The Headsman

by James Neal Harvey

  And the images were suddenly gone once more.

  Oh my God, I’ve seen that building. And that’s where he is. That’s where the stone dungeon is. The headsman is there. And the woman is there, the one he’s going to behead. Oh my God.

  It was torture to admit the images into her consciousness. She pressed both hands to her temples and cried aloud from the pain. She couldn’t endure much more of this—she’d pass out again, or go crazy, or … kill herself.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d thought of suicide. Many were the nights she’d curled up in her bed, telling herself that death would be the only release from the prison she was locked in, that dying would be the only way to escape the awful scenes that burned into her brain, forcing her to see things that she hated to look at, to know things she was appalled to learn. Maybe tonight she’d take the step at last.

  She’d even thought about how she’d do it. She’d get into a hot bath, and open the arteries in her wrists with a razor blade. And then, warm and relaxed in the fragrant suds, she’d simply become drowsy and slip into sleep. As the blood left her body, her miserable life would drain away as well.

  She shook her head.

  Stop it, you selfish fool. There are other people in the world besides you, and they could be suffering at the hands of that murderer. The woman you saw is in terrible danger, and you can help. So do it. Do it now, Karen, damn you.

  She suddenly realized the office area and the showroom were dark. And the screen of her computer was blank. The electric power must have failed. In the darkness she reached for the telephone on her desk, and to her relief found it was still working. She dialed 911.

  Waiting for an answer was maddening, as the instrument seemed to ring forever. She tugged at her blouse with her free hand, feeling she was about to explode. This was the number you were supposed to call in an emergency, for God’s sake, and there was nobody there. No wonder she felt she was going crazy.

  And then a voice said, “Police headquarters, Officer Stanis.”

  Her own voice sounded strange to her, as if it belonged to someone else. “I want to speak to Chief MacElroy.”

  “Who is this calling?”

  “I … my name is Karen Wilson.”

  “Yes, ma’am. What’s the problem?”

  God, couldn’t he understand English? “I said I want to speak with—”

  “Chief MacElroy is not available right now.”

  The voice had that superior male intonation she found so infuriating. But then intuition told her where MacElroy would be. “Is he at the Boggs house?”

  There was a pause, and when the voice spoke again it was full of awe. “How’d you know that?”

  So she had her answer.

  “Ma’am? What did you say your name—”

  She hung up.

  No matter that fear was choking her, no matter that she wanted desperately to go home and if nothing else find oblivion in a bottle of brandy. And no matter that further involvement was horrifying to contemplate. She had to find the police chief and tell him what she’d seen.

  She pulled on her boots and her overcoat, then tied a scarf around her head. With the electricity out she couldn’t see much beyond the expanse of windows in the showroom. But she could hear the storm lashing against the glass, and could feel the building shuddering from the icy blasts of wind.

  She was about to go out the door when realization struck her that the Escort would be worse than useless in these conditions.

  But at least Boggs Ford offered alternatives. She stepped back to Ed McCarthy’s desk, opened a drawer and picked through the tangle of keys. A tag on one of them said it was for a Ranger pickup. Good. That was a machine that could move along snowy roads.

  She left the showroom, struggling through the drifts and hunched over against the relentless wind gusts until she reached the truck. She unlocked it and climbed up into the cab. It was a relief to have the engine start immediately and to see the strong white beams when she turned on the headlights.

  She backed out of the parking space and turned into the street. If only she wasn’t too late …

  6

  Before Jud had gone fifty feet he knew he wouldn’t make it. Snowtires, chains, limited-slip differential—the whole rig was worthless in a storm like this. That stuff was made for driving in snow, and this was a balls-out blizzard. He went up the rise on the road leading back toward the village and was lucky to reach the top. On the way down the other side his ass-end slewed around, and for a moment he thought he’d end up in the ditch on the side of the road.

  But somehow he managed to keep going.

  The visibility was terrible, especially with the glare of his lights reflecting from the flakes back into his face, and the snow was so deep it was hard to figure out just where the road was.

  There was a curve ahead of him, and he negotiated it with care, his headlights picking up a large mound just off to his right. When he got closer he realized it was his wounded Blazer, lying on its side in a snowbank and covered with a blanket of white. He slowed almost to a stop as he passed it, peering at the crippled machine. There was no question that he’d been deliberately rammed by someone who intended to kill him. He’d been damn lucky.

  Lights came toward him out of the storm, startling him. But at least this time he had advance warning. He kept one hand on the steering wheel while with his other he pulled his service revolver out of its holster. He couldn’t see the other vehicle, but he was aware that its headlights were mounted higher than those of the average car. Maybe the bastard was back, looking to finish him off. He thumbed back the hammer of the Smith and took his driving hand off the wheel long enough to roll his window down.

  But the other vehicle continued toward him at a slow, steady pace, and as it drew near it kept to its own side of the road. It was a truck, he saw—a Ford pickup. He snapped on the cruiser’s spotlight and trained its beam on the cab of the truck. To his surprise, he saw that a woman was behind the wheel.

  Christ—it was Karen Wilson.

