The Evil Inside (Krewe of Hunters)

by Heather Graham

  “So how long have you been seeing him?” she asked.

  “If you’d asked the parents? He was my patient for a year. Social services paid me for a year. But I’ve seen him ever since—more as a friend than a patient. It all began about three years ago, when his parents pulled him out of school. Thing was, in his own way, he was happy to come see me. Musical instruments, other than the voice, were a sin in his house. But he’s something of a genius with the piano. At my house, he could play.”

  “What was the incident that caused social services to step in?” Jenna asked.

  “He looked at a boy,” Jamie said.

  “Looked at him?” Jenna repeated, puzzled.

  Jamie nodded. “The boy was throwing food from his lunch tray at Malachi. Malachi looked at him, and this other boy froze—and then he picked up his tray and beat himself over the head with it so hard that he had a concussion. He was hysterical and told the doctors that Malachi had forced him to do it—with his eyes.”

  Jenna leaned back, staring at Jamie, frowning. “Wait—this other kid said that Malachi looked at him, and made him beat himself silly?”

  Jamie nodded.

  Jenna shook her head. “Why—that’s preposterous. Especially here. It’s like the girls crying Witch! Witch! Witch! and causing the unjust deaths of twenty people and the incarceration of nearly two hundred more. I’d thought we’d learned some lessons…”

  Jamie sighed. “He was better off out of school. The thing is, I think that Malachi desperately wanted to be normal. He was malnourished, and he was raised to think that just about everything in the world was evil, an idea browbeaten into him by a fanatical father. He never lost his temper—the other kids couldn’t goad him to act. And that made them mad. He’s the most peace-loving individual I’ve ever met. When the neighbor, Earnest Covington, was killed, one of the boys who he’d been with at school went to the police and told them that Malachi had come running out of the house. They brought Malachi in for questioning, but Mrs. Sedge at the grocery store, said that Malachi had been in the meat section at the time, choosing dinner cuts for his mother—she never left the house—so he was off the hook. But, then, last night…well, Malachi was found drenched in his family’s blood, standing naked in the road.”

  Jenna put her hand on her uncle’s. “Uncle Jamie, you have a friendship with this boy…but, if he was found covered in his family’s blood…?”

  “Jenna, I need you to find out the truth about that house,” he said with resolution. “Uncle Jamie—”

  “We can’t let the system take this boy. We have to somehow make it work for him now—now that he has a chance.”

  “A chance?”

  “His parents are gone now,” Jamie said quietly. He looked toward the ceiling. “God forgive me!” he murmured and crossed himself. He looked at Jenna solemnly. “You know I’m a religious man, right, Jenna?”

  Surprised by the sudden question, she arched a brow to him. “Well, you were almost a priest…. I didn’t figure that meant you’d turned away completely but—sorry! No, I know that you still love the church.”

  He nodded. “I’m disappointed in the way human beings interpret religion at times, and God knows I loathe the horrible things done daily in the name of God and religion. But you don’t go throwing the baby out with the bathwater, you know?”

  “Jamie, you’re losing me again.”

  “They were—fanatics,” Jamie said. “I don’t even know exactly what belief they adhered to, but it was with a vengeance. There was hell to pay when that boy didn’t learn his Bible verses or when he couldn’t recite huge tracts of the Bible.”

  “He was abused?”

  “Not physically—they weren’t beatings, or even severe spankings. Parents often tap the hands of little ones—to stop them touching a stove top, a light socket… No, the abuse was mental and, well, I do suppose physical in a way. No food could be eaten without the father’s blessing….”

  Jamie stopped speaking for a minute.

  “You can’t imagine the peace in that boy’s eyes at times. He doesn’t do evil things because of the ghosts in a house, and he doesn’t do evil things because his father was a religious zealot who turned everything to sin. I don’t believe he does evil things at all—especially not murder. If ever anyone has been touched by the hand of God, I think it’s that boy. And you have to help me save him. Maybe it’s my mission in life, I don’t really know. But I’m begging you. You have to get into that house, and you have to speak with Malachi.”

  “And how am I going to interfere when he’s now in the hands of the police?”

  Jamie looked past her and lowered his voice. “Well, with a wee bit of help from the Lord, I think I can convince his defense attorney that he needs your assistance.”

  She turned to see what had drawn Jamie’s attention. It was a man, tall and broad shouldered. The coat he had worn into the bar was excellently cut, and he moved like someone accustomed to custom-tailored clothing. His face was strongly molded with a classic masculine line. His hair was neatly cut and combed, just slightly awry from the breeze. She thought that she recognized him, but she didn’t know why she should have.

