The Evil Inside

12

Sam awoke with a strange sense of comfort, especially considering the fact that he was the kind to wake with every detail of his current case lined up in his mind.

Then, of course, he realized he was draped in silky female flesh, and the thought was enough to achieve instant arousal. But he kept himself still, not wanting to wake her. He watched the sunset color of her hair splay over her shoulder and curl down her back; he felt the fall of her leg over his own and saw that her eyes remained closed, her breathing deep and even. He was tempted to pull her closer, as he had in the night when she’d suddenly wakened and felt like ice.

It was nothing of course; she’d smiled and assured him that she woke easily, especially in old houses where things creaked and moaned and always seemed to go bump in the night.

He’d told her that he knew how to make her forget bumps and creaks in the night, though he wasn’t sure at all about moans, which, of course, had made her moan and laugh. But she’d been glad to accept his kiss and roll into his arms and forget whatever had plagued her in the wonder of new love or sexual fascination or whatever she had found in him.

He heard the second hand on the beside clock ticking, and he remained still, and for the life of him, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d remained with a woman overnight, or brought her home and thought about breakfast in the morning. His last partner had been in South Beach, a bikini-clad blonde he’d met in one of the hotel clubs that brought the dancing out to the sand on Miami Beach. No thoughts of the future on either side. She was a bonds attorney from Ohio on vacation. And when she had propositioned him, she had assured him, “Half the women and all of the men are here just looking to get laid. Hey, it’s like breathing, you know.”

Like breathing…

In a way, yes, it was like breathing. But he felt something of awe that Jenna was there now, that the morning light was trickling in, catching the red of her hair and making it seem that a warm and surreal glow emanated from her and encompassed her. And he wondered what it would be like to wake every morning feeling like that, knowing the life and breath and vibrant beauty of such a woman beside him. So, high-powered, cutthroat Boston attorney meets Federal ghost buster/civil-servant, willing to put her life on the line for others, and working hard with a team of ghost busters/civil-servants who seem to have formed a working bond that extended into the kind of friendship that would bring them all to one another’s aid, and still have enough left over for those others they ran into along the way.

His mom and dad would have loved that the girl they had known had become the woman now beside him.

Maybe that was something he shouldn’t mention. He wouldn’t want her thinking he’d brought her home again so that the ghosts of his family might approve!

He winced; he still wasn’t sure about ghosts. He knew that Jenna and the Krewe of Hunters seemed to have something-an ability to see beyond what was obvious. But he still wondered what tricks the mind could play, and if there wasn’t something in the psyche that triggered a memory, or if they had all somehow tapped into that vast percentage of the brain that scientists knew humankind had yet to figure out how to utilize.

She stirred against him. Her eyes opened, as green as an endless field, and when she smiled at him, he forgot all thought. He didn’t whisper a word; he kissed her, and he made love to her, and she made love in turn.

Like breathing.

In this case, he thought, if you didn’t breathe, you died.

Jenna saw John Alden’s car as they drove up and parked on the sidewalk outside Lexington House. She looked again at the way the house stood, just up on its little rise, and she thought of the dream that had plagued her in the night.

It was one of the fall days in New England that warned of the approaching winter. The sky was gray and overcast, and even on the rise before the Lexington House, they could feel the chill breeze that ripped the coastline of Massachusetts.

She thought of how she often shook her head at the Puritans who had come to Massachusetts, seeking religious freedom but refusing to grant it to others. She thought of the people who had allowed the witchcraft scare to take root, and then she reminded herself that it had been a different time-in Europe, thousands upon thousands had been hanged or burned at the stake for doctrinal differences between versions of one religion.

She found herself thinking of those Pilgrims who had come and died in the first harsh winter, and that perhaps they’d needed to be stubborn and rigid stock to have ever made their home in the wilds of the new colony, where the wind was as rugged as granite rocks and as brutal as the winter’s ice.

Lexington House stood there as it had for centuries, weathered and worn and holding the secrets not so much of humanity and the past, but of the madness that could enter any man’s mind when he was brought to it-or when the feral instinct of the animal that remained in man brought about those emotions that were far from fine: fear, greed, envy, hatred and anger.

Sam looked at her, frowning. “You’re sure you want to go in again? I can just show the place to Jackson and Angela.”

