The Headsman

by James Neal Harvey

  Jud did. Loring Campbell was tall and slim, an athlete who took pride in his reputation as one of the town’s better tennis players. Bill Swanson was even taller, a one-time fullback at Cornell whose son was considered a sure bet to follow him there. Buddy Harper’s father was also in the group; Peter Harper looked much like his son, except that his hair had mostly disappeared. Seeing him made Jud think of the discussion he’d had yesterday with the boy. He wondered how Harper was taking the attention the police were giving his son. The fourth guest was Charley Boggs, red-faced and overweight, the owner of the most successful automobile dealership in Braddock.

  All of them were wearing sports jackets and ties, and all of them had glasses in their hands. Jud exchanged greetings with each man, and Melcher asked if he’d care for a drink. Jud said he’d have a beer.

  There was a bar set up on one side of the room. Melcher stepped over to it and returned with a tall pilsner glass filled with amber liquid. He handed it to Jud and the men raised their glasses and wished him luck.

  Jud drank some of the beer. It was an imported brand, he realized. German, probably, different from what he was used to.

  Despite his effort to appear cordial, Melcher was obviously tense. “Sit down, Jud.”

  Jud did, in a chair beside the fireplace, looking at the others and waiting to hear what they had to say.

  The men settled onto chairs and sofas. Melcher led the discussion. “Ed Dickens couldn’t be with us, of course. He and Helen are just devastated. Marcy was their only child, you know. Losing her was a terrible thing.”

  Of course Jud knew. He was as sensitive to the tragedy as any of them, maybe even more so. And yet despite Melcher’s strained attempts to be hospitable, the mayor was talking to him much the way he had the previous day, as if the homicide was somehow Jud’s fault.

  “The reason we wanted to see you here, instead of in a formal Council meeting at the town hall, was that we wanted to keep this private,” Melcher said.

  Campbell spoke up. “Nothing against you personally, Chief. But we’re trying to hold down the rumors.”

  Jud fixed his gaze on him. “Rumors about what?”

  “About the murder and who might have committed it.”

  Melcher leaned forward. “Jud, we’re going to be completely frank with you, the way I know you’d want us to be.”

  He wished they’d stop fucking around and come out with it.

  “I’m sure you remember there was some controversy when I appointed you chief after Stark retired,” the mayor said.

  Jud made no reply.

  “A lot of people thought you were too young,” Melcher went on. “They thought you didn’t have enough experience for the job.”

  Jud waited.

  “And to tell the truth,” the mayor said, “maybe they were right. I don’t want you to think we’re reacting hysterically to this murder, but we’re going to have to have some action on it, and fast.”

  For Christ’s sake, could this be for real? As calmly as he could, Jud said, “May I say something?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “That’s why you’re here,” Swanson said.

  He took his time, telling himself not to lose his temper, to play it cool. “The homicide occurred Friday night. Today is Sunday. The investigation is going as quickly as possible. We haven’t even had an autopsy yet. And as you’re also aware, I’m not in charge—Inspector Pearson is.”

  “I’ve spoken to the inspector,” Melcher said. “He’s told me you haven’t been as cooperative as he’d like you to be.”

  Despite his resolve, Jud felt the heat come up his neck and spread through his face. “Hey, what is this? The state’s running the investigation. What I’m trying to do is help as much as I can. First you’re telling me it’s not going fast enough, and now you’re saying I’m not doing my part. What do you want from me?”

  “What we want is for this thing to be cleared up as quickly as possible,” Melcher said. “That’s what we want. Whatever it takes to get it done, we’re going to see that it happens.”

  Boggs cleared his throat. “Chief, don’t blame this on the mayor here. All of us feel the same way. If this case is too much for you to handle, we’re just going to have to bring in somebody who can do the job.”

  “Somebody from where?”

  “Inspector Pearson can give us some help on that.”

  Jud got it then. What Pearson was doing was setting up a way to cover his ass. If the investigation didn’t produce results, it would be because Braddock had a rinky-dink police department led by an incompetent rube who couldn’t give the inspector the necessary assistance. Not because the state police investigation team wasn’t doing its job. Jesus Christ.

  “We know you’re trying,” Harper said. “Buddy told me about your questioning him.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes, he did. But you can’t believe one of Marcy’s friends was responsible, can you?”

  Everybody has his own interests uppermost, Jud thought. “I don’t know who was responsible,” he said. “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

  Swanson said, “If I can make a suggestion, I think you ought to be looking at the criminal element in town, and not go around embarrassing a lot of good people who couldn’t have had anything to do with it.”

  Jud looked at him. “In other words, I shouldn’t have questioned your boy.”

  Swanson reddened. “Seems to me you were wasting your time and getting those kids upset for nothing.”

  Before Jud could reply, Melcher broke in. “What we’re telling you is that the investigation has to move forward, and fast. And at the same time, you ought to be moving in the right direction, not in a way that would simply make more trouble. You have to realize a lot of people here are terrified. This could have a very damaging effect on the community.”

  Jud thought of the talk he’d had earlier with Emmett Stark. The old man had called this one. Get the case cleaned up and quickly, they were saying, because it’s bad for business. But while you’re about it, don’t step on the wrong toes.

