Fall River was similar to many a New England town, a little bit sleepy now, riddled with church steeples and Victorian architecture, charming, of course, and, in areas, like most cities, a little worn out by history and poverty. Vickie knew that in the days when the Plymouth Colony had found birth upon the New World shore, the area had been inhabited by the Pokanoket Wampanoag tribe of Native Americans, with their actual center across from what was now Bristol County, Massachusetts, in the Mount Hope area of Bristol, Rhode Island. The name Fall River came from the tribal language—Quequechan—meaning, of course, “falling river.”
Textile manufacturing was long gone. Tourism definitely helped. Beside the Lizzie Borden house, the Fall River Historical Society and Oak Grove Cemetery, there was Battleship Cove, a museum that offered the largest collection of naval vessels in the country. There was also an art center, marine museum and numerous other attractions. It helped, too, that Fall River wasn’t terribly far from the fantastic mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, and for those who followed the H. P. Lovecraft trail, it was a close hop, skip and jump, as well.
Their foursome met with the detectives first. The men had already befriended one another on their quest to find Helena Matthews. Cole Magruder had suggested a restaurant on Pleasant Street that excelled in Portuguese food, a large part of the Fall River population being of Portuguese descent.
Everyone shook hands all way around, before finding chairs at a circular table in the far back corner of the restaurant. It was still early and the restaurant wasn’t officially opened, but Magruder’s wife was the owner’s niece, and so it was open for them.
“From what we discussed on the phone,” Magruder—a solid man in his late thirties, Vickie thought—said, “you believe that Helena Matthews is dead. Is it at all possible that she’s still alive and being held somewhere?”
Griffin chose his words carefully. “We’d like to believe that she is alive. But according to our best medical and forensic people, the amount of blood that was thrown on Vickie indicates that Miss Matthews had to have lost a tremendous amount. So much so—”
“That she couldn’t possibly be alive,” Detective Robert Merton finished. He was older than Magruder, grizzled, wrinkled and weary looking, as if he’d seen the bad in humanity far too long. He glanced over at Merton. “We’ve been afraid that she’s dead since she went missing,” he added. “She wasn’t the type to just disappear. She was a financial analyst for a large computer company in Bristol, Rhode Island. Beloved by her coworkers. She was originally from the Boston area, I believe, but she lost her parents when she was in grade school and grew up with an aunt, now deceased, as well.”
“Did you know her?” Vickie asked him.
He shook his head. “I just feel that I knew her, I guess. I spent so much time finding out about her, trying to trace her footsteps. She had a boyfriend, but he wasn’t all that much help because they’d only been seeing each other a few months when she disappeared.”
“And you looked into him first, I imagine,” Rocky said.
Merton nodded. “He had an ironclad alibi for the entire time from the evening she left work to the morning when she didn’t show up.”
“What was that?” Griffin asked.
“He’s military. He was offshore on a training mission. His officers—and a hundred other US Navy men—were ready to swear to his whereabouts.”
“Definitely sounds ironclad to me,” Devin said.
“She must have been very nice, the way you speak about her,” Vickie noted.
“So we think. I tried everything from my end,” Merton said, “and I started working with Detective Magruder here when we traced her last credit card charge to a gas station right over the state border on the edge of Fall River.”
“I spoke with all the friends she was to have met,” Magruder said. “She wasn’t a saint, but she leaned toward the angelic. She didn’t just give to a number of causes, she worked them. Volunteered a day each weekend at her animal shelter.”
“Coordinated fundraisers with her church, working to alleviate disasters anywhere in the world,” Merton told them.
“So what do we know for sure about the day she disappeared? She was on her way here to dinner. She was seen leaving work, and she made it this far, we know, because she bought gas. But her credit cards haven’t been used since. And there’s been no sign of her whatsoever?” Griffin asked.
“You have the files,” Merton told them, shaking his head. “You know what we know. We tried all the hospitals. The morgues. Every hotel and bed-and-breakfast, inn and hostel anywhere in the region. We’ve had our volunteer search teams through the woods. She just disappeared. We haven’t found her car—it’s probably in a lake somewhere.” He leaned toward Griffin. “Obviously, though, she’s somewhere.”
“She didn’t have any reason to want to leave her current life?” Griffin asked. “That you could discover, of course. It sounds as if she liked her job and her church and her life.”
The two detectives looked at one another and shook their heads.
“I’ve been at this nearly forty years—I’m about to retire,” Merton said. “Unless every single instinct I have is on the total blink, she was a happy and well-adjusted young woman. I realize that you have a connection—through her blood being thrown at Miss Preston—that there’s a cult angle you’re following. But I think I could swear that Helena Matthews was as far from being a cultist as one could get. She was a member of a very open, welcoming and laid-back Congregational church. She was into giving and working. She was also fun, so her friends assured me. She was excited about her new navy guy. No trouble in her past—a sterling record in school. Valued and recognized at her workplace. I just don’t see it. She didn’t run off—she was taken.”
They talked awhile longer. The gas station attendants had told the police that they might or might not have really seen Helena Matthews; she had apparently used her card in one of the station’s pumps. She might have been a pretty blonde who was chatting with an older man as she gassed up her car, but they couldn’t be sure; it had been a busy day.
Both Merton and Magruder came across as extremely sincere and hardworking cops. It was good to meet with them.
While they talked, they also indulged in a great deal of delicious Portuguese food.
At last, they had discovered all that they could from the detectives.
“I hoped we’ve helped some. As I’m sure you surmised, we’re both going to assist you in any way that we can,” Magruder said.
“Thing is, of course, we caught a missing-person case,” Merton said.
“And we’ve been hoping and praying that she was found alive—somehow,” Magruder said.
“It’s not impossible,” Rocky told them. “Just not...not likely, unfortunately,” he finished.
“I know you guys are good cops—and it’s evident you care about this case, too. But I’d like to try that gas station and speak with the attendants. We might just get something,” Griffin said.
“I’d send these lady agents, if I were you,” Magruder suggested.
Griffin didn’t tell him that Vickie wasn’t an agent. He just asked, “Why’s that?”
“Because you’re looking at a pair of macho misfits, my friend. Chauvinists—but the kind who will respond to attractive women with far more enthusiasm than they will to a man,” Merton said. “And hey! Trust me, please—my wife has made sure I don’t have a chauvinistic bone in my body,” he added dryly. “Thing is, I use whatever resources I’ve got when I’m looking for answers. And if that means exploiting other people’s prejudices, I go with it.”
“Not a problem,” Devin Lyle said, smiling with only slightly suppressed amusement. “Vickie and I have no problem meeting Massachusetts rednecks at the gas station. We were all supposed to meet the retired detective where, Griffin? Maybe we can drop you off.”
“Going to his home actually,” Griffin said.
“Who you meeting up with?” Merton asked, easing back in his chair.
“A guy named Charlie Oakley,” Griffin told him.
Merton smiled. “I know Charlie. Good cop. Well, he had been. He left the force soon after he caught the Sheena Petrie case. I guess he couldn’t shake the fact that he was willing to pursue her murder—and everyone else wanted to believe that the cult kids were responsible for her death, as well. I’ll take you by his place.”