The Evil Inside (Krewe of Hunters) Read online

  “There, there,” Sam said.

  Jenna had come to stand quietly beside him. He looked at her helplessly.

  She slipped in, putting her arms around the woman. “Mabel, none of this is your fault, and you get that out of your head.”

  “He missed his wife, honey,” another woman said hopefully. “At least he’s with her now.”

  “Yes, that’s true, that’s true….” Mabel agreed, but then she sobbed again. “But he loved his kids and his grandkids!”

  “But he’s with his wife, and he probably missed her terribly,” Jenna said.

  Jenna managed to get Mabel into the arms of another of the women.

  She grabbed Sam’s sleeve. “I want to see the body,” she told him.

  He frowned, staring at her.

  “Sam, I’m an R.N. Not a pathologist or anything, but I’ve been around an emergency room a time or two. I want to take a look at the body.” She looked up at him with her green eyes earnest and clear.

  He nodded, caught her hand and made his way to John Alden.

  “You really want to allay my suspicions—and those of anyone else, should questions arise, which you know they will,” Sam said. He added, “Please.”

  John started to let out a sigh of exasperation, but then he looked at Jenna, and he seemed to hesitate, perhaps remembering the fact that she’d brought in the horned god costume that yielded results.

  He groaned. “What? What? What now?”

  “I’d like to see him, please,” she said.

  John scowled. “The medical examiner has cleared us to have the body taken to the morgue.”

  “I’ll only need a minute or two,” Jenna said.

  “What now, what now?” John demanded.

  “What now—you’re a good cop. And, of course, that doesn’t mean that you have to agree to do any favors for me. But, come on, John. You don’t want me having to question you later, or say that you were willing to accept the obvious with no question.”

  “Pain, royal pain, in my ass,” John told him.

  “But I’m right sometimes,” Sam said.

  “You got two minutes. And be careful—hell, I don’t want either of you dead or crippled by olive oil.”

  Then John called to the officers who were holding the line at the door. “Let them in!”

  Inside, techs were still marking off positions. It was obvious, though, that the rush had been to attempt to save a man’s life, not preserve the scene. Towels had hastily been spread on the floor to keep emergency help from sliding into mayhem themselves, and the offending cans had been tossed everywhere.

  But a path had been cleared to the body, and Sam watched as Jenna carefully made her way to Sedge’s bloodied and crumpled form.

  “Excuse me?” the medical examiner, who had been writing on a chart, asked with a frown.

  “Alden’s permission, Doctor,” Sam said. The M.E. lifted an eyebrow, but he didn’t protest.

  “We’ll be taking him out in just a minute,” the doctor said.

  “There will be an autopsy,” Sam said.

  “Of course. Accidental death,” the M.E. assured him. “And that didn’t take a medical opinion. Just look at what happened here. Of course, that’s not official. As you said, certainly, there will be an autopsy.”

  Jenna didn’t touch the dead man. She went down on her knees, heedless of the conditions around her, and studied the injuries. As she looked down, she felt a strange ripple down her spine. She looked up.

  And the dead man was there, looking down at her and at his broken body, incredible sadness in his eyes. He looked from his mangled form to her eyes, and he formed a single word with his ghostly lips.

  “Murder!”

  Jenna looked back to the corpse. Then, true to her word, she was up in a minute. She smiled her thanks to the M.E. and the techs that had paused to watch her.

  “R.N.,” she said weakly.

  “Honey, he’s way past that!” one of the techs said.

  “Yes, I can see that,” Jenna assured the woman.

  She walked to Sam, nodding, and they headed back out.

  John Alden was right in front, still trying to soothe the crowd while writing in his notebook.

  “See—death by olive oil,” he said, and there was no humor in his voice.

  “Yes, definitely, the tins killed him,” Jenna said. “There was no sign of a heart attack, although, of course, I’m not an M.E.”

  “No, you’re not,” John said firmly. “But why do you say that?”

