Dark Rites

  They turned back and waited.

  “It was some kind of a gray jacket. Like a snooty gray jacket. Yeah, and he had a scarf, too—it was a snooty scarf. You could just tell.”

  Vickie and Devin glanced at one another. They both shouted out their thanks; it was sincere.

  Bryan gave them a smile—which had most of a mouthful of teeth. “Glad to help!”

  * * *

  Griffin was glad to see that Vickie and Devin seemed to have done well on their trek out to speak with the guys at the gas station.

  When they arrived at Charlie Oakley’s place, he insisted they come in for coffee, too.

  Coffee seemed to be the retired detective’s icebreaker. And both Vickie and Devin were very sweet and polite with the man. They obliged.

  Griffin was glad. He was getting the sense that Charlie Oakley felt his memories and opinions were undervalued. Vickie and Devin—by not being determined to hurry off—seemed to validate the man, and he appeared to be happy and gratified. Griffin knew that a little extra time and attention now just might help them in the future.

  It was also the right and decent way to treat the man.

  So, as they all settled in, he asked, “How did it go?”

  They summarized their conversation with Bryan, how he’d seen a man talking with Helena at the pumps, and how, just when they were leaving, he remembered what the man had been wearing.

  Detective Merton grunted. “See? At least they remembered that she talked to a man when they spoke with you,” he said.

  “Yes, and we only spoke with Bryan. Seems they run a busy place. They have to be careful. People are mostly all thieves, you know? They have to watch all the time. It was very busy the day that Helena was there. But one of them would have taken the honor of flirting with her—if she hadn’t been talking to a man already,” Vickie said.

  “Way more than they gave us!” Merton said.

  “You know, of course,” Rocky pointed out, “that this man could have been anyone, and he could have simply been saying, ‘Hello, nice weather we’re having.’”

  “Yes, that’s true. But now we know that he was ‘medium’ in age and size, dignified and a ‘snooty’ dresser. At least his scarf was snooty. But hey, sometimes those boys call it as they see it,” Merton said.

  “It’s something,” Griffin said. He stood, and the others rose, as well. They began the all-around goodbye handshakes, and then headed out.

  “Of course, if you think of anything...” Griffin said as they were leaving.

  “You’ll get a call, absolutely,” Charlie Oakley told them.

  “You know that Magruder and I are also available in any capacity you need, at any time,” Merton told Griffin. “By the way, where are you staying?”

  “The Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Merton asked, grinning. “Are you planning on a séance or something this evening?”

  “No. I’ve stayed before, and love the place and the manager,” Devin said. “Our director and his wife have stayed several times, too. No séances.”

  “I think they’re usually trying to contact Lizzie—maybe get a confession out of her,” Rocky said. “Or maybe Andrew or Abby Borden. We’re looking for other answers.”

  “I’ve never stayed,” Vickie said. “It will be interesting.”

  “Hey, it’s a nice bed for the night. Sure, some people are into gruesome history, but the house is also just beautifully kept,” Charlie Oakley told them.

  “We’re planning on meeting up with Syd Smith, who has been a guide there and worked at the history museum, too. He’s popping in to join us tomorrow. You just never know,” Griffin said.

  “Nope, you never know just who may say what and when that may help,” Charlie Oakley agreed. “I know Syd. He was the one who had to call it in when he found Sheena’s body. Anyway, it may be late in the game, but I know that Sheena Petrie was the victim of a killer who was never caught. Even if it’s been a lot of years, well, I’d love to see someone pay. That poor woman. At the very least, and no matter how late, she deserves justice.”

  Griffin nodded, meeting the older man’s eyes.

  “I agree, sir,” he assured him. “It’s never too late for justice.”

  7

  “The home is a Greek Revival house, erected in 1845,” Devin said to Vickie. “Lee Ann, the manager here, has done an incredible job of restoring the house to the appearance it had during the time of the murders.”

