The Evil Inside (Krewe of Hunters) Read online

“Because,” Marty said, his voice filled with exasperation and fear. “It was there. Every kid in town knows it. It’s just a creepy costume and mask from our school events!” he said.

  Marty was shaking. Jenna was certain that he was repeating what he had heard the adults around him say over and over.

  She almost felt sorry for him. And she was surprised when Sam spoke sternly but evenly.

  “Marty, think about it. What if Malachi is just different? If he’s just a skinny kid who is super religious because that’s the way he was raised. What if he didn’t do it?”

  “But—but he did do it,” Marty said.

  “How do you know? How do you know that for a fact?”

  “I’ve seen the TV. Hey, I know they all thought that he killed old man Andres—and that Covington guy, too,” Marty said. “And then his crazy dad—hey, we don’t even blame him for killing his crazy dad, but he could kill us!”

  “We know that he didn’t kill Mr. Covington,” Sam said flatly.

  Marty shook his head. “No, no—David and Josh, they said that he killed Covington.”

  “Marty, David Yates is afraid of Malachi. Don’t you think that he might make up a story—or that maybe he even thought that he saw Malachi?”

  Marty’s eyes darted from Sam to Jenna. “He—he’s afraid of him for a good reason!”

  “Oh, come on, Marty! You’re a smart kid. You don’t believe in the ‘evil eye,’ do you?” Sam asked him.

  Marty was confused and still very scared. “I—I…I don’t know….”

  “Let him go for now,” Jenna said softly. “Marty needs to learn that everything he hears isn’t true. Come on, Sam. Let’s let him go.”

  “How am I going to explain going home in my underwear?” Marty asked.

  “How were you going to explain going home in a stolen costume?” Sam asked him in return.

  Marty looked at them both. Jenna was no longer holding him.

  He turned and ran.

  They watched him for a moment, and then Sam turned to Jenna. She thought for a minute that he was going to put his hands on her and shake her. He looked as if he wanted to do that, but with supreme effort refrained.

  “Why the hell didn’t you answer your phone?” he demanded. “I thought that something serious had happened to you. Your uncle is in a panic. Your uncle!”

  Without another word, he pulled out his own phone. He dialed Jamie, staring at Jenna.

  “Found her.”

  She could hear Jamie’s reply. “Where?”

  “In the cemetery.”

  “What?”

  “She’s fine, Jamie. We’ll see you soon.”

  “Why didn’t she answer her phone?”

  “Because I lost it!” Jenna said loudly. “And I think probably in here—probably against the back wall.”

  “Did you hear that, Jamie?” Sam asked.

  “Aye. I’ll meet you at the new barbecue. It’s two blocks from the graveyard. Lost her phone! Eh, my heart’s not old enough for all this fibrillatin’!”

  Sam pocketed his phone, staring at her. “You did just cost us about ten years of life, you know.”

  “Sam, I dropped my phone. It’s in here somewhere. I have to find it.”

  “Jenna, it’s almost dark.”

  “I’ll find it.”

  “Retrace your steps.”

  She nodded, and explained where she’d been, not explaining exactly why. They split up by about twenty feet, trying to cover more ground.

  “You should never be alone,” he called to her.

  “Oh, please, Sam! It was a kid trying to scare me, and I handled it.”

  Night was on them; the only light came from the street, and she wondered herself if she had a prayer in hell of finding her phone.

  “You could ask the ghosts for help!” he called.

  “Maybe I will!”

  She was surprised when she felt a soft touch on her arm.

  It was a young woman. She had large eyes and soft flyaway hair, and she couldn’t have been more than twenty years old when she had passed away. She managed a gentle smile and led the way.

  Jenna found her phone against the back wall.

  “Found it!” she called to Sam.

  “That’s a miracle!” he told her.

  “Oh, well, you know, a ghost helped me!” she called cheerfully. “Of course, if we were smarter, we could have just had you call it….”

