The Headsman (19 page)

“Where were you when you were hit?”

“Mo Due. I was a platoon leader and we were on a reconnaissance patrol. A mortar round landed near me.”

“Rough.”

“Actually I was lucky. Could easily have been killed, of course. As it was, my spinal column was permanently damaged, but—” he patted the arms of the wheelchair “—I can still get around quite well.”

“So I see.”

“Were you in the service, Chief?”

“MPs, but on the other side of the world. Two years in Frankfurt.”

“So you got to see some of Europe.”

“Yes. I did all the traveling I could. France, Italy, Switzerland. It was a good deal.”

“I’m sure it was.”

There was a barely restrained bitterness about this guy, Jud decided. Which was understandable. From the waist down he was nothing but bone and shriveled tissue. He couldn’t walk, couldn’t cross his legs, couldn’t even feel it when he wiped his ass. And worst of all, he couldn’t screw. Who wouldn’t be bitter? Especially when so many Americans had regarded Vietnam soldiers as criminals, had shunned even the ones like Hathaway who’d come out of it shattered in mind or body or both.

The teacher’s eyes were fixed on him. “Must be quite a contrast, living in Braddock after seeing some of the more sophisticated parts of the world.”

“It has its compensations,” Jud said. “Police work here is a lot better than in some other places.”

“I can imagine.”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t want to have to deal with what the cops run into in New York or Detroit, places like that.”

“No.”

He’s anxious to get rid of me, Jud thought. Trying to seem casual but wishing I’d get the hell out of here. And he never mentioned the one thing I know his class was talking about on Friday. “In school the other morning?”

“Yes?”

“Did the subject of the headsman come up?”

Hathaway’s eyes seemed to narrow for a fraction of a second. “The headsman? Oh, you mean the local legend.” He smiled. “Braddock’s favorite ghost story. I think it may have. We were discussing ‘The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow.’ That’s by Washington Irving. There are some parallels between the two.”

“I’m familiar with Irving’s work,” Jud said dryly. Having this guy talk down to him was beginning to get on his nerves. “Did you think back to talking about it in class when you heard about Marcy’s death?”

“I suppose I did. Actually I was too stunned by her murder to dwell on any connection. And then again, the headsman business is nothing to take very seriously, is it? I imagine every town has one or two ghosts in its closet. People love to invent variations on the bogeyman. It’s almost a tradition in any society. And a lot of the stories have become classics. Not just Irving’s, but many others. ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin,’ ‘Frankenstein’—they’re all variations on the same theme.”

“Uh-huh. What was said in your class on Friday about the headsman—was there a lot of interest?”

The small smile reappeared at the corners of Hathaway’s mouth. “As I told you, Chief, there isn’t really a lot of interest in any of the class discussions at Braddock High. I think my students were more concerned with the basketball game that night and the dance that was to follow it.”

“So no one said much about it—about the headsman?”

“No. Just some scoffing by the boys.”

“Which boys?”

“I don’t even recall.”

“I see. Well, I won’t take any more of your time. Thanks for seeing me.”

“It was a pleasure, Chief. If there’s any way I can help you, be sure to call on me.”

“Fine, I may do that.” He stood up. “Don’t bother about seeing me out.” Jud collected his jacket and cap and put them on, then shook Hathaway’s hand. The man’s grip was firm and dry, and this time Jud thought he detected callouses. He turned and left the apartment.

On the way back to police headquarters he made a mental note to contact army records. That was another thing he’d learned about this job: it paid to check out details. And there was something about Hathaway that just didn’t feel right. Jud didn’t know what it was exactly. But there was something. Taking a closer look was one more thing he’d add to his list.

8

Frank Hathaway sat motionless for a long time after the police chief had gone. How many times in his life had he encountered such people—officials in organizations ranging from the army to Braddock’s town government, who took themselves and their silly little positions so seriously? Even the uniform MacElroy wore was reminiscent of comic opera, with its visored cap and its epaulet-shouldered blouse and fancy gold badge.

And the pistol, heavy and ominous in its black leather holster, probably a .357 Magnum at least, as if the larger the caliber the more important the man who carried it. But what would happen if the chief were to come up against a really powerful foe? With all his confidence and his cocksure faith in himself and his enormous gun, what would he do if he were actually face to face with the headsman?

