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“No, I’ve never heard of it. But it may help us find Mia. Mackenzie is obsessed with Dionysus.”
“Thomas Mackenzie? The headmaster? There’s no way he’s involved with this. He’s the only one who
seemed to care when Olivia went missing. I know he’s a bit of a grouch, but he’s a good egg. He would follow up with me all the time and give me updates. That security guy is the one you should look at if he’s still there. I went to one of Olivia’s shows once, and he was standing in back, taking an inordinate interest in the young ladies, if you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean. Thank you so much for your time, Sarah. Do you still have those letters?”
“Now that you mention it, I don’t. I think the police took them for the investigation and never returned them.”
When you’re a private investigator, you get a sixth sense for moral rot like something gone bad in your refrigerator. I can smell it. I just don’t yet know the source.
I recognize one of them as the sheriff of Warren County. That’s interesting. I take a few surreptitious photos. I’ll have to dig into that more later.
This Thomas Mackenzie is all charm and mirth.
We make eye contact, and his eyes squint into slits. A sigh escapes from his mouth. He turns to his guests, raises a finger in the air to ask for a moment, and charges in my direction. He stops inches from me.
“Are you aware that an unusually high number of girls have gone missing from Saint Agnes?”
I shift my gaze from Mackenzie to the other patrons. As I take in the scene, my eyes catch sight of Goolsbee. He’s standing alone at the portable bar next to the stage.
“Oh, she’s the best. So are you here to adopt someone?”
“Um, no. I’m just here to support the home.”
“Why? Do you want to be adopted?”
“Yeah. I mean, I think so. Saint Agnes is nice and all, and I have lots of friends, but I’d like to have my own family and my own house and a big dog like a Saint Bernard or something. And—”
“And ...
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“I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t know why I try. There’s so many othe...
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She points to the other side of the room, and I see what she means. Entering through the doors are ...
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To my horror, they’re all wearing red dresses just like mine. I look like one of the orphan g...
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I’m Andrew DuPont.”
“How about you?” I say. “What brings you here tonight?”
“My great-grandfather supported the establishment of Saint Agnes back in the early nineteen hundreds, and my dad’s a big donor.”
“So you know Thomas Mackenzie?”
“Oh yes. He’s an old family friend. I’ve known him since I was a kid.”
“What do you think of him?”
“I think he’s a saint. He’s given his life to that place, and I can’t tell you how many girls have gone into the home in tatters and come out as incredible women. Have you looked at that alumni list out there? Doctors, judges, elected officials, business leaders. It’s like a who’s who of New York.”
And the girls in dresses didn’t raise a flag?
“The fact that all these powerful families have been supporting Saint Agnes for years and girls have gone missing from Saint Agnes for years.”
“Promise me you’ll be careful. The person who’s taking these girls might be right in front of you, and you wouldn’t even notice.”
ritual sacrifice.
The theater hosted sacrifices every year as part of the spring festival of the god Dionysus. Not a festival I’d like to attend.
the more I’m certain that someone lured Mia into something sinister.
In my business, I’ve found that symbols matter. What people choose for their car, their passwords, their screen names, their brand provide a window into who they truly are.
There’s a group called the Dionysus Theatre Company in Connecticut.
But I’m quickly disappointed as I look at the Facebook page of the group, which is littered with pictures of middle-aged folks performing A Doll’s House or Hamlet. It’s just a nice little theater troupe in Enfield, Connecticut. I highly doubt that they’re abducting little girls.
“Dionysus Theater? Been? Heard of it? Know anyone there?” The post is from a month ago and has only one reply: an address.
That’s Manhattan.
He annoys me. Friendzone dude
The man with the scar stays behind on the subway, but the feeling that I’ve seen him before hangs with me.
“You don’t think I want to find out what happened to Mia? You don’t think I want to find out what happened to the other girls? Who do you think put up those gates? Who do you think put in the state-of-the-art security system that they assured me would keep this from happening again? Why do you think I was
lobbying the sheriff at the gala? But no matter what I do, they keep disappearing.”
“I know who Dionysus is. I just don’t know what the Dionysus Theater is. Not that it matters, but that’s not even my painting. Mr. Goolsbee gave it to me as a twentieth anniversary present of the two of us working together. I’d say you should talk to him about it, but he called out sick today.”
He was going to tell me something. He wanted to tell me something.
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, ma—Ms. Hazel, but Mr. Goolsbee is no longer with us.”
“Did you say he’s no longer with us? Like he left town?”
“No, ma’am. He’s dead.”
“You know, Hazel, you’re always underestimating me. Someday I’ll show you.”
Drifting among these men are girls, none older than sixteen, dressed in lingerie, faces caked in makeup, every one of them flirting like prostitutes at an Old West brothel.
“So what do you think of the place, Hazel? I designed it myself.”
