The Hexed (Krewe of Hunters) (22 page)

“When we were kids, any one of us could have lured Melissa into the woods. Haley was in great shape, tall and athletic. We were all big kids—you, me and Vince. The three of us didn’t get together until she’d already been dead for several hours.”

“And
you
found her,” Jack reminded him.

Rocky nodded. “Don’t worry. I’d suspect me, too.”

Jack thought for a moment, then said, “It’s possible the current killer’s a copycat—someone who saw Melissa’s body. But that brings us back to you, me and Vince. And none of us fit. I mean, the cops, the M.E., they saw her, too, but...”

“You’re forgetting someone,” Rocky said. “The murderer.”

“Or murderers,” Jack said. “Except,” he added with a note of disgust in his voice, “it’s hard enough for one person not to leave a scrap of trace evidence. Two?”

Rocky was thoughtful. “Maybe one person gets the victim out there and the other one does the killing.”

Rocky pushed a folder forward. “Theo Hastings,” he said.

“He wasn’t here when Melissa was murdered,” Jack said.

“We don’t know that,” Rocky said. “My team discovered that he’s really from here, he just moved to the Midwest for a while.”

“Let’s bring him in, see what he has to say,” Jack said.

* * *

They started with the shops and restaurants on Derby and Essex streets, splitting up, with Jane taking one side of the road and Angela and Devin taking the other. For the most part, people were eager to help, but despite that, no one recognized Hermione Robicheaux.

Eventually, though, Devin and Angela found a busy waitress who started when she saw the picture, then put down her tray to take it from them. “Yeah, I saw her—she was in here a couple weeks ago. She sat at the table by the window there. She was telling me that it was her first trip here, and she was really excited. She said that she could trace her roots back before the witchcraft trials.” The woman paused. “Me, I can’t trace my family back past my mom and dad. Well, I think my grandparents on my dad’s came from Cleveland, but that’s about it. Cool to know where you came from the way she did, huh?”

“Not always,” Devin murmured.

“She didn’t happen to mention any of her plans, did she?” Angela asked.

“Oh, she had lots of them,” the waitress told them. “She was heading out to Danvers to visit the Nurse homestead, and she was going to do all the museums and take a ghost tour. She said she might take a couple, even if they all told the same stories.”

Devin and Angela glanced at each other, thanked the waitress and left the coffee shop. Outside, they saw that Jane had just left a shop across the street and waved her over.

“Ghost tour,” Angela said.

Devin looked at her watch. “I’m sure that Brent’s opened the store by now. Let’s go ask him if he saw her. Of course, he might lie.”

“But he might not be a very good liar,” Jane said. “Let’s go.”

* * *

They were standing on a playground in the midst of two dozen two-, three-and four-year-olds at the Salem Prep Preschool when Rocky’s phone rang. Sam.

He excused himself, certain that Jack had indeed proved his point. They’d gone to the principal’s office and confirmed that on the night Carly Henderson had been killed, Jack had been running the school carnival. He could account for his every movement from 5:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. Going by the M.E.’s time line, that meant that Jack Grail couldn’t possibly have killed Carly.

Rocky was relieved—and vindicated. Even though he knew he’d had to consider the possibility, it had still been all but impossible to believe that Jack could be their killer.

Sam was at the lab. “We have a report on the necklace found with the bones of the woman we presume to be Margaret Nottingham. It’s as much as eight hundred years old, and the experts found some crisscrossing marks on the underside that might be a signature of sorts. One of the lab techs is into all kinds of pagan stuff, and he says a medallion like this one wouldn’t have been considered evil
by the maker. The pentagram goes back thousands of years, and it’s only relatively recently that it’s taken on its demonic reputation. Anyway, according to him, it was probably some kind of family heirloom that made its way to the New World when the colony was settled. It wouldn’t have been a common piece of jewelry, and no one during the time of the witch trials would have worn one. The association between paganism and Satan was strong among the Puritans, as you know, and the pentagram was considered a mark of the devil by then. Who knows? Maybe her killer held to the old beliefs and thought it was a way of protecting her in death, or perhaps he thought it was a way to show she was marked for the devil.”

