Dark Rites

  Quietly, slowly...

  The moon made its way in through the window, and it was beautiful.

  * * *

  “Vickie!”

  The phone rang bright and early—or at least it felt bright and early when Vickie groped for her cell on the bedside table.

  Griffin, however, was up and gone; a note lay on his pillow.

  “Vickie! Are you there?”

  The caller was Roxanne. Her voice was exuberant.

  Annoyingly so, since Vickie was barely awake.

  “Yes, yes, I’m here. Roxanne. Hey. How are you?”

  “I’m great—I mean, really great. Vickie, I know I make a lot of mistakes, and you’re always warning me, and yes, I need to be careful. But—and thank you, because this is all you!—I’m in love!”

  “What?”

  “I’m in love!”

  “That’s truly wonderful. Who are you in love with?”

  “The cop, Vickie! The incredible artist cop. Jim Tracy. James Bradford Tracy. He’s so wonderful, Vickie. And shy, even. First, he asked me out for coffee so we could compare our sketches. Then he asked me to dinner. Then he asked me to come with him on this trip,” Roxanne said.

  “That’s—um, great.”

  “We’re in Fall River. In an hour, we’re heading over to the gas station to get the brothers to describe the man they saw with the missing woman. Vickie, he is so cute. I mean, Jim Tracy is so cute. Not the creepy brothers. Honestly, I haven’t even met them yet, but everyone says that they’re creepy. And I am so crazy about him. Jim, I mean, obviously! He likes art. He loves art.”

  “Roxanne, I’m... I guess I’m happy for you both. But should I be worried about you? You told me you were a chicken.”

  “I was a chicken. Well, I’m still a chicken. But coming out here with Jim...it isn’t doing anything dangerous. Hey, he knows how to use a gun and he’s taken all kinds of martial arts classes. I don’t think I could be in safer company. Besides, we’re not after anyone. We’re just here to listen to a description and try to do up a likeness. I thought it was so amazing of Jim to ask me. I mean, he had permission. Your guy, your Griffin, thinks he’s really good. So, we were sent out from Boston. I think he’s really good, and he thinks I’m really good. I am in love!”

  “Aren’t you...rushing things?”

  “No...don’t be silly. I haven’t told him that I’m in love with him or anything! But we’re at a bed-and-breakfast.” Roxanne paused to giggle. “You’ll never guess where. Yes, you will.”

  “The Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast,” Vickie said.

  “Yes—I love it. The tour was great. And Jim and I both sat up and drew last night, and we did fun pictures for people.

  “He has a room, and I have a room. We didn’t sleep together. We were both up in the attic. I slept really soundly. No ghosts.”

  “Great.”

  “Oh! I know that you wanted to fix me up with Alex, but under the circumstances, I mean, he might be...uh, I mean, under the circumstances...actually, like I said, in a weird, roundabout way, you did set me up!”

  “Well, then I’m superhappy for you,” Vickie said. “Just don’t forget to send us the likeness you guys come up with as soon as possible, okay?”

  “Of course!” Roxanne said, slightly indignant. “This is a work expedition!”

  Vickie smiled. “Go forth and draw well.”

  “I will, I promise!” Roxanne told her. “I had to call you. I’m so happy.”

  “And I am so glad. And, by the way, Alex isn’t dead.”

  “You found him?”

  “No. I just know that he isn’t dead. Gotta go—and so do you! Talk soon!”

  Vickie hung up before Roxanne could continue speaking. She reached over for the note on Griffin’s pillow.

  At autopsy—Devin waiting downstairs for you.

  Vickie quickly got ready, and headed down to breakfast where she found that Devin, Mrs. McFall and Isaac Sherman were still at the table.

  “Good morning,” she told them all, heading to the sideboard to pour herself coffee from the urn there.

  “Good morning” came back from all three, as if in an echo.

  “I’d offer you something, dear, even though you’re late, if you weren’t going out,” Mrs. McFall told her.

  “Oh, well, thank you,” Vickie said, looking at Devin.

  “Isaac has told me that Carly Sanderson’s dad, Frank, usually has breakfast at a place down the road a bit before heading out for whatever he’s up to during the day. He’s retired, so sometimes he works construction side jobs, and sometimes...he hikes,” Devin said.

  “Oh, well, great. I look forward to meeting him,” Vickie said.

  Devin and Isaac rose. “Okay, then, we’re off. We’ll see you a bit later,” Devin told Mrs. McFall.

  “Have a good day,” Mrs. McFall said.

  Vickie hoped they had a good day.

  One in which they found the living, rather than the dead.

  Mrs. McFall rose and followed them to the door. “I always keep it locked, as you know,” she told them.

  They waved goodbye to her as they headed down the steps to the driveway.

  Griffin and Rocky had apparently taken Griffin’s car, but Devin tossed the keys to Vickie and asked, “Do you mind doing the driving? Isaac, want to sit next to Vickie up front? You know the way.”

  “Sure.”

  And so Vickie drove, following the roads as Isaac directed. They didn’t even go five miles before he pointed to a building ahead on the left. It was Aunt Priscilla’s House of Pancakes.

