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

by Heather Graham

  “You’re on a leave, aren’t you? Kind of an extended leave?” Jamie asked him, before he could compose some kind of half truth.

  “It’s not exactly a leave, since I choose my own cases, but, yeah, I’ve basically taken some time. I’m just deciding what to do with my parents’ home,” he replied.

  He slid into the seat next to Jenna Duffy. He noted her perfume—it was nice, light, underlying. Subtle. It didn’t bang him on the head. No, this was the kind of scent that slipped beneath your skin, and you wondered later why it was still hauntingly in the air.

  “You’re not going to sell your parents’ house, are you?” Jamie sounded shocked.

  “I’ve considered it.”

  “They loved that place,” Jamie reminded him.

  Jenna was just listening to their conversation, offering no opinion.

  “They’re gone,” Sam said. He shook his head. “I just don’t really have a chance to get up here all that often anymore.”

  “It’s a thirty-minute ride,” Jamie said. “And it’s—it’s so wonderful and historic.”

  “So is Boston,” Sam said.

  “Ah, but nothing holds a place in the annals of American—and human!—history as does Salem,” Jamie said.

  “You’re trying to shame me, Jamie O’Neill,” Sam said. He smiled slowly.

  Jamie waved a hand in the air. “It’s not as if you need the money.”

  Ouch. That one hurt, just a little bit.

  “Jamie, you didn’t call me over here to give me a guilt complex about my parents’ house…” Sam said.

  Jamie looked hurt. “Young man—”

  “Yes, you would have said hello—you would have asked about my life. But what’s going on? I know you. And that Irish charm. You’re a devious bastard, really.” Then he looked at Jenna and murmured, “Sorry.”

  “Oh, I don’t disagree,” she told him.

  “So?”

  “You found Malachi Smith in the road last night,” Jamie said quietly.

  Sam tensed immediately. The incident had been disturbing on so many levels. He couldn’t forget the way that the boy had been shaking.

  He stared back at Jamie. “I did.”

  “I don’t believe that he did it,” Jamie said.

  Sam winced, staring down at his drink. He rubbed his thumb over the sweat on his glass. “Look, Jamie, I feel sorry for that kid. Really sorry for him. I’ve been watching the news all morning. His life must have been hell. But I saw him. He was covered in blood. How else did he become covered in blood if he wasn’t the one who did it?”

  “Ah, come on, you’re a defense attorney!” Jamie said. “It’s obvious.”

  “I’m missing obvious,” Sam said drily. No, not really. There was just this odd feeling. Why get involved any more than he already was? The horror he’d felt when he’d come upon the boy bathed in blood, in the middle of the road…

  “I think,” Jenna said, “that it’s possible that Malachi Smith came home to find his family butchered, and that he tried to wake them up, or perhaps wrap them in his arms, and therefore became covered in the blood.”

  “He was naked,” Sam said flatly.

  “Right. He became horrified by the amount of blood all around him, all over his clothing, and tried to strip it off—but there was so much of it, it was impossible,” Jenna said.

  He looked at her. “And you believe this?” he asked pointedly.

  “I didn’t grow up here—I was always a visitor—I never knew Malachi Smith or his family. I heard the rumors about them, and, naturally, everyone in the area knows about Lexington House. Well, it’s the kind of legend that gets around everywhere, I suppose. I can’t tell you about Malachi Smith—not the way that Uncle Jamie can. Jamie treated the boy. But I think that’s the kind of possibility my uncle might have in mind. And I myself suppose it’s possible. We’d have to know what Malachi has to say.”

  Sam stared at her for a long moment. Her eyes were enigmatic, so deep and mesmerizing a green. If he remembered correctly, she’d been something of a wiseass kid.

  “Sam, they are your roots,” Jamie said.

