Dark Rites by Heather Graham
“Oh, not fair!” Vickie said.
“Well, then, if this makes it any better,” Harper told her, “the water is very cold—very, very cold. These guys have some major dry suits. You can use the van for your changing room, those who are coming.”
“I guess I’ll just be up here,” Vickie said. She looked at Harper hopefully. “Unless...this isn’t like Florida or a cruise, or anything? Some dive, some snorkel...”
“Why not?” Harper said. “You’re going to need dive suits. Like I said, it’s cold—cold as a witch’s teat. Hey, it is Massachusetts, huh?”
“You just happen to be prepared for us to dive?” Griffin asked.
“Nope. Talked to Barnes for a while yesterday. You’d mentioned to him on the last case you were working together that you and a number of your associates had your dive certificates.” He grinned. Proud of himself.
Kyle Perry—the diver who had found the phone—was the one to take their group in hand, handing out equipment. He introduced them to Belinda Carvel, his partner. They both appeared to be in their midthirties, helpful and determined, and not at all averse to having fellow divers search the water.
“It’s hard as hell searching the reservoir. There’s ninety-plus years of tremendous natural growth down there now. But you’ll see.”
Vickie fervently wished that she knew how to dive. She was grateful, however, for the suit she was given.
Especially after they got into the water.
It might be summer, but that did little to combat the initial shock of the water. Even in the suit, she could feel the brutal cold.
They’d received a bit more information on the area of the water they were searching as they headed out in the police boat.
While diving wasn’t allowed, fishing was. The thing that mattered most was that the Quabbin supplied drinking water for well over two million people. That meant that it was important that it not be contaminated. Fishing was allowed from the shore, and a limited number of fishing boats were allowed out on the water, but they had to have an intact Quabbin boat seal and it had to pass inspection at the boat launch area. For those who loved nature, it was a fantasyland.
The bird-watching was fantastic, and if they were lucky, sometime while they were in the area, they would see moose, foxes, deer, porcupine, weasels, coyotes, black bear—and maybe even a wildcat. Even as he talked, Harper, who wasn’t a diver and wasn’t going in—What me? I’m an old land-loving cop. I don’t go freezing my ass off with the youngsters—pointed out a loon, and then a bald eagle.
The deepest part of the Quabbin was about one hundred and fifty feet—the median about fifty. There were shallower areas—the water was about forty feet deep where they would be that day.
Not that deep, Vickie thought. She wasn’t a diver, but she was a really good swimmer.
Kyle had chosen their dive location. Using a GPS system, he had them right over the spot where Alex Maple’s phone had been found. Before he went over—followed by Griffin, Rocky and Devin—he told them that they’d already been over the area, and that they were now searching a bit south of where the phone had actually been found.
Belinda had stayed behind to follow Vickie into the water; apparently, they seemed to feel that she was most likely to need help.
That was okay.
She might be!
But once she had adjusted to the temperature, she was fine, though she wasn’t sure at all if there was anything any of them could find, or if their time was being spent in any useful way.
Time and nature had taken their toll; the water was filled with various plants, some growing nearly to the surface.
She could see far below her, but not well, and so caught a big breath and dived down low. She noticed, just vaguely—and perhaps because she did have some distance—where a road had once been, leading to what appeared to be the remnants of a foundation.
She surfaced for air, and went back down, shooting for the depth.
She saw Griffin, Rocky and Devin ahead; they were basically walking along the bottom, led along by Kyle...searching.
She turned and kicked and went the other way. There seemed to be a long string of some kind of algae ahead of her. She surfaced for air, and went back down on the other side of the algae.
And that was went she saw it; or saw something.
Something that seemed to catch just a ray of the sun...and glint.
Vickie desperately wished that she knew how to dive. She surfaced for a huge gulp of air and went back down.
The others had just been in this area, she thought.
They had moved through it; they had touched the old bricks that might have once been part of a stone wall around an old farmstead.
Some seemed to have fallen. And beneath one...
Something was glinting. She made it down to the bottom... She touched it. Tugged and pulled at it. And then...it and something else came free.
Stunned, she sucked in water. Her lungs burned; she was going to die.
She shot for the surface, and came up, ripping away her mask and snorkel, treading water furiously as she coughed and sputtered.
Belinda came up right by her.
“Hey! We’ll get you on the boat—”
“No! Down. Get the others. Down there—just below.” She had to stop to cough again. “Please get down there. Please! Now.”
“Because—”
“There’s a rotting body down there. They dislodged the bricks when they went by. Now you can see...there’s a body!”
