Conversation faded after that, as the three women lost themselves in their work.
“Hey, listen to this!” Devin said a few minutes later. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but it turns out people have been using pentagrams as jewelry for a very long time,” she said. “This is from the grimoire called the Key of Solomon, though it’s generally accepted that Solomon had nothing to do with it and it’s really a fourteenth or fifteenth century Italian study of the magic arts. Anyway, listen to what it says about pentagrams. ‘Thou shalt preserve them to suspend from thy neck, whichever thou wilt,’ and then there’s a long translation on what to do, things like using your name, turning to the east, and then, ‘Thou mayest be assured that no enchantment or any other danger shall have power to harm thee.’”
“So does that mean our killer thinks that they’re a protection against evil, then murders the people he’s trying to protect?” Angela asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Devin was thoughtful. “The Age of Enlightenment might have been dawning in Europe as the witch trials began, but that didn’t mean much enlightenment had reached the colonies. Back then, most people were deeply devout. God was everything because life was so dangerous. Infant mortality was high, women died in childbirth, men died early, as well, from disease and the hardships of making a living from the land. Maybe Margaret’s killer thought the flesh was nothing—that murder was all right because only the soul mattered. The pentagram has been used in Christian designs—it can represent the crown of thorns and the nails in Christ’s hands and feet.”
“That’s possible,” Jane murmured. “I mean, maybe in the mind of a very sick puppy.”
“Well, if you look at the things that were happening across the Christian world at the time, there were a lot of sick puppies out there. I’m not sure that someone who killed a loved one to save them from being tortured, publicly stripped and humiliated, then hanged, was any sicker than the rest.”
“In an odd and convoluted way, that makes sense,” Angela said. “So you think Margaret’s death was a mercy killing, basically?”
Devin closed her book. “I don’t know. It’s all so frustrating. And Margaret’s death may be completely unrelated.”
“And it may mean everything,” Angela said.
“Yes, it just might,” Jane said, looking up at them. “I’ll have to verify my findings, but—”
Just then the door opened and they heard Rocky call out, “It’s me!” He walked into the room, his eyes going immediately to Devin. “I found out something interesting. I don’t know if it means anything, but Barbara Benton had family in this area at the time of the trials.”
“We know,” Jane said, turning the computer toward him. “We looked her up online, along with Carly and Melissa, and they had family here at the time, too.”
Rocky smiled. “You’ve been busy. In all the things you find in a file, three-hundred-year-old background checks aren’t usually included.”
“Devin found some interesting things, too,” Angela told him.
“About pentagrams,” she said. “There’s a long history of people wearing them for protection from evil.”
“Does that include the Puritans?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know, but it’s possible. At times the pentagram has actually been associated with Christ.”
“So while some people might have thought anything that wasn’t traditionally a part of their belief was evil, others might have seen it as a protective symbol—even in Puritan New England?”
She nodded.
Rocky nodded. “Thank you. Excellent work all the way around. You’ve given us some interesting angles to follow. Now if we can just get a name for our Jane Doe. Jane?”
“Yes, I’m still trying to find out. We’ll ID her eventually, Rocky. I promise.”
He nodded. Then he looked at Devin. “I need you,” he told her.
“Uh, okay,” she said.
“We have to talk to your friend.”
“Which friend?” She frowned. “Do you mean Gayle Alden? To see what else she can tell us?”
“Yes, well, we will need to see her. But later.”
“Then?”
“Your friend who took Barbara on a ghost tour last night, not long before she ended up dead. Brent Corbin.”
“You can’t be serious, Rocky. Brent Corbin? He’d just turned fourteen, I think, when your friend Melissa was killed. And he’s—he’s a nerd!” Devin said.
Rocky glanced at her. They were speaking as they walked. “Nerds don’t kill?”
She shook her head. “You don’t know Brent.”
He stared straight ahead and let out a long breath. “Devin—he followed you into the woods the other day.”
“Because he’d brought me the map I was looking for and saw me go into the woods.”