  He laughed. “My roots? Lexington House is not part of my roots—I barely knew the Smiths. Again, and please, listen to me, Jamie, I understand how you feel. I’m sorry for the boy. But, I don’t like staying here too long—you wind up tangled in the history of the place, shopping for incense, herbs and tarot cards—and hating the Puritans. Religious freedom? Hell, they kicked everyone else out. Witchcraft? Spectral evidence…it’s no wonder we have religious nuts like the Smiths moving in. And I like our modern Wiccans—do no harm and all that. But I’m not into chanting and worshipping mother earth, either. I seem to get too wrapped up when I’m here—I’m like you. I want to argue the ridiculous legal system of the past, and I find myself wondering sometimes if it does affect any insanity that goes on in the present. Maybe it’s in the air, maybe it’s in the grass and maybe people just really want to hurt one another. Maybe they can’t not buy into all the hype of this place.”

  He stopped speaking. He was surprised at his own bitterness. He had never hated Salem. It was his home. The Peabody Essex Museum was an amazing place. People still tried hard to figure out just what had gone on, and how to improve the world in the future, to learn how to stop the ugliness of prejudice and hatred. Actually, he loved Salem itself. He loved many of the people. Maybe it was just him; maybe he still wanted to understand what could never be truly comprehended in the world they lived in now. But people tried. Tried to preserve the past to improve the present and the future.

  And yet a whacked-out son of a bitch like Abraham Smith had moved in, tortured his son in a like manner to the rigid principles practiced long ago, and he’d never forget the way the kid had looked in the middle of the road, shaking, his eyes huge and terrified, blood dripping off his naked body…and he couldn’t help but feel that the father’s method of raising the son had something to do with all that death.

  Jamie was nonplussed by his speech. Jenna just looked at him with those beautiful green eyes that seemed to rip into the soul.

  He sighed deeply. “You want me to defend the boy. It should be an open-and-shut case. There’s just no way that a prosecutor would ever get a jury to believe that the boy was mentally competent when he committed the act.”

  “No!” Jamie said firmly. “I want you to prove that the boy didn’t do it.”

  Sam groaned softly.

  “Isn’t that your specialty?” Jamie asked him. “Proving your client’s innocence—and in so doing, finding the real killer?”

  “Jamie, I’d like to help, but in this case—”

  “I know we don’t pay as well as the mob…” Jamie cut in.

  “Oh, low blow, Jamie. Not fair. I’ve worked pro bono many times.” He sighed deeply. “You don’t just want me to defend Malachi Smith—you want me to find a killer. I haven’t lived here in years—I wouldn’t even begin to know where to look. And I’m an attorney—”

  “You keep up with your private investigator’s license,” Jamie pointed out.

  “We could be talking a conflict of interest in this situation,” Sam said, “if I’m defending him and investigating the case.”

  Jamie smiled serenely. “Nope. It’s perfectly legal for you to hold and use your P.I. license while you practice law. And you know it. That’s not an excuse—you’ve just come off a case in which you managed to do both. Any time whatsoever you’re afraid of a conflict of interest, you send someone else out. You use your mind and your license when you need them. Send others out to do the work you’ve decided needs to be done.”

  “What others?” Sam asked, aggravated.

  “Jenna,” Jamie said, smiling then like the Cheshire cat.

  “Your niece?”

  “Jenna,” Jamie repeated. “My niece is part of a special unit of the FBI.”

  Sam stared at the redheaded woman at his side. FBI? Special Unit?

  “I’m not here officially,” she said
quickly.

  “Of course not, you’d have to be invited in, and Detective John Alden is certain that he doesn’t need help, that he has his murderer,” Sam said, looking at her. “What kind of a special unit?”

  “Jenna’s team was instrumental in solving some of the most high-profile cases in the country,” Jamie said proudly. “The recent Ripper murders in New York? That was her team. And all that trouble down in Louisiana with the death of a senator’s wife—them again.”

  Sam stared at her, memories stirring in his mind. He remembered now. In the news they’d been called the Krewe of Hunters, and they had a phenomenal success rate. But they were known to be…special, all right. They looked for paranormal occurrences. And what better place than Salem?

  He didn’t mean to be so rude; he took his eyes off Jenna when he spoke. “The ghost of old Eli Lexington caused Malachi Smith to murder his family? No, wait, he wouldn’t be innocent then. The ghost killed the family himself!”

