Divine Evil

by Nora Roberts

  Often he would pat her hand and tell her she was better informed than the CIA.

  She didn't need listening devices or hidden cameras. She had a nose for gossip the way a hound had a nose for blood. Min could masticate on a juicy morsel for days before swallowing it.

  It was, after all, her right as the wife of the mayor to know all there was to know.

  She scanned the noisy crowd with her greedy eyes.

  There was Sue Ann Reeder—now Bowers, six months gone and only four months married. That marriage wouldn't last any longer than her first one had.

  Peggy Knight was buying her three brats soda pop and cotton candy. Teeth would rot out for sure.

  Mitzi Hawbaker had her youngest on her hip and was kissing her husband—tongue kissing, Min thought in disgust—right out on the street.

  She huffed and turned away, not only from the open display of spit swapping but also from the children. All the children. Watching them made her feel empty inside, despite the two helpings of fried dough.

  It wasn't fair—it wasn't right—that all those young sluts dropped babies the way a she-cat dropped kittens, year after year. And that she should have a sick and empty womb.

  She hated them, all of them, for their careless fertility.

  “Want a cold drink before it starts, Min?”

  Atherton put a hand on his wife's shoulder. Min patted it—which was all the affection a wife need show in public—and smiled at him. “That'd be fine.”

  He loved her, she thought, as he hurried off to fetch the drink. And he was all the family she needed.

  With a little help from one of the councilmen, Gladys Finch, in her role as president of the historical society, climbed up on the grandstand in her sensible shoes. “Sure is a nice day for it. Remember how it rained last year?”

  “It's a little warm.”

  Gladys nodded but felt delightfully cool in her blue-striped seersucker. “Our band has a good chance of winning this year.”

  “Humph.” Min didn't approve of the new director's notion of having the band play show tunes instead of Sousa. She spotted the Cramptons and waved, regally, she thought. “Lucy Crampton's looking peaked.”

  “New diet,” Gladys said and irked Min because Min hadn't heard about it first.

  “There's Sarah Hewitt. Would you look at that?” She put a white-gloved hand to her mouth—not in shock, but to disguise the words. “High heels and a skirt that barely covers her privates. I don't know how her poor mother holds her head up.”

  “Mary's done her best with the girl.”

  “Should have taken a strap to her a time or two—Why, that's Blair Kimball.”

  “So it is. My, doesn't he look nice?”

  “Guess he came back because of his sister's trouble. Now that's a disgrace,” she continued before Gladys could comment. “Bringing those people right into town.”

  “What people?” Gladys looked and saw the LeBeaus walking with Clare. “Oh now, Min.”

  “I tell you it's unnatural. You can spout off all you like, Gladys Finch, but if one of your chicks had taken it in their head to marry one, you'd have sung a different tune. Why, I remember the scandal when the Poffenburger boy brought that Vietnam woman back after the war.”

  “Their oldest girl's an A student,” Gladys said dryly.

  “And no better than she has to be, I'm sure.” Min sniffed, then turned when her husband mounted the grandstand again. “Why now, thank you, James. I was just pointing Blair Kimball out to Gladys. Isn't it nice that he came up for the parade?”

  “Yes, indeed. How are you this morning, Gladys?”

  “Fit as a fiddle. Heard you have a big town meeting on Wednesday. People are mighty concerned now that the landfill's charging twenty-five dollars for a permit sticker. No doubt Poffenburger Refuse'll raise the rates, and that'll bump up taxes.”

  “The council and I are looking for solutions.” He took out his glasses, polished them. “Better get the speech-making over with so these people can have their parade.”

  He approached the mike, tapping on it to see if it was on, clearing his throat. There was a scream of feedback that had the crowd laughing, then quieting down to listen.

  He spoke about the valiant dead, the scourge of war, and the honor of God and country. There were those in the crowd who smiled secretly amid the cheers and applause. For the chosen dead, they thought, for the scourge of vengeance, for the honor of the Master.

  Power sang in the air. Soon, there would be fresh blood.

  Ernie didn't listen at all. He got enough of Mr. Atherton in school. Instead, he worked his way through the crowd, looking for Clare.

  He was watched—as he had been watched, carefully, consistently over the last days. It had been agreed. And it had been written. His soul was ready for the taking.

  “It starts down by the elementary school,” Clare was explaining to her friends. “Believe me, right about now, it's utter chaos down there. Kids have lost their gloves or their boots. Some are throwing up in the bushes.”

  “Sounds delightful,” Angie commented.

  “Shut up, you jaded New Yorker,” Clare said and swung an arm around her shoulder. “Word is the high school band has a shot at top honors this year.”

  “What about the majorettes?” Angle's husband asked.

  “Dozens of them, Jean-Paul,” Blair assured him. “A veritable bevy of high-stepping, nubile beauties. Pom-pom girls, too.”

