The Dollmaker's Daughters (Bo Bradley Mysteries, Book Five) (39 page)

"The saints," Bo concluded, nodding to the book.

"Precisely. Beryl was unquestionably a sociopath, but she apparently inherited her father's knack for ritual and metaphor as well. As a child her demands for attention would have been insatiable, and her rage when those demands were
not met, intense. A female, her most chaotic demands would have been directed at the male parent, and the mother perceived as an obstacle to his attention."

“I
can't stomach Freud
, Eva," Bo muttered into cocoa-
scented cake, "even though some of it makes sense."

“I’
m only dealing with the part that makes sense," the psychiatrist went on, her dark eyes flashing with an intellectual excitement that was contagious. "The child Beryl wanted her father's complete attention, but had no model for achieving that goal until someone—probably Jasper Malcolm himself—read her a story. A variant of one of the Celtic myths. Shakespeare used the myth in King Lear, and I've heard you relate another version,
‘
The Children of Lir.' St. Dymphna's tale is merely one of many variants on this ancient story. Do you know it?"

"No," Bo said, leaning forward. "I was raised Catholic, but that doesn't mean I've heard of every saint There are thousands, you know. Actually, all the graceful dead are saints. Millions."

"The graceful dead?” Eva had to laugh. "
Mon dieu
!

"People who've died in a state of grace, Eva," Bo grinned. "They get tie-dyed robes and six-stringed guitars instead of harps. So who's Dymphna?"

"A pious Irish fifteen-year-old whose mother died, after which her grief-maddened father wanted to marry her because no other woman was like his dead wife. Dymphna of course fled her father's incestuous advances—"

"That's where Beryl learned about incest at a time when it was not discussed. Wow!" Bo exhaled.

"She fled to Belgium with her confessor, Gerebern, also sainted, as well as the jester from her father's court and the jester's wife."

"Of course, the
jester, just like in King Lear.
Go on, Eva."

"It gets better," the psychiatrist nodded. "Dymphna's father followed her to Gheel, Belgium, where she was hiding. There he killed the
jester and his wife, and Gerebern
. When Dymphna still refused his advances, he beheaded her as well. This was in the year 650. Some seven centuries later, when
the bones of Dymphna and Gerebern
were discovered, miraculous cures began to occur there, or so the story goes. The town became a mecca and a compassionate haven for people with psychiatric illness. It still is. But the fascinating dimension to this is the way in which Beryl, when her original plan failed, assumed the role of the murdering father."

"I've heard about Gheel, and I think I'll just stick with my meds, Eva. But at least that clears up Beryl's motivation for pushing her mother down the stairs, doesn't it? Her mother was supposed to die so she could have her daddy, like in the story. But Jasper Malcolm knew. He knew Beryl had killed her mother, and he did nothing. He allowed a monster to grow to adulthood under his roof and did absolutely nothing to stop it."

Eva leaned against the wall, thinking.

"He probably tried, Bo, in that isolated way of artistic people. It would never have occurred to him to seek help from social or criminal justice agencies, and when his wife was murdered there were none of those for children in any event. What could he have done nearly forty years ago except to abandon Beryl at an orphanage and flee? He had no recourse but to mythology, religion. You forget how very thin is the scrim of 'enlightenment' about the brain and human behavior which characterizes our time. You don't know that as recently as your own birth, it didn't exist, and that even now most people would prefer any explanation for a sociopath like Beryl than the truth that such creatures occasionally occur."

"So he raised his monster, earning a living with his dolls and praying around
the clock," Bo thought aloud. “
Tamlin escaped into an immature marriage as soon as she could at eighteen, producing Jeffrey and then the twins. That's when Beryl went off, when her father created the new line of collectible baby dolls modeled on the twins. She said as much when she was trying to kill me. But Eva, I still don't understand why she went to the beach cottage that night and
grabbed those litt
l
e girls from their cribs. What happened to make her do that, and what about Kimmy's death triggered the final sequence of murders? She said Kimmy was supposed to stay a doll and the other one, meaning Janny, was not supposed to be seen. I don't get it
.
"

Eva Broussard eyed the beach below Bo's deck with interest, then stretched.

"Everyone who might have provided answers to those questions is now dead, Bo. Beryl's distorted thought processes are lost forever. The important thing is that you worried this case like a terrier, wouldn't let it go, and saved Janny's life. Because Beryl would have killed her, Bo. I'm sure of that."

"There's someone else who reached out t
o save Janny," Bo mentioned softl
y. "Reached out in images that were all she'd known for most of her life—just a dreadful sense of waiting in a place with no sound but the clicks and hisses of life-support systems. A place like a subway station, long abandoned, w
here one last train is expected…
"

"Arguably, the dream you named 'The Station of the Dead' was connected in some way to Kimberly Malcolm," Eva agreed. "But the mechanisms of psychic phenomena are notoriously resistant to analysis, so I advise restraint in thinking about it, Bo. These phenomena cannot be understood; it's best
not to try. And Molly and I are going for a long walk. I suggest that you rest until dinner, after which I have what promises to be a challenging engagement, but I'll be back later to check on you and walk Molly a last time before I go home."

"What challenging engagement?" Bo asked, lurching toward her bed.

"A seminar on enhanced verbal communication," Eva laughed. "I've invited Pete Cullen."

"Aha," Bo teased, but woman and dachshund were already out the door.

Later Bo cocked an ear at a message from Estrella on the answering machine, but didn't get up to answer the phone. The christening would be on March seventeenth, Es reported happily. St. Patrick's Day. Plenty of time for Bo to get a new coat. Sometime after that Molly began leaping against the side of Bo's bed, indicating their return from the walk. Then Bo heard a knock at the door, answered by Eva.

"Thank you, I'll sign for it," she said.

"What is it?" Bo yelled.

"A registered overnight delivery from the Palm Valley Doll Works," Eva answered, bringing the large envelope to Bo. "Curious."

"I don't believe this!" Bo gasped, pulling a glossy color photo onto the bed.

The photo was of a doll, a Jasper Malcolm collectible. An auburn-haired baby doll with mischievous green eyes and a smattering of freckles across its nose. Topping its ivy-green velvet dress was a collar of Irish lace, matched by the trim on its white tights and booties. And tucked under its arm was a bright-eyed dachshund puppy, done in bronze velvet. In the curve of the doll's lower lip and in its cheekbones, Bo remembered the dollmaker's hand touching her face, and saw herself.

"Prototype, Final Jasper Malcolm Doll, 'Bo
’
,'" someone had written in the photo's margin. "Per Malcolm's instructions, prototype to be shipped to Bo Bradley at this address as soon as replicated. ETA—March of next year."

The doll was adorable, Bo thought, blushing. The first one she'd ever seen that didn't give her the creeps.

Postscript

Only a few miles away in an attractive Point Loma neighborhood, a woman with snowy hair held by a tortoiseshell clip played with a gray cat. On the floor beside the pair were a catnip mouse and several balls of yarn,
unraveled
.

"It's going to be fine, Bede," the woman said softly. "For once Bo was right. You're much better than the picture!"