  He came to her and took her arm. She wished she didn’t get such a feeling of heat every time he touched her. She hoped her cheeks didn’t redden, or if they did, that the shadows of the night hid her reaction.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said huskily.

  “Sam, I want to get this costume to a lab right away. If we can find a twenty-four-hour FedEx or post office—”

  “Want to head to Boston?” he asked drily. “You know, the Massachusetts police aren’t the Feds, but they are pretty damned good.”

  “Sam, I’d have to explain that in my mind’s eye, I see someone dressed like this killing people. And I’d have to explain how I got it.”

  “Legalese, Miss Duffy. I can work it out with John Alden. He’s a good guy.”

  “Sam, we may be letting loose of a piece of evidence—”

  He sighed. “And you have no jurisdiction here at the moment. You weren’t invited in. If the costume goes to an FBI lab and something is found, I might wind up with a chain of evidence issue in court, or a judge could find some other reason to have it thrown out. We’ll just head to the station and call John.”

  As he spoke, they heard the single wong of a siren. They had reached the low wall to the street; suddenly, a flashlight blazed into their faces.

  “Graveyard is closed! Gate locked. What are you two doing in there?” An officer, his face shielded in the shadows cast by the glare of the light, demanded.

  “Sorry! We were just leaving,” Sam said.

  “What’s that you’ve got?” the officer demanded.

  “It’s just a costume,” Jenna offered.

  “It’s a serious offense here to tamper with the graves! To vandalize!” the officer said angrily.

  “We weren’t vandalizing!” Jenna protested indignantly.

  “Look, hey, the gates were locked when we were in here!” Sam said.

  “Bad enough dealing with kids and whackos during the season, but it’s worse when wiseass adults are playing around in the cemetery!” he said.

  Sam looked at Jenna. “Okay,” he told the officer. “Take us in.”

  “Take you in?” the officer was surprised. “I wasn’t arresting you—I was giving you a serious warning. You’re to come here to learn and have a good time and not destroy what is historic and can never be replaced.”

  “I know,” Sam said. “And you’re doing a great job. Go ahead and bring us in, though. I’ll call Detective Alden while we’re on the way. He might just be sitting down to his supper.”

  John arrived right after Sam and Jenna had been seated in his office, in the middle of her call to Jamie. He was perplexed as to why it was so important to have the costume brought to the lab.

  Jenna leaned forward to speak to John Alden, but Sam thought they were going to be in much better shape if he did the speaking.

  “John, bear with me on this. You’re a good guy. You’re really one of the good guys. And I know that you find it hard to believe that the evidence before your eyes is telling you the wrong story. I have a theory, and it may be crazy, but hear me out. No matter that you’re only charging the boy for some of the murders, you think the same person killed everyone, and I agree with you. You believe it was Malachi Smith. I don’t. And it’s not just because I’m defending him in court. I don’t believe the kid did it. You’re a cop, and yes, you work with the prosecutor. But prosecutors don’t want to prosecute the wrong person. No officer of the court wants to be responsible for a miscarriage of justice. That’s what we’re looking for here, John, justice.”

  “Why this costume?
” John asked, willing to listen to them but undeniably confused.

  “The kid wearing it—?” He paused, looking at Jenna.

  “Martin Keller,” she said. Her voice was tight, her jaw set. She wasn’t happy with him. But they were playing on the same side in a precarious game, and she had to see that.

  “Martin Keller ‘borrowed’ the costume from the drama room. He was using it to scare Jenna. I believe that our killer is dressing up when he or she sets out to commit murder. It may be slim, but there is a possibility that the person is dressing up not just in a similar costume, but one borrowed from the drama department.”

  “He or she? You think it might be a woman?” John said. “This much violence perpetuated by a woman is pretty rare.”

  “I didn’t say it was a woman,” Sam said. “I don’t know. But, yes, look back. In the Tate/LaBianca murders, Manson’s stable of idol-worshipping followers were mainly women, and they were capable of extreme brutality. Karla Homolka seduced the victims when she and her husband went on a killing rage—she was responsible for the rape and murder of her own sister.”

