Holmes, Marple & Poe: The Greatest Crime-Solving Team of the Twenty-First Century

Grey is surprised when Marple suggests playing “Two Truths and a Lie” but plays along (306). Despite Grey’s best efforts at hiding her lie, Holmes easily determines the lie. Whey Grey is called away, the three private detectives are sorry to end their game so soon.

Raymond, Grey’s ex-CIA contact, tells her not to put his report in writing. He has learned that 18 years prior, three deep-cover agents went missing in Afghanistan. Then, in 2001, three operatives from Moldova escaped a Ukrainian military prison. Though three bodies were recovered and quickly cremated, Raymond believes that these corpses were false. In both cases, the operatives were two men and a woman of similar age to Marple, Holmes, and Poe.

Under their current names, the three detectives have legitimate Social Security numbers; no genealogical records link the private investigators to Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, or Arthur Conan Doyle. Raymond offers to do more searching, but Grey declines, saying that he’ll likely find nothing. She returns to finish dinner with the three detectives and then asks Poe to “take [her] to bed […] whoever [he is]” (310).

After a night with Poe, Grey goes to work early. She finds a handwritten envelope on her desk, containing financial information on Bain Enterprises that documents various financial crimes. She is pleased with the knowledge that this will boost her career.

Marple relaxes by reading Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple’s Final Cases. She finds Holmes and Virginia searching behind the shredder, as Virginia cut herself on something when she reached back there to fetch a dropped paper. Holmes produces a bread knife, which causes Virginia to recall the night when she smelled bread (in Chapter 63). The oxidation on the blade indicates that it has been there for decades, though closer inspection reveals very old, dried blood. Marple realizes that this is the murder weapon from the building’s cold case.

Just as Bain is complaining that a presentation from one of his employees is boring, the FBI storm his office. Stans enters and arrests him for various financial crimes. None of his employees moves to help him, including his legal team. They watch as Grey reads Bain his rights.

Grey and Stans lead Bain out of his headquarters while journalists clamor for information. Poe hints to Grey that the trio is responsible for the evidence against Brain; Grey ignores him.

Poe, Marple, and Holmes watch Bain’s arrest, wondering if Mayor Rollins (to whom Bain illegally contributed mass campaign funds) will flee the city. They posit that Commissioner Boolin will likely remain unscathed by the scandal—but that this will make him like the private investigators even less. When a cameraman praises Poe’s car, Poe is thrilled that Holmes can still recite statistics about the vehicle, despite his recent head injury.

The trio returns to Brooklyn. As they arrive at their offices, two people in unmarked tactical gear emerge from a vehicle, hold the detectives at gunpoint, take their weapons and cell phones, zip-tie their wrists, and put them in their vehicle. Poe demands to know who has abducted them but gets no answer. Marple considers the firm’s many potential enemies.

Holmes fails to break through his zip ties as he notes that the car is returning them to Manhattan. They arrive at the NYPD’s “Joint Operations Center” (326). The three detectives are taken though a compound and into a newly constructed office without windows, where they’re met by an angry Commissioner Boolin.

Boolin is joined by Grey, who looks unhappy with the scene, and Mayor Rollins, who Holmes insinuates is guilty of financial crimes. Boolin demands to know the origins of the Bain documents; Marple refuses to divulge, claiming that their “methods are proprietary” (329). Marple, despite Boolin’s blustering, cites laws that mean that the firm’s actions were legal. Rollins fires Boolin. Marple could press charges for “false imprisonment” but will instead label this encounter a “misunderstanding” if they are promptly freed (330). Boolin and Rollins storm off as Poe and Holmes praise Marple. When Grey asks how Marple knew all this, Marple jokes that her “two truths and a lie” are that she “[watches] a lot of television,” has an eidetic memory, and “was first in [her] law school class” (331).

A woman named Macy and her son Nicholas Dale kayak the Croton River, birdwatching. Nicholas seeks what he thinks is a gaggle of wild turkeys, but Macy realizes that they’re vultures and quickly urges her son to look away before he can see the body of a dead woman wearing cowboy boots with a Texas pattern.