  Loring Campbell said, “I’m sure you can understand our concern.”

  “I understand very well,” Jud replied. He put his glass down on the table beside his chair and stood up. “If that’s it, gentlemen, you’ll excuse me. I’ve got work to do.”

  They mumbled awkward goodbyes, and Sam Melcher led him back to the front door. Jud put on his jacket and cap and told the mayor he’d do his best. Then he left the house. There was a bad taste in his mouth, and it wasn’t from the beer.

  9

  Billy Swanson waited until his parents’ Cadillac pulled out of the driveway, then telephoned Alice Boggs. She told him her folks had just left, also on their way to visit the Melchers, and that her brother Joe had gone out earlier. Billy said he’d be there in a few minutes and hung up.

  He let out a whoop and pulled on his varsity sweater, the heavy white cardigan with a big orange B on it. He was proud of the sweater, wore it on all but the coldest days instead of a parka or a ski jacket. He’d always been a big kid, a good head taller than anyone else in his class all the way through school, but it wasn’t until his junior year at Braddock High that he’d come into his own.

  That was when the baby fat had disappeaered, when the roly-poly softness gave way to muscle and he went from JV cannon fodder to first-string left tackle at BHS. Suddenly his name began to appear in stories on the sports pages of the Express, and people began to notice him, treat him with respect. He wasn’t just Bill Swanson’s kid any more; he was Billy Swanson, the lineman scouts from Colgate and Bucknell and even Penn State had come to look over.

  Not that he had much of a chance of going to one of the real football powers. His old man had played at Cornell, and was bound and determined that was where his son would be going as well. Billy’s marks weren’t all that great, and neither were his SAT scores. But football would get you a long way in the world of academe, and the coaches at Cornell had e
xpressed strong interest. He’d know soon whether he’d be going to Ithaca this fall to play for the Big Red.

  But whether he wound up there or somewhere else, the fact was that Billy had carved out an identity for himself. And so the varsity sweater was a lot more than a way to fend off the wind; it was a badge of honor, a signal to the world that its wearer was his own man.

  He drove the Bronco to Alice’s. It was a clunky kind of machine, half-truck, half-station wagon. The good thing about it was that when you put it in four-wheel drive it would go anywhere, even in deep snow. The bad thing was that you had to be a contortionist to get laid in it. Even with the back seat folded down to make a deck, you couldn’t stretch out comfortably. He would much prefer something that was either jazzy to drive or practical for sex, instead of a bucket like this that didn’t cut it in either direction.

  On the other hand, he was lucky to have a late-model vehicle he could almost call his own. A lot of kids had cars, but few got to drive new ones. Except for when his mother needed it, which wasn’t often, Billy took the Bronco to school. So for the most part it was a pretty cool deal. Still, if he had a choice he’d probably go for a van. That would be sensational. Something with an eight-speaker sound system and a back that converted into one huge bed.

  When he arrived at the Boggs home, Alice took him down into the basement playroom, where a fire was burning on the hearth and Whitney Houston was pouring out of the stereo. Billy had been hoping they’d go straight to her room, but she was tense and nervous, which wasn’t like her at all. She went over to the small refrigerator under the bar and got Pepsis for them, and they sat on the sofa opposite the fire.

  Alice had her hair done up in a ponytail and she kept twiddling the ends in her fingers. “It’s the most awful thing I ever heard of in my life. Marcy was one of my best friends. I just can’t imagine that happening to her.”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t even want to think about it, let along hash it over. He’d been picked up by the cops yesterday and taken to the station for questioning by the chief of police, for Christ’s sake, and that had blown his mind. The chief hadn’t seemed like such a bad guy, but Billy wasn’t about to get chummy with a cop. MacElroy had asked him over and over again about how well he’d known Marcy and had they ever dated, and a lot of other shit, including whether he smoked grass. All Billy had done was dodge and weave, in essence telling the cop nothing.

  Because the truth was he didn’t know anything about Marcy’s death, not anything at all. On Saturday morning he’d been as shocked as anyone else when he heard about what had happened to her. He’d seen her with Buddy at the game and later at the dance and that was it.

  After that he’d taken Alice to Greasy Pete’s for hamburgers and they were there with a bunch of other kids for a couple of hours and then he’d taken her home and they’d made it right here on the sofa. Not that he’d told the chief that last part, or any of the other personal stuff MacElroy was digging for. The chief had even asked him about the discussion in English class with that shitbrain Hathaway, when they’d gone on about the headsman. It was amazing.

  On Saturday he and his buddies had talked about the murder until they’d exhausted the subject, and even though Billy remained as morbidly fascinated by Marcy’s death as anybody else in town, he certainly hadn’t come over here this afternoon to go into it. Especially when Alice’s folks had gone out and given them a clear shot like this one.

  But she wouldn’t leave it alone. “The wake’s tomorrow night at Morrison’s.” That was the largest and most prestigious funeral home in Braddock.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re going, aren’t you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I hear the casket’ll be closed, though.”

