Chapter 8 of 16The Building Behind Them

“You look like a woman who has spent too long in a county building,” Clara Bellweather said.

Maeve set two cups on the table and sat. “I have spent exactly the right amount of time in a county building, and that amount is done.”

Behind the counter, a young woman in a striped apron called, “Clara, you want your usual?”

“Yes, please, Molly,” Clara said. “A small Earl Grey, one sugar.”

Maeve turned. “And a Virginia ham biscuit, please. Toasted.”

“Nine sixty-five,” Molly said.

Clara peered over her reading glasses. “That is not a proper answer. As I recall, you went to Woodstock this morning.”

“I did,” Maeve said. “And now I need your help with much more pleasant business.”

“The donor acknowledgement.”

“The donor acknowledgement,” Maeve agreed. “For the 1912 Gray’s Manual of Botany you gave me. The provenance card needs a name, and I would like it to be accurate.”

Clara smiled. “That is very like you. Most people would type ‘estate sale, Winchester’ and call it done.”

“I would rather be precise,” Maeve said. “You told me you traced the book back to Florence Hartwell.”

“I traced the lot and the inscription back to Florence Hartwell after your first call,” Clara said. “She was an Oakhaven woman, recently deceased. But I have not yet checked family connections.”

Maeve lifted her cup. The coffee was strong and hot, and the afternoon sun through the front window of The Daily Grind warmed the side of her face. The swapped survey map in Woodstock sat in her mind like a stone in her shoe. She had told no one. “Family connections might give us a proper line for the card. A great-niece, a cousin.” She broke the biscuit in half. The ham was shaved thin.

“Actually,” Clara said, “if there is family, they may know how she came by the book. That is the detail a donor card should carry.”

“Then let’s find them.”

Clara’s eyes brightened. “I was hoping you would say that. The Society has a digital database now. It is not the fastest machine in the valley, but it has every obituary the Gazette printed.”

Maeve left three dollars on the table beside the receipt. The total was eleven sixty-five. Outside, the afternoon had settled into the low seventies, the kind of mild May weather the Shenandoah Valley did well. She had parked the Forester in the shade near the square after stopping for gas at the Sheetz outside Woodstock.

The Historical Society was a ten-minute walk. They passed the bakery and the hardware store, and Clara talked about the volunteers who had scanned the newspaper files. Maeve listened with half an ear. The other half circled the name she was hoping not to find.

Inside, Clara sat at the database station and clicked through the records with quick, precise movements. The room smelled of old paper and floor wax.

“Here we are,” Clara said. “Florence Ruth Hartwell, obituary, Oakhaven Gazette.”

Maeve leaned close to the screen. “Read it to me.”

“Lifelong Oakhaven resident. Church organist at First Presbyterian for fifty-four years. Never married.” Clara scrolled. “Survived by one younger sister, Martha Hartwell Vance.”

The surname landed on Maeve like a hand on the shoulder.

She kept her face still. She reached past Clara, took a pencil from the cup beside the monitor, and wrote on the back of an old envelope: Martha Hartwell Vance, Willow Creek Retirement Community.

Clara did not notice. “Actually, the obituary lists her residence. Willow Creek, twenty minutes from here.”

“That is a start,” Maeve said.

“The Society also has photograph files.” Clara clicked again. “Let me see if the Hartwell family appears.”

Maeve slid the envelope into her bag. “A photograph?”

“A church trip, nineteen forty-something. The caption says ‘First Presbyterian Ladies’ Bible Class outing.’” Clara tilted her head. “Here.”

The scan filled the screen: a row of women in dark dresses and wide hats arranged on the steps of a large building. A young woman with a round face stood near the center, one hand holding her hat.

“Florence,” Clara said. “Beside the pillar. She looks about twenty.”

“Can you print it?” Maeve asked.

“Of course.” Clara tapped the printer icon and beamed. “This is exactly the kind of small mystery I enjoy. We have not checked the sister, and now we have a name and a residence.”

Maeve thanked her and waited while the printer hummed. The printed image was darker than the scan, the building behind the women harder to read. She slid it into an envelope Clara provided and left before the day faded.

At the Gardens, her office was quiet. Maeve Higgins did not turn on the overhead light. She stood by the window with the print in her hands as the last sunlight left the ridge. Outside, a robin scolded from the maple.

She made herself look at the women first, at Florence’s young face. Then she looked at the building behind them.

It was a long brick building with rows of tall windows and stone quoins at the corners. Above the entrance stood a narrow cupola. The perspective tilted upward, as if the photographer had stepped back to fit all of it in.

Maeve knew that facade. She had seen it online, in black-and-white photographs attached to historical records about the Maryland State Hospital in Baltimore.

She set the print on her desk and flattened it with both palms. Unmistakable even in black and white, the building behind the church ladies was the asylum.