The Evil Inside

1

Lexington House.

There it stood, on a cliff by the water. It might have been a postcard or a movie poster, and it was as eerie as ever-a facade that graced the darkest horror movie. Its paint was chipping, the exterior was gray and it had been weathered through the centuries by icy winds ripping in off the Atlantic Ocean. The ground-floor windows seemed like black eyes; the second-floor windows might have been startled brows, half covered by the eaves of the roof.

Oddly enough, Lexington House had always remained in private hands. From its builder-the Puritan Eli Lexington-to its recent owner-the now deceased Abraham Smith-it had always found a new buyer after each and every one of its tragedies. People had once known its early history, of course, but that had been lost amid the witchcraft trials that scarred American history and continued to fascinate the social sciences. And when Mr. and Mrs. Braden had been brutally murdered two centuries later, in the 1890s, the world knew that their son had been guilty of the crime. But the legal system had worked for the killer this time, and he’d been acquitted. He and his sister had promptly sold the house to another private party. Eighty years later it had become a bed-and-breakfast, and then it had been purchased by Abraham Smith, who had longed for the property on its little cliff, segregated from all but a few neighbors.

One of whom had been murdered last week.

And now today…

Jenna Duffy had heard about nothing but the Lexington House on the radio since she’d started for Salem from Boston this morning. Uncle Jamie had called her days before, begging that she come to Salem and speak with him. Peculiar timing.

She’d pulled to the side of the road and parked to stare at the place.

A patrol car sat near the house; crime-scene tape cordoned off the entire house. There were no onlookers, though. The house was at a little distance from the historic section of town, where most visitors strolled through the Old Burial Ground, visited the House of the Seven Gables or sought out history at any one of the witch museums or the Peabody Essex Museum. And since it was October and Halloween was approaching, the real-life contemporary tragedy would fuel the ghost stories that were already being told around town.

She stared at the house awhile longer, wondering about its history. What happened at Lexington House would prove to be another horrible case of mental instability or greed, and as much as she longed to actually see the property that brought about such gruesome tragedy, she had a meeting with her uncle. She glanced at her watch and pulled back onto the road. With Halloween tourists clogging the city, it might take her time to get where she was going.

Somehow she was still early.

She parked her car at the Hawthorne Hotel’s parking lot, and wandered across the street to the common.

Autumn leaves, beautiful in their warm orange, magenta and yellow colorings, rustled beneath Jenna’s feet as she strolled. Before her and around her, the leaves swirled and lifted inches into the air as the breeze picked them up and whimsically tossed them about.

She heard the laughter of schoolchildren as they made their way through Salem Common, heading home but not too quickly. Autumn was certainly one of the most beautiful seasons in New England, and schoolchildren, raised with all the colors as they may have been, still loved to stop and lift the leaves, toss them about and roll in them.

Jenna had loved Salem since she’d first come to the States and her parents had chosen nearby Boston, Massachusetts, as the place to begin their new lives. They had come up here weekends, in the summers and for the Halloween festivity, and also for the fall leaves and to see Uncle Jamie.

But this was a difficult visit. She was about to meet Uncle Jamie at the Hawthorne Hotel, and she was worried about him. He’d been so anxious when he’d asked her to come. He was asking her in a professional capacity, but he didn’t want her bringing “your team” or “your unit” or “the official group” with which she worked, not yet.

As she walked across the common, her attention was drawn back to the children. A group of five-to seven-year-olds were holding hands, running in a circle and playing a game.

She froze as she heard them reciting the old rhyme repeated not just in this area, but around the country.

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!

Jenna felt as if ice water had suddenly been injected in her veins-the old ditty now seemed to be words of mockery and cruelty. A young woman, who had been standing with another group of parents watching over small children and a group of older teens who had gathered in the park, rushed forward. She caught hold of the little boy’s arms, spun him around and shook a finger at him, reprimanding him.

Another of the mothers came hurrying over to her, her voice carrying in the cool air. “Cindy, don’t be so hard on them! They don’t…know. We used to say that rhyme all the time when we were kids.”