“Eight hundred years old, huh?” Rocky said.

“Uh-huh. The composition of the silver matches that used by certain silversmiths in the Mediterranean during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The medallion might have been acquired by a knight or one of his retinue during the last Crusade and brought back to England, then given to someone as a trinket—way before the whole witchcraft craze swept Europe. I suspect it would have been a family talisman of some kind.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

“My pleasure,” Sam told him. “Hey, what’s going on there? Sounds like Custer’s Last Stand.”

Rocky laughed. “Nope, just a preschool. I’ll explain later. Thank the lab guys for me.”

“Will do,” Sam said.

“Everything good?” Jack asked him when Rocky rejoined him.

“Fine,” Rocky said. “Ready to go?”

“I just said goodbye to Jackie, so let’s hit the road. Where are we heading?”

“Essex Street. We’re going to do a little silver shopping,” Rocky said.

* * *

Devin was surprised that Beth wasn’t behind the counter when they entered the shop. It had been strange enough to get to Brent’s store and find it closed and him not even answering his cell, but she’d figured he was just upset about being questioned and was hiding out to lick his metaphorical wounds. Beth’s shop had been a logical next stop, since she might have seen him or at least have an idea where he might be. So where was she?

Beth didn’t do readings herself. She’d told Devin once that understanding the tarot was hard work, and she preferred buying and selling, plus she had Gayle and Theo, who not only read the tarot but palms, as well, and could even interpret tea leaves.

Today Gayle was behind the counter, talking on the phone. She looked distressed, and lifted a finger to ask them to wait. A few moments later she hung up without having said a word and turned to them.

“Sorry, but I’m a little bit worried. Beth hasn’t come in. I can’t get hold of her, and it isn’t like her not to show up.”

Devin instantly felt a cold rivulet of fear snake up her spine. “I thought she was staying with you?”

“Yes, but she left ahead of me this morning,” Gayle said. “She said she was going to stop and grab coffee and a breakfast sandwich, and drop a few things off at the cleaners, but...she should have been here by now.”

“Was she walking?” Angela asked.

“Yes—I’m less than a mile away,” Gayle said.

“Can you show me the route?” Angela asked.

“Well, actually, there are a few.”

“Any with woods?” Devin asked.

Gayle went white. “Um, yes, just a block behind Darby, toward the old jail. Not real woods, but a patch of trees.”

Theo came out of the back room just then, saying goodbye to a client—an older woman who still had curlers hidden beneath a scarf.

“Not yet?” he asked Gayle anxiously.

Gayle shook her head.

Devin fumbled for her phone, about to call Rocky, but Angela was already calling. But just as she started to speak, Rocky and Jack entered the shop.

“Beth is missing!” Devin said frantically.

Rocky hurried forward and calmly told them not to panic. After Gayle filled him in, he pointed out that Beth’s errands might simply have taken longer than she’d expected, and she could have accidentally left her phone somewhere. But, he said, they weren’t going to take any chances, so they were going to go out looking for her.

He directed Jane to take one route, Jack and Angela another, and told Devin to come with him and they would check out the route past the cemetery and the trees. He took her hand, telling Gayle to call him the second she heard from Beth and promised that he would call her, too, if they found her.

Devin was truly frightened.
Her best friend was missing.

“You think something’s wrong, don’t you?” she asked Rocky.

“I think something’s off, yes,” he said. “But this doesn’t fit our killer’s MO. He seems to like dusk and dark, times when his victims aren’t expected anywhere and it will take longer for them to be found.”

He was walking fast, though, and she was nearly running to keep up with him. That seemed pretty worried to her.

They neared the Howard Street Cemetery, and he slowed, looking down an alley. There were houses on both sides—and a tiny stand of brush and trees that lined the alleyway by one old house.

He headed down the alley and pushed into the trees, then stopped so short that Devin nearly collided with him.

She moved up next to him and followed his gaze. A woman was sprawled facedown on the ground near the bushes.

They’d found Beth.

18

R
ocky was certain Beth was dead.

Dammit! Why had he brought Devin with him?

Before he could stop her, she was down on her knees beside the body, and in seconds he joined her.

