Name of the Devil Read online

  Ailes pages through a file. “So how did his teeth marks end up on the victim’s body?”

  “I’m not saying he didn’t kill those people. There’s just more to this. Have they even announced he’s a suspect?”

  “Not yet. They want some more lab tests.”

  “On what? They got dental. Did they just think it was some kind of weird coincidence his bite mark was on the corpse?”

  “They just want to make sure it wasn’t planted with plaster casts swiped from a dentist. This is, after all, their sheriff. Given the other circumstances, keep in mind it’s West Virginia gun country. Nobody wants to start a cannibal cop panic. We’ll have people shooting at mailmen.”

  I hadn’t thought of the larger implications. “Christ. This is a PR disaster waiting to happen.”

  “Mitchum is being methodical. She’s a good agent. Her forensic work is excellent.” Ailes pulls up something on his laptop. “She’s got one of the best records in the agency for admissibility. Her stuff doesn’t get thrown out of court.”

  “Yeah, because she only goes for the low-hanging fruit. Wow, that metaphor was more spot on than I realized.” My trip up the tree is still fresh in my mind, as are the sores on my palms.

  Ailes shakes his head. “Have you slept at all since your trip up the tree?”

  “Define sleep . . .”

  “We’ve got every law enforcement agent in three states looking for the sheriff. Mitchum is building her case while the manhunt tries to find the suspect. You have time to sleep unless you want to go out there and look for him yourself.”

  I’d been up all night trying to sort things out. I’d hurried back to the Hawkton Ops Center to get the samples back to DC and Quantico. Then went over everything I could on Jessup, and looked through Hawkton arrest records. “No. It’s just that there’s something else we’re not seeing. This footprint for instance.”

  “Which could have been from a hunter trying to get a good spot.”

  “Or a sixth person. And then there’s the writing on McKnight’s chest.”

  “He was a Kabbalist, among other things,” replies Ailes.

  “Really? Him? That wasn’t in the report.” I’d have never connected a backwoods hillbilly to something bored Beverly Hills housewives are into. It does match with the personality type fascinated by the paranormal. Did McKnight fear this was coming?

  Ailes gives me a rare grin. “That’s because Mitchum wasn’t on the phone this morning with the CEO of a certain online bookseller, looking up his book purchases.”

  That man and his connections. “And how is that admissible?”

  “We can subpoena it later if it’s valuable. You just have to know when you’re bending the rules as opposed to momentarily sidestepping them. Handing me this sample and asking me to use a hundred-million-dollar laboratory to do a test that Mitchum doesn’t have access to isn’t playing fair.”

  “And calling up one of your billionaire buddies to peek into a customer account is?”

  “The deceased don’t have privacy rights. I got a little curious when you decided to stay in West Virginia.”

  More like worried. “It’s not a contest between me and Mitchum. If I find anything useful, I’ll pass it on to her. And she can ignore it at her discretion . . .”

  “Why the urgency?” persists Ailes.

  “The missing man isn’t our absentee sheriff,” I reply.

  “The evidence will tell us in time.”

  “In time. That’s the thing.” I try to put the words together. “What would Chisholm say over at behavioral analysis? On one hand this looks like a crime of passion. On the other, it’s highly organized. We still don’t even know how the church exploded.” I think for a moment. “There’s a methodology here. You know? This feels like a revenge killing.”

  “The sheriff taking revenge?” asks Ailes. “For what?”

  I shake my head reflexively. “No. I mean, I don’t have that part. But either way, people who go out and settle an old score tend to keep going. First the wacko wants to kill his boss. Then it’s his ex-girlfriend, and soon he’s killing the guy in front of him who won’t step on the gas fast enough.

  “If . . . and I know, it’s a big ‘if,’ if there’s a sixth man, then this might not be the only crime we’re looking at. The whole thing feels like the start of something.” Ailes tilts his head to the side. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not trying to turn this into another flaming body in the cemetery.”

