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

by Heather Graham

  “A show of defiance or of strength?” Jackson asked.

  “Oh, the little weasel wouldn’t have taken off his mask if Will hadn’t forced the issue!” Jenna said.

  “But Will did indeed force it,” Sam said, smiling. “Good man!”

  “My team is the best,” Jackson said gruffly.

  Sam stopped at Jamie’s house. Jenna felt Sam’s hand on her arm. “Come back with me. Please.”

  “Reconvene in the morning? Around ten?” he asked the others.

  They agreed and said good-night.

  * * *

  Jenna and Sam drove in silence the rest of the way to his house. Inside, Jenna doffed her cape and let out an oath of exasperation. “Corsets! The hardest damned thing in the world to get off.”

  “Ah, yes, but I’m happy to be of assistance.” He came to her, met her eyes and spun her around to work at the ribbons that tied the corset. “Have to say, good outfit.”

  “Glad you liked it.”

  “It was the best in the room.”

  “Aw. You’re just saying that.”

  “Nope.”

  The corset fell to the floor and she turned in his arms, reached up, lifted his mask and tossed it down, as well. He let the cloak fall.

  “I must say, we are messy.”

  “Hey! We pick up in the morning.”

  The back of his fingers brushed over her collarbone and her breasts, and he said, “Now, it’s really becoming the best outfit.”

  “Ah? Better than the bits of fabric covering Madam Samantha Yeager?”

  “Did she bother you?” Sam asked, grinning.

  “No, it might have been the other way around.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think she was really angry. I insulted her.”

  “How?”

  “She said that even if you were with me, you were a man, and when she slinked against you, she was sure you got an erection.”

  He laughed. “Oh?”

  Jenna shrugged.

  He grinned, sweeping her off the ground and heading into the bedroom. He plopped her down on the bed and lay beside her.

  He played with the catch on her velvet skirt. “Actually,” he said, his smile deepening, “I think that woman could shrivel the old horned god himself.”

  “Mmm,” she murmured, tugging at his jeans.

  He eased them off, lay half on top of Jenna and repeated, “Mmm. And that’s a fact. Know what does give me an erection?” he asked.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “The sound of your voice.”

  “I think I can handle that.”

  “Good,” he said softly, touching her cheek.

  “No. I mean, I think that I can physically handle that,” she told him. She reached out for him, touching far more than his cheek.

  He moaned, pulling her to him. They kissed, and she moved down on him, and they made love until light began to break, just drifting through the windows in whispers of luminescence.

  When Jenna slept, she slept deeply, basking in the comfort of the heat that emanated from his body. She didn’t dream.

  * * *

  They woke up to the loud sound of his bedside phone ringing.

  The sound was strident, as if the plastic piece of equipment knew it was about to report something shattering.

  Sam rolled over and answered.

  Jenna watched the grim expression that tightened his jaw.

  “I’ll be down there. Thanks,” he said tersely.

  “What?” Jenna whispered.

  “I have a dead witness,” he told her.

  14

  A crowd had gathered around Sedge’s grocery store.

  Police tape, of course, prevented onlookers from coming too close. An emergency vehicle stood near the front door, helping the police create a shield to stop the curious from looking in.

  John Alden, after conferring with one of the medical examiners, looked up to see that Sam was there with Jenna at his side.

  He walked over to them and lifted the tape.

  “It’s not what you think—you can see for yourself. And this is a courtesy, just so that you don’t get conspiracy theories running around in your mind,” John asked.

  “How do you know what I’m thinking?” Sam asked in reply.

  “You’re thinking the old guy was murdered, that he was being shut up just in case the D.A.’s office decided to charge Malachi with the Earnest Covington murder. But Milton Sedge wasn’t murdered,” John said.

  “Okay. Then how did he die? Heart attack? What happened?” Sam asked. It was just too damned convenient that Sedge—the one voice to stand against the boys who claimed to have seen what they hadn’t—was dead.

