The next morning I started looking over the material Gina Ward sent me. First, the murder of Marlene and Charlie Shore Jr.
They’d lived in a small town called Phalia, on the west side of Illinois, near the Mississippi River. Someone had taken an ax to their bodies in the middle of the night—first Marlene, asleep in bed, then Charlie, nine years old, who’d apparently rushed to her bedroom to find out why she was screaming. There were crime scene photos. I didn’t look at them.
Neighbors heard the screams and called the police. Shore was drunk and unconscious on the sofa downstairs when they showed up. The police took him in and got a confession in less than two hours. A quick trial, 20 years to life. Case closed.
Except there was no blood on his clothes, no sign of bruises or defensive wounds on his body, and no ax anywhere in or around the house.
The public defender focused on the missing ax, but the D.A. had a signed confession. Shore went to prison.
I had a photocopy of the confession, scribbled in Shore’s sloppy handwriting:
I, Charles J. Shore, do confess that I murderred my wife Marlene and my son Charlie junior. I was really drunk. I don’t remember doing it. I remember going upstairs. I got up and went upstairs. Something in my head was telling me to do it. I think it was Satan. I went upstairs and I don’t remember anything after that, exept Marlene was in bed and she was all bloody, and Charlie was there on the floor and he was all bloody and nobody was moving, just liying there. Then I went back downstairs and drank some whiskey and passed out.
Signed.
Charles J. Shore
I think it was Satan.
A lot of murderers blame Satan when they get caught. Maybe they really do hear voices. Charlie Shore was blackout drunk. I didn’t really blame the cops. There was no reason for them to think anybody else had done it.
Still, I wondered about the lack of any blood on Shore. And the missing ax.
The file had two short newspaper articles from the Phalia Press—one when the murders were committed and Shore was arrested, and one when he was convicted and sent to prison. The second one mentioned Shore saying during sentencing that he’d been possessed by the devil, but that didn’t make any difference to the judge.
Then I had notes from Gina’s conversations with Shore, mostly on the phone, but once in prison. He’d written a letter to the firm, and someone assigned it to Gina. The first conversations were short, just the basic facts. When she visited him in prison she recorded their talk. I skimmed the transcription.
Ward: . . . You told your lawyer about the, uh, being possessed?
Shore: Yeah. I tried to make the demon come out. It did one time, and he called for the guards.
Ward: And you think the demon made you kill your wife and son?
Shore: Yeah. (Long pause) Sorry.
Ward: It’s all right. Take your time.
Shore: I just don’t remember it, you know? I told them that. I don’t remember doing it. I must have, but maybe I didn’t? I don’t know.
Later Shore started talking about the exorcist.
Shore: So there’s this guy, Reverend Blackburn? I read in the paper he did a, an exorcism on a kid. I wrote him a letter.
Ward: Did he come see you?
Shore: One time. He said he could feel the demon or whatever it was. He said he could help me. But he never came back. They wouldn’t let him. I wrote him 20 letters. I tried to call him, but he wouldn’t take my calls from prison. I thought he could help me! He said he’d help me!
Ward: You have to stay quiet. Or the guard will come again.
Shore: He said he’d help me! (Pause) I just want to get this thing out of my head. I don’t even care about being here. I just want it out.
Gina’s notes included the fact that Shore’s public defender had died nine years ago, so she couldn’t talk to him, but the D.A.’s office had let her look at the cae files, sparse as they were. No mention of any “demonic possession” defense.
Her last talk with Shore was two days before he escaped. According to her notes, Gina told him to be patient while she prepared the paperwork. He only talked about Blackburn.
Then he climbed a prison fence that needed repairs and ran away. Video cameras caught it, but the guards were too slow, and Shore got away. That was three days ago. He hadn’t been seen since.
Well, he wasn’t my problem. The state troopers or U.S. marshals or whoever could worry about him. I moved onto the material about Nathan Blackburn.
Gina had found two newspaper articles. One, from about 15 years ago, was a short piece from the Phalia Press with the headline, “Local Minister in ‘exorcist’ dispute.” According to the story, a mother had taken her 11-year-old daughter to Blackburn for an exorcism, and her ex-husband accused them both of child abuse. Blackburn had been arrested for child endangerment. The single quote in the story from him was, “I was only doing my duty as a minister to save this child’s soul from devilish torture.” There was no follow-up story to tell me how the case worked out, or whether the little girl was all right.
The second was a longer article from a regional paper two years later—a month or so before the murders. Blackburn was retiring, the article said, after 27 years with the Phalia Methodist Church, a career marked by controversy for his grim, fire-and-brimstone preaching, community activism against local businesses he considered sinful—like a video store with an “adult” section in back—and conducting the occasional exorcism. The reporter strongly hinted that Blackburn’s retirement hadn’t been 100% voluntary.
That’s all Gina had found on him. I went to work.
Rachel walked into the office an hour later carrying a mug of coffee. “Don’t talk to me,” she said, sitting down at her computer. “I’ve got money to make.”
I nodded. “Someone’s got to pay the rent.”
She sipped her coffee. “How’s the exorcist hunt coming?”
“I found his mother.” I pointed at the screen. “She’s 87, lives in a rest home in a town called Harper, about 50 miles from Phalia. That’s where the murders happened.”
“Cool. How’d you find her?” She tapped some keys to start up her computer.
“Detective work.” Real estate records could tell you a lot. In this case they’d told me that Adele Blackburn had owned a house near her son Nathan’s church, and that she’d sold it four years ago. I called the real estate office that handled the sale, and a friendly agent told me she’d moved to Harper. I couldn’t find any records of her buying property there, and at her age it made sense that she might have moved into some kind of care facility. There were only two in the town. I found Adele Blackburn on my first try.
“What about the son? The reverend?” Rachel was opening folders.
“Nothing. He dropped out of sight after he retired. I couldn’t find any death notice for him, so presumably he’s still alive somewhere. I figure the best bet is the mother.”
“Have you called her? Or . . .” She turned in her chair.
I shrugged. “She’s not going to give up her son to some stranger on the phone. It’s better if I see her in person.”
Rachel sighed. “How far is it?”
“About two hours. Maybe three.” I braced for her to hurl something at me.
Recent cases of mine had been intense. I’d gone to a small town in southern Illinois and ended up being chased by a serial killer. I still had nightmares about that, although prescriptions were helping. Then Rachel had been trapped in another dimension with monsters and carnivorous trees. We were both still feeling a little skittish about being away from each other.
“I’m probably not even going to see the ax murderer,” I said. “I just have to warn the minister. They’ll probably capture him before I even get there, it’s been three days.”
After a moment Rachel sighed. “Okay. Be careful. Call me. Run if you see anything dangerous.”
“Words to live by. Literally.” I picked up my phone to call Gina Ward.
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