“Samantha, I know, it’s just that…now? Now, with what’s happened again? It’s that house! That horrible house, and that boy… He used to go to school with our kids.”

“But, it’s over now, Cindy. It’s over. They have the boy in custody.”

Other parents began calling out sharply to their children. The two women herded the children toward the group of parents. A tall man in the group said something sharply to the teens, words that Jenna couldn’t quite hear, and they disbanded, as well. The conversation they all exchanged became whispers. The families and the unattached teens began to drift away, as if none of them wanted the reality of the situation.

The great seafaring days of Salem were in the past. The city survived on tourism, and most of it wasn’t because of the autumn leaves. Salem had been the site of the infamous Salem Witch Trials-and it had also been the site of two horrendous and savage murdering sprees.

And, now, a third.

Tragic incidences of human ignorance and brutality in the past were one thing; bloodletting in the present was quite another, especially with the town anticipating the season’s mammoth number of visitors. The income generated by the holiday alone could sustain many a shopkeeper and inn through the brutal New England winter to follow.

Of course, for Uncle Jamie, the recent tragedy would not be in any way fiscal but personal. She knew Jamie and loved him dearly, because he was a man who took the troubles of others to heart. This was often to his own detriment, but that was Jamie.

From her vantage spot, she could see the Salem Witch Museum with its English Gothic facade across the street on North Washington Square-the point where she always told friends to begin their exploration of the city. In a comparatively short presentation, the museum did a fine job of explaining the climate of the city during the days of the infamous trials. The statue of Roger Conant, town founder, stood proud before her as well, larger than life, his heavy cape appearing to blow in the same breeze that tossed the leaves about.

The residences and businesses surrounding the common were decked out for fall. Pumpkins and black cats adorned windows and lawns, while skeletons and, naturally, witches dangled from branches. Some people were more into the traditional concept of fall itself, and they had decorated with scarecrows, feathered turkeys and cornucopias. The image of the city of Salem she saw as she stood in the common was that of old New England, family and festivity, tinged with the strange pleasant warmth of the coming of fall.

She glanced at her watch again. It was time to go and meet Uncle Jamie; she suddenly realized she had been dreading the meeting, and she didn’t even know why.

Sam poured himself a second cup of coffee and looked around the house, trying to concentrate on its details and trying to make up his mind. He didn’t like wondering what the hell he was going to do about the house, but it was better than thinking about the bizarre and tragic circumstances under which he had finally made it home.

He didn’t need to get involved-he wasn’t staying here. He’d already taken a nice long leave of absence, and it was time to go back to work. But, then, he mused, maybe he shouldn’t. He’d not only saved his client from prison, but he’d proved beyond a doubt that the man not only deserved to be declared innocent, but was, in fact, innocent. And he was still a bit worn down from all the effort.

Sam had really stepped on every rung of the ladder on his way to becoming a renowned attorney. He’d worked in the D.A.’s office following college and the military. He’d worked as an investigator as well before joining his first small firm, because his boss had needed an investigator more than another attorney in the office. He’d learned the ropes from Colin Blake, Esquire, and he’d come to terms with a sad truth: a defense attorney was still required to give his best effort in a legal defense, even if he thought his client was guilty as all hell. He’d learned to make the cops and the prosecutors suffer, but discovered he didn’t much like that side of the business. Still, despite that, he wasn’t sure he could ever go back to being a prosecutor. It wasn’t the money. Well, it was about money. Often. It was sometimes about the money it took to put together a great team of defense attorneys. He’d seen a young woman sent to prison for years, convicted of the murder of her newborn. He’d seen a rich young man walk on drug charges, and a poor one sent up fifteen years for the same offense. He understood the law; he didn’t understand why the slow wheels of Congress took so long to correct the inequities that were to be found in so many instances. He was violently opposed to the death penalty, always afraid that somewhere, sometime, it would send an innocent person to his or her death, and yet he understood the desire others felt to see it utilized. Too many drug lords, murderers and rapists made it back onto the street.

But last night…

Something about the kid he’d come upon in the street was still tugging at his heartstrings.

The kid, according to police, had axed his family to death.

