Jack-in-the-Box

by William W. Johnstone

  “Phillip does not have the slightest desire to return to this place,” Debeau said. “Phillip is home.”

  “If you say so,” Sam said.

  * * *

  Phillip Baxter was buried at ten o’clock Wednesday morning. The snow had stopped and the weather had warmed. The ground was mushy and muddy.

  Sam endured the funeral in stoic silence, but he could not control his tears at the graveside services. He hated his lack of control; more than anything else, he felt Nora would take it as weakness on his part.

  To hell with her, he finally concluded. He wiped his eyes and walked off.

  Phil had been questioned by the police and released in his mother’s custody. As yet, no formal charges had been filed. Sam was handling Phil’s defense, and although it rankled him to do so, he knew the boy was not to blame. And he would fight as hard as he could to see him cleared.

  Sam went to the Baxter house the day after the services. Jeanne had always liked and trusted Sam. Since she could remember absolutely nothing concerning what had brought about her husband’s death—except what Nora had allowed her to remember—she had no reason to think of Sam as anything other than a good and trusted friend.

  But Nora was silently seething with rage, knowing she had put herself into a closed box with Sam. She could not speak against Sam without arousing suspicion in her mother’s mind. And if she attempted to implant subversive thoughts of him in her mind, Jeanne might well resist them.

  Nora silently accepted the fact that for now, at least, she would have to tolerate him. Even if he knew about her. He couldn’t prove a thing. Tolerate him until—she smiled—he had an unfortunate accident.

  “No court date has been set for Phil,” Sam told Jeanne. “So we don’t have to discuss this right now.”

  “Now is as good a time as any,” Jeanne said. Aunt Morgan was seated on the sectional beside her. The old woman was staying for a few days.

  Sam looked at her. Philip had told him, the last time he’d called—the very last time he would ever call—that Morgan knew about Nora.

  Morgan smiled faintly and took Jeanne’s hand.

  “All right,” Sam said, clicking on a small recorder he’d brought with him. “Tell me everything you remember about the events leading up to and including the evening Phillip was shot.” Sam had detached himself personally, operating solely as a defense attorney. It was a draining experience for him, but he knew there was no other way to handle it. Not if he was to succeed.

  As Jeanne talked, Sam knew the man she was describing was not Phillip Baxter. This was a perverted, crazed child molester, a wild man who beat her and the kids, who drank a whole quart of Scotch at one sitting and then beat up his son.

  No way was that Phillip Baxter. But Sam knew better than try to defend his friend’s memory. Not at this time, There had to be a way to get through to Jeanne, but damned if he knew how.

  When she had finished, Sam took Phil’s statement, and finally Nora’s. It was then, after the girl had finished, that Sam knew exactly what she was doing.

  All three statements were the same. Identical. Word for word. The dumbest, most inexperienced prosecutor in the world would take those statements, tear them apart, and then Nora would—all carefully planned, of course—convict Phil with lies. Very convincing lies. No three people ever told the same story. Similar, sure. But never identical, word-for-word statements . . . not unless they were carefully rehearsed.

  Nora was setting her brother up for prison. Being a minor, he wouldn’t get the maximum . . . Sam let that drift off. Then it came to him. The Center Jeanne had spoken of. Sure. There must be criminally insane housed there. That’s what Nora had in mind. Sam would bet on it. And once Phil was in there, he would never be released.

  Sam looked at Nora. She was smiling sweetly at him. Sam would bet that she knew everything he had been thinking. “Nothing will happen to Phil, will it, Mr. Sobel?” she asked.

  “No, Nora. No. I’d bet on it. As I told your mother, no formal charges have yet been filed, and I don’t expect any will be.”

  “That’s good,” the child said.

  Sam could not wait to get out of the house.

  Nora’s next words chilled him, stopping him cold in his chair.

  “The other men came out here yesterday with a tape recorder,” she said.

  Sam sat back down. “What other men?”

  “The men from the district attorney’s office and the police. They talked to us all. Didn’t they mother?”

  “What?” Jeanne asked blankly. “Oh! Yes, dear. They certainly did. Didn’t they, Phil?”