“I have to go in again,” she told him.

She smiled. She loved the way he looked at her. The first day, his eyes had been filled with so much mockery. Now they showed concern.

“I want to go in again,” she amended.

The door opened as if it were a great, greedy maw, ready to suck them in. John Alden walked out onto the porch.

“Hey, you coming in, or what?” he called out to them.

They crossed the street to the lawn and walked up the steps. Sam made the introductions, and John Alden peered at Angela and Jackson suspiciously.

But Angela turned on the charm, pumping John’s hand and telling him how grateful they were to be allowed to assist Sam, and whatever John might have felt about any intrusion, he apparently decided to let go.

“Glad you made it before we brought the cleaning crew in.” He winced apologetically. “Even here, even in fall, we’ve got to get ’em in when there’s this much blood, or the pests come on into the house, and the rats multiply and head on out to the whole neighborhood. We’ve got to move on a real cleanup. We’ve had the crime lab out. Prosecution has seen the place and defense has seen the place. Anyway, come on in, I can give you about a half an hour. Watch where you step, and what you touch.” He looked at Sam.

They stepped into the house, entering the foyer together. Jenna found herself drawn back to the parlor and held back when Jackson and Angela started upstairs with John. Sam stood in the hallway, watching her.

She looked around the room and then closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, it seemed that an opaque quality had fallen over everything, as if she floated in a soaring motion back, and looked on from a distance. She was there, and she wasn’t there. She was watching from a strange distance that couldn’t be tallied by space but by time.

A woman moved about the room. Her hair was brown and graying and tucked back in a severe knot at her nape. She dusted and straightened up. She was doing so when a young man came to the door. He leaned against the door frame, looking in. His face was lean and well shaped; his eyes were dark and should have been appealing, but they had a hollow and bitter look to them.

The woman didn’t look up. “Soup in the kitchen, though you’re not deserving.”

“Mother, I hope not,” the young man said. He was in a long, straight coat, vest and suspenders. The woman was in a long, flowered gown with a high neck. “Who the hell is deserving of week-old soup.”

“You’re a lazy, no-good lie-about,” the woman said. “And the soup is fine. Fine for a lad who grew to be worthless.”

“Like my sister? My sister, who dresses in twenty-year-old clothing, mends and darns socks and grows old since no man of substance will have her?” he asked softly.

The woman looked at him. “You’re a greedy one, as well as a worthless one. Would that I’d never had such ingrates fall from my womb!”

“Would that you never had,” he agreed. He straightened where he stood. His hands had been behind his back. He drew them forward, displaying the ax he held and hefted as he spoke. “Would that we’d never lived in this godforsaken house. Would that we’d had actual warmth in winter, that Father had allowed fires to burn, or that his heart had been open to more than a passion for hoarding at the expense of all else. Would that I’d not spent my days in the attic, imagining the insanity of Eli Lexington hacking his family to little bits and pieces.”

The woman looked over at him, frowning. “You’re actually going to cut wood.”

“No, Mother,” he said softly. “I’m not going to cut wood.”

She didn’t start to scream until he walked toward her. Then, it was too late. His first strike was high and overhead and filled with passion and rage, and cleaved her skull so that her face seemed to fall apart in a burst of blood.

And then he struck again and again. And when she lay dead, the young man sat down on the sofa, covered in her blood, and he waited. And in time, a tall man in a cap and shabby tweed coat walked in and made it into the parlor, where he saw the woman on the floor and his son drenched in blood.

He started to shout; the young man, who had been all but immobile, leaped to his feet, and this time, the ax hit its target first in the throat, and the only sounds that were heard other than the sickening crunch of the ax were those of a man choking…until those sounds came no more, and the man lay dead on the floor, and the smell of blood was stringent and horrible on the air. The man with the ax just stood there. Then the door burst open and a young woman came rushing in. She might have been pretty, beautiful even. But her face was far too thin; she appeared tired and worn, like a faded rose.

At the doorway, she surveyed the scene in horror.

“I had to, Isabelle. I had to,” her brother said.

“And we must move, and quickly now. Your clothes! We have to get rid of your clothing, and we must get away so that we were elsewhere when this thing happened. Come, Nathan, come. Oh, dear brother, what have you done?”

