"Did Clara Bellweather call ahead? She said one of the garden people might stop by." The receptionist at Willow Creek Retirement Community closed her crossword-puzzle book and looked up at Maeve Higgins through the service window.
"She did," Maeve said. "I'm Maeve Higgins, director of the Oakhaven Heritage Gardens."
The receptionist typed on a computer clamped to a rolling stand. "Apartment 112. Martha's expecting you at ten. She's sharp as a pin, so don't raise your voice."
"I won't." Maeve signed the ledger. Outside the double doors, her ten-year-old Subaru Forester sat in a patch of shade beside a gold Buick with a "Grandma's Taxi" bumper sticker. She had taken Route 11 south from Oakhaven, past cow pastures and a Dollar General, and the May morning was already warm. The dashboard clock had read 9:47 when she pulled in.
A nurse in cranberry scrubs met her at the corner. "You're here to see Martha Vance?"
"I am."
"Third door on the left." The nurse lowered her voice. "She's been watching for you since breakfast. She doesn't get many visitors on a Tuesday."
Maeve nodded and walked on. She had spent the morning on the phone with Clara Bellweather, who had found Martha's name in an obituary search the day before. The photograph in the envelope was the only physical thing tying Florence Hartwell to the Maryland State Hospital. The botany book itself stayed locked in the office safe, where it had been since the first letters spilled from its broken spine. Maeve had left the letters inside their blue ribbon, exactly as she had found them.
The corridor walls were hung with framed quilts and photographs of the Shenandoah River. The walls were the color of weak tea, and the baseboards looked thick as cake frosting from years of repainting. Maeve passed a sitting room where three women played cards and argued about where to stop for lunch on a road trip to a Cracker Barrel. The smell of baked chicken and cinnamon apples trailed out of a dining hall.
The door to apartment 112 stood open a few inches. Maeve knocked on the pale pink frame.
"Come in." The voice was clear and dry.
Maeve pushed the door open. Martha Hartwell Vance sat in a blue wingback chair by a window that looked out on a concrete birdbath. A crocheted afghan lay across her knees, and a jar of peppermint candies sat beside a folded copy of the Winchester Star on the side table. A spider plant hung from a macramé hook near the kitchenette. Martha's white hair was pinned back with two tortoiseshell combs, and her bent fingers were steady.
"Ms. Vance?"
"Martha." The old woman motioned to a straight-backed chair. "Sit. You drive all the way from Oakhaven?"
"I did." Maeve sat and set her canvas bag on the floor. The small refrigerator hummed in the corner behind her.
"There's sweet tea if you want it. In a Food Lion jug."
"Thank you. Maybe in a minute." Maeve took the manila envelope from her bag. "Mrs. Vance—"
"Martha," the woman interrupted, "or you'll make me feel like a museum exhibit."
"Martha. I called about a book that belonged to your sister, Florence."
"Gray's New Manual of Botany." Martha closed her eyes for half a second. "Green cloth cover. Gold letters down the spine. Florence kept it on her dresser for sixty years."
"That's the book. It was donated to the Gardens recently, and I'm trying to trace how it came to your sister."
"You wouldn't have to trace far. Her dearest friend gave it to her."
"Her dearest friend?"
"Abigail. A nurse. She worked at the state hospital in Baltimore."
"The Maryland State Hospital?"
"That's the one. Florence met her on a church trip. Our church used to send care packages down there." Martha smoothed the afghan over her knees. "Abigail was one of the kindest people Florence ever knew. She'd give you the shoes off her feet and walk home barefoot."
Maeve slid the photograph from the manila envelope and set it on the table between them. "I found this photograph. Clara Bellweather thinks it was taken at the Maryland State Hospital in the 1940s."
Martha picked up the photo and adjusted her glasses. "That's Florence. Front row, holding the hymnal. She was nineteen, maybe twenty."
"The building behind them is the hospital where Abigail worked?"
"That's right. Florence and Abigail stayed friends for years after that. Wrote letters every week." Martha tapped the brick building in the picture. "Florence was the one with the green thumb. I couldn't keep a cactus alive."
Maeve smiled. "I was sorry to hear about Florence. She lived a long life."
"Ninety-six years. I miss her every day, but she was ready." Martha folded her hands over the afghan. "She would have loved all this fuss about her old book."
"How is Clara Bellweather? She still correcting everybody's grammar?"
"Only gently." Maeve smiled.
"That woman never forgets a name. She was the one who found you, wasn't she?"
"She was." Maeve took a slow breath. "Why did Abigail give her the book?"
Martha set the photograph down on the arm of the chair. "The book had belonged to one of Abigail's patients."
"A patient?"
"A tragic young woman. Abigail said the woman claimed her entire inheritance had been stolen from her. The family had her put away."
Maeve kept her hands folded in her lap. The sugar from the sweet tea she hadn't poured lingered in the air. Outside, a lawn mower coughed and quit after two sputters. "Do you remember anything else about the patient?"
Martha reached for a peppermint candy and rolled it between her fingers without unwrapping it. "Abigail felt terrible about it. She tried to help, but the hospital wouldn't listen. The woman died there years later. Abigail said it was the one thing she never made peace with."
"Did Abigail ever say the woman's name?"
"She did. Florence told me. I always thought it was a strange coincidence, the same name as the woman who started those gardens."
Maeve's fingers tightened on the edge of the envelope. "What was the name?"
Martha handed the photograph back across the table. "Elspeth Thorne."
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