  “Damnedest thing—well, he was an old coot, you know. And I couldn’t believe it myself at first, but he was done in by olive oil.”

  If John Alden weren’t so grimly serious, Sam would have been tempted to laugh. As it was, he couldn’t speak for a moment.

  “Excuse me?” Jenna finally said.

  “Bad shelving, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” John explained. “He was having a special on those gallon tins of olive oil. Extra-extra-virgin olive oil. We have a large Italian community up here, you know…. Sometime this week, they’d done up a display with tin on top of tin. He must have jounced against the stack, and the tins and the shelf and everything came down. I just talked to the medical examiner—he received a lot of good head wounds, but it is possible that his old ticker stopped when all those gallons upon gallons crashed down on him. They’re heavy as hell, especially for an oldtimer like Sedge—test them yourselves one of these days.”

  “I’ve held a gallon of olive oil, John,” Sam said.

  “Well, then you imagine dozens of those suckers coming down on you,” John said.

  Sam glanced to the side. A group of Sedge’s employees had gathered there. They were sobbing softly, from some of his cashiers—nearing retirement themselves—to his younger stock and bag boys and girls.

  He walked over to the crowd. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  One woman let out a loud wail and fell into his arms. She took him by surprise, but he put his arms around her to pat her gently on the back. “So sorry,” he said again. “There, there,” he said ineffectually, but it seemed to help.

  The woman tried to compose herself. “It was all my fault!” she wailed.

  “Mabel!” another of the elderly cashiers protested. “Honey, it was not your fault. Mr. Sedge wanted that display, and he told everyone exactly how he wanted it set up.”

  “No, no…” Mabel moaned. “I left. I left. I walked to the back and said that it was all closed up and I was leaving. And I told him to come lock the door. I should have waited. We should have left together!”

  Sam kept trying to console the woman, but he felt a new spark of anger and suspicion. He held Mabel at arm’s length. “Mabel, you’re saying that you left him alone in the store, with the door open?”

  “Oh!” She started to sob again.

  “No, no, Mabel, this wasn’t your fault!” he said quickly and lifted her chin. “Was the store empty when you left?”

  She frowned, looking at him. “Well, yes. I mean, well, yes, I think so. I did the call over the announcement system. I asked everyone to check out, and announced that we were closing. I turned off the lights—except, of course, we have the safety lights. And the lights were still on back in the office, but it gets kind of dark in here—shadowy, at least. Oh, that’s it! He didn’t see that he was going to run into the display. Oh! Oh, no, it could have been a child. But the shelving was behind the tins…” She broke down in tears again.

  “There, there,” Sam said.

  Jenna had come to stand quietly beside him. He looked at her helplessly.

  She slipped in, putting her arms around the woman. “Mabel, none of this is your fault, and you get that out of your head.”

  “He missed his wife, honey,” another woman said hopefully. “At least he’s with
her now.”

  “Yes, that’s true, that’s true….” Mabel agreed, but then she sobbed again. “But he loved his kids and his grandkids!”

  “But he’s with his wife, and he probably missed her terribly,” Jenna said.

  Jenna managed to get Mabel into the arms of another of the women.

  She grabbed Sam’s sleeve. “I want to see the body,” she told him.

  He frowned, staring at her.

  “Sam, I’m an R.N. Not a pathologist or anything, but I’ve been around an emergency room a time or two. I want to take a look at the body.” She looked up at him with her green eyes earnest and clear.

  He nodded, caught her hand and made his way to John Alden.

  “You really want to allay my suspicions—and those of anyone else, should questions arise, which you know they will,” Sam said. He added, “Please.”

  John started to let out a sigh of exasperation, but then he looked at Jenna, and he seemed to hesitate, perhaps remembering the fact that she’d brought in the horned god costume that yielded results.

  He groaned. “What? What? What now?”

  “I’d like to see him, please,” she said.

  John scowled. “The medical examiner has cleared us to have the body taken to the morgue.”