The young man started to laugh.

“Oh, Lexington, he loved his wife,

So much he kept her near,

Close as his sons, dear as his life;

He chopped her up;

He axed them, too, and then he kept them here.

Duck, duck, wife!

Duck, duck, life!

You’re it! Oh, Isabelle! Now, I’m it!”

“Nathan! Come! Now. Touch nothing, we’ll go out the back, to the cliff…I’ll get you new clothing…we’ll sink what you’re wearing, Father’s fishing weights are in the back…we must move quickly! Oh, dear baby brother, what have you done?”

“They can hang me, Isabelle. They can hang me. Better death than the life we were living!”

“Come!” Isabelle urged, and at last, he seemed able to move.

Jenna stood frozen, the scent of the blood almost overwhelming her. The image of bits and pieces and flecks of flesh all around her was horrifying, and she felt as if her knees were composed of nothing but water.

The mist receded. She felt as if she was whisked back in time, and then thought she was going to fall…

She didn’t. Sam was holding her, looking down into her eyes with grave concern.

“I’m getting you out of here. I don’t give a damn what you say.”

He half lifted her and strode, carrying and dragging her, out to the hallway, the foyer and then outside.

He set her down on the porch, and sat beside her.

“Jenna?”

She took a deep breath. Out here, the blood of the distant past and the more recent past was all washed away by the breeze that came in from the water, cleansing the sins of time.

She was no longer dizzy. She managed a weak smile and set her hand on his.

“I’m okay, Sam.”

“I know, I know. It’s what you do. Maybe it comes at too high a price.”

Her smile steadied; he hadn’t even asked her yet what she had seen.

“No, because, as you can see, I’m fine now. I just wish…”

“What?”

“I can’t seem to bring my vision to the right century.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw the Braden family. They weren’t nice people, Sam. I mean, of course, no one out there deserves to be murdered, but I believe that the parents were pretty horrible to their children. The son did do it. And his sister knew, but she was the one who helped him get out of the house and clean up, and she probably swore for him at the trial that he wasn’t in the house when it happened.”

Before Sam could answer, they heard footsteps on the stair. John Alden came out to the porch and looked curiously at Sam and Jenna. “You done?”

“Yes, thanks, John,” Sam said.

“Almost!” Jenna said. She jumped back to her feet.

Sam caught her hand. “Don’t do this to yourself,” he said softly.

She looked down and saw something dark and disturbed in his eyes. She couldn’t allow him to stop her.

“I have to go back in, Sam. I have to try,” she said, and walked back into the parlor. She stared about the room. She closed her eyes and thought about the recent past. She tried to imagine the more current murders-and a figure in a costume that resembled that of the horned god coming in to commit murder. She waited and she opened her eyes.

But the mist wouldn’t come.

She saw the chalk markings and the blood stains, just like anyone else would.

And she saw no more.

Jackson and Angela came and stood in the hallway for a moment, and then came into the parlor. Angela stood very still while Jackson looked at the chalk marks and the blood spray and moved carefully about the room, as if he tried to imagine exactly how the killings had taken place.

Sam stood in the doorway, his expression stony.

Jackson looked over at him and, behind him, at John Alden, who stood just a foot or so behind Sam. “Thank you,” he said.

“You’re ready?” John asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Jackson repeated.

They all exited the house. Jenna and her group waited while John locked the house and replaced the crime-scene tape.

When John joined them on the lawn, Sam asked him, “What about the lab report on the costume?”

“Hopefully, I’ll get it back today.”

“As soon as possible would be great,” Sam said.

“Sam, damn it, you know that I can’t give it priority. It’s a costume you took off a kid, and it may or may not have anything to do with anything.”

“I know, John, thanks,” Sam said. “Still, sooner would be better.”

“Damn it, Sam. I’m doing my best here, huh? And that’s good, considering I’m starting to think you’re almost as crazy as the kid.”

“Ah, but think of it this way. When we get to court, you’ll have done your job backward and forward, the prosecution will love you if all this investigation’s nothing and just proves the case against him is as airtight as you say,” Sam told him.

Muttering, John waved to the others and headed down to his car.

When he was gone, Jackson looked at Jenna. “Well?”

