The Hexed (Krewe of Hunters) (16 page)

Devin turned to Angela. “They’ll give Margaret a real burial, won’t they? I mean, they won’t stick her in a museum somewhere, will they?”

“Adam would never let them,” Angela told her. “Adam Harrison. He’s our director.”

“What’s he like?” Devin asked, curious to know more about Rocky’s ultimate boss.

“He came from family money, then multiplied it and became a philanthropist. His son, Josh, died young, but Josh had been―”

“Special,” Jane said. “The same way we’re special.”

“After Josh’s death, one of his best friends—the girl he was with when he was killed—somehow acquired his abilities,” Angela said. “She could see Josh.”

“And she could use her ability to help people,” Jane said.

“Adam didn’t have the ability to see ghosts himself, but he recognized the talent in others, so he began to collect people like us to work for him as private investigators,” Jane said.

“The government started calling him in to help with cases no one else could solve,” Angela said.

“And then he was offered the position with the FBI and officially allowed to recruit the Krewes,” Jane explained.

“Special units, officially,” Angela said with a smile.

“And so here we all are,” Jane murmured, but she was frowning, her attention back on her work.

“My husband, Jackson, is our field director,” Angela said. “He was Adam’s first hire. Jane is from the Texas Krewe, and like a lot of us, she has a law enforcement background.”

Conversation faded after that, as the three women lost themselves in their work.

“Hey, listen to this!” Devin said a few minutes later. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but it turns out people have been using pentagrams as jewelry for a very long time,” she said. “This is from the grimoire called the
Key of Solomon,
though it’s generally accepted that Solomon had nothing to do with it and it’s really a fourteenth or fifteenth century Italian study of the magic arts. Anyway, listen to what it says about pentagrams. ‘Thou shalt preserve them to suspend from thy neck, whichever thou wilt,’ and then there’s a long translation on what to do, things like using your name, turning to the east, and then, ‘Thou mayest be assured that no enchantment or any other danger shall have power to harm thee.’”

“So does that mean our killer thinks that they’re a protection against evil, then murders the people he’s trying to protect?” Angela asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Devin was thoughtful. “The Age of Enlightenment might have been dawning in Europe as the witch trials began, but that didn’t mean much enlightenment had reached the colonies. Back then, most people were deeply devout. God was everything because life was so dangerous. Infant mortality was high, women died in childbirth, men died early, as well, from disease and the hardships of making a living from the land. Maybe Margaret’s killer thought the flesh was nothing—that murder was all right because only the soul mattered. The pentagram has been used in Christian designs—it can represent the crown of thorns and the nails in Christ’s hands and feet.”

“That’s possible,” Jane murmured. “I mean, maybe in the mind of a very sick puppy.”

“Well, if you look at the things that were happening across the Christian world at the time, there were a lot of sick puppies out there. I’m not sure that someone who killed a loved one to save them from being tortured, publicly stripped and humiliated, then hanged, was any sicker than the rest.”

“In an odd and convoluted way, that makes sense,” Angela said. “So you think Margaret’s death was a mercy killing, basically?”

Devin closed her book. “I don’t know. It’s all so frustrating. And Margaret’s death may be completely unrelated.”

“And it may mean everything,” Angela said.

“Yes, it just might,” Jane said, looking up at them. “I’ll have to verify my findings, but—”

Just then the door opened and they heard Rocky call out, “It’s me!” He walked into the room, his eyes going immediately to Devin. “I found out something interesting. I don’t know if it means anything, but Barbara Benton had family in this area at the time of the trials.”

“We know,” Jane said, turning the computer toward him. “We looked her up online, along with Carly and Melissa, and they had family here at the time, too.”

Rocky smiled. “You’ve been busy. In all the things you find in a file, three-hundred-year-old background checks aren’t usually included.”

“Devin found some interesting things, too,” Angela told him.

“About pentagrams,” she said. “There’s a long history of people wearing them for protection from evil.”

“Does that include the Puritans?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know, but it’s possible. At times the pentagram has actually been associated with Christ.”

“So while some people might have thought anything that wasn’t traditionally a part of their belief was evil, others might have seen it as a protective symbol—even in Puritan New England?”

She nodded.

Rocky nodded. “Thank you. Excellent work all the way around. You’ve given us some interesting angles to follow. Now if we can just get a name for our Jane Doe. Jane?”

“Yes, I’m still trying to find out. We’ll ID her eventually, Rocky. I promise.”

