The woman looked over at him, frowning. “You’re actually going to cut wood.”
“No, Mother,” he said softly. “I’m not going to cut wood.”
She didn’t start to scream until he walked toward her. Then, it was too late. His first strike was high and overhead and filled with passion and rage, and cleaved her skull so that her face seemed to fall apart in a burst of blood.
And then he struck again and again. And when she lay dead, the young man sat down on the sofa, covered in her blood, and he waited. And in time, a tall man in a cap and shabby tweed coat walked in and made it into the parlor, where he saw the woman on the floor and his son drenched in blood.
He started to shout; the young man, who had been all but immobile, leaped to his feet, and this time, the ax hit its target first in the throat, and the only sounds that were heard other than the sickening crunch of the ax were those of a man choking…until those sounds came no more, and the man lay dead on the floor, and the smell of blood was stringent and horrible on the air. The man with the ax just stood there. Then the door burst open and a young woman came rushing in. She might have been pretty, beautiful even. But her face was far too thin; she appeared tired and worn, like a faded rose.
At the doorway, she surveyed the scene in horror.
“I had to, Isabelle. I had to,” her brother said.
“And we must move, and quickly now. Your clothes! We have to get rid of your clothing, and we must get away so that we were elsewhere when this thing happened. Come, Nathan, come. Oh, dear brother, what have you done?”
The young man started to laugh.
“Oh, Lexington, he loved his wife,
So much he kept her near,
Close as his sons, dear as his life;
He chopped her up;
He axed them, too, and then he kept them here.
Duck, duck, wife!
Duck, duck, life!
You’re it! Oh, Isabelle! Now, I’m it!”
“Nathan! Come! Now. Touch nothing, we’ll go out the back, to the cliff…I’ll get you new clothing…we’ll sink what you’re wearing, Father’s fishing weights are in the back…we must move quickly! Oh, dear baby brother, what have you done?”
“They can hang me, Isabelle. They can hang me. Better death than the life we were living!”
“Come!” Isabelle urged, and at last, he seemed able to move.
Jenna stood frozen, the scent of the blood almost overwhelming her. The image of bits and pieces and flecks of flesh all around her was horrifying, and she felt as if her knees were composed of nothing but water.
The mist receded. She felt as if she was whisked back in time, and then thought she was going to fall….
She didn’t. Sam was holding her, looking down into her eyes with grave concern.
“I’m getting you out of here. I don’t give a damn what you say.”
He half lifted her and strode, carrying and dragging her, out to the hallway, the foyer and then outside.
He set her down on the porch, and sat beside her.
“Jenna?”
She took a deep breath. Out here, the blood of the distant past and the more recent past was all washed away by the breeze that came in from the water, cleansing the sins of time.
She was no longer dizzy. She managed a weak smile and set her hand on his.
“I’m okay, Sam.”
“I know, I know. It’s what you do. Maybe it comes at too high a price.”
Her smile steadied; he hadn’t even asked her yet what she had seen.
“No, because, as you can see, I’m fine now. I just wish…”
“What?”
“I can’t seem to bring my vision to the right century.”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw the Braden family. They weren’t nice people, Sam. I mean, of course, no one out there deserves to be murdered, but I believe that the parents were pretty horrible to their children. The son did do it. And his sister knew, but she was the one who helped him get out of the house and clean up, and she probably swore for him at the trial that he wasn’t in the house when it happened.”
Before Sam could answer, they heard footsteps on the stair. John Alden came out to the porch and looked curiously at Sam and Jenna. “You done?”
“Yes, thanks, John,” Sam said.
“Almost!” Jenna said. She jumped back to her feet.
Sam caught her hand. “Don’t do this to yourself,” he said softly.
She looked down and saw something dark and disturbed in his eyes. She couldn’t allow him to stop her.
“I have to go back in, Sam. I have to try,” she said, and walked back into the parlor. She stared about the room. She closed her eyes and thought about the recent past. She tried to imagine the more current murders—and a figure in a costume that resembled that of the horned god coming in to commit murder. She waited and she opened her eyes.
But the mist wouldn’t come.
She saw the chalk markings and the blood stains, just like anyone else would.
And she saw no more.