She shook her head. “I can tell you about Eli Lexington and the Braden family, but I’ve gotten nothing on Abraham Smith. Angela?”

“I saw a little girl, and I believe she died of typhoid sometime in the eighteenth century,” Angela said apologetically.

Sam stared at them both.

“I’ve got some work to do,” he said. “Alibis. We have to start cracking alibis.”

“We can give Jake a call, and he can do a lot of computer and phone work, at least with the members of the Old Meeting House.”

“Contact him for me, will you, then? I have legal papers…I’ll leave you all at Jamie’s house. I’ll be in contact soon.”

He was leaving her though, and just as she felt like someone literally reached into her chest and squeezed her heart.

“Good idea,” she said lightly. “We’ll get going on a chart, trying to trace the movements of everyone involved.”

Sam agreed and drove them to Jamie’s house. He seemed to step on the gas when he drove away.

Sam sat at his desk, trying to work. He scribbled out scenarios for the courtroom, assuming he wasn’t able to prove that Malachi Smith was covered in blood because he’d loved his parents. He scribbled out a dramatic scene in which they had discovered enough evidence to at least prove that there might have been another killer, and he imagined his voice ringing in the courtroom as he introduced the facts that might save his client. Of course, the prosecution would fight him tooth and nail, and…

He stood, stretching, and he knew that he was here, alone, because his emotions, so constantly logical and controlled, were in the midst of absolute turmoil.

He’d imagined earlier that he woke up every morning to have silken red hair sweeping over his naked flesh, and the warmth and beauty of an exquisite figure draped around his. Those green eyes of hers would open, and sometimes they’d be lazy, and sometimes frantic, and sometimes he would just leave her sleeping because work was a reality of life, and, of course, they both loved their work…

But it wasn’t imagination to relive the way Jenna had looked while “envisioning” the past, be it real, or a product of the recesses of her mind.

He sat at his desk again and buried his head in his hands, tearing his fingers through his hair.

He had to think about the case. The case.

As he sat there, he felt a gentle touch on his head.

He spun around, thinking that, somehow, though he’d locked the door, Jenna had slipped in.

He was alone. Completely alone.

His own imagination was going wild with everything that was happening.

“Hey! Is anyone here?” he demanded.

His voice echoed in the empty house.

He cursed at himself. Crazy. He had to concentrate.

He flipped a page on his notepad.

Samantha Yeager: Clerk swears she was working when Smith family killed.

“Goodman” Wilson: says congregation will attest to his presence. Jake Mallory, agent, doing computer search for members and phone work.

Councilman Andy Yates: appears open and honest, denies nothing. Good suspect, since his son involved in altercation.

The boys, David Yates and Joshua Abbott: Liars. No known alibis for any of the occasions.

He hesitated and pulled out his phone and put a call through to Andy Yates’s office. An answering machine informed him that it was Saturday, and that “Councilman Yates is devoting his weekend to his family. We hope you are enjoying yours, as well. Happy Halloween!”

He hung up.

He wanted to know where those boys had been. Maybe not Joshua. According to Jenna and Angela, Joshua seemed the kind of friend who would go along with whatever David Yates said. David Yates-the boy who had been the victim of the “evil eye.” A big kid now, a football hero. But did he really have what it would have taken to pull off the murders? Enough sense for a costume, enough rage to plot out a way for Malachi to be blamed? He was only seventeen.

Lots of heinous murders had been committed by seventeen-year-olds; he knew that well enough. Malachi was seventeen. Ah, but Malachi was supposed to be crazy.

His phone rang, and he answered absently. “Hall.”

There was a brief hesitation. “Sam, it’s John. John Alden.”

He looked at his phone, surprised Alden had felt the need to give his last name.

“Yeah, John-did you get the results back?”

Again, there was a brief hesitation. “Yeah,” Alden said thickly. “They found trace amounts of blood on that costume you pulled off the kid. Trace. The costume had been washed, and might have been dry-cleaned, as well. We’re still working on it, but…I’ll call you back in a couple of hours. They’re trying to see if it it’s a match with the blood from the crime scenes now.”