He nodded. Then he looked at Devin. “I need you,” he told her.

“Uh, okay,” she said.

“We have to talk to your friend.”

“Which friend?” She frowned. “Do you mean Gayle Alden? To see what else she can tell us?”

“Yes, well, we will need to see her. But later.”

“Then?”

“Your friend who took Barbara on a ghost tour last night, not long before she ended up dead. Brent Corbin.”

“You can’t be serious, Rocky. Brent Corbin? He’d just turned fourteen, I think, when your friend Melissa was killed. And he’s—he’s a nerd!” Devin said.

Rocky glanced at her. They were speaking as they walked. “Nerds don’t kill?”

She shook her head. “You don’t know Brent.”

He stared straight ahead and let out a long breath. “Devin—he followed you into the woods the other day.”

“Because he’d brought me the map I was looking for and saw me go into the woods.”

“Devin, I’m not going to see Brent to arrest him, but I need to talk to him. He was one of the last people to see Barbara Benton alive.”

“What about people at the bar where she was drinking before she disappeared? It would make more sense to ask the bartender if she really did come back or if he saw anyone paying special attention to her.”

“Brent was at the bar, too.”

“What?”

“Her friend Juliet saw him there drinking a beer at the bar before they left. And no one remembers seeing her come back,” Rocky said quietly.

“So she told them she was going back—and then she just disappeared?” Devin demanded.

“Yes.”

They’d reached Brent’s shop—Which Witch Is Which.

Brent was behind the counter, selling tickets for his eight o’clock tour.

“Hey!” he said, looking up. He was smiling, but his smile quickly disappeared when he saw their faces.

“Oh, God, sorry. I heard you found another victim. I’m so sorry,” Brent said earnestly. “It’s weird, though. It hasn’t affected business. Don’t see many young women walking around alone, but the streets are still busy enough. I just filled my tour—I’m going to have to send people over to my competition tonight.”

“That’s why we’re here, Brent,” Devin told him.

“You want to take another tour?” he asked her, frowning.

“No, we’re here because of your tour last night,” she said.

“Why?” Brent asked, his confusion apparently genuine.

“Haven’t you heard? They have an ID,” Rocky said, watching Brent’s face.

Brent still looked baffled. “I’ve been working all day.”

“Barbara Benton, the victim, was on your tour last night,” Rocky said, his eyes narrowed on Brent.

Brent gasped. His surprise seemed real. “Oh, no,” he murmured. He looked at Rocky. “Who...which...?”

“She was one of three women who came together—they were from Ohio,” Rocky said.

Brent’s hands, still holding money from his last transaction, began to shake. “Which one?”

“Dark-haired,” Rocky began.

“Two of them had dark hair.”

“She was about five-six. Medium build,” Rocky told him.

“In a sweater and jeans,” Devin said.

Brent paled. “I remember her,” he said. “She was having a great time. It was her first trip here. When we weren’t stopped somewhere, she was keeping up with me and talking. She told me she’d had family in the area. She was going to look them up and find out where they’d lived—see if she had any distant relatives still here. My God. She was so...alive,” he finished lamely.

“She
was
alive—until one or two this morning,” Rocky said.

“I feel sick,” Brent murmured. The money fell from his grasp and slipped to the floor behind the counter. He didn’t even seem to notice.

“Brent, her friends saw you at the same bar they were at after the tour,” Rocky said.

“What?” Brent said, blinking as he looked at Rocky. He didn’t look away—
he didn’t look guilty.

He looked perplexed.

“Yeah, I had a beer at that place on the corner before heading home.”

“Did you see Barbara and her friends there?” Rocky asked.

Brent shook his head.

“She couldn’t stop talking to you, and you remember her clearly now. But you didn’t even see them?” Rocky persisted.

“No. I told you, I didn’t see them,” Brent said, flashing a glance at Devin. Anger was overtaking his shock. “I was thirsty after talking for a couple of hours, so I went and had a beer. I suggested the bar to people on the tour, but I came back here at the end of the tour. I sold a few things and hung out to answer some questions for a family that was still wandering around the shop after everyone else left. Then I went to the bar and had my beer, and then I went home. Period. I didn’t see them. You can’t honestly think I killed someone, can you?”

“Right now I don’t think anything except that I need more information,” Rocky said.

“We’re just trying to catch a killer, Brent,” Devin added.

“We?” he asked, staring at her with a hard smile. “We? When did you join the feds, Devin?”