  “So, you do think it’s a woman?” John asked.

  “No, John, honestly, I don’t know yet. I’m just pointing out the fact that even if statistically men have committed more murders with this kind of violence, it’s more than possible that a woman could be responsible,” Sam said. He waved a hand in the air. “At this point, John, what I’m trying to explain is this: wear a costume, and you’re someone else. Wear a costume, and you can walk around unnoticed. Or even, wear a costume, and it might mean something specifically to you.”

  “You think they were ritual killings?” John asked.

  Sam lowered his head, fighting the frustration. “I know that a kid in this costume tried to scare Jenna tonight. I know it comes from the school’s drama department. I believe someone is wearing a costume like this—an encompassing costume, one to hide identity—to commit the killings. Please—hey, Jenna wanted to take this to the FBI.”

  John stared at Jenna. “The FBI has not been invited in.”

  Jenna stood, irritated. “Would it be such a bad thing? No one wants to take over. Obviously, we respect the Massachusetts police. No one wants to take charge of the investigation. But if you have help, please use it! Use us! The world is working on lower budgets. Why not charge a Federal lab? But Sam said that you were a good and honest cop and we could keep a chain of evidence. If you think we’re just being silly, then please, give the damned thing back to me!”

  Sam noted that John just stared at Jenna for a moment, his jaw fallen. Then he smiled and looked at Sam.

  “I’ll get the costume to the lab. I don’t want a miscarriage of justice, Sam. I just can’t believe that someone else has done all this. The kid was covered in blood. Covered. In. Blood. But I won’t have it be said you were denied anything in the right to defend your client.” He pointed at Sam. “You two chose not to call the police, and the costume is in your hands. So as long as we’re being ‘unofficial’ about everything, you see to it that school is afforded a new costume. And I’ll see to that Martin Keller is—”

  Jenna started to move forward again. Sam stood to block her.

  “No, John, please. Meeting the kid was a good lesson for both of us. We know what a lot of the local people are feeling. Let’s not say anything until we know about the costume. I don’t want to make it so no one in Salem will speak to us by having a kid arrested for a prank.”

  “If by a bizarre chance something is found…”

  “Of course. It would be remiss if you were not to become involved all way through Martin Keller, his parents and the school. Thanks, John.”

  He herded Jenna out, and then remembered he didn’t have his car. “Um, John, a ride to my car, if possible?”

  The same officer who had come upon them at the cemetery drove them to Sam’s car.

  It wasn’t there.

  “Tow zone, Mr. Hall, I’m afraid,” the officer pointed out. “You won’t be able to pick it up until tomorrow. I’m afraid you’ll have to pay that fine, too.”

  Sam was ready to explode. He didn’t give a damn about the fine, but he did love his car. It made coming and going the distance so much easier.

  It was a material object, he reminded himself.

  Yeah, but it was his material object. He’d always loved cars. He’d mowed lawns for his car, painted, hauled trash, worked hard. He couldn’t help it; he just really loved cars. He spent a lot of time in his car; it was a place he often spent a lot of time just thinking and calculating his arguments.

  “I can drop you somewhere else,” the officer told him.

  “You can drop me at the foot of Essex,” Jenna told the officer. “I think that Sam is just going to stand here and stare at the spot where his car used to be.”

  She got back into the police car. Sam shook his head. “Right. I’m going to stand here.” He tapped on the hood. “Go.”

  He watched as the car drove away, and then he kicked the ground. Damn it. He’d been frantic over her, and now, because of it, his car had been towed.

  She lost her phone in the cemetery while accosting the kid who had tried to scare her. What the hell was she doing in the cemetery again—communing with her ghosts? And she was flipping pissed off at him because he’d stopped her from speaking so that he could get a rational argument through to John Alden.

  But she was safe. That was worth a car being towed. Well, of course. Logical and ethical. Human life was always the most precious commodity. When life was gone, it could not be returned.

  It was more than that.