  The boy looked at Sam through eyes that were numb, dead. “If you say so, mother.”

  Sam regained his composure and said, “And you told them what . . .”

  “Why . . .” Jeanne hesitated and looked at her daughter.

  “The same thing we told you, Mr. Sobel,” Nora said.

  Nora, Sam guessed accurately, was running the show. He lifted his eyes to Morgan. She winked at him.

  Nora was going to run the show until the old woman stepped in, Sam again guessed accurately.

  “Why wasn’t I notified of this, Jeanne?” Sam asked. “Dammit, Jeanne, you’re an attorney’s wife. You knew better.”

  “We have nothing to hide, Mr. Sobel,” Nora said. “It was self-defense. That’s all. Mother waived our rights, as is her right to do so, and her own rights. We told the police anything they wanted to know.”

  I just bet you did, Sam thought. But this could be a godsend. He could charge that Jeanne was not in full emotional control; that the DA’s investigators had, taken advantage of her emotional state—there were a dozen ways he could go. Yeah. He hid his smile. Nora’s little plan may well have backfired on her.

  Nora sat by her mother and boiled in her own rage as Sam questioned Jeanne and Phil. She knew precisely what he was doing, and what he was about to do.

  Sam packed his recorder away, closed his briefcase, and excused himself. Out on the snow-free sidewalk, as he was walking to his car, he suddenly felt giddy, control leaving him. Sensing his feet going out from under him, he fell as he had been taught in jump school in the army. He came up rolling, still holding onto his briefcase. Feeling foolish, he looked around him. He saw Nora, standing alone in the front door, behind the storm door. She smiled and stepped out onto the small porch.

  “Oh, Mr. Sobel,” she said innocently. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “No, Nora. I’m just fine.”

  “That’s good, Mr. Sobel. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. We’re depending on you to take care of Phil, you know.” She gushed sweetness. It was sickening.

  Sam had taken about all of Nora he could endure for one day. “Cut the crap, Nora!” he said, the anger bursting out of his mouth. “I know what you are, remember?”

  “Yeah,” the pretty little blond-haired, dark-eyed girl said. “I know you do. But you can’t prove a thing, and you know it.” She laughed softly. The sound was tinged with evil. “You wanna come play with my jack-in-the-box, Sammy boy?”

  Before Sam could reply, Jeanne stuck her head out the door.

  Nora suddenly sobered. “Mr. Sobel slipped and fell, mother. I came out to inquire about him.”

  “That’s so considerate of you, baby,” Jeanne said. She looked at Sam. “Are you OK, Sam?”

  “Oh yes, Jeanne,” Sam snickered. “I’m absolutely fine.” He waved and got into his rented car, backing out of the drive.

  “Whatever in the world is so funny?” Jeanne asked.

  “I have no idea, mother,” the child said. “But we’ll see who has the last laugh . . .”

  19

  “You know as well as I do they’re all hiding something,” the county DA said to Sam. He tossed a folder containing the typewritten statements on the desk. “Word for word, Mr. Sobel. Identical statements. On the tape, every voice inflection was the same. Now let’s don’t, please, insult each other’s intelligence. The kid is guilty as hell,
and you know it. It’s a cover-up.”

  “I don’t know any such thing,” Sam countered. “I do know the entire family has suffered a severe emotional blow. Your eager beavers went out to the Baxter house and stuck a microphone into the faces of, one: a badly rattled child; two: a boy who had just had the hell beat out of him by an ex-boxer”—the DA could not hide his shock upon hearing that—“three: a woman who has a Valium habit. The kids had just that day buried their father, the woman her husband. Your people went out there the very day of the goddamned funeral, Mr. Ellis. The girl is emotionally disturbed,” Sam told a small lie, feeling sure if it came to it, Sheela would back him up. Once again, the DA looked mildly shocked. “Now would you like to bet I can’t get those statements tossed out?”

  The DA drummed his fingertips on his desk. “Ex-boxer, huh?”

  “Yeah. And an ex-Army combat Ranger as well. I know. I was in the same outfit.”

  “Emotionally disturbed child?” There was a definite note of despair in the young man’s voice.

  “You got it.”