“‘We’ as in the whole community,” she said.

Brent stared at her and shook his head. “So you found a body right by your house, and then today you found another one. You look a lot guiltier than I do, Devin.”

“Did anyone say you looked guilty?” she asked him. “Come on, Brent, please just help us. Someone had to have seen her.”

“Someone, maybe, but not me,” Brent said.

As he spoke, they heard a cell phone ringing. Brent’s lay on the counter, so he picked it up and then frowned. “Not mine,” he said.

“It’s definitely not mine,” Devin said. “Different ringtone.”

“And it’s not mine, either,” Rocky said.

Rocky pointed to Brent’s jacket, which was hanging off the back of the chair behind the counter. “May I?” he asked.

“What?”

“Your jacket is ringing,” Rocky said.

“Can’t be,” Brent muttered.

Rocky had already reached over and picked up the jacket; the sound was definitely coming from a pocket. He reached in and carefully, using only two fingers, pulled out the ringing phone. The caller I.D. said Bro.

The phone was in a pink Hello Kitty case.

Rocky looked from the phone to Brent. “I think we
are
going to have a talk down at the station.”

12

R
ocky, with Sam Hall standing at his side, watched through the one-way mirror as Jack Grail questioned Brent Corbin.

He’d especially wanted Sam with him, since Sam was an attorney and was more knowledgeable on the inclusion of circumstantial evidence.

Because that was all they had so far.

Brent still looked as dazed as he had back at his store.

Jack was good at questioning a suspect. He knew how to keep the subject off balance, leaning forward to attack one minute, then sitting back, sympathetic. Right now he was asking if Brent needed anything—coffee, water, a soda?

Barbara Benton’s cell phone was with the lab techs, who were analyzing her call log. So far, from what he’d been able to gather himself before turning the cell over, there had been no unusual activity since she’d arrived in Salem. She’d contacted the archives of several local museums, and she’d called her work, her parents and her friends. Nothing jumped out.

Except, of course, Brent Corbin’s number.

But that had probably been to make reservations for the tour.

Meanwhile, Brent’s own calls were being traced even as he sat there being interrogated. They had twenty-four hours before they had to charge him or let him go, but in Rocky’s opinion they didn’t need the time. They had the evidence. They were just trying to get him to talk before he was arraigned or asked for an attorney, which so far he hadn’t done.

He just looked lost.

He could be playing them. If he were a sociopath, his own interests would be paramount and the deaths he had caused as meaningless to him as swatting flies.

He was a nerd, Devin had said. Smart. A historian.

So smart he could act this innocent while smiling on the inside?

“Look, I don’t know what else to tell you!” Brent said to Jack, and he sounded desperate. “The woman was on my tour, yes. I had a beer, yes. But I never saw her at the bar. And then I went home.”

“And yet you just happen to have her cell phone. The cell phone the restaurant staff never found—and Barbara never came back to retrieve,” Jack said, not for the first time.

“I’m telling you—I don’t know how it got into my pocket,” Brent insisted.

“You’re going to be charged with murder,” Jack said quietly. “Maybe you have a grudge against the local Wiccan community for some reason. Do they look down on you because you run a witchcraft shop but you’re not a Wiccan? You carry pentagrams, herbs, wands, chalices—”

“Yes, and T-shirts, and souvenirs, and books,” Brent said.

“And yet you’ve only ever ordered one athame.”

“Big Brother
is
watching,” Brent said bitterly. “I just never bothered to carry athames, because they’re available all over town.”

“So why the one athame, Brent? Obviously you didn’t intend it for sale. Not just one. It had to be for your personal use,” Jack said. “Why?”

“I liked it! It’s a handsome knife. I planned to use it in a Halloween display,” Brent said. “Hell—half the people in this city own an athame.”

“You had her cell phone.”

“What does that have to do with me owning an athame?”

“Because an athame is a double-edged blade—and our murder weapon was a double-edged blade,” Jack said. “But you already know that.”

“I
don’t
know that!” Brent protested. “Take my athame—test it for blood. Do whatever you want.”

“We will. But it will go easier on you if you just talk to us now.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

Jack stood up suddenly, excusing himself.

“What do you think?” Sam asked Rocky.

Rocky shook his head. “He had the woman’s cell phone, but he swears he didn’t put it in his pocket. And there were no prints on it at all.”

“It
is
possible that the killer—assuming that’s not him—put the phone in his pocket,” Sam said.

