The Evil Inside Read online

Page 7

 

  “You do have faith in me,” she murmured.

  “Of course!” he said cheerfully. “Well, we’d best get on home, huh? I have a feeling it’s going to be an early morning. ”

  “And why is that?”

  “Sam Hall is going to want me to visit his client with him,” Jamie said.

  “He hasn’t agreed to defend Malachi Smith yet,” she said.

  Jamie grinned. “Faith, lass. I live by it!” he said cheerfully.

  It was good to be back at Uncle Jamie’s house. She’d spent a lot of time coming up here as a teenager. She smiled, thinking of the past. She’d had local friends—girls who had been glad to see her—and she brought the excitement of the big city, Boston, along with her.

  They’d shopped at the wonderful stores; they’d played at being Wiccan, and it had surprised her at first that her Catholic parents hadn’t minded. They had been amused. But they had seen the wars fought in their own country over religion and economics and were tolerant.

  Jamie’s house was old, but the family had always seemed to agree that it was a benign house. Whatever ghosts remained, they were tolerant, as well.

  Jenna went to sleep in the familiar old bedroom her uncle had always referred to as “hers. ” Jamie had allowed her to have her whims: there were posters of Gwen Stefani and No Doubt and other groups on the walls. They were a little incongruous there, since the bedroom was furnished entirely in period furniture, not from the seventeenth century, but the eighteenth century. Her bed was a four-poster; an old seafaring trunk sat at the foot of it, and a washstand with an antique ewer stood against the wall, along with an old wardrobe. To walk into the room—other than the posters and the stuffed Disney creatures on the shelves—was to walk into another time.

  She lay awake a long time, what she had learned from Jamie rushing through her head. She admired her uncle and his steadfast faith; all the evidence in the world might stand against Malachi Smith, but Jamie believed in him.

  When she fell asleep at last, she wasn’t sure that she had done so. The room still seemed to be bathed in a gray, half light. There seemed to be movement in her room, a movement of shadows, and then they stood still at the foot of her bed, staring at her.

  It was a group of women, and they were in the rather stern and drab shades of the late sixteen hundreds. Only one seemed to be in a slightly different color, and in the shadows Jenna thought it might be a dark crimson. They just stared at her, and even she, who was accustomed to meeting the dead, felt a deep unease. And then an old woman in the front lifted a hand toward her. She whispered something, and at first, Jenna couldn’t make out the words. She wanted to wake up; she wanted to reach over and turn on the bedside light or just let out a scream and run into the hallway.

  But then she comprehended the words the woman was trying to speak.

  “Don’t let the dead have died in vain. ”

  Her throat was still tight; she was still so afraid. And, yet, she was the one who sought out those who had died.

  Words came at her again.

  “Don’t let the blood run, don’t let more blood run. Don’t let your blood run. ”

  Sam Hall arrived at Jamie’s door at precisely eight in the morning. He was going to defend Malachi Smith, and he was going to do it pro bono.

  Jenna decided that her uncle really did know how to read people.

  By the time he arrived, Jenna had mused over her dream, her waking dream or her nightmare—whatever it might have been. It had been natural, certainly. The conversation all day had been about blood and murder, and her thoughts had long lingered on Salem and the city’s past.

  When she opened the door, dressed and ready to go as Jamie had suggested she be, Sam didn’t seem surprised, though he might have been a bit irritated that they both were confident he wouldn’t back away from the case.

  “I’m not sure why you’re coming—I have to spend time at court. I have to become the attorney of record, see what the public defender has done, see where custody lies, file motions…it could be a long day,” he said. “I’m sure the public defender he hired has already made arrangements for Malachi to be seen by a courtappointed psychiatrist, and if we’re going for a not-guilty plea, I have to make sure that we stall the court date as long as possible. ”

  “I’m absolutely excellent at sitting around and waiting,” Jenna assured him.

  Jamie came to the door. “Let’s go,” he said. “Sam, thank you. ”

  Sam grunted. “I’ll drive. You two do what I say, sit when I say sit and wait as long as you have to wait. ”

  Jamie was cheerfully agreeable.

  It was a long morning, and there was a lot of paperwork to file. Since Malachi Smith was a minor with no family and still under the age of eighteen, he had become a ward of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and there were filings to be made with the state. None of that was difficult, not, apparently, when you were a hotshot attorney. Jamie was given a hearing and appointed Malachi’s guardian. Malachi had to fire the public defender he’d been assigned and accept Sam Hall as his attorney. That was easily accomplished—Jenna waited in the car while Jamie spoke to Malachi with Sam—but then time was needed for filing all the documents Sam had prepared.