He started to warn Devin not to disturb the body, and then Beth let out a moan. Relief filled him.

She was alive.

“Beth!” Devin gasped.

Rocky had his cell out, calling for an ambulance, as Devin set a hand gently on Beth’s shoulder and helped ease her onto her back.

Beth blinked and coughed and looked up at them with dazed eyes. She was clearly disoriented, with no idea where she was.

“Beth, it’s okay, you’re going to be all right,” Devin assured her, then looked at Rocky, the anguish in her eyes asking for assurance from him.

“Ambulance is on the way,” he said. “Devin, watch what you touch. Beth...can you talk? Can you tell us what happened?”

“What happened?” Beth repeated.

“Yes, what happened?”

Beth almost smiled. “No...I was asking you...what happened?”

“You didn’t show up for work. Gayle was worried,” Devin said.

“Work, right,” Beth said, frowning. She tried to sit up, then went, “Whoa...” and lay down again.

“Do you remember anything?” Rocky asked.

“Um, yes...walking. And then...now I’m here.”

He could hear the sound of an ambulance, and he felt frustrated. He needed more information, and that meant he needed more time. But her health came first; she needed to get to the hospital.

When the ambulance arrived, the EMTs set to work immediately, and Rocky and Devin were pushed back. He quickly called Jane, Jack and then Beth’s shop, telling Gayle that Beth was going to be fine but she’d had an accident and was on her way to the hospital.

“What part of don’t go anywhere alone did those two miss?” he muttered after he hung up.

“Rocky, it’s hard to think that in broad daylight—with tourists everywhere—you’re going to get attacked on your way to work.”

“Stay together, I told people to stay together,” he said, aggravated.

She didn’t reply, because Beth was calling to her and Gayle was running down the alley toward them. Rocky went to intercept her just as Jack and the rest of the Krewe members arrived.

“I’ve got patrol coming to cordon off the area,” Jack said.

“Agent Rockwell, we’re going to take Miss Fullway now,” one of the EMTs called to him. “Is anyone riding with her?”

“Please, someone, come with me,” Beth said pathetically.

“I’ll go,” Gayle said.

“Devin?” Beth asked.

“Only one in the back,” the EMT told Rocky.

“Beth, Devin and I will be right behind you,” Rocky said. He looked at Jack.

“I’ll handle the scene. We might get lucky and find something.”

Rocky nodded and turned to Devin. “Let’s go get the car,” he said, and took her hand. She clutched his tightly, and they hurried toward the garage where he’d left his car.

* * *

Beth was going to be all right; the doctors gave her the thumbs-up after a thorough examination. Nothing was broken, though she’d sustained some bruising. They were keeping her overnight, though, just in case of concussion.

By late that afternoon Devin knew it was fine for her to leave. Gayle was sitting by Beth’s side, holding her hand. Theo was there, too, after making an executive decision to close the store for the day. Beth was in good hands and didn’t need her there, too.

She’d been gone a long time, she thought. Theo and Gayle were closer to Beth now than she was.

She also wanted to rejoin Rocky, who she knew was feeling both puzzled and frustrated.

Beth hadn’t been robbed, and the only injury her attacker had inflicted was the blow to the head that had knocked her out and sent her into the foliage. She’d been unable to tell Rocky anything except that the attack had happened around 9:30 a.m. as she’d been on her way to get the store ready for her usual 10:00 a.m. opening.

That was it. She’d been walking along and hadn’t noticed anyone behind her. She hadn’t even heard her attacker come up from behind.

That was all she could remember.

He’d pressed hard, until she’d started to look upset. Devin had stopped him then, and suggested quietly that maybe he could try again later, and he’d left the room to pace restlessly in the hall until Devin was ready to go.

When she joined him, he stuck his head into the room and told them to keep in contact, then started walking quickly toward the hospital garage.

Devin followed and kept silent. Clearly his mind was elsewhere.

“I don’t understand it,” he finally said when they were in the car. “She fits the profile of our killer’s victims, but nothing about the attack fits, other than the nearby trees.”

“Rocky, there
is
a possibility she was just attacked by a random mugger,” Devin said.

