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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
  7. •   •   •
  8. •   •   •
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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
  22. •   •   •
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  26. BE SURE YOUR SINS WILL FIND YOU OUT
  27. •   •   •
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  29. I CROSS THE MAGPIE, THE MAGPIE CROSSES ME
  30. •   •   •
  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
  47. •   •   •
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  53. BUT NETTLE SHANT HAVE NOTHING
  54. •   •   •
  55. CUT THEM ON FRIDAY, YOU CUT THEM FOR SORROW
  56. Phillip Zollicoffer, Professor of Biology, Miskatonic University
  57. •   •   •
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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
  69. •   •   •
  70. •   •   •
  71. Nance O’Neil
  72. •   •   •
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  84. Emma L. Borden
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  86. •   •   •
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  88. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  89. •   •   •
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  91. Lizzie Andrew Borden
  92. •   •   •
  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
  103. •   •   •
  104. Gerald Macintyre, Telegraph Clerk, Western Union
  105. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  106. •   •   •
  107. Physalia, Z. University I Was Not Now
  108. •   •   •
  109. DEPART, ALL ANIMALS WITHOUT BONES
  110. Emma L. Borden
  111. •   •   •
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  115. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  116. •   •   •
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  119. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  130. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  131. Phillip Zollicoffer. Physalia Zollicoffris.
  132. •   •   •
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  137. Christoff Dane, M.D., Ph.D., University of Rhode Island, Kingston
  138. •   •   •
  139. Emma L. Borden
  140. •   •   •
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  144. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  145. •   •   •
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  150. Emma L. Borden
  151. •   •   •
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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
  198. •   •   •
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  205. Inspector Simon Wolf
  206. •   •   •

“The first of seven, all told. Perhaps more,” he informed me calmly but firmly.

I didn’t understand. I couldn’t figure out what my publishing persona had to do with a murderer on a spree, as if we didn’t have problems enough in this household. “Who is this murderer?” I demanded.

“Madam—” Wolf made a conciliatory stab at calming me, using less condescension in his tone than I had any right to expect, given my outburst. “He’s a professor who’s taken leave of his classes and his senses alike. And it’s only just now dawned on me that I must be speaking to Doctor Jackson this very moment, a fact which gives me some measure of pain and pause. I made assumptions, and assumptions rarely take me anywhere useful.”

I swallowed back whatever had bounced onto the tip of my tongue, and I cast Lizzie a glance. She was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking helpless and afraid.

•   •   •

(I felt a flash of sorrow, a dim flicker of memory from when we were children and she was so small when our mother was buried. She looked that way beside the coffin, except then she was holding my hand.)

•   •   •

For her, then. I could be brave and adult about this. The inspector was being polite, and there was always the chance he was an enlightened sort. He must’ve seen so much of the world; perhaps he would not be surprised by something as innocuous as a woman with a pen.

I straightened up in my seat, held my head high, and said, “Yes. I am Doctor E. A. Jackson. Or I might’ve been, in another time and place. For now, as you see, I am a woman confined by her own skin.”

I wondered at my own strange choice of language, and he did, too—but he didn’t mock it. He only said, “Women attend universities these days. They become doctors of all manner. Still, I can’t blame you for preferring the secret. And . . .” He looked around the room. He took in the blankets, the canes, the extra rails on the stairs and the bloodied handkerchiefs I’d collected in a pile on the side table. “I can understand if it gives you some feeling of freedom, or escape. May I ask: What is your specialty?”

“Marine biology,” I told him. “And if I had a fraction of the health I once possessed, I’d be one of those women in the university, right now. I fear little, when it comes to the gaze or scorn of men.”

He was looking at Lizzie now. Recognizing her. Piecing together the rest—who we were, where Doctor Seabury had brought him. No, not a stupid man. A very quick one, and tactful when it suited him. (As for other occasions, I’m unable to say.)

“Jackson,” he mused. “Not the name either one of you was born to.”