"Wonderment in Death" is a novella. It was originally part of the Down the Rabbit Hole anthology, published in 2015. Other stories in that anthology are:
- "Alice and the Earl in Wonderland" by Mary Blayney
- "iLove" by Elaine Fox
- "A True Heart" by Mary Kay McComas
- "Fallen" by R. C. Ryan
Someone is hosting dangerous tea parties in 2061 New York...
Things aren't what they seem when Lieutenant Eve Dallas investigates what appears to be a routine murder/suicide. When friends of Darlene and Marcus Fitzwilliams insist Darlene would never hurt her brother, Eve digs deeper.
Eve learns that Darlene sought help from sensitivities, psychics, and doctors of paranormal studies in an attempt to contact her dead parents. After clues mimicking Alice in Wonderland repeatedly turns up, the case gets curiouser and curiouser...
Racing against the clock, Eve must travel down the rabbit hole to stop a madman's murderous tea party.
Timeline[]
| Spoiler warning! This article contains plot details about an upcoming episode. |
Story Start Date: mid-January 2061[1]
Day 1[]
Chapter 1[]
- Darlene Fitzwilliams attends her last session with Dr. Bright, who has become bored with her. She pays him her usual $9,999 in cash, gives him heirlooms from her father and mother, and drinks the drugged tea to be able to see a meadow and speak with her parents. Dr. Bright then affixes a recorder to her coat and sends her to her brother’s apartment in a town car. He and his assistant, Ms. March, dance a jig and head to the theater to watch the show.
- In the car, Darlene reaches for the glass of clear liquid marked “Drink Me,” thinking about how she would tell Marcus the dreams she's been having about their parents, and how they helped her accept their sudden, tragic deaths. After drinking the liquid, she starts to reach for her 'link to call her fiancé, Henry Boyle, but stops when a pain shoots up her arm because she's not supposed to call him yet.
- Darlene arrives at Marcus’s penthouse and tries to hand him what she thinks is a red rose, but is actually silver shears that she thrusts into him three times, killing him, before walking off his terrace to her death, thinking she's racing across the meadow to greet her parents.
Chapter 2[]
- Eve pulls rank to be assigned to the case because the Fitzwilliamses are childhood friends of Louise, who found Marcus’s body when she arrived at his house to speak with him about his sister, who had been missing appointments and withdrawing from friends and family since their parents’ accidental death in June of the previous year.
- Louise grew up with Marcus and Darli, even dating Marcus for a while, but they didn't suit, and the Fitzwilliamses were at Louise and Charles's wedding.
- Darlene had been telling Marcus that she needed to talk to their (dead) parents before she could move ahead with closing their estate, and they were planning to stage a mini-intervention that night after Darlene and Henry finished dinner; Henry was going to bring Darlene over to Marcus's apartment. Louise insists Darlene would never have killed Marcus, that somebody set it up.
- Eve asks Louise to make her a list of friends, families, exes, coworkers, etc., and she sends Charles and her home.
Chapter 3[]
- Eve examines Darlene's body and notices pieces from a broken lapel recorder. She has the lab tag the body for Morris and flags it for a tox screen. The doorman and two witnesses who got into the elevator as Darlene got out tell Peabody Darlene looked distracted and spacey, like she was in a trance.
- Darlene's fiancé arrives, distraught, and after getting some information about Darlene from him and permission to search the townhouse he shared with her, Eve sends him to Louise and Charles's place. Henry was also skeptical about Darlene killing Marcus, saying they'd never hurt each other. He told Eve Darli was taking some herbal sleep aids, but no other drugs. He also mentioned that he was at the wedding, and that he works for Roarke as an architectural engineer.
- Eve and Peabody watch the security feed of Darlene as she approaches Marcus's door and see that her eyes are glassy and she looks ready to fly. Eve tells Peabody to wait for the sweepers, then go into Central and write up the report, while she searches Henry and Darlene's townhouse, after being a good wife and letting Roarke know her plans and that she'll be home late. He tells her Henry is a good employee, and has worked for him for a number of years, although he doesn't specify the number. He says Henry was mad about Darlene.