  They had just parked at the Lizzie Borden house; Griffin and Rocky were waiting in the small parking lot with the car while she and Devin checked in at the small building in back—a reproduction of the barn that had once stood at the same spot.

  “So, have you ever encountered Lizzie here?” Vickie asked. She realized that it would be a crazy question for most people, but in their case, she wasn’t teasing in the least.

  But Devin shook her head. “No. And I don’t believe I ever will. First, as we know, not everyone dead remains on earth as a spirit. Lizzie hated this house—she desperately wanted to live somewhere more in fitting with what she considered her position in life to be. I sincerely doubt she’d come back here. Of course, Abby and Andrew Borden died horribly, which might well mean that they would hang about. But no, when we’ve come, we’ve usually done so on a trip from Virginia to Salem, just as a nice stopover. I simply love Lee Ann, and I love the house.”

  “How on earth did you become so involved with this house?” Vickie asked, both amused and intrigued. She knew the story of the murders, of course. No child grew up in the state of Massachusetts without hearing the rhyme about Lizzie Borden taking up her ax. And she knew that the house where the crimes had occurred was a popular destination as a bed-and-breakfast and as a museum, as well.

  She was just somewhat surprised that Devin—who had Auntie Mina, her own resident ghost—would be so drawn to a “haunted” house.

  Devin laughed softly. “Actually, we have other friends from Salem who are agents now—Jenna Duffy and Sam Hall. Jenna was the one who brought me here first. She was with the Krewe before Sam, who was an attorney. Anyway, she and Sam both believe that studying the past helps us with the present. And, of course, unsolved cases usually captivate us the most. Think about it—everyone is fascinated by Jack the Ripper. Yet how many people have heard of Herman Mudgett, for instance? Mudgett killed dozens of people during the Chicago Exposition, but he was caught. The mysteries that remain are what compel us. Many wouldn’t be mysteries these days, with the forensic science we’ve accrued. But we can’t help but wonder what the truth is.”

  “Do you think the theories we’ve heard today could be the truth? That someone killed Sheena Petrie years ago—and that same someone has Helena Matthews now?” Vickie asked.

  “Certainly possible,” Devin said.

  Lee Ann was in the office in the reproduction “barn” building in the back along with one of her clerks. She greeted Devin with a hug, and was pleased to meet Vickie. She joined them outside so that she could welcome Rocky back and meet Griffin, as well, apologizing that she didn’t have the entire house for them, but Angela had called from Virginia to book rooms for them pretty much last minute.

  “But my other guests are upstairs in the attic and in the Abby and Andrew Borden rooms,” Lee Ann told them. “You have the girls’ area to yourselves, front of the house.” She smiled at Vickie and Griffin and explained. “The house is still in two sections, just as it was when the Borden family lived here. The front stairs lead to what we call the John V. Morse room—the guest room where Abby was murdered—and the Emma and Lizzie Borden rooms. The other rooms are accessed by the back stairs, which we’ll go through now,” she told them.

  The house was both beautifully—and eerily—back to the way it had been when the murders of Abby and Andrew Borden had taken
place in 1892. A period couch exactly like that on which Andrew Borden had lain sat exactly where the original had when Andrew Borden had died.

  In the dining room, replicas of the couple’s skulls were in a handsome cabinet.

  The place was also squeaky clean, Vickie thought. It was truly beautifully restored—besides being an intriguing destination for crime buffs and “ghost hunters.”

  Vickie and Griffin took the John V. Morse room and Devin and Rocky headed through the next doorway at the top of the stairs, the one that led to the connecting rooms that had once been Lizzie’s and Emma’s rooms. Emma had once had the larger, but Lizzie had wanted it for herself, Vickie learned. Emma was older; she was always taking care of Lizzie.

  The John V. Morse room offered a crime scene photo of Abby Borden lying dead on the floor at the side of the bed.

  “Nice,” Griffin noted.

  Vickie grinned. “Interesting,” she said.

