The Headsman

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The Headsman Page 18

by James Neal Harvey


  “Which tribes, do you know?”

  “Onandaga, mostly. But there were Siwanoys in the area as well. Anyway, that’s why the walls are so thick. Double-thick, actually, with a layer of stones and dried mud between the wooden outside and inside walls. Quite unusual method of construction at that time. Most colonial homes had no insulation, you see, which is why they were so drafty. But because the British commander lived here for a time it was well fortified, and that also insulated it.”

  “Couldn’t prove it by me,” Jud said.

  Mulgrave smiled. “Not worth it to try to warm the place up since we’ll only be here a short time. On days when it’s open we use the heater and several of the fireplaces. Makes it quite cozy. The walls also work well the other way in the summertime. They keep it cool. This is the drawing room we’re in now. Some of the furniture is actually original. That chair, for example, and several of the tables.”

  Jud glanced at his surroundings. The area looked less comfortable than a dentist’s waiting room, and not nearly as friendly. The walls had been painted dark green, and a number of portraits hung on them. The men in the pictures wore their hair long, tied behind their necks, and they reminded Jud of hippies he’d seen in the sixties. The furniture was stiff and ungainly and there were only a few small rugs on the old wide-board floors. The most interesting feature of the room was the fireplace, which was a good eight feet across.

  Mulgrave led him into another room. “This was the main dining room. The table’s original, and it could seat fourteen. There’s a smaller dining room off the kitchen, less formal.”

  “That for the servants?”

  “No, that one was used mostly as a breakfast room. The staff ate in the kitchen. Those end chairs you see are called bowbacks, and they’re rather rare. To bend the wood that way the cabinet-makers had to soak it in water and then heat it, and the process took quite a while. The kitchen’s this way—let me show you.”

  The fireplace in here was even bigger than the ones in the living and dining rooms. Iron pots were hanging inside it.

  “They did all their cooking in here,” Mulgrave said. “After the British were gone, the place was run as an inn. Travelers from Pennsylvania or New Jersey and other places occasionally passed through the village on horseback or by coach, and they’d stop over here for a meal and a night’s lodging. Sometime in the nineteenth century that fireplace was covered up, boarded over. Then a huge iron woodstove was set right in front of it, with a chimney pipe running into the old flue. When we restored the place we pulled out the stove and sold it to a dealer in Binghamton. It was a shame to lose it, but it wasn’t authentic, you see.”

  “Yeah, I do see.” What he also saw was that Mulgrave intended to keep him wandering around in here until his balls froze and he wouldn’t be able to think of anything but getting out and going someplace that was warm.

  “There’s another interesting room over this way,” Mulgrave said. “It’s less formal than the drawing room, and it’s believed the general’s wife used it to do crewel and write letters in.”

  Jud could see his breath in the icy air. “That’s fine, Paul, and I appreciate your showing me around, but what I really want to see is anything that had to do with the headsman. I’ve heard you have some pictures, or drawings, or whatever. Is that true?”

  “Pictures? We may have a few things. I’m really not sure. If we did, they’d be in one of the storage rooms. As I told you, we were starting some renovation when the town decided it would be too expensive. So a lot of things are upside down. Might take a long time to find anything.”

  “That’s okay,” Jud said. “Let’s have a look.”

  “Yes. Well. If you’ll follow me, please.”

  They went down a hallway to a door leading to a steep staircase barely wide enough to admit a man. They made their way up to the second floor, and Mulgrave stepped along another hallway, stopping before a locked door. He got the keyring out again, and as he was fumbling with the lock it occurred to Jud that it would be easy to get lost in this building. The tiny windows were spaced far apart and set with old-fashioned glass so thick and blurred you could hardly see through them. Combined with the narrow passages and the dim light that made it doubly hard to get your bearings. You could drift from one room to another and not know where the hell you were.

  Mulgrave finally got the lock undone and pushed the door open. He touched a wall switch and an electrified sconce cast a pale glow into the gloom. From what Jud could see, the room was filled with haphazardly stacked boxes of various sizes and piles of framed pictures leaning against the walls.

  “If there’s anything,” Mulgrave said, “it might be in here.”

  Jud inched his way past a stack of boxes. “Great. Let’s see what we can find.”

  “Very well.”

  It was obvious that Mulgrave was annoyed by the chief’s insistence, but at this point Jud didn’t give a shit. He was cold and running out of patience with this fatuous asshole. Courtesy was all well and good, but if the guy didn’t get it on pretty soon Jud would shake him up. He bent over the pictures in the nearest pile and began pulling them away from the wall one at a time.

  All of them were paintings or drawings, no photographs. And all seemed to be quite old. They showed a jumble of subjects, done in media ranging from ink to watercolors. Mostly what they depicted were village scenes: people riding in carriages or strolling on the street, a church, children ice-skating, a woman with a basket of flowers, a pony drawing a cart. There were also still-life renderings of fruit and game and floral arrangements.

