Epilogue
When Eve stepped out, rubbed her hands over her face, Mira slipped out of observation.
„Don’t tell me,“ Eve began. „Crazy as a shithouse rat.“
„That might not be my precise diagnosis, but I believe we’ll find with testing that Maeve Buchanan is legally insane and in desperate need of treatment.“
„As long as she gets it in a cage. Not a bit of remorse. Not a bit of fear. No hedging.“
„She believes everything she did was justified, even necessary. My impression, at least from observing this initial interview, is she’s telling you the truth exactly as she knows it. There’s the history of mental illness on both sides of her family. This may very well be genetic. Then discovering who her great-grandmother was helped push her over some edge she may very well have been teetering on.“
„How did she discover it?“ Eve added. „There’s a question. Father must have let something slip.“
„Possibly. Haven’t you ever simply known something?
Or felt it? Of course, you have. And from what I’m told happened tonight, you had an encounter.“
Frowning, Eve ran her fingers over her sore cheek. „I’m not going to stand here and say I was clocked by a ghost. I’m sure as hell not putting that in my report.“
„Regardless, you may at the end of this discover the only reasonable way Maeve learned of her heritage was from Bobbie Bray herself. That she also learned of the location of the remains from the same source.“
„That tips out of the reasonable.“
„But not the plausible. And that learning these things snapped something inside her. Her way of coping was to make herself Bobbie. To believe she’s the reincarnation of a woman who was killed before her full potential was realized. And who, if she’d lived – if she’d come back to claim her child – would have changed everything.“
„Putting a lot of faith in a junkie,“ Eve commented. „And using, if you ask me, a woman who was used, exploited and murdered, to make your life a little more important.“
Now she rubbed her eyes. „I’m going to get some coffee, then hit the father again. Thanks for coming down.“
„It’s been fascinating. I’d like to do the testing on her personally. If you’ve no objection.“
„When I’m done, she’s all yours.“
Because her own AutoChef had the only real coffee in all of cop central, Eve detoured there first.
There he was, sitting at her desk, fiddling with his ppc.
„You should go home,“ Eve told Roarke. „I’m going to have an all-nighter on this.“
„I will, but I wanted to see you first.“ He rose, touched his hand to her cheek. „Put something on that, will you?“ Until she did, he put his lips there. „Do you have a confession?“
„She’s singing – ha-ha. Chapter and verse. Mira says she’s nuts, but that won’t keep her out of lockup.“
„Sad, really, that an obsession with one woman could cause so much grief, and for so long.“
„Some of it ends tonight.“
This time he laid his lips on hers. „Come back to me when you can.“
„You can count on that one.“
Alone, she sat. And alone she wrote up a report, and the paperwork that charged Radcliff C. Hopkins I with murder in the first degree in the unlawful death of Bobbie Bray. She filed it, then after a moment’s thought, put in another form.
She requested the release of Bobbie Bray’s remains to herself – if they weren’t claimed by next of kin – so that she could arrange for their burial. Quietly.
„Somebody should do it,“ she stated aloud.
She got her coffee, rolled her aching shoulders. Then headed back to work.
In Number Twelve, there was silence in the dark. No one sang, or wept or laughed. No one walked there.
For the first time in eighty-five years, Number Twelve sat empty.
Poppy’s Coin by Mary Blayney
For Nora, Mary Kay and Ruth
Prologue
London, England April 2006
The bright blue door opened into another world. She could tell the minute she stepped into the entry hall that this small museum was exactly the sort of place she liked best. History was about people, not politics. How they lived was what mattered. Whoever had preserved this townhouse felt the same.
Inside it was a tribute to the Regency period. A time before trains changed village life forever, when fifty miles in a carriage was a good day’s travel. There was no electricity, computers or air-conditioning.
Jim groaned when she insisted she wanted to take the tour.
„How is this different from every other old house we’ve seen? I bet it has a basement kitchen, no bathroom, and they call the first floor the ground floor.“
„This is different because it’s in Mayfair, the primo neighborhood way back in 1800 and still one of the best addresses. It’s where die rich lived for the spring months, when they came to London to see and be seen.“
„Lots of parties.“
„Exactly.“
Jim shrugged, and she knew she could talk him into it. „Come on. We have one week left of our year abroad. We’ve spent enough time studying economics. Let’s learn a little history. Let’s see how they lived.“
„Yeah, without indoor plumbing.“
They dutifully worked their way through the belowstairs exhibits, the wine cellar, and servants’ hall; watched the cooking demonstration, accepting a sample of syllabub, a cream and sugar concoction that tasted faintly of lemon.
„Boring,“ Jim said.
„Interesting,“ she insisted.
The feeling that the tour was little more than a lecture ended when she stood in the bedroom, surrounded by the trappings of everyday life for the woman who had lived here two centuries ago.
There was a display of clothing from the inside out. No real underwear as she knew it, but a long slip that she would wear today as a dress, covered by a corset that did not look as uncomfortable as it sounded. Stockings in both silk and cotton, and charming flower-embroidered garters to hold them up.
The high-waisted gown would do nothing for her figure but she bet women with big hips and butts loved them. She smiled. Gowns like these would make life very interesting for a lover, like unwrapping a surprise package. There had been a military uniform in the man’s dressing room. If all guys wore breeches that form-fitting, then their bodies were much less of a mystery.
She stopped in front of a vanity, the top outlined with a Plexiglas cover, filled with the familiar combs and brushes, though these were silver-backed and monogrammed. A pile of coins spilled from the tiniest of purses. A „reticule,“ the posted sign called it.
„Hey, Jim, look at this.“
He was halfway out the door but came back to her side.
„The sign says coinage has changed since 1810, but surely that shiny gold one with the dent in it is way different from the usual even in those days.“
„Who knows. The money here is still a mystery to me. I hand over a pound coin and the only thing I know is that it’s way more than a dollar.“
The girl leaned closer. „It’s weird. It has writing on it, but it’s definitely not in any language I know. Is there a do-cent on this floor?“
She looked up to find that Jim was gone. But she was not alone. A man sat in a chair tucked behind the door. Dressed in something like a naval uniform, he stood up and bowed to her, his face all smiles.
„You wish to know something of the coin, miss? The writing is Arabic. The East India Company minted the coins to be used in India. This particular one never made it that far. It’s one of the few that was saved when the ship sank in the Bay of Biscay barely a week after leaving port.“ He stood up. „Would you like to hold it?“
„Yes, please.“ She turned back to the vanity, surprised to see that the Plexiglas was gone. How did they do that?