s. We’ll let him think he is, until we have everything we need.”
Feeney stared into her eyes for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay, let’s get it down.”
It took hours, but Lowell never requested a break. He was, Eve realized, basking. After all the time, all the effort, he was finally able to share his obsession.
He gave them meticulous details on every murder.
Eve and Feeney worked in tandem, an old and easy rhythm.
“You got yourself a good memory,” Feeney commented.
“I do. You’ll find every project documented—keeping records, and we could say amending them, was one of my tasks during the wars. I’m sure you’ve collected all the records from my lab and office. I’d hoped, before I learned I was dying, to arrange for my work to be published. It will have to be posthumously, but I believe that’s appropriate.”
“So, your work,” Eve began, “what got you started? We understand the women—”
“Partners. I considered them partners.”
“I bet they didn’t see it your way, but fine. Your partners represented to you your stepmother.”
“They became her, which is entirely different. She was the first, you see. The Eve.” He smiled brilliantly. “So you can see why I knew you were to be the last.”
“Yeah, too bad about your luck on that.”
“I always knew I could fail, but if I succeeded it would have been perfection. As she was. She was magnificent. You’ll also find many recording discs of her performances. She gave up a great career for me.”
“For you?”
“Yes. We were, well, the term would be ‘soul mates.’ While I could never play—she was an accomplished pianist—nor did I have a voice to offer, it was through her I gained my great love and admiration for music. It was by her I was saved.”
“How so?”
“My father considered me imperfect. Some difficulties with my birth, which caused, well, you could call it a defect. I had some trouble with controlling my impulses, and there were mood swings. He institutionalized me briefly, over my grandfather’s objections, when I was quite young. Then Edwina came into my life. She was patient and loving, and used music to help me remain calm or entertained. She was my mother and my partner, and my great love.”
“She was killed during the Urbans,” Eve prompted.
“Her time came during the Urbans. The human cycle is about time, you see, and will and individual acceptance.”
“But you turned her in,” Eve said. “You heard her talking with the man, the soldier she was in love with. Heard that she was planning to leave you. You couldn’t let her go, could you?”
Irritation flickered over his face. “How do you know anything about that?”
“You’re a smart guy, Bob. We’re smart guys, too. What did you do when you found out she was going to leave you?”
“She couldn’t leave me, she had no right. We belonged together. It was a terrible betrayal, unforgivable. There was no choice, none at all, in what had to be done.”
“What had to be done?” Feeney asked him.
“I had to go to my father, and my grandfather, and tell them that she’d betrayed us. That I’d overheard her planning betrayals with one of the men. That she was a traitor.”
“You made them think she was a spy. Betraying the cause.”
He spread his hands, all reason. “It was all the same, and a great tragedy for us all. She was taken, as the soldier was, down to my grandfather’s laboratory.”
“In the house where you took the women, here in New York. Down where you worked, where your grandfather tortured prisoners during the Urbans.”
“I learned a great deal from my grandfather. I watched as he worked with Edwina—he insisted on it. I understood so much as I watched. It made me strong and aware. Days, it took. Longer than it took for the soldier.”
He moistened his lips, took a small, tidy drink. “Men are weaker, my grandfather taught me. So often weaker than women. In the end, she asked for death. I looked into her eyes, and I saw all the answers, all the love, all the beauty that comes when the body and mind are stripped down to the core. I stopped time for her myself, my gift to her. She was my first, and all who’ve come after have only been reflections of her.”