  “In my experience,” she said evenly, “a ghost has never killed anyone.”

  “Kill someone? Ghosts don’t even—” But he cut himself short.

  Ass, he told himself. She was being even-keeled. He was looking like a superior fool.

  “I’m sorry, Jamie, I’m not sure how we can possibly solve this thing, really. The kid was covered in blood. John Alden has arrested him.”

  “So,” Jamie said, smiling, “that should get you going! It’s too easy—way too easy—to take that line of defense. You should step up to the plate quickly. Please, Sam! Come on—they’ll give him some kid fresh out of school as his public defender. Doesn’t this interest you?”

  “It is quite a challenge,” Jenna said.

  Sam groaned. “How about I sleep on it?”

  “Evidence is growing cold,” Jamie told him.

  Jenna smiled suddenly, looking at him. “You’re going to do it, and you know you’re going to do it.”

  “Oh? Out of the kindness of my heart?” Sam asked.

  “Maybe,” she said. “More likely, because it is such a challenge. If you pull this off, you’ll be known not just as an incredible attorney, but as a miracle worker.”

  Sam stood, not sure why the meeting with Jamie O’Neill and his niece had seemed to set him so off balance.

  Could he do it? Yes. He didn’t need money. Was it an intriguing challenge? Maybe—and maybe it was more likely that the kid had done it.

  “I’ll let you know in the morning,” he said, and walked away from the table. Then he headed back. “Look, I don’t think you know how much is involved here. Besides the filing, the briefs…paperwork you can’t even begin to imagine. And then, yes, investigating this? When the police think that they have their man? Not to mention the fact that you don’t have a plausible alternate suspect. In fact, none of us has a clue.”

  For a moment he saw something in Jenna’s eyes that agreed with him, and he wondered if Jamie hadn’t managed to challenge his niece into this, as well. But just as quickly as the glint appeared, it vanished. Now, when she stared up at him, her eyes seemed as sharp as her tone. “Two other people were murdered and no arrests were made. With no real evidence, it’s being quietly assumed that Malachi Smith murdered those other men, as well. He hasn’t been charged with those murders, and I don’t believe that they have a plan to charge him with them because they do have conflicting evidence where Peter Andres and Earnest Covington are concerned. So, in fact, you won’t be going against the police if you are to claim to primarily be looking at those two incidents. There are plenty of places to start, Mr. Hall. Who were the other victims? What enemies might they have had? And what about the church Malachi Smith was involved with? It certainly had to be out of the ordinary.”

  “And you’re going to investigate all this?” he asked her.

  She smiled serenely. “I do have friends, Mr. Hall.”

  “Ah, yes, team members.”

  “I’ll remind you that most of the cases we solve are at first thought to be almost impossible,” Jenna said.

  He couldn’t decide what was really going on in her mind, her voice remained so even, and she maintained such an unruffled calm. He couldn’t help but goad her on.

  “Funny—I thought the NYPD had something to do with that last one!”

  “The point is, Mr. Hall, no one is asking you to do all the work. I’m not a lawyer, but I do know how to work my way around legend and superstition, and the head of my team is one of the foremost behavioral scientists in the country. We can help you.”

  “And the police are just going to let you snoop around?” he asked.

  “You, as the defense attorney, will demand that leeway be given in your investigation—for the benefit of your client, of course,” Jenna said impatiently.

  He didn’t know why he was feeling such a hot tension, or why his muscles seemed to be bunching and his temper flaring.

  Because he didn’t think that they could do it? As much as he didn’t want to think of the boy as a murderer, it seemed the most logical scenario.

  He looked back at Jamie. “I’ll let you know in the morning,” he said, and strode out of the room.

  * * *

  Jenna looked at her uncle long and hard after Sam had left, then finally spoke. “I’m not so sure that telling Sam Hall who I am and what I do was the best move you might have made.”

  “And why not?” Jamie asked indignantly.