“Except her purse was there, her cell phone... Not a lot of cash, but it didn’t look as if the attacker even dug through her bag. He just knocked her out.”

“Maybe he was trying to close down her shop for the day,” Devin suggested.

“Because...?”

“I don’t know. I still don’t understand any of this.”

“I wish your ancestor would talk to us,” he said. “Your aunt Mina is full of talk, but Margaret Nottingham—who might actually know something useful―doesn’t have a thing to say.”

“Maybe she’ll come to the house,” Devin said hopefully. She hesitated, then said, “I don’t know if anyone had a chance to tell you in all the excitement, but before we went to Beth’s store we tried to talk to Brent, but his store was closed and he wasn’t answering his cell.” She took a deep breath. “We found a waitress who recognized Hermione Robicheaux and had even talked to her about her plans. Hermione was all excited. She said she was going to do everything―go to Danvers, go to the museums and take every ghost tour out there.”

“I need to talk to Brent,” Rocky said. “We’ll start with the store. Maybe he just opened late.”

Rocky found street parking on Derby Street and they walked up Essex to Which Witch Is Which.

It was open and full of customers, so they waited until Brent was done helping people.

Devin thought he was going to assume that they’d come to see him because of the attack on Beth, which he’d undoubtedly heard about by now. And that meant he was bound to be angry.

But he wasn’t. When he finished his sale and turned to them, he was smiling and self-righteous. “I’m in the clear on this, and I can prove it. I was at Red’s from 8:30 a.m. until after noon, doing paperwork for the store, and at least twenty people saw me. My waitress was named Gilda, and both she and the hostess can swear I never left my booth that whole time. Gilda and I started talking, and I may even have made a date.”

“We tried to call you and it went straight to voice mail,” Devin said, carefully steering clear of telling him
why
they’d called.

“Sorry, dead battery,” he said, pointing to his phone charging beside the register.

“No worries, Brent. We didn’t come to accuse you of anything,” Rocky said.

“No?” Brent said, surprised.

“We need help. I think that phone really was slipped into your pocket, probably by someone who knows you usually go for a drink when your tour is over. Meanwhile, we have an ID on our Jane Doe.”

“Ah yes, Hermione Robicheaux.” At the startled look on Rocky’s face he said, “Your friends were in here already. Don’t you guys communicate?”

“We’ve been at the hospital with Beth,” Devin said.

Brent nodded, then looked at Rocky. “I told them I
think
I remembered her. I guess the thought must have been rolling around in my subconscious since the cops first released her picture. I have a full tour almost every night, so I see a lot of people and forget most of them. I went through my credit card receipts and couldn’t find her name, but a lot of people just pay me cash.”

“Do you think she might have gone to the bar after the tour?” Rocky asked him.

Brent was thoughtful for a long moment, then let out a breath. “Honestly? I don’t know for sure. But I do suggest that place to people. It’s right there on the corner, so it’s convenient, it’s good, the prices are reasonable, so yeah, I generally tell people to stop in if they’re thirsty. I do it so often I get my drinks free sometimes.”

“Thanks,” Rocky told him.

Brent stared at Rocky. “You’re really not taking me back in or anything?”

“No,” Rocky said.

“You haven’t even checked my alibi— Oh. I told the other agents the same thing, so one of them probably did that already.”

“Probably,” Rocky said with a smile.

Brent grinned. “I should really hate your guts. I don’t know why I like you.”

“You’re okay, too,” Rocky said. “Well, I guess we’ll get out of here, let you get ready for your tour tonight.”

Brent nodded and looked at Devin. “Beth really is okay, right?”

“She really is,” Devin said.

“Well, I’m here if you need me,” Brent told Rocky. “And I’d like to stay here, if it’s all the same to you, but I’m happy to answer any other questions you come up with.”

“Thanks, Brent,” Rocky said. “Oh, can you hold me four places on tonight’s tour?”

“You’re coming back?” Brent asked. He didn’t sound particularly pleased.

“No, but Angela and Jane don’t really know the area, and Sam and Jenna could use a break. I think they’ll all really enjoy it.”

“Oh. Okay,” Brent said.

“We think you’re being set up, Brent. We’re just going to keep an eye on things,” Rocky said.