Chapter 4[]
- Eve parks near the townhouse around midnight, and is delighted to see Roarke waiting for her on the steps. He tells her a little more about Henry, saying he's in charge of engineering on the An Dídean project.
- They search the house together, with Eve finding a stash of business cards for psychics, sensitives, mediums, tarot readers, and spiritualists hidden at the bottom of her underwear drawer, along with a few brochures with rates for readings and consultations.
- Roarke joins her, saying Darlene's web search history shows she was researching the afterlife and how to communicate with the dead. Eve shows him what she found and decides Darlene kept them hidden because her friends and family wouldn't have approved.
- They spend another hour searching, but don't find anything else useful and head home at 2 a.m.
Day 2[]
Chapter 5[]
- Eve dreams about being in an interview room with Marcus and Darlene. Darlene says that she loves her brother and could never hurt him. Marcus tells Darlene it's all right, and Eve tells her she had secrets, and some people kill to protect them. Eve tells her mostly killers look like everybody else and that Darlene jammed scissors in her brother's heart. Darlene says, "I couldn't" and grabs the handle of the shears buried in Marcus's chest, pulling them out, saying, "I'd kill myself first." Eve points out that she killed herself second, saying "Grief can mess you up." Darlene asks her how she knows, telling her she's never lost anyone, she doesn't know her grief or sorrow. Darlene says her parents were angels, and Eve's were monsters, that Eve is surrounded by evil. "How can you see through it to what's good?" Eve tells her "you just have to look hard enough." Darlene tells her "Then look! I just wanted answers." Eve wakes up knowing that Darlene wanted love and connection and continuity, and she and Roarke make love.
- Eve texts Peabody to meet her at the morgue at 9 and sends her half the list of psychics to check, while she researches the other half. She finds out Darlene has been withdrawing $9,999 in cash every week for the past eighteen weeks, including the previous morning. She tells Roarke, who says if it was $1 more, it would alert the IRS, and they both think somebody’s been taking Darlene for a ride, although why would that person want the income to stop?
- At the morgue, Eve asks Morris which is worse, jumpers or floaters, and he tells her it's a sliding scale, based on how long in the water or how big a jump. He tells her about a skydiver whose business partner sabotaged his chute after he ran afoul of him: 13,000 feet, and therefore at the top of the scale for Morris.
- He says Darlene wasn't a user and showed no signs of abuse or disease. Her stomach contents were tea and sugar cookies, plus about two ounces of white wine. The tea had a chamomile base, but was laced with valerian (a sedative) and peyote (a hallucinogen). Eve tells Morris Darlene was smiling when she rang Marcus's buzzer.
- Morris says they both talk to the dead all the time, and when Eve asks if they ever talk back, because she doesn't remember Possession in Death, he tells her Amaryllis Coltraine picked out his electric blue tie that morning, that when he reached for a gray one to match his mood, she told him to wear the bold blue one instead, and it lifted away the gray.
Chapter 6[]
- Peabody arrives at the morgue as Eve is leaving, and they discuss where Darlene could have gotten the shears, since she didn’t do crafts and they aren’t something people would just happen to have in their home. Peabody thinks somebody put the whammy on Darlene, which would be drugs and some sort of brainwashing, but neither of them can figure out to what end.
- When they visit Henry at Charles and Louise’s house, he tells them neither of them had shears, nor did Marcus. Eve shows Henry the business cards and pamphlets from psychics, and Henry admits suggesting to Darlene it would be more beneficial to resume grief counseling than “tossing time and money at some gypsy with a crystal ball” so he can understand why she didn’t talk to him about it again. Eve tells him about the new account Darlene set up, and the weekly withdrawals. He thinks Marcus must have found out and threatened to go to the police, but Louise says Marcus would have told her.
- Henry confirms that Darlene hasn’t traveled for the previous five months, instead sending her assistant. He caught Darlene sleepwalking three times, and each time she was doing or saying something weird: pouring tea for a party, crawling under the bed saying she needed to go down the rabbit hole, waking him with a riddle about a raven and a writing desk. Louise recognizes those as Alice in Wonderland references but Henry doesn’t know of any attachment Darlene had to the story.