  “Some people accept that the team gets the job done. And some people think that it’s a joke. Even among the Feds,” she told him.

  “You can find the truth. I know that you can find who did this—you always had the knack.”

  “Oh, Jamie! Please, I’m not a miracle worker, either…. And, you have to be ready for whatever we do find. We don’t know that Malachi didn’t commit the murders yet.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “But, never mind that now—what would you like for dinner?”

  She laughed. “Nice change of pace! Scrod, of course. Only in New England can you have really wonderful scrod!”

  Jamie veered the conversation away from Malachi while they ate. He talked about “Haunted Happenings,” an October event that brought tourism to Salem. He was a man who had his own deep and binding beliefs, but he was also fascinated by the faiths that others believed in. There were Wiccans in the city who were really Wiccans, believing in the gods and goddesses of the earth and in doing no harm to others, lest it come back threefold. And, he advised her, there were Wiccans in the city who were Wiccans because it was a very nice commercial venture in “Witch City.” There were parades and balls, special events for children, theatrical programs on the tall ships at Derby Wharf and so much more.

  “Now, you don’t mind staying awhile, really, do you? I rather threw you into that—I mean, saying that you’d investigate,” Jamie said. “And I know, too, that you’re employed by the government, that you have responsibilities—”

  “It’s all right. A few team members are still in New York tying up some loose ends from our last case, and a few are in Virginia, outside of D.C., setting up our new offices.”

  He let out a contented sigh. “So you can stay.”

  She smiled. “Jamie, I knew from the beginning that you invited me up here for a reason. I didn’t realize I’d arrive in time for it to really…begin in earnest.”

  He watched her oddly.

  “What?”

  “You always had it, you know,” he said.

  “Had what?”

  “The sight.”

  Jenna was quiet at that. Her grandmother had entertained her when she had been a child with the myths and legends of Eire. She would tell a fantastic story about banshees—and then remind her that, now and again, many a tale had started at a pub. There were spirits—and then again, there were spirits.

  It was true. Her cousin, Liam, who had become a writer, had done so discovering that the fantastic tales he could tell after a night at the pub could be put down on paper—and pay.

  It wa
s equally true that a number of people in her family had seemed to have some kind of a special sense. They could often feel a place, and know that violence had been committed there. They were prone to hearing the footsteps of the ghosties as they moved about in a place, and they could sense the presence of something that remained, even after years had gone by.

  But the first time she’d known she had some kind of sight was when she’d been working as an R.N., and had been down in the morgue on some business.

  A corpse had spoken to her. He insisted he hadn’t died of natural causes, as would be assumed. He’d been helped into the great hereafter by a greedy family member.

  Of course, that first time, she’d felt the speed of her heart escalate to dangerous levels. She wondered if, frequently, ghosts did not speak to their loved ones because they were afraid of giving them heart attacks—thus prematurely making ghosts of them, as well.

  And, certainly, not every soul chose to walk the earth. Some remained because they felt they had unfinished business. Some remained because of the violence of their demise. Some had something that needed to be said, and some felt that their antecedents needed protecting.

  “Uncle Jamie,” she said, moving her fish around on the plate, “you’re thinking that this is going to be a far easier thing than it is.” She spoke softly, looking around. “Perhaps I do have what you call ‘the sight.’ It doesn’t mean that I can go and see the corpse of Abraham Smith and he’ll tell me who did him in. He may not have remained behind, and if he did, he may not be able to communicate. We’ve never had an instance where it was easy and cut-and-dried—where we just walked into a morgue and said, Hey! Who’s the guilty one? Ghosts can help, but in many different ways.”

  He was watching her, listening intently. At least, with Jamie, she never had to try to pretend. Jamie told her once that he believed in the “holy ghost,” and if he said so in a creed he spoke at religious services, he’d be an idiot not to believe that there was more beyond the average range of sight. Faith, he told her, was belief in what couldn’t be seen. If a man had faith, he couldn’t always doubt what he couldn’t see. Most people had faith—even if their faith was different. A lot of different roads climbed the same hill.