The Headsman

by James Neal Harvey

  Reinholtz picked up his valise.

  “You okay with that?” Jud asked him. “I could get somebody to give you a hand.”

  “My car’s right outside,” the doctor replied. “And anyway, it’s not that heavy.” There was a note of sad irony in his tone. “The human head weighs only twenty-five pounds, you know. I’ll be fine.”

  When Reinholtz had gone, Pearson turned to Jud. Apparently he’d thought it through and had come to the only conclusion possible, although he had to be choking on it. “I’m going to have to make an announcement about this.”

  “Sure. What about the boy’s parents?”

  “Yes. You’d better let them know first.”

  Thanks, Jud thought dryly. But he’d do it. “All right.”

  “And whatever you do, don’t touch the box or the paper until the lab guys get here.”

  “No, of course not.”

  Pearson was eyeing him, the mustache twitching under his fleshy nose. “I want you to tell me something, Chief.”

  “What is it?”

  “Of all people, why were you the one that package was sent to?”

  Jud felt a quick flash of anger. It was a question he’d been wrestling with himself. But he’d be goddamned if he’d share his conjectures with this asshole. He kept his reply calm. “Beats me.”

  “Does it? I’m not so sure about that. I have a feeling you may know a hell of a lot more about this case than you’re letting on. I shouldn’t have to remind you again, but I’m in charge of this investigation. What I expect—what I insist on—is cooperation.”

  Despite his good intentions, Jud felt himself getting hot. “Since when haven’t I—”

  “Look, Chief. You’ve resented me from the minute I walked in here on the Dickens homicide. You hated like hell to have to turn the case over to a professional investigator. Okay, I understood that. This was your territory, and you didn’t want it to look like you couldn’t handle a major crime. But by God, if you’re holding anything back from me—”

  “Yeah? You’ll what, Inspector? Huff and puff and blow my stationhouse down? Now why don’t you do me a favor and get the fuck out of my office?”

  Anger rose in Pearson’s face like a red tide. He clamped his jaw shut and stomped out, slamming the door behind him. As soon as he was gone, Jud crossed to his desk and flipped open the telephone directory. He found the number for Boggs Ford and called it.

  Fourteen

  PILLORIED

  1

  WHEN HE TOLD her who was calling, she clamped up tight. Jud didn’t get it. The last time they’d spoken she’d been so willing to confide in him, despite her anxiety. “Is there something wrong, Karen?”

  “No. Everything’s fine.”

  Everything was fine? Her manner was icy. He decided the publicity on her part in the Mariski case was probably at the root of it. “Look, something’s bothering you, that’s plain enough. If you’ll tell me what it is, maybe I can help.”

  “I don’t want any help. I just want to be left alone.”

  That had to be it. The story in the Express had been precisely what she’d told him she wanted to avoid. When it appeared, it must have seemed to her a plague had been brought down on her head.

  “Karen, I know the attention you got when the Mariski boy was found was troubling to you. I understand that, and I don’t blame you. But there was nothing I could do to suppress it. If I’d been able to stop it, I would have.”

  “Would you?”

  What the hell could she mean by that? “Yes, of course I would. I knew you didn’t want publicity. You made that clear the first time we talked.”

  She didn’t reply.

  He pushed on. “But something else has come up and I need to talk to you about it. In confidence, of course.”

  “Chief MacElroy, I don’t have anything to say, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be any help to you.”

  He was damned if he’d let her back out on him. “Do you remember the things you told me when you came to my office—the things you’d seen that were so disturbing to you?”

  “Yes. But I was mistaken. I just imagined all that. It was nothing more than a bad dream.”

  “No it wasn’t.”

  “It was, I tell you. I was upset and confused, and that’s all there was to it. I’m sorry if I wasted your time as well as my own. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

  “But you didn’t just imagine what you told me, Karen. Those things actually happened. I know they did, because we now have proof.”

  There was a pause. “Proof?”

  “Yes. Something that was missing came to light today. It proved that what you told me was real. It took place just as you said it did.”

  Again she was silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice sounded small and strained. “It must have been a coincidence.”

  “You know better than that. Your description was accurate. That’s why it’s important that we get together and talk.”

  “I can’t see that it would serve any purpose.”

  “Let me be the judge of that. Karen, it could mean saving someone’s life.”

  This time she was quiet for an even longer time. He could hear her breathing, as if she was under great stress. Finally she said, “No. No. Do you understand me? Don’t call me again.”

  Before she could hang up, he said, “If I have to, I’ll come over there.”

  “Oh, God—please don’t do that. I’ll—”

  “All I want is to talk with you for a few minutes.”

  She hesitated. “But not here.”

  “All right, where then? Shall we have coffee?”

  “No. I don’t want to be seen with you.”

  He could understand that as well. “I’ll pick you up in my car, and we can talk there.”

  “In a police car?”

  “It’s unmarked. A blue Plymouth.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll be there in forty-five minutes. I’ll stop just down the street from you.”