* * *
“I believe that we’d have eventually found her,” Wendell Harper said, his voice a monotone. “Maybe not. Whoever—whoever put her down there did a good job. What you saw...what glinted first,” he told Vickie, “was a very old and heavy anvil—probably lost by a blacksmith way back when. Nothing that can be traced to anyone today, certainly. The boat was over an area that had been a farm.” He paused and cleared his throat. “She was beginning to disarticulate, so body pieces might have floated up.”
They were still out by the water. Many officials had come and gone.
Most notably, of course, the medical examiner.
It had been a very long day.
The remnants of the body had been brought up. The search area had been expanded, and the immediate area searched more thoroughly.
Nothing else had been found, and the body was now with the medical examiner.
One thing that Vickie couldn’t shake was the fact that—although little had been left of the flesh on the face—the skull had still been topped with a headful of long, blond hair.
Was she the woman that Vickie had been seeing?
Was she Helena Matthews?
There had been no apparition in the water; no one to take her hand and lead her to the remains.
“The skull seems to be intact. Hopefully, we’ll find something from her DNA or dental records.” Harper cleared his throat again. “There’s no possibility of fingerprints at this point.”
Of course not. There were too many creatures who lived in the water. And water itself...
“The ME reckoned that she’d been down there about two weeks,” Griffin said. “Have you heard of any disappearances in the area in the last two weeks? Have you seen or heard anything?” Vickie noted that Griffin sounded frustrated.
“The Quabbin area is just short of 120,000 acres,” Harper said. “Water, forests—and there’s even more land surrounding the area that is privately held. We will get the state police out in force now. But...here’s the thing. You had a man attacking people in Boston. The Quabbin supplies water for Boston—but this isn’t Boston. You were out at Fall River. Miss Preston was attacked with blood from a woman who actually disappeared in Fall River. Professor Alex Maple disappeared from Boston. This is all over the place—there??
“Sir, we just found a body,” Griffin pointed out.
“Yes, and we’re looking. And now you agents are here,” Harper murmured. He sighed, drumming his fingers on the table. “We’re looking,” he said, sounding helpless—and defensive.
“This Quabbin area is so huge, so much could go on with no one knowing,” she said. “And, of course, it’s possible that someone is in a nice normal house somewhere, creating a mantra of hate, causing all these things to happen, and just living in plain sight. The thing is, people are missing. And people are...dead.”
“You think this woman might be Helena Matthews?” Harper asked them.
“She has the blond hair, but at this moment, it’s impossible for us to know. Obviously,” Griffin said.
“Well, I’m letting my people go,” Harper told them. “I’m calling it a night myself. I’ll get a fresh dive team out in the morning. We’ll see what else...who else might be down there.”
They bid him good-night and headed back to their car.
They all, naturally, wanted to shower.
They were quiet on the way in, all wondering if they had found Helena Matthews.
“There was no suggestion that...Alex is down there,” Griffin noted softly.
“And no suggestion that he isn’t,” Vickie said.
“Do you think that he’s dead? Or do you think that maybe, just maybe, he’s working with some kind of ESP? That he is calling out to you? You don’t see Alex in your dreams—you see...a blonde woman,” Devin pointed out.
“Maybe,” Vickie said, trying to sound hopeful.
When they reached their bed-and-breakfast, Mrs. McFall was on the porch with her other guests: a young couple from Georgia, an older man from Arizona and a fortysomething executive on break from his stressful job in New York City.
Mrs. McFall had teatime for her guests each evening, offering them tea, of course, coffee, sodas, beer or wine and little appetizers.
Mrs. McFall jumped up, and the group on the porch fell silent and waited for Vickie, Griffin, Rocky and Devin when they saw them approaching.
“They’ve heard something,” Griffin murmured.
“It’s all over the news!” Mrs. McFall called to them. “The body in the Quabbin. Of course, that’s all that they’re saying. They don’t seem to know much. There was an interview with a police liaison, but that’s all that anyone said. Oh—and that it was a woman!”
“That’s all we know, too,” Griffin said, coming up the steps.
“You look cold and tired, and your hair is damp,” Mrs. McFall noted. She gasped. “You were in there. You were in the Quabbin. Oh! They let you in the Quabbin. It wasn’t my Nell, was it? The young lady I told you about? The one who disappeared—and no one would believe had really disappeared?”
“Mrs. McFall,” Griffin said gently. “We have no idea. No one knows anything yet. I’m sure there will be more information out tomorrow.”
“Tea!” Vickie said, walking ahead of him. “I would love tea!”
In the next few minutes, Rocky and Devin escaped to shower. Vickie and Griffin stayed long enough to field the same questions, and to have tea and some miniscones.
Vickie was starving, she realized.
