The Evil Inside

6

Little had changed at Sedge’s Market since Jenna was last there. Milton Sedge ran a clean store with neat, tight aisles and five checkout lanes. Bananas and prime rib were on special. Large cardboard, handwritten signs advertised the daily deals. He had long been a holdout as far as credit cards went, but he, like the rest of the world, seemed to have succumbed to the necessity of plastic. The one thing that had changed was that.

A friendly girl at one of the registers directed Jenna to a rear office. She didn’t get far, however, before she saw the man she sort of recognized as Milton Sedge himself. He was in a butcher’s coat, directing an employee to clean out one of the meat cabinets. He was doing so pleasantly enough, but efficiency and survival seemed to be on his mind.

“Dates, Richard-come on! Pay attention to the dates. We never sell anything once it’s past its date. That’s how we compete with the big guys. Quality-and assurance!” he said firmly.

The worker was a slim youth who appeared to be about seventeen. He nodded vigorously with his compliance. “Yes, sir, yes, sir, I’m on it!”

“Mr. Sedge?” Jenna asked.

He turned to look at her, a balding man with a large nose and massive eyebrows that seemed to be trying to compensate for the loss of hair on his head.

“Yes?” He stared at her, as if trying to decide if he knew her or not.

“Hi. I’m Jenna Duffy,” she said, offering her hand.

“Do you want a job?” he asked skeptically, openly studying her.

She shook her head. “No, sir. I’m working with Sam Hill on Malachi Smith’s defense.”

“Oh! Well, you know I gave my statement to the police.”

“Yes, sir. I know that you did. I’m just trying to hear what you have to say with my own ears and, also, to ask you, of course, if you’re certain about your statement.”

He nodded, distracted. An elderly woman with a cart had come next to them. “Milton, where are those bananas?” she demanded.

“Eleanor, what? You’re not going senile, are you? The bananas are in the fruit section!” Sedge said, scratching his head. “Show some good old New England common sense, will you, please?”

“Milton, I’m full of good New England common sense. There are no bananas in the fruit section, and that’s why I’m asking you!” the woman said, indignant.

“Richard! Will you go to the back and see that the bananas are restocked!” Sedge asked.

“Yes, sir!”

“Let’s step into my office, shall we?” Sedge suggested. “It’s just to the left, behind the pharmacy.”

A few seconds later Jenna was seated on a foldout chair between boxes of crackers and he was behind a desk stacked high with invoices. He folded his hands on the desk.

“I’ve taken some guff over this, I’ll have you know. But what I saw is what I saw!” Sedge said. “What is-is. And that’s just the way it is.”

“What do you mean, guff?” Jenna asked him.

He looked at her as if she had lost her mind, as well. “Guff! Guff! Grief! All kinds of misery. Folks around here believe that Malachi killed Earnest Covington, and that I’m the one who has lost my eyesight. But that boy was in this store from four to six last Saturday afternoon-the kid liked shopping, read every label on every can. I think he just liked being away from home. The cops found that guy’s body at six-thirty and claimed he’d been dead for over an hour. So, if someone is mistaken, it’s the damned doctor who showed up on the site, not me. I talked to the kid. He was a regular. He was always on a budget, so he was like Eleanor, demanding to know where the daily specials could be found. Except that Malachi Smith didn’t demand. The kid was polite. Yeah, I can see where his classmates thought he was a geek. Skinny kid. Big eyes. Bad haircut. But he was polite. He was always stopping to get something off a top shelf for the old ladies. He waited his turn in a line. He paid with cash.”

The last seemed to be the asset that truly set Malachi Smith at the top of Sedge’s list.

“How do you know exactly how long he was in the store?” Jenna asked.

“I was in the front when he came in-Mrs. Mickleberry was arguing about a coupon that was good at another store-and I happened to be picking up a broken bottle of ketchup on one of the aisles about fifteen minutes later. We talked about a cut of meat about twenty minutes after that. I was working in the dairy section when he went through. I know that kid was in the store at the time they say Earnest Covington was killed. People around here want me to say otherwise, but I won’t. What is-is.” He sniffed. “Those kids at the school have had it out for Malachi forever.”

