Heather Graham Krewe of Hunters Series, Volume 4

by Heather Graham

“And you think he’ll come to any party you’re at after being jailed and grilled?” Devin asked.

  As if on cue, there was a tap at the door. Jack.

  “Rocky, Brent’s lawyered up, but we still have a few hours left if you want us to hold on to him,” Jack said, “but I think we’re still agreed on releasing him, yes?”

  Rocky nodded. “Let him go, but, of course—”

  “Yes, I’ll put a tail on him,” Jack said.

  “Jack, you doing anything tonight?” Rocky asked him.

  Jack’s brows arched with surprise. “I was hoping to have dinner with my wife and kid, because this case is driving me crazy, but I gather you have something in mind?”

  “I was thinking about a small get-together,” Rocky said. “That will take care of dinner and hopefully avoid some of the going crazy.”

  Jack’s expression turned to a frown. “A get-together? Tonight? Hell, Rocky, this isn’t the time for a party.”

  “Devin’s place,” Rocky said. “Just friends.”

  “Friends like...?” Jack said, waiting for some kind of an explanation.

  “I’m asking Vince and Renee, too. And Beth Fullway, Theo Hastings, Gayle Alden and, of course, Brent Corbin.”

  “Corbin?” Jack said, stunned. “The same Brent Corbin we’re holding in a cell right now?”

  “Yep.”

  “I already told him Brent won’t come,” Devin said.

  “A party. Oh, yeah. I can just see it. He’s going to want to party with us, for sure,” Jack said.

  “Trust me, he’s going to want to speak his mind and get sympathy from his friends,” Rocky said. He smiled. “Devin, just make sure he feels it’s our way of saying we’re sorry. He’ll come.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The one thing the warrants had produced was Brent’s athame. It was in a leather case nestled on a fabric bed; the covered elastic bands that secured it in place hadn’t even been broken.

  “The guy could be a pro at getting rid of evidence,” Jack began, “or―”

  “Or he’s innocent,” Rocky finished.

  Jack looked at his watch. It was going on four, time to shut things down for the day. “You sure you don’t want to cancel this party tonight?”

  “No way. It’s not a big party. Just dinner and conversation with friends,” Rocky said. “I’m going to take off and pick up Devin. She’s with Jane and Angela at the hotel. On the way back to her place, I want to stop by the bar where Barbara and her friends were drinking. If Corbin is innocent, then someone who was there that night slipped that phone into his pocket.”

  “I had men question everyone who was working there that night. None of them could contribute anything useful. They remember Corbin and the women, but no one saw them together,” Jack told him. “And no one remembers seeing anyone messing around with Corbin’s jacket, either.”

  “Sometimes a second go-round helps,” Rocky said. “People keep thinking and end up remembering something else, maybe something small, but sometimes that’s all it takes.”

  * * *

  “It was a busy night. I already talked to the police. I’m sure you have the report.”

  The bartender seemed weary, Rocky thought—not uncooperative, simply weary. His name was Judah Baker; he seemed to be about thirty and, unusually for “wicked” Massachusetts, he had a rich Southern accent.

  Rocky was glad he’d decided to do more of the interviews himself. Not that he didn’t have faith in Jack’s cops, they just weren’t...

  They just weren’t as invested, because they hadn’t had a vision the night Melissa died, and they didn’t speak to the dead. They might never know when a clue appeared right in front of them.

  “I know you’ve been over this already,” Rocky said. “But three young women have been brutally murdered, and more women’s lives depend on what you can remember. We really need your help.”

  Judah looked past Rocky to Devin. “Hey,” he said, frowning, “you’ve been in here with Brent. Aren’t the two of you friends?”

  “Yes,” Devin said. “Good friends.”

  “But he was arrested, huh?” Judah said.

  “He wasn’t arrested, he was questioned,” Rocky corrected. “Are you sure you can’t remember anything else from that night?”

