“God help us, though, wouldn’t he have been caught by now?” Syd asked. “I mean, I’ve read a lot, and you see all the TV shows with the forensics and all... Murderers like that either keep killing, or get locked up, or die.”
“He may not be a serial killer—as we know serial killers,” Griffin said.
“What does that mean?” Vickie asked, frowning.
“He may have a different motive that keeps his desire to kill in check. Or he may have kept killing through the years—and gotten away with it,” Rocky explained.
There was an unhappy silence around the table.
“I hope I’ve helped,” Syd said.
“Tremendously,” Griffin said. “Thank you. We’d love to believe that Helena Matthews is still alive—and it’s possible that she is alive. But she remains missing, and her blood was in the hands of a young woman in a coma now. We keep hoping that she’ll come to, that she’ll give us some answers. As of now...well, we’re lucky she’s hanging on. We’re determined to find out what is going on. One of Vickie’s friends is missing, as well.”
“Here’s the thing,” Syd said. “When the cult was active here, people kind of knew that there was something. I mean, it’s not like this was a crime-free place, ever. We had the mills and some rough characters. You still have gangs, and you have alcohol and drugs. But the police were aware of the prostitution ring in the late 1970s, heading into 1980. I swear, I think that someone must know something. Cult members flock together, right? That’s what makes them cult members. We don’t seem to have anything like that going on now.”
“They haven’t found anything in Boston, either,” Vickie said.
“Helena Matthews’s trail ends here—at a gas station owned by a couple of small-minded brothers,” Devin said. “Her blood was in Boston. But it doesn’t mean that she is here or in Boston, not anymore, and she might not have been in Boston herself, ever.”
“Just her blood!” Vickie said.
“Yes, just her blood,” Griffin murmured.
* * *
Alex Maple jumped and swallowed hard.
Just as he did every time someone came to the door to the little windowless cell where they were keeping him.
It didn’t help that the door had a god-awful screech to it every time it opened. As if it was screaming, crying out in agony.
It was a door.
An inanimate object.
This time, the figure that arrived in a red cloak and ridiculous cylindrical hat and mask was carrying a pile of books. Not books—tomes. They appeared to be ancient—very, very old leather-bound books. The kind Alex usually loved and appreciated.
They were placed reverently on the end of his cot.
“We’re missing something,” the figure said.
“Missing what?”
“A key word, a key phrase. Part of the rite, the ceremony. There’s much I know, much I learned. Ezekiel knew, and I believe he did it. Satan did touch the earth. But Ezekiel wasn’t strong enough. He let his belief slip when there was a threat about. Still, he knew the words. They are there. They are in the words of those who followed him. You will find them.”
Alex started to laugh. It was just so ridiculous.
The figure leaned back. “Really. You find this humorous?”
“I just...”
Alex fell silent.
“Bright boy, yes. You’ve figured out that if you don’t read every word in these books and decipher what it is that I need, I’ll just kill you. You figured out that it’s incredibly important that I find you necessary. Bright boy, bright, bright, boy. Except I do know, of course, that you think it’s all impossible. That means that you’d really better work your ass off, right, bright boy?”
Alex looked at him and nodded fervently.
“And, by the way, I need to know exactly how and where to find Jehovah. The location is in those books somewhere, too.”
He went out.
Closing the door behind him.
It shrieked and groaned in agony.
As if it echoed the terror in Alex’s heart.
* * *
Devin and Rocky had taken the tour many times, so they sat it out, just waiting until the nighttime tour had passed through their rooms, then closing the door and calling it quits for the night.
Griffin and Vickie took the tour.
Vickie was surprised that her mind could focus on the things that had happened during the late nineteenth century—and those that had not. She saw Griffin shake his head slightly now and then—horrified by the restraints put on police officers of the time.
It had been a hot summer. Abby Borden was Lizzie’s stepmother, not her birth mother. Andrew was actually very well off, but frugal with his money. There were theories that Andrew might have been a pedophile, abusing his young daughters—but their guide didn’t believe that. He thought that Lizzie had just been so repressed that she had snapped and lost it—killed her stepmother, and then, in another burst of fury, killed her father, as well. But there were enough doubts that could be planted in the heads of the jury. The girls’ uncle, John V. Morse, had stayed in the house the night before—in fact, it was where Abby had received the death blows, right where Griffin and Vickie were sleeping. He’d had a miraculous memory of his whereabouts when it came to an alibi, down to the numbers on the streetcar, names and precise times. Perhaps his memory had been too good.
And perhaps the biggest blow—other than the lack of forensic evidence—was the fact that other ax murders—unsolved—had taken place not far away.
Vickie thought that law enforcement and the people of Fall River at the time must have wanted to believe that someone else, other than a respectable young woman, had committed the murders.
Just as, it seemed, law enforcement and the people of Fall River had wanted to believe that, despite the differences in the modus operandi, Sheena Petrie had been killed by the occultists in town at the time, the same people who had chopped others to ribbons.
