Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Coffin
Claire demanded exhumation.
Eleanor fought it immediately.
That made her look guilty.
Too guilty.
Court authorization came after questions emerged in Margaret’s death certificate.
Hospital of record had closed twelve years ago.
Archived chart contained inconsistencies.
Margaret Bennett was admitted under full name.
Declared dead at 2:18 a.m.
But mortuary transfer listed:
M. BENTON.
A clerical error?
Possibly.
Then fingerprint card from funeral home did not match Margaret’s employment fingerprint record from years earlier.
Claire felt sick.
Exhumation confirmed body was not Margaret.
DNA identified woman as Marianne Benton, age forty-seven, who died same night in same hospital after stroke.
No family had claimed her quickly.
Two women.
Similar initials.
Similar age.
Hospital transfer error.
Could accidental body switch explain everything?
Not entirely.
Margaret’s death certificate existed.
Marianne’s too.
Margaret’s body had never been located.
Hospital records showed after official death time, someone using Margaret’s patient number received medication at 4:06 a.m.
Alive?
Or charting error?
Then a nurse’s archived statement surfaced.
Patient M.B. regained consciousness.
Which M.B.?
Nurse could not remember.
Eleanor insisted she believed body was Margaret.
Claire stared.
“You saw her face.”
“Briefly.”
“You arranged closed coffin.”
“Hospital said swelling.”
“Why?”
“I was twenty-eight and terrified.”
Claire could accept panic.
Not seventeen years of silence.
“Did you ever suspect?”
Eleanor looked away.
“When?”
“Two months after funeral.”
There.
“What happened?”
Eleanor received postcard.
No message.
Only photograph.
Margaret’s silver hair clip on hotel pillow.
Postmark:
Providence, Rhode Island.
Claire’s hands shook.
“You knew she might be alive.”
“I knew someone wanted me to think that.”
“And you never told me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because second postcard said if I told you, she would die for real.”
Claire laughed once, without humor.
“Who sent it?”
“I don't know.”
Then Ethan’s clip was examined.
Custom jeweler mark.
Made by Bennett & Rowe, Boston.
Records showed three clips commissioned.
Not two.
Buyer:
Margaret Bennett.
Claire stared at invoice.
Third engraving:
M.
First:
C.
Second:
E.
Third:
M.
Their mother had made one for herself.
So clip Ethan carried could truly be Margaret’s.
Then jeweler produced repair log.
Margaret’s clip had been serviced.
May you like
Date:
nine years after her funeral.