At the house, Jackson put a call through to Jake Mallory, who had remained at their new offices in Virginia. He was glad that Ashley, Jake’s fiancée, was up from her family plantation in Louisiana to be there with him, or else he’d have been manning the ship alone, since Whitney Tremont, the last of their sextet, was in Jamaica on her honeymoon.

The Krewe sat together at the dining room, talking on speakerphone.

“You want me to find and talk to all the members of a congregation when we don’t have the pastor’s agreement to let out a list of the members?” Jake’s voice positively boomed through the phone.

“I believe that Sam is getting a warrant for the records, but it’s Saturday, and that could take time,” Jenna said. “And it’s just possible that a judge might block us, too.”

“You want me to do this legally, right?” Jake said.

“Not really, but yes-we’re talking about a court case here, so everything has to be obtained legally. Not, of course, that I’d ever want you to do anything illegal,” Jackson said.

“Right…well, I can pull up public records and newspaper clippings and dig around the best I can. What do you want exactly?”

Jackson explained that they wanted to know exactly where Pastor Goodman Wilson had been at the times of the murders, and anything any of the members might have to say in reference to any of the players involved. “And dig up anything else you can on Councilman Andy Yates, his family and a woman named Samantha Yeager, medium,” Jackson added.

“Gee-that’s it?” Jake said, laughing. “You got it.”

Just as Jake disconnected, they heard commotion at the door and Jenna quickly stood up, heading toward it. Uncle Jamie had just come home.

She looked at him expectantly.

“I can’t betray-”

“Jamie, tell us what you can.”

“Well, this is public knowledge: Martin Keller is at the police station with his parents. They found traces of blood on the costume. Even though they’ve been highly compromised, the horned god mask itself came through-there was enough in a crease in the mask to make a one-out-of-millions match to Peter Andres. The costume and mask, it seems, were worn by the killer when Peter Andres was murdered.”

Sam sat across from John Alden. Marty Keller was in another room with his mother, waiting for the police to come question him.

“What I want to know is, what in God’s name made you have me research that costume?” John demanded.

Sam arched a brow, thinking quickly. He leaned forward, as if the question were obvious. “John, the kid came at Jenna in the cemetery in that costume.”

“Yeah-and he might have just been a bratty kid, out to scare anyone.”

“He might have been, but since everyone knows that Jenna is working with me, it seemed completely logical that there was a reason for the kid to try to scare her. It was a hunch, John. You know-hell, you wouldn’t be a detective worth your salt at all if you didn’t work off a hunch now and then!”

John stared at him. He let out a sigh. “All right, you can’t come in, but I’ll let you listen in when we question the boy.”

Sam stood behind the one-way glass, looking in. Marty Keller’s mother had apparently been crying. She still brought a tissue to her eyes now and then. She’d arranged for an attorney, and when Marty started to answer a question, his mother slapped his hand and told him he had to first consult the attorney, a white-haired man who looked deeply concerned.

But the attorney nodded to Marty.

“I swear! I just took that costume after the drama inventory. I swear, Mom, it’s the truth. I-I wanted to help out in some way. I know that everybody is all upset ’cause the pretty FBI lady is helping that guy who wants to get Malachi Smith freed, and everybody is afraid of Malachi Smith. I thought if I could just scare her enough, she’d go away!” Marty Keller’s voice was tremulous; he’d been crying, too. “And she’s a liar-that lady, she’s a liar! She said she wouldn’t call the cops if I just told her about the costume.”

“She didn’t call the cops,” John Alden told him. “But we found blood on that costume, Marty. The blood of a man who was your substitute teacher at times. She didn’t call the cops on you-and this isn’t a matter of a mere prank any longer.”

Tears streamed down the boy’s face.

“Stop badgering him!” his mother cried.

John shot her a look. “Who else uses those costumes, Marty? And I’m warning you-I’d better find out that there was an inventory done before you took the costume-and who’s to say that you didn’t take it before?”

“Detective, you are badgering my client,” the attorney said. “And unless you have specific charges-”

“Would you like me to charge him right now with the murder of Peter Andres?” John asked.

