Dangers in the Dark

Falcone's Little Lapdog 18.4

Third Person POV

Jude and Marge Vesper's House

Hidden up in the sheltered space of the attic, Jim and Harvey hesitantly made their way over to the low table in the middle of the room where Miriam Loeb sat and watched, waiting for the two men to join her. When they did a smile rose on Miriam's face and it was clear to both the detectives that she didn't see or interact with other people very often.

"So you live up here all the time?" Harvey asked.

"Always," Miriam nodded, playing with a strand of her hair. "Uh, ever since ... I, uh ... I'm not alone, though." Miriam's diversion to the flow of the conversation did not go unnoticed by Jim but he didn't press for any elaboration on the previous comment. For now. "Father comes to visit on Sundays. And we listen to the radio and play checkers. He always lets me win."

"My dad used to do the same thing," Jim smiled. Maybe this was a sign that Jim should go out and find a checkers kit to play with Holly as he was well aware of how little time he was spending with her due to his taking down of Loeb and since Alfred's attack and being in hospital.

"Oh. Really?" Miriam chuckled, placing a hand on her chest. "Fathers are funny like that, aren't they?"

"Yeah, your dad's a real hoot," Harvey agreed with sarcasm dripping from his voice but it remained unnoticed by Loeb's daughter. "Does he keep other stuff up here? Like important papers or files or maybe rooms full of boxes?"

"No," Miriam answered after a moment of deep thought. "Why would he do that?"

Rather than giving the confused woman an answer, Harvey leant over to Jim, subtlety be damned. "This is a waste of time."

While Jim silently agreed with his partner, he still felt that there must be something, anything that he could use in his taking down of Loeb. And that thing must arise from the one other thing that Miriam was yet to speak about.

"Miriam ..." Jim began, getting up and picking up a colourless photograph of Commissioner Loeb, Miriam and another blonde woman who Jim presumed must be Miriam's mother "... what happened to your mother?"

"She died," Miriam replied. "I, um ... I've started a new hobby. Would you like to see?"

"Sure," Jim nodded his head, leading to Miriam rushing back over to the cabinet beside her bed in excitement. Harvey rose up and joined Jim's side as they both watched Miriam rummage around.

"What are you doing?" Harvey asked.

"Loeb's wife died 20 years ago. Skull fracture from a fall down the stairs. Miriam would've been a teenager," Jim explained his thinking.

"So you think Loeb killed her?" Harvey asked. "She was the witness? That's why he keeps her cooped up here."

"You said I wasn't the only one with a Cobblepot. Maybe this is his," Jim said.

Miriam then started to head back over so the two detectives turned their attention back to her to see she was holding a long wooden box that was covered in dust along the top.

"I started making jewellery," Miriam told them in excitement.

Jim didn't know what he had been expecting to see when Miriam took out her 'jewellery but at least a dozen small bird bones threaded through a piece of string definitely wasn't it.

"What's it made of?" Harvey asked in confusion as they stepped closer to have a look at it.

"Bones," Miriam answered casually.

While smaller bones littered the main string of the necklace, larger bones including rib cages and thin twig legs were dangling from the bottom of it.

"Starlings," Miriam elaborated. "They, uh ... they land on my windowsill and you can catch them if you're really silent and still. And I can be really silent and still. Silent as a mouse." Miriam whispered her words as her eyes glassed over like a memory was replaying in her mind as she spoke.