Sam Hall, you would have laughed the whole thing out of existence, since you don’t believe in anything.”
“I never said that I don’t believe in anything,” he said, plucking a blade of grass from the ground and running it through his fingers. He looked at her. “The law was quite different then, you know. We’ve come a long way. The colony was English. And the entire Christian world believed in witchcraft. It was a way to cast and apportion blame. To explain the unexplainable. I don’t know why, but I keep thinking that there is some kind of answer in this that has to do with the past. The thing is, witchcraft was illegal and punishable by death back then. If you commit murder in death penalty states nowadays, you may be executed for the crime. It’s the law. A judge is legally and morally responsible to hand out sentences that conform to the law. Now, we have the concepts of legal and illegal searches, individual rights and so on. The people of 1692 weren’t protected that way-they seldom had any kind of representation. When I decided to go into the law, I would pretend that I had been Rebecca Nurse’s defense attorney. If I’d been there, of course, she wouldn’t have hanged.”
“I’m sure she’d appreciate that,” Jenna said, smiling.
He grinned in turn.
“Salem and Salem Village were in turmoil. The Puritans might have adhered to strict teaching, but they weren’t above wanting to make money. At the time, the Porters and the Putnams and others-even though some of the families were actually intermarried-were having all kinds of land disputes. They’d been around for many years, so I’d say a good part of the population was related in one way or another. But, hey, it’s hard to imagine, but true, that in royal and noble families brothers and nephews killed one another over a crown. So, it’s not so hard to believe that they let bitterness carry them away here. Whether or not they really knew it, the people were probably letting their anger with each other prejudice their belief in what was happening. Hey, if you’re really mad at someone, it’s easier to think ill of them. And I think about kids-maybe they weren’t malicious, maybe they even believed part of what they were saying-you tell a lie often enough and it becomes real in your own mind.”
“One of the first women accused was Sarah Bishop,” Jenna said. “She was supposedly disagreeable, and her husband’s children from a previous marriage also wanted property she owned. They say, too, that she wore a scarlet bodice-not very Puritan of her!-and had drinking parties. She’d been accused before, so she was an easy target.”
“One of the first people hanged,” Sam said. “She wouldn’t confess to being a witch.”
“And Malachi will not confess to being a murderer,” Jenna said.
Sam nodded. “He’s an easy target, too,” he said softly. “And I’m willing to bet he’s being targeted for a reason. It looks like all evidence is against him-just as, to the Puritans, it looked as if there was solid evidence against those they executed. And Giles Corey-pressed to death because he wouldn’t make a plea. The old bastard didn’t intend to let anyone get a hold of his property, and by the legal system, not giving a plea protected his property.”
“I’d have let them have my property,” Jenna said. “Life is so much better.”
Sam laughed. “Me, too, probably. But by the law, if he didn’t plead, he couldn’t be tried, and because he wasn’t tried, he died in full possession of his property. And to force someone to make a plea so that they could be tried, they were pressed. Giles Corey was an old buzzard-he testified against his own wife. But he endured two days of pain-his tongue bulged out and the sheriff had to put it back in his mouth with his cane, and the old man still endured. ‘More weight!’ is all that he ever said, according to the records, and witnesses were horrified. What happened, of course, wasn’t caused by any one person, but belief mingling with old grievances and the social structure and laws of the day. The thing is, we’ve come far, but we’ll never get past being human. Malachi isn’t accepted in society. Good people will easily believe he could be a killer. I have to prove reasonable doubt, and that’s going to be hard. He wasn’t arrested for murdering Peter Andres or Earnest Covington; he was arrested for the murders of his family. I have all kinds of motions filed, but since he wasn’t legally accused of the other murders, I most probably won’t be able to use the fact that he was seen elsewhere when Earnest Covington was murdered. It depends on how all the motions filed sit with the judge. I have to prove reasonable doubt in those murders, and since he was covered in their blood…”
“His explanation is reasonable,” Jenna pointed out.
Sam stood and offered a hand down to her. “Bridget Bishop wasn’t really hanged for what she did. She was hanged for who she was.”
“You believe that Malachi is facing the same fate?” she asked.
“Yes. But with one big difference.”
“The law has become more equitable?” Jenna asked.
Sam grinned. “No,” he said. “He has me.” She was startled when he touched her cheek in something that was almost a tender gesture.
“And,” he added, “he has you.”
7
Sam joined them again that night at dinner, but it wasn’t much of a social occasion. He spent half of his time on the phone with his assistant in Boston, discussing the paperwork he wanted done. During the meal, he talked earnestly with Jamie, wanting to know more about the boy’s psychological makeup. Jenna spent most of the evening listening, and realizing that the more she watched Sam, the more she was drawn to him. She hated to admit the fact-even to herself, or especially to herself-that there was something about the testosterone- filled energy he exuded that was seducing her.
Sam mentioned that he was going to visit Malachi in his hospital-slash-jail cell tomorrow, and then head to his office to deal with some of the massive amounts of paperwork that seemed to go with every sneeze. It had to be done-it was the major part of the game of law. Jamie was going to accompany him and spend time with Malachi.
“The law these days is demanding,” Sam began. “But ultimately it’s a good thing. The witchcrafts trials couldn’t have existed today, but we learned a lot about ‘hearsay’ evidence because of the injustices of the past. And, thank God, there’s no longer such a thing as ‘spectral’ evidence. But, the paperwork! I really want to talk to the Yates kid, but his mother has threatened me with every lawsuit in the book if I go near him. I’m going to have to have help on that. And I’d also like to have an interview with Samantha Yeager, find out what, if anything, her connection to the Smiths was. But I have to head into Boston and the office for a few hours. You should probably come with us,” Sam told Jenna.
“I’m afraid I would be worthless helping you with legal paperwork,” she told him.
He frowned. “You could spend the time with Malachi and see if there was something else in his mind that might help us, something we haven’t discovered yet.”
“Jamie is his friend, and has been his doctor,” Jenna pointed out. “I can get more done here.”
He arched a brow. “Jenna-”
“Maybe I can get near David Yates,” she said.
That brought a frown. “It could be dangerous for you to be here,” Sam said, looking at Jamie as if for help, but not wanting to give away what happened yesterday.
“I’m a Federal agent,” Jenna reminded him. “And that’s not going to change. I can handle myself around dangerous people. But, besides that, no one is going to attack me. The killer would know that the second something happened while Malachi was in custody, the whole concept that he was a maniacal killer driven to acts of extreme violence because of some strict fundamentalist upbringing would be in the trash, and the hunt would be on again. I’ll be fine. I’ll be more helpful here.”
Sam wagged a finger at her. “You need to be careful.”
“I always am,” she assured him.
“Jamie?” Sam asked.
“Sam, she just looks really sweet. There’s little as tough as an Irishwoman,” Jamie confirmed.
She looked at her uncle, not sure whether to appreciate his support, or tell him that she wasn’t exactly a sumo wrestler. But she did want to explore on her own, and even though it seemed that Sam wasn’t scoffing her “sight” in the way he had been, she knew that he had difficulty believing in any kind of ESP.
“See? Tougher than nails,” Jenna said. She smiled, liking the way Sam was looking at her. It was nice to feel that he came with the instinct to protect, even if she didn’t feel that she needed to be protected. Certainly not in
