The Headsman (17 page)

4

Driving to Braddock High, Jud thought about what Mariski had told him. He’d never heard the woman’s name before, he was reasonably certain. And with the emotional state Mariski was in, Jud couldn’t be sure that what he’d said about the woman’s visit to his house was accurate. But he’d check it out when he had time. He parked his cruiser in front of the school and approached the building.

As he made his way up the walk he thought about his own schooldays. He’d gone to Norwich High, not so many miles from here, in a town even smaller than Braddock. At that time he was sure he’d either become a guitar player or a professional athlete. The idea that he’d wind up as a cop, let alone chief of a small-town police department, had never occurred to him.

But then he’d learned the hard way that he’d never be able to hit a curveball at a level above Class C, and that put an end to seeing himself as another Mike Schmidt. And his work with the guitar had gone no further than playing with a few pickup groups. The most he’d ever made in one night was twenty dollars in a bar, trying to be heard above the loud talk and clinking glasses.

So when he’d gone into the MPs after basic training it was like backing into a career almost without realizing it was happening. As it turned out he had an aptitude for police work, and he liked it. Which was more of an advantage than many young guys had, especially the ones whose lives seemed to just drift along in no particular direction.

While he was in the army his father died of a stroke, and a year after that pneumonia took his mother. His father had been a foreman with a construction company, a big rough guy who drank too much and got nasty when he was loaded, but who was capable of gentleness with Jud’s mother. Maybe he was afraid of her; Jud was never quite sure. The only time the old man had shown much interest in Jud was when he had been playing ball, but even then there hadn’t been a whole lot of communication.

There was one other child in the family, Jud’s older brother Roger, who had gone out to the West Coast and was now an electrical contractor in Oregon. He was married and had a son, but Jud had never seen his sister-in-law or his nephew. He spoke to his brother once a year, in a telephone call on Christmas day.

After his parents died Jud began to take life a little more seriously, at least to the extent of thinking about what he was going to do. He figured as long as he was in police work and enjoying it, he might as well stick with it.

At the time of his discharge from the army he realized he’d need an education. So right after he’d signed on as a rookie in the BPD he enrolled in an adult program at one of the New York State University branches. Even applying his army credits, it had taken seven years of hard work to get a degree through the courses he’d taken on a catch-as-catch-can basis. But when he made chief of the Braddock force it seemed for once he’d really put it all together.

Until the Dickens case had flipped a quiet Saturday morning upside down. Now he had a feeling he could be walking blindfolded through a minefield.

The Braddock High principal was David Baxter. Jud went to him first, out of courtesy. On his way to Baxter’s office the kids he passed in the corridors were wide-eyed at seeing him. There couldn’t be doubts in anyone’s mind why he was there; all anyone in Braddock was talking about was Marcy Dickens’ murder.

Baxter was a little guy with a prissy mouth and beady eyes behind steel-rimmed glasses. He was polite enough, even unctuous, when Jud entered his office. He asked the chief to sit down and offered coffee, which Jud declined.

It was terrible, Baxter said, about the Dickens murder. The students were stunned and grief-stricken, and so was the faculty. The school would be closed tomorrow to show respect for Marcy, so that anyone who wished could attend the funeral. In all his years with the Braddock educational system, he’d never seen a tragedy like this. True, they’d lost students to accidents of various kinds, especially in automobiles. But murder? And especially one as bizarre as this? It was unheard of.

It was also unfortunate that so many people in Braddock believed the headsman legend, he said. That wasn’t at all healthy, in his opinion. No rational person should swallow such an absurd story. But still—it was strange, wasn’t it, that the poor girl had been decapitated? And with an ax, at that. How was the investigation coming along, by the way?

“We’re looking at every possibility,” Jud said. “The reason I’m here today is to get a better understanding of what Marcy was like. I thought it would help to talk to some of her friends.”

Baxter squinted through his glasses. His voice dropped a few levels. “You think one of them might have been responsible?”