  “Are you sure?” Ailes is distracted for a moment as he checks his phone.

  “Yes. I don’t even think it’s a copycat. Those people were at the church that night for a reason. Forget McKnight’s deathbed incrimination of some Judaic demon, even with that Kabbalah connection. They had ash on their heads. Crosses. They were afraid. And now they’re dead. Whoever killed them did it in a meaningful way. And we still don’t even know how it happened.”

  “All right. You made your case. I’ll see what we can do with your sample, but it’ll take me a while. Come home, get some actual rest.”

  “I will. But then I think I’m going to take a trip into Hawkton.”

  “Mitchum’s turf?”

  “Just to follow up on something.”

  “What?”

  “Someone. The deputy.”

  “You think he’s your tree climber? He had a pretty solid alibi.”

  “Yeah. But maybe he can tell me what everyone was so frightened about, and why they gathered at the church.”

  “I’m sure he’s been questioned to death.”

  “But were they the right questions? If Mitchum won’t even acknowledge what was on Bear McKnight’s chest, I can’t imagine she’d ask the deputy the kinds of questions I’m thinking of.”

  “About the sheriff?”

  “About evil.”

  7

  DEPUTY BALDWIN IS a scared man. Holed up in his house behind the wire fence, he refuses to speak to me. His fifteen-year-old daughter who gave her name as Kris, green eyed and filled with teenage skepticism of all things adult, walks across the overgrown yard to tell me her daddy ain’t coming out.

  The house is surrounded by crooked oak trees, rusted cars and rows of what look like solar panels waiting to be put on roofs. The building itself is neatly kept. Two brand-new chairs sit on the empty porch. It has the look of a home where the wife takes care of everything inside, while the husband neglects everything outside.

  The girl approaches the fence, staring down at her phone and texting. She’s beyond bored with running interference between the visiting investigators and their questions for her dad. “He says he’s got nothing more to say.”

  “Okay. What do you have to say?” I ask.

  She looks up at me with a serious expression. Just as her body is outgrowing the summer’s jean shorts and halter top, her mind is forming its own opinions on matters around here. “I think everyone has gone bug crazy.”

  There’s only a hint of West Virginia in her voice, despite the slang; her diction sounds more like that of a girl on a CW drama than of some hick who never stepped more than a mile outside of town.

  “Crazy?”

  “Everyone is hiding away and saying prayers and stuff. Not much point. That didn’t do much for Reverend Curtis and those folks. The news is just as bad. People calling Hawkton a ‘hellmouth.’ Stupid.” The last words roll off her tongue with contempt. I spot a flash of gold near the tip.

  “People are confused and scared because of what happened at the church.”

  “No reason to act like this.” Kris tilts her head toward the house. The breeze catches one of her long blond hairs. Her nose points back down to her phone as she texts away, “You the FBI woman on the news a while back?”

  “Yes,” I concede. There’s no point in denying it.

  A smile spreads across her face. “
Daddy said you were a witch.” It’s a joke to her.

  “I’ve been called worse.”

  “I asked him if you flew around on a broom and cast spells. That made him angry.” She looks up at me. “He’s got an engineering degree. See the solar panels? He’s got a side business putting them on folks’ houses. He’s not stupid.”

  “He’s scared of what happened to his friends,” I explain.

  “That’s for sure. He’s sitting there right now, watching us, with his shotgun. He’s got it on him all the time now.”

  “What do you think he’s afraid of? Sheriff Jessup?”

  “Why do you say that?” Her eyes flash up at mine.

  The lab report isn’t public knowledge yet, and I’m not sure how much information has made it through the grapevine to Baldwin and his daughter. “Just a question, since he’s missing.”

  She leans over the fence and lowers her voice. “He won’t say it, but I know he’s watching out for the sheriff. They ain’t found him yet, have they?”

  I shake my head.

  Kris’s eyes scan the trees. “The sheriff is a good man. Daddy looks up to him. When the business wasn’t doing so good, he gave him the deputy job.”

