Jud felt excited and uneasy at the same time. “Anything else on him?”
“No, that’s it. Jesus, that’s funny.”
He said nothing, but wrote down the number and placed the picture in the box. It was a studio portrait of the man who was now mayor of Braddock, Sam Melcher.
A half hour later they were down to the last few photos in the box. The positive pile now had four pictures in it, the maybes were five. Just as the publisher of the Express had told him, Janet Donovan had had affairs with many men. And as Jud had guessed, some of those men were now among Braddock’s leading citizens.
Ray Maxwell’s admonition also returned to his mind. Jud was charging into a very sensitive area, and it wouldn’t take much for all this to blow up in his face. He’d already gathered enough information this afternoon to cost him his job if he wasn’t careful.
Donovan stretched, giving him a good view of her breasts. Even in the crummy prison dress, he could see that they were ripe and full. She smiled when she saw him watching her, which had to be why she’d stuck her chest out in the first place.
She said, “You know, Jud, it can get awful lonely in this place.”
“Uh-huh.”
She placed her hand over his. “So I have an idea.”
He said nothing. But he didn’t move his hand, either.
“Long as we’re alone and we know it’s gonna be private—” her voice dropped into a still lower register “—why don’t we take advantage of it?” Her tongue moved slowly across her upper lip. “I’ll give you the best head you ever had.”
For one insane moment, he felt himself respond. And then he took his hand away. “Knock it off, Joan.”
Her eyes flashed. “You chickenshit prick.”
He smiled. “I thought we were friends.”
That made her laugh. And just as quickly as the anger had appeared, she slipped back into her seductress role. “Hey, baby, you know it’d be fun.”
“Yeah.” He lifted one of the last photos out of the box and glanced at it, then held it up to her.
She looked at the picture and her expression hardened. “Yeah. That’s a definite.”
In disbelief he turned the photo over and again looked at the man in the shot. When he glanced back at her he saw she was wearing the familiar half-smile, a cynical glint in her eyes.
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. How could I forget a cop?”
Jud studied the photograph of Joseph Grady. He wondered if she was merely being spiteful, getting back at him because he’d turned her down. Or if maybe it was a way of jeering at him, telling him cops were no different from other men when it came right down to it. Maybe it was all of those.
Or maybe she was telling the truth.
“You remember anything else about him?”
She shook her head.
He wrote down the number in his notebook and held up the last photo in the box.
She barely glanced at it. “No.”
He put the stack of photos back in the box and replaced the cover. She stretched again, this time even more suggestively.
But he ignored her movements. “When your mother died—”
“Mm?”
“Were you questioned at the time?”
“Oh, yeah. For about two minutes. Nobody paid much attention to me.”
“Who did the questioning, do you remember that?”
“A cop. I don’t know who he was.”
“But not the same one that had been seeing your mother?”
“No. This guy was old, and he smelled of booze. He talked right in my face and he stank.”
“Where were you when she died?”
“In bed.”
“You were in the house when it happened?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what you remember of it.”
“My father was out. My mother gave me supper and put me to bed early. I guess I went to sleep. The next thing I knew, there was a lot of commotion downstairs. I heard her screaming. Then it was quiet, and I got out of bed and went to the head of the stairs. I was scared, of course, so I kind of peeked down there. I could see somebody moving in the living room. I looked, and … there was my mother’s body laying on the floor, with no head.” She shuddered.
“Did you see anything else?”
“I’ll say I did. I saw this big man, all in black. He turned, and then I saw he was holding her head by the hair. He had an ax in his other hand.”
“Could you see anything more about him?”
“No. There wasn’t much light in the room, and right after that he left the house. I just remember that big black shape. And he was wearing a hood. Later on I heard all those stories about the headsman.”
“What did you do after he was gone?”
“Got back in bed and shivered until my father came home. I was scared out of my mind.”
“And your father called the police?”
“I guess. I heard him yelling, and he came running into my room and he grabbed me and held me. It was about the only time I ever remember him hugging me. He told me to stay in bed, and then in a little while the house was full of cops.”
“When you were questioned, you didn’t tell what you’d seen?”
“No. Christ, no. When the cop talked to me—the boozy one—I just said I was asleep the whole time. I was afraid if I said anything that spook with the ax would come back and get me. I had nightmares about it for years. Once in a while I still do.”
He leaned back in his chair. A moment later her bare foot came up between his legs and brushed his crotch.
He pushed the foot down gently. “You never give up, do you?”
She raised one eyebrow. “Where there’s cock there’s hope.”
He stood up. “You’ve been a lot of help, Joan. I really appreciate it.”
“Just don’t forget our deal.”
“I won’t. I promised to help you, and I will.”
He put away his notebook and picked up the box of photographs and his cap. Then he went to the door and told C.O. Geraldi his visit was over.