- Louise walks Eve out and she tells her about the drugs Morris found in Darlene's system, saying she’ll clear her to talk to Morris and Berenski since she’s a doctor. They are sure somebody manipulated her, fed her drugs, and caused her to kill Marcus and herself. Eve tells her to find out what she ingested and leave the why to her and Peabody.
Chapter 7[]
- Considering the herbs and sleep aids, Eve and Peabody start with the psychic nutritionist. Dr. Hester’s pamphlet had said for $1,000 an hour, she will recommends which herbs and berries you should consume in order to open yourself up to messages from the dead.
- Dr. Hester tells Peabody not to "worry so much about your weight. Good nutrition, regular exercise, of course, but you have a very healthy, robust body. Your perception of your body is harsher than the reality.” She then suggests a few natural metabolic boosters but tells her she's young, healthy, and active, and it's just the sweet tooth that challenges her.
- She met with Darlene in August and prescribed her a natural sleep aid, which the clerk confirmed she purchased three times, plus candles and bath salts. She also recommended a nutrition plan and additional sessions to work on emotional healing and acceptance, but Darlene only wanted to contact her parents and Dr. H couldn't ethically encourage her to continue to see her.
- Eve and Peabody continue to visit psychics from Darlene’s cards, and hit on another one she saw, but he was a genuine sensitive, and couldn’t give Darlene what she wanted, so she moved on.
- Morris found traces of peyote, cannabis, phencyclidine (PCP), and mint inside Darlene’s nasal passages, sinuses, meaning she would have been in a euphoric and altered state. Peabody complimented Dickhead on his facial hair and told Eve she should have his results in twenty minutes.
- Eve tells the family lawyer what happened, and she tells Eve that’s impossible. Eve lists the substances Darlene had in her bloodstream, and Gregg says Darlene would never do illegals, that part of her work she did with the foundation supported rehabilitation and education centers for illegals abuse. She said that the uncle, Sean Fitzwilliams, had arrived in New York to temporarily take over running the company, but that he’s based in Europe and not inclined to move, i.e., no motive to kill Marcus and Darlene.
- Darlene left ten million dollars and her share of the townhouse to Henry, but didn’t tell him because he’s a proud man who was raised by a single mother. The lawyer gives Eve a disc with a list of the beneficiaries. Henry had told Gregg about the psychics, mediums, etc., that Darlene consulted, and they agree that somebody took advantage of her, which Eve says she is investigating.
Chapter 8[]
- Complimenting Dickhead on his goatee worked, and the tox results show that Darlene ingested the same mix as she inhaled. Eve sends the results to Mira and goes upstairs to consult with her. The dragon admin is still at lunch, so Eve experiences a slight letdown but gets in right away.
- Mira tells Eve that the drug combination, including PCP, the base of Zeus, could cause someone to harm themselves or others, as easily as by mistaking a flame for a flower, or a knife for a bar of soap for instance. She’s surprised Darlene was able to get to her brother’s apartment building in the state she was in and suggests looking for someone who’s skilled, because this combination took time and practice to perfect. It’s a mixture that would have made it easy to hypnotize someone, to relax them, and open them to suggestions.
- Mira thinks it was a sensitive who gained Darlene’s trust, most likely a male, since she would see that person as authoritative and experienced, probably between 40 and 60. He’s a sociopath who exploits his own gift, he’s organized and intelligent, enjoys having control over others, and looks for gain. He likes to live well, and may also be a psychopath, finding pleasure in causing death without having a direct hand in it.
- Eve tells Mira about the broken lapel recorder she found by Darlene’s body, and Mira says he didn’t want to get his hands bloody, and he’s a manipulator rather than a physical sort. She also tells Mira about the sleepwalking and Mira says “Alice in Wonderland,” which is what Louise said. Mira thinks it was a test, laying a base for post-hypnotic suggestions.
- Back at the bullpen, Roarke is waiting for her, so she splits the psychic list with Peabody, asking Peabody to take either McNab or Uniform Carmichael with her, and telling her to look for a sociopath with at least some psychic abilities and an interest or obsession with Alice in Wonderland, and to report after each meet.
