Chain of Souls (Salem VI) Read online

  "Why?"

  "I'm going to find that bitch and make her tell me why she's really closing the paper."

  "What good is that going to do? We both know why she's doing it."

  "Because she doesn't want anybody writing about the other members of the Coven and digging into the topic of Devil worship in Salem and other places. And the reason she doesn't want it is because she's involved in the Coven up to her armpits, and she doesn't want to ruin her good name."

  "As much as I know you want to get back at her, we've got a lot on our plates right here. We've got to get the paper closed by Friday and help everyone figure out what they're going to do next."

  "And what are we supposed to do after Friday?"

  Amy looked down at her glass and shook he head.

  "We can't just take this lying down." John went on, "Did you read the agreement she wants everyone to sign? The whole point is to keep us from finding the truth and letting the public know. I know that I, for one, am definitely not done with getting this story into the hands of the public."

  The waitress brought his second martini, and John drained the rest of his first drink, handed her the glass, and took an immediate hit on his second.

  Amy's lips were pressed in a tight line, and he could see that she wanted to argue. Before she had a chance to open her mouth, John's cell phone rang. He took it from his pocket and glanced at the caller ID. Seeing it was Andrew Card, he hit the answer button.

  "Well, look who's finally getting back," he said.

  "Well, hello to you, too."

  "Where have you been?"

  "Traveling," he said, offering no further details. "Have you heard the news?"

  "What news?"

  "Jessica Lodge is closing the paper. Friday is our last edition, then everyone is cut loose. She's offered two-year's salary as long as no one works for another paper within a hundred miles of Salem and as long as nobody writes anything about certain 'rumored disappearances' that occurred a week ago."

  "I'm sorry to hear that, but how do you expect me to help?"

  "Jessica Lodge has left the country. I want to find her." There was a long silence, then Card said, "Not a good idea."

  John ignored the comment and plowed ahead. "That day I took you underground to the Coven's meeting room and their sacrifice chamber, you said something about Covens— plural, as in more than one."

  "Did I?"

  "Yeah, you implied it was an international problem." There was another long silence.

  "Anyway, I'm assuming Jessica is in contact with another Coven, and I'm assuming it's in England because she spends so much time over there. I just thought I'd let you know that I'm going to head over there and see if you might be able to help me find her."

  Beside him Amy started shaking her head.

  "There may be a time for this later on, but it's not now," Card said. "It would be better to wait until some other things get lined up, until some other people are in a better position to help you. If you go over now, by yourself, you'll be getting into something much bigger and nastier than you realize."

  "Bigger and nastier than what I saw that night in the catacombs?"

  "Maybe."

  He bulled ahead, ignoring his fear, his reporter's instincts telling him Card wanted to intimidate him. "How about helping me with a few more details. Like who are these 'people' you just referred to? How long am I supposed to wait until they're 'in a position to help' me?

  "I'm sorry I can't be any more specific, but I am urging you to be patient."

  "What if I can't wait?"

  "Then I'll probably go to your funeral, and that would be a terrible waste."

  "Is that a threat?"

  "Of course not. I'm just trying to tell you you're making a terrible mistake trying to take this any further on your own right now. People are working on this problem, people who will be your allies. You have to trust me on that."

  John was silent. He looked across the table at Amy and saw the worry and frustration in her eyes.

  "Okay," he said into the phone. "I'll think about it."

  "Don't think about it, just do it. Please, for everyone's sake."

  John killed the call and looked at Amy. "Card's in your camp. It seems like everyone wants me to leave this alone."

  She nodded, but before she could say anything, he reached across the table and took her hands in his, careful not to squeeze too hard where the cuts on her palms were still healing. "I know the Salem News is just a small city newspaper. We're not The New York Times or The Washington Post. We report on the school board and the city council meetings and high school games and road repairs and local politics. But at the same time, people who were involved in unspeakable acts of evil have betrayed this community. You saw it. You were there. You understand what we're dealing with."

  Amy squeezed his fingers hard. "And that's exactly where I think we need to focus our energy. Right here, not go on a wild goose chase to England. Maybe you think I'm supposed to be braver than that and more intrepid and willing to go find Jessica Lodge and another Coven in England, but right now, I'm not. The pictures in my brain are just too horrible for me to go chasing after those people. I still see those two dead kids hanging from the wall and Cabby Corwin sticking that scalpel into my palms. I'm sorry, but I think we need to worry about this community first."

  John struggled to swallow his impatience, because in some calm and more rational part of his mind, he had to acknowledge she was right. He nodded. "Sure," he said.

  "Besides," she said, looking up from the table and smiling, "there are two other things we need to focus on."

  "What are those?"

  "We need to talk to Sarah."

  John tensed slightly. His twenty-eight-year-old daughter was not happy that John was romantically involved with a woman only eight years older than herself, and she had let her feelings be known. Sarah could be hardheaded and judgmental, and talking to her was something that could easily turn into a confrontation if it wasn't handled properly. Even though he wasn't eager to take that risk, after a second he nodded, reminding himself that underneath her hard shell Sarah was warm and caring, and they had always enjoyed a wonderful relationship.