Jackson and Angela came and stood in the hallway for a moment, and then came into the parlor. Angela stood very still while Jackson looked at the chalk marks and the blood spray and moved carefully about the room, as if he tried to imagine exactly how the killings had taken place.
Sam stood in the doorway, his expression stony.
Jackson looked over at him and, behind him, at John Alden, who stood just a foot or so behind Sam. “Thank you,” he said.
“You’re ready?” John asked.
“Yes, thank you,” Jackson repeated.
They all exited the house. Jenna and her group waited while John locked the house and replaced the crime-scene tape.
When John joined them on the lawn, Sam asked him, “What about the lab report on the costume?”
“Hopefully, I’ll get it back today.”
“As soon as possible would be great,” Sam said.
“Sam, damn it, you know that I can’t give it priority. It’s a costume you took off a kid, and it may or may not have anything to do with anything.”
“I know, John, thanks,” Sam said. “Still, sooner would be better.”
“Damn it, Sam. I’m doing my best here, huh? And that’s good, considering I’m starting to think you’re almost as crazy as the kid.”
“Ah, but think of it this way. When we get to court, you’ll have done your job backward and forward, the prosecution will love you if all this investigation’s nothing and just proves the case against him is as airtight as you say,” Sam told him.
Muttering, John waved to the others and headed down to his car.
When he was gone, Jackson looked at Jenna. “Well?”
She shook her head. “I can tell you about Eli Lexington and the Braden family, but I’ve gotten nothing on Abraham Smith. Angela?”
“I saw a little girl, and I believe she died of typhoid sometime in the eighteenth century,” Angela said apologetically.
Sam stared at them both.
“I’ve got some work to do,” he said. “Alibis. We have to start cracking alibis.”
“We can give Jake a call, and he can do a lot of computer and phone work, at least with the members of the Old Meeting House.”
“Contact him for me, will you, then? I have legal papers…I’ll leave you all at Jamie’s house. I’ll be in contact soon.”
He was leaving her though, and just as she felt like someone literally reached into her chest and squeezed her heart.
“Good idea,” she said lightly. “We’ll get going on a chart, trying to trace the movements of everyone involved.”
Sam agreed and drove them to Jamie’s house. He seemed to step on the gas when he drove away.
Sam sat at his desk, trying to work. He scribbled out scenarios for the courtroom, assuming he wasn’t able to prove that Malachi Smith was covered in blood because he’d loved his parents. He scribbled out a dramatic scene in which they had discovered enough evidence to at least prove that there might have been another killer, and he imagined his voice ringing in the courtroom as he introduced the facts that might save his client. Of course, the prosecution would fight him tooth and nail, and…
He stood, stretching, and he knew that he was here, alone, because his emotions, so constantly logical and controlled, were in the midst of absolute turmoil.
He’d imagined earlier that he woke up every morning to have silken red hair sweeping over his naked flesh, and the warmth and beauty of an exquisite figure draped around his. Those green eyes of hers would open, and sometimes they’d be lazy, and sometimes frantic, and sometimes he would just leave her sleeping because work was a reality of life, and, of course, they both loved their work….
But it wasn’t imagination to relive the way Jenna had looked while “envisioning” the past, be it real, or a product of the recesses of her mind.
He sat at his desk again and buried his head in his hands, tearing his fingers through his hair.
He had to think about the case. The case.
As he sat there, he felt a gentle touch on his head.
He spun around, thinking that, somehow, though he’d locked the door, Jenna had slipped in.
He was alone. Completely alone.
His own imagination was going wild with everything that was happening.
“Hey! Is anyone here?” he demanded.
His voice echoed in the empty house.
He cursed at himself. Crazy. He had to concentrate.
He flipped a page on his notepad.
Samantha Yeager: Clerk swears she was working when Smith family killed.
“Goodman” Wilson: says congregation will attest to his presence. Jake Mallory, agent, doing computer search for members and phone work.
Councilman Andy Yates: appears open and honest, denies nothing. Good suspect, since his son involved in altercation.
The boys, David Yates and Joshua Abbott: Liars. No known alibis for any of the occasions.
He hesitated and pulled out his phone and put a call through to Andy Yates’s office. An answering machine informed him that it was Saturday, and that “Councilman Yates is devoting his weekend to his family. We hope you are enjoying yours, as well. Happy Halloween!”