  Before she could change her mind he hung up. He rose from his desk and took his cap and jacket off the hook, putting them on as he left the office.

  There was something else he had to do before meeting Karen Wilson, and he dreaded it.

  2

  Harper’s Drug was one of the more expansive retail operations in Braddock. It wasn’t as large as Sears or the Grand Union, but it was by far the biggest operation of its kind in the town. Originally a prescription drug outlet, it had first added stocks of patent medicines and then later a soda fountain under the aegis of its founder, Buddy Harper’s grandfather. Nowadays it sold everything from books and stationery to candy and toys. You could buy T-shirts and eyeglasses and lightbulbs and cameras and a thousand other items that had nothing remotely to do with prescription drugs, although that department still nourished. The soda fountain had grown into a fast-food restaurant that competed with McDonald’s and Burger King.

  When Jud arrived he found Peter Harper standing in one of the aisles, listening to a harangue from a customer, an old woman. She was babbling on about how opposed she was to the municipal bond offer the town council was trying to push through. She said nobody had any respect for money nowadays, and that reckless spending could bankrupt the town and inflation could eat everybody alive and if you wanted proof just look at the price of the merchandise in this store.

  Jud thought she’d never shut up. He stood to one side, watching as Harper listened patiently, as if there was nothing the store owner would rather do than hear this old crow’s complaints.

  When the customer finally finished her diatribe and moved off, Jud stepped closer and Harper noticed him for the first time. When he did, the expression on Jud’s face must have given him away. He didn’t have to say why he was there; Harper seemed to sense the purpose of this unannounced visit. His voice was small. “It’s Buddy, isn’t it?”

  Jud nodded.

  “What happened?”

  Jud told him, the words sticking in his throat.
<
br />   Harper winced, as if the chief had struck him. He put out a hand and grasped a shelf to steady himself, his eyes closed tight.

  It was awkward and terrible and again Jud thought of the Dickenses; it was the same horror all over again. He wished there had been some way to soften it, but he knew from bitter experience the only way to break the news of a family member’s death was to break it. There was no other way. It would cause the kind of pain only the person hearing it could deal with, in whatever way that person could. You had to get it out as gently as possible and let the process begin.

  When Harper opened his eyes, they were glassy and unseeing. But then they fixed on the police chief. His voice grated. “God damn you.”

  Jud had seen this kind of reaction before; it was a lashing out in anger and frustration. “I—”

  “Get away from me, you son of a bitch.”

  Other customers began to notice. A few of them turned to see what was happening between Harper and the chief of police. They would have been curious anyway, but with the thousand rumors about Buddy that had been flying around the town they were virtually panting to find out what was going on.

  “You’d better go home and tell your wife,” Jud said. “I’ll go with you, if you want me to.”

  “Get out.” Harper’s voice was rising, his face reddening. The skin on his balding pate was becoming blotchy. “You hear me? Get out, God damn you.”

  “I’m sorry, Peter,” Jud said quietly. “I really am.”

  He turned and left the store. As he returned to his car he noticed that the sky was the color of lead and the air was very still. He knew what that meant; snow was on the way. The weather service had been predicting a storm. For once they could be right.

  3

  Boggs Ford was apparently busy. When Jud drove slowly past the front of the dealership he could see a number of customers in the showroom. He pulled over to the side of the road about fifty yards farther down and took off his cap to make himself less conspicuous. A glance at his watch told him he was a few minutes early.

  It was eerie, the way Karen had described Buddy’s murder. With cops all over the country on the lookout for the skinny teenager with the long brown hair, she had told Jud exactly what had happened. He pictured the scene in his mind as he had a hundred times before, just as she had described it. He saw the boy working on his car, saw the hooded man with the ax step out of the shadows, saw Buddy fighting for his life—and losing.

  Afterward the killer had carted his victim away. Now the police had the head, but what had been done with the rest of the body? It must have been a bloody mess—bulky, awkward to handle, and yet not hard to hide; it would have been a simple matter to put it somewhere, in the woods maybe. Where was it now?

  A detail suddenly came into focus: the oily residue on the otherwise clean floor of the barn, next to where Buddy had been working on his car. Now Jud realized how the oil had come to be there. It hadn’t spilled but had been poured deliberately to cover the blood. The headsman had dumped the bucket of drain oil onto the floor and then had tossed the bucket aside. Jud had seen it lying near the workbench.

  And Joe Grady had told him there was nothing there but oil.

  The passenger door opened, and Karen Wilson got into the car. Despite the cold, she wore no coat.

  Jud reached across her and shut the door. “Hello, Karen.”

  She wouldn’t look at him. “What did you want to say to me?”

  “I wanted you to know that what you told me about the Harper boy was true.”

  “You said there was proof?”

  “Yes. This morning Buddy’s head was sent to police headquarters.”

  “Oh, my God. How? What—”

  “It was in a box, addressed to me. It had been cut off the same way the Dickens girl’s had been. Just the way you told me.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “Yes.” He knew her emotions had to be churning. “I wanted to say how much I appreciated your coming in and telling me what you’d seen. And I thought you’d want to know that it’s been confirmed now.”

