Dark Rites (Krewe of Hunters #22)

“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.”