That corpse — that smelled like the brujo sneaking past all the alarms right into Maria's bedroom, bewitching her into jumping off the cliff into the sea. Murder disguised as the suicide of a distraught widow, even though Maria knew Dan was still alive. The bastard had made sure Dan got the news. And then the Peruvian had kidnapped Ellie and Mouse, threatened to hand them over to the two-legged beasts he used as muscle. Rape and torture and finally blessed death after all that, unless Dan gave up the Dragon.
Witchcraft, not physics. As another example, Caroline seemed to be able to slip into and out of the tunnels at will, flipping her middle finger at the cameras and sensors.
And now Alice was teaching Dan's daughters to vanish, as well. Ben wondered if that was really a good idea, teen and pre-teen girls being the explosive creatures they were. But the Haskell Witches never had asked anybody for a second opinion on the way that they raised children.
Law unto themselves, just like Gary romancing that girl of his. Damn the boy.
Ben stared at the files by his elbow, the ones he'd been avoiding with great care. Three of them, copies only, from three different sources. They'd cost a hell of a lot, but that didn't matter. The real cost came when you read them.
That girl is a cold-blooded killer.
Cops were good at their job, no question — smart and persistent. Morgans hadn't dodged jails for centuries by underestimating cops. But he didn't think the police could ever have fitted this particular set of jigsaw pieces together to make a picture.
Cops could get the DHS files, the ones on Jane White as a ward of the state, if they knew enough to ask for them. But they were looking at a pair of unsolved murders, without her name handed to them on a plate. Ben had come at the case from the other side, tracing her.
Mr. and Mrs. Alan R. Sweeney, RR 5 Box 183, Benton Corners, Maine. Foster parents. Jane White had lived almost a year with them, aged 11 and 12, between parental bouts in divorce court and cross-accusations of child neglect and her own rite of passage into juvenile justice. Ran away, never sent back.
But Ben had spent a few days and dollars tracing connections, and he came across those names again in the newspaper archives. He stared at the sheriff's file lying next to the DHS file.
His brain translated cop jargon into plain English: Mr. and Mrs. Alan Sweeney of Benton Corners, found dead in their cellar by the sheriff's patrol after the neighbors complained of a howling dog. No sign of struggle, no sign of forced entry. Each corpse had a single bullet wound to the back of the head, .45 caliber slug. Executions.
Slugs said two different guns, presumably two different killers. The case was still open, cold, no suspects, family all had alibis that looked solid, motive assumed to be burglars surprised in the act. The couple was known to keep large sums of money in their house, had valuable jewelry, all missing.
Date of that crime was four years after Jane had lived in the house. And had probably had a key.
The third file was one he'd never expected to find, given Gary's estimate of that girl's poverty. Bank records. Again, the cops could get them just by asking — if they knew enough to ask. The same week as the Sweeney bodies were found, they showed a cash deposit in Jane White's account to the tune of five thousand and change.
And how the girl got a solo account three years before that was anybody's guess. No parent or guardian listed. Social Security number correct, P.O. Box address in Naskeag Falls. Damned idiot used her real name. The account now held over thirty thousand dollars. And she wasn't drawing money from it, not in the last couple of years. Deposits, instead, irregular and large.
Circumstantial evidence, all of it, nowhere near enough for a conviction. Coincidence. Ben knew other ways you could explain things, other ways she could come by that much cash. But couple that with the way she behaved, the things she'd said to Gary . . .
Damned good thing the boy still trusts you enough to pass along detailed reports. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Ben stood up and prowled the floor, three paces across, three paces back, and stared at the security monitors without seeing them. He'd done a lot of pacing in this room in the old tower, wearing a path in the heavy plank floor, what with Caroline and Gary and the chaos of the battle with the Pratts.
And now both the Pratt mystery and that girl had cranked things back into the "Clear and present danger" range on the threat meter. Defend yourself, defend your family. What could be more basic? In the face of that, nothing else counted. Morgans had lived by that rule for centuries.
That damned girl should have had the sense to wear gloves. A dozen pages of photographed prints in the police file, even after eliminating matches with the Sweeneys and their neighbors. Prints just ticking away, waiting to explode. Get her fingers into a police station, that was the end of that.
Time bombs, all of them, girls, older and younger. Even Caroline and Alice. Ben shook his head and stepped out of the room, heading up the stairs to the top of the tower. He'd start at the top and work his way down, passing Dan somewhere in the middle. This would be his third check, looking for things he'd missed on the first and second passes. It put off thinking, put off deciding.
Dan had agreed, they had to sanitize this place. Too many nosey-pokers poking their noses around, looking for clues to that murder, that body on Dan's memorial. The cops might find other awkward stuff. Like stumbling on an entrance to the tunnels, during a detail search. Couldn't leave anything here that