There was no doubt that Malachi Smith’s father, mother, grandmother and great-uncle had been murdered, and horribly so. Jumping on the internet that morning, he’d seen that the news regarding the killings had gone global. Abraham Smith, sixty-two, Beth Smith, fifty-nine, Abigail Smith, eighty-three, and Thomas Smith, eighty-seven, had all died from exsanguination-Beth, Abigail and Thomas all receiving at least eight blows from a honed ax, Abraham over twenty. The previous week, a neighbor, Mr. Earnest Covington, had been found hacked to death on his parlor floor. Six months earlier, a Salem native living in nearby Andover had been found murdered in his barn. Police had been following leads and now suspected that the cases were related.

Indisputable evidence indicated that the youngest son of the Smith family, Malachi, was the killer. The police had the young man in custody, and he remained under guard in isolation at a correctional facility hospital.

The Smiths were the current owners of Lexington House, famed for its bloody reputation. The family had adhered to strict fundamentalist teachings, being members of the Old Meeting House in Beverly, Massachusetts. This was a strange connection of sorts with the original murders in the place. In the midst of the witchcraft trials, Eli Lexington had murdered his family with an ax. He’d been imprisoned with the nearly two hundred arrested for witchcraft at the time. Then he disappeared. There were no records of his fate after prison.

Then, in the late eighteen hundreds, Mr. and Mrs. Braden had been killed in the house, as well. A historical parallel of the Menendez case? From the books, movies and court records that had come down through time, it appeared that a disgruntled son had killed his parents for the money. And, of course, similar cases had been suspected elsewhere. The Braden case was similar, too, to the Lizzie Borden murders. Both Lizzie and the Braden boy had been acquitted, but nobody doubted that each of them had murdered their families.

Just like today’s case.

Sam told himself over and over to get the hell away from his computer. He was not involved.

But he was.

He’d found the kid in the road.

And, he’d grown up in Salem. He could still remember being a school kid, and the rhyme every school kid in the area had learned. Oh, Lexington, he loved his wife…

A good attorney, of course-even a hack-would go for an insanity plea. The kid had grown up in what everyone in the area termed a haunted house-a really haunted house-which, in a city like Salem, was saying something.

Any attorney could defend the boy. It was too easy.

He forced himself to leave the computer screen and walk around the house.

His parents had been dead for nearly two years; he’d returned for the funeral, and he hadn’t been back since. The house, however, was in excellent shape. His father, until his death, had seen to it that no electrical wires frayed, that the heating system was state-of-the-art and that every board that even seemed slightly damaged was replaced. His father’s friend and contractor, Jimmy Chu, had kept the house in good repair during the two years. His dad had come from old Puritan stock, and he’d considered it an honor to care for the home that his parents had owned, just as his grandparents before them did. It wasn’t one of the oldest houses in the area, but it ranked right in there with many of the homes surviving from the turn of the eighteenth century all the way into the twenty-first.

He smiled suddenly, shaking his head and taking a sip of the coffee he still held, untouched. “Darn you, Dad. You knew that I won’t be able to sell the damned thing!”

A house-in a city in which he no longer lived-was a pain in the ass, no matter what. He guessed that his father had always figured he’d come home one day.

Well, he’d managed to, but on the wrong damned day. He dropped his head. He didn’t want to be involved with a legal situation here.

But he couldn’t blink without seeing in his mind’s eye the blank brown eyes of the naked boy covered in blood and shaking on the road.

“Jenna!” Uncle Jamie drew her to him, giving her a warm and emphatic hug.

She hugged him in turn. She loved Jamie. She loved her family in general. Despite their long history of warfare, the Irish were an exceptionally warm, passionate and profuse people. They were full of magical tales, and they seldom felt obliged to refrain from speaking their minds.

“Uncle Jamie!” she said.

He pulled her away for a moment, holding her at arm’s length to study her. Jamie had brilliant green eyes and graying auburn hair. He was her mother’s younger brother, and had always had a mischievous side to him, making him very popular among children. He was so devout that he’d nearly gone into the priesthood, but had decided at the last minute that he didn’t really have the calling. He’d attended medical school and become a psychiatrist instead.

