A Madness So Discreet by McGinnis Mindy

Author:McGinnis,Mindy
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Published: 2015-04-19T16:00:00+00:00

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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TWENTY THREE

“Doctor Thornhollow, I—” Grace burst into his office, only to stop cold two steps later. “Doctor, are you drunk?”

“Thoroughly.” He mock toasted her with a tumbler from his armchair, which he’d moved to squarely face the blackboard. “And this time there’s no deceit in it. It appears you get to see all my worst traits today, Grace.”

She closed the office door behind her, latching it for both their sakes. “Doctor,” she said slowly. “Davey was here and he—”

“Yes, I heard Janey knocking. She said there was a policeman here but as I’ve found them so totally unhelpful I wasn’t inclined to spare any of my time.” He threw back what was left of his drink and pointed the empty glass at the blackboard. “On the other hand, since my theory has completely collapsed, I suppose that may have been a mistake.”

Grace pulled a chair over next to his, their argument forgotten for the moment. “You were confident in the hypothesis before our trip to town,” she reminded him. “Did the failure of our visits to the doctors’ offices truly constitute a complete collapse?”

“Yes,” Thornhollow said moodily. “The ether indicates a medical man, for sure. But that’s not criminal psychology at work, Grace, that’s a fact any bullheaded policeman could wrap his head around.”

He nodded toward the board again, where their handwriting intersected one another’s, weaving a web of notes in which to capture the killer’s personality. “But our work, the beauty of conjecture we spun here, has failed us. I had hoped to catch our man so easily, but it was presumptuous.” He leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees, bloodshot eyes darting over the board. “I’ve missed something, or built the entire thing on a false cornerstone. Regardless, our house of cards has fallen.”

“Then we shall pick up the deck and reshuffle,” Grace said. “If the ether points to a doctor, then we still have a narrowed list of suspects. Perhaps he is smart enough not to kill in his own area. He could be a country practitioner who travels here to make his kills anonymously.”

“Kill, singular,” Thornhollow said. “We just have the one body. For all we know it’s as that idiot at the murder scene said, some railroad bum stopped off here to dabble a bit in his dark fantasies.”

“A railroad bum with ether in his pocket?” Grace asked. “You’re drowning in self-pity along with spirits, Thornhollow. And besides, if you’d bothered to answer the knock on your door, you’d know that there’s been another victim.”

“What? When?”

“Mrs. Jacobs’s daughter,” she answered. “The other policemen were content to write it off as an unhappy woman finding her end in a bottle, but Davey said the room smelled of ether and that she had been positioned in the same manner.”

“Eyes open? Ankles crossed? Hands folded over her abdomen?” Thornhollow’s questions came quickly as the dull sheen over his eyes evaporated.

“Yes to all.”

He was on his feet in a moment, his path winding a circuitous route around her chair.

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