The following day, Grey scolds Marple for not telling her about “the mystery cowboy on Hart Island” sooner (334). Grey jokes that gentrification has made her police shifts boring. The pair then discuss Lucy Ferry’s case.

The head of the modeling agency where Lucy worked, Betsy Bronte, received a text from Lucy three weeks prior that said that the model was returning to Texas. Several weeks later, Bronte received a call from Lucy’s parents: Both Lucy and her ex-boyfriend, Carson Lee Parker, were missing. Grey believes that Carson is Lucy’s killer, particularly given that Carson’s truck was registered by a toll system coming into Manhattan on the same day that Bronte received the goodbye text from Lucy and shortly before Marple saw the man dressed in cowboy attire. Just then, Carson passes in front of Grey’s car.

Grey reluctantly allows Marple to accompany her into the cheap hotel where they plan to arrest Carson. A supposedly sleeping man in the lobby draws a gun on Grey and Marple, trapping them in a staircase.

Grey identifies herself as police; the armed man, Leon, claims that he has the upper hand because he is ex-Army. When he grabs at Marple, she seizes his wrist, knocks him down the stairs, and takes his gun. At gunpoint, Grey forces Leon, the building’s maintenance worker, to get Carson to open his apartment door by claiming a maintenance issue. When Carson sees Grey, he looks “resigned—maybe relieved” (342). As Grey arrests him, he weeps, claiming that he didn’t mean to kill Lucy. He wanted to make her return to Texas with him. Marple, pitying him, tells him that Lucy’s body will at least return home.

Carson confesses that he was at Hart Island because, after killing Lucy and sinking her body in the river, he went to cemeteries to watch burials to see if someone had found Lucy’s body.

After Grey’s shift ends, Marple invites her for a drink in the private investigators’ offices. Inside, Luka Franke waits in the dark. He accuses Holmes, Marple, and Poe of stealing the Shakespeare First Folio and the Gutenberg Bible.

Poe and Holmes enter, guns raised. Franke explains that the three detectives paid the Swedish safe designers that built Bain’s safe, but Marple points out that the people he references now live in the Maldives, which has a non-extradition policy. She counters that Iceland, where Franke hides his stolen goods, has no such policy. Grey suggests that this case should remain “open,” causing Franke to accuse her of being “part of this little vaudeville troupe now” (347).

Virginia watches Holmes, Marple, and Poe examine the brick wall of their office where filing cabinets once stood. Holmes gathers from the bricks that this was the site of ovens when the building was a bakery. Virginia feels dizzy as Holmes uses her metal ruler to indicate that this was where the Siglik grandfather killed Mary McShane in 1945. Mary was his first murder, before he learned how to dispose of bodies to avoid detection. Marple claims to know the location of Mary’s body.

Marple’s judge friend signs an exhumation order that leads the three detectives and Virginia to Hart Island. Virginia finds the place eerie, though she gets comfort from Marple’s presence, likening the other woman to an older sister. When a body is uncovered, Virginia feels a chill that makes her certain that this is Mary McShane.

A week later, Marple takes the group though the mausoleum that used to lead to the Sigliks’ underground lair. Using shell companies, the three detectives have anonymously bought the land; the money has been distributed to the Sigliks’ victims and their families. The three detectives, Grey, and Virginia gather to say a prayer for Mary McShane.

Holmes confirms that Poe’s offer to borrow his car is genuine, as he intends to “[hang] up the suit” for “as long as it takes” (335). He drives himself to a rehabilitation center, identifying himself as being addicted to heroin. When the receptionist argues that the facility needs reservations, Holmes offers her a large bag of money to cover the duration of his stay.

Marple enjoys driving Carson’s truck, which she purchased at a police auction. She heads through Texas to the Ferry family home, where she delivers Lucy’s ashes to her parents. When they thank her, Marple is glad that Lucy is home.

Over dinner, Marple listens to the Ferrys talk about Lucy. Lucy’s room contains a large collection of Agatha Christie stories. In one of Lucy’s books, Marple writes, “To the late, beautiful Lucy, from a fellow fan—Whoever I am” (362).