The Headsman

by James Neal Harvey

  Grady leaned against the wall. “No, nothing. No footprints, no sign anyplace of forced entry. And this morning I talked to Williger. Only prints they got were the family’s.”

  “Uh-huh. Anything from NYSPIN?”

  Grady gestured toward a computer printout lying among the other papers on Jud’s desk. “Nothing worthwhile. They still haven’t come up with an M.O. like the one we’re looking for.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, the mayor phoned. Wants you to call him.”

  “What’s it about—he after a progress report?”

  “I think more than that. He said there was gonna be a meeting.”

  “Oh shit.”

  Grady’s tone was dry. “Members of the Town Council. Our leading citizens.”

  Jud sighed. “I’ll call him.”

  “Okay.” The sergeant turned to leave. “I got things to do. You need anything, I’ll be here.”

  Jud looked through the reports on his desk for a few more minutes, knowing he was deliberately delaying making the call to the mayor. Finally he flicked through the Rolodex for the number and then called it.

  Melcher said he wanted Jud to get together with him and several other men to discuss the Dickens case. Jud was to be at the mayor’s home at 3:00 P.M.

  After he hung up he debated what he’d do next, finally deciding to pay a visit to Emmett Stark. It would be good to talk with the former chief; Stark was one of the few people in Braddock—maybe the only one, for that matter—who would understand the situation Jud was in, the pressure he was under. And it was a good bet Stark would have some insights on the Dickens case as well.

  Jud was about to call the old man when the door opened and Chester Pearson walked in. He shut the door behind him and took a chair opposite Jud’s desk, a grave expression on his fleshy face.

  Okay, Jud thought. Here comes trouble in a hundred-pound bag.

  “I thought we had an understanding,” Pearson said. He was looking natty as usual, wearing a tweed jacket—a gray one, this time—and a blue-striped tie.

  The more Jud saw of this peckerhead the less he liked him. “On what?”

  “On this investigation. The Harper boy tells me that after I talked with him, you had him in and went over all the same ground. You were questioning some of the Dickens girl’s other friends as well.”

  “So?”

  “So I told you, I’m running the show. It doesn’t help to have you working at cross purposes. Any interviewing to be done, my people will do it. Or I’ll do it myself. What you have to realize is, working on a homicide case like this takes a lot of experience, a lot of training. To put it bluntly, I don’t want you fucking things up.”

  It would be nice, Jud thought, to hang one right in the middle of that fat nose.

  But he didn’t do it. Instead he said, “Look, Inspector. I still head the department here. I also live in this town, and I know damn near everybody in it. I’m not going to just walk away from this case. Not when there are things I can do that might help break it.”

  “You have something specific in mind?”

  “Yeah, I do. For one, I think that old Donovan homicide ought to be looked into.”

  A corner of Pearson’s mouth curled derisively, an expression that was becoming familiar. “I’ve already done that, Chief. Yesterday I called the county attorney at home. He went to his office and got out the records. Called back with a complete report. The husband’s whereabouts at the time of the murder were verified, and there were no other suspects. It was almost surely committed while a burglary was in progress. Apparently the perpetrator killed the woman and then took off.”

  “Is that right?”

  “I’d say so, yes. I’m sure the case stirred imaginations around here, just as this Dickens homicide has done. But that kind of hysteria is common, especially in a small community. People get carried away.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Pearson studied him. “Let me make something clear to you. I have no objection to your contributing where you can. But I want you to recognize a chain of command. Anything you do, you talk to me ahead of time. If I think it’s a good idea, fine. I also want to be kept fully informed of your activities, and anything that comes your way. You stick with that, we’ll get along just dandy.”

  Jud couldn’t resist. “And if I don’t?”

  Pearson’s face hardened. “If you don’t, I’ll have a talk with my superiors in Albany. This case has drawn a lot of attention, if you haven’t noticed. The state certainly doesn’t want to be embarrassed by local people who refuse to cooperate.”

