Scene of the crime

You won’t find Pinckney Plantation, Indigo Island, or Granville County on any map of the South Carolina Low Country. Like the characters in Fiddle Dee Death, they are products of our imagination.

In the book, Indigo Island is in St. Helena Sound, "snuggled up against its big sister, Edisto Island, between Beaufort and Charleston.’’ Edisto is a real place and the inspiration for Indigo. Raided by the Spanish in the 1500s, the barrier island was purchased from the Edistow Indians in 1674 by the Lords Proprietors.

"I saw the dog then. The color of sea oats, he came over the crest of a dune and sniffed the air. Then he saw me. Tail wagging, he splashed through a shallow pool left by the outgoing tide, fifty-plus pounds of fur heading toward me.''
"This time of year, this early in the morning, I was used to having this end of the beach to myself. Not that there was much beach at the moment. The tide was going out, leaving a narrow strip of wet sand and shell fragments.''
"Bonnie peered at the beach. 'Where's the boat?' she said.'''
"It’s so spooky going in the house when it’s empty, especially with all that’s happened.’’ "Sometimes I think it really is haunted,’’ Mam said. "We sure heard enough strange noises when we worked here.’’ "Things that went bump in the night,’’ I said. "Only sometimes, it was broad daylight, like now.’’
"I like Middle House as much as about any house on the island. It’s old, maybe even older than Pinckney, but not nearly as big. Just a wide, white frame house. . . Even on a late-December day, with the ground more brown than green and bare tree limbs etched against the pearly sky, the house looked welcoming, the moss festooning the oak trees waving us up the drive.’’
"Leaves and twigs crunched under my feet as I opened the old iron gate separating the Pinckney plot from the other grave sites. A tall granite marker inscribed with the family name stood in the center, smaller monuments and headstones laid out in squares around it.’’