  “Ah.”

  “Clare was almost a pom-pom girl.”

  “Blair, do you want to die?”

  “Truly?” Eyes glinting, Jean-Paul studied her. “But ma chère amie, you never told me.”

  “That's because when she tried out, she tripped over her shoelaces.”

  “Betty Mesner untied them.” Clare pouted, remembering. “You dumped her, and she took it out on me.”

  “Yeah.” Blair grinned. “Those were the days. Why, hello, Annie.”

  Crazy Annie beamed. Parade day was her favorite day of the year, better even than Christmas or Easter. Already she'd had a grape snow cone. Her hands were purple and sticky from it.

  “I know you,” she said to Blair.

  “Sure you do. I'm Blair Kimball.”

  “I know you,” she repeated. “You used to play baseball down at the field. I would watch. I know you, too,” she said to Clare.

  “It's nice to see you, Annie. Some of the roses are blooming,” she said, remembering how her father had often given Annie a flower.

  “I like roses the best.” She stared at Clare and saw Jack Kimball in her eyes, in the easy smile. “I'm sorry your daddy's dead,” she said politely, as though it had just happened.

  “Thank you.”

  Annie smiled, pleased she'd remembered to do the right thing. Then she looked at Angie. “I know you, too. You're the black woman who's living with Clare.”

  “This is my friend Angie and her husband, Jean-Paul. They live in New York.”

  “In New York?” Annie studied them with more interest. “Do you know Cliff Huxtable? He's black, too, and he lives in New York. I see him on TV.”

  “No.” Angle's lips curved. “I haven't met him.”

  “You can watch him on the TV. He wears pretty sweaters. I like pretty things.” She eyed Angle's gold panther link necklace. “Where did you find that?”

  “I, ah …” A little uneasy, Angie lifted her hand to the necklace. “In New York.”

  “I find pretty things, right here.” She stuck out her arm, jangling with bracelets. To rescue her friend, Clare took Annie's sticky hand and admired her jewelry.

  “These are very nice.” Curious, she ran a finger over the silver bracelet on which CARLY was engraved.

  “That's my favorite.” She beamed. “A-N-N-I-E. I wear it every day.”

  “It's lovely.” But Clare frowned as some vague memory nearly surfaced.

  “Okay, heads up,” Blair announced. “Here comes the Farm Queen.”

  “I want to see!” Annie sc
rambled away through the crowd to get a closer view, and Clare lost the memory in the cheers from the sidewalks.

  They watched the slow-moving caravan of convertibles. Listened to the wild cheers. The crowd shifted, rose on toes, hunched down. Young children were hoisted on shoulders. There was a scent of hot dogs grilling, of sweet, sugary drinks, of baby powder. In the distance Clare heard the first rumble of brass and drums. Her eyes filled.

  Girls in glittery leotards turned handsprings, twisted into back bends, tossed silver batons high. If some bounced on the asphalt, the crowd still cheered. Behind them, between them, high-stepping through the town square, came the bands.

  The sun glinted off brass and stunned the eyes. Trumpets, tubas, trombones. It glittered on the silver of flutes and piccolos. Beneath the roar of music was the click, click, click of heels on the roadbed. Drums added their magical rat-a-tat-tat.

  Jean-Paul nearly swooned when a trio of girls in short, shiny skirts executed a snappy routine with white parade rifles.

  The young and the hopeful marched by, in front of their peers, their parents, their grandparents, their teachers, as the young had marched by for generations. They were the lifeblood of the town. The old watched them, knowing.

  Angie slipped an arm around her husband's waist. She'd expected to be bored, not touched. But she was touched. To her surprise, her blood was pumping to the rhythm of horns and drums. When she watched the Silver Star Junior Majorettes file by, some of them hardly bigger than their batons, her throat felt tight.

  At that moment it didn't matter that she was an outsider. Clare had been right, she thought. It was a good parade. It was a good town. She turned to speak to her friend, then stopped when she saw Ernie standing just behind Clare.

  He was toying with the pendant he wore. And there was something in his eyes, Angie thought, something too adult and very disturbing. She had a wild and foolish thought, that he would smile and show fangs just before he sank them into Clare's neck.

  Instinctively, Angie put an arm around Clare and drew her forward a few inches. The crowd roared as the Emmitsboro High School Band strutted by, blaring out the theme from an Indiana Jones movie. Ernie glanced up. His eyes fixed on Angie. And he smiled. Though she saw only white, even teeth, the sensation of evil remained.

  It took Cam and both deputies to deal with traffic control after the parade had ended. Bud Hewitt was at the south side of town, enthusiastically using a whistle and snappy hand signals. When the traffic thinned enough to muddle through on its own, Cam left the intersection. He'd just stepped onto the sidewalk when he heard the sound of applause.