“You planning on sending someone every night?” Brent asked, blinking.

“No, just for a few nights,” Rocky said.

“And then...?” Brent asked.

“By then I hope we’ll have caught a killer.”

Brent nodded. “See you later, then.”

Devin gave him a kiss on the cheek, and then she and Rocky left the shop.

“The cottage?” she asked.

“For now.”

“And then?”

“I think we should drop in on our friendly local bar.”

* * *

Auntie Mina was delighted to hear that she was going to have company again. She did, however, smile and giggle and then try to look entirely somber when she asked Devin about their sleeping arrangements.

“The whole Krewe isn’t sleeping here—not tonight, anyway,” Rocky said. “I want anyone who’s interested to think we’re still using the hotel as our base.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding both puzzled and just a touch worried.

“I’ll be using your room, Mina, if that’s all right,” he said.

“Of course,” Aunt Mina told him. “I mean, if that’s what you really want.”

Rocky and Devin managed to keep straight faces. “We’ll be most comfortable that way, Auntie Mina,” Devin said.

“Of course, dear, of course.” Auntie Mina seemed disappointed.

“Excuse me, I have to make some phone calls,” Rocky said. He pulled out his cell and wandered toward the front, trying for a decent signal.

“You should hang on to that one,” Auntie Mina told Devin, nodding gravely.

“Auntie Mina, he has his job, and it’s an important one that takes him all around the country.”

“Things work out, child. Things work out. Remember, home isn’t where you are, it’s who you’re with.”

“It’s who you’re with...” Devin repeated. “Auntie Mina...where are our family records? Shouldn’t we have an old Bible?” She walked over to the bookshelves, filled mainly with history books and a few old novels, along with an old journal her mother had kept, but as far as she knew, they didn’t have anything that dated back to the late 1600s.

“If there ever was a family Bible, it was gone long before I was born,” Aunt Mina told her. “The closest thing would be...let me see...”

Aunt Mina’s spirit swept across the room and joined Devin in front of the shelves. “Ah, there,” she said, pointing.

“The Chronicles of Narnia?”
Devin asked, looking at her curiously.

“Don’t be silly—the next book.”

“Meet Me by the Hanging Tree?”

“Yes, that one.”

Devin pulled it out. As she held the book, she remembered leafing through it when she’d been younger. She looked at Auntie Mina, frowning.

“It was written by someone in the 1800s. An ancestor of ours, right? Percy Ainsworth—one of dad’s great-greats?”

“Yes. There were probably about a hundred copies of it at one time. I don’t think Percy was ready to hit the world of publishing, but he did have a lot of opinions on what happened here in Salem. There’s some family history in it.”

Devin took the book to the sofa and started reading through it. At first there was a lot of disorganized rambling. Percy had been convinced that Puritanism still ruled in Salem but that religious diversity was—and should be—on the way. But as she read further, she decided she would have liked old Percy. He was a forward thinker for his day.

She read aloud to Aunt Mina. “‘One of the things that must be remembered is that the people of Salem lived in a dark atmosphere of fear. While greed and hatred and the power that came with land ownership might well have influenced who was and who wasn’t accused, it was a time when society at large believed with full sincerity in the devil and the evil that the devil could do. Anything that hinted of a link to Satan was illegal to own. To curse a neighbor was an act of witchcraft, and by the laws governing the colonies, the practice of witchcraft was punishable with death. The people saw witchcraft in the same way that we see a disease that we know transfers from one man to another. In their minds, a person tainted as a witch might well convince another to sign the devil’s book. A mole or a freckle might be the devil’s work, as could any talisman. Handmade dolls could signify to the examiners that a person meant to prick or torment the dolls as the symbol of a real person, causing that person great harm or even death. Possession of medallions, toys and other objects from the West Indies, where voodoo was practiced, could mean arrest for a man or woman.’”

Devin looked up and saw that Auntie Mina was gone but Rocky, sitting across from her, was listening intently. “Sam found out something interesting earlier. That medallion you found buried with Margaret? It’s as much as eight hundred years old. It had probably been in her family—or someone’s, anyway―for generations.”