  “So why is your daddy afraid of him?”

  Kris narrows her eyes. “Lately stuff has been happening around here. Before the church exploded. A lot of it involving the sheriff.”

  “Stuff? What kind?” There’s something about the way she says this that tells me this is more than small-town gossip.

  “Little things. Dead cats and birds showing up in front of the sheriff station. Jessup was complaining nothing worked. His cell phone getting all static. Daddy said there would be calls at the station where no one was on the other line. They can trace that kind of thing, but the calls were coming from phone numbers that were disconnected. Weird stuff.” She shrugs.

  “You don’t seem too fazed by all this.”

  “Ain’t got nothing to do with me. Something bad is going to happen, it’s going to happen. Might be a prank. Someone having some fun. People get crazy out here.”

  A little girl comes running from around the back of the house and across the yard. Kris turns to her. “Go back, Becky.”

  The girl crosses her arms and looks up at Kris. “I’m bored in there. Daddy won’t let me watch the TV and I can’t find the iPad.” She reaches up and grabs her big sister’s hand. Wearing dirty socks and a T-shirt that stretches to her knees, she’s got the same blond hair and green eyes as Kris. “You the witch Daddy talked about?”

  “I’m an FBI agent. A cop, like your father.”

  “He says you’re into devilcraft.” It’s more a question than an accusation.

  Kris sighs. “Ain’t no such thing as witches. She look like a witch to you? Daddy is just drunk and talking out of his butt.” She rolls her eyes. “He only gets all churchy when he’s scared and been drinking. If he really thought that about you, he wouldn’t let us come out here and talk to you.”

  “When did the weird stuff start happening?”

  Kris makes a face. “Hawkton’s always had weird things.” She points to a flat-topped mountain peak along the eastern ridge at the edge of the city limits. “Lightning Peak gets hit a dozen times a year. We have lots of strange lights. Plenty of haunted houses. A teacher said a while back there was a poltergeist. We got one of them hills where your car goes up when it’s in neutral. Indian temples. Lots of odd stuff. They should do a show out here.”

  “But when did the weird stuff start with the sheriff?”

  “A few months back. That’s when I heard about it. The same time I think the Alsops found their dogs dead, strangled, I think. And Bear McKnight said he saw weird tracks around his house.”

  Every town has its folktales and mysteries. But this seems a little excessive. “Tracks? What kind?”

  “Hooves. Devil hooves, they said,” she replies with a grin.

  “You think that’s stupid?”

  She shrugs again. “Wild pigs, more like it. Grown-ups get so retarded when they can’t understand what’s going on.” She caresses her little sister’s head. “What do you think, Becky?”

  “I don’t like it when Daddy is scared.”

  “Where’s your mamma?” I ask.

  “Inside,” replies Becky. “She and Gram-Gram are praying.”

  Kris rolls her eyes. “Next they’ll be asking Black Nick for one of his twig evil catchers.”

  “Black Nick? Who is that?”

  “You ain’t heard of Black Nick?” asks Kris.

  Becky points to Lightning Peak. “He lives up there.”

  “Nick is a medicine man,” explains Kris. “Lives in a shack in the hills. Older folks go to him for potions and stuff when they don’t like what their doctor says. They say he knows the old magic. Whatever.”

  “He’s crazy,” adds Becky. “Smells like a raccoon.”

  “Be nice. You don’t want him hexing you,” scolds Kris. “He’ll turn you into a chicken and Momma will fry you up.”

  Becky’s eyes widen. She releases her sister’s hand and runs back to the house.

  Kris shakes her head. “When I was a kid we’d tell stories about Crazy Black Nick. How he’d come for you if you misbehaved. How he had piles of bones by his shack. It’s stupid. He’s just an old man.”

  I admire Kris’s skepticism. She reminds me of myself as a teenager. I always thought adults were a bit ridiculous.

  “Do a lot of people take him seriously?”