Twelve
A GHOSTLY TRAIL
1
KAREN WILSON TWISTED and turned in her bed. Light flashed before her eyes, as startlingly bright as if she were in the midst of a summer thunderstorm. An instant later there was another burst, and then another. In the lightning streaks she saw black boots and a black hood with slanted eyeholes. She saw a man’s hands encased in black gloves. She saw a hulking form moving about in an area that appeared to be surrounded by walls built of stone.
The bursts of light continued, and in their blue-tinged incandescence she saw the hands pick up a wooden block that was worn and stained. The hands set the block down on a low platform, as if placing it into position. Then they lifted a great double-bladed ax and held it up as the eyes within the black hood inspected its razor edges.
The headsman stepped down from the platform and, holding the ax in one hand, went to where the figure of a man lay on the raw earth. He bent down and grasped the man by the arm and then half-dragged him to the platform. The man’s face was contorted by pain and fear, and in the brief moment Karen saw it she realized the man was unfamiliar to her; it was the face of a stranger.
The headsman pushed his victim down onto the platform and rolled him over onto his back, setting his head into place on the block. Then the hooded executioner raised the ax.
There was another burst of light, and the images were suddenly gone.
Karen sat up, gasping.
God. Had this been a dream—a nightmare? Or was it another vision? And if it was, what did it mean? Who was the man the headsman was about to execute? Where was this happening, and when was it taking place?
Her skin crawled as she realized what she had seen. The headsman had been readying the man for a ritual beheading. He’d set the block into position and forced the condemned man down onto it, preparing him to receive that awful ax.
And then, unli
ke what she’d seen the other times, when he’d lopped off the heads of the teenage girl and boy, the images had suddenly stopped. What did that mean?
She jammed her fists against her mouth to keep from crying out again.
The house was small; as she forced herself to be quiet she worried about having disturbed her grandmother, but no sound came from the old lady’s bedroom, which was next to hers. For a moment Karen tried to settle down under the covers, but that was like risking a journey back into that awful set of images that had rocked her mind. Instead she got out of bed and put on a robe, then left her room and went downstairs.
In the kitchen she rummaged around in a cupboard until she found the bottle of brandy her grandmother kept there. For medicinal purposes, the old lady said. But Karen had noticed that the contents dwindled rapidly and then the bottle was replaced by another every couple of days.
She opened it and poured herself a stiff drink. The stuff was like liquid fire. It burned its way down her throat and she choked and her eyes watered, and yet by the time it reached her stomach it became only pleasantly warm. She poured another, and this time it wasn’t nearly as fiery, only soothing. She sat down at the table and again filled her glass, her mind returning inevitably to the terrible impressions she’d seen earlier.
As much as she wanted to deny them, as much as she longed to push the images away from herself, she knew she couldn’t. They were there and they were real.
And face it, she told herself. A big part of this is guilt. You know that thing is out there somewhere, and that he’s going to do the same hideous thing again. He was getting ready for it—you saw him. So you can’t just keep your mouth shut, you can’t. No matter how you feel about staying out of it, no matter how you’ve been used, you can’t just let him kill again without trying to warn somebody.
A further realization suddenly struck her. She hadn’t known where the headsman was in the images, hadn’t been able to identify a place or even understand what kind of location he had been in. But now she understood that those images were exactly like the ones in the old painting the chief of police had shown her. There was the low platform and the block on which the victim’s head would rest as the ax hurtled downward. Even the stone walls seemed the same.
You’ve got to go to Chief MacElroy and tell him what you’ve seen.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t go back into the police station and open up to that man. He’d lied to her, misled her, tricked her. He’d pretended to understand, given her his word she could trust him. And like the fool she was, she’d believed him. She’d told him things she’d never admitted to another human being in her life, and all the while he’d been sneering at her from behind that calm face.
Maybe that was what was so hard to take. He’d seemed so decent. But in the end he’d turned out to be no different from any other deceitful bastard. Not only had he betrayed her, but he’d done it in the worst possible way. He’d given her story to a newspaper reporter—a reporter who just happened to be his girlfriend. Karen could imagine the pair of them, the ruggedly good-looking cop and his pretty girlfriend, lying in bed together and laughing about the weirdo who worked at Boggs Ford. She pulled a tissue from the pocket of her robe and wiped her eyes, then sipped some of the brandy.
So he’d lied to her. And she hated him for it. But did that absolve her of responsibility? Could she just sit by now while someone else’s life was in danger?
And then again, was it? She thought what she’d seen was another vision, but how could she be sure? Wasn’t it possible it actually had been just a nightmare, after all? She’d had plenty of those lately, to the point that she’d begun to worry about her sanity.
And when it came right down to it, how could she be sure of what she’d seen the time before, when she actually had gone to the police chief? She was positive she’d seen the headsman kill that boy, and yet the boy was believed to have run away. The papers and the TV had been full of stories that he’d become the prime suspect in the murder of his girlfriend, and that he’d fled to escape being charged. Police all over the country were looking for him. So there wasn’t a shred of proof that what she’d seen—the struggle between the headsman and the boy, and then the boy’s death—had actually taken place.
Maybe the answer was right in front of her. Maybe she’d been tripping over it all along, just as she had only a minute ago.
