Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches #1)(69)
So I added, “I beg your pardon, with regard to all the clutter. I’m finally going through the particulars of my late wife’s estate, on behalf of her sister in Virginia. It’s been a difficult upheaval.” I was lying through my teeth, and surely he knew it. “But a necessary one, all the same. Given the intimate nature of this matter, I’ve relieved the housekeeper for a week or two, and I’m sorting through the archives of papers and property myself.”
“My sympathies on your loss, Doctor.”
“And I do appreciate them, but enough time has passed now . . .” I hesitated, not wanting to appear too cavalier. “It’s been two years. The time has come, that’s all, and there are some obligations we cannot foist off on other people. Now, tell me . . . ,” I said, changing the subject as I reached for my jacket and shuffled into it, “how can I be of service?”
“Ah, yes. Perhaps I could treat you to coffee, or brunch? We can share a few words over something warm and filling.”
Such a delicate suggestion, that we get the devil out of my filthy house—and it was presented with such aplomb! I accepted the offer immediately. We went to a dining room down by the pier, where over a light meal of coffee and egg sandwiches, the inspector unveiled the particulars that prompted this recent visit.
“Since last we spoke, there have been a series of peculiar crimes throughout the state. For that matter, now that I say so out loud, it’s entirely possible that the incident with the Hamilton family was not the first representative of the . . . spree, if I dare call it such.”
“A spree?” I asked, hoping my voice portrayed the strictest innocence.
“I shouldn’t leap to such conclusions, Doctor—but for lack of a better term, I’m afraid it will have to do. Suffice it to say, people are dying in very strange ways. With little evidence to suggest a perpetrator, or indeed—in some cases—even so much as a crime.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“That’d make two of us.” He sounded weary. He removed his spectacles and wiped them clean on his napkin. “But there seems to be a certain . . . biological component to the mysteries. Something pertaining to the ocean, and what strange things might lurk in its unfathomed depths. A name has come up, and it’s possible that this person has some involvement in the matter. But personally,” he said with great emphasis, “I suspect it’s more a case of devoted envy. I think the biologist has a reader who’s enthralled with the man’s work, and might be using it as a guide, or inspiration, or . . . something,” he finished weakly.
A warm, sick feeling in my stomach told me I knew the answer to my question before I even asked it, but I asked it anyway. “And this biologist’s name?”
“The initials E.A., and surname Jackson. I put it to you that way, because there’s precious little information on the man. Anywhere. He professes a doctoral degree in the sciences from Princeton, but Princeton has never heard of him. Neither have the next tier of schools, and neither have any I searched upon casting a wider net. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t exist—outside a frankly outstanding set of publication credits, here in the States and abroad.”
“You believe that E. A. Jackson is a pseudonym.”
“It must be. Or else the man is a phantasm.”
I tapped my coffee spoon against the saucer, and attempted to home in on his point. “But you said there’s some connection, between this mysterious Doctor Jackson and a series of strange crimes—maybe even the Hamiltons, or so you’d have me suspect. Since you’ve mentioned all these disparate elements in the same breath.”
He looked at me strangely, and that was fair enough. A logical leap I’d made, but I’d made it too easily. I think we both knew it.
“That is correct, Doctor.” He was weighing something. I could almost hear the gears grinding together in his brain. But he reached his decision, and he leaned forward, setting his napkin beside his plate. “And here is the nature of that connection, which I pray you will keep in the very strictest of confidence.”
From his inside pocket, he removed an envelope; and from the envelope, he removed a sheet of paper. It was covered in handwriting, large and precise. “A copy,” he informed me, straightening it out, and likewise adjusting his glasses. “Of a letter left behind at one of the murder scenes.”
He slipped it across the table.
I removed my reading glasses from my vest pocket, applied them, and began to read, though there were places where I fumbled the words aloud, for they did not line up in my head . . . they did not make sense, they only made patterns and noise. But there was the name, right in the middle. Clear as day, and no mistaking it.
My heart climbed into my throat, and stuck there.
Physalia, Z. University I Was Not Now
MISSIVE IMPERATIVE A DATE WOULD SAY NOTHING
these are difficult times, exceptional times, changing times and I for one welcome them with open arms, but such is my way, such is the way of the ocean, the waters coming and going, moving with the moon, back and forth like the blood in our bodies and really I must thank you doctor. I must thank you and I must thank you in person, I will come to you and we will meet and you must explain to me as much as you can as much as anyone can what has become of the ocean not the ocean but that which lies in the ocean, from whence cometh the sample I have named Physalia zollicoffris I have named it after myself because it came before myself and now it is myself, we are the same now you see or you will see I will see to it I will see to you.