vanished. When she'd returned home yesterday, she'd had a call from her neighbor and friend Alberta Riley, who had asked her if she'd heard about the awful massacre in the drugstore.
When Mary had learned about the killings and told Alberta the latest, and they compared notes, it finally hit her. She was sure that she was not going to find Sam alive. It had shaken her to her core.
Royce had been a big help to her. He'd tried his best to be some comfort, but there wasn't much he could say or do. She knew now that Sam had met a bad end. It was still there, an awful thing in the pit of her stomach that felt like acid eating its way through, as she tried to make some logical sense out of it all.
Both she and Royce were certain that whatever fate Sam had met had been shared by these others, the Poindexters and Rusty Ellis. Now, this morning, they felt as if they had added another name—Luther Lloyd. Royce had insisted they drive out to the Lloyd place at six, to confront the man whom he could never reach on the telephone.
Luther Lloyd, of course, was not home. Mrs. Lloyd confessed that he, too, had vanished. “The police told me not to say anything,” she told them.
Mary wanted to call the FBI again, but Royce had asked her—convincingly—if she thought there was any point to it. After the reaction she'd received the day before, she admitted there probably was not. Clearly the law enforcement agencies, for whatever reason, were not letting the spouses of the missing persons know any details of the ongoing investigation. Assuming there was an investigation.
“Somebody comin',” Royce said. It was a couple of pickups with some of the early work crew. They continued to wait, watching the heavy-equipment operators begin their day, until nearly seven-thirty, when two vans and a truck pulled in together. Some of the men getting out were in business suits, and Royce started the engine and drove over to where they were.
Mary and Royce got out and talked to the group, introducing themselves, and being introduced in turn to Joseph Fisher. Suave, soft-spoken, a lawyerly type in his late fifties, Fisher seemed solicitous and genuinely concerned about Mary's situation.
“When we couldn't find your company listed, and we couldn't reestablish contact with Mr. Sinclair, we became worried, Mr. Fisher,” Royce told him.
“I understand that. It's all rather easily explained. I only wish that this frightening business of Mr. Perkins and others being missing could be explained. I'm extremely concerned about all of this. As far as CCC goes, it's actually just a name on paper for the holding company, World Ecosphere, Inc., which holds stock in and supervises the various companies such as Community Communications. We're located in Washington, D.C., and have been for twenty-one years.'
“But why wouldn't Sam have known all this, as the real estate agent responsible for setting up this deal here?” Royce waved his arm in the direction of the great circular hole in the ground.
“Oh, I can assure you he did, Mr.... uh....?'
“Hawthorne.'
“Mr. Hawthorne. He was given all the background on our company.” Fisher motioned to an aide. “Let me have a brochure, Mel.” The man smiled pleasantly and removed a thick booklet from his briefcase. “This tells all about World Ecosphere, Inc., Mr. Hawthorne, and Mrs. Perkins.” He handed the lavishly printed brochure to Royce. “And you can get some idea of the scope of our project here.'
“We couldn't find Mr. Sinclair listed in the phone directory, either, and his number had been disconnected.'
“Again—it was just a timing thing. He was working out of that office temporarily. He lives in New York. He goes where the job is. Mr. Perkins would have had all those facts and so on, you see. And I suspect that some of his personal effects must have been lost, because he had a clear and comprehensive understanding of the way our company was set up and how this Ecoworld project would be brought to fruition.'
“Where is Mr. Sinclair?'
“In the Orient,” Fisher said, easily. He glanced at the expensive-looking watch on his wrist. “Sound asleep, as we speak, I should think. I think there's a real problem here, but we're not part of it.'
“What do you mean?” Mary asked.
“Folks, I think we have to face facts: an awful lot of missing persons in a small community, and within a short time, are very suspicious.”
“How—'
“Why—” Royce nodded and said, “Go ahead.'
“How do you know that?'
“The murders at your town pharmacy yesterday seem to confirm it. But there are some things you may not know. And I'm in a rather ticklish situation here. I want to help you folks, but I've been asked by the chief of police not to divulge certain information our investigator obtained from another law enforcement agency.
“There is evidence of more than one murder. Near Waterton. And I think we all understand and sympathize with Chief Kerns wanting to keep the lid on what could be a panic-inducing situation, but on the other hand, you folks have a right to the information, it seems to me, because of Mr. Perkins.'
He told them a lot more. Voluble, helpful, straightforward, and surprisingly forthcoming, Royce thought. After having obtained Mary's and Royce's word they'd not repeat the information, he shared the corporate investigator's report.
It was typically company-oriented and task-oriented, aimed not so much at determining what happened to the missing persons, but whether or not their absence was going to have an ill effect on the Ecoworld project. The summary was as Fisher had stated: It appeared that a serial murderer was killing and/or abducting random persons from the Waterton/Maysburg area. While the report did not have the data on Rusty Ellis, or the conclusions on the fire at Butchie's, it did contain the “Smith-Truett-Kelly-Doe” murders from Maysburg's police department, which indeed seemed to confirm the existence of a brutal serial murderer on the loose.
For the first time, Royce was not so certain about the land deal having been the focal point that linked the missing persons, Sam in particular. Inarguably, there was a serial killer who was taking lives at random.
“What did you think?” Mary had asked him as soon as they were in the vehicle and homeward bound, Royce behind the wheel, his mind going a mile a minute. He was trying to sort out two parallel worlds, make that three, at once.
“You mean Fisher?'
“Mm.'
“Seems like a decent guy. Nice guy.” His voice saying something else altogether.
“Something's going on here, right?” Mary was no rocket scientist, but she'd always been proud of her ability to size things up. After all, this was the woman who'd loaned a former junkie lover five thousand dollars. What do the banks call it—unsecured? She trusted her BS detector—always had.
“Yeah.'
“Well?'
“I don't know.'
“Come on, Royce. Talk to me.'
“I don't know, babe. What can I say? It looks bad. It's going to get a lot worse. And it probably is a helluva lot worse than that, but nobody's telling us. There. That pretty well do it?” She just looked at him. “Sorry,” he sighed, letting out air. “I—'
“But ... do you think...” she really didn't want to articulate it “Sam is...'
“Yeah.'
“The idea of a serial killer in Waterton—it's ridiculous. Unthinkable. But why wouldn't we have found Sam if that was it?” The concept of a serial murder case in a town of less than seven hundred people, a town so rinky-dink, it grows 50 percent larger when the migrant workers come through, was absurd!
“Let's just talk about the things we know, Mary. We've got enough to try to sort out without running through hypothetical situations. Sam is missing. He's not dead. We're not sure. Let's remember that.” Funny. Him telling her this. As if she didn't know.