  Oh shit, Jud thought. There are times when it just doesn’t pay to argue. He set his jaw and forced himself to keep his mouth shut.

  Pearson apparently misread the silence. He stroked his mustache with his forefinger. “You think it over, Chief. I’m sure you’ll see it makes sense to do things my way. Better for you, too, in the long run. Right?”

  Jud said nothing.

  The inspector got to his feet. “See you later.”

  When Pearson had gone, Jud curled his right hand into a fist and slammed it down onto his desk.

  6

  The Braddock police records had been stored by the department’s IBM on computer disks starting in 1982. Before that they’d been kept by hand, and there were cabinets filled with the files that covered the previous ten years. Anything earlier than that was stored in a basement room. Jud took a set of keys with him and went down the stairs.

  The room was dingy and low-ceilinged, its only illumination coming from a naked overhead light bulb. The space was jammed with dusty wooden boxes containing the old records, none of them in any particular order. In addition to the boxes stacked on the floor, there were shelves along the walls bearing an assortment of junk: confiscated weapons ranging from pistols and long arms to knives and hatchets; stolen items that had been recovered by the cops but never claimed; picks, jimmies and various other burglary tools.

  He spent an hour poring over the files, which were a mess of yellowing paper. As he’d expected, the reports were sketchy and sloppily kept, some of them no more than penciled notes. They went back not merely years, but decades. The earliest file was labeled 1922.

  But there was nothing from the mid-nineteen-sixties. He went through the records box by box, folder by folder, but he was unable to find so much as a single scrap from that period. Finally he turned out the light and, locking the door behind him, went back upstairs.

  When he returned to his office he telephoned Emmett Stark. The old chief said to come on over, he’d just made fresh coffee.

  7

  The farmhouse was on Watchhill Road, off Route 5, a fifteen-minute drive from town. It was an old two-story white frame structure, and Stark had lived there for as long as Jud had known him. The driveway had been cleared, and Stark’s Jeep with the yellow snowplow on the front was parked near the barn.

  When Jud left his car a dog came out of the barn and growled at him. The animal appeared to be a cross between a hound and some other large breed, maybe a Rotweiler. It barked and snapped, straining against a chain around its neck that was fastened to a thick wooden post, and Jud was glad the thing wasn’t loose. The barking triggered a hullabaloo from other dogs confined to a pen some twenty yards or so away. Jud went up the front steps to the house and stamped snow off his feet. Before he could knock on the door Stark opened it and told him to come on in.

  It pained Jud to see how much the old man had aged since the last time he’d paid him a visit. Stark’s once-robust body was now bent over. His gray hair was thin, and behind his wire-rimmed spectacles his eyes were watery. When he shook hands his grip had little strength.

  But he was obviously pleased to see Jud. He smiled broadly. “So how you doing?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  The smile faded. “I expect you want to talk about the Dickens homicide.”

  “Right.”

  “Hell of a thing.”

  “Yeah, it sure is.”r />
  After hanging his visitor’s jacket and cap on a clothestree in the hall Stark led Jud through to the kitchen, where he poured mugs of coffee for them. Then they went into what the old chief called his workroom.

  As he always did when he came in here, Jud had to admire the way it was organized. There was a worn leather sofa at one end of the room, with a table in front of it on which a small TV set rested. A bottle of bourbon and a pair of glasses stood on a lamp table within easy reach, and the wall beside the sofa held built-in bookcases. In one corner there was a pot-bellied woodstove, and running along another wall was a workbench with a fly-tying vise and equipment for hand-loading ammunition. Opposite the bookcases were racks holding rifles, shotguns and flyrods, and above those were two mounted heads, a handsome eight-point buck and a black bear with teeth exposed in a snarl. Stark had everything important to him right at hand.

  There were two high wooden stools in front of the workbench. With some difficulty the old chief climbed onto one and indicated the other to Jud. “Don’t mind, do you? I been working on a Royal Coachman, and I hate to quit now. Anyhow, helps me think.”