  “Really?” He’d been to one wake, when his grandfather had died some years earlier. Billy had been ten or eleven at the time, and he remembered thinking as he viewed the body that the waxy figure lying on the satin cushions didn’t look like his grandfather at all. To Billy it had seemed more like a dummy, with its face painted and the mouth twisted a little to look as if there was a hint of smile. That was the only dead person he’d ever seen, and he had no desire to see another one. As far as he was concerned, a closed casket was a good idea, no matter who was inside or what the circumstances of death had been.

  Alice twiddled her ponytail. “But that’s only right, don’t you think? I mean, they couldn’t have it open. If they did, they’d have to, you know—reattach her head. Oh God, it’s so awful.”

  “Sure,” Billy said. “Better for it to be closed.”

  “The funeral’s on Tuesday.”

  “I know.”

  “I hope they catch whoever did it soon.”

  He drank some of his Pepsi. “Me too.”

  “Billy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you believe it? That the headsman really came back?”

  “Aw, that’s bullshit.” The fact was, he didn’t know what he believed at this point; all he wanted to do was to get her out of this mood, get her thoughts going in another direction.

  But she kept after it. “Well, if he didn’t do it, who did?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe some wacko who was trying to rob their house.”

  She was quiet for a moment, staring into the fire. “I don’t know what I’d do if that thing ever came near me.”

  He didn’t reply. Alice had on a blue oxford-cloth shirt and jeans. It looked to him as if she wasn’t wearing a bra under the shirt. He put his hand on her back casually, and rubbed it a little. He couldn’t detect a strap, which meant no bra. He felt himself stir.

  She continued to look into the flames. “You know something else that was weird?”

  “No. What?”

  “The way Hathaway was talking about it in class on Friday.”

  “Uh-huh.” He kept up the stroking motion, but tried to make it seem as if he were doing it absentmindedly.

  “Did you mean it—what you said?”

  “About what?”

  “That you wouldn’t be scared if you saw the headsman?”

  “Oh, I might be a little, at first. But like I told Hathaway, I don’t believe in crap like that. If I saw somebody coming after me dressed up that way I’d bust him in the mouth.”

  “Yeah, but somebody with a big ax?”

  “An ax or anything else.” He liked the idea of casting himself in the role of hero, warming to it as he spoke. “I’d make him wish he’d picked on somebody else, you can bet on that.”

  Alice continued to gaze fixedly at the flames. “I wonder what he’s gonna say now.”

  “Who?” He moved his hand around the side of her body, continuing the stroking motion as his fingers touched the curve of her breast.

  She seemed not to notice the exploring hand. “Hathaway. It’d be just like the jerk to say I told you so.”

  “He probably realizes what a horse’s ass he made of himself.”

  “Maybe. But I still think it was weird that he was talking about the headsman, and then the same night Marcy was killed.”

  “Yeah.” His hand closed gently, and he rubbed his thumb against her nipple. He was aware that he had produced an iron-hard erection.

  Alice slowly turned toward him. “You know something?”

  “What?”

  “You’re getting me excited.”

  Jesus, he certainly hoped so. He pulled her tight against him and mashed his mouth against hers. Her tongue was hot and slippery and he felt as if he was ready to explode.

  She pulled away a little and there was urgency in her voice. “Come on, Billy. What are you waiting for?”

  He fumbled with the buttons on her shirt. The hell with going upstairs. Once again, the sofa would do just fine.

  Five

  NOT ALWAYS WHAT

  THEY SEEM

  1

  ON MONDAY THE Express ran another front-page story on the case, with a banner headline that read:

  TEENAGER’S MURDER
FANS HEADSMAN LEGEND

  The byline was Sally Benson’s. Jud read the piece and sighed. She’d opened the article with another account of the Dickens killing, and then had gone into the headsman legend and its origins. There were grisly descriptions of how the executioner had lopped his victims’ heads off, interwoven with references to the kinds of crimes that had resulted in such punishment in the old days.

  Jud suspected a lot of the story had been created in Sally’s mind; she had no more idea than he did as to what actually had gone on back then. What she had written was largely what she’d imagined it had been like. Or what she thought would most titillate her readers.

  The piece also contained quotes from Inspector Pearson but none from Jud, although it did refer to the police picking up vagrants and other suspicious characters and not finding a suspect. And just as in the TV coverage, there were interviews with local citizens, along with their pictures. It seemed to Jud the people interviewed had been chosen on the basis of their absolute belief in the headsman and his guilt in Marcy’s murder.

  It also seemed Sally had outdone all the other papers in providing sensational coverage of the case. Job or no job, big opportunity or not, he wished he could put a bag over her head until this damned thing was cleaned up. What was as galling as any of it was that Grady pointedly avoided making any reference to the article. The effect was to make Jud all the more aware that Sally had added fuel to the fire. In that sense, the headline to her story was entirely appropriate.

  The telephone rang. He pushed the papers aside and answered it. The voice on the other end had a down-home twang that was deceptive. “’Morning, Chief. George Ternock here.”

  “Hello, George.” Jud sat up straight at his desk, as if erect posture would make him more alert. Ternock was a shrewd lawyer, and when you dealt with him you were well advised to pay attention. “What can I do for you?”