Krewe of Hunters, Volume 1: Phantom Evil ; Heart of Evil ; Sacred Evil ; The Evil Inside

by Heather Graham

  “I’ll be back. I’ve got a lead. I’ve got plenty of time. I just need to meet with an informant—a local informant. It pays to be me!”

  Marty tore out of her office, mentally planning her speed. How fast could she go without being in danger of the cops stopping her?

  Pretty damned fast, she told herself.

  Oh, this was it! This was it! The case of a lifetime.

  * * *

  By the time Jake came downstairs, he found that he was the last to do so. The others were arrayed in the roadside parlor, seated in the big wingback chairs by the fire and the massive Duncan Phyfe sofa. Jackson’s hair was still wet, so he had obviously just arrived. Ashley had showered and changed into jeans and a tailored blouse; her damp hair was tied in a queue at her nape.

  “The house itself is seldom locked,” Frazier said as Jake entered the room. “We’re a bed-and-breakfast. We have a restaurant, and we’re open to the public. God knows when the rifle was taken. I haven’t been up to that little attic museum space in years.” Frazier glanced over at Ashley. “Have you been up there?”

  She shook her head. “Sally Mayfield, one of our housekeepers, last did a dusting up there three or four weeks ago, I think. Sally would have noticed if something had been gone, and she would have told me. So I’d say that it had to have been taken within the last three weeks.”

  “When were most of the reenactors here last? They still meet ahead of time, right? And what about Civil War roundtables? Frazier, you used to have them here now and then,” Jake said. He heard the front door open as he was speaking; Cliff had arrived to join them. He glanced over at Jackson for a silent communication.

  Cliff remained a prime suspect. They needed to keep a close eye on him.

  Ashley didn’t want to believe it. He didn’t, either. Cliff had always been around when he’d been younger; he’d always been strong and steady and decent, and he loved Donegal Plantation, just as he’d always loved the family.

  Frazier was thoughtful. “Yes, of course. I’m not sure of the date of the most recent.”

  “We had a meeting out in the barn about two and half weeks ago. The out-of-towners weren’t here, but the rest of us were,” Cliff volunteered.

  “Everyone?” Jackson asked.

  “Every one of the locals except for John Ashton,” Cliff said. “He had a tour group in the city that he had to take out himself. Some bigwigs from the tourist board. And obviously, out of our group, I have continual access to the house. And I suppose I have the physical ability to have done all of it, while, no offense, Frazier, I don’t see you committing this crime at your age, and I sure as hell don’t begin to see Ashley or Beth committing it. I wish I knew how to clear myself, because no matter what you all say or how you act, I know damned well I have to remain a prime suspect.”

  “You even have motive,” Jackson said pleasantly.

  “Yes, I should own the house. But…”

  “But?” Angela asked gently.

  “Whoever did this might want the whole place to fall apart. Let’s face it, if the place is tainted by a recent murder and a killer who isn’t caught, people could be afraid to come. I’d never want to do that,” Cliff said.

  “We all survive because of Donegal Plantation—well, except for Beth, who could get a great job anywhere,” Ashley said. “But Cliff is right. There’s no reason for him to want to lower the value on this place. Besides, Cliff doesn’t even have to wait for Frazier and me to die—he owns a piece of the land, and he has a lifetime lease on his apartment in the stables.”

  “Bitterness,” Jake said. “I mean, if we’re looking for motive. Let’s face it, this whole thing is sick. Cliff, you’re the outsider. You were the product of an illicit affair, historically speaking.”

  “Two illicit affairs, really,” Cliff said. He never took a seat; he stood there and shrugged sheepishly. “I can’t prove anything, but I’ll answer any question you may have. Obviously, I didn’t stash a body in the stables—they were searched. Of course, I could have stashed the drugged body of our friend in my apartment and joined the group. I would have had to have been terribly crafty, though, since the place was teeming with people, and the entrance to my apartment is easily visible from the grounds.”

  “And how did you return the body, then—by the river?” Jake asked him.

  “You might have done that to throw off suspicion,” Angela told him.