  Jud sat on the stool and inspected the fly in the vise. A bracket above it held a magnifying glass, and he could see that the lure had been expertly fashioned from bright bits of feather and nylon, bound with thread and glue. It was set on what he judged to be a number-four hook. As he watched, Stark picked up a pair of needle-nosed pliers and a tool that looked like a jeweler’s pick and resumed his efforts with the delicate touch of a surgeon.

  “Won’t be long before I’ll be using this,” the old man said.

  Jud drank some of his coffee. It was very strong and tasted fine. “Feels like forever to me.”

  “Winter’s always that way. You think it’s never gonna end, and then all of a sudden it’s trout season.”

  “I guess that’s true.” Jud set his mug down. “This homicide has the town in an uproar.”

  “So I see. Been on the TV and in the Sunday papers and everybody in Braddock’s talking about it. Any leads?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re getting some heat, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah. The mayor’s been all over me, even though I called in the state and they sent a detective team.”

  “Anybody I’d know?”

  “An inspector named Chester Pearson and a corporal Williger.”

  Stark was squinting through the magnifying glass, teasing a piece of red fuzz into place on the shank of the hook. “Nope. Don’t know ’em. How they making out?”

  “All right, I guess. Pearson’s kind of an ass-buster.”

  “Lot of those state guys are. Think they know every fucking thing.”

  “That’s Pearson, to a T.”

  “Uh-huh. So let ’em take over. Get His Honor off your back.”

  “I’m trying, but it’s not working too well. As far as Melcher’s concerned, I’m responsible no matter who’s in charge.”

  “Yeah, that figures. The way Sam sees it, he and his pals own Braddock and everybody in it.”

  “They give you a bad time when you were running the department?”

  “You bet they did.” He looked up at Jud and smiled briefly. “But I never let on just how much of a bad time. Those guys’re always looking for ways to bend things, you know? Everything’s got to get done so it’s to their benefit.”

  “So I’m beginning to see.”

  “How’s the investigation going, so far?”

  Jud gave him a rundown on what had transpired from the time he picked up the dispatcher’s call on Saturday morning.

  Stark went on with his work as he listened. Then he said, “You stop and think about it, you can see why Sam and his friends are so upset. Not only is Ed Dickens one of them, but they’ve got plans for this town. A thing like this murder is a black eye. That’s a hell of a thing to say, with what happened to Dickens’ daughter and all, but it’s the truth.”

  “What kind of plans?”

  Stark shrugged. “I don’t know the specifics, but I hear Sam and Dickens and Bill Swanson and some of the others are trying to attract some big company to locate here.”

  Jud was incredulous. “A big company? In Braddock?”

  “Mm-hm. Don’t hold me to that. Like I said, it’s just something I heard. But you know, if they could do that, there’d be a lot of money coming in here. And the people who run the town are the ones who’d benefit the most, right? That’s pretty obvious. Just think of what it’d do for real estate values alone.”

  “And for somebody who’s in that business. Like Sam Melcher.”

  Stark nodded. “Exactly. The last thing they want now is a lot of notoriety. Bad public relations.”

  “Bad everything. But I sure feel for the Dickenses.”

  “Yes. That part’s terrible. Losing somebody in your family is one of the worst things could ever happen to you.” Stark put his tools down and looked at Jud. “I thought when Martha died I’d go out of my mind. Even though I figured I was prepared for it. She had cancer, you know.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Took three years for her to go. Hell, I’m still not over it. Don’t guess I ever will be.”

  “Chief, what do you think about this case?”

  Stark pursed his lips. “Same thing you do, I suppose. Somebody who knew that kid wanted to kill her and did. Planned it all out and used the headsman story as a cover. Now every dingbat is saying we got a monster who’s come back here to punish sinners. All that’s gonna do is make it harder to run down. Which is exactly what whoever did it wanted. People’ll be scared shitless and spreading rumors all over the place.”

  “What about that old case back in the sixties—the Donovan killing?”