  They had barely brought their bags in before Griffin’s phone rang. He spoke briefly, and then hit the End button on his phone.

  “Syd Smith, our next interview,” he told her.

  “And?”

  “He’s ready to meet us. Since tours are over and the other guests are out at dinner, we’re going to talk down in the dining room.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  Five minutes later they were gathered around the table in the dining room.

  Mr. Smith was the epitome of an elder scholar; he was wearing a casual gray suit and had a full head of silver hair, blue eyes and a strong face, creased by time and—probably, Vickie thought—by his ability to smile quickly.

  However, as they sat, and he talked, the story he told them was sad, and he still seemed touched by the death he described, even if it had occurred years and years before.

  “I met Sheena Petrie when she came here,” he said. “She’d managed to get away from her husband. He was an alcoholic, and when she first arrived, looking for work, she was using a lot of makeup to cover the bruises on her face. She’d already filed for divorce. She’d really just picked up and left.”

  “Did you know her husband?” Griffin asked. “We spoke with Charlie Oakley today, and he said that the guy was in the drunk tank the night Sheena was killed.”

  “Yep. Sure. I met him. He was in town. First, he came looking for her. Then, when her body was found, he was questioned. But the night she was killed, he did have that airtight alibi,” Syd said. “He had been arrested for public indecency—he was falling over drunk and peeing into the back of a truck instead of the facilities at a gas station.”

  “But she had been seeing someone else?”

  Syd hesitated. “I met Sheena when I was eating at Mac’s Place on Main,” he said. “The restaurant is long gone now—though I hear Mac is doing just fine out in Arizona or somewhere. He had hired Sheena on as one of his chefs. She was a wonderful cook—she knew just what spices and herbs were needed to elevate whatever she was making. I think her background was Irish, but she could do up some mean Italian dishes. Anyway, I complimented her lasagna one night. She came out of the kitchen to talk with me. She was interested in the history and lore of Fall River. Oh, and she was a huge fan of Lovecraft, and she—unlike many, many people,” he said apologetically, “loved to hear me talk. We were really good friends.”

  “Good friends as in lovers?” Devin asked.

  “My dear, I can honestly tell you now—which, of course, I wouldn’t have done thirty years ago—that our being lovers was just not in the cards. I’m a gay man who had a wonderful partner for twenty-five years. I just lost him a few years back.”

  “It sounds like you were a good friend for Sheena to have,” Vickie said.

  He grinned. “We became close. I was working for a couple of different historical societies and museums back then. Total nerd, I suppose I would have been called.” He turned to Vickie. “I understand you write history books,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “You and I must talk! I mean...on other matters.”

  “So, she was seeing someone before she died, right?” Griffin asked.

  Syd looked at him, nodding.

  “But you don’t know who?” Griffin persisted.

  Syd sighed deeply. “That I didn’t persist in meeting him is something that I’ve never forgiven myself for! She was so hesitant. She told me he was a gentleman. He was kind and soft-spoken. She was careful, of course, because, although she had signed the papers, her husband had come to town, trying to get her back. She had a restraining order out on him, but still... I think she was trying to keep that ugliness away from her new life. So she had promised that she and her ‘new man’ would go to dinner very soon with Hank and I—Hank Vidal, my longtime partner. She knew all about me, of course, and accepted everything long before it was politically correct to do so. But we never did get to dinner.” He hesitated. “I found her when I was out with Ipswich—a little Jack Russell I had at the time. She’d been left on the riverbank. She was naked, and her throat had been slit. And on the embankment, right beside the place where her soaked body had been dragged up, were those words.” He paused, shaking his head. “Words that were used by Ezekiel Martin—a crazy ex-Puritan from way back who made up his own pretty damned evil kind of religion. And words with a previous history right here, in Fall River.”

