mean Seth has what…” Nate spread his hands, “bounced someone out of there? Or are we talking about something more serious here?”
“I’m not certain,” Olivia said.
“Are you afraid of your Aunt Dean?” I asked.
“No, of course not,” Olivia said. “But if she let on to Seth I’d seen something I wasn’t supposed to…”
“Let’s back up a minute,” Nate said. “So you saw the body. You felt for a pulse. Then you went outside to your car and called Liz?”
“That’s right,” said Olivia.
“That was at seven forty-five,” I said. “Olivia, think. How long did you stay in the parlor? More than five minutes?”
She shook her head.
“No. I was scared out of my mind. After I checked for a pulse, I got out of there quick.”
“So you came back downstairs at seven forty, which explains how Robert missed you. He left ten minutes earlier.”
Robert said, “Again, I did not see a body. And the parlor—the entire downstairs was dark the whole time I was there. If something happened, it happened within that ten minutes.”