Krewe of Hunters The Evil Inside 4 (25 page)

“Are you threatening me?” Jenna turned and asked.

“I would never! I’m telling you what I saw in your cards!”

Jenna continued toward the drink line. She was stunned when her way was blocked again.

Not by Samantha.

By a peacock.

Cindy Yates stared at her with teary eyes behind her jeweled mask. She seemed to be trembling with rage.

“How dare you? How
dare
you!” she demanded. “How dare you accost my son!”

“Mrs. Yates, I was at the cliff, showing the area to a friend of mine. Your son came to the cliff when I was already there.”

Cindy Yates continued to stare at her, shaking and looking more like a rooster at the moment. “That boy
is
the devil. That boy could kill us all. You stop trying to hurt our children. You stop what you’re doing—you—you—”

Jenna waited, certain she was going to hear another threat.

“You—you’re the cruelest, meanest person in the world!” Cindy said.

Then she didn’t threaten. She hauled back and slapped Jenna across the face with a startling strength.

Jenna was instantly aware of movement in the crowd. She knew that her group had rallied around her. She felt Sam at her back, as protective as a giant alpha wolf.

She lifted a hand quickly. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Yates,” she said softly, and she stepped around the woman. Whoever had witnessed the exchange began to huddle together and whisper, but Jenna knew that she had avoided a real scene—or a brawl!

Sam caught her arm. She saw the gray of his eyes beneath his mask. “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.

“My cheek is stinging, but another Wiccan’s Brew will fix that,” she assured him.

He slipped his arm through hers and led her to the drink line. “Well, we did want to get the lay of the land.”

Angela and Jackson were behind them in the line, as if they’d tacitly decided there would be no more divide and conquer; they would close ranks.

“So, Wiccan’s Brews, four, please,” Sam told the bartender. She looked at Jenna a moment, and then smiled.

“Welcome to Salem,” the bartender said. “Glad to have you here—all of you. Welcome. I mean, come on! We are the original Patriots, too!”

They thanked her and took their drinks. Ivy and Cecilia went up to the microphone the next time the music stopped. They thanked everyone and offered a special surprise performance.

Jenna was startled to see Will, elegantly attired, take the stage. She glanced at Sam, and she realized that he had planned the performance.

“Sneaky like the wolf!” she whispered to him.

“Hey, thought he should garner a nice audience this way.”

Will went through the beginning of his performance with lights and prisms, and then, to her surprise, a light went through the audience and settled on her. “Ah, we have an ancient Celtic queen to join us! Miss, if you’d come to the stage…?”

She wasn’t sure what he was up to, but Sam quickly escorted her to the stage. She’d halfway expected the crowd to boo, but apparently everyone didn’t hate them; she received the appropriate applause as Will welcomed her as his assistant.

“All are welcome here, but we are here due to the benevolence of the Coven of Light. So, we have our Celtic queen of old here, and she’ll crown the two who have brought about this wonderful, giving occasion. Because we know, in modern Salem, that Wiccans believe that all souls have the right to do as they will, as long as they harm no others. No two show greater kindness of spirit than our true queens from A Little Bit of Magic—Ivy and Cecilia!”

Will handed her two beautifully wrought gold crowns surrounded with ivy leaves and flowers. He cast his hand out, and rays of light fell over the two women. Blushing, they headed for the stage. They had obviously not known about this part of the entertainment.

“This is really great of you, Will,” Jenna whispered. “But what are you doing? What am I doing?”

“Trust me!” Will said briefly.

Ivy and Cecilia were escorted to the stage, where they stammered and flushed some more and thanked everyone who had helped them.

“And now, they shall be crowned true queens of the ball!” Will announced. “But! Every queen must have a king, and it’s our beautiful Celtic goddess of old who will help find the proper kings for our queens! Goddess!” he said, looking at Jenna.

She arched a brow.

“Just turn around and lift your hands!” Will whispered.

When she followed his instructions, rays of light started shooting through the audience and landing upon the men in the crowd. Somehow, Will managed to find all those wearing the horned god costumes; there were a few vampires and werewolves thrown in, apparently for good measure.

The audience was laughing and applauding.

The costumed guests could do little but oblige, coming to the stage. Will was determined that each man would unmask, and she would choose the appropriate kings through their answers.

The first two horned gods were from out of town; the second two were women, giggling schoolteachers from Idaho. Will said that they had every right to be kings, but if they were kings, they’d still be called queens. The crowd laughed some more.

A vampire and a werewolf followed. The vampire, too, was a woman.

Three more horned gods came up. One was from Boston, one from Ipswich, and one was down from Gloucester.

They went through more and more horned gods.

Jenna didn’t recognize any of them or their names.

Until the end.

The last horned god had tried to slip away, but the good-natured crowd pushed him forward.

He was unmasked.

This
horned god she knew.

It was Joshua Abbott, best friend of David Yates. Jenna decided that she definitely had to name him as one of the kings. The other honor went to Jason Middleton from Gloucester, since she’d suspected that Ivy had been flirting with him earlier.

There was laughter and applause. And finally, Jenna was released from the stage. Sam was there, watching over her, arms across his chest as he surveyed everyone around her.

He stepped forward as an Indian—Councilman Yates—approached her. She could see that Sam was going to bar his way.

He did. Andy Yates stopped and stared at him.

“My God, I just heard what my wife did. I am so, so sorry.”

“It’s all right, she’s upset,” Jenna said.

Yates looked at Sam, shaking his head. “She—she’s so fragile. Honestly, I’m so sorry. She went home, you won’t be bothered again.”

“Councilman, it’s all right,” Sam said. “We understand.”

Yates shook his head. “I meant what I said. People should help you. But, you know, of course, everyone heard that there was blood found on a costume that boy had worn to try to scare you all away. It’s reopened the whole thing for everyone.” He paused. “Look, we’re good people, we really are. Ordinary people—maybe better than others, because we do have a history of what lies and hatred can do. But be careful. Please, be careful!”

Jenna nodded. “Thank you.”

He nodded to Sam. “Really. I’m so sorry your evening was spoiled.”

“It’s not spoiled. We were about to dance,” Sam said.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Andy Yates said, hurrying on.

“Were we really about to dance?” Jenna asked Sam.

“Hell, yes. It’s a slow number. I’m kind of a tall guy, and I look ridiculous when I try to gyrate—trust me. It’s an ugly picture.”

She was happy to go out on the dance floor with him, and shocked to hear the number end with an announcement that it was after two in the morning, time for all kings, queens, princes, princesses and frogs to head on out. They ended with the song “Closing Time,” and everyone started heading out.

As they drove from the hotel, Jackson said, “A very interesting evening. Of course, Jenna, you did have to get slapped, but now we’ve seen that Cindy Yates really is pretty much a basket case.”

“I heard her talking earlier—I don’t think she believes her husband did enough when David received the so-called evil eye,” Jenna said.

“The question is—could her disappointment in him for his failure to defend his son have caused him to commit murder, to prove he’s a good enough father?” Angela said.

“I’ve got to admit—I’m frustrated that it’s another day until we get into the school,” Sam said. “I think it’s really interesting that Joshua Abbott decided to come tonight as the horned god.”

“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.

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, children, 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.”