The Evil Inside

just liked being away from home. The cops found that guy’s body at six-thirty and claimed he’d been dead for over an hour. So, if someone is mistaken, it’s the damned doctor who showed up on the site, not me. I talked to the kid. He was a regular. He was always on a budget, so he was like Eleanor, demanding to know where the daily specials could be found. Except that Malachi Smith didn’t demand. The kid was polite. Yeah, I can see where his classmates thought he was a geek. Skinny kid. Big eyes. Bad haircut. But he was polite. He was always stopping to get something off a top shelf for the old ladies. He waited his turn in a line. He paid with cash.”

The last seemed to be the asset that truly set Malachi Smith at the top of Sedge’s list.

“How do you know exactly how long he was in the store?” Jenna asked.

“I was in the front when he came in-Mrs. Mickleberry was arguing about a coupon that was good at another store-and I happened to be picking up a broken bottle of ketchup on one of the aisles about fifteen minutes later. We talked about a cut of meat about twenty minutes after that. I was working in the dairy section when he went through. I know that kid was in the store at the time they say Earnest Covington was killed. People around here want me to say otherwise, but I won’t. What is-is.” He sniffed. “Those kids at the school have had it out for Malachi forever.”

“Which kids?” Jenna asked.

“The ones who claimed to have seen him come out of the house that day. Now, why anyone would believe that David Yates over me, I don’t begin to understand. Oh, yeah. Because he’s on the football team.” Sedge shook his head. “Big brawny kid on the football team, and he and his pals tormented poor skinny Malachi. People need to use sense and logic. Yep, sense and logic. The Yates kid and his backfield mom are just as bad. Now, I didn’t say that. You ask me-and I’m no psychiatrist-guilt started eating at that kid and in his own messed-up adolescent mind he knew he was guilty as hell of being one bastard, excuse the language. Whatever. I know what I know. My eyes are sound, and I’m not involved in any of the crazy shenanigans going on.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sedge. It’s wonderful that you’re not letting yourself be swayed by peer pressure.”

“What is-is,” he repeated. “That kid might be crazy as hell, might be a mental midget, and he might have done anything else in the world-I couldn’t argue it. But I can tell you this and it’s a fact-he didn’t kill Earnest Covington.”

“Malachi claims that he’s innocent, too.”

“But he wasn’t arrested for killing Covington, was he?”

“He’s being charged in the deaths of his family. I’m not sure, but I believe, if the prosecutor feels he gets a little more evidence, he also plans on adding charges, and I know that the police believe that Malachi killed Peter Andres and Earnest Covington, as well.”

“He didn’t kill Covington. And I told the cops that. I don’t know what they’re thinking, not to listen to me. Unless folks just get stuff stuck in their minds so hard they can’t see the light.”

“We’re truly grateful for the courage of your convictions, Mr. Sedge.”

“What?”

“Thank you for sticking with the truth.”

“The truth is the truth. He didn’t kill Covington.”

Jenna rose.

“Of course…” Sedge began, rising politely.

“Of course what?”

“Doesn’t mean he didn’t take an ax to his mom and dad. Hell, if I’d been that kid, I’d have been tempted to take an ax to that old Abraham Smith!”

“You know,” John Alden told Sam, “you need to thank God that usually, even with the mayhem that goes on around Haunted Happenings, we’re mostly a good, law-abiding place. With Malachi in custody, I haven’t been finding bodies anywhere, and I have the time to do this with you.”

John Alden had agreed to show Sam around Earnest Covington’s house. They stood just outside, and Sam waited for John to let him in and give him whatever instructions he might feel obligated as a detective to give.

“You’re a true gem, John, and a great believer in justice,” Sam said.

“Actually, you know, the cops usually work with the prosecutors,” John reminded him.

“Ah, but, first and foremost, you are a great believer in justice, and therefore agree that the defense has the right to question witnesses and investigate when a client makes a plea of not guilty. You wouldn’t want to get caught up in any red tape, and you like to keep an eye on me.”

The policeman sighed. “Earnest Covington was a widower, lived alone, but he ordered out a lot, so it was actually a kid from the Pizza Palace who found him. The door was ajar so the kid just came in and saw Covington on the floor, right in front of the hearth. The chalk marks are still there-as is the blood spatter,” John said, his mouth growing tight.

Covington’s house was built in much the same style as the Lexington House: front and back entries, parlors to either side of the entrance, and a narrow stairway that led to several rooms above. There was an attic as well, but according to the police report, it didn’t appear that the house had been ransacked in any way. Just as in the murder of Peter Andres, it appeared that the killer came with but one thing in mind-murder.

“The pizza kid found the door ajar?” Sam asked.

“Yep, just like I said.”

“Did your crime-scene people find anything that indicated that the killer had jimmied the lock in any way?” Sam asked.

“No,” John said. He sighed again. “And before you ask, there were so many fingerprints on the door that the lab is still working on sorting them all out.”

“So what made you suspect Malachi Smith?” Sam demanded.

John’s eyes narrowed and he offered Sam a grim smile. “Because we already suspected him in the case of Peter Andres.”

“But why? From everything that I’ve heard, Malachi liked the teacher. And Peter Andres liked Malachi well enough-he hated Abraham Smith.”

“There’d been trouble, bad blood with Malachi,” John said. “God knows, maybe at one time, Jamie O’Neill might have been able to help him. I know that O’Neill kept trying-despite the system that gave the kid back to his parents without interference-and he might have had some luck with him. But, come on-the kids were terrified of him.”

“John, he was like the runt of the litter-picked on.”

“And, sometimes, Sam, when kids pick on another kid, there’s a good reason. Oh, come on, you know that the signs of a serial killer can be seen at a young age. Sickos who throw rocks at dogs and kill kittens.”

Sam stared at John. “And did anyone ever report that Malachi Smith killed a kitten?”

“Not actually.”

“Not actually?” Sam demanded.

“Kids talk.”

“Do you know of a kitten that was killed?”

John opened his mouth, arched his eyebrows and then closed his mouth again. “No.”

“John, you persecuted that kid because of hearsay.”

“No, Sam, you weren’t here. Something really happened to the Yates kid-David. He was in agony. Whether Malachi Smith just has something about him that threatened the other kids or not, he’s strange.”

“I don’t think you can be tried for murder just for being strange,” Sam said.

“And I should ignore all the warning signs-not to mention the fact that the kid was covered in his family’s blood-and fail to make an arrest? He hasn’t been charged with the murder of Earnest Covington or that of Peter Andres. He was a person of interest, that’s all. And in the Covington case, Yates and his friend said that they saw him coming from Earnest Covington’s house.”

“And Milton Sedge said that the kid was in his store.”

“I just said that he’d only been a person of interest,” John told him.

Sam let out a long breath and knew that he needed to maintain control. John Alden was legally obligated to give him certain information vital to the case, but he didn’t have to go out of his way to be helpful. He couldn’t push the man too far; he was already basically questioning his police work.

“I’m sorry, John. If he was brought into court on the Covington murder, I’d rip the prosecution to shreds in a