“Yeah, yeah, Detective Alden is on his way. Any minute now,” Brewster said, almost as an afterthought.
“What’s going on?” Sam asked. The two were behaving curiously. They had holstered their weapons but appeared ready to spring for them again at any second.
Neither touched the boy. Neither spoke to him. The kid was shaking harder and harder, despite the blanket Sam had set around his shoulders. Neither did the boy make any attempt to hold the blanket to his bony frame.
Again, the two exchanged glances. “We’re not really at liberty to say, sir.”
“Fine, well, I think we have to get him into a heated car, or he’ll die of exposure pretty soon,” Sam said. True or not, he couldn’t bear watching the shocked youth stare wide-eyed at nothing and shake anymore.
But before the patrolmen were compelled to respond, the sound of sirens suddenly seemed to grow to an alarming pitch. First on the scene was an unmarked car. A grim, solid-looking man of about fifty in a worn woolen coat and plaid sweater exited the driver’s side of the car and strode quickly toward them.
Plainclothes cop. Detective, Sam thought. He hoped it was John.
And it was.
But unlike the others, he didn’t pull a weapon. He hurried forward, passing between the patrolmen and Sam and the youth. He didn’t look at Sam, but at the boy, and his expression wasn’t authoritarian or harsh, but sad.
“Malachi,” he said. “Good God, Malachi, you’ve done it now.”
“Excuse me. He’s shivering. He’s freezing. He’s in shock. John? It’s Sam-Sam Hall.”
John Alden turned and looked at Sam.
“Sam!”
“I was on my way to the folks’ place. I nearly hit the boy. He was just standing there, in the road. Covered in blood.”
“Sam,” Alden repeated.
He looked as if he was about to say good to see you or something to that effect, but in the road with a blood-splattered boy, it just wasn’t appropriate.
“John, this kid needs help. I think he’s in shock,” Sam repeated.
John Alden nodded and indicated, with the cast of his head, the ambulance that had arrived. “Yeah, he’ll get medical attention. And he’s in shock, you say? He should be. He just hacked his family to death.”
1
Lexington House.
There it stood, on a cliff by the water. It might have been a postcard or a movie poster, and it was as eerie as ever-a facade that graced the darkest horror movie. Its paint was chipping, the exterior was gray and it had been weathered through the centuries by icy winds ripping in off the Atlantic Ocean. The ground-floor windows seemed like black eyes; the second-floor windows might have been startled brows, half covered by the eaves of the roof.
Oddly enough, Lexington House had always remained in private hands. From its builder-the Puritan Eli Lexington-to its recent owner-the now deceased Abraham Smith-it had always found a new buyer after each and every one of its tragedies. People had once known its early history, of course, but that had been lost amid the witchcraft trials that scarred American history and continued to fascinate the social sciences. And when Mr. and Mrs. Braden had been brutally murdered two centuries later, in the 1890s, the world knew that their son had been guilty of the crime. But the legal system had worked for the killer this time, and he’d been acquitted. He and his sister had promptly sold the house to another private party. Eighty years later it had become a bed-and-breakfast, and then it had been purchased by Abraham Smith, who had longed for the property on its little cliff, segregated from all but a few neighbors.
One of whom had been murdered last week.
And now today…
Jenna Duffy had heard about nothing but the Lexington House on the radio since she’d started for Salem from Boston this morning. Uncle Jamie had called her days before, begging that she come to Salem and speak with him. Peculiar timing.
She’d pulled to the side of the road and parked to stare at the place.
A patrol car sat near the house; crime-scene tape cordoned off the entire house. There were no onlookers, though. The house was at a little distance from the historic section of town, where most visitors strolled through the Old Burial Ground, visited the House of the Seven Gables or sought out history at any one of the witch museums or the Peabody Essex Museum. And since it was October and Halloween was approaching, the real-life contemporary tragedy would fuel the ghost stories that were already being told around town.
She stared at the house awhile longer, wondering about its history. What happened at Lexington House would prove to be another horrible case of mental instability or greed, and as much as she longed to actually see the property that brought about such gruesome tragedy, she had a meeting with her uncle. She glanced at her watch and pulled back onto the road. With Halloween tourists clogging the city, it might take her time to get where she was going.
Somehow she was still early.
She parked her car at the Hawthorne Hotel’s parking lot, and wandered across the street to the common.
Autumn leaves, beautiful in their warm orange, magenta and yellow colorings, rustled beneath Jenna’s feet as she strolled. Before her and around her, the leaves swirled and lifted inches into the air as the breeze picked them up and whimsically tossed them about.
She heard the laughter of schoolchildren as they made their way through Salem Common, heading home but not too quickly. Autumn was certainly one of the most beautiful seasons in New England, and schoolchildren, raised with all the colors as they may have been, still loved to stop and lift the leaves, toss them about and roll in them.
Jenna had loved Salem since she’d first come to the States and her parents had chosen nearby Boston, Massachusetts, as the place to begin their new lives. They had come up here weekends, in the summers and for the Halloween festivity, and also for the fall leaves and to see Uncle Jamie.
But this was a difficult visit. She was about to meet Uncle Jamie at the Hawthorne Hotel, and she was worried about him. He’d been so anxious when he’d asked her to come. He was asking her in a professional capacity, but he didn’t want her bringing “your team” or “your unit” or “the official group” with which she worked, not yet.
As she walked across the common, her attention was drawn back to the children. A group of five-to seven-year-olds were holding hands, running in a circle and playing a game.
She froze as she heard them reciting the old rhyme repeated not just in this area, but around the country.
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!
Jenna felt as if ice water had suddenly been injected in her veins-the old ditty now seemed to be words of mockery and cruelty. A young woman, who had been standing with another group of parents watching over small children and a group of older teens who had gathered in the park, rushed forward. She caught hold of the little boy’s arms, spun him around and shook a finger at him, reprimanding him.
Another of the mothers came hurrying over to her, her voice carrying in the cool air. “Cindy, don’t be so hard on them! They don’t…know. We used to say that rhyme all the time when we were kids.”
“Samantha, I know, it’s just that…now? Now, with what’s happened again? It’s that house! That horrible house, and that boy… He used to go to school with our kids.”