“Knucklebones,” I stated before looking up at Calvin.
“The game?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. I mean—” I tapped the photograph with the rim of the magnifying glass. “These look like actual knucklebones from sheep or maybe a goat. That’s what they used to be made from. It’s not a Victorian thing, though. The game dates back to antiquity. The British Museum has a few Greek and Roman statues of women and young girls playing knucklebones. I think the Met even has a box in their exhibit that was used to hold the pieces in between games.”
Calvin’s eyes were sharp as he asked, “What’s the connection to Spiritualism?”
“I don’t think there is one.”
“Robert Hare?”
I shook my head.
“Spiritoscopes?”
“Women in antiquity would sometimes play knucklebones as a form of divination. Love, childbirth—those sorts of things. But to my knowledge, there’s no historical association between the two.”
“Could be a tenuous connection,” Radcliff offered.
I said, while turning to study the photo again, “Even tenuous is too much. Artistically, historically, spiritually, they’re two completely unique and unrelated artifacts.”
Calvin touched my bare arm and rubbed absently. “Thanks for your time, sweetheart.”
I ignored the polite dismissal, the unspoken suggestion to grab my bag and he’d see me out. I kept studying the knucklebones under magnification. “Maybe it’s not meant to be taken literally.”
“What do you mean?” That was Calvin.
“Without an overview of the crime as a whole, I couldn’t begin to extrapolate what the presence of the spiritoscope could mean—”
“Because you aren’t being paid to solve the crime.”
I shot him an irritated look. “I know. But if I look at the knucklebones from a more… illustrative context, I can see a correlation to Spiritualism.”
“Go on.”
“What if they represent the scam perpetuated by the Fox sisters? Maggie went on record saying that she and her sister performed table-rapping by loudly cracking their knuckles and ankles. These are calledknucklebones, but they’re actually the bone in a sheep’sankle. And with the spiritoscope, a device meant to disprove mediumship claims, although it went about this from a somewhat metaphysical standpoint instead of purely physical, we sort of come full circle.”
Calvin’s light-colored brows rose, and he turned to study the dead woman’s handful of knucklebones.
“It could be a message,” Quinn said.
“The victim was a con artist,” Calvin agreed, drawing his fingertips over the photo.
“Shit,” Radcliff swore quietly. “She could have pissed off dozens—hundreds—of clients—” He stopped midsentence, and I figured Quinn had shot him one of those threatening side-eyes of hers.
To Calvin, I asked, “Did I do good?”
He looked down, tentatively smiled, then said, “You did good.”
It was barely five in the morning when the precinct door fell shut behind us and Calvin and I stepped onto the sidewalk. The sun wasn’t upquite yet, but the city was that drowsy gray, like Manhattan had stayed up drinking well past its bedtime and now had to get ready for work while fighting a hangover. The oppressive heat hadn’t miraculously let up while we had been occupied with talk of murder and history, so the day was bound to be another ninety-degree scorcher. Calvin took my hand, and even though it was hot enough for this much physical contact to be sweaty and uncomfortable, I pushed my fingers between his and gave a squeeze.
“You’ll be able to get a few more hours of rest,” he was saying.
“I’ll probably end up staring at the ceiling for three hours.”
“I’m sorry you got dragged out of bed in the middle of the night for this.”
“Don’t be,” I answered. “One hour in consultation fees has already paid my student loans for the month. If you guys end up in a real pickle over that spiritoscope, I might be able to make my half of our rent on the city’s dime.”