  “I’ll only need a minute or two,” Jenna said.

  “What now, what now?” John demanded.

  “What now—you’re a good cop. And, of course, that doesn’t mean that you have to agree to do any favors for me. But, come on, John. You don’t want me having to question you later, or say that you were willing to accept the obvious with no question.”

  “Pain, royal pain, in my ass,” John told him.

  “But I’m right sometimes,” Sam said.

  “You got two minutes. And be careful—hell, I don’t want either of you dead or crippled by olive oil.”

  Then John called to the officers who were holding the line at the door. “Let them in!”

  Inside, techs were still marking off positions. It was obvious, though, that the rush had been to attempt to save a man’s life, not preserve the scene. Towels had hastily been spread on the floor to keep emergency help from sliding into mayhem themselves, and the offending cans had been tossed everywhere.

  But a path had been cleared to the body, and Sam watched as Jenna carefully made her way to Sedge’s bloodied and crumpled form.

  “Excuse me?” the medical examiner, who had been writing on a chart, asked with a frown.

  “Alden’s permission, Doctor,” Sam said. The M.E. lifted an eyebrow, but he didn’t protest.

  “We’ll be taking him out in just a minute,” the doctor said.

  “There will be an autopsy,” Sam said.

  “Of course. Accidental death,” the M.E. assured him. “And that didn’t take a medical opinion. Just look at what happened here. Of course, that’s not official. As you said, certainly, there will be an autopsy.”

  Jenna didn’t touch the dead man. She went down on her knees, heedless of the conditions around her, and studied the injuries. As she looked down, she felt a strange ripple down her spine. She looked up.

  And the dead man was there, looking down at her and at his broken body, incredible sadness in his eyes. He looked from his mangled form to her eyes, and he formed a single word with his ghostly lips.

  “Murder!”

  Jenna looked back to the corpse. Then, true to her word, she was up in a minute. She smiled her thanks to the M.E. and the techs that had paused to watch her.

  “R.N.,” she said weakly.

  “Honey, he’s way past that!” one of the techs said.

  “Yes, I can see that,” Jenna assured the woman.

  She walked to Sam, nodding, and they headed back out.

  John Alden was right in front, still trying to soothe the crowd while writing in his notebook.

  “See—death by olive oil,” he said, and there was no humor in his voice.

  “Yes, definitely, the tins killed him,” Jenna said. “There was no sign of a heart attack, although, of course, I’m not an M.E.”

  “No, you’re not,” John said firmly. “But why do you say that?”

  She arched her eyebrows, playing for time as she sorted out what she had seen in her mind. She wasn’t going to tell John Alden that the dead man’s corpse had been standing over his earthly remains.

  “Well, on the one hand, there were deep contusions and lacerations on his head. It would be like being beaten to death,” she said. “And, in my mind, his coloring—I’d expect different coloring from a heart attack. What time are they estimating time of death? I’m going to say early last evening.”

  John stared at her, perplexed.

  “Well?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, on cursory inspection, that’s what the M.E. believes. He must have had the accident when he was closing up,” John said.

  “Who found him?” Sam asked. “The store is closed on Sundays.”

  “His son came when his dad wasn’t at church. We’ve sent him on home. He has to tell his wife and kids. And…it wasn’t good for him to be hanging around here,” John said, sympathy in his voice. “Now, I called you. I let you see the situation—and the body. Can I get back to work?”

  “Yes. Thanks, John,” Sam said, pausing before adding, “Oh, and, hey, by the way, if it’s an accidental death, why are you here? I thought you only worked homicide.”

  Alden hesitated, looking at him. He sighed. “With the mess going on in Salem, naturally I’m going to be called to the site of any accidental death. And Sedge’s son called it in as a homicide. Since he might have been called as a witness in the one of the current murder cases, I decided I was going to stick with it and investigate it thoroughly. Happy?”

  “You bet I am,” Sam said. “Thanks.”