“Which kids?” Jenna asked.

“The ones who claimed to have seen him come out of the house that day. Now, why anyone would believe that David Yates over me, I don’t begin to understand. Oh, yeah. Because he’s on the football team.” Sedge shook his head. “Big brawny kid on the football team, and he and his pals tormented poor skinny Malachi. People need to use sense and logic. Yep, sense and logic. The Yates kid and his backfield mom are just as bad. Now, I didn’t say that. You ask me-and I’m no psychiatrist-guilt started eating at that kid and in his own messed-up adolescent mind he knew he was guilty as hell of being one bastard, excuse the language. Whatever. I know what I know. My eyes are sound, and I’m not involved in any of the crazy shenanigans going on.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sedge. It’s wonderful that you’re not letting yourself be swayed by peer pressure.”

“What is-is,” he repeated. “That kid might be crazy as hell, might be a mental midget, and he might have done anything else in the world-I couldn’t argue it. But I can tell you this and it’s a fact-he didn’t kill Earnest Covington.”

“Malachi claims that he’s innocent, too.”

“But he wasn’t arrested for killing Covington, was he?”

“He’s being charged in the deaths of his family. I’m not sure, but I believe, if the prosecutor feels he gets a little more evidence, he also plans on adding charges, and I know that the police believe that Malachi killed Peter Andres and Earnest Covington, as well.”

“He didn’t kill Covington. And I told the cops that. I don’t know what they’re thinking, not to listen to me. Unless folks just get stuff stuck in their minds so hard they can’t see the light.”

“We’re truly grateful for the courage of your convictions, Mr. Sedge.”

“What?”

“Thank you for sticking with the truth.”

“The truth is the truth. He didn’t kill Covington.”

Jenna rose.

“Of course…” Sedge began, rising politely.

“Of course what?”

“Doesn’t mean he didn’t take an ax to his mom and dad. Hell, if I’d been that kid, I’d have been tempted to take an ax to that old Abraham Smith!”

“You know,” John Alden told Sam, “you need to thank God that usually, even with the mayhem that goes on around Haunted Happenings, we’re mostly a good, law-abiding place. With Malachi in custody, I haven’t been finding bodies anywhere, and I have the time to do this with you.”

John Alden had agreed to show Sam around Earnest Covington’s house. They stood just outside, and Sam waited for John to let him in and give him whatever instructions he might feel obligated as a detective to give.

“You’re a true gem, John, and a great believer in justice,” Sam said.

“Actually, you know, the cops usually work with the prosecutors,” John reminded him.

“Ah, but, first and foremost, you are a great believer in justice, and therefore agree that the defense has the right to question witnesses and investigate when a client makes a plea of not guilty. You wouldn’t want to get caught up in any red tape, and you like to keep an eye on me.”

The policeman sighed. “Earnest Covington was a widower, lived alone, but he ordered out a lot, so it was actually a kid from the Pizza Palace who found him. The door was ajar so the kid just came in and saw Covington on the floor, right in front of the hearth. The chalk marks are still there-as is the blood spatter,” John said, his mouth growing tight.

Covington’s house was built in much the same style as the Lexington House: front and back entries, parlors to either side of the entrance, and a narrow stairway that led to several rooms above. There was an attic as well, but according to the police report, it didn’t appear that the house had been ransacked in any way. Just as in the murder of Peter Andres, it appeared that the killer came with but one thing in mind-murder.

“The pizza kid found the door ajar?” Sam asked.

“Yep, just like I said.”

“Did your crime-scene people find anything that indicated that the killer had jimmied the lock in any way?” Sam asked.

“No,” John said. He sighed again. “And before you ask, there were so many fingerprints on the door that the lab is still working on sorting them all out.”