Smoke screens, she thought.
As they traveled the house, the guide pointed out the various period clothing on the several headless mannequins about the house. Some of the clothing was vintage. The dress on the mannequin in the John V. Morse room had been worn by the actress Elizabeth Montgomery in a dramatization of the murders.
Vickie found the clothing intriguing.
She found the headless mannequins eerie.
Eventually, the tour ended. A neighbor “medium” carried out a séance. Griffin wanted to observe; Vickie agreed, and sat with him across the room. They both watched and waited, glancing at each other now and then with a secret smile. Despite the medium’s assertions, there were no ghosts about.
Out in the music room or front parlor, Vickie smiled as she noticed the music on the piano.
“You Can’t Chop Your Poppa Up in Massachusetts” was actually a piece of sheet music.
Eventually, they went to bed for the night. As Griffin closed the door to their room, Vickie asked him, “Do you think we’ve gotten anywhere? It seems to me that the more we know, the farther away we get. Could the man who killed Sheena Petrie thirty-plus years ago somehow be responsible for the disappearance—and more than possible death—of Helena Matthews? And why take Alex Maple?”
“They’re all pieces, Vickie. They’re like pieces in a giant jigsaw, and they will start to come together,” he told her. “Once we recognize the pattern.”
“Griffin, there’s something about the women all looking alike. Do you remember me telling you that a blonde woman was watching me the night we went to the café to meet Alex? Griffin, I think she was there looking for Alex, too. Or maybe she was looking for me because she knew that Alex had been taken. I think that she was dead. I think that she was one of these beautiful women with long blond hair, and that she is trying to reach us, trying
to help.”
“It’s more than possible. Let’s hope that she does find you,” Griffin said. He stroked her hair. “Whatever is going on, Vickie, I honestly believe that Alex was taken because of his knowledge of history—and I’m concerned that you’re in danger because of yours. You need to be with one of us at all times until this case is solved.”
“I wasn’t physically attacked, Griffin. Our Jane Doe threw blood on me. She hasn’t come to yet, has she?”
“No. Barnes said that they’re hopeful. And, Vickie, they threw human blood on you—that may have been someone’s sick idea of a warning.”
“Yes, I know. I’ll be careful. I’ll be with you, Devin or Rocky at all times, promise.” She shivered slightly. “Definitely.”
“Great,” Griffin murmured, pulling her closer. “So, here we are. Trying to catch a murderer—lying in a room where a tremendously brutal murder took place. And there could be a ghost—one we don’t already know—trying to find you.”
Vickie laughed softly. “Quit it! Or I’m going to have to get up, turn on every light I can find in the house and gather up the headless mannequins and start a bonfire.”
“I think that would be considered really rude behavior by a guest!” Griffin teased.
Vickie lay in his arms, smiling, eyes open, wondering if she could sleep in that house. She lay just feet from where Abby Borden had been viciously murdered, where she had lain facedown in her own blood.
But it had been a long day that had come after other long days, and she found that she quickly drifted off.
If she’d been going to dream, she should have dreamed about one of the poor blonde women—victims of the cultist killers.
She did not.
She dreamed of the mannequins.
The mannequin in the Elizabeth Montgomery gown was standing before her. She was beckoning to her, with her arms, of course, since she had no head.
She was trying to get Vickie to rise, to follow her.
Vickie couldn’t seem to help herself; she slipped out of bed. It was warm, but she reached for her light silk robe and followed the mannequin.
Out in the upstairs hall, other mannequins were waiting. They beckoned her downstairs. She walked through the girls’ entry to the parlor where Andrew had been killed—and where he had lain through the night following his death, since the autopsies had taken place in the house.
Andrew lay there in her dream; Abby, she knew, was on the table in the dining room.
Andrew suddenly sat up. His head was a ruined mess, and he was missing one eye. “Misdirection.” He shook his head sadly. “Misdirection. It works every time.”
She turned away from him. From where she stood, she could see through to the dining room. Abby was on the table, but she wasn’t moving.
Syd was sitting in a chair, just as he had been earlier. “The pictures are so alike,” he said. “Ted Bundy had a type.”
She felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned slowly, afraid that the headless mannequin was trying to summon her to move on.
It wasn’t a mannequin. It was no one.
And suddenly, she wasn’t in the bed-and-breakfast at all anymore. She was standing in the forest. She could hear the rush of water.
And someone calling her name.
“Vickie, Vickie, please, please, please...”
She was following the path through the trees, dread filling her because she knew where it would take her.
She came to the clearing. She could still hear the whisper in her ear.
“Vickie, Vickie, Vickie, please.”
Then the scream. The scream that seemed to rip through the air and the trees and even the water that rushed by, bloodred.
And there was the inverted cross, and the woman hanging upside down, her throat slit.
She’d never really recognized the woman as the blonde who had looked for her in the coffee shop because she hadn’t been able to see...
That her hair had been blond. It was so drenched in blood that the color was impossible to ascertain.