Sandwiches had been brought out to the Quabbin in the afternoon, but she hadn’t been able to eat any of them.
At that time, she still couldn’t get the ravaged face she had seen out of her mind.
She tried to change the subject, asking the young couple about Georgia, the younger man about Arizona and the executive about his life in New York City.
Then she and Griffin managed to get away, as well.
They showered quickly; they were both anxious to find a place for dinner. Mrs. McFall recommended a family-run place on West Street.
“It’s an inn and restaurant!” she told them cheerfully. “The food is very good, but don’t you all go deserting me for the inn!”
“We never would,” Griffin promised her solemnly.
The restaurant was charming and friendly. They all started with lobster bisque, which was creamy, rich and delicious.
They had just finished with the meal—and were still quietly discussing the day themselves—when Griffin said, “Hey. That’s our executive from the B and B over there at the end of the counter. He’s watching us.”
“So he is,” Rocky agreed. “I noticed that he was still on the porch, in one of the rockers, when Mrs. McFall was telling us about the local restaurants.”
“You think that he’s following us?” Vickie asked. She smiled; she was at the edge of the booth and she quickly slid out and stood, determined to walk over and find out.
She opted not to ask permission from the agents; if she was ever going to really be of value among them, she needed to become proactive.
She tried to remember his name; Mrs. McFall had introduced all her guests. This man’s name was something unusual...
Isaac. Isaac Sherman.
“Mr. Sherman!” she said. “Nice to see you here. Frankly, it’s interesting to see, as well, that you’re watching us. Did you follow us here? Did you want to speak with us?”
He was, very much so, the authoritative NYC type. He might have been on vacation, but he was still wearing a button-down shirt and a blazer. He was tall and lean, with brown hair just beginning to recede.
He looked at her with surprise. She thought he was going to ask her to take him to someone with authority—someone who mattered.
He didn’t. He smiled at her.
“Yes. I followed you here. I...wanted to talk to you and your friends. I mean, it’s not like you came in secret. You spent the day with the police. You’re FBI, right?”
“Well, they’re federal agents,” Vickie said. “Come over. Talk to us.”
“I’d rather talk when we’re out of here,” he said softly.
“Back at Mrs. McFall’s?”
“Over at the common,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” Vickie said.
She walked back to the table and took her seat again. The other three were staring at her.
“Isaac wants to talk to us,” she said.
“He does?” Griffin asked. They all watched as Isaac Sherman walked past their table and out of the restaurant.
“Over at the common. I think he wants us to be subtle,” Vickie said.
Devin laughed softly. “All right. I wonder what Isaac knows?”
Griffin paid the bill and they all wandered out. They began a casual stroll back to the bed-and-breakfast.
Except that they strolled into the common instead of around it.
“There,” Vickie murmured to the others.
Isaac Sherman was standing by a nineteenth-century horse trough and hay scales. The town common here had been laid out around 1795 and had, Vickie knew, through the years, seen militia practice, speeches, games, bands and more.
Thankfully, that night, all was quiet.
“Mr. Sherman!” Griffin said, heading over to him. He didn’t perform any introductions; Mrs. McFall had done that earlier.
“You are FBI, right?” he asked them.
“Agents in a specialized unit, yes,” Griffin told him. “If we’re meeting in secret, I believe we can still be seen from any number of structures around the common.”
Isaac Sherman ran a finger beneath his collar and shook his head. “It’s not that we’re meeting in secret. None of what I’m about to say is secret. I just don’t think that the cop knows that I’m in town right now, and I’d just as soon avoid him.”
“The cop?” Rocky asked. “You mean Harper?”
“Yeah. Harper. He’s not a bad guy—he just has no patience for me right now.??
He paused for a minute. “Brenda and I fought, yes. We were both passionate. Anyway, to do the best that I can with a long story, there was never anything done about her death. But I know Brenda. I knew Brenda, I should say. She didn’t just disappear. She didn’t just wander off. And I don’t care what they could or couldn’t find on her body or around her body—she was murdered. And now...now, they’ve found a body in the Quabbin. Agents, this has been going on for a while! That’s two dead women that I know about now. And, of course, you spoke with Mrs. McFall! That other guest of hers disappeared, too. And on that one, I don’t think there was much of an inquiry at all.”
“Mr. Sherman, I’m so sorry!” Vickie said, touching his arm.
“I think that, when she was found, I would have been suspected of the murder, if it hadn’t been for Mrs. McFall. She told the police how we’d stayed up, waiting and hoping that Brenda would come back. And, thankfully, this is a good town. Other people reported that I’d asked about her endlessly and a lot of the cops—local and state—helped me, but...in the end, Brenda was dead.”