  “Nice job, Officer.” Blair grinned at him. “You know, I have a hard time connecting the guy who chained Parker's rear axle to a telephone pole with this tin star.”

  “Does the brass at the Post know you once set a skunk loose in the girls′ locker room, then stood outside with a Polaroid?”

  “Sure. I put it on my resume. Want to grab a cup of coffee at Martha's?”

  “Let's live dangerously and try the poison at the office.” Grinning at Blair, he started to walk. “So, did Clare say anything about me?”

  “Not unless you count her asking me if you'd said anything about her.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Christ, this feels like high school.”

  Cam opened his office door. “You're telling me.” He went directly to the coffee machine and turned on the warming plate under the sludge already in the pot.

  Blair eyed it with trepidation. “Can I have a tetanus shot first?”

  “Pussy,” Cam said mildly and rounded up two mugs.

  “I heard about Biff.” Blair waited while Cam lighted a cigarette. “Ugly business.”

  “He led an ugly life.” When Blair only lifted a brow, Cam shrugged. “I don't have to like him to find who killed him. It's a job. My mother sold the farm,” he added. He hadn't been able to tell anyone how much that hurt. The thing was, he wouldn't have to say it to Blair. Blair would know. “She's moving south as soon as the deal closes. I went by a couple days ago. She stood in the doorway. She wouldn't even let me in the goddamn house.”

  “I'm sorry, Cam.”

  “You know, I told myself I was coming back here, back to town to look out for her. It was mostly a lie, but not all the way. Guess I wasted my time.”

  “You get itchy feet here, D.C.P.D. would take you back in a heartbeat.”

  “I can't go back.” He glanced down at the coffeepot. “This shit ought to be sterilized by now. Want some chemicals?” He lifted a jar of powdered milk.

  “Sure, load it up.” Blair wandered to the bulletin board, where pictures of felons at large were mixed with announcements for town meetings and a poster showing the Heimlich maneuver. “What can you tell me about Clare's accident?”

  “That Lisa MacDonald was damn lucky Slim was driving down that road at that time.” He handed Blair the coffee, then sat. Briefly, concisely, in the way of cops and journalists, he outlined what he knew.

  By the time Cam finished, Blair had downed half the coffee without tasting it. “Jesus, if someone had attacked the woman, Clare was right there. If she hadn't gotten the woman in the car so quickly and driven away, they both could have been …”

  “I've thought of it.” All too often and all too clearly. “I'm just glad the idea hasn't occurred to her. The town's locking up and loading up. My main concern now is that some asshole is going to shoot his neighbor if he steps off the porch to piss in the bushes.”

  “And the woman didn't see the guy's face?”

  “Not that she remembers.”

  “You don't figure it was a local?”

  “I've got to figure it was a local.” He drank some coffee, winced, then filled Blair in on everything that had happened since he discovered the disturbed grave the month before.

  This time Blair got up and refilled his mug himself. “Things like this don't happen in a town like Emmitsboro.”

  “Not unless something triggers it.” He sipped slowly now, watching Blair. “When I was on the force in D.C., we came across some dogs. Three big black Dobermans.

  They'd been mutilated in just about the same way as Dopper's cattle. We found a few other things there, though. Black candle wax, pentagrams painted on the trees. All in this nine-foot circle.”

  “Satanism?” Blair would have laughed, but Cam wasn't smiling. Slowly, he took his seat again. “Not here, Cam. That's really reaching.”

  “Did you know graveyard dirt's used in Satanic rites? I looked it up. It's even better if it's from the grave of a child. Nothing else was disturbed in that cemetery. And somebody had hauled the dirt away. Why?”

  “Kids on a dare.” But his reporter's instincts were humming.

  “Maybe. It wasn't kids on a dare who clubbed Biff to death. And it wasn't kids on a dare who took a knife to those calves. The hearts were gone, Blair. Whoever did it took the hearts with him.”

  “Good Christ.” He set the mug aside. “Have you told anyone else what you're working on?”

  “No, mostly I'm just thinking out loud.” Cam leaned forward. “But I've got to take into consideration that Lisa MacDonald says the guy who attacked her was chanting. She'd said singing before, but when I asked her about it again, she changed it to chanting. She said it sounded like Latin. You've got contacts on the paper, Blair, people who know a lot more about this cult business than I can dig up in a library.”

  “I'll see what I can find out.” Blair rose, trying to pace off his unease. If they had been anywhere else but Emmitsboro, he would have bought into Cam's theory quickly. As a reporter he knew how pervasive cults had become, especially in cities and college towns. “You figure kids have experimented and gotten in too deep?”

  “I can't say. I do know that drugs usually go hand in hand with this kind of thing, but other than a few kids rolling joints, we don't see much in this part of the county. There was more of that going on when we were in high school.”

  “Maybe
you've got a renegade. One person who's wacked himself out reading Crowley or listening to Black Sabbath.”