“You look good, my girl, aye, that you do! Pretty thing, you always were. Beautiful eyes, green like Eire, and hair like fire-you got my sister’s temper to go with it, eh?” Her own accent had become little more than a hint of a different place, but she had come to the States when she’d been a young teen. Jamie had been a grown man.

“Mum’s temper isn’t that bad, Uncle Jamie. She’s a lot like you-opinionated.”

He grinned. “Come over here, I’ve a booth for us,” he told her. He slipped an arm through hers, leading her toward a corner booth. “Lovely, lovely, isn’t it? I’ve always loved this city. You have the Wiccans with their wonderful shops-and their Wiccan gossip and squabbles, of course! You’ve got the immigrants and the old Puritan families, and all of them getting along-and not. But fall here is the most wonderful season in the world-everyone loving life and creating cornucopias and carving out pumpkins.”

“Yes, I love it here, too, Uncle Jamie.”

He looked around and motioned to the waitress. “What will you have, niece?”

She was surprised to feel a sudden chill. Jamie was hedging, and he usually just spoke plainly. It was unusual that he’d dawdle by ordering like this, but she decided she’d let him talk at his own speed. “Something warm,” she replied.

“An Irish coffee?” he suggested.

“Why not?” she said.

Their waitress was wearing a cute, short-skirted pirate costume. Jamie asked to make sure that the bartender used Jameson Irish whiskey, and that they didn’t go putting a wallop of “white stuff”-whipped cream-on either drink. The waitress smiled. “Jamie, you order the same thing every time you come in.”

“So I do,” Jamie told her, grinning. “But, still, a man’s got to be careful when he orders his drink.”

Laughing and shaking her head, the waitress moved on with a swish of her short skirt.

“They do get into Halloween early, don’t they,” Jenna murmured.

“Well, you know the whole pumpkin-carving thing is Irish, of course,” Jamie said.

“I know, Uncle Jamie…” she said to the familiar information, knowing it wouldn’t stop him. She thanked the waitress as she delivered their drinks. Jamie didn’t seem to notice.

“It all came from Stingy Jack,” Jamie said, studying his cup, and speaking to himself more than her.

“A myth about a man named Stingy Jack,” Jenna reminded him.

He waved a hand in the air.

“The devil invited old Jack to have a drink with him, and Jack, he wasn’t about to pay for the drinks, but then neither was he about to turn one down. So, our Jack, he tells the devil that he must turn himself into a handful of coins to pay for the drink. But, thirsty though he was, Jack was a clever boy, and put the coins in his pocket, around his silver cross, and the devil, next to that cross, couldn’t turn himself back into the devil, not next to the holy relic! Finally, though, Jack let the devil return to his old self-long as he didn’t bother Jack for a year and a day-and would not claim his soul if he should die. There are stories of Jack playing a few other tricks on the devil over his lifetime. Eventually, of course, he did die. And when he did, the Good Lord would not let him into Heaven, and the devil could not claim his soul, and so he was sent into the dark of the night with only a burning lump of coal to light his way. Well, Jack found a pumpkin, carved it out, and carried it about endlessly through the darkness of the night. And so he was called Jack of the Lantern, and finally, Jack-o’-Lantern.” He paused to take a gulp.

“It’s not a bad tradition-especially for those who scoop out the pumpkin and make pie and then carve the pumpkin to burn with an eerie-or happy!-face throughout the night,” he finished.

“Pumpkin pie is delightful,” Jenna said, leaning toward him and touching his hand. “But I’m pretty sure this story isn’t why I’m here, Uncle Jamie. Talk to me. Why did you want me here? I’m delighted to see you, you know that. But you called me and said that you needed me.”

Jamie nodded, running his fingers over the varnished wood of the table. “It may be too late,” he said softly. Then he looked up at her. “They think they have him dead to rights. They say that the blood of those he murdered was all over him, and that his fingerprints were on the ax. But he didn’t do it, Jenna. He didn’t do it.”

She frowned. He was talking now, but he was beginning in the middle.

“You asked me here…about the murders that occurred? But…the family was just killed last night. You called me two days ago.”

