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.” Isaac Sherman hesitated another minute, and then let out a long sigh. “I came out here with my fiancée, Brenda Noonan, about a year ago. Brenda actually grew up in the city of Auburn, but her family was from out this way and she loved to come here, loved the whole Mohawk Trail, and just old New England. We had an argument—a public argument. She disappeared right after it. I was staying right where we are now—with Mrs. McFall. Thank God for Mrs. McFall! I was upset, and she stayed up with me through the night while we waited for Brenda to come back. But she didn’t come back. I filled out a police form. I stayed here—for weeks. Then I was on the verge of being fired, so I had to go back to work. The police promised to keep looking for Brenda. They did. Eventually, they found her. She wasn’t in Barre, but around north by the Quabbin. They didn’t know it was her at first—what they found was mostly bones. They were never able to determine a cause of death. She might have gotten lost, she might have cut herself and bled out—they didn’t have anything definitive. Her official cause of death was something like ‘accidental, nature unknown,’ but there had been a few bear attacks reported by hikers in the area, and because all they really had was bones.”
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.”
“And you come back here frequently?” Griffin asked him.
“I’m not returning to the site of the crime, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” Sherman said. “We’re almost at the anniversary of her death, so I felt I needed to be here.”
“Where is Brenda buried now?” Devin asked.
Sherman looked over at her. “She’s in the Quabbin Park Cemetery. Her family hailed from Enfield, and her great-great-grandparents were moved there when the Quabbin was constructed and the local remains were moved. You need to be a descendant to buy a plot. I saw that Brenda was able to join her parents there. Why?”
Griffin didn’t hesitate. “We may have to disinter her, Mr. Sherman.”
He nodded.
“Does she have other family?”
“Dozens of second or third cousins, but...no one who will protest,” he said, wincing. “There’s no one out there who wouldn’t want the truth.” He kicked the ground in a sudden bitter movement. “I’m just glad they never found the damned bear they were blaming—I just don’t believe it. No bear killed Brenda. You believe me? You know that I’m right?”
“Mr. Sherman,” Griffin told him. “We don’t know anything—as yet. But we will look into it.”
Sherman nodded. “I know who you are—I knew who you were before Mrs. McFall introduced us. And I know that you’re looking for people who have disappeared. I hope you don’t find more of them like you did today, in the Quabbin. Or like Brenda.”
“We hope not, too,” Vickie said. “Mr. Sherman—”
“Hey,” he said, interrupting her. “We’re all at the B and B. I’m Mr. Sherman on Wall Street. I sure wish you’d just call me Isaac.”
“Isaac,” Vickie said. “Have you heard about any occult activity? If you’ve heard about the fact that the FBI is looking for missing people in conjunction with the attacks in Boston, you know what was written on the people who were attacked.”
“That crap about Satan?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Brenda was from out here,” he said.
“Yes?” Vickie murmured.
“I’m from New York. A Satan cult in the Big Apple would most probably be an entrepreneur trying to come up with a new motif for a nightclub. I haven’t heard anything. I mean...”
His voice trailed suddenly.
“What?” Griffin asked.
“Carly. Carly Sanderson. Her dad, Frank, filled out a missing-person report on her. I know, because it was when I first came back after they found Brenda’s body. I spoke to him.”
“I’ve seen the report,” Griffin said. “Carly Sanderson, twenty-three, a college student. She was going to school in Worcester, right? She was at Clark?”
“Her mother lives in Oregon. She remarried and has a whole host of kids. But Carly was her father’s only child. And he’s here. Thing is, the cops aren’t considering it as a missing person anymore. Frank Sanderson got a call from her. She told him that she was happy, she didn’t want to go back to school and she just wanted to be left alone.”
“Is Frank still here, in Barre?” Griffin asked.
“I believe so. He’s a retired guy. He was in construction but now he hangs around and helps out Mrs. McFall sometimes,” Isaac said.