“Please!” Marty’s mother begged. “Please, no-please check out his story.” She gasped suddenly. “I can prove that Marty didn’t kill Peter Andres. I remember the day. It was that Saturday in April-I saw the news first from the dentist’s office. Marty was having a root canal that day. Who knew? Who knew!” she cried with relief. “I was so angry that he hadn’t taken better care of his teeth…but it’s true! You can call the dentist, Dr. Waverly Johnson-he’s in Swampscott. Call his dental assistant! Call them all. Marty is innocent of murder!” Her eyes narrowed. “It was that Malachi Smith!” she said firmly. “You have him in custody. There is no reason for you to badger my boy!”

John Alden looked frustrated. “You sit tight,” he said.

He left the interrogation room and walked over to Sam. “Well?”

“Well, I say it’s time to find out what’s going on at that school. Malachi Smith wasn’t going there anymore. He’d have been noticed if he’d tried to get into the school during opening hours, and it’s locked up at night now, isn’t it?”

“Sam, you’re a pain in my ass.”

“I know. So, when are you starting at the school?”

John let out a sigh. “I’m going to have a man keep the place under lockdown until Monday. Monday morning, we’ll go in before the teachers and the students, talk to the drama coach, the wardrobe mistress, and every kid in the school. You happy?”

“As a lark,” Sam assured him.

“Pain in my ass!” John repeated.

Sam started out. “Justice, John, justice. She’s a wicked mistress for us all!”

Milton Sedge was in his office when Mabel, his last clerk on duty, knocked on his door. “Milton, it’s after seven. I saw to it that Harry restocked the shelves for the morning, and I’m going home, okay?”

Milton looked up. “You bet, Mabel. You go on home.”

“Have a nice Sunday, Milton.”

“You, too, Mabel.” Milton was still a big believer in closing on Sundays. The rest of the world had apparently forgotten that it was a day of rest, but he’d be damned if he would. He worked the place himself, worked it hard. But Sunday was his church day, and he liked church. He had lost his wife, Sheila, some years ago, and Sunday he got to see his grandkids.

“You come on out and lock the door. I got the lights off, but you never know-some wandering visiting Halloween fool might just walk in here anyway.”

“You bet, Mabel, I’ll be right out.”

“Night then.”

“Night.”

Milton added his last list of figures into his computer and rose. He left his office and headed past the pharmacy area and down the middle aisle, heading straight to the bolt at the front door. There was an alarm there, too, but it hadn’t worked in a while. He was pretty sure that just the idea that the alarm was there was enough to ward off most would-be thieves. He never kept money in the place, or not much, anyway. The deposit was made every day at five, precisely.

As he walked toward the door, he paused. He listened, hearing a strange rustling sound from the canned goods aisle.

He walked around, but there was no one there.

Curious, he looked around a bit more and caught sight of something in the middle of one of the big overheard mirrors. What appeared to be a big lump sat on the floor, right around the corner, in the breakfast section.

The lump moved.

Milton groaned.

Well, Mabel had warned him. Or maybe the prankster or wino had been in the store and she hadn’t seen him when she’d left.

“Hey, come on-we’re closed!” Milton said.

The shadow rose. Milton could see it in the mirror. Halloween prankster! he thought with sheer irritation. And on a Saturday night, right when he’d been looking forward to his Sunday!

The person was wearing some ridiculous goat mask. Or a devil mask. Hard to tell which. The thing had creases and lines and horns.

“Buddy, we’re closed! Come on, now-don’t make me call the cops!”

But the creature whisked around again, heading into the canned goods.

Milton pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

“Last chance. I’m calling the police!”

He started to hear a rumbling just as he reached an aisle where a giant stack of gallon-sized tins of olive oil had been aligned.

He paused, frowning.

Then his heart began to race and his instincts warned him to back up-quickly.

He couldn’t move quickly enough.

The first can caught him right in the forehead, and he saw stars. His legs went weak and he fell to his knees.

The next can broke his nose.

And then he wasn’t sure what happened. One hit his shoulder, one his head again, and then he was aware of one coming straight for his eyes as he blinked and tried to look up.

He didn’t feel anything after that.

He wasn’t aware when another twenty cans fell on top of him, halfway burying him. One burst open, and olive oil spilled over his bruised body.

He was aware when the shadow, the creature, the goat or horned devil, came walking around the aisle.

The creature didn’t touch him.

It looked, stepped around him and hurried out of the store. On the street, the horned god swiftly joined a group of costumed revelers and blended into the crowd.