  She drove into the lot. Isaac walked ahead and Devin caught up with Vickie.

  “Isaac seems to be the real deal—we had him checked out last night. But still...you drive, he’s next to you—and I watch him. Keeps us safe,” Devin said.

  “You’re the trained agent—I follow your advice!” Vickie assured her. She paused, however, outside of the restaurant.

  “What is it?” Devin asked.

  “Dylan and Darlene. They’re here somewhere. I didn’t see them last night, or this morning. They took off once we reached town, and I haven’t seen them since.”

  “Well, maybe they’re on to something,” Devin said. “And...”

  “What?”

  “Well, they have to be all right.” She paused just a second. “I mean, they’re already dead. They’re really the best help we have.”

  “Hey!”

  They both looked over to Isaac at the door to the restaurant. “Are you coming in?” he called to them.

  They hurried after him.

  Isaac saw Frank Sanderson right away and lifted a hand in greeting. He encouraged Vickie and Devin to follow him to the booth where Frank was waiting.

  Isaac had evidently told him that they were coming; the booth had four water glasses and four sets of silver.

  Frank stood as they approached. He appeared to be in his early sixties; he was about five foot eleven and still had the body of a man who kept busy and fit. His hair was salt-and-pepper and thinning and his eyes were a pale blue that seemed to mirror a great deal of sadness—even when he smiled and greeted them.

  “You’re a government agent,” he said to Devin.

  “I am, sir.”

  “There’s something wrong. I’m told that no one can tell an adult that they have to keep up a relationship with their parents, but...it’s not my girl. It’s not Carly. There’s something wrong. I know that... I know that my girl doesn’t hate me.”

  “Did the police even try to talk to her?” Vickie asked him.

  “She sent a postcard—from Boston. When she called, it was from one of those pay-as-you-go things. When I tried the number, there was no answer. And then it was disconnected or what
ever. I think that my Carly is out there somewhere. But I swear, something is wrong and she can’t come back to me. She would—I know that she would if she could.”

  “Just like I know that Brenda wasn’t attacked by any bear,” Isaac said.

  “Tell me about Carly,” Devin said. “When she did disappear—did anything out of the ordinary happen?”

  He shook his head. “I was just seeing her every other weekend—she had an apartment in Worcester. Everything was fine. In fact, she was talking about meeting a guy. Someone smart—someone into studying, like she was. My girl...she loved school. Sounds strange, but I was glad. She was a late bloomer, didn’t date during high school. She never knew, but I paid a neighbor kid to bring her to her prom. Oh, it was all fine. I don’t believe she ever found out. Sounds bad for a father, huh?”

  “Sounds like you love your daughter,” Vickie said.

  “Then she called and said she wouldn’t be home for a while. And when I didn’t hear from her, I went to Worcester. She hadn’t been in her classes. She’d told her landlady she was leaving, and she was gone—lock, stock and barrel. I reported her missing to the police. But they never put much credence in my story. After all, she left on her own accord—told her professors and her landlady she was leaving. Then I heard from her, but it...it was strange. I can’t tell you how strange. It didn’t sound like her. Sounded like she was...distant. Distant and dopey. So, I figured maybe she was on some kind of dope or something like that. That someone out there was holding her—and keeping her doped up.”

  “What about Carly’s mother, sir?” Devin asked.

  He waved a hand in the air. “Linda and me, we just weren’t meant to be. She was seventeen when Carly was born. We were divorced by the time Carly was five. Linda met a surfer—she headed off with him to California. She has three boys now. She sends Carly birthday cards and Christmas cards, but that’s it.”

  “Could she have gone out to see your wife?” Vickie asked.

  “Ex-wife. And no. Carly wrote her once, wanting to come out and meet her brothers. Linda told her it wasn’t a good time. Hurt the kid badly. I tried to make up for it. Carly... Carly was my life. Carly is my life. She’s got to be alive out there somewhere.”

  He seemed like a devoted single father to Vickie. He wasn’t giving up on his daughter.

  He went on to talk about her. Carly was sweet and impressionable. Terribly bright when it came to books, pathetically naive when it had to do with street smarts.

  As Vickie listened, she couldn’t help but notice an older man who was at the counter, paying his check. There was something familiar about him.

  At last, he turned to face her.

  She was startled to see that it was Charlie Oakley.

  What was he doing now, out here by the Quabbin?

  * * *

  “We’re not going to get anything from soft tissue—other than DNA, which might help, at least in identifying her,” the ME said.

  They were at the county morgue.

  Griffin and Rocky were staying for the autopsy.

  Wendell Harper had been in only long enough to ask that the report be emailed to him as soon as possible. He was heading back out to the Quabbin.

  Dive teams were going to go over the area once again, just in case.

  The good thing that morning was that the morgue wasn’t busy, and there was no question that their lady from the lake would be getting first priority.

  There were only two others awaiting autopsy at the moment; one was an eighty-year-old who had suffered from cancer and died in her home, and a ninety-year-old who had simply died in his sleep.

  Death, for the most part, had been gentle in the area the last day or so.

  Except for the poor woman on the gurney before them.

  “Even pinning down a date and time for when she was killed is almost impossible—the damage to the body is so great,” the ME said.

