Down the Rabbit Hole

“You know what happened? You know who did this?”


“We’re investigating, Mr. Boyle. We have more questions.”

He sat again, shoving his hands through his hair. “Henry, just Henry. When I woke up, there was a moment I didn’t remember. I could smell her hair. I could smell her. Then I remembered, and it was gone. Even that was gone.”

Louise bent over, kissed the top of his head. “I’ll make fresh coffee.”

“I’ll get it.” Charles brushed a hand down her arm, crossed over into the kitchen.

“Henry,” Eve began, “did Darlene own a pair of dressmaker shears?”

“Dressmaker shears? No. She didn’t sew.”

“Maybe she—or you—had a pair for some other project. You did a lot of the rehab on the townhouse yourself, right?”

“Yeah. I helped design it—with plenty of input from Darli. She had definite ideas about how it should look. We did some of the painting, refinished the floors—we wanted our stamp on it. But we didn’t use anything like shears. The only specialty shears we have are poultry shears. Darli bought them last year when she got it into her head to try making coq au vin.” His eyes lit for a moment. “That was a disaster. Fun, but . . .” The light died. “They’re in the kitchen somewhere, I guess.”

She’d seen a weird pair of scissors in a kitchen drawer.

“Maybe she had something like that at work.”

“I can’t think why. I don’t see what . . .” He trailed off as Louise took his hand. Eve saw when realization hit him. “Is that . . . That’s what killed Marcus.”

“Would he have had a pair?”

“For what?” Color flooded back into his face—anger now. Denial was over. “He didn’t sew. He didn’t make things. For Christ’s sake, I bought him a set of screwdrivers as a joke, because as smart as he was, he could barely change a lightbulb. They weren’t handy people, Dallas. They were good people. Generous people. Loving. If you’d spend five minutes listening to me, you’d know she didn’t do these things. Why aren’t you—”

“Henry.” Louise said it softly, drawing their joined hands up to her cheek. And he deflated.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know you have to ask questions. I just . . . I smelled her hair. Now I can’t.”

Charles brought in a tray with a tall white pot and five oversized white mugs. He set it down on the table, sat on the arm of Henry’s chair while Louise poured the coffee.

“I didn’t get into this last night,” Charles said. “So I’m going to say this to you now, Henry. I’ve known these two women for a while now. If anything happened to Louise, I’d want these two women looking after her. I’d want them looking for the answers. Because I know they’d find them. Answers won’t bring Darlene and Marcus back, but having the answers will matter to you.”

Nodding, Henry took a mug from Louise and, as he had the night before, cupped it in both hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Eve told him. “I went through Darlene’s things. I found these hidden in a drawer in the closet.”

Eve opened the file bag, took out the evidence bag, showed the cards and pamphlets.

“I don’t understand. Hidden?” He took the bag, read through the plastic. “She had all these? Psychics, tarot readers? What would . . . Mediums.” He closed his eyes. “She hid them from me. She couldn’t talk to me about it, so she hid them from me.”

“She never mentioned her interest in this area?”