The Evil Inside (Krewe of Hunters) Read online

  “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.”