story. If you need to know more, you must ask him. There are other complications . . .”
I nodded thoughtfully. “Understood.” I suspected those complications were somehow related to Isabella’s odd silences, perhaps even to Mrs. Sinclair’s permanent separation from Alistair. But I was not like Alistair. He had felt compelled to uncover my own secrets; I was content to let his lie.
We were interrupted by Mrs. Leab’s brisk knock at the door. “Detective, you just received a message by courier.”
I thanked her and read it quickly. “It’s from Joe. The Yonkers police lab where I sent Michael Fromley’s shaving bowl and brush for fingerprint analysis has confirmed they were not a match with those prints retrieved from the Wingate home.”
I sighed deeply in frustration. Just like Fromley himself, hard evidence linking him to this crime continued to elude me. The lab report proved neither his guilt nor his innocence, since the prints from the Wingate home could have been left by anyone. But the lack of a tangible link was disappointing.
As I got up to leave, I noticed a page from the Fromley materials that had dropped under my chair. It was a page that had been appended to Moira Shea’s autopsy report. It looked insignificant, having only to do with burial instructions, but I scanned it nonetheless. As I read the final notation, an electrifying jolt ran up and down my spine, and my hands began to tingle. I read it once more, to make sure I understood it.
On August 22, 1902, just before the body was to be released to Potter’s Field for a pauper’s burial, a woman claiming to be Moira Shea’s mother had come to retrieve the body for a proper funeral.
That woman’s name was listed as Mrs. Jackson Durant, a widow who was a resident of New York City. But she had signed herself Mamie Durant.
My thoughts raced as I wondered how to make sense of it. Was this connection to Moira Shea the reason why Mamie had terminated our interview so abruptly?
And just as suddenly, came the more unsettling thought: If no formal, public evidence had ever officially linked Michael Fromley to Moira Shea’s murder, then why did Mamie Durant react so strongly to the mention of Fromley’s name? She had also known exactly where he lived. She must have felt he was to blame for the murder, but how could she have known? It was yet another unsettling reminder that Fromley and his uncertain past affected this case in ways I had yet to comprehend.
CHAPTER 18
“There you are, Ziele!” Alistair’s voice was full of relief. He had just entered the building and begun bounding up the stairs, two at a time, when he caught sight of me. “Listen, I need to speak with you for a moment and clear the air from last night.” Although his energy was as boundless as ever, he looked at me anxiously and taut lines of worry etched his brow. For the first time, he showed some sign of the strain of the past few days.
“No need,” I said, clearing my throat. “I reviewed your case files this morning with Tom, and I understand your difficulty somewhat better. Not that I agree, mind you. But I think we need to put our differences aside and concentrate on solving this murder case.”
“Why, of course.” He grinned broadly, his usual confidence and enthusiasm suddenly returned to him. “My thoughts exactly. There has to be some connection between Michael Fromley and Sarah Wingate that will establish solid proof and lead us straight to Fromley; we’ve only got to keep working and we’ll find it.”
I had begun to explain my next step when we were interrupted by a high-pitched cry of shock—immediately followed by the sound of Isabella’s dog Oban furiously barking. We raced toward Alistair’s office where we found Isabella, shaken and appearing small in Alistair’s chair; Oban, agitated and running in circles; and Mrs. Leab, dumbfounded, staring blankly at a large cardboard box that sat open on Alistair’s desk.
Alistair charged into the room and, seeing no one was hurt, pulled the box toward him. After he saw its contents, he reprimanded Mrs. Leab roughly. “Why did you allow Isabella to open this? You should have saved it for me.”
“But it was addressed to her, Professor. Not you.”
Alistair flipped back the box lid to confirm it, and there it was: Mrs. Isabella Sinclair, The Center for Criminological Research.
“But why would he address it to me?” Isabella asked. Now that the