And still...
She couldn’t tell if the woman was Helena Matthews, or one of the poor victims who had died so many years ago.
Vickie didn’t want to walk toward the cross; she knew that she had to. If she was ever going to see what she needed to see, she had to keep going.
She could feel the blood; it was all over her.
She walked closer and she saw the dirt of the clearing between her and the cross, with the water to their side. There was something etched in the dirt; it was difficult to read.
Then the blood began to fill the letters, and she could read them easily.
Hell’s afire and Satan rules, the witches, they were real. The time has come, the rites to read, the flesh, ’twas born to heal. Yes, Satan is coming!
The blood filled the letters, and then they began to burn.
Light. Brightness.
Vickie woke with a start.
She blinked hard. Yes, light. Faint light peeked through the drapes.
At her side, Griffin stirred; he was always aware when she woke, so it seemed. But then, he slept in a way that seemed to allow him to waken at the slightest noise, even the least change in the light.
The mannequin...
The mannequin was right where it had been when they had gone to sleep.
Griffin rose, looking at her, a frown instantly furrowing his brow.
“She’s in the woods, somewhere, Griffin. Helena Matthews is. Or she was killed in the woods, or she’s going to be killed in the woods. I’m not sure if Helena is dead or not. But I know that I’m seeing one of the victims. I keep hearing her, or seeing her, or...oh, God, Griffin! Is there really a possibility that Helena Matthews is still alive?”
Griffin quickly sat up and took her into his arms, smoothing back her hair.
“You had the nightmare again?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“Tell me about it.”
“The mannequins led me around the house,” she said, waiting for him to crack a smile, to laugh at her.
He didn’t.
“And then?”
She described the dream—the house, the woods, the cross and the blood.
“What else?” Griffin prompted again when she paused, still in the grip of the memory.
“This time, I saw a patch of earth. And it was dug out with letters, and I couldn’t see them until the blood filled them...”
“Let me guess. ‘Hell’s afire and Satan rules...’”
“Amazing,” Vickie said lightly. “You guessed it just right.”
He was silent for a minute.
“And then?” he pressed.
“I woke up,” she said, and added softly, “And you made me feel sane.”
He cupped her head and pulled her against him. “You are sane. The dreams are telling us something. We need to find those woods. There are an awful lot of woods in Massachusetts. I’m not sure what it means, but I think it’s all connected. And if we find the connection, we’ll be closer to the truth and Alex—and Helena Matthews, alive or dead,” he said softly. “We’ll go pick up Charlie Oakley. We’ll get him to take us to the place by the river where they found the words in the late 1970s, or actually 1980, I think it was. Maybe there’s still something out there to be found.”
He touched her cheeks gently. “We share the bath with the Lizzie and Emma rooms—I’m thinking we ought to hop in the shower before Rocky and Devin. Then we can all head down to the breakfast room for some johnnycakes. I’ll call Barnes, find out if there were any results from the images of Audrey Benson and Helena Matthews and our red-haired Jane Doe in the media.”
“It’s a plan,” Vickie said gravely. “Except...”
“Except?”
> “Maybe I’ll just have coffee.”
“The breakfasts here are known to be pretty good.”
“I’m sure they are. I just dream very vividly—quite graphically, you know.”
“And?”
“Autopsy. Dining room table!” she said.
He grinned.
“Coffee, it is. And not to worry. We’ll certainly find a Dunkin’ Donuts close enough!”
Vickie smiled and hopped out of bed and dug through her little overnight bag for her clothing and toiletries.
She rose and headed into the bathroom just ahead of Griffin.
He followed. She smiled and quickly turned on the shower, stepping in ahead of him.
When she looked down, she saw that dirt was spilling down the drain.
This time, it was real.
And this time, it didn’t seem to go away.
It had come from her feet. And it was real.
8
Devin and Rocky enjoyed the breakfast at the Lizzie Borden house along with the other overnight visitors who sat together in the dining room. Vickie just had a cup of coffee; she was seated in the corner of the room.
She’d spent a good twenty minutes on the phone with her parents. They had just gotten used to the fact that Vickie intended to move to Virginia with Griffin, and they were understandably upset that Vickie was again involved in everything going on.
She’d given Griffin a thumbs-up sign, however. She’d managed to say something to keep her parents in Europe.
Now, she was listening and engaging in the conversations that raged around the friendly crowd gathered in the dining room.
“Lizzie did do it!” a girl said.
“Don’t be silly, it was a conspiracy. Her uncle was in on it,” her boyfriend noted, nodding as if he’d completely solved the mystery.
Griffin grinned at Vickie and indicated that he was stepping outside.
“The phones have been ringing crazy off the hook here,” Detective David Barnes told Griffin over the phone. “I can’t tell you how many people called in with Audrey Benson sightings. I’d say at least a hundred of the coffee shop patrons have called in. They all saw her, naturally. The problem is that not a single call has led to anything. Not one caller knows where she lives or where she is now.”