Rocky nodded. “But don’t forget, I found him in the woods by Devin’s house. Her bird attacked him right before I showed up.”

“They
are
friends, although that may make him look more guilty rather than less so. Based on the evidence, the women are taken by surprise. He gets them to the murder sites on some pretense, and since they’re not suspicious he easily manages to get behind them and slit their throats. It was the same this time, right?” Sam asked quietly. “No defensive wounds?”

Rocky shook his head. “Of course, the autopsy report isn’t in, but I saw the body. The report won’t be any different.”

Just then Jack entered the room and joined Rocky and Sam. “You brought him in, maybe you can do better with him,” he said to Rocky.

Rocky was thoughtful for a minute. “Maybe he didn’t do it,” he said.

Jack let out a snort. “He had her cell phone! This is the first break we’ve had, Rocky. He had to have done it.”

“Sam?” Rocky asked.

“They’ll never convict him on what you’ve got so far—if a D.A. will even take him to court. Circumstantial and nothing more,” Sam said. “And you haven’t even tried to connect him to the other murders yet.”

“That’s true. I’m missing a piece of the puzzle. But when I find it, everything will fall into place. What’s your gut feeling?” Rocky asked.

Sam shook his head thoughtfully as he stared at Brent, who was just sitting at the table and waiting, looking around as if he’d woken up in a box and had no idea why. “Don’t know yet.”

“All right, I’ll give it a try,” Rocky said.

He left Sam and Jack to watch and walked into the interrogation room. Brent looked up hopefully. “Rocky! I know you had to call the cops because of the cell phone, but...you have to get me out of here. This is ridiculous—you know me. Okay, you just met me, but you know Devin, and Devin has known me since we were kids. She’ll tell you. I didn’t kill anyone. I couldn’t. I don’t know how the phone got in my pocket. I had a beer and I went home. That’s it.”

“Did you have your jacket with you?”

“Yes, slung over the back of my chair,” Brent said. He looked suddenly hopeful. “That’s it, Rocky. That has to be it. Someone put the phone in my pocket. They wanted to make me look guilty.”

Rocky said. “Look, I want to help you.”

Brent leaned back, staring at him. “All I can do is keep telling you that I didn’t do it. I’m not a killer—I could never be a killer. You have to prove I didn’t do it and get me out of here.”

“Let’s see what else we can find out,” Rocky said.

“You promise you’ll look for the truth?” Brent asked him.

“I promise I’ll look for the truth—wherever it leads,” Rocky told him. He stood and walked out of the room, pausing at the door. “For your own safety, stay here. If someone really is trying to frame you, you’re better off staying out of their reach.”

Sam and Jack came out to the hall to meet him. “That’s it?” Jack asked.

“We need more,” Rocky said.

“More? What the damned hell more do you need? Barbara Benton, alive and well, says good night to her friends and goes back for her phone, only she never makes it. The phone turns up in Brent Corbin’s pocket, and the woman turns up dead,” Jack said.

Sam was silent but he looked at Rocky, and Rocky knew what he was thinking. Brent Corbin had been living in Salem when Melissa Wilson was killed; he had a dark SUV; he had recently purchased an athame, even though he ran a store that carried Wiccan supplies—except for athames.

“It’s not enough,” Rocky said. “We have to find something more, not to mention we need to compare his whereabouts to the times of the other murders. Have we gotten the search warrants for his home and business yet?”

“Should be through any minute,” Jack said. “But it’s got to be him.”

“We don’t know that for sure. And if we let ourselves believe he’s guilty without checking every possibility...well, that could make us convict an innocent man and leave the real killer to strike again,” Rocky said.

* * *

It was 3:00 a.m. but while Devin had dozed on and off, she hadn’t really fallen asleep.

She was too restless and too upset. It just couldn’t be Brent. She was anxious to talk to Rocky again and tell him all the reasons why Brent couldn’t be the killer. She’d already explained everything to Jane, Jenna and Angela, who had driven her home from the station. Angela, she thought, had been open-minded. Jenna and Jane—well, they hadn’t argued. They’d humored her at least.

It had been surreal, Rocky calmly explaining to Brent that he would have to come in for questioning, Brent protesting, Jack Grail arriving to take Brent to the station, Rocky trying to make her understand as they followed, while she argued with him the whole way, still in shock herself.

The rest of the Krewe had met them there. Sam had stayed, and the women had convinced Devin to let them take her home, since there was nothing for her to do there.