  He was a young man, ironically named Dr. Graves, Dr. Evan Graves. But he was as serious and seemed to be as thorough as a doctor could possibly be.

  The body had been cleaned by Graves’s dernier, or assistant. It lay naked—and heavily, heavily decomposed.

  Graves pointed out every factor that he could. “I’m going on a lot of scientific research,” he said. “Bodies found in the water—especially cold water—in the first week are usually in decent condition. After eight days—according to research done for a paper called Legal Medicine—decay begins to set in. They looked at bodies off the coast of Portugal—those found in the first week were easily identified. After twenty days—DNA was their only method of identification.”

  Griffin held silent, letting him talk. The young doctor was still a newbie; in a few years, he’d get to where he’d tell law enforcement just what they needed to know. He’d come to realize that most of them had been through enough autopsies to have a decent rudimentary grasp of what happened to a body after death.

  Then again, there was always something that could be learned.

  “About ten years ago,” Graves continued, “studies were done on plane crash victims—one off the coast of Sicily and off the coast of Namibia. At three weeks, the body found was partially skeletonized. At thirty-four days, in that kind of water, the second body found was completely skeletonized. I’ve read a great deal about such studies,” he assured them. “So, looking at our body today, considering the cold water, I’d estimate three to four weeks. Decomposition—in the water or on land—begins immediately at the point of death. The water allows for other creatures, but kept insects away. Fish eat each other often enough—and they have no problem nibbling on a decaying human being. Crabs are brutal on a body—crabs are probably responsible for the fact that there’s really no face left.

  “And the water was cold,” Graves told them, “so that creates a different timeline. Had she been down there for months, we’d have had nothing but bone, and maybe a bit of something here and there.”

  “So, you believe, three to four weeks.”

  “I’m going to say, because of the water temperature, possibly almost four weeks.” He sighed. “From what I can thus far fathom from the bones, she was young—twenty to twenty-five years of age.” He hesitated. “We’ll probably strip her down to bone, and get our best answers that way at this point.”

  “Thank you,” Griffin said. “The main question here is, can you tell us how she died?”

  Graves looked up at him. “I most certainly can.” He indicated the neck. “Her throat was slit, gentlemen. Slit hard and far back—if she had received much more of a blow from the knife, the head would have been decapitated. Actually, it’s a miracle that it was still attached when you found the body.”

  * * *

  Vickie didn’t mean to slam Devin in the ribs with the force that she did. She was just so startled to see Charlie Oakley she had reacted without thought.

  Devin yelped, then smiled at Frank Sanderson across the table from her. “Cramp!” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Excuse me!” Vickie said. “A friend just walked in.” She slid out of the booth, catching Devin’s eyes and indicating the man who was about to leave. Devin quickly appraised the situation.

  “Vickie,” Devin said, “ask retired detective Oakley to join us.”

  Vickie nodded and hurried over to catch up with Oakley. She tapped him on the back, startling him.

  He turned around and stared at her. “Vickie!” he said. “Miss Preston.”

  “Charlie. Hi. What are you doing out here?” she asked.

  He lowered his head and eyes, squirming uncomfortably. “I couldn’t stay away,” he told her, looking up at her at last. “It was on the news, Vickie. That a body was found. In the Quabbin. I had to come out here. I have to know what’s going on.”

  “Charlie, Sheena died long ago.”

 
“And I’m still around, right?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Charlie, where are you staying?”

  He hesitated again, she thought.

  “With a friend,” he told her.

  “In Barre?”

  “In Ware,” he told her.

  She nodded, looking at him. The restaurant was on Route 32, almost in between Barre and Ware. Ware itself was something like fourteen miles, about a twenty-or twenty-five-minute drive, due to the winding roads in the area.

  “We’re sitting with a couple of new friends who are also involved with this situation,” Vickie told him. “Won’t you join us? I’ll tell you quickly first—Isaac Sherman’s fiancée disappeared about a year ago. Her body was found in the woods near the Quabbin. A bear attack was blamed. Frank Sanderson’s daughter, Carly, is missing. The police believe that she’s alive. Sanderson thinks that she’s being held somewhere against her will. Because she’s an adult, there isn’t a great deal that the police can do.”

  “I’m happy to come meet them,” Charlie Oakley told her.

  She brought him over to their table.

  Frank Sanderson and Isaac Sherman rose to meet him. Charlie sat with them. He told them about the case in Fall River.

  And about the murder of Sheena Petrie, and how he never believed that it was connected—or that the prostitution ring had been real Satanists in any way, shape or form. It was his sincere belief that someone else had carved the Satanic words into the earth near the place that Sheena Petrie’s body had been found, and that the “cult” had been purposely set up to take the fall, since they were already going up on murder charges and no one was believing a word they said, anyway.

  “They’re out there!” Isaac Sherman announced suddenly. “Can’t you feel it? They’re out there in the woods, and they’re planning for something very, very bad.”

  Vickie glanced over at Devin. Goose bumps had risen on her arms.

  Because she believed it was true.

  They were out there.

  But they were hiding in acre upon acre of forest, and her group had no idea where!