  Kris points to gray twigs, bundled together with twine, that are nailed to the front of the house. Buttons and pieces of foil are threaded through the bindings. It vaguely looks like a person—made by crows. “See that? Daddy got that from Black Nick.”

  “What’s it for? To keep evil out?”

  “I reckon. Smells like dog piss to me.” She thumbs away on her phone.

  “Can I give you my number in case your daddy wants to talk?”

  “Sure. He won’t, though.”

  “Just in case. And could you tell me how to find Black Nick?”

  Kris lowers her phone and stares at me. “Sure you want to go up there?”

  “I thought you said he’s harmless?”

  She points to the forest cloaking the peak. Her voice grows more concerned. “Sun is going down. I don’t think I’d want to be there in the dark if the sheriff was up and about. People only go talk to Black Nick during the day. No one goes there at night.”

  “I’m due back at Quantico in the morning. I don’t really have a choice. Black Nick isn’t in any of the reports.”

  “Fine. Just don’t get lost,” she tells me.

  AN HOUR LATER, I’ve parked my car at the edge of the road and started hiking up the hillside. A thin path leads over a ridge and into a copse of trees. Before my cell phone signal vanishes, I decide I should call headquarters and tell them where to find my body.

  “Black Nick?” Ailes’s voice cuts in and out.

  “That’s what they call him,” I reply, surrounded by forest. The faint blue light of the sky is barely visible through the trees.

  The woods have a quietness about them, but I get the feeling I’m being watched by dozens of small eyes.

  “Isn’t ‘Old Nick’ a name for the devil?” he asks.

  The signal goes dead.

  I realize he’s right. I tell myself it’s just a coincidence.

  8

  THE TRAIL TO Black Nick’s cabin is more of a dried-up gully than a path. Shards of white stone poke out of the earth like whale teeth, telling me I’m on the right track—at least, the one Kris told me to follow. Every few hundred feet there’s a fork in the trail, marked by rocks, intended to lead the bad spirits astray.

  My dad and I once took a trip to the Winchester House in Northern California, a sprawling mansion that had
stairways leading to the ceiling and doorways opening to brick walls—all of it to confuse the spirits that the widow of the Winchester rifle magnate imagined were after her. This trail reminds me of that.

  The sun is setting and the frogs have started chirping from deep inside their soggy homes. On the fringes of the trail, creatures scurry in the bushes. Out of the corner of my eye I catch long shadows of twisted branches as I go farther up the hill. They reach out to me across the trail as the sun sets.

  Crows, an awful lot of crows, perch in the trees. Watching me with their beady black eyes, they turn their sharp beaks toward me as I pass.

  Kris had mentioned a rock shaped like a skull without a jaw. The setting sun makes its shadowy eye sockets and gaping nose stand out.

  I make my last right turn here and come to flat ground, where tall grass gives way to a ring of white stones. A shack stands at the end of the clearing. Covered in plastic bottles, aluminum cans and knots of foil, it looks like a house built by a giant magpie—the same creator who made the twisted twig-man on the Deputy’s porch.

  A blue rocking chair sits on the porch next to a wind chime made from spoons and forks. It sounds like the bells of a Lilliputian cathedral in the breeze.

  The only churchgoers are the silk black crows still watching me. What do they make of the sound? Is it meant to scare them or invite them closer?

  As arresting as the shack is, my eyes are drawn to the mound of bones as tall as the roof piled off to the side of it. I spot antlers, cow skulls and the femurs, ribs and spines of a hundred other stark white creatures. Nothing human that I can see.

  I hope.

  I can’t imagine generations of Hawkton children not having stories to tell about this place. Even without the threat of a cannibal sheriff looming somewhere out in the woods, it’s eerie. I resist the impulse to touch my gun under my jacket and take a deep breath.

  The shack’s one window, made from different-colored pieces of glass joined by thick solder, is blocked from the inside by what looks like a burlap sack. There’s no sign of life except for the smell of burning.