“So what made you suspect Malachi Smith?” Sam demanded.

John’s eyes narrowed and he offered Sam a grim smile. “Because we already suspected him in the case of Peter Andres.”

“But why? From everything that I’ve heard, Malachi liked the teacher. And Peter Andres liked Malachi well enough-he hated Abraham Smith.”

“There’d been trouble, bad blood with Malachi,” John said. “God knows, maybe at one time, Jamie O’Neill might have been able to help him. I know that O’Neill kept trying-despite the system that gave the kid back to his parents without interference-and he might have had some luck with him. But, come on-the kids were terrified of him.”

“John, he was like the runt of the litter-picked on.”

“And, sometimes, Sam, when kids pick on another kid, there’s a good reason. Oh, come on, you know that the signs of a serial killer can be seen at a young age. Sickos who throw rocks at dogs and kill kittens.”

Sam stared at John. “And did anyone ever report that Malachi Smith killed a kitten?”

“Not actually.”

“Not actually?” Sam demanded.

“Kids talk.”

“Do you know of a kitten that was killed?”

John opened his mouth, arched his eyebrows and then closed his mouth again. “No.”

“John, you persecuted that kid because of hearsay.”

“No, Sam, you weren’t here. Something really happened to the Yates kid-David. He was in agony. Whether Malachi Smith just has something about him that threatened the other kids or not, he’s strange.”

“I don’t think you can be tried for murder just for being strange,” Sam said.

“And I should ignore all the warning signs-not to mention the fact that the kid was covered in his family’s blood-and fail to make an arrest? He hasn’t been charged with the murder of Earnest Covington or that of Peter Andres. He was a person of interest, that’s all. And in the Covington case, Yates and his friend said that they saw him coming from Earnest Covington’s house.”

“And Milton Sedge said that the kid was in his store.”

“I just said that he’d only been a person of interest,” John told him.

Sam let out a long breath and knew that he needed to maintain control. John Alden was legally obligated to give him certain information vital to the case, but he didn’t have to go out of his way to be helpful. He couldn’t push the man too far; he was already basically questioning his police work.

“I’m sorry, John. If he was brought into court on the Covington murder, I’d rip the prosecution to shreds in a matter of minute. These days, I have to prove reasonable doubt, and in a he-said-he-said situation, I’d sure as hell have doubt.”

“Sam, you saw him the night I arrested him. What would you have done?”

“Arrested him,” Sam admitted after a long pause.

“I don’t judge. I’m not on the bench, and I won’t be on the jury,” the policeman said. “I try to maintain the law. I’m not out for Malachi Smith. Prove to me the kid is innocent, and I’ll be the first to tear apart the world trying to get at the truth. But right now, he looks like our man.”

Sam nodded. “Of course. And thank you, John.”

John nodded back.

“So, the killer came in by the door-without forcing it-and apparently came right at Earnest Covington, sliced him to death and left,” Sam said.

John nodded, watching him. Sam walked back to the front door, halfway closed it, pushed it open and walked into the hall. He looked to the right and left, and headed in toward the hearth in the parlor to the left. Earnest Covington must have been standing by his hearth. On the mantel, Sam saw that he kept a kept a metal receptacle for mail. Possibly he was looking through his bills when his killer entered. Sam took a closer look. There was a letter in the bin that looked as if it had been almost shoved back in, a letter postmarked Sydney, Australia. The sender was an Earnest Covington, Jr. Through the envelope, he could see the outline of photographs; Covington might not have owned a computer or a cell phone.

Blood spattered the cheap Rembrandt knockoff on the wall above the mantel. The floor in front of the mantel was still soaked with a dark stain.

“There’s one thing I should tell you,” John said.

“What’s that?”

“Another reason Malachi Smith came to mind-around here, folks aren’t great at locking their doors. Earnest Covington almost never did, according to his neighbors. He told them he didn’t have anything worth anything, and if some poor fellow walked in, he was welcome to take what he could.”

“Why did that make you think of Malachi?”