Jamie shook his head. “I called you about two murders that had happened earlier-and then last night occurred…and now they have the boy…and I just don’t believe he did it. He’ll be railroaded into a mental hospital for the rest of his life-but he’s not crazy! People started saying that it was the house-that it’s Lexington House, and that he lived there and started killing because he was listening to ghosts. Thing is, I know that by what seems like obvious evidence he looks guilty as all hell, but that’s only what it looks like. He didn’t do it.”

She shook her head. “All right, back up. You called me because of the two previous murders. The radio mentioned those on the way up here, too, but only bits and pieces and suppositions. I don’t really know details. Tell me about them.”

“Six months ago, a farmer in Andover, Peter Andres, was killed in his barn-with a scythe. The police had no suspects-the scythe was in the barn, but there were no fingerprints other than those of Andres. Everyone was baffled. Andres was known as an affable man. But the rumor mill got started-the rhyme about Lexington House doesn’t tell it all. In the nineteenth century, a scythe was supposedly used on the Braden father before he was given the final blows by the ax. So, the police started looking at people with an interest in Lexington House, and then at Lexington House itself. Malachi was always the subject of some rumor or other-he’s a strange lad. But he tells me that he prays, and he believes deeply in God and in Heaven.”

“Many killers find Jesus,” Jenna said softly. “How did you know all this about him?”

Jamie shook his head. “They find Jesus in prison- Malachi has always had him.” He sighed. “The boy came to me three years ago. His parents brought him to me-they were forced to, by children’s services, after a few incidents at school.”

“Like what-he attacked other children? Threw rocks at birds…set cats on fire?”

“No, no. Nothing of the like. He was teased, beaten and bullied by other boys. He just sat there when they hurt him and said that God was his protector and that Jesus would turn the other cheek.”

“And then?”

“Soon after, the parents decided to take him out of school, but because of another incident, a really strange incident. And that’s when children’s services ordered that he see a psychiatrist-me.”

“So how long have you been seeing him?” she asked.

“If you’d asked the parents? He was my patient for a year. Social services paid me for a year. But I’ve seen him ever since-more as a friend than a patient. It all began about three years ago, when his parents pulled him out of school. Thing was, in his own way, he was happy to come see me. Musical instruments, other than the voice, were a sin in his house. But he’s something of a genius with the piano. At my house, he could play.”

“What was the incident that caused social services to step in?” Jenna asked.

“He looked at a boy,” Jamie said.

“Looked at him?” Jenna repeated, puzzled.

Jamie nodded. “The boy was throwing food from his lunch tray at Malachi. Malachi looked at him, and this other boy froze-and then he picked up his tray and beat himself over the head with it so hard that he had a concussion. He was hysterical and told the doctors that Malachi had forced him to do it-with his eyes.”

Jenna leaned back, staring at Jamie, frowning. “Wait-this other kid said that Malachi looked at him, and made him beat himself silly?”

Jamie nodded.

Jenna shook her head. “Why-that’s preposterous. Especially here. It’s like the girls crying Witch! Witch! Witch! and causing the unjust deaths of twenty people and the incarceration of nearly two hundred more. I’d thought we’d learned some lessons…”

Jamie sighed. “He was better off out of school. The thing is, I think that Malachi desperately wanted to be normal. He was malnourished, and he was raised to think that just about everything in the world was evil, an idea browbeaten into him by a fanatical father. He never lost his temper-the other kids couldn’t goad him to act. And that made them mad. He’s the most peace-loving individual I’ve ever met. When the neighbor, Earnest Covington, was killed, one of the boys who he’d been with at school went to the police and told them that Malachi had come running out of the house. They brought Malachi in for questioning, but Mrs. Sedge at the grocery store, said that Malachi had been in the meat section at the time, choosing dinner cuts for his mother-she never left the house-so he was off the hook. But, then, last night…well, Malachi was found drenched in his family’s blood, standing naked in the road.”

Jenna put her hand on her uncle’s. “Uncle Jamie, you have a friendship with this boy…but, if he was found covered in his family’s blood…?”

“Jenna, I need you to find out the truth about that house,” he said with resolution. “Uncle Jamie-”

“We can’t let the system take this boy. We have to somehow make it work for him now-now that he has a chance.”