  She arched her eyebrows, playing for time as she sorted out what she had seen in her mind. She wasn’t going to tell John Alden that the dead man’s corpse had been standing over his earthly remains.

  “Well, on the one hand, there were deep contusions and lacerations on his head. It would be like being beaten to death,” she said. “And, in my mind, his coloring—I’d expect different coloring from a heart attack. What time are they estimating time of death? I’m going to say early last evening.”

  John stared at her, perplexed.

  “Well?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, on cursory inspection, that’s what the M.E. believes. He must have had the accident when he was closing up,” John said.

  “Who found him?” Sam asked. “The store is closed on Sundays.”

  “His son came when his dad wasn’t at church. We’ve sent him on home. He has to tell his wife and kids. And…it wasn’t good for him to be hanging around here,” John said, sympathy in his voice. “Now, I called you. I let you see the situation—and the body. Can I get back to work?”

  “Yes. Thanks, John,” Sam said, pausing before adding, “Oh, and, hey, by the way, if it’s an accidental death, why are you here? I thought you only worked homicide.”

  Alden hesitated, looking at him. He sighed. “With the mess going on in Salem, naturally I’m going to be called to the site of any accidental death. And Sedge’s son called it in as a homicide. Since he might have been called as a witness in the one of the current murder cases, I decided I was going to stick with it and investigate it thoroughly. Happy?”

  “You bet I am,” Sam said. “Thanks.”

  “Thanks,” Jenna added as Sam set his hand on her back, leading her from the crowd. Local stations were setting up cameras. Sam saw that a cable channel was already live and he knew from experience each one of them was hoping for a sensational scene. If it bleeds, it leads. But if it wasn’t sensational, it wasn’t national.

  Jamie, Jackson and Angela were once again around the kitchen table at Jamie’s house; they’d been watching the news. Jenna told them what had happened at the store.

  She was surprised when Sam’s fist hit the table. He didn’t seem to give in to frustration frequently. “He was murdered. Death by olive oil. Like hell—it was murder by olive oil. Someone was in that store, and someone beat him to death with those cans.”

  “Coincidence?” Jamie asked.

  “I don’t believe in coincidence. Especially not when it’s this convenient,” Sam said.

  “I don’t believe in coincidence, either,” Jackson agreed and began firing off questions that Sam answered wearily. No, the door hadn’t been locked. One of his longtime clerks had been the last to see him. No, Jenna was damned sure that he hadn’t died of a heart attack when the tins had started to fall. He’d been discovered by his son, who had called it in as a homicide.

  Jackson’s phone rang as they were sitting there. Seeing it was Jake, he put the phone on speaker.

  “Interesting news that might not have been easy to find, unless, of course, you thought to look in all the right places,” Jake told them.

  “Quit gloating and tell us what you’ve got,” Jenna said.

  “First, I found—public record, Jackson—articles for the Old Meeting House when it was founded, and when it was designated a house of worship. They requested more tax exemptions and conscientious objector status for some members, and a petition that was signed by most of the membership. Now, who didn’t sign,
that I don’t know. That was something I had to dig for, so I’m thinking most of them signed it, assuming it was a private petition. I’ve emailed the list to all of you—including you, Sam. Your contact info was easy enough to find.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said glumly.

  “No problem,” Jake said cheerfully. “And here, children, is something that you should know.”

  “Spit it out, Jake!” Jenna warned.

  “Be nice, Miss Duffy! All right, your two prospective buyers are in business together.”

  “What?” Sam said, staring at Jenna with disbelief.

  “Oh, yeah. There’s a lot of ‘doing business as’ going on in both of their lives, but Andy Yates and Samantha Yeager are in business together. One of his company’s companies is called Magic Madam. In any other state, it might have been a cleaning service—I think Magic Madam and Her Gals is the name of a cleaning corporation somewhere in Georgia. Sorry, never mind. Anyway, seems like the money to start up came from Yates. He’s the investor and she’s the workforce.”