  Tense and angry, he walked back toward his own house. He didn’t find the streets all that charming at the moment; partygoers were out, dispersed among families, just trying to find a place for dinner before settling back into their bed-and-breakfast inns or hotel rooms for the night. There were endless balls in Salem as Halloween approached. Some private, some sponsored by the Wiccans, some sponsored by frat houses and sororities. It was true that every manner of costume known to man could be seen in the city.

  As he walked, he turned back to look at a rowdy crowd of fraternity boys. They were all dressed up as Greek heroes.

  A Warrior Princess Xena was following in their wake; she must have been freezing her…assets off. The night had definitely grown chill.

  He frowned suddenly, stopping dead in his tracks. Just behind Xena Warrior Princess was someone else who didn’t belong in the crowd of Greeks.

  Someone in a Celtic costume—that of the horned god, or the goat god. He started walking toward the group. The warrior princess cried out as she was pushed by the horned god, falling over and only just being saved from a hard meeting with the pavement because Sam was there in time to catch her.

  “Rude asshole!” one of the Greeks called out. “Thanks—” he began to say to Sam, but Sam was already moving through the crowd.

  He saw the horned god, and he took flight after it once again. The horned god turned and saw him, and slipped back into a crowd of princes, princesses, a frog and one Freddy Krueger. Bert and Ernie and the Count from Sesame Street took up most of the sidewalk.

  By the time he made his way through the cartoon menagerie, the horned god was gone.

  He stood, puzzled. It was a common costume, especially in Salem. At one time, surely, the Christian church had mistaken the Celtic goat god or horned god for the devil, and thus the creature of decadence had become something like evil incarnate.

  Pictures of the horned god adorned many of the museums dedicated to explaining what might have happened to cause the Salem Witch Trials.

  So why run? Why run away in the costume because Sam had seen him?

  Because Jenna was right?

  Feeling uneasy, still angry, angrier with himself because he’d allowed himself to get caught up in it all and angrier still because…

  She did something to him. It wasn’t like the simple burst of hormones, wanting a beautiful woman. That would be too
easy. True, he thought. Men could be ruled far more easily from below the belt. But that was easy, simple. I want you; do you want me, too? His life had been gifted, too many appetites easily achieved.

  This…this was a different kind of hunger. Not the kind that was easily appeased, and not the kind that he could walk away from and…

  He didn’t like it.

  Sam Hall. Oh, yeah, the clever one. Sometimes you’d need to intimidate—investigate. Become a P.I. Size mattered, psychologically, face-to-face with someone in a courtroom. Remember to go to the gym. Join the defense—remember to win.

  Fall for a red-haired Irish lass and…

  “Ah, yes,” he said softly aloud. “Burn in hell!”

  He reached his house. Inside he shed his trench coat and stripped haphazardly as he headed into the shower. Cold first, cold as ice, and then hot, the kind of water to knead the tension out of his muscles.

  It worked on his muscles, not on his mind.

  Death. Death was what you couldn’t take back. You could argue, you could rail. You couldn’t win against death.

  He’d learned that.

  And then, tonight, when she hadn’t answered her phone…

  FBI agent. Competent. Trained.

  Competent, trained people, veteran cops and marshals and soldiers all fell when they were ambushed, unadvised, unwary.

  He heard his doorbell ring as he turned off the water. Frowning, he slipped into his terry robe and padded barefoot to his bedroom. He kept his Smith & Wesson in the drawer next to his bed. With all that was going on, if someone was ringing his bell at night, he was going to the door armed.

  He looked through the peephole and felt all the tension he had just tried to ease from his body slam right back into it with a searing sensation of heat.

  9

  As she stood on her toes to see if she could actually look in the peephole, Jenna saw that it darkened. Sam had come to the door.

  It swung open. He stood there, still damp from the shower, wrapped in his robe, feet bare, a rigid and wary look on his face and a gun in his hand.

  “Hey, I come in peace!” she told him.

  “I doubt that,” he said drily, turning from her. “If you’re coming in, lock the door behind you.”