- Roarke is familiar with the story, and fills Eve in on their way to the first name on the list. The third one they visit, Madam Dupres, had a thriving psychic business 25 years ago, but lost her fame, fortune, and reputation to her husband/business manager, who ran off with her assistant after she signed over all her money to him. She has a clean record, and has assisted cops numerous times, locating missing children.
- When Eve asks her if she knows Darlene Fitzwilliams, she says she felt a dark disturbance at the time of Marcus and Darlene's deaths and gets a sudden headache. She excuses herself to get a blocker, leaving the room, and then slices her femoral artery with broken glass and bleeds out. Before she dies she tells Eve "Beware the Mad Hatter. Lies, all lies. All his words, even his name. Dark is his truth. Death is his joy. I sent her to him. I sent her to her death. He'll seek yours now. Beware the Mad Hatter."
Chapter 9[]
- Eve is pissed, and calls Morris to let him know she’s sending him another body, asking him to look for the same thing – some sort of post-hypnotic trigger. She tags Peabody to update her, asking her and McNab to join them, and then she and Roarke search Dupres’s apartment.
- She finds a notebook in her underwear drawer, which turns out to be a diary with mentions of bad dreams, headaches, memory blanks, and sleepwalking. "The Mad Hatter and the March Hare hold their tea parties, but the tea is blood. The Dormouse sits in the corner, counting the money." The last entry is, "Day and night, darkness bright, he has the sight and feeds it on their sorrow. Bright and mad, deceiving sad, take what they had and bring them death tomorrow. WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER?"
- Eve and Peabody figure he used her to solicit rich clients and blocked her memory of it. They gather samples of consumables and call for sweepers. McNab found a memo cube with a recording of Dupres in a trance, from that morning at 3 a.m., talking about blood and blue smoke, ending with weeping and "I found my strength after the lies. These are just more. I didn't see. I didn't know. Bright. It hurts to see. It hurts to know. Blood on my hands. So much blood. Bright blood. A lie, see through the lie to truth. Simon. Zacari. Roland. Carroll, and more and more. One truth in the lies. Where is the truth? All are death. That is the truth. Now rest, just rest, mind, body, spirit. Know his truth is death, and don't follow."
- Roarke starts running the names, and Eve has McNab tag Feeney to book the EDD lab to run them faster at Central. Roarke finds Anton Zacari, a spiritual consultant who disappeared. Eve suggests running an image match, which Roarke already thought of, and she asks him "if you're so damn smart, why aren't you a cop?" to which Roarke replies, "You've just answered your own question."
- Once they arrive at Central, they find the rest of the names are the same person, somebody who works as a psychic of some sort for a few years before disappearing, relocating, and becoming someone else with all the millions he fleeced his clients for.
- He had a sister, Alice, who suffered from depression, and was addicted to meth and LSD. She dosed a pot of tea with sedatives and served it to them; she died, he nearly did. Eve thinks maybe he was the one who laced the tea, not his sister. Eve finds his current name: Carroll Bright, Doctor of Paranormal Studies, and the address.
Chapter 10[]
- As Ms. March is setting out the tea for Dr. Bright's next client, he tells her the time has come to move on, and asks her how she feels about Budapest ("Hungry for goulash"). They plan to pack up after the last session with their client, Mrs. Melton, who, along with her husband, will be joining her sister in the Wonderland. He muses to himself that he chose Ms. March well, that she's come along with time and patience and the tonic he's gotten her addicted to. They're excited because they've never sent two clients down the rabbit hole so close together, but Dr. Bright points out that they waited so long for the first one. He swallows the pill that keeps the tea from affecting him.
- Eve sets up the op at Central, and they head over, planning to mentally block him since he can read minds. She suggests Peabody think about sex with McNab, figuring Dr. Bright will stop trying to read her if that's all he sees.
