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Chapters (206)
  1. Praise for Maplecroft
  2. Title page
  3. Copyright page
  4. Contents
  5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  6. THESE ARE THE THINGS AN EARTHQUAKE BRINGS
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  12. A DOCTOR, A LAWYER, A MERCHANT, A CHIEF
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  20. Phillip Zollicoffer, Professor of Biology, Miskatonic University
  21. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  26. BE SURE YOUR SINS WILL FIND YOU OUT
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  29. I CROSS THE MAGPIE, THE MAGPIE CROSSES ME
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  31. Nance O’Neil
  32. THIS KNOT I KNIT, THIS KNOT I TIE
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  37. AND IF YOU HAVE A HORSE WITH ONE WHITE LEG . . .
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  43. THE WORST IS TO BE JUDGED WITHOUT HOPE
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  46. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  53. BUT NETTLE SHANT HAVE NOTHING
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  55. CUT THEM ON FRIDAY, YOU CUT THEM FOR SORROW
  56. Phillip Zollicoffer, Professor of Biology, Miskatonic University
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  62. HAPPY IS THE CORPSE THAT THE RAIN SHINES ON
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  67. A DWELLING PLACE OF JACKALS, THE DESOLATION FOREVER
  68. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  71. Nance O’Neil
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  84. Emma L. Borden
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  88. Owen Seabury, M.D.
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  91. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  93. RIGHT CHEEK, LEFT CHEEK—WHY DO YOU BURN?
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  101. Aaron B. Stewart, Fire Chief, Farthington, Mass.
  102. Emma L. Borden
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  104. Gerald Macintyre, Telegraph Clerk, Western Union
  105. Owen Seabury, M.D.
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  107. Physalia, Z. University I Was Not Now
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  109. DEPART, ALL ANIMALS WITHOUT BONES
  110. Emma L. Borden
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  115. Owen Seabury, M.D.
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  119. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  130. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  131. Phillip Zollicoffer. Physalia Zollicoffris.
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  137. Christoff Dane, M.D., Ph.D., University of Rhode Island, Kingston
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  139. Emma L. Borden
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  144. Owen Seabury, M.D.
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  150. Emma L. Borden
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  153. FAMILY SLAIN IN MAYFIELD
  154. Owen Seabury, M.D.
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  165. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  176. Emma L. Borden
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  186. Owen Seabury, M.D.
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  197. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  205. Inspector Simon Wolf
  206. •   •   •

I sat aghast, the note of a madman painstakingly scrawled before me. For what else could this fellow be, if not raving? If not utterly divorced from his senses? I stared at it in silence, the letters parading before my eyes . . . saying so much and so little all at once. Declaring and warning, threatening and announcing. But what? Beyond a general desire to meet E. A. Jackson? And furthermore, how had Inspector Wolf come to have it in his possession?

Wolf prodded me. “Well?”

“Well?” I replied helplessly. “It’s lunacy—that much is clear. Though the handwriting seems steady enough . . .”

“A copy,” he reminded me.

“Oh yes, that’s right. The words themselves, that’s the real kicker. Where did you find this, again?” It was worth asking, though I knew he’d be evasive.

“At a scene . . . ,” he said vaguely, confirming my suspicion. He still wasn’t interested in telling me more about who he worked for, or what they wanted, or why. But the police accepted his authority, didn’t they? He obviously had some credentials, someplace, that proved his status.

I lifted my eyebrow. “What kind of scene?”

“A scene not entirely unlike that of the Hamiltons. The water damage, left over from some weird interior flood that damaged nothing else. The blood, the convoluted evidence and terrible smell. At first we even had a witness: a young woman who raved like Ebenezer, or maybe worse than that. I can’t say with certainty, having met the man after the fact.”

“But you spoke to this woman?”

“Only briefly. It’d be more accurate to say that she spoke to me. And I have to tell you”—he leaned forward, finger tapping on the paper that now lay between us—“she spoke like this. Her words, they flowed together this way, repeating, ebbing and surging.”

“Do you think she wrote the note?”

He shook his head vigorously. “No. I’m quite confident she didn’t, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the handwriting on the original note . . . it’s definitely a man’s.”

“And for another?”

He took a swallow of coffee, and then told me flatly, “And for another, her right hand—her dominant hand—had been destroyed, its fingers chewed down to the first knuckles.”

I shuddered, and he continued.

“It’s possible she might’ve written it before . . . whatever occurred, but it seems unlikely. I hope you’ll pardon me, if I preserve some of the details, but even telling you this much is in breach of some very strict protocols. Suffice it to say, the woman didn’t compose this strange missive, but I believe she knew who did. I believe she saw him.”

“Is that what she spoke to you about?”

“Oh, no.” He shook his head again, more slowly this time. “She droned on about the water and the blood, and she cried and cried—mostly about her baby.”

“There was . . . there was a baby?”