“Malachi lives in the neighborhood and he would have known that.”

“Was he supposed to have bad blood with Earnest Covington?”

“Not the kid-the old man. Covington was pretty vocal about the fact that he thought Abraham Smith should sell the house…and get out of the neighborhood. But, to be honest, I never heard about anything negative happening between Malachi and Covington-in fact, once, when Covington fell on an icy step, Malachi came over, dialed 911 and stayed with him until help came.”

“That really suggests murder,” Sam said quietly.

John shrugged. “Maybe the old man-Abraham Smith-killed his enemies, and his son freaked out and killed his father and family when he found out. You know, religious duty and all. Now, there’s a rational theory for you.”

“A rational theory-just as rational as someone else having committed all the murders,” Sam said.

John watched from the doorway. “Reasonable doubt-maybe you could prove that if Malachi had been charged with Covington’s murder. But reasonable doubt on his family when we found him bathed in blood? Sam Hall, you have a hell of an uphill road ahead of you!”

Sam suddenly wished that Jenna was with him. He wasn’t sure that he believed in “postcognition,” but he wasn’t getting a thing himself. It all seemed too simple.

“Mind if I walk around the house?” he asked.

“Knock yourself out. Covington has one son, lives in Australia. He’s a single father, twin two-year-olds. We’ve been keeping him informed on the investigation through Skype online. I’m sure if you think it will help solve the mystery of his father’s murder, he’ll be all for an explanation. You just promise me one thing, Sam Hall.”

“What’s that?”

“If we prove that Malachi Smith killed these people, and you do wind up defending him with the excuse that he’s crazy as all hell, you don’t demand that he be let out on the streets in a year!”

“I promise you, the actual murderer will be locked away for a long, long time,” Sam said with final authority.

Jenna saw John Alden’s police car on the street. Crime-scene tape hung from the door and the door itself was ajar. She hesitated before touching the knob.

“Hello?” she called.

John Alden came and opened the door for her. “Miss Duffy. What a surprise. Only it’s not a surprise-right? Sam probably just called you.”

“True,” she said.

“He’s upstairs. Come on in. Though why he called you, I don’t really know. You don’t seem to react well at a crime scene, and I’m damned glad. That makes you nicely human.”

He meant to be nice. She smiled. “I’m okay.”

“And you’re FBI, eh?”

She laughed. “Tougher than I look, I guess.”

“But you must get lots of blood and guts,” John said.

“I do, but-”

“No, no, sorry for being abrasive. You’re right-when it stops bothering us, we need to get the hell out of law enforcement.”

Jenna heard footsteps coming down the stairs and then Sam’s voice. “Jenna! You’re here.” He glanced at John. “We happened to talk. She was in the area.”

“Of course,” said the cop.

Sam grinned at him. He looked at Jenna again. His expression was grave and yet, he seemed relieved. Maybe he’d been afraid she would refuse to come, after the way they had parted. He had almost called her a charlatan.

“Jenna, here’s what I know, what I suspect. Earnest Covington was known to leave his door open. He wasn’t afraid of thieves. So, he either left his door open and the killer walked in-and caught him in front of the hearth-or he let his killer in, they came into the parlor together, and then the killer struck. I’ve a hunch it was the former rather than the latter. I think that Earnest Covington was just about to go through his mail, something he probably wouldn’t be doing with company. Plus, the first letter in the mail grate is from his son. There’s a picture in it, and he might have been about to admire his grandsons.”

Jenna looked at him and nodded. “Makes sense. I’m going to just take a look around, too, then.”

“Makes sense,” Sam replied, and began a conversation with the policeman that seemed more like a smokescreen for her than anything real.