“Not necessarily. I’m just getting background information.” Jud was used to people angling for information. “Preliminary fact-gathering, you could call it.”

The principal seemed a little disappointed. “There are so many difficulties with our young people today. Very little discipline at home, you know. That’s the main thing. Parents don’t seem to care what their children do so long as they don’t have to get involved. That’s one reason we have such a drug problem, in my opinion. It’s just about impossible for us to control it. And frankly, Chief, I wish your force would be a bit tougher in that area.”

“We’re doing the best we can,” Jud said. Baxter was like a lot of other people he knew. Ready to point out that drugs were a blight, and just as quick to say that solving the problem was somebody else’s responsibility. “Maybe a better drug education program in the schools would help.”

“Oh, I agree. We’re trying now to get more funding for just that purpose. Both from the federal government and the state. But all politicians do is talk. There’s very little action.”

So here we go round in a circle, Jud thought. It’s still everyone else’s fault. “Getting back to Marcy.”

“Yes?”

“What was she like as a student?”

The principal pursed his lips before answering. “Above average, I would say. Not on the honors list, but close to it. Did her work, got it in on time. I went through her transcript after you called this morning, and also talked with a couple of her teachers. By and large she was doing a good job, academically. Liked history quite a bit, I understand. Her weakness was math.”

Mine too, Jud thought. “How about her personality—what was that like?”

“Sunny and cheerful, most of the time. A willing participant in classroom discussions. Quite articulate, and not afraid to express herself.”

“I understand they were discussing the headsman in her English class on Friday morning.”

Baxter’s jaw dropped. “Really? I wasn’t aware of that. Let’s see, that would have been Mr. Hathaway’s class.”

“Yes.”

“Strange that would have come up. And on that day, of all days.”

“Struck me as odd, too.”

“Although that old story has always been part of the local lore. Perhaps that might explain it.”

“Maybe.”

“Uh, would you mind my asking how you learned that?”

“Some of her friends mentioned it. Seemed to me to be an unusual coincidence.”

“Yes, I should say so. Indeed it was.”

“Anything else you can think of that might be helpful for me to know?”

Baxter thought about it. “I’d take a good hard look at that drug angle, if I were you. No telling what might have been going on there.”

“Uh-huh.” Nothing specific, Jud thought. Just some vague implications. No wonder the students at Braddock High were so contemptuous of this little prick. “I’m sure she had plans for college?”

“Oh, yes. Had applications in at Hamilton, Colgate and Rochester. She was waiting for acceptances to arrive, as a number of our students are at this time of year.” He shook his head. “What a pity.”

“Thanks for your help, Mr. Baxter. I appreciate it.”

“Certainly, Chief. Anything I can do, you be sure to call on me. You said you wanted to speak with some of Marcy’s friends?”

“Yes. Can you tell me where I’d find Pat Campbell? I’m told she and Marcy were close.”

“Of course. Just give me a minute or two.” He swung his chair around to face a PC on the table behind him. He keyed the machine, and true to his word he had the information a few moments later.

He turned back to Jud. “She’s in American History this period.” He looked up at the electric clock on the wall. “It’ll be out shortly. She has physics after that, but we’ll have her excused.”

“Is there a place where we can talk?”

“Absolutely. There’s a small conference room just two doors down. You can use that if you like.”

“Fine,” Jud said. “I’ll wait for her there.”

On the way out of Baxter’s office it occurred to him that the last time he’d had a talk with a high school principal was when he was a student himself. He’d been called in after an argument with another kid that had escalated into exchanged punches. Jud had been nursing a black eye, which was humiliating.

It was funny the way some things stayed with you.

5

Pat Campbell was as Jud remembered her—a knockout. Her blond hair was long and slightly wavy and she looked at him with big blue eyes and he couldn’t help but notice what she did for her sweater. When he did he wished he were seventeen again. There were comfortable chairs in the conference room and she and Jud sat opposite each other. She crossed her legs, and from this perspective she looked even better.

“I’m really sorry about Marcy,” he said, feeling awkward.

