Wilmington, NC 04 - Murder At Wrightsville Beach

must have been taken before all the trouble," Kelly explained. "Grandpa Joe said that Peggy had always been emotionally fragile, a shy girl. She kept to the farm. But then she met a soldier posted to Camp Davis. The soldiers used to roar into town on the weekends. There were dances at the USOs."
    "The USO club at Second and Orange is still standing," I said.
    "Anyway, Peggy fell in love. The soldier was sent overseas and never returned. Peggy's heart was broken. And she was expecting. The truth is that was quite common in those days even if no one wants to admit it. They had such a double-standard back then. There were the 'good girls' and the 'bad girls' and girls from good families never wanted to be considered 'bad girls.'
    "So poor Peggy faced this double whammy: she lost her lover, and she faced the stigma of an unwed pregnancy. When she and Uncle J.C. found William's body, that sent her over the edge. She was hopelessly depressed, barely functioning. After she gave birth to my mother, she was so dysfunctional Grandpa Joe and her doctors had no choice but to institutionalize her."
    "This is such a sad story, Kelly," I remarked sympathetically.
    "And it only gets worse. Because before Mother was a year old, Marty died of a heart condition. Grandpa Joe hired a housekeeper to look after Mother and Uncle J.C. who was ten at the time while he ran the family businesses. But he was devoted to the two of them. They were all that he had left of his family. And Peggy died in that mental hospital."
    She looked like she was going to cry. "There wasn't a strong will to live in my family, was there?"
    "Now, Kelly, don't say that. You and your mother and J.C. have turned all that around. And look at your great-grandfather; he lived to be ninety-four, and had you living with him when you were a teenager. I'd say the survival instinct runs pretty deep in your family."
    Kelly smiled, reassured. "Yes, you're right. Trust you to put things into perspective, Ashley. You were always such a sweet little girl, following Melanie and me around. You wanted so much to be just like Melanie." She laughed. "Well, we all did. Melanie's something else. I love that girl."
    "You're her best friend," I said.
    "And Jon is yours."
    I nodded my head.
    "Lucky you to have a man for a best friend. Now if I could just store these boxes in one of your closets, then I'll move this stuff back into the house when it's finished."
    "I've got lots of room in my suite at the beach house. Why don't we take them out there so you can get to them anytime you want to?"
    "That'd be great, Ashley. More convenient."
    We were both quiet and thoughtful as we carried the boxes out to my van and stowed them in the back.
    I looked up and down Nun Street, seeing my town differently, picturing it the way it must have looked during the boomtown war years.

20

    When I got home from work on Friday, I found Mickey in the greatroom , barefoot, dressed in shorts only. No shirt covered his chest but a lot of springy black hair did. A two-day old beard bristled on his chin. He looked liked he'd been sleeping all day and maybe he had. Owning a nightclub as he did, his days and nights might well be turned around. Officer Meriweather was right, this was certainly not the man Daddy would want for Melanie. I remembered my promise to ask Melanie to get rid of him, but there hadn't been time; she'd been working all day, so had I.
    I almost said, "I see you're still here," but thought better of it. The man had just lost his brother. I mumbled a casual, "Hey," and took a bag of groceries into the kitchen and stored them in the refrigerator.
    Mickey bent over the pool table and aimed the cue stick at the white cue ball, breaking the rack with such force the colored balls went caroming off into pockets or to the sides of the green field. He sauntered around the table, hunched over and fired another shot.
    As he rubbed chalk over the cue stick tip, he said, "You'll be glad to know that as soon as the police release Devin's body, I'll be driving home to Atlantic City."
    "Oh," I said, at a loss for words. He was right; I was glad. I was mindful of Officer Meriweather's warning that Mickey Ballantine was a dangerous man. The best thing he could do for Melanie was to stay in Atlantic City.
    He didn't seem very upset by Devin's death, but then people grieve in different ways, and the hostility I was getting from him might have been a form of grief. I tried to put myself in his shoes, to imagine how I