She walked back to the door to let her mind encompass what had taken place, while she tried to let her heart imagine Earnest Covington. She closed her eyes and had an impression of an older man-the perfect grandfather figure. He’d had white hair, he’d been lean and weathered, a man who had worked through his prime, and was still fierce in his thoughts and opinions. His life was somewhat lonely, but he didn’t mind-his wife was gone, and he wanted no other. He lived to tell the occasional visitor what Salem had been like before they’d gone modern-day witch crazy, before they’d become so commercial and when the House of the Seven Gables hadn’t been blocked from view by a dozen gift shops hawking witch T-shirts.

As she thought these things, it seemed that a shadowy haze slipped over her, and the house. She had a sense of coming home and leaving the door open. Who would want his old stuff? The sofa with the upholstery that was all lumpy, or the TV that barely worked and certainly wasn’t attached to any newfangled gadgets. He walked into the living room, having just been for a stroll down the street. He smiled, thinking of the letter his son had sent. Wretched boy, falling in love with a foreigner, and heading off with her to Australia. It was with a heavy heart that he thought of the daughter-in-law he’d met at the wedding but never seen again. She’d died in a flash from a virus that no one had been able to stop. So now, of course, his son was still in Australia, but Earnest hoped that he’d come home soon enough, when the boys were a little bit older and his in-laws learned to live with their loss. For now, he had the pictures that Andrew sent, like these new ones…

He hadn’t really heard the door open; he just became aware that someone was with him.

He’d been puzzled at first; in fact, he had laughed.

“If you’re looking to do something creepy at the old Lexington House, it’s down the street at the end of the block,” he said, not unwarmly.

The costumed intruder just stared at him.

“Private residence!” Earnest said, growing aggravated. He’d seen similar costumes before. It was like something out of the old days when the Puritan ministers tried to scare their flocks with pictures of an evil, horned and tailed devil. Of course, this person didn’t really have a tail. He was wearing a cloak, with a hood, the horns stuck out from the hood. The mask was red and black-of course, the devil was red, like a fierce, burning fire-or black, in the way that a heart could be black, and the costume was damned creepy and scary.

“Hey!” he said. “My house-I don’t remember inviting you in!”

The person stood very still for a moment-almost as if he was confused, or uncertain.

Then, the figure drew its hands from beneath the folds of the cape.

Earnest was briefly aware of a shining blade.

He barely had time to throw his hands up to protect his face…

And all to no avail.

He was aware of a crunch as the ax hit his skull; he was even aware of the warm spray of blood that sailed around him, oddly beautiful. Red like the devil himself…

He hit the floor.

And knew he was dying.

“Jenna!”

She gave herself a shake, mentally and physically, and refocused. Sam was standing in front of her; his hands were on her shoulders. His eyes, gray and sharp, were hard upon hers.

She knew that John Alden was standing right behind him.

She wasn’t going to say anything in front of the man who already thought she was a squeamish crackpot, especially not in front of John, who had yet to judge her as such.

“Yes, I’ve pictured it as you said, Sam,” she said simply, “and I believe that you’re right. I think that Earnest Covington came in and left his door open. I think he might have been anticipating the pleasure of looking at the pictures again. The killer just walked right in and killed him.”

Sam nodded. He turned to John Alden. “Thanks, John. I’m not trying to let killers loose on the streets, I swear. I appreciate your helping see to it that the defense has all the facts.”

“Well, I don’t want the prosecution losing on a technicality-as in the defense not having everything it’s legally due,” John said. He looked at Sam. “Hey, come on, I’m not a mean or horrible man! I feel sorry for the kid. But I feel even sorrier for Peter Andres and Earnest Covington… And the Smith family, of course.”

The last was definitely added as an afterthought, Jenna was certain.

“All right then, we’ll get out of your way, John,” Sam said.

“I drove you here,” John reminded him.

“I have a car,” Jenna said quickly.

“All right. Keep me posted if you need anything else,” John said.

“Will do,” Sam told him.

He opened the door for Jenna, nudging it with his elbow. They walked outside.

“The car is down the street, at the grass by the cliff-side park,” Jenna said.

He nodded, walking alongside her. They passed Lexington House and both of them paused. Crime-scene tape still roped off the entire property. Fierce signs warned the curious off: arrests would be made for trespassing and interference.