  Judah shook his head. “I wish I could say, yeah, there was a creepy guy hanging around all night—musta been him. But if there was, I didn’t notice him. I was moving a mile a minute.”

  “Did Brent stay at the bar the whole time he was in here?” Rocky asked.

  “I can’t swear to it, but I never saw him get up,” Judah said. “We talked a little. He’d just finished his tour and wanted a beer before heading home, like he usually does. He seemed pleased, said he’d had a good tour. I told the cops all this yesterday,” Judah said.

  “I know,” Rocky said.

  He was surprised when Devin added, “Sometimes, once you take a little time and think about things again, you see more.”

  Judah paused, running his fingers over his clean-shaven head. “I barely even glanced at the tables. But if you’re asking me who was hanging around the bar...people I know...let’s see. Molly from the wax museum, Darryl who works at the playhouse down the way...” He paused, studying Devin again. “You’re that author, right? You do the kids’ storybooks.”

  Devin nodded. Judah picked up a glass and idly started drying it while he concentrated. “Another friend of yours was in here. Cute little thing. I’ve seen you all in here together before. I meant to mention it to Brent—I don’t think he saw her. I’m trying to think of her name....”

  “The young woman who owns a shop farther down on Essex?” Rocky asked sharply.

  “Beth Fullway?” Devin suggested.

  “Yeah! Her shop’s pretty cool. This Wicca stuff is all kind of new to me. I’m from Arkansas, not a local,” Judah told them.

  Rocky nodded and refrained from telling him that it was pretty obvious. He liked the guy’s accent; he didn’t want to say something that would make it sound as if he didn’t.

  “Was Beth alone?” Rocky asked.

  “No, she was with the two other people from the store. An older woman and a guy.”

  “And Brent never saw them?” Rocky asked.

  Judah let out a deep sigh. “I told you—it was really busy. All the tables were taken, people were three-deep at the bar. The three of them weren’t here very long.” He called to one of the women working the floor. “Gina, can you help these people?” He looked back at Rocky and Devin. “Gina was handling the tables that night—she might be able to tell you if anyone was trying to hook up with the women or anything like that.”

  Gina came over carrying her cocktail tray. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that advertised the bar. “Hey, you more cops?”

  Rocky produced ID again.

  “The local cops were crawling all over the place yesterday,” she said.

  Rocky nodded. “Do you remember the dead woman and her friends being in here?”

  “I do—They were at that corner table.” She pointed. “Nice kids. I couldn’t believe it when I heard about what happened. They weren’t blotto or anything. They didn’t get carried away. They were very polite, kept to themselves all night, and they tipped well,” Gina said. “I shake when I think about it. How horrible.”

  “You don’t go home alone when you finish here, do you?” Devin asked, concerned.

  Gina shook her head. “Not after what happened.”

  “No one will be leaving alone,” Judah assured them.

  “Barbara never came back in to ask about her phone?” Rocky asked.

  Gina shook her head. “When the three of them left, that’s the last time I saw them. There were other customers leaving at the same time, but...I don’t kn
ow who they were. We get plenty of locals, but like most of Salem and certainly this area of town, we get a lot of tourists, too.”

  “I sent over the receipts from that night,” Judah told them. “The cops have them, if that will help you any.”

  “We’ll go through them,” Rocky said.

  And they would, but...

  “A lot of people pay cash in a bar. Some don’t want it on record how much they’ve spent, some are only buying a drink or two―not worth putting on a card,” Judah said.

  “Yeah,” Rocky said. “Well, thank you.”

  Gina said, “Holly and Brenda were on last night. I’ll send them over. But if you’ll excuse me, the couple in the corner are looking at me like I’m the worst waitress known to man.”

  Holly and Brenda came over to talk with them.

  Brenda was older, a slim, harried woman, but she only stared at them blankly. “Faces just blur together. They’re one big cocktail order. I wish I could help you.”