- When they arrive at Dr. Bright's townhouse, Dorbert Mouse, with all the telltale signs of being a funky junkie, doesn't want to admit them, but does when Eve threatens to get a warrant. He then kicks her in the shin and runs up the stairs. She has Peabody call the e-team in for backup, and runs after him. She sees a panel slide shut, finds it, and props it open with a white rabbit and oversized pocket watch, before climbing up the stairs and chasing Dormouse into a room with blue light and fog.
- Ms. March, who's in the room, yells "off with her head!" and Eve can see that the other woman has glazed and glassy eyes. She knocks March down with two quick left jabs, and then sees Dr. Bright fleeing the room. The blue fog is getting to her, making her imagine things, but when Peabody starts towards the blue bottle labeled "Drink Me," Eve shoves her away. She threatens to stun Bright unless he turns off the lights and colors, and Roarke shuts off the controls. Callendar takes the Mad Hatter away, although later Roarke says she dealt with the little one, meaning Dormouse.
- Eve, having inhaled a lot of the drug, is pretty out of it, as is Mrs. Melton, so after the MTs examine her, they leave the scene for the Illegals detectives and head back to Central.
- Peabody is asleep and Eve drinks water and takes a blocker for the headache she gets as the drug is wearing off. Roarke threatens to tell the bullpen Eve giggled unless she allows Louise to examine her, and she agrees to it as long as she can have coffee.
- Ms. March is Willow Bateman, who hooked up with Dr. B in New Orleans, around 2054. The mouse is Maurice Xavier, who has a number of bumps and some cage time for aggravated assault. Eve decides to wait on interviewing those two until they sober up and become desperate for a hit.
Epilogue[]
- Roarke has uncovered three of Bright's hidden accounts, all under different names, all leading back to his birthname.
- Peabody and Eve interview him, with Eve provoking him by saying his talent is mediocre, and Peabody pretending to be hypnotized into silence by him. Eve reads off the list of woman he's induced into suicide, including locations. She asks him if he really thought nobody saw him entering Dupres's apartment to drug her tea and steal names, and he says he didn't do that - he sent Ms. March, which Eve deduces means he sent Willow Bateman posing as a client to lace Dupres's tea.
- Eve pretends to be psychic, saying she sees the twelve million dollar bequest Darlene made to his fund, The Looking Glass Fund. Ravenwood says he wants his hat, and Eve says that his stupid hat won't keep her from seeing: "The Amazing Dallas sees all, knows all."
- Everybody heads home, except for Ravenwood, who is as mad as a hatter, so he'll probably end up in a padded room.
Character List[]
List of Main Characters Appearing in this Book[]
List of Secondary Characters Appearing in this Book[]
- David Baxter
- Detective Carmichael
- Uniform Carmichael
- Ryan Feeney
- Nadine Furst
- Galahad
- Jenkinson
- Ian McNab
- Charlotte Mira
- Morris
- Delia Peabody
- Detective Santiago
- Troy Trueheart
List of Recurring Characters Appearing in this Book[]
List of Minor Characters Appearing in this Book[]
- Willow Bateman aka Harriet March
- Henry Boyle
- Casseopia
- Madam Dupres
- Darlene Fitzwilliams
- Marcus Fitzwilliams
- Gia Gregg
- Dr. Hester
- Officer Kinsey
- Andrea Melton
- Philip
- Louis Carroll Ravenwood aka Dr. Carroll Bright
- Maurice Xavier aka Dorbert Mouse
List of Peripheral Characters Appearing or Mentioned in this Book[]
- Jess Barrow
- Marian Beechem
- Ammaryllis [sic] Coltraine
- Dawson
- Cerise Devane
- Bria Fitzwilliams
- Gareth Fitzwilliams
- Sean Fitzwilliams
- Sylvia Garth
- Lady Katrina
- Ki (spirit guide)
- Mikhal Lombrowski
- Fiona MacNee
- Alice Ravenwood
Other Covers[]
Additional covers here
Footnotes[]
- ↑ "The frigid January wind whistled around [Darlene's] ears." (Chapter 1); When Eve sees Roarke sitting on the steps in front of Henry Boyle's townhouse, she wonders "how many people claim to have a spouse, a partner, a lover sitting out on a cold, windy January night waiting for them." (Chapter 4)
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