They hadn’t wanted to leave her alone, but even though she knew Rocky would be furious, she’d insisted they leave, promising that she’d lock herself in and not open the door to anyone who came by. She’d said that she was drained and tired and just needed to be alone to rest. Reluctantly, after making sure the house was clear and everything locked up tight, they’d gone. But now, even though she was exhausted, she couldn’t stop her mind from spinning.

It didn’t seem possible that Brent had killed Barbara Benton and all those other women.

Of course, having a murdered woman’s cell phone in his pocket was pretty damning, she knew. But what if he was being framed and someone had slipped it into his pocket to make him look guilty?

She remembered that Auntie Mina had warned her once that she always needed to think things through; she couldn’t just rely on her heart. Too many people over too many years had been fooled by those they cared about. How well did she really know Brent?

“It just—it just can’t be,” she said to herself.

But when she woke up from another restless doze at 3:00 a.m., she knew she was wide-awake and there was no point trying to fight it. She got up and went out to the parlor.

Poe ruffled his feathers and cawed in protest when she turned on a light.

“Sorry, boy, can’t sleep,” she told him. “But I’ll get you an apple.”

She chopped an apple into pieces for him and brewed a pot of coffee for herself.

Brent had barely been fourteen at the time of the first murder. She simply couldn’t believe that the boy she’d known could have been a cold-blooded killer.

She gave Poe his apple and left the cage open in case he wanted to come visit, then sat down at her computer and pulled up her latest manuscript. She was at the point where Auntie Pim had invited the gnome into her kitchen and was giving him hot chocolate and sugar cookies—and a lesson in morality.

She tried to write, but she just wasn’t in the right frame of mind to think about magic and sugar cookies and happy children.

Instead, she went online and began researching murders that had been committed by children.

She was upset to discover just how many there had been.

Far too many.

The cases she found went well back in history. Often, older boys attacked younger girls, even toddlers. Some started out with a penchant for tormenting animals. Others were bullied and then turned around and became violent themselves.

As she sat there, Poe suddenly let out a long caw.

That startled Devin. She almost jumped out of her chair.

Poe was clearly distressed. He flapped his wings and cawed loudly again.

“What? I gave you an apple,” she said.

He flew out of his cage, but he didn’t light on her shoulder or on the old secretary where she worked. First he landed on the curtain rod, but after flapping around he finally settled on the back of the sofa.

His behavior was unsettling.

“Auntie Mina?” Devin said.

But the ghost of her aunt was nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly something banged against the rear of the house. She jumped up from the desk, her heart in her throat.

It was nothing,
she told herself.
Maybe a tree branch had fallen. Maybe there was a coyote prowling around.

Or maybe a man was out there, intent on murder.

But they had Brent in custody.

Except she didn’t believe he was a murderer.

For long moments she stood, terrified and frozen, listening to the thunder of her heart.

She heard nothing more.

Maybe it had all been her imagination. Maybe it wasn’t such a good thing to wake up at 3:00 a.m. and start reading about homicidal children.

She looked at the clock. Now it was almost 4:00 a.m. Soon it would start getting light.

Not soon enough.

“Okay, Poe, maybe there’s a lost dog out there or something. Rambunctious squirrels. A cat in heat. Who knows? I’ll go grab the pepper spray.”

As she walked into her bedroom to get the pepper spray and her cell phone, she heard another noise—out front this time.

She swore softly, her fingers curling around the spray can. She slipped back into the parlor and turned off the light. No point broadcasting her whereabouts. She walked to the door and looked out through the peephole, but she didn’t see a thing.

Backing into the corner between the door and the wall, she called Rocky, glad she’d decided to put him on speed dial earlier.

Despite the time, he picked up almost immediately. “Devin?” he said anxiously.

“Rocky, I think there’s someone outside my house,” she whispered.

“I’m almost there,” he told her.

“What?”
He was almost at her house at 4:00 a.m.?

“I just left the station,” he said briefly. “Stay inside and don’t hang up. I can be there before the cops. I’ll keep the line open,” he told her. “All right?”

“All right,” she murmured.

She kept her back to the wall, staring into the darkened house.

There was someone out there.

She heard movement all around the house now. Or was she only imagining the rustling, the furtive noises?

Someone was out there in the night.

Stalking her.

It could be the breeze, she told herself. The rustle of crisp leaves as the wind moved through ancient and gnarled trees.