  Holly was just as unhelpful. “I’m new—I just moved from Cape Cod. I wouldn’t know a regular from the man in the moon.”

  Right before they left, Rocky went back to the bar and told Judah, “I’m going to bring you some pictures. You remember faces, right?”

  Gina was back at the bar, giving him an order. “Pictures are a great idea. I’d know faces if I saw them.”

  “Me, too,” Judah assured him.

  “Thanks,” Rocky said. Devin echoed him, and they left the bar.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “Back to the house. It’s almost party time.”

  “As you wish,” she murmured, pausing and stopping him, a hand on his arm. “Do you think this will get us anywhere? I still can’t believe that anyone either of us knows—someone we grew up with!—could have done this.”

  Rocky wished he could say the same.

  He’d been an agent too long; he knew better.

  “Look at it this way. If we can eliminate them, that will help,” he told her.

  “And what about when the party is over?” she asked. “The hotel...someone was in my room.”

  “Jack has had the best video people over there all day—trust me, the cameras will be back up. And besides,” he said, allowing himself a smile, “I won’t be leaving you in a room alone. I mean, if that’s all right with you. You did run off this morning.”

  She flushed. “It seemed...prudent.”

  “Prudent?” He laughed. “You really are a New Englander, Miss Lyle. But seriously, you’ll be with me. And my Glock. And I’m a very light sleeper.”

  “Nothing like feeling...secure,” she said.

  “Come on, then. For now, we have to get to a cottage in the woods.”

  * * *

  It was, Devin thought, amazing just how easy it had been to set up the get-together Rocky wanted. When she’d called Beth, Theo and Gayle, not one of them had refused.

  Vince, Renee, Jack and Haley had easily agreed, as well.

  But when it came to one thing, it looked as though she was right. Brent Corbin hadn’t called her back.

  Maybe he would never call her back.

  They were alone at her house; the other agents were out purchasing food and beverages for the party. Auntie Mina was on the sofa, half listening to one of her TV shows.

  Aunt Mina was deeply upset that Devin had been in such danger the night before and she hadn’t been there to help in whatever way she could. At the very least, she’d said, she could have been another set of eyes.

  Calmed down at last—everything had turned out all right, Devin was fine—Aunt Mina had agreed that an episode of Perry Mason just might help.

  Despite that, she was obviously paying attention to the two of them, since she piped in with an opinion now and then.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so focused on the killer being someone we know,” Devin said.

  Rocky hesitated. “Obviously I don’t want it to be a friend, but there’s already a personal component to this, and I’m not just saying that because you were attacked, and you and I... I was there. I was the one who found Melissa’s body. You found the third victim and the fourth. Whatever’s going on seems to involve us.”

  “That’s reaching, isn’t it?”

  “But reaching based on logic.”

  “My friends were just kids, thirteen...fourteen.”

  He looked at her. “You were the one who researched kids who kill,” he reminded her. He took her hands. His touch was electric. Memory suddenly became physical, and she flushed.

  “Somehow all this goes back to Margaret Nottingham,” Aunt Mina said, interrupting the moment. “I know because she tried to reach Devin. That’s why she came here, and the only explanation I can see for her coming now is because these murders are connected to her somehow.”

  Rocky looked at Devin. “She could be right,” he said.

  “Have you heard anything from the anthropologists?” Devin asked Rocky, backing away slightly.

  “Not yet.”

  “But she was murdered.”

  “That’s our assumption, yes.”

  “Maybe by someone who loved her and didn’t want her thrown in a horrible, rat-infested cell, stripped and humiliated, then hanged,” Aunt Mina said.

  “Maybe, or maybe by someone who was afraid that she’d be putting them in danger if she were accused,” Rocky said. “The answer is there, we just have to put the pieces together.”

  Her day had been overfilled with a dizzying roller coaster of emotions. First, there had been absolute fear of what had happened at her house. And then there had been...acting on instinct. Acting on what she wanted. Then astonishment that she had actually gone to him and asked for sex; sex that had seemed like the nova-burst of a new world.

