“That’s good. Keep it up until we get the guy,” Rocky told her.
When he left the bar, he made a quick call, looked down Essex in the direction he needed to go, then started walking.
Things changed, and yet they didn’t. In some parts of Salem, as the clouds roiled overhead, you could narrow your eyes and think you’d gone back hundreds of years.
But then you looked again and the world was filled with cars and tourists, and the concept of hanging anyone as a witch was so foreign it was difficult to imagine that anyone could ever have done so.
And yet, some men still found a way to indulge the need to kill.
Instinct? he wondered, not at all proud of his species at that moment.
Or an aberration? The latter. Had to be.
Most people lived to protect the ones they loved, enjoy their friends and even make the world a better place.
He thought about Devin and realized that for the first time in thirteen years—since he’d found Melissa’s body, in fact—he felt that there was light at the end of the tunnel. He hadn’t realized that he was going through life without the least expectation of ever finding anything—anyone—permanent in his life.
But Devin somehow changed the world. She was life at its best, its most vivid, its most passionate. Though to all intents and purposes they’d just met, she knew him, understood him. In the midst of all this horror and tragedy, there seemed to be something bright in his soul again. He’d just been waiting, he thought. Marking time. And now the time was here.
And this killer wasn’t going to get away with murder, not any longer. Not with Devin in his life and very possibly in the crosshairs.
He quickened his steps. Judah Baker, the bartender who’d been on duty the night of the murder, didn’t live far, just down on Derby Street.
He reached the address quickly. His thoughts hadn’t kept him from walking like a man with a purpose.
The bartender lived in a duplex with a little yard. The building looked to have been built around 1850 and updated over the years.
Judah was at the door, waiting for him. “Hey,” he said.
“Thanks for seeing me,” Rocky said.
Baker grinned. “I’m not sure I have a choice, but not a problem. I want to help— Hell, anyone would want to help. Come on in.”
He opened the door wider for Rocky to enter. The living room had been furnished cheaply, and there were posters all over the walls of swimsuit models and rock bands. It was pretty much the perfect low-rent bachelor pad.
Rocky sat on the sofa and pulled out the sheaf of pictures, then spread them out on the coffee table.
“I realize you’re behind the bar and Holly and Brenda are on the floor, but you were closest to me, so I came here first,” Rocky told him.
Judah nodded, staring at the pictures. He pointed at the picture of Beth—Rocky had managed to get a phone shot of her just before she popped a cracker in her mouth. “That’s Beth—she owns a shop, but I already told you I know her and the people she works with. That’s the guy—Theo something or other. And Gayle. I think her last name is Alden.”
“Right,” Rocky said. “But you said they didn’t see that Brent was there, too?”
“Not that I could tell. People were piled up at the bar, like I told you. I think they had a drink and left,” Judah said, taking a seat next to Rocky and looking at the other pictures.
He went through them all, a serious expression on his face. “This is a cop—I know him, too. He was in to ask questions afterward,” Judah said. “After the murder, I mean.”
Rocky nodded. “Jack Grail.”
Judah picked up the picture of Renee and put it back down. “Tiny little thing?” he asked.
“Very.”
Judah grinned. “If she was there, I didn’t see her. But she looks like she’s barely taller than the bar.”
“What about this woman?” Rocky asked, showing him a picture of Haley.
“Oh, I’ve see her, too.”
“That night?”
“No...several weeks back, I think. Early. Like when I first came on shift. It looked like she’d been doing some shopping.”
“But not that night?” Rocky asked.
Judah shook his head, but he stared at another picture and then tapped it, looking at Rocky. “This guy. I think I saw this guy that night.”
Rocky picked up the picture of Vince Steward and asked Judah, “That night—the night Barbara Benton was killed.”
“Yeah, I mean, I’ve seen him before. I think he’s an attorney or something. I don’t know his name—but, yeah, I’ve seen him before.”
“And you saw him that night?”
“Yes,” Judah said firmly. “Scotch on the rocks. Same drink he always gets. He was definitely there.”
*