The blue eyes immediately filled with tears. “It’s horrible.” Her voice was very small. “We were friends since first grade. I can’t believe this happened.”

“Sure. I know how you feel, believe me I do. And I’m sorry to have to ask these questions, but it’s important, okay?”

She took a tissue from the pocket of her skirt and wiped her eyes. “Yes, okay.”

“You say you and Marcy were friends for a long time. Did you see much of each other outside of school?”

“Oh, yeah. Sometimes we studied together, and a lot of times we’d stay over at each other’s house.”

He wanted to help her relax, get her talking. “I guess she had a pretty good sense of humor, from what I hear.”

“Marcy? She could be a riot when she wanted to. You’d be with her five minutes and she’d have you laughing. That’s why everybody liked her so much. One of the reasons, anyway. She was really a nice person all around.”

“Did you double-date much?”

“Oh, sure. She was going with Buddy Harper. I guess you knew that?”

“Yes, I’ve spoken with Buddy.”

“And we used to go out together once in a while.”

“How did they get along, would you say?”

“Fine. They were real close.”

“They ever fight?”

“Fight? Oh, I guess so. I mean, they’d have their squabbles now and then, but nothing serious.”

“You’re dating Jeff Peterson, right?”

“Yes.”

“I understand you and Jeff were with them at the dance Friday night?”

“We sat at the same table.”

“When you were together, did the subject of the headsman ever come up?”

“Yeah, it did. See, we had a discussion about it in English class that morning. The teacher—Mr. Hathaway—brought it up. We were studying Washington Irving and he talked about how Brad-dock had its own legend.”

“Did Marcy participate in that?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact she did. I don’t remember what she said, though. A lot of people talked about it.”

“And then you got into it again at the dance?”

“Yes. We were making jokes about it.”

“What kind of jokes?”

“Oh, like kidding around about how somebody ought to go over to Billy Swanson’s house with a hood on and scare him.”

“Why Billy Swanson?”

“Because in the class that morning he was saying he didn’t believe the headsman story. I think he made Mr. Hathaway mad. Hathaway was like cool about it, but you could tell he was pi—I mean, you could tell he was angry.”

“I see. You and Marcy used to confide in each other, didn’t you?”

“Sure, all the time.”

“She ever tell you she was worried about anything, or that anything was bothering her? Anything important?”

She was quiet for a moment. Then, “This is confidential, right?”

“Of course. Anything you tell me is.”

“I think—she had problems with her father.”

“What kind of problems?”

“Well, like, he drank a lot.”

“Yes?”

“And sometimes when he did, I guess he was pretty mean to her.”

“Mean to her how? Did he ever hit her?”

“Sometimes she—hinted at it. I don’t know for sure, but I think sometimes when he was drunk, he might have.”

“That’s pretty serious.”

“I know it is. But she never would have said anything, if there wasn’t something going on.”

“She never really came right out with it?”

“She was ashamed. I knew that. But at the same time, she needed to tell somebody. Even though she wasn’t all that specific, I knew what she was getting at.”

So it was possible Marcy had been abused by her father. Who was one of Braddock’s most respected citizens. And there was no way of proving it. In fact, even this kid who was telling him about it couldn’t swear it was true. And yet if it were, wouldn’t that make Ed Dickens—

Jud told himself to go slow, to think it through. “Any other problems you know about, with anybody else?”

“I don’t think so.”

“She ever worry about getting pregnant?”

Pat colored slightly. “That’s awfully … personal.”

“I know it is.”

She looked at the floor.

“Listen, Pat. I told you, anything you say will be kept confidential. All I’m trying to do is find out who killed her. You want to help with that, don’t you?”

Her gaze met his. “Yes, of course I do.”

“Then what about it—did she ever worry about that?”

“She did, you know, at first. But then she went on the pill and it was okay.”

“When was that?”

“Last year.”

“When she was going with Ron Carpenter?”

She seemed startled. “How did you know about that?”

“I know about a lot of things. It’s part of my job. Who else was there besides Carpenter and Buddy?”