  “Well, Andy Yates did say that he knew her and that she was an impressive woman,” Sam said drily.

  “Well, she is impressive—I’m just not sure what her impression is!” Angela said.

  “Ah, think about it,” Sam said. “With the right guy…you never know.”

  Jackson glanced at him. “You mean someone with a repressed home life and a wife who’s kind of a delicate flower but longs to be supermom and probably has no time for her husband?”

  “Yep. Exactly what I was thinking,” Sam said.

  “Jake, you’re brilliant!” Jenna said.

  “I’m even more brilliant. I looked up the school’s football team. And I can tell you this. On the afternoon that Peter Andres was killed, Councilman Yates and his son were at one of the school’s major football matches—in Revere. There’s a newspaper picture of the councilman with his arm around his son after the school won against Lynn, Mass. I tried all the timing—the kid was in the game all day, and the whole team, along with Dad, celebrated at a restaurant in Peabody that evening. That accounts for daddy Yates, baby boy Yates and even Joshua Abbott for at least ten hours, and, according to the medical report, Peter Andres was killed between two in the afternoon and six in the evening.”

  Jenna looked at Sam, who appeared frustrated. “Thanks, Jake, you’re still brilliant, you know, despite that.”

  “Well, thank you there, Miss Duffy. I’m still on the list of members belonging to the Old Meeting House.”

  “Jake,” Sam said, “what I’d like you to find out is if you can cross-reference members with people who have children in the school. We’ll be heading there tomorrow when the police go in to question the kids and drama department.”

  “I’ll be on it. Should have more answers for you later in the day.”

  When they hung up, Sam glanced around. “I wish he was my researcher.”

  Jenna smiled. “Jake’s the best,” she said. Her mind, however, was reeling with what the researcher had told them. She didn’t want to share her suspicion yet, not until she had done a little sleuthing on her own. With Sam, despite the fact that he seemed to have accepted her and the others, she wanted facts. “So, Sam Hall, Esquire, where do we go from here?”

  Sam drummed his fingers on the table. “I say it’s time to pay another visit to Madam Samantha. The clerk said that she was working during the Covington murder and the Smith family murders. I still want to talk to her again. Obviously she knows much more than she’s shared so far. We could try to catch up with the councilman, but it’s Sunday, and I bet Mrs. Yates won’t let him let any of us near him at this point. That leaves Madam Samantha.”

  “I could go to church,” Angela suggested.

  They all looked at her.

  “Well,” she said. “No one knows me yet at the Old Meeting House. If it’s a fundamentalist group, I’m willing to bet that they meet all day.”

  “I can go with Angela,” Jenna said. She didn’t really want to go, but she wanted to make sure that Sam didn’t rope her into going with him. She needed to do what she wanted to do on her own, at first. She had a hunch, and if her hunch was right, the crime-scene photos might prove it.

  “No, too many people know that you’re working with me. None of the church members would have seen Angela yet, so she could go,” Sam said. “Except, of course, I think you’ve all had your pictures in national magazines at one time or another.”

  “If they recognize me, they’ll kick me out,” Angela said.

  “All right. Angela, you head to church,” Jackson said.

  “What about Joshua Abbott?” Jenna asked. “He was one of the people wearing the horned god costume at the ball last night.”

  “We’ll get to Joshua tomorrow at school,” Sam said.

  “You could try to speak with him today—his mother never threatened you,” Jenna pointed out.

  “Ouch!” Sam said. “All right, I can try to get that in today, too. If not, I’ll have John Alden make sure he breaks up the two—David Yates and Joshua Abbott—tomorrow. Even if we’re considering them cleared, they know something. Call it a hunch.”

  “A hunch, huh?” Jackson said, smiling. “Just messing with you. I can do my part and try to get to the rest of the Abbott family.”