“A chance?”

“His parents are gone now,” Jamie said quietly. He looked toward the ceiling. “God forgive me!” he murmured and crossed himself. He looked at Jenna solemnly. “You know I’m a religious man, right, Jenna?”

Surprised by the sudden question, she arched a brow to him. “Well, you were almost a priest… I didn’t figure that meant you’d turned away completely but-sorry! No, I know that you still love the church.”

He nodded. “I’m disappointed in the way human beings interpret religion at times, and God knows I loathe the horrible things done daily in the name of God and religion. But you don’t go throwing the baby out with the bathwater, you know?”

“Jamie, you’re losing me again.”

“They were-fanatics,” Jamie said. “I don’t even know exactly what belief they adhered to, but it was with a vengeance. There was hell to pay when that boy didn’t learn his Bible verses or when he couldn’t recite huge tracts of the Bible.”

“He was abused?”

“Not physically-they weren’t beatings, or even severe spankings. Parents often tap the hands of little ones-to stop them touching a stove top, a light socket… No, the abuse was mental and, well, I do suppose physical in a way. No food could be eaten without the father’s blessing…”

Jamie stopped speaking for a minute.

“You can’t imagine the peace in that boy’s eyes at times. He doesn’t do evil things because of the ghosts in a house, and he doesn’t do evil things because his father was a religious zealot who turned everything to sin. I don’t believe he does evil things at all-especially not murder. If ever anyone has been touched by the hand of God, I think it’s that boy. And you have to help me save him. Maybe it’s my mission in life, I don’t really know. But I’m begging you. You have to get into that house, and you have to speak with Malachi.”

“And how am I going to interfere when he’s now in the hands of the police?”

Jamie looked past her and lowered his voice. “Well, with a wee bit of help from the Lord, I think I can convince his defense attorney that he needs your assistance.”

She turned to see what had drawn Jamie’s attention. It was a man, tall and broad shouldered. The coat he had worn into the bar was excellently cut, and he moved like someone accustomed to custom-tailored clothing. His face was strongly molded with a classic masculine line. His hair was neatly cut and combed, just slightly awry from the breeze. She thought that she recognized him, but she didn’t know why she should have.

“Who is he?” she whispered.

“Samuel Anthony Hall, attorney-at-law.”

She almost laughed aloud. She knew why she recognized him-she’d recently seen his name and picture all over the internet. The world had wanted his last client to fry for the heinous murder of his pregnant fiancée. The prosecution had DNA evidence that the two had engaged in intercourse the day of the murder, but Hall had proved that one of his client’s enemies had killed the woman-a revenge killing. She couldn’t remember the details, but the client had loose mob ties and the case had received major press attention.

“Actually, you’ve met him before, you know,” Jamie said.

“I have?” Jenna looked at her uncle.

“You knew his parents, Betty and Connor. They were friends of mine, and they were friends of your folks, as well. You’ve been in his home. Maybe only once or twice-you were here when you were a young teenager and he was home from law school. He was supposed to be watching over you and a few of your friends. Silly, giggling girls. He thought you all were torture.”

“Wow. Can’t wait to meet him again, though I think I do remember his folks. They were very nice people.”

“They were.”

She studied Sam. He had the bearing of a man in charge-and a fighter. Or a bulldog.

“Samuel Hall,” she mused, turning back to her uncle, slightly amused. “That’s not the kind of attorney the state acquires when you haven’t the resources to hire your own. And I’m assuming all the money Malachi might have will be in probate. And unless you’ve changed your ways-working for the state most of the time for almost nothing-you can’t afford him. And even if our entire family was to put in our life savings, we still couldn’t afford him. He was said to have made several hundred thousand-just off his last case.”

“Yes, he can command a high fee,” Jamie murmured.

“Too high,” Jenna told him softly.

“He’s going to do it pro bono,” Jamie said.

She stared at him with surprise.

He grinned. “All right, so he doesn’t know it yet.” He leaned forward. “And, dear niece, if you don’t mind, please give him one of your best smiles and your sweetest Irish charm.”