  “Damn!” the DA said. He struggled to regain his composure. “Well . . . all of that still adds up to zero.

  “Bull, Ellis! Now it’s my turn to say, and you know it.”

  “Aw, come on, Mr. Sobel. I’m not pushing for the max on this. Jesus. I’m not an ogre, for Christ sake. The most the kid’s gonna serve is a couple of years.”

  “He isn’t going to serve any time, Ellis.”

  The DA sighed.

  Sam knew he had the prosecution on the defense. Dean Ellis was a young DA, just a few short years out of law school. In his second year in office he had surrounded himself with other young hotshots. And this was not the first case they had bungled in their eagerness and inexperience.

  “All right, Mr. Ellis, let’s talk it out. I’d be willing to have Phil undergo counseling for a specified period of time,” Sam conceded.

  “Counseling! The kid just blew his father away with a handgun!”

  Sam did not share his counterpart’s horror at handguns. Sam was too worldly for that. “Only after the father, an ex-heavyweight boxer, had beat up the kid’s sister and sexually molested her”—Forgive me, Phillip—“beat up the mother, and then beat hell out of the boy. I’m looking forward to this going to jury. Mr. Ellis. Ed Weiskopf is champing at the bit to help on this one.”

  The DA paled. Ed was right up there with F. Lee and Melvin and Camille. “Look, Mr. Sobel, give me a break, huh? Besides,” he grabbed at his last straw, “the mother waived rights in giving those statements.”

  “While popped to the eyes with sedatives,” Sam pointed out. “And I can prove it,” he lied.

  The DA sighed. “My people might have made a mistake in going to the house the day of the funeral,” he conceded.

  “Might have made a mistake?”

  “We made a mistake.”

  “Fine. We’re getting someplace. It was self-defense, Mr. Ellis. Pure and simple. If you want to charge otherwise. I’ll throw my entire law firm at you, and public opinion is on my side. And you know that. I’ll have these statements,” he said, tapping the folder, “tossed out as inadmissible. That’s going to make you look very foolish.”

  The young DA sighed. “Counseling?”

  “Counseling. Dr. Sheela Harte will be fine.”

  “All right, Mr. Sobel.” The DA shrugged his shoulders. “Well, it looked good for a time.”

  Sam started to tell the young man his case had never looked anything but lousy. He checked his words. He had won, no point in rubbing the guy’s face in it. But what had he won?

  Would Phil have been safer in prison? No, he thought. No. It was no place for a young, well-brought-up kid. Besides, Nora’s powers were probably strong enough to reach behind the walls of Gray Rock College.

  Sam closed his briefcase, shook hands with the DA, and left the building. Phil was off one hook, but left dangling on another. The boy was in danger. How to free him?

  Sam didn’t know.

  He went back to the Baxter house. As he pulled into the driveway, the evil from the house touched him almost physically. The touch felt clammy. Fighting back his revulsion, Sam walked up to the door and punched the doorbell button, hoping Nora would not be the one answering the door. He had seen quite enough of her for one day.

  Mrs. Morgan Vincinci opened the door. “Please come in, Mr. Sobel. I rather hoped it was you. We need to talk. Jeanne and the children are resting.”

  “I would rather not speak in the house, Mrs. Vincinci,” Sam said. “The day is not unpleasant. Could we talk out here? In the car?”

  She smiled knowingly. “Of course. Just let me get my coat.”

  Sitting with her in his rented car, Sam said, “I believe I’ve cleaned up most of the legal matters concerning Phil. Of course, the boy will have to make a court appearance; probably in the judge’s chambers. Certainly in a closed courtroom. I’ll be notified as to the date. Next month, probably.”

  “That is splendid news, Mr. Sobel. I thank you.”

  Sam expelled a breath of air. He didn’t know where or how to start. He didn’t know how much the old woman knew or suspected.

  “The detective, Weaver, came to see me,” Morgan said.

  “Yes. Father Debeau said he would.” Sam decided to let her carry the ball the distance.

  “I don’t want this family’s personal . . . problems opened up like a crate of stinking fish for the entire world to see, Mr. Sobel.”

  “I have no intention of doing that, Mrs. Vincinci. If it can be avoided.”