  “I’ve read a great deal about Ezekiel Martin,” Vickie said. “He was basically rebuffed by Puritan society. They refused to allow him to become a minister. So, he started his own congregation, moved people westward and then twisted a totally rigid and repressive ethic into something else entirely. And, it sounds to me, as if the woman he became so obsessed with wanted nothing to do with him. He managed to kill her, as if she was some kind of sacrifice to the devil. The good thing, as I see it, is that Charles II was back on the throne of England and his men did come in and give Ezekiel his comeuppance.”

  “Yes, Ezekiel’s reign of terror indeed came to an end. But here, years later—in 1804, to be exact—his words were used for murder once again. The place wasn’t even called Fall River at the time—it had been named Troy. And the records on what happened were horribly sketchy because there was still a lot of wilderness around here and...well, I believe that it was one of those cases that horrified everyone, and they wanted to deny what they saw. Anyway, people began to hear strange noises coming from the woods. Like always, so it seems, the poor and the riffraff of society began to disappear. And then a body popped up on the riverbank. There were no arrests. Nothing was ever written down in official records. There were no newspaper reports of what happened. The locals wanted to pretend that it had never happened. Some undesirable parties had merely stopped by their woods, and surely had moved on. Bury the girl—that was what they had to do. The only way any of it is remembered is because of oral history—and what we’ve gleaned from a few personal diaries of the day. Massachusetts didn’t want to admit to anything more that smacked of witchcraft, the persecution of witchcraft or—God forbid—of Satanism.”

  “Well,” Griffin murmured, “at least we know that no one involved in 1804 is active in any way now.”

  “You’re talking about the attacks in Boston?” Syd asked.

  “Yes,” Griffin said.

  Syd nodded thoughtfully. “Been watching the news today. They’ve been doing a good job, showing pictures of women who are being sought by the police. A brunette, a redhead and a blonde.” He hesitated, and then reached into a satchel he’d brought. He produced an old book—a very old book, Vickie noted, certainly a collector’s item.

  He glanced at her, as if reading her mind. “It’s a diary from 1820. Quite fine, bound in soft leather. I saved nearly a year to buy it!”

  “Very nice,” Vickie said.

  “But here’s what I want you to see.”

  Syd flipped open a pa
ge. Amid the faded writing, there was a sketch. It was of a blonde woman lying on the earth, posed almost as Botticelli’s Venus, the way her long hair covered her nakedness.

  But she was obviously dead.

  A line across her neck indicated her throat had been slit.

  It was a disturbing sketch, done with an effort at taste.

  “Hmm,” Devin murmured.

  What was most disturbing were the similarities the woman in the sketch had to the picture of Helena Matthews that had gone out through media outlets that morning.

  “Well, there is certainly a resemblance there,” Griffin said flatly.

  Vickie was quiet. Both pictures bore a strong likeness to the blonde woman she had seen watching her when she had gone to meet Alex at the coffee shop.

  Had that woman been dead? Was she Helena Matthews? Or, like this woman in the sketch, did she just bear a tremendous resemblance to her—and to Sheena Petrie, who had been found dead here, also on the banks of a river?

  “Yep,” Syd said. “I’ve been watching the news. I couldn’t help but note that this woman and Helena definitely share features. The heart-shaped face, the cheekbones, the long blond hair. Well, I guess lots of people have long blond hair, but seeing the picture of Helena on the news today and having this, and, of course, having known Sheena...”

  “Sheena, I take it, had a heart-shaped face and long blond hair, as well?” Vickie asked.

  “Her face was more of an oval, but...” He broke off and shrugged. “I remember the Ted Bundy case. The girls didn’t look as if they were Xerox copies of one another, but they were a definite type—long dark hair, young...and usually sweet and kind, since he used the lure of needing help to kidnap them to murder them at his leisure.”

  They were all still for a moment.

  “Well, there is no way that a killer from 1804 was around again in the 1970s,” Griffin said flatly. “But our killer now—assuming that Helena is dead,” he said softly, “could be the same man who attacked and killed Sheena in the 1970s.”