  “Don’t know much about it. Happened before I came to Braddock, so all I do know is the stories I heard. But that stuff about the headsman had to be pure bullshit. Probably the same thing happened then that’s going on in this case—somebody used it to confuse things. Or maybe it wasn’t even intended. Maybe the guy cut her head off and then people just jumped on the headsman idea.”

  “You ever see the records on the case?”

  “Nope. Be worth a look, though. Although I can’t say you’re gonna find nice clean files going back twenty-five years. In those days the department wasn’t much on records and procedures.”

  “I did look. There was nothing there. Not only on that case, but whole years were missing.”

  “Huh. Not surprised. Woody McDermott was chief then. He was some character. Not only a drunk, but stupid.”

  Jud smiled. “You ever wish you were back in harness?”

  The older man’s lined features registered surprise. “You serious? I looked forward to retiring for years. Not that police work’s so bad. At least it’s never boring. Or hardly ever. The political shit’s what I couldn’t take.”

  “I can understand that well enough.”

  “I’m sure you can. You know, I’m proud of you, Jud. I knew when I took you on, right out of the army, you’d be a good one. And when I retired, there was nobody better qualified to be chief, even as young as you were. The politics, all the crap you get, that’s just something you’ll have to learn to live with. But do I miss it? No indeed. Now I got time to do the things I like to do.” He looked at the trout fly and then back at Jud. “Only thing I wish is that the old lady was still around to enjoy it with me.”

  “What about your son?”

  Stark brightened. “Alan? He’s been pestering me to move out near him and his family. Lives in Arizona, did you know that?”

  “Yeah, you told me.”

  “And I think I just might do it. Got no reason to stay around here, and I sure as hell wouldn’t miss the winters.”

  Jud laughed. “Sometimes I think about that myself.” He stood up. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  Stark walked him to the front door and waved as Jud went back out to his cruiser. The dogs again barked madly as he pulled out of the drive.

&nbs
p; 8

  At a little before three, Jud drove to the mayor’s house. On the way he thought about what Chief Stark had told him concerning the possibility that a large company might be moving into Braddock. The benefits that would accrue to the town—and especially to Melcher and the other civic leaders—were obvious. But what would be the attraction to a firm that might consider coming here?

  On an overall basis, business had been static for years. There was no skilled labor force that amounted to anything, except for the people who worked for Loring Campbell’s company, which manufactured engine gauges and other instruments for aircraft and marine installations. Braddock Airport was small, with one runway and only a couple of hangars. The winters were long and the town was in the middle of nowhere.

  On the other hand, there were some positive aspects. Land was cheap, and there was plenty of it. There was the rail line, and the through way was nearby. Expanding the airport would be a simple project. The state capital wasn’t all that far, and neither were such centers as New York City and Boston. Maybe it was a possibility, at that.

  Sam Melcher’s house was one of the few in Braddock you could call elegant. It was a sprawl of fieldstone and white clapboard on ten well-tended acres and filled with the antiques Sarah Melcher collected. The Melchers had three children, Jud knew—one girl in the class Marcy Dickens had been in at the high school, and two older daughters in college. They were also one of only a handful of families in town that employed a maid.

  Several cars were parked in the circular driveway when Jud arrived. He pulled the cruiser in behind them and went on up to the house.

  The maid met him at the door, a friendly black woman who took his cap and jacket and deposited them in a closet in the foyer. Then she led him through to where Melcher and the others were waiting for him. As he passed the living room he heard what sounded like a group of women talking, and surmised that the mayor’s friends had brought their wives along.

  The meeting was in the library, a large, high-ceilinged room with a fireplace at one end where logs were crackling. The furniture was formal, groupings of richly upholstered sofas and chairs, and tables and a desk that appeared to be antiques. Bookcases ran from the floor to the ceiling, and there was an oil painting of a horse over the fireplace. When Jud walked in Melcher shook his hand and waved toward the group of men assembled there. “I think you know everybody.”