Maybe the truth was that she was insane.
She got up from the table and put the brandy bottle back into the cupboard. Then she rinsed out her glass and turned off the lights before going back upstairs to her room.
The air was bitterly cold. She draped her robe over the foot of the bed and shivered as she slipped under the covers and curled herself into a ball. The sheets were like ice. Outside the wind was bending the limbs of the oak tree, the tips of its branches scratching against her window. She closed her eyes, knowing further sleep was impossible, and waited for morning.
2
There were only a few cops in the stationhouse when Jud got back from Westchester. He’d stopped for some food on the way and it was late now and he was tired, but he’d resisted going straight home. He wanted to know what had happened during the day, and he also wanted to sort out what he had been told by Joan Donovan.
Joe Grady was still in the station. He walked into Jud’s office, carrying a mug of coffee. “How was the trip?”
“It was okay. Didn’t learn much, though.”
“You talk to Donovan’s daughter?”
“Yes. But she didn’t remember anything worthwhile. She was only a little kid when her mother was killed.”
“Too bad she couldn’t help.”
“Yeah, I had my hopes up. But I knew it was a long shot, anyway. Say, Joe?”
“Yes?”
“You check out that spill on the floor of the Harpers’ barn?”
“Oh, yeah. Nothing but oil.”
“You sure?”
“Uh-huh. I even pried up one of the floorboards and looked underneath. Just some crankcase oil, and most of it seeped away.”
“I see. Anything else doing here?”
“The usual shit. Nothing out of the ordinary. I was about to leave.”
“Go ahead, then. I’m going to cut out myself in a few minutes.”
“Okay. See you in the morning.”
After Grady had gone, Jud closed the door and locked it. Then he sat down at his desk and got out the photographs. He looked at each of them carefully, examining the definites first and after that going through the maybes. As he did, the warning Ray Maxwell had given him seemed more apt than ever. In his efforts to break this case Jud had already turned over too many rocks in Brad-dock. Now he was about to flip over some more.
Spread out on the desk in front of him were photographs of the town’s mayor and a police sergeant who had more years in service than anyone else on the force. Also a number of Braddock’s best-known citizens, including Bill Swanson, the man many believed would be the next mayor, and Loring Campbell, president of the town’s leading manufacturing company. Ed Dickens was there, father of the slain Marcy, and so was Peter Harper, whose son was now missing.
There was also the shot of the teacher, Frank Hathaway. Joan Donovan hadn’t identified him, even when Jud had urged her to take a second look. He put that one aside to remind himself to call Washington and check the man’s record with Armed Services Records and Identification.
He looked at the array of photos. Had one of these men murdered Janet Donovan? Or was all this just a hell of a reach? The only thing he knew for sure about their relationship to the victim was that they’d been screwing her. That is, he thought he knew it for sure. And even if it were true, he couldn’t equate an illicit affair with murder.
For that matter, he couldn’t even be sure Joan Donovan’s identification of these men had been legitimate. She might have been running a game on him, which would make this collection of photographs just so much bullshit. He certainly wouldn’t put it past her
to tell him anything she thought would get him to work on the parole board in her behalf.
Except that there was one man here she’d proven she knew. There was no way she could have made up the Uncle Sam story on Melcher.
Jud sat back in his chair and let his gaze run over the photos. So maybe there was something here after all. Maybe one of them was indeed a picture of Janet Donovan’s murderer. And maybe Marcy Dickens’ as well. And Buddy Harper’s, if in fact he was dead. Checking them out would be a dance on eggshells.
He looked at his watch and thought about calling Sally, then decided against it. All he wanted tonight was a beer or two, and then a long sleep. Maybe a little guitar before he went to bed. He put the photos back into the box, then unlocked the closet behind him. He set the box on a shelf inside, closed the door and relocked it.
It had been a long day, even longer than usual. He turned out the lights as he left the room.
Passing the office the state police detectives were using, he was surprised to see them still there. On impulse he stuck his head inside. “You guys ever go home?”
Pearson looked up from the desk. His appearance wasn’t nearly as dapper as usual; his shirtsleeves were rolled up and his collar was unbuttoned, his tie pulled down. An empty paper coffee container sat in front of him and alongside that was an ashtray full of butts. “Hello, Chief. Missed you today.”
He knew it was the inspector’s indirect way of inquiring as to what Jud had been doing. “I was busy running around on routine stuff. We’ve had quite a few accidents lately.”
“Same problem our troopers have in the wintertime,” Pearson said. “People love to bash up their cars on icy roads.”
“How’s it going?”
Pearson picked up a pack of Marlboros and extended it. Jud shook his head and the detective put a cigarette into his mouth and lit it. “We don’t have our boy yet, but we will before long.”
“You get a break?”
It was obvious that Pearson was being deliberately casual. “Sure did. A kid answering Harper’s description was spotted in Texas. Small town near the Mexican border. He was driving an old pickup truck with Pennsylvania plates. Police are combing the area for him now.”
The Headsman Page 29