  But there was nothing remotely like what he was looking for. He went through three of the piles, looking at more pictures of early times than he’d ever hoped to see, while Mulgrave went through still others. But when he finished, all Jud had to show for his efforts were fingers that had become red and stiff from the cold. He looked over at Mulgrave. “This all there is?”

  “I’m afraid so. The problem is that nothing is organized properly, as you see. We’re going to set up a computerized system, and that’ll be a big help. But of course, all those things take time and money. Doesn’t do to be discouraged, though. I’m sure the finance committee will come around eventually.”

  “What’s in the boxes?”

  “Mostly things that have been donated,” Mulgrave said. “Household items, clothing, things of that sort.”

  “Mind if I look inside some of them?”

  “Not a bit. You’re welcome to see anything that interests you.”

  Jud turned to the nearest carton and opened it. Inside was an assortment of junk that somebody most likely had finally gotten around to cleaning out of an attic. They’d probably debated whether to consign this stuff to the museum or the town dump and decided on the museum. There were bowls and cups and a couple of cracked plates, some moldy books, a shawl, a rolling pin, a grater, a doll with frizzy yellow hair and one eye missing, other odds and ends.

  Mulgrave was watching him. “Lot of history in these boxes. Every one of them tells you a story of a family, often spanning several generations. A lot of it’s worthless, of course, but once in a while we come across a gem. Last year we got a wonderful coin collection, really quite valuable. We had a numismatist from New York look at it, and he said it could bring thousands at an auction. Not that we’d ever sell it, of course. But sorting all this out is really a tremendous amount of work.”

  I’m sure it is, Jud thought. But it’ll keep you and whoever else you’ll have working on it busy for years. You can fuss and fiddle and screw around and go to meetings of the Braddock Historical Society, and between this and that library you can stay occupied until it’s retirement time.

  Jud opened another box, finding this one’s contents also a jumble. He did come across one curious item, however. It was a slim, cast-iron stand with an object shaped like a human foot on the raised end. He lifted it out of the box. “What’s this?”

  “A shoemaker’s last,” Mulgrave said. “The foot
comes off, and the shoemaker had a whole set of them he could replace it with, each of a different size. That was in the days when all footwear was made by hand, one shoe at a time. Machines weren’t in widespread use until the late nineteenth century.”

  “Interesting.” Jud dropped the last back into the box. “How many other rooms like this are there?”

  “About a dozen. Some of them with more things in them than others.”

  Jud looked at the unopened boxes. All right, he thought. You win, for the time being. “Might be better to come back another day, at that.”

  Mulgrave pursed his lips. “Very well, if you’d rather. If you’ll let me know when you want to come, I’ll see the heat’s on early, so that the place is a little more comfortable.”

  “Fine, I’ll do that.” Jud shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket and followed Mulgrave as the curator turned off the light and left the room. They retraced their steps down the steep stairway to the first floor and headed for the front hall. As they passed a door Jud asked idly, “What’s in there?”

  “It was the general’s study originally,” Mulgrave replied. “We’ve been working on restoring it.” He continued walking as he spoke.

  Jud stopped before the door. “Mind if I look inside?”

  Mulgrave glanced back. “Sure you want to do that now? I’m getting a bit chilly myself at this point.”

  “Yeah,” Jud said. “It’ll just take a minute.”

  The keys came out again, and more fumbling ensued until the door at last swung open. Mulgrave stepped back and Jud peered into the room. It was small, with little inside beyond a leather-topped desk and a leather wingchair beside the small corner fireplace. It was even darker in here than in the other rooms, with only one tiny window high in the outside wall. There was a brass lamp on the desk. Jud stepped over to it and turned it on.

  Hanging on the wall over the desk was a painting showing a company of foot soldiers led by an officer on a handsome black horse. It occurred to Jud that things hadn’t changed all that much over the years. The uniforms were different and horses had been replaced by jeeps, but the dogfaces still marched while the brass traveled sitting down. Of course nowadays there was the mechanized infantry, but when the trucks stopped the soldiers still had to get out and make their way on foot.

  He turned away and saw that there was a low bookcase beside the door. Hanging above the bookcase were more paintings. They were a matched set, and there were six of them. Jud realized they were arranged sequentially. He stepped over for a closer look.

  The first showed a man down on his knees with arms extended, a soldier on either side holding him by the wrists. Facing the prisoner were several men dressed in fancy uniforms that suggested they were high-ranking officers.

  When he looked at the second painting, Jud caught his breath. It showed soldiers dragging the prisoner onto a low wooden platform on which an executioner was standing. The executioner was a tall, burly man dressed from head to toe in tight-fitting black clothing. There were black boots on his feet and black gloves on his hands. His head was covered by a black hood with eyeholes cut on a slant. In his hands was a huge, double-bladed ax. Near his feet, on the floor of the platform, was a block and a basket.

  It was eerie, seeing this. For all his scoffing at the legend, and as crazy as he knew his reaction was to the old painting, Jud somehow felt he was face to face with his quarry for the first time. He stared at the ominous figure for a minute or so, taking in details of the man’s clothing, his posture on the platform, and especially the ax.