  Amy was right. He wanted and needed to do everything he could to keep their relationship strong. However on the other hand he had been a widower for over four years now, and part of him expected Sarah to accept the fact he was a human being with human needs. Sarah needed to let him live his life and just get on with her own. However, even as he thought this it occurred to him that calling his daughter rigid and judgmental was perhaps like the pot calling the kettle black.

  "Okay," he agreed. "I'll call her when we leave here and ask her to dinner tomorrow." He looked at Amy and a smile began to work its way up his face. "What was the other thing?"

  "Well, I was thinking of a little adult physical contact."

  John felt the warmth in his eyes spread all the way to the region beneath his belt. "When would you like to make that happen?"

  "Are you done drinking martinis?"

  He thought for a second then shook his head. The rage he had felt earlier at hearing the paper was being shut down was still too raw. "I think I need at least one more."

  "Then how about tomorrow night?"

  "After Sarah leaves? Excellent idea."

  "I'm glad you don't think it would be a good idea to do it while she's there."

  "Somehow I don't think she'd take it in the right spirit."

  "No."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE NEXT MORNING, NURSING A BITING HANGOVER, John walked into the newsroom only to realize that almost the entire staff had gotten there before him. They were gathered around one of the desks in the middle of the room, and they turned as a group as he walked in.

  "Got a minute?" asked Jefferson Daniels. He was one of the longtime reporters, in his fifties, heavyset, and mostly bald with a band of gray hair along the sides. His laugh was loud and infectious, and he was well liked and truste
d by the other staffers. With the last name of Daniels and the telltale red nose and broken blood veins of a serious drinker, everyone knew him as Jack.

  John glanced up at the clock and saw that it wasn't even eight o'clock. He shrugged. "Sure."

  Jack Daniels glanced back at the others and several nodded for him to go ahead. "We've been talking," he began. "We know we get a lot more money if we sign the non-compete agreement."

  "A lot more," John echoed.

  "But, I mean, we're also newspaper people, right? So what're we gonna do if we want to stay in Salem but we can't work for another paper?"

  Lucinda Jenkins, a heavyset matronly woman who had run the front desk and answered the phones for over twenty years, nodded. "Personally, I don't want to work at Wal-Mart."

  "They wouldn't hire you at Wal-Mart," quipped Jack Daniels. "You're too rude. You'd scare away their customers."

  "Only if they looked like you, you worthless old Irish drunk."

  "Flattery will get you nowhere."

  Bert Hagstrom, a short man with the bristly gray hair of a hedgehog, the belly of a professional beer drinker, and the arms of a stevedore, also nodded. Bert had been responsible for running the printing presses and every other mechanical thing at the paper for roughly the same number of years that Lucinda had run the front desk. "What the hell am I gonna do if I can't play around with these stupid machines?"

  "You could always try playing with yourself, but that equipment probably doesn't work any better than your printers," Jack Daniels added.

  Several people laughed, but they also grumbled their general agreement with the statements.

  "So what are you saying?" John asked.

  "A bunch of us don't want to sign. Our wives work, our kids are out of college, and we've all got a few bucks put away. Some of the others can't afford to turn down the money, and we old guys are stubborn and stupid," piped Jack Daniels. "We think in general you're a lousy editor who can barely put enough words together to order lunch. You're also a horrible person to work for, but we figure the evil we know is better than the evil we don't. If you'll do it with us, we want to buy the building and the printing presses and put out our own paper."

  John looked at the small group. Behind Daniels's joking demeanor, which was the only way the man ever expressed anything, he knew the old reporter was dead serious, and that meant the others were, as well. "I have to tell you I'm pretty sure the building and presses won't be for sale," John said. "I don't think Mrs. Lodge wants us putting out a paper. I think that's the whole point."

  "What's the old bag got to hide?"

  John ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. He glanced at Amy out of the corner of his eye, and he saw her give him a nod. "Um, it's possible that what she has to hide is so strange that reporting on it will make this paper sound like the National Enquirer."

  Jack Daniels nodded. "I've felt for a long time we've been overly constrained to writing about the news people actually know about. We've never been able to write about two-headed babies or haunted buildings or UFOs or Elvis sightings. Think how many more papers we would have sold."

  "Think what you would have been like before you rotted your brains with booze," Hagstrom said.

  Jack Daniels gave him a wicked smile. "Not nearly as charming." He grew serious and turned to John. "We've all heard a few rumors about Jessica, so we know whatever the truth is it might be pretty weird. I don't think any of us are afraid to report on anything that happens in this town. Everybody else agree?"

  The other all nodded their assent.

  "You're saying you don't care about money and you don't care if you sound like a bunch of crackpots," John asked. "I've always sounded like a crackpot," Jack said, "so I'm in."

  "We're all in," Tim Monahan said. He was a tall, cadaverous reporter who had been at the paper for ten years, and before then had spent thirty years in a storied career at The Boston Globe. "There are nine of us all together. Me and Jack can do the reporting on the days Jack's sober. The other days I'll do it alone."

  "That'll be Monday and Thursday I'll be helping out," Jack said. "That is if I have to be sober."

