“I'm sorry, the name isn't familiar to me. No such meeting took place.” If spiders apologized to flies before eating them, they could have managed more sincerity than this woman.
“Would you mind checking?”
“As I've told you, Mr. Parker, that meeting never took place.”
“No, you told me that you weren't familiar with the name and then you told me that the meeting never happened. If you didn't recognize the name, how could you remember whether or not any meeting took place?”
There was a pause on the end of the line, and I thought the receiver began to grow distinctly chilly in my hand. After a time, Ms. Torrance spoke again. “I see from Mr. Paragon's diary that a meeting was due to be held with a Grace Peltier, but she never arrived.”
“Did she cancel the appointment?”
“No, she simply didn't turn up.”
“Can I speak to Mr. Paragon, Ms. Torrance?”
“No, Mr. Parker, you cannot.”
“Can I make an appointment to speak to Mr. Paragon?”
“I'm sorry. Mr. Paragon is a very busy man, but I'll tell him you called.” She hung up before I could give her a number, so I figured that I probably wasn't going to be hearing from Carter Paragon in the near future, or even the distant future. It seemed that I might have to pay a personal call on the Fellowship, although I guessed from Ms. Torrance's tone that a visit from me would be about as welcome as a whorehouse in Disneyland.
Something had been nagging at me since reading the police report on the contents of the car, so I picked up the phone and called Curtis Peltier.
“Mr. Peltier,” I asked, “do you recall if either Marcy Becker or Ali Wynn smoked.”
He paused before answering. “Y'know, I think they both did at that, but there's something else you should know. Grace's thesis wasn't just a general one: she had a specific interest in one religious group. They were called the Aroostook Baptists. You ever hear of them?”
“I don't think so.”
“The community disappeared in nineteen sixty-four. A lot of folks just assumed they'd given up and gone somewhere else, somewhere warmer and more hospitable.”
“I'm sorry, Mr. Peltier, I don't see the point.”
“These people, they were also known as the Eagle Lake Baptists.”
I recalled the news reports from the north of the state, the photographs in the newspapers of figures moving behind crime scene tape, the howling of the animals.
“The bodies found in the north,” I said quietly.
“I'd have told you when you were here, but I only just saw the TV reports,” he said. “I think it's them. I think they've found the Aroostook Baptists.”