  “Did you let anyone know you were coming over here to see me?”

  “No.”

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  “You can, I give you my word.”

  “For what that’s worth.”

  “I was hoping you’d be willing to give me some further help.”

  Now her eyes met his, and there was defiance in them. “No, I won’t. I can’t help. What I said to you that day was only a coincidence. I had no idea what I was talking about.”

  “You know that’s not true.”

  “I don’t know anything, except that I was wrong. The things I told you were all just out of my imagination.”

  There was no way he could force her to cooperate. The only way he could enlist her help was by appealing to her as one human being to another. “Look, I promise anything you say will be kept in strict confidence.”

  “Is that so? I’m sorry, but I don’t trust you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I don’t want anything more to do with you or your case or the whole subject of what I saw or didn’t see. If you try to involve me I’ll deny everything. I’ll say you were just trying to get me to talk about things that never happened.”

  He felt a sinking sensation. He’d been sure she could help him. Especially now that he was convinced of her visionary powers. “But you know that whoever killed Buddy killed Marcy Dickens as well. The headsman killed them both. And nobody knows what he might do next. Maybe you could help me find him before he goes after someone else. How would you feel if you refused to help and he killed again?”

  She was silent for a moment, and then she burst into tears.

  He felt awkward, regretting that he’d been so rough on her. He reached out to her, but she shoved his hand away.

  “No.” She controlled her sobs with an effort, shuddering as she fought for breath. “I meant what I said. I can’t help you. I just—can’t.”

  “At least think about it. Will you do that?”

  She shook her head and opened the door.

  “Karen—”

  She scrambled out of the car. “Tell it to your girlfriend. But don’t call me again.”

  The door slammed, and she was gone.

  Jud felt like a fool. How could he have been so goddamn blind dumb? She’d learned of his relationship with Sally and had concluded he’d fed her the Mariski story.

  He should have figured that out long ago. And yet he hadn’t. Now how was he to repair the damage? Tell her he was sorry—again? Explain that the reporter who had written the story in the Express was indeed his girlfriend, but that he hadn’t betrayed Karen’s confidences to her?

  Christ, what a mess. No matter which way he looked at it, he was wrong.

  But he was certain of one thing: Buddy’s murder had happened the way Karen Wilson had told him it had. And what she claimed to have seen the night Marcy was killed fit as well. Maybe when she cooled off he could get her to come around. Or at least she might be willing to talk about it more rationally. She could help him, he was sure of it.

  The photographs. If he could show them to her, maybe they would trigger something. Which brought something else to mind. Sally had said Maxwell threw a fit when he learned she’d taken them. Why?

  In the meantime, there was another angle he wanted to check out. Where did you look for a two-hundred-year-old weapon?

  One place was a museum.

  He started the Plymouth’s engine and pulled away. The first flakes of snow had started to fall. They were so fine you could hardly see them coming down, and when they touched the windshield they melted instantly.

  4

  He swung down Main Street and then turned left on Elm, heading for the library. He’d get the keys to the museum from Mulgrave and see what he could find. The curator wouldn’t like the idea of Jud snooping through the moldy old place by himself, but at this point Jud didn’t gi
ve a shit what Mulgrave liked or didn’t like.

  Both Marcy Dickens and the Harper boy had been killed with an ax, and Doc Reinholtz was sure the weapon had been the same one.

  Very sharp, and very heavy.

  And very old? Jesus, could it be?

  The snow was heavier now, the wind whipping the shimmering flakes along the surface of the road, some of them collecting in drifts. The temperature was falling, and there had been warnings that a massive storm could be headed toward Braddock. They were about due; for all his bitching about winter, this one had been relatively mild. Not nearly as severe as last year, or the year before.

  The Plymouth was a clunker. It had a limited-slip differential like the regulation police cruisers, but that wouldn’t mean much if the snow got really deep. At some point he’d switch over to his Blazer. There was a lot he needed to do, and the last thing he wanted to contend with was getting stuck.

  The library looked lonely in the swirling snow, its lights gleaming weakly through the tall windows. Jud parked the car in front of the building and made his way up the walk. The snow was sticking; it would be deeper than his shoetops in another hour or so.

  To his surprise, the door was locked. He knocked on it, but got no response. That the library had closed with a storm coming was understandable, but why had the lights been left on?

  He knocked again, pounding on the door with his fist.

  Nothing.

  Somebody had to be here. He raised his hand to strike the door once more when he heard the lock being turned from inside. The door opened a crack and one of the librarians squinted out at him.

  Jud touched a finger to his cap. “Afternoon, ma’am.”

  This was the ancient one who’d been at the desk the last time he was here. The expression on her thin features was no warmer than the outside air. “Library’s closed,” she sniffed. “Come back tomorrow, if the roads are plowed by then.”

  She pushed on the door, but before she could shut it Jud wedged it open with his foot. “This is official police business,” he said.