The Evil Inside

Joshua Abbott turned red. “No, uh, no! It was my choice. I wore it because I wanted to. Hey, the freak is in custody.”

“Yes, and, of course, you know Milton Sedge is dead,” Jackson said quietly.

Sam thought that the confusion that briefly touched David Yates’s face was real.

“It was an accident!” he said. “He died in an accident!”

“Maybe,” Sam said.

“Maybe not,” Jackson added.

“Ah, come on, what the hell is the matter with you guys? You’re wicked idiots!” David said. But he swallowed quickly. “You just want to make something out of nothing-’cause that kid is crazy. And he’s cruel.”

“That’s right,” Sam said. “He gave you the ‘evil eye.’ You need him to be crazy-and a homicidal maniac-to make sure you never look like an imaginative young idiot yourself, for beating your own head with a lunch tray.”

David Yates turned red. “He gave me the evil eye-I swear it! Hey, you don’t put yourself in the hospital and having to see a shrink on purpose!”

“I never suggested that you did it on purpose-I do believe you did it to yourself. So does your dad,” Sam told him.

“My dad is a pansy-ass!” David said, apparently before thinking. He winced. “Stop it, please, stop all this!” It was an honest plea.

“I’ll stop-when you two stop lying,” Sam said. “I will get you in court. And if you’re caught perjuring yourselves, you will face the law yourselves. Think about that. And-” he grinned, looking up at Will, who had been watching the exchange with his arms folded over his chest “-next time a magician gives you something, just say thanks!”

He turned to leave the boys to think over the encounter.

Jackson followed him.

“Well?” Sam asked him. “How did I do?”

“They’re scared,” Jackson said.

“They should be. I get the feeling that…all right, well, they are lying. Now, is it just because they want Malachi locked away? Or is it because they’re afraid for someone else?”

Jenna was just leaving the station when her phone rang. Angela was on the line, very excited.

“Hey! I think I might know what was going on when Goodman Wilson approached that little girl. Sorry- remember what Will told us about Cindy Yates yelling at Goodman Wilson when he approached the little girl?”

“Yes. What? What happened at church?” Angela asked her.

“Goodman Wilson gave a sermon today-asking his people to go and talk to the police if they knew anything! Anyway, I watched a woman leave with two kids so I got her plate number. Jake ran it down for me. And the boy- the teen-goes to school with David Yates and Joshua Abbott. I think the little girl that Goodman Wilson approached was the daughter…and, since Cindy Yates went after him like a tiger, I’m assuming that the family has been keeping their churchgoing activities a secret. I’ve got an address. You want it? I’m still hanging around by the church, but I can go if you want.”

“No, no, I’m just leaving the station. I’ll go. Who am I going to see? What’s the family name?”

“Parents, Michael and Alice Newbury. Teenage son-seventeen-year-old son, Michael, Jr. Little girl, Annie, seven. You’ll find them just off Chestnut Street-I’ll text you the exact address.”

“Thanks, Angela!”

“Oh, and I just spoke with Jackson and Sam. They’re going to go and see Mr. Sedge’s son. After, we’ll all meet at the wine bar.”

“All right, see you soon.”

Jenna hung up and a few seconds later, her phone buzzed, the address coming through. Checking it twice, she got in her car.

As she drove, she mulled over just how she was going to approach the family. All thoughts went out of her head when she drove up to park on the curve across the street from the modest home. The Newbury family was in the front yard. The teenage son, still lanky but growing tall, was tossing a football to his little sister while the parents looked on from their porch.

The father, Michael, saw Jenna and said something to his wife.

He walked forward as she approached. “Well,” he said quietly. “You found us quickly. Did Goodman Wilson tell you where to come?”

Alice Newbury rose as well and came forward as Jenna answered honestly, “No, sir. My colleague saw your wife. We traced your license plate.”

Michael Newbury nodded, looking at his wife. “Just as well. We should have spoken before. I’m not sure what good it will do, but we should have spoken before.”

The kids had stopped tossing the ball.

“What’s wrong?” the little girl asked her brother.

“Nothing, Annie, nothing,” Michael, Jr., said to her. “You go play with your dolls for a little bit. We can run around the yard again in a minute. I think that the lady wants to talk to me.”

“May we get you something, miss?” Alice asked. “We don’t drink spirits, but I can get you some hot coffee or cocoa.”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“Well, come to the porch,” Michael said.

Alice looked around, as if afraid their neighbors would see them talking to Jenna.

“Alice, we all need to admit the truth, and Goodman Wilson has taught us that it doesn’t matter what path a man takes to God, he can be a decent man. Our neighbors are good people.”

She smiled at her husband. Jenna found herself thinking that while their beliefs might be strict, they were together in those beliefs and had a strong bond.

“Thank you,” she said.

“It’s Michael, Jr., you want to talk to. We’d just be hearsay,” Michael told her.

Michael, Jr., took a wicker chair across from Jenna on the porch. He glanced at his father. “I can’t really say anything that will help you a lot-I mean that, I really can’t. I would if I could.”

“Please, just let me know what has, clearly, been bothering you. You never know what will help an investigator in a situation like this and what won’t,” Jenna tried to reassure him.

The young man looked at his parents again and then at her. “We don’t lie about our affiliation with the church,” he said. “We just don’t talk about it. We all went to the same schools for years, and we saw quickly that a lot of the kids really liked to tease and torment Malachi, so…well, I just tried to avoid being teased and tormented, you know?”

“I understand,” Jenna said. “So, what do you know?”

“I don’t know anything, except that David Yates has been the big man on the school ground since we were kids. And Joshua Abbott has been sidekick for years. If David says something, Joshua repeats it. If David wants to do something, Joshua will do it.”

Jenna nodded. “Yes, I’ve met them together, and I get that impression.”

Michael, Jr., seemed to have gained his own confidence, knowing that his parents were behind him. “David has talked about Malachi for a long time-since the evil eye incident. But it seemed that he got even worse after Mr. Andres was killed. He told everyone that the Smiths had killed Peter Andres because ‘that old freak hated Andres.’ And he said that Malachi secretly hated him, too. And, well, everyone is kind of afraid of David Yates, so they all believe what he says. Anyway, then David and Joshua both said that they saw Malachi coming out of Mr. Covington’s house the day that he was killed, and I know the police talked to him and his folks, but the grocer-Mr. Sedge-said that he’d swear before God and the angels and all the saints that he knew damned well that Malachi hadn’t done it.”

“Yes, we know that,” Jenna said.

Once again, Michael, Jr., appeared uncomfortable, and he looked over at his parents.

“Michael?” Jenna said softly.

“Well, Mr. Sedge was already saying it, so…well, I was in the grocery that day, too. And I saw Malachi in there. I can’t swear how long he was there, but I know that I saw him talking to Mr. Sedge, and I talked to him myself. He’d left the church, but we all understood why, and we just kind of hoped that he’d return…”