Silencing Eve

was a child.”
    “Where are we going with this?”
    “The setting of those explosives was the biggest thing in Kevin’s life at the time that he became involved with that al-Qaeda cell. He wanted to make Harriet a part of it.”
    “Why?”
    “From the comparisons Kevin made to Harriet about those poor little girls he raped and murdered, I’d guess he was trying to make up to her for the one crime for which she flatly condemned him.”
    “She only disapproved because she thought it was dangerous for him.”
    “But it caused her to leave him so that he’d have a safe haven if he needed it. I doubt if Kevin could be made to feel guilt, but he couldn’t stand the thought of not being perfect in her eyes. He needed to have her approval. In the case of the nuclear project, he needed to give Harriet the idea that they were on the same team. A sort of dark, macabre camaraderie.”
    “Those who blow up a city together, stay together?”
    “Or two cities. Yes, that’s the idea. That’s also the reason why Kevin made the journal too complicated for Doane to decipher. I believe Kevin was always playing his father off against his mother. But it was Harriet who he couldn’t bear to lose. He really meant the journal to go to Harriet, but he died before he could take it from Doane and give it to her.”
    “And how did Kevin involve Harriet in setting up the explosion?”
    “Why, he let her plan it. He made it an intimate game between the two of them. Harriet loved control, and he knew it. So he used the passion they both shared and let her choose how and where to pull off the explosion.”
    “And it’s in that journal?”
    “Nothing blatant. He wouldn’t want to give anything away to Doane. This was a precious secret between Harriet and him. Kevin teased her with it. Oblique references. There were also the same type references in the letters he wrote to her about that same time.”
    “Dammit, what references, Kendra?”
    “I’m getting to it. Don’t be impatient.”
    “Why shouldn’t I be impatient? You’ve given me nothing but psychological mumbo jumbo about two sickos.”
    “It’s not mumbo jumbo. It’s an analysis that is based on hours of—I can hear you seething, Margaret.”
    “That’s impossible. But you know me well enough to realize that’s exactly what I’d do. More analysis. Now what is this intimate little charade Kevin and his mother were practicing? And what did it have to do with Harriet’s obsession with English Literature?”
    “Everything.” Kendra’s voice was tense. “I think I’ve found what we’re looking for. Look, the journal was written to be read by Harriet, not Doane. We saw Doane’s house, and the man isn’t a reader. But Harriet could pick up on some fairly obscure literary references.”
    “So we’re back to those literary references again. Give me an example.”
    Margaret heard a rustling of papers on Kendra’s end of the phone. “Late in the journal, he gets on a rant about wanting the world to pay for its hatred against him. At one point, he says he’ll ‘see the brave day sunk in hideous night.’”
    “I don’t recognize that. But, then, I’m more into Dr. Seuss than obscure English quotations.”
    “I didn’t recognize it either, but I knew it didn’t seem like his own words based on everything else he’d written. It’s from a Shakespeare sonnet. Then, a bit later in the journal, Kevin writes that ‘quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace—’”
    “‘… like a clock during a thunderstorm,’” Margaret finished.
    Silence. “You know that line?”
    “Maybe I know a few things other than Dr. Seuss. I’ve read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. ”
    “And you remember that quote? You never cease to amaze me, Margaret.”
    “What about the letters? Did they help?”
    “The content didn’t give me much yet. Maybe later. But the envelopes do.”
    “How is that?”
    “The postmarks. The dates line up with his journal entries. The postmark on one envelope tells us that he mailed a letter from Seattle on June 4, and it was stamped at a postal facility just a few blocks from the King Street Station. It’s the biggest clock tower in Seattle. And, the day that he referred to that Shakespeare sonnet rant in his journal, he mailed another letter from downtown Chicago. It was in the vicinity of two fairly notable clocks. It’s interesting what he left out in