  “I might have,” Cliff agreed. “Except that I didn’t. I’m going to feed the horses,” he said, then, “But I’m available to you anytime—I won’t be leaving the property.” He smiled. “See you all at dinner?”

  “We’re having crab cakes. My best!” Beth assured him.

  When Cliff left, there was an uncomfortable moment of silence in the room.

  “I don’t think—” Ashley began.

  “None of us wants to think, but we have to weigh all the factors, eliminate the impossible and start looking at the possible,” Jackson said to her gently. “Sometimes a killer wants to inject himself into the investigation.”

  “Cliff isn’t—”

  “It’s not impossible, Ashley,” Jackson said.

  “It is impossible,” she said stubbornly. “Cliff is part of the family.”

  “In the old days, brothers would kill brothers to be king,” Jackson said.

  “Look, Ashley,” Jake said, leaning toward her. “Hopefully we’ll be able to clear Cliff soon.”

  “So, we’re all careful. We all stick together, and we keep doors locked. Agreed?” Jackson asked. “I’ve got Will and Whitney on their way out here now with some new equipment, and Jenna is interviewing Justin Binder and his family in the city. I’m going to pay a call on Ramsay Clayton—I believe he’s still in residence at his old family home down the road—and have a talk with him. There are still a couple of uniformed officers outside, but I think part of the team should always be at the house. Jake and Angela?”

  “I’m here,” Jake assured him. “I’ll get on the computer.”

  Jackson nodded. He looked down at Angela and squeezed her hand, and Jake knew that her assignment was to discover what she felt about the house.

  Frazier walked over to Ashley. She stood quickly, hugging him. He hugged her silently in return. “I’m for a nap,” he said. “At my age…” He apologized to the others.

  “I’ll be in my room, too,” Ashley told him.

  “A nap sounds good to me,” Beth said, yawning. “And then dinner.”

  Angela laughed. “Oh, my God, after that delicious lunch you prepared! I’m not sure I’ll be able to eat dinner. I’m going to…search the house. Combine a little work with exercise.”

  “Search for what?” Ashley asked her.

  “Evidence,” she said softly.

  Ashley shook her head. “But that won’t help us. Every man had access to the house at some point. What evidence could we possibly find that would be evidence? And the cops have been here, too.”

  “I never really know what I’m looking for,” Angela said. She glanced at Jake. “But it’s good to walk around and think and look, and then you sometimes find what you didn’t know you were looking for. If that makes sense.”

  “I’ll be in the study,” he assured her. “If you need me.”

  Beth and Frazier headed for the stairway, arm in arm as they walked up the stairs.

  Ashley lingered until she was alone with Jake. “Cliff didn’t do this,” she said with finality.

  He walked over to her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Ashley, honestly? I don’t think that Cliff did it, either. But it’s not going to hurt to be careful, to be with someone, to keep the doors locked, right?”

  “I can be careful,” she murmured, bowing her head.

  He lifted her chin gently so that she met his eyes again. “Hey,” he told her huskily. “Remember when we first decided we wanted a rock band and we set up out in the stables? The poor horses! Cliff never said anything. He just moved the drum set into the front yard and told
us that birds liked music more than horses—especially heavy metal.”

  She smiled. “My father let us move the drum set into the old smokehouse.” Her smile faltered. “Jake, my father has never come back from the dead,” she said.

  He was puzzled. She wasn’t angry with him, and she wasn’t even turning away from him or trying to escape him.

  “I never meant to hurt you,” he said.

  “Well, I probably managed to hurt myself,” she murmured. “You…scared me. You really, really scared me,” she told him. She was silent a moment, looking at him. “But you should know. My father isn’t here.”

  She flushed as if she had said more than she had meant to. She backed away from him. “I’m—uh— I’m going to go to my room,” she said.

  “Into the land of digital reality for me,” he told her and headed off into the study while she walked toward the stairs.

  The subtle, almost elusive scent of her perfume lingered, and he had to force himself not call out her name, not to draw her back to him and demand that she understand. Time had done nothing to lessen his feelings for her.