“Covington’s house is seriously just a block away,” Jenna murmured.

“Yep.”

“Well, you won’t have a problem in court as far as the Covington killing is concerned-if Malachi is charged.”

“Oh?” he asked her.

“I went to see the grocer. He’s convincing. Sedge swears up and down that he saw Malachi several times during the hours when the M.E. says that Covington was killed.”

“Well, that’s great. You, uh, just decided to interview him?”

She looked at him. He wasn’t angry; he was slightly amused.

“I have a feeling that my people skills may be better than yours, at times,” she said.

He nodded and took her elbow. Even by the light of day, Lexington House had a depressing facade, and it seemed that the windows were horrible eyes with evil intent-watching out for the unwary.

Sam had drawn his eyes from the house. “So?” he asked.

“So?” she repeated.

“What did you really see?” he asked her.

She groaned. “I’m not talking to you about anything-just the facts, man.”

“Actually, please. I’m sorry. Tell me what you really saw, felt…or imagined in your mind.”

Imagined in your mind. Was that his way of saying that he was interested in her visions revealed?

She stopped walking again and stared at him. “I saw that the killer wore a costume again. I’m not sure that either of these two men knew, even as they died, who did it. The costume could just be some kind of a logical choice because it is Salem, where people are known to have a deep and profound belief in both God and the devil, or the person really believes that they need to dress up as something to get away with murder. Right now, though, in either case, with Haunted Happenings going on, who in the world is going to really notice anyone in costume?”

She expected him to groan and say that, of course, even if she might have some kind of special ESP-it wasn’t telling them a thing.

He didn’t. He looked at her, as if perplexed. “Now Haunted Happenings is going on. Now you might not notice someone in a costume. Peter Andres was killed six months ago.”

“True,” Jenna admitted.

They reached her car and the park at the cliff. He didn’t get in but walked past it and started up the path that led to the cliff. It wasn’t a high cliff, but rather a rise created from the jagged granite that was the solid base of so much of the area.

There were scattered trees, creating a copse here and there, to the northern portion of the little park. Where the ground leveled at the top of the rise, there was a walkway to the edge, which overlooked the water. Sam followed the path, and Jenna followed Sam.

White waves crashed with a fury in the autumn wind that rushed around them, stronger here, or so it seemed, than when they’d been down on the sidewalk by the neighborhood of old houses.

Sam stood staring out over the water.

“I used to come here myself,” he said, looking out. “It was always a great place to come and work out whatever adolescent problems I was having.” He turned to look at her. “Malachi said he was here when his family was murdered. I can imagine him coming here often. Somehow, being here makes you realize that your problems aren’t so great, there’s a vast world out there and we’re only a small part of it. I always loved the way the ocean seems angry here. I don’t remember ever coming when the waves weren’t white capped, and the crash of the sea against stone wasn’t loud and passionate.”

“It’s a beautiful little area,” Jenna agreed.

He pointed to the trees. “Kids come here to neck. And smoke pot.”

She laughed. “Did you come here to smoke and neck?”

He grinned. “Sure. I was a kid once. Believe it or not.”

“Actually, I even vaguely remember.”

He studied her. “You would have been accused of witchcraft, back in the day, you know.”

“Possibly,” she said. “I like to think I would have kept the concept of seeing or feeling the past to myself. But thank God I don’t have to as much in this century.”

He sat down on the grass by the cliff. Puzzled, she joined him. “Of course, if you’d been one of the magistrates, Sam Hall, you would have laughed the whole thing out of existence, since you don’t believe in anything.”