  Then she’d discovered that someone—almost certainly the same person who’d set the fire at her house―had been in her room. Someone was stalking her, and once again she’d been almost paralyzed with fear.

  And then fear had become anger. Whatever it took, she was going to find the truth; she was not going to live this way. She wouldn’t accept it.

  “Maybe she decided she was going to fight what was going on. Maybe someone wanted to silence her,” Devin said.

  “Jealousy, hatred, fear...any one of them can fester in the mind,” Aunt Mina said, “and drive seemingly sane people to all manner of evil acts.”

  Rocky walked over to the sofa and smiled at Auntie Mina. “I’d love to have known you,” he told her.

  She grinned at that, pleased. “Then just be thankful that you are special, young man, and you can get to know me now.”

  Rocky smiled again, then grew serious. “If our murders are based in contemporary hatreds, what would the specter of Margaret Nottingham have to do with them?”

  “You’re the agent,” she reminded him.

  He nodded. “I’m not sure that I have more knowledge on this score than you do, though, Mina. You were Wiccan, and there’s definitely a connection of some sort between Wicca and the murders, and that makes you more of an expert than I am, at least on that aspect.”

  Aunt Mina looked at him, nodding slowly. “I’ll think about it and see what I can come up with.” Then she turned to Devin. “You have my blessing to see him, you know.”

  “Auntie Mina,” Devin murmured. She could feel herself blushing.

  “Good heavens, child,” Aunt Mina said, rising and walking toward Devin. “I was old when I passed, not blind.” She turned and winked at Rocky, then looked back at Devin. “He’s a keeper. Don’t go playing too hard to get,” she warned.

  Devin shot a glance at Rocky, who had lowered his head, trying unsuccessfully to hide his smile.

  Hard to get? Not her. She’d brazenly knocked on his door and basically asked
if he wanted sex.

  “Oh, no, not again. I hate this,” Auntie Mina said, her voice fading along with her image. “I can’t believe I’m going to miss the party.”

  And then she was gone.

  There was a knock at the door; Sam, Jenna, Jane and Angela had returned bearing grocery bags filled to the brim. “Everything is easy to set up,” Angela said.

  “We brought grapes and apples, too,” Jane said. “For you, Poe!” she called.

  The bird cawed happily.

  Devin led them to the kitchen to start setting up. “I’m still not sure how this is going to help,” she admitted to Angela.

  “Rocky’s throwing everything in a pot to see what bubbles to the surface,” Angela said. “If he’s right, and this killer is somehow related to one or both of you, we just might learn something new tonight.”

  As she spoke, there was a knock at the door.

  “Got it,” Rocky said.

  Devin noticed that as he went to see who it was, the other agents instantly went on alert. Sam shifted slightly, and she realized he was wearing a shoulder holster beneath his jacket. Angela straightened from setting a tray of cheese in place, and Devin saw the bulge of a gun tucked into the waistband of her jeans and hidden under the back of her shirt.

  Everyone relaxed when it turned out to be Jack and Haley.

  “We’re out like big people tonight,” Haley said. “My mom has Jackie. And I would be delighted to have a glass of the lovely Cabernet I see sitting there.”

  “Of course,” Devin said, stepping up to join them. “Welcome, and by all means come and have a glass of wine.”

  “Just what are we doing here tonight, Devin?” Haley asked. “Trying to figure out if one of your friends is the homicidal maniac this time?”

  “Haley!” Jack said in horror.

  “Sorry. That was rude,” Haley said, accepting the wine Devin had poured for her. “I guess I’m more upset than I realized about the other night.” She smiled self-deprecatingly. “So, can I help in any way?”

  “I think we’re all set,” Devin said, glancing toward the kitchen. “We took the easy route, I’m afraid. Premade pasta and salad.”