  “I’d like to speak with Milton Sedge’s son,” Sam said. “But I don’t want to intrude so immediately on his grief, especially since none of us can do so now in an official capacity. This evening, maybe. John Alden isn’t going to give me any help with that. He’s convinced it was an accident that killed Milton Sedge. But I don’t want to sit around, either, and with what we know now, I think that Madam Samantha could answer a few more questions.” He looked at Jackson. “Madam Samantha definitely has a bold edge to her, and she seems to like to taunt men. Jackson, you and I will go to see if we can’t get in for more readings.” He grinned at Jenna. “No offense—you’re not her type.”

  “No offense taken,” Jenna assured him, relieved. She hesitated.

  “Madam Samantha, Joshua Abbott—and Sedge’s son,” Jackson said.

  “Sam, do you have the police photos taken at all the murders?”

  He shook his head. “Just the Smith family crime scene.”

  “Then I think I’ll pay a visit to the police station. Can you call John Alden for me? At his level, he’s probably typically off on Sundays—probably rushing home after having been called in this morning.”

  Sam groaned. “If you want the photos, I should go with you.”

  “Maybe it’s best if I just go,” Jenna said. She smiled. “John Alden is a good guy, like you said. I think he’ll help me. You call, I’ll talk. I have a hunch. I just want to see something. I’ll go to the station, see the photos, and then I’ll just hang around on the street and watch Will’s form of magic. We can meet up there.”

  The bored clerk still liked Sam. She probably knew exactly who he was by then, but she still seemed to like him.

  And she still turned him down.

  “You know, we’re in full swing here these days,” she noted. “Halloween is just two days away. You’ve got to understand. Madam Samantha is in the highest demand. She’s doubled her rates for these last few days, and we’re still turning people away. I can’t possible slip you in today.”

  “She must come out to breathe…. Maybe I could take her for lunch, coffee, drinks…something?” he asked hopefully.

  “And I haven’t had a chance for a reading at all,” Jackson said.

  “No. No, no and no—and I’m so, so sorry!” the girl said. “Look, I do readings too, you know.”

  Sam was thinking quickly of something courteous and politic to say in return when a client in Gothic attire came out from behind the curtain. Madam Samantha followed, stopping dead when she saw Sam and Jackson.

  “I was just telling them how busy you were,” the clerk said.

  Madam Samantha smiled slowly. She pointed at Sam. “You. You, come with me.”

  “
Go get her, buddy,” Jackson whispered lightly to Sam. “I’ll talk to the charming clerk for a bit and see if I can’t still verify our tarot reader’s whereabouts, see if there was any way she might have slipped out during the murders.”

  Sam followed the sultry “psychic” to the back. He was curious that she had decided to see him. She knew who he was, and she had to know he was trying to trip her up. What the hell was it that gave her so much confidence?

  They went back to her curtained area. She took her seat behind her table with its crystal ball and tarot deck. She indicated the chair in front of the table.

  “Getting tired of Red already?” she asked him.

  “Maybe,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure you out.”

  She lifted her hands and offered him one of her overtly sexual smiles. “What’s to figure out, Mr. Hall? I’m an open book. You want to accuse me of murder because it’s always the sexually unabashed and brassy woman who turns out to be the murderer. Come now, Mr. Hall, you’re a renowned attorney! You know the world doesn’t work that way. I was here, right here. I have a dozen witnesses to testify that I was working when the Smith family was killed. What? Do you think you’re in Salem and you can use spectral evidence? My astral self went out and committed murder while I was here, in the flesh, with a dozen clients?”

  “No,” Sam said. “I believe that you didn’t kill the Smith family.”

  “Then?”

  “I want to know about your partnership with Andy Yates.”

  She lowered her eyes and smiled slowly. “Hmm. Yes, well, someone dug deep to find out about that.”

  “Business agreements like that are public record,” Sam reminded her.

  “Yes, but…never mind. We weren’t trying to hide assets from the government or anything. Yates just wanted it all…well, he’s a councilman.”