  “It can. Now about Nora . . .” She left it hanging, waiting for Sam to pick it up.

  “Yes, Nora. Mrs. Vincinci, may I be terribly blunt?”

  “I suppose it’s time for that.”

  Sam’s short bark of laughter held not one note of humor. “I would say it’s about two hundred years too late.”

  “You’re probably correct in that. But without being able to prove anything.”

  “Is that the way this matter is going to be handled?”

  “This family will take care of its own problems, Mr. Sobel. It always has, and we shall continue doing so.”

  Sam cut angry dark eyes at the old woman. “A very fine man is dead, Mrs. Vincinci. A nun was murdered. A little girl horribly burned to death. And you’re telling me, in your high-born, genteel way, to stay out of it? I got a news flash for you, lady. Too many people now know about Nora. Oh, you’re correct, as far as you took it. I—we—can’t prove anything. But don’t you think for a moment we’re going to just sit back and do nothing. We’re not going to allow that . . . that little spawn of hell to spew her venom all over everybody she comes in contact with. She’s poisonous, Mrs. Vincinci, and you know it. She’s dangerous, and you know that too. Aren’t you afraid of her, lady?”

  “No,” Morgan said quietly. “She can’t harm me. She isn’t, as yet, strong enough. Quite the opposite. Nora is afraid of me.”

  “I don’t understand.” The unthinkable popped into Sam’s mind. He pushed it back. “Why should she be afraid of you?”

  The elderly woman was silent for a moment. “It’s a long story, Mr. Sobel.”

  “Call me Sam. And I have nothing but time, lady.”

  “My name is Morgan. All right, Sam. Let’s be brutally frank.”

  That reminded Sam of the old joke about the two old maids. He didn’t think Morgan would appreciate it.

  “I’m waiting, Morgan.”

  “We have had an entire generation of children born to . . . various members of the family, Sam. All sides. Only Nora was born with the curse on her. That is the first generation in a very long time to have only one. . . marked child.”

  “Congratulations,” Sam said drily. “But that still leaves Nora to be dealt with. And how do you know it wasn’t a fluke?”

  “Nora being the only one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, of course we don’t know. But it certainly is a good sign.”

&nb
sp; “A . . . good sign? That still doesn’t tell me why Nora should be afraid of you.” He paused for a few seconds, that pushed-back thought coming once more into the light of consciousness. No. The whole concept was insane. “Oh. Yeah. I get it. I think. Lady, are you trying to tell me that you’re the . . . how do I put this? The chief witch?” He suppressed laughter.

  Morgan’s chuckle was genuine. “What do you know about witches, Sam?”

  “I married one.”

  Morgan smiled. “Perhaps she was a princess.”

  “That too.”

  “Are you aware that there are good witches and bad witches?”

  Sam twisted in the seat. “Morgan, are you serious?”

  “Quite.”

  “And you’re a . . . good witch? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  “I don’t believe I’m hearing this! I don’t believe I’m sitting here listening to this!”

  “Ask your Father Debeau about it.”

  “He isn’t my Father anything. Look, Morgan. What I’d really like to do is go off on a week’s drunk and try to forget all that’s happened.”

  “You and Phillip were very close, weren’t you, Sam?”

  “Closer than most brothers, Morgan.” He stared into her eyes. “I’m going to kill that little she-devil in that house, lady. Do it, or die trying.”

  “Oh, don’t be a fool, Sam! You can’t kill her. The priest can inflict some damage to her powers, but even he cannot kill her. In the end she would defeat him. No, Sam. Only one person—other than God—can destroy Nora.”

  “Let me guess. You.”

  “That is correct.” I hope, she silently added.

  * * *

  “And what else did she say, Sam?” Debeau asked.

  “To back off and let her handle it. She is taking Nora up to her house this weekend. I guess then she is going to do . . . whatever the hell it is she has planned. I don’t know.”

  Father Debeau, Sheela Harte, and Paul Weaver sat in Sam’s apartment, drinking coffee and talking. Debeau rose from his chair to pace the room, a worried look on his face.

  “You have doubts, Joe?” Sheela asked.