  It was apparent how well the weapon had been designed to serve its purpose. Its blades were curved much more than the blade of an ordinary wood-cutter’s tool, and together they made the axhead quite large. It would have to measure well over a foot from the edge of one blade to the edge of the other. And the man who wielded it would have to be very powerful. Looking at the ax, Jud wondered if the curve of those blades would match the cut in the floor of Marcy Dickens’ bedroom.

  He studied the other four paintings in the set, one at a time. The next one showed the prisoner on his knees again, praying this time, as the soldiers and the headsman watched. A crowd of onlookers was visible in the background. In the next, the condemned man was lying on his back with his head on the block, and the executioner was raising the ax. Then came the moment when the blade sliced through its victim’s throat, and it was spell-binding to Jud to see the expressions on the faces in the audience—expressions not merely of horror, but also of perverse joy.

  The last of the set was equally striking. And perhaps more revealing of the emotions of the principals in this tableau than any of the others. In this one the soldiers were carrying the basket off the platform, the executed man’s head visible in it, while his decapitated body lay on the floor, the block drenched with blood from his severed neck. And now the arms of the audience were raised in a salute to the headsman, who was responding with a wave of his hand, as if in triumph.

  Jud glanced at all of the paintings once more, feeling a surge of excitement. He suddenly realized Mulgrave was standing behind him. Jud turned to him.

  “Sorry,” the curator said. “I’d really forgotten all about these. Matter of fact, they probably shouldn’t even be displayed.”

  “Why is that?” Jud had his own ideas, but he was annoyed that Mulgrave had conveniently overlooked their existence. He was curious to know how Mulgrave would explain it.

  “For one thing, they’re ghastly. They’re so—graphic. Quite a horrible portrayal. I certainly don’t think a public execution is suitable subject material to be included in a display of the town’s heritage. Especially in light of what’s happened here recently. I think it might stir up the worst kind of interest. We seem to have enough sensationalism at present.”

  “I agree with that.” Jud gestured toward the pictures. “But how could you just forget about these?”

  Mulgrave was standing with his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his trenchcoat. His nose appeared redder than ever, but the cold probably was also contributing to that. “I suppose because I never thought much about their content. They were just a matched set of paintings that made a nice grouping in here. And anyway, I didn’t choose them; one of the ladies who works on the restoration committee is in charge of that kind of thing. Also I must remind you that we have several thousand items here in the museum. I really can’t keep all of them at the top of my mind, you know.”

  Jud looked at the pictures once more. It was true that they were of good quality; that was apparent at a glance. They appeared to have been done in a combination of ink and water colors. As if they’d first been meticulously drawn and then the color had been added later. The action depicted was like what you’d see in a newspaper or magazine if a photographer had covered the event.

  He glanced at Mulgrave. “I’d like to borrow these, if that’s okay.”

  The curator seemed startled. “Oh, I don’t think we can do anything like that. Even though their content is terrible, I’m sure they’re quite valuable. It would be a tragedy if anything ever happened to them.”

  There’ll be a bigger tragedy, Jud thought, if you don’t stop dicking around. “What are you telling me, Paul—I can’t take them? You gonna force me to get a warrant?”

  “Oh no, no—that won’t be necessary. I take it you think they could help with your investigation.”

  “They might, yes.”

  “Well, then. In that case I’ll agree to your taking them. I assume you’ll handle them with great care and keep them in a safe place. Also I’ll need a receipt.”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  “Let me get something to wrap them in. I’ll be right back.” He left the room.

  Jud took out a ballpoint and his pocket notebook and scribbled out a receipt. When Mulgrave returned, carrying what looked like an old bedsheet, Jud carefully took each painting down and wrapped the set in the cloth. Carrying the bundle, he followed Mulgrave back to the front door.
r />   The visit to this depressing old dump had been worth the effort after all.

  7

  The following day Jud was busy with routine departmental work, spending most of the morning catching up on it. He went through the papers on his desk, then talked at length with Joe Grady. The sergeant filled him in on what Inspector Pearson and Corporal Williger had been up to, which consisted mainly of questioning Marcy Dickens’ classmates. From what Grady told him, Jud gathered that so far the staties had zilch.

  After that he went out for a hamburger, stopping in at the McDonald’s on South Main. He took a copy of the Express with him and read it as he ate. There was another of Sally’s bylined stories in the newspaper, and reading it gave him indigestion worse than anything a Big Mac could produce. The piece contained not one scrap of new information; it was all innuendo and quoted rumor, interspersed with allusions to the headsman legend. Jud stuffed the paper into the garbage receptacle along with the remains of his lunch and left the restaurant.

  He’d driven one of the unmarked cars simply because it was handy, and as he was getting back into it he glanced out at the street and saw Loring Campbell drive by in a gray Buick station wagon, headed south.

  That was odd. One of the things the industrialist was known for was the flashy cars he owned. His red Porsche was the envy of every kid in Braddock, as well as many adults. The station wagon was probably one of Empex Corporation’s company cars. Why was Campbell driving it, and where was he going in the middle of the day? The Empex offices were in the opposite direction, and if he’d wanted to go to the through way he would have been going east.

 

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