  “Thanks,” Jenna added as Sam set his hand on her back, leading her from the crowd. Local stations were setting up cameras. Sam saw that a cable channel was already live and he knew from experience each one of them was hoping for a sensational scene. If it bleeds, it leads. But if it wasn’t sensational, it wasn’t national.

  * * *

  Jamie, Jackson and Angela were once again around the kitchen table at Jamie’s house; they’d been watching the news. Jenna told them what had happened at the store.

  She was surprised when Sam’s fist hit the table. He didn’t seem to give in to frustration frequently. “He was murdered. Death by olive oil. Like hell—it was murder by olive oil. Someone was in that store, and someone beat him to death with those cans.”

  “Coincidence?” Jamie asked.

  “I don’t believe in coincidence. Especially not when it’s this convenient,” Sam said.

  “I don’t believe in coincidence, either,” Jackson agreed and began firing off questions that Sam answered wearily. No, the door hadn’t been locked. One of his longtime clerks had been the last to see him. No, Jenna was damned sure that he hadn’t died of a heart attack when the tins had started to fall. He’d been discovered by his son, who had called it in as a homicide.

  Jackson’s phone rang as they were sitting there. Seeing it was Jake, he put the phone on speaker.

  “Interesting news that might not have been easy to find, unless, of course, you thought to look in all the right places,” Jake told them.

  “Quit gloating and tell us what you’ve got,” Jenna said.

  “First, I found—public record, Jackson—articles for the Old Meeting House when it was founded, and when it was designated a house of worship. They requested more tax exemptions and conscientious objector status for some members, and a petition that was signed by most of the membership. Now, who didn’t sign, that I don’t know. That was something I had to dig for, so I’m thinking most of them signed it, assuming it was a private petition. I’ve emailed the list to all of you—including you, Sam. Your contact info was easy enough to find.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said glumly.

  “No problem,” Jake said cheerfully. “And here, chil
dren, is something that you should know.”

  “Spit it out, Jake!” Jenna warned.

  “Be nice, Miss Duffy! All right, your two prospective buyers are in business together.”

  “What?” Sam said, staring at Jenna with disbelief.

  “Oh, yeah. There’s a lot of ‘doing business as’ going on in both of their lives, but Andy Yates and Samantha Yeager are in business together. One of his company’s companies is called Magic Madam. In any other state, it might have been a cleaning service—I think Magic Madam and Her Gals is the name of a cleaning corporation somewhere in Georgia. Sorry, never mind. Anyway, seems like the money to start up came from Yates. He’s the investor and she’s the workforce.”

  “Well, Andy Yates did say that he knew her and that she was an impressive woman,” Sam said drily.

  “Well, she is impressive—I’m just not sure what her impression is!” Angela said.

  “Ah, think about it,” Sam said. “With the right guy…you never know.”

  Jackson glanced at him. “You mean someone with a repressed home life and a wife who’s kind of a delicate flower but longs to be supermom and probably has no time for her husband?”

  “Yep. Exactly what I was thinking,” Sam said.

  “Jake, you’re brilliant!” Jenna said.

  “I’m even more brilliant. I looked up the school’s football team. And I can tell you this. On the afternoon that Peter Andres was killed, Councilman Yates and his son were at one of the school’s major football matches—in Revere. There’s a newspaper picture of the councilman with his arm around his son after the school won against Lynn, Mass. I tried all the timing—the kid was in the game all day, and the whole team, along with Dad, celebrated at a restaurant in Peabody that evening. That accounts for daddy Yates, baby boy Yates and even Joshua Abbott for at least ten hours, and, according to the medical report, Peter Andres was killed between two in the afternoon and six in the evening.”

  Jenna looked at Sam, who appeared frustrated. “Thanks, Jake, you’re still brilliant, you know, despite that.”

  “Well, thank you there, Miss Duffy. I’m still on the list of members belonging to the Old Meeting House.”