PLACKETT, VIRGINIA
Friday evening
The front door at the Alcotts’ flew open. “Brakey!”
Griffin recognized Deliah Alcott easily from Savich’s description. She picked up her gauzy skirt and ran to her son, hugging him close. She ran her fingers through his hair, held his face between her hands, and asked him, “Are you all right, Brakey? Did you remember what happened? Why are you smiling? Did they prove you didn’t kill Deputy Lewis?”
Brakey put his hands on his mother’s arms, gently pushing her back. “I didn’t remember anything, but it’s okay, really. It turns out they can’t hypnotize me, but they let me come home anyway. Agent Hammersmith brought me, and look”—he bent down and pulled up the leg of his jeans—“I’ve got to wear this ankle bracelet until they find out who killed Deputy Lewis. That’s it. Otherwise I’m free to do as I please, Agent Savich told me.”
Deliah Abbott stared from that ankle bracelet to Griffin. She took Brakey’s hand. “Don’t show that bracelet off to anyone else, okay, Brakey? We don’t want people talking any more than they already are.”
Deliah Alcott turned fierce eyes to Griffin. “You’re Agent Hammersmith?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Griffin handed her his creds. “And you’re Brakey’s mom, Mrs. Alcott.”
“Yes.” She walked right up to him, got in his face. “Why is he wearing an ankle bracelet? Do you think he’s going to run off?”
“We need to know where he goes, Mrs. Alcott, that’s all. He’s having trouble remembering, and there’s a killer out there. It’s for his protection, too.”
“Bring him in, Morgana. I want to see the boy who’s brought Brakey home, too,” came a scratchy old voice from behind Mrs. Alcott.
Deliah gave Griffin a long look, then ushered him past the elaborate wooden front door with the pentacle hanging on it, over a wide threshold that would easily allow a wheelchair through it, and into the large entry hall that smelled faintly of sweet incense.
Griffin spotted the old lady Savich had told him about. Ms. Louisa, but not Louisa May. What an old tartar was his first thought. He studied her dark hooded eyes and wondered briefly if her dead son had had eyes, like hers. He introduced himself, shook her veiny arthritic hand.
“I thought the other one was a pretty boy, but you’re really a looker, aren’t you? What do you think, Morgana?”
Deliah Alcott shrugged impatiently, opened her mouth, but was interrupted by a man Griffin took to be Jonah wandering into the entry hall. He stilled. “You’re back, Brakey. That’s good they let you out. And who are you?” He stared hard at Griffin.
Griffin introduced himself again, showed his creds. Mrs. Alcott introduced her second son. While Jonah Alcott looked at them, the old lady wheeled herself into the middle of the living room, did a neat K-turn, turned off the motor of her wheelchair, and waved to them. “Well, come on in and tell us what all you smart folk think about the poor deputy’s murder. It took you long enough to figure out some crook set up my poor Brakey.”
Griffin followed Brakey and his mother into the large living room, redolent with the same sweet incense. Deliah Alcott didn’t ask him to sit down. She didn’t sit, either. She drew a deep breath. “I’ve been frantic.” She gave Brakey a quick look, as if to reassure herself he was here and he was safe. “I sent you all the positive energy that was in me today, Brakey, to get you home.” She turned back to Griffin. “So what is it you’ve got to tell me? What will happen to my son now?”
“Agent Hammersmith doesn’t agree with me, Mom,” Brakey said, “but I’m thinking how both Walter and I were drugged, and someone forced us to”—he couldn’t get it out—“do what we did.”
“But they don’t know you killed Deputy Lewis, Brakey. They just don’t have anyone else,” Deliah said. “There’s no proof, is there? So don’t give in to them. Why would you even say you did something like that?”
“Because I can’t remember and it was my truck and I don’t see how anyone else could have gotten into it.”
“Got you there, Morgana,” Ms. Louisa said, and pulled her knitting needles out of the pile of bright green and gold wool on her lap. “You’d better be careful about what you say before you get Brakey into even more trouble.”
Finesse it, Savich had told Griffin, and so he did the best he could. “Actually, Mrs. Alcott, Agent Savich and I believe someone managed to manipulate Brakey into murdering Deputy Lewis. It is this person we’re looking for now, and we’d like your help.”
He looked from Mrs. Alcott to the old lady to Jonah, the middle brother, who was now slouched against the fireplace, holding a deck of cards in his hand. Jonah said, “I thought you said Brakey couldn’t be hypnotized. If that’s the truth, then how could someone manage to talk him into killing Deputy Lewis? Is there any drug that can do that? Make you kill another person like that?”
How to finesse that? Griffin fell back on, “Sorry, Mr. Alcott, I really don’t know the details. That’s part of our investigation,” to which Jonah Alcott snorted and started shuffling the deck of cards with one hand. He was quite good.
Mrs. Alcott was still standing facing him, her arms over her chest. Brakey had sprawled on an oversized chintz sofa. Ms. Louisa was knitting something he couldn’t recognize, only the clicking sound her needles made filling the silence.
He said, “Do any of you know of anything Deputy Lewis and Sparky Carroll have in common that could have got them both killed?”
The Alcotts looked at him blankly. Deliah said, “Even if there was, even if you find something like that, I’m sure Brakey had nothing to do with it. You mentioned some other person. Who?”
Griffin pulled out his cell and showed her the FBI sketch of the man Savich had described to him, Stefan Dalco.
She froze. Gotcha, Griffin thought. He knew in his gut she’d seen him before. “You know this man, Mrs. Alcott?”
“No—I was surprised at how bizarre he looks, how foreign.”
Griffin showed the photo to Jonah and Ms. Louisa. They both shook their heads. “Would you show me the Athames you have in the house?”
“Jonah and I each have our own, but we don’t have anything like a collection, Agent Hammersmith.”
Brakey said, “We gave away Dad’s collection after he died, right, Mom?”
“Who did you give the collection to, Mrs. Alcott?”
“I gave it to Millie Stacy.” She paused. “That’s Tammy Carroll’s mother.” Mrs. Alcott looked blindly at him. “She’s Sparky Carroll’s mother-in-law.”