  He wanted to hold her; he wanted the truth. He wanted to make the losses and traumas of her life go away. And, that, of course, was impossible.

  They could do their best to find the killer. That was what he could do for her, he thought.

  But when he sat behind the desk in the study, he didn’t turn to the computer. He sat in the chair, scanning the space around him. “Where are you, damn you?” he whispered aloud. “Emma Donegal, I saw you. You knew something was wrong. You wanted me here. Please, won’t you come and help me now?”

  * * *

  Ashley headed for her room, still feeling a flush on her cheeks. Well, she was a fool. She’d turned away from Jake Mallory, cutting him from her life as if she had done so with a sharpened blade. What was she expecting now, and what the hell had she been doing, throwing herself at him just because she was scared?

  “Well, I am scared,” she said and then winced, wanting to nip in the bud the fact that she was talking out loud to herself far too frequently now.

  She threw herself down on her bed and closed her eyes. She didn’t see him; she didn’t feel anything at all, but she knew that Marshall Donegal was there.

  “You have to go away,” she said. “You were trying to make me look like an idiot in the study, and I was a nervous wreck all through lunch, thinking you’d make me do something stupid. If you’re my ancestor, and you love me so much, will you quit tormenting me?”

  She felt a shift of weight. He had taken a seat at the foot of the bed. She opened her eyes at last.

  “If someone comes at me with a weapon, can you protect me?” she demanded, sitting up to stare at him. “Will that ghostly blade save my life? If not— Where is this going?”

  “Can I protect you? That depends. I am fairly powerful. Being as I am requires concentration and practice, and I was always a disciplined man.”

  “Right. So you got into a barroom brawl and died before the war really began,” she said dryly.

  He seemed to stiffen. “You’re wrong. I didn’t get into the brawl. Peter O’Reilly got into the brawl. I dragged him out of the place before it turned into something right there, though that might have been a mistake. God knows, if we’d brought troops in, the Yankees would have been killed on the spot or hanged for being spies. But I didn’t want murder committed. Hell, I lost my own life because of it.”

  “O’Reilly?” Ashley asked. “That would have been Charles Osgood’s great-great-great-great-stepgrandfather, right?”

  Marshall Donegal nodded, rising and walking to look out on the river. He lifted his hands. “I lose track of the generations…but, yes. He wasn’t a bad fellow, just the kind who was quick to anger and to feel an affront. He was eager to ‘whomp those Yanks!’ He survived the war. I saw him here once, when he came to pay his respects to Emma. He was minus his left leg. It made him a different man. Emma was sorry for him, of course. She offered him work. But he went into New Orleans and became a printer.”

  “Even so, do you think that someone’s ancestor knew this and thought it was a justice that Charles should die since his ancestor brought about the whole thing? Maybe one of the Yankees!” Ashley suggested.

  “One who perished?” Marshall asked her.

  “Possibly. I mean, if the rebels more or less caused it all because of Peter O’Reilly, and four of the Yankees died, maybe it was a sick kind of late-blooming vengeance.”

  “Even I’m aware—perhaps more so than anyone—that the war is long, long over,” Marshall said. “Other wars have raged since, and will rage in the future,” he added sadly.

  “Yes, but whoever did this has to be sick. You don’t drug a man, hide him for a day and half and then take him and bayonet him to death and hang his body off a tomb’s angel if there isn’t something really wrong in your psychological makeup,” Ashley said flatly.

  “Why would someone avenge someone after a hundred and fifty years?” Marshall demanded.

  “I don’t know, but Cliff is a prime suspect because of his family relation,” Ashley said. She frowned and then gasped. “I can’t believe I forgot. We do have that old plantation story about the master who supposedly slept with a slave. Were you involved?”

  He was quiet, and he gave her a curious, sad smile. “Not me, and not any plantation master,” he said quietly.

  “But you know who?”

  “Haven’t you ever studied the records?” he asked her.

  “Of course, but the baby who was Cliff’s great-great-whatever just seemed to appear, and he was raised by Harold Boudreaux and grew up after the war on the property.”

  “After the war. I was dead, remember?”