“I never said that I don’t believe in anything,” he said, plucking a blade of grass from the ground and running it through his fingers. He looked at her. “The law was quite different then, you know. We’ve come a long way. The colony was English. And the entire Christian world believed in witchcraft. It was a way to cast and apportion blame. To explain the unexplainable. I don’t know why, but I keep thinking that there is some kind of answer in this that has to do with the past. The thing is, witchcraft was illegal and punishable by death back then. If you commit murder in death penalty states nowadays, you may be executed for the crime. It’s the law. A judge is legally and morally responsible to hand out sentences that conform to the law. Now, we have the concepts of legal and illegal searches, individual rights and so on. The people of 1692 weren’t protected that way-they seldom had any kind of representation. When I decided to go into the law, I would pretend that I had been Rebecca Nurse’s defense attorney. If I’d been there, of course, she wouldn’t have hanged.”

“I’m sure she’d appreciate that,” Jenna said, smiling.

He grinned in turn.

“Salem and Salem Village were in turmoil. The Puritans might have adhered to strict teaching, but they weren’t above wanting to make money. At the time, the Porters and the Putnams and others-even though some of the families were actually intermarried-were having all kinds of land disputes. They’d been around for many years, so I’d say a good part of the population was related in one way or another. But, hey, it’s hard to imagine, but true, that in royal and noble families brothers and nephews killed one another over a crown. So, it’s not so hard to believe that they let bitterness carry them away here. Whether or not they really knew it, the people were probably letting their anger with each other prejudice their belief in what was happening. Hey, if you’re really mad at someone, it’s easier to think ill of them. And I think about kids-maybe they weren’t malicious, maybe they even believed part of what they were saying-you tell a lie often enough and it becomes real in your own mind.”

“One of the first women accused was Sarah Bishop,” Jenna said. “She was supposedly disagreeable, and her husband’s children from a previous marriage also wanted property she owned. They say, too, that she wore a scarlet bodice-not very Puritan of her!-and had drinking parties. She’d been accused before, so she was an easy target.”

“One of the first people hanged,” Sam said. “She wouldn’t confess to being a witch.”

“And Malachi will not confess to being a murderer,” Jenna said.

Sam nodded. “He’s an easy target, too,” he said softly. “And I’m willing to bet he’s being targeted for a reason. It looks like all evidence is against him-just as, to the Puritans, it looked as if there was solid evidence against those they executed. And Giles Corey-pressed to death because he wouldn’t make a plea. The old bastard didn’t intend to let anyone get a hold of his property, and by the legal system, not giving a plea protected his property.”

“I’d have let them have my property,” Jenna said. “Life is so much better.”

Sam laughed. “Me, too, probably. But by the law, if he didn’t plead, he couldn’t be tried, and because he wasn’t tried, he died in full possession of his property. And to force someone to make a plea so that they could be tried, they were pressed. Giles Corey was an old buzzard-he testified against his own wife. But he endured two days of pain-his tongue bulged out and the sheriff had to put it back in his mouth with his cane, and the old man still endured. ‘More weight!’ is all that he ever said, according to the records, and witnesses were horrified. What happened, of course, wasn’t caused by any one person, but belief mingling with old grievances and the social structure and laws of the day. The thing is, we’ve come far, but we’ll never get past being human. Malachi isn’t accepted in society. Good people will easily believe he could be a killer. I have to prove reasonable doubt, and that’s going to be hard. He wasn’t arrested for murdering Peter Andres or Earnest Covington; he was arrested for the murders of his family. I have all kinds of motions filed, but since he wasn’t legally accused of the other murders, I most probably won’t be able to use the fact that he was seen elsewhere when Earnest Covington was murdered. It depends on how all the motions filed sit with the judge. I have to prove reasonable doubt in those murders, and since he was covered in their blood…”

“His explanation is reasonable,” Jenna pointed out.

Sam stood and offered a hand down to her. “Bridget Bishop wasn’t really hanged for what she did. She was hanged for who she was.”

“You believe that Malachi is facing the same fate?” she asked.

“Yes. But with one big difference.”

“The law has become more equitable?” Jenna asked.

Sam grinned. “No,” he said. “He has me.” She was startled when he touched her cheek in something that was almost a tender gesture.

“And,” he added, “he has you.”