  "Jackie can do the ad sales," Monahan went on, nodding toward Jackie McKinny, another old-timer and the best of the three-person ad sales staff. "Bert will keep everything running just the way he always has and Lucinda will keep us all straight." He went through a couple other key positions, and John realized that, along with Amy and himself, they had all the major holes filled.

  "So are you with us, you worthless sonofabitch?" Jack Daniels asked. He looked at Amy, "We, of course, would like you to join us, as well. But we also realize you're a bit younger than this group of fossils and you may need the money."

  Amy smiled and nodded. "I think I could be persuaded."

  Daniels's expression became serious. "It's a lot of security to give up."

  "It's Jessica's money. She's trying to buy our silence."

  "Then we're proud to have you," Daniels said. He looked at John again. "Well?"

  John wondered if her willingness reflected a rekindled sense of spirit or a hope that getting the two of them involved in a new daily paper would keep him close to home and not running off to track down Jessica Lodge. Either way, it didn't matter because he was in with both feet. He looked at the staffers standing in front of him and felt his eyes burn with tears of pride and gratitude. He blinked a few times to get things under control then nodded. "I'm in."

  "Well, don't get all emotional about it," Jack Daniels grumbled as he started walking away. "We got a goddamn paper to get out."

  John turned and went into his office, his mood suddenly far more buoyant than he would have thought possible a short time earlier. An hour later he had spoken to Sarah, reiterating the dinner invitation he had left on her voice mail the previous evening. She agreed to come over that night at seven. He had also contacted Chester Cabot who confirmed that neither the building in which the paper was located nor the printing presses would be offered for sale, in spite of the fact that the paper would no longer be publishing.

  "Am I to interpret these questions as an indication you intend to continue publishing some sort of paper independently?" Cabot asked.

  "That's probably a reasonable assumption."

  "Everyone who chooses to do this will be leaving quite a bit of money on the table. You included."

  "We are all able to do the math."

  "So be it. My client also wishes me to advise you that we will adhere very strictly to the laws relating to libel and defamation of character should you be tempted to try and seek some sort of misguided vengeance through the press."

  "Thanks for the advice."

  John did his best to ignore his hangover and spent the rest of the day working with half his staff to put out a paper with a smaller number of articles than usual because the other half of the staff, including Amy, were involved in trying to lease computers and office furniture, as well as secure guaranteed printing contracts and office space. By the end of the day they had found a small, free weekly paper that was available in most shops and restaurants and was aimed primarily at the tourist industry. The paper's management was delighted to pick up a contract to print their daily circulation. Amy also found some space in a recently renovated warehouse a little ways from the heart of Salem that could be had for much less rent than was available in the city center.

  By the time he left the office for the evening, John had actually started to think setting up a new paper and maintaining their old subscription base was not only possible, it was starting to appear very doable. It made him feel good that, in at least a small way, he was getting back at Jessica Lodge, because the people who put out the Salem News day after day, year after year, weren't going to let the paper go out of business.

  Amy had left a little earlier because she needed to shop for the food for their upcoming dinner with Sarah. John finished up, said goodnight to the last folks in the newsroom then went to a wine shop and bought a couple bottle
s of good pre-chilled Chardonnay and two bottles of well-aged Oregon pinot noir. By the time he walked into his house, Amy had water boiling and a pile of vegetables on a chopping board.

  "What are we having?"

  "Veal chops and ratatouille. You want to start the grill as soon as you change your clothes?"

  John put the Chardonnay in the refrigerator and the Burgundies on the counter then went up to slip into blue jeans. A minute later he was back downstairs where he opened one of the chardonnays and poured a glass for himself and one for Amy.

  "Let's hope this goes well," he said, clicking his glass gently to hers.

  "Have faith in your daughter."

  "I do, but . . ." Instead of finishing the thought he went outside, put charcoal in the grill, and lit it. Most of his neighbors had gas grills, but John was stubbornly old fashioned and stuck to his time-honored tradition of real coals.

  He tried to shove down the nervous tremor that churned through his guts as he thought about the last conversation he'd had with Sarah in which Amy was the topic. What was that Sarah had said? "It would be nice if you picked somebody a little closer to your age. She could practically be my sister." Yes, that was it exactly. How was Sarah going to react tonight? He wanted to share Amy's faith in Sarah, but he didn't have a good feeling.

  CHAPTER SIX

  AS HE WAITED FOR HIS COALS TO LIGHT, John paced around the house. Sarah had extremely early hours in the morning for her news show, so she tended to arrive early and leave early so she could get to bed. It was part of his daughter's rigidity. She kept to her schedule and didn't deviate. In her personal life she liked hard walls and black-and-white opinions, strange for a TV news journalist whose profession required dealing with issues colored in constantly shifting shades of gray, he thought.

  But even as he thought this, he realized he was wrong. Sarah was perfect for the FOX News affiliate where she worked. Unlike his, her politics were right wing, and she and her co-workers loved absolute positions, like the fact that older widowers shouldn't fall in love with younger women. John sipped his Chardonnay, told himself he shouldn't have any more, but took another sip anyway and drained the glass. To keep himself from going into the kitchen for more wine, he straightened a few pillows and peeked out the front curtains a couple times.