  “Yes, but there’s no exact age on what records we do have,” she reminded him. “The records for the slaves on the property were kept at the chapel, and the bible recording all the births disappeared sometime during the war, so the lists we still have don’t have birth dates on them.”

  “Cliff’s great-great-great-great—I believe—grand-parent wasn’t a Donegal man.”

  “Then—who?” she asked.

  “It was Emma,” he told her quietly.

  * * *

  Words and numbers seemed to blur Jake’s vision, but he did feel that he was gaining ground.

  Cliff Boudreaux could not be eliminated. Nor could Ramsay Clayton. John Ashton was easy to eliminate. There were pictures of him in New Orleans on the web the day following, and he had gotten an interview on one of the local channels to talk about the history surrounding the city—and to plug his own business. He had been on an evening show that broadcast at seven, and he had been going to give a tour that night that included the broadcaster. It didn’t take long to verify the fact that he had led the tour, as he had said on air. He hadn’t been at the meeting that had taken place approximately when the Enfield rifle and bayonet had most probably disappeared.

  In like fashion, verifying their location at the time the drugged-but-still-living form of Charles Osgood had been taken into the cemetery and murdered, he managed to clear the field of all the Yankees except for Justin Binder. Tom Dixon had attended a party with his wife and children in New York that had gone on ’til midnight, and Victor Quibbly had already been in Austin, Texas, on a business matter.

  He looked at his remaining list and his notes. Cliff—no one wanted it to be him. Ramsay—had he set up Charles Osgood? Hank Trebly—why? Sugar interests. Toby Keaton—okay, so he owned Beaumont, the Creole plantation next door, but he was never in competition with the Donegal family…or it didn’t appear that it could be so. Griffin Grant—no amount of searching showed exactly where he had been, other than that he had shown up at his office for the usual workaday world on Monday. He hadn’t even taken the day off, as so many had. Three others to look at would be the sutler, John Martin, Justin Binder, who had stayed in New Orleans at a chain hotel, and Dr. Benjamin Austin, who lived in Francisville and had not had office hours
after five on the day that Charles had actually been murdered.

  He sat back for a minute, closing his eyes. They could be way off. Anything could have happened. But he was pretty sure he was on the money, and he knew that Jackson would agree with him. Eliminating the household—Beth, Ashley and Frazier—left those who were closest to the household. He knew Ashley, and if he hadn’t known her, he’d still know that no one could have acted the terror she had shown when he had come upon her. Frazier couldn’t have pulled if off physically. Beth had no interest in the family; she hadn’t even really understood the history behind what was going on, and she didn’t have the strength to manage the feat, either. He’d pulled up everything he could find on her on the computer anyway; she couldn’t have any determination to avenge a long-ago ancestor. Her family hadn’t been anywhere near the United States during the war. So, using logic, it seemed to be down to Griffin Grant, Cliff Boudreaux, Ramsay Clayton, Hank Trebly, Toby Keaton or, less likely but still possible, Dr. Benjamin Austin or the sutler, John Martin. He put the last two at the end of the list. Concentration first—Ramsay Clayton and Cliff Boudreaux.

  How in hell to prove that it wasn’t Cliff?

  He looked at the phone on the desk and noted that there was a button to call directly to the stables.

  Cliff answered quickly. “Yes?”

  “Cliff, I’m going to be honest. I want to eliminate you as a suspect. Would you be willing to let a forensics team go over your apartment and car?”

  There was silence, dead silence, on the other end.

  Then Cliff answered him, his voice tight and hard. “Whatever it takes, whatever it takes. Bring it on, my friend.”

  As he hung up, his eyes on the desk phone, Jake felt that someone was watching him.

  He looked up, and his breath caught in his throat.

  It might have been Ashley—Ashley in her attire for the drama they played out at Donegal Plantation.

  But it wasn’t.

  It was the woman he had seen in Jackson Square in New Orleans before he had even known that he was going to be coming out to Donegal Plantation.

  Emma. Emma Donegal. He could see the door through her misty form, but he could also see her face clearly. It wasn’t as if he could really hear her voice, and yet he could; it was inside his head.