  “Who is he?” she whispered.

  “Samuel Anthony Hall, attorney-at-law.”

  She almost laughed aloud. She knew why she recognized him—she’d recently seen his name and picture all over the internet. The world had wanted his last client to fry for the heinous murder of his pregnant fiancée. The prosecution had DNA evidence that the two had engaged in intercourse the day of the murder, but Hall had proved that one of his client’s enemies had killed the woman—a revenge killing. She couldn’t remember the details, but the client had loose mob ties and the case had received major press attention.

  “Actually, you’ve met him before, you know,” Jamie said.

  “I have?” Jenna looked at her uncle.

  “You knew his parents, Betty and Connor. They were friends of mine, and they were friends of your folks, as well. You’ve been in his home. Maybe only once or twice—you were here when you were a young teenager and he was home from law school. He was supposed to be watching over you and a few of your friends. Silly, giggling girls. He thought you all were torture.”

  “Wow. Can’t wait to meet him again, though I think I do remember his folks. They were very nice people.”

  “They were.”

  She studied Sam. He had the bearing of a man in charge—and a fighter. Or a bulldog.

  “Samuel Hall,” she mused, turning back to her uncle, slightly amused. “That’s not the kind of attorney the state acquires when you haven’t the resources to hire your own. And I’m assuming all the money Malachi might have will be in probate. And unless you’ve changed your ways—working for the state most of the time for almost nothing—you can’t afford him. And even if our entire family was to put in our life savings, we still couldn’t afford him. He was said to have made several hundred thousand—just off his last case.”

  “Yes, he can command a high fee,” Jamie murmured.

  “Too high,” Jenna told him softly.

  “He’s going to do it pro bono,” Jamie said.

  She stared at him with surprise.

  He grinned. “All right, so he doesn’t know it yet.” He leaned forward. “And, dear niece, if you don’t mind, please give him one of your best smiles and your sweetest Irish charm.”

  2

  “Sam!”

  Sam Hall turned to see that Jamie O’Neill was hailing him from one of the booths. O’Neill wasn’t alone. He was with a stunning young redheaded woman who had craned her neck to look at him. She was studying him intently, her forehead furrowed with a frown.

  He thought at first that she was vaguely familiar, and then he remembered her.

  She had changed.

  He couldn’t quite recall her name, but he remembered her being a guest at his house once, and that she—and half a dozen other giggling girls—had turned his house upside down right when he’
d been studying. But his mother had loved to host the neighborhood girls, not having had a daughter of her own.

  Before, she had been an adolescent. Now, she had a lean, perfectly sculpted face and large, beautiful eyes. Her hair was the red of a sunset, deep and shimmering and—with its swaying, long cut—sensual. She appeared grave as she looked at him and, again, something stirred in his memory; maybe he’d seen her somewhere—or a likeness of her—since she’d become an adult. She was O’Neill’s niece, of course. And her parents, Irish-turned-Bostonian, had been friends with his folks.

  “Sam, please! Come and join us,” Jamie called.

  He’d ordered a scotch and soda. Drink in hand, he walked to the booth. He liked the old-timer. O’Neill was a rare man. He possessed complete integrity at all costs. An immigrant, he’d put himself through eight years of school to achieve his degree in psychiatry. He lived modestly in an old wooden house, and he still probably took on more patients through the pittance granted him by the state than any other person imaginable. Sam had heard a rumor that Jamie had gone through a seminary but then opted to live a life outside the Catholic church.

  But when he really looked at the grave look on Jamie’s face, he felt a strange tension shoot through his muscles.

  Jamie wasn’t calling him over just to say hello. He wanted something from him.

  Sam wished he’d never come into the bar.

  “Sam, do you remember my niece, Jenna Duffy? Jenna, Sam, Sam Hall.”

  Jenna Duffy offered him a long, elegant hand. He was surprised that, when he took it, her handshake was strong.

  “We’ve met, so I’ve been told,” she said. He found himself fascinated with her eyes. They were so green. Deep viridian, like a forest.

  “I have a vague memory myself,” he said.

  “Sam, sit, please—if you have the time?” Jamie asked.

  He was tempted to say that he had a pressing engagement. Hell, he’d gone to law school and, sometimes, in a courtroom, he realized that it had almost been an education in lying like wildfire while never quite telling an untruth. It was all a complete oxymoron, really.

  “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 drip- ping off his naked body…and he couldn’t he
lp 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.