  When arraigned, Malachi had not been granted bail; the crime was far too heinous. They met Evan Richardson, Sam’s assistant, who had come to Salem as soon as Sam had called him and had already worked on the motions that had set the ball rolling. He would deal with more motions and more paperwork and the courts while Sam was engaged elsewhere. Jenna liked him. Just about her age, he was a pragmatic fellow from Syracuse, New York, not embroiled in the burden of history that often came with being a New Englander.

  When they finished with the legal paperwork and headed back to see Malachi with all the papers properly filed, Jamie argued the point of Malachi’s incarceration with Sam.

  “I can watch the young man day and night!” he told Sam.

  Sam gave him a long sideways glance. “Jamie, you’re forgetting something,” he said.

  “What’s that?” Jamie demanded.

  “If Malachi Smith didn’t kill his family, a vicious killer remains at large. ”

  Jenna felt a streak of cold zip up her spine.

  “Someone who has now killed six people,” Sam said.

  Jamie was silent. She remembered her dream. Blood would flow….

  “All right,” Jamie said gruffly.

  “And you do realize that the majority of the world will believe in Malachi’s guilt. The facts point to his guilt—until we can offer more facts,” Sam said.

  Jamie nodded. “Yes, I see. If the killer strikes again, that will prove that Malachi is innocent, because he’ll have in indisputable alibi. ”

  “Yes. That and, if we’re going to do this, no one will really have the time to babysit Malachi every moment and make sure he’s safe. He’s better in the psych ward for now. ” Sam stopped in the street, staring at Jamie. “And I have to tell you right now that if we don’t discover something, and it comes to the line, I’ve now taken Malachi on as my client, and under any circumstance, I will defend him to the best of my ability—including changing the plea to one of insanity if I don’t believe we can get reasonable doubt into the heads of the jury. You understand?”

  “Of course,” Jamie assured him.

  Jenna did her best to stay out of the finer points of argument. She wasn’t an attorney, and she knew full well that despite what she did know about federal law, she had no courtroom experience whatsoever.

  “Let’s see our client again,” Sam said gruffly. He looked at Jenna and frowned as if he was still wondering just what she was doing there. But he didn’t argue her presence.

  Jenna didn’t think that Sam was wrong to see to it that Malachi was kept in custody while they awaited trial. Jenna had expected something far worse—a long hall with bars and cells, the stench of fear
and evil, and beady-eyed reprobates staring out with a desire to slit their throats, perhaps. But though Malachi was kept in isolation in a locked room with a small window box, the room was decent enough, if sparse.

  It was almost like any other hospital unit. Almost. Malachi Smith was being incarcerated pending trial on murder charges. It wasn’t a pleasantly painted place, nor were there any concessions to creature comforts. Jenna was grateful for her status as an R. N. ; Sam Hall used her qualifications in explaining the reason for the three-person visit when he was the attorney of note.

  There was a nurses’ station. There was also a guard station. The guards were armed, and there was a series of doors to enter before arriving at Malachi’s “decent” room. Jenna realized that the difference between his “room” and a cell was essentially that he had walls around him rather than bars.

  The guards were professional and courteous. They seemed to be treating Malachi well. Extra chairs were brought; Malachi’s space included a simple cot and one chair.

  Jenna’s heart immediately went out to the boy. He was pathetically slim and small for his age; she was certain that malnutrition had stunted his growth. He was a couple of inches shorter than herself, while Sam Hall and even Jamie seemed to dwarf the youth. His eyes were huge and brown, his face as lean as his frame. When he saw Jamie, he smiled. It was a smile filled with hope, but it faltered quickly and he looked at the three of them like he would begin crying in a matter of seconds.

  And he did. No sooner had Malachi walked over to Jamie and leaned against him than great sobs started to rack his body. Sam stood back with Jenna, waiting for the torrent to subside.

  “There, there,” her uncle said, patting the boy’s back. “We’re here to help you, Malachi. ”

  Sam glanced at Jenna. For the first time, it seemed that he was looking at her as if she could say something that might be helpful. Well, maybe the fact that she was a nurse and a special investigator led him to believe that she must have empathy with others.

  “I believe that the tears are for his family, honest tears,” she whispered.