  She held up one hand in an apparent effort to shield her eyes from the fierce beam of the spotlight, and the truck came to a stop. He pulled up alongside and called to her. “Karen? It’s me—Jud MacElroy.” He shoved the pistol back into its holster and turned off the spotlight.

  Her voice sounded frantic and relieved at the same time. “I’ve been trying to find you!”

  He shoved the Plymouth’s shift lever into park and got out of the vehicle, trudging through the heavy snow to the pickup. “What is it?”

  She was gasping for air as she spoke, the words tumbling out of her. “The headsman. I know where he is. I saw him. He killed that boy and took his head.”

  Jud felt a chill that was colder than the icy wind. There was only one way she could have known what had happened to Billy Swanson. Once again she was proving to him her ability to envision events.

  She waved her hands. “That’s not all. There’s more.”

  “Wait a minute.” He opened the door on the driver’s side of the truck, and she slid over to make room for him as he climbed up into the cab. After he shut the door he got a good look at her in the reflection from the truck’s headlights. Her face was tear-streaked, her eyes wide and frightened. “There’s more? What else did you see?”

  “Your friend, the reporter. Sally Benson. He’s going to kill her.”

  He felt a second jolt—this time, of fear. “Where is she? Where’s the headsman?”

  “In the dungeon. That’s where he carries out executions. He’s there now.”

  “He’s where now?”

  “In that old building. The museum. And she’s there too.”

  Good God. Jud put the Ford in gear and backed it up a few feet to give him more room to turn around. It took several minutes of inching forward and backing up to get the truck pointed in the direction it had come from, back toward the road that would take him to the museum. If there was one thing he couldn’t risk, it was getting stuck now.
/>   Eighteen

  ROGUES’ GALLERY

  1

  WHEN THEY ARRIVED at the old building, Jud could have kicked himself for his stupidity. In his haste to get here he hadn’t thought to bring any kind of tool he could use to force his way into the place. There would have been a crowbar in the trunk of the patrol car as part of the standard equipment all BPD cruisers carried. A lot of good that would do him now. At least he had the flashlight.

  He led the way from the truck to the front entrance, breaking a path through the snow, Karen following. Playing the flashlight beam across the facade, he noted there were no bars on the windows. If he had to he’d shatter a pane of glass and go in that way, although he certainly would prefer to enter silently if he could.

  But when he reached the entrance, he was surprised to find the door unlocked. He opened it and they stepped inside, and then Jud carefully closed the heavy door behind them. It was cold in here, and eerily quiet, the only sounds coming from the moaning wind and the creak of timbers as the storm lashed and battered the ancient structure. There was also the peculiar smell he remembered from the last time he was here, a faint odor of rotting wood and decaying flesh, as if an animal had died in some remote part of the building.

  He whispered, “You said you saw a dungeon?”

  “Yes. It must be in the cellar somewhere. There were stone walls, and it was lit by torchlight.”

  “Is that where Sally was when you saw her with the headsman?”

  She nodded, holding her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide.

  “Come on, and stay close to me.” He had no idea which direction to go in, aware only that he was looking for a stairway down. He wandered through the narrow halls, picking his way with the small beam of the flashlight, opening doors and finding the rooms empty, trying not to lose his bearings. In a matter of minutes he wasn’t at all sure where he was. The goddamn place was like a maze.

  Karen tugged at his sleeve.

  “What is it?”

  “I think that way.” She pointed.

  He wasn’t about to ask her why; if she felt that was the way to go, he’d take her word for it. They moved along the passageway, and Jud found himself looking at a doorway that seemed vaguely familiar. He opened the door; there was the huge old kitchen.

  The room was as he remembered it, with a low, timbered ceiling and a great fireplace that covered most of the far wall. Beside the fireplace was a slim door. The door was ajar. He stepped over to it and swung it open. The flashlight beam revealed a narrow stairway leading down.

  He glanced at Karen, who nodded.

  Jud put his right hand on the butt of his service revolver, its scored wooden grip hard and reassuring to his touch. Holding the flashlight ahead of him and moving very cautiously, he started down the stairs, Karen following.

  2

  The passageway down here was even narrower than the ones above. The walls were of stone, and the passage jogged and turned at odd angles. The ceiling was supported by handcut beams, and in places it was so low Jud had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the timbers. Again he was aware of the odor of rotting flesh and the stink of ancient dirt, the combination faintly acrid to his nostrils. As he stepped slowly along the earthen floor, he tried to keep track of the direction he was moving in, but he couldn’t be sure.

  He kept going, stopping every few feet to listen, hearing nothing but the sounds of the old house. What reached his ears was a faint cracking and creaking, along with the occasional groan of twisting wood, as if the place were speaking to him in a language of its own.

  And then he turned one of the seemingly endless corners in the passageway, and saw a door ahead of him. He opened it carefully, standing to one side with the Smith & Wesson ready, and poked the flashlight inside.

  It was a large open space, and there appeared to be nothing in it but a scattering of crates and an empty barrel. Shelves lined the walls. On some of them jars and bottles were resting. He swept the area with the flashlight, its beam reflecting from the musty glass and the spiderwebs.

  This probably was one of the rooms that had been used to store fruits and vegetables for the winter. He could even guess that the barrel might have been filled with apples at some point in the distant past. He heard a rustling noise, and the yellow cone of light picked out a large gray rat, its eyes glowing red as it scuttled away and disappeared behind the boxes on the floor.

  Jud turned and looked at Karen. In the dim light her face seemed frozen in an expression of dread. With the hand holding the flashlight he touched her arm in an attempt to reassure her, thinking to himself that he probably felt as apprehensive as she did. He backed out of the room and continued to follow the narrow passageway.

  A few feet farther along he came to another door. He opened this one the same way, as cautiously as possible. But what he found was much like the one he’d seen earlier, merely a storage space of some kind, its floor littered with empty crates and moldy cloth and unrecognizable junk.

  He was beginning to think he was chasing shadows. As much reason as he had to trust this young woman with the strange psychic powers and to believe what she’d told him, he was finding nothing here. How much of what she had seen was accurate, and how much of it might simply be the product of her imagination? Or even hallucinations? It was impossible to tell. In the meantime, here he was wandering around in the cellar of this stinking old wreck of a house while a blizzard raged outside.

  And a killer was on the loose.

  He was sure of one thing: Billy Swanson was dead, his head chopped off in exactly the same manner as Marcy Dickens’ had been and Buddy Harper’s as well. And Sally? Was she in danger also, as Karen was so convinced she was?

  Jud couldn’t afford to lose faith now. Karen Wilson had got him this far, and events had proven her correct. A crazy thought flashed through his mind. If he could only find Sally safe he’d grab her and Karen and just get the fuck out of here. He’d take them somewhere that was warm and safe and be grateful they were alive. But first he had to find her.

  Around a bend he came to the end of the passageway. And set in the wall, dead ahead of him, was another door. He stopped, and again gripped the heavy revolver, holding it with barrel pointed upward, his thumb on the hammer. Once more he used the hand holding the flashlight to try the door. It swung open noiselessly.

  This was still another room, smaller and narrower than the others. Three of the walls had been built of stones set in rough mortar. The fourth was covered entirely with crude wooden cabinets. Apparently the space was similar to the others, just one more storage area. He stepped to the nearest cabinet and pulled open the door.

  Inside was a shelf.

  On the shelf was Paul Mulgrave’s head.

  3

  Jud felt revulsion as he looked at the museum curator’s features. The eyes were not merely open; the sockets where they had been were empty.

  He realized the rats must have eaten Mulgrave’s eyes. Jud could see bitemarks on parts of the face as well, in the tissue of the lips and the nostrils. Some of the flesh at the edges of the terrible wound in the neck had also been chewed away.

  He stepped back, taking in what he was seeing and then looking down the wall. Dreading what he would find, he reached for another door and opened it. Resting on the dusty wooden shelf, its facial features contorted in an expression of agony, was the head of Billy Swanson.

  This one was obviously fresh. The blood on the bottom of the neck was still slightly wet, slowly drying to a crusty black smear. The head had to have been placed here only a short time ago. What Karen had told him was the precise truth. It was sickening to look at, knowing how the boy had died, realizing the pain and the fear he must have suffered.

  Jud opened another door. And then another. Inside each was a severed head. Unlike Mulgrave’s or Billy Swanson’s, these were not of people he could recognize. The heads were obviously old, the skin leathery and dessicated, the hair as wispy as cobwebs. The rats had evidently eaten the eyes out
of these as well, and some of the flesh, but beyond that they were relatively intact. Whose heads they were and how long they’d been here he’d probably never know.

  He opened another cabinet and found himself looking at the head of a woman. This one was also very old, but despite its dried-up, mummified appearance, there was something about it he seemed to recognize. She looked like someone he knew—someone he could almost recall. Almost, but not quite. Despite the cold, Jud was sweating. Realization hit him. Jesus—it was Joan Donovan.

  But that was impossible. So who—?

  He got it then. What he was looking at was the head of a Donovan woman, all right. But it wasn’t Joan Donovan’s head. It was her mother’s. This was what was left of Janet Donovan, the body part that had disappeared on that fateful night so many years ago. This was what the little girl had seen the headsman holding in his black-gloved hand after he had beheaded her mother. This was the head that had been missing—and adding to the headsman lore—for all the years since the night of the murder.

  There were still other doors in this macabre wall, many of them. Jud looked at the doors, now knowing full well what lay behind each of them. Here was a black history of Braddock, a bizarre record of crime and punishment. It was as if the town were somehow rooted in the past, as if it had never progressed beyond the ignorant prejudices of the eighteenth century.

  Of these people, some long dead, some who had been alive until only a brief time ago, how many had indeed been guilty of any transgression? How many had in fact committed crimes, and how many had died by the ax simply because the man who wielded it was a wanton murderer?

  And what about Marcy Dickens—why had her head been left at the scene of the murder? Probably because the headsman had intended her execution to be as shocking as possible. He had wanted her head to be discovered.

  Almost idly, Jud reached out and opened one more of the crudely fashioned doors. As well prepared as he thought he was by now for what he would find there, the sight was another blow.