Would his reaction be the slightest bit different from that of one of those idiot high school students? How contemptible that the man could go huffing and puffing as he conducted his bumbling investigation, when if he ever were to bring it to a successful conclusion, he’d probably die of fright. Weren’t they so much alike, Chief of Police MacElroy and that oafish Swanson boy?

Swanson had been so obvious. He’d spewed out his infantile expressions of courage not because he didn’t fear the headsman, but because he believed he’d never confront the monster, and therefore could show contempt for him. He could display bravery for the benefit of his cronies and those little pussies who sat in the classroom and crossed their legs and squirmed.

The girls were the worst. They teased Hathaway with impunity, believing that even though he looked like a man and spoke like one he was a non-threatening cipher. Fools, all of them. Vain, pitiful fools.

Hathaway glanced at the window. It was growing dark outside; the long winter twilight was fading. He touched the controls on his chair and propelled himself to a wall switch, flicking on the lamps in the room. From there he rolled to the bank of windows and closed the blinds. He was hungry, but he wouldn’t bother to fix dinner until he’d relaxed and enjoyed himself for a time.

From a cupboard in the kitchen he got out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red and poured himself a stiff drink over ice. He went back into the living room and opened the cabinet on which the TV stood.

There were a number of video cassettes in the cabinet. He rummaged among them until he’d made a selection, finally settling on a special favorite. He turned on the TV and the VCR and shoved the cassette into the machine. In a moment an image loomed onto the screen, a scene showing the tanned bodies of nubile girls surrounding a young man. The girls were all young and beautiful. They caressed the young man’s naked flesh and teased him and stroked him and then began a series of acts that inflamed Hathaway to watch. He sipped whiskey and sat back in the chair, his eyes riveted to the screen.

Six

A SIXTH SENSE

1

O
LSON’S
D
INER WAS
on Water Street, a block south of Boggs Ford. When Jud walked in at midmorning he saw people he knew, a couple of hardhats and some farm workers. He nodded to them and exchanged a word or two before sitting down on a stool and asking for a cup of coffee.

The waitress was fat and jovial and even though she was busy she fussed over him a little, asking how he was feeling and how things were going as she placed a cup before him. It was warm in here and the windows were steamed over. He unzipped his jacket and pushed his cap back on his head as he sipped the coffee.

The young woman came in a few minutes later. Jud guessed who she was from the look of uncertainty on her face and the hesitant way she approached him. He was sure he’d never seen her before.

“Chief MacElroy?” Her voice was low-pitched and pleasant.

“Yeah, hi. You must be Karen Wilson. Sit down.” He indicated the stool next to his.

She took it, unbuttoning her gray cloth coat.

It was strange that he didn’t recognize her, for two reasons. One, he thought he was familiar with just about everybody in Braddock, at least by sight. Two, she was pretty. And there weren’t that many young women in this town who looked that good. She had long, dark brown hair with reddish glints, a true chestnut color, and green eyes set far apart. Her chin was on the squarish side and she carried it at an angle that suggested stubbornness or pride or maybe both. She also had a good body, from what he could see of it under the coat.

The waitress came by and she ordered coffee.

“I don’t think we’ve ever met,” Jud said.

Her expression was guarded. “No, we haven’t.”

“You from around here originally?”

“No. I grew up in Pennsylvania.”

“Oh? Whereabouts?”

“Shippensburg. What did you want to see me about?”

Okay, so she was a little uptight at being invited to have coffee with the chief of police. Jud had suggested it to make their meeting easier on her, figuring that to an observer it would seem casual, that they’d simply run into each other by accident. He hadn’t wanted to call her in to the station or visit her at her job; that would have made it too big a deal, when all he really wanted to do was to thank her and to satisfy his curiosity. So he’d called and asked her to meet him here.

He tried to reassure her. “I just wanted you to know I appreciate your help in finding the Mariski boy.”

To his surprise, that only seemed to make her more tense. “I really wasn’t much help at all.”

The waitress returned and set a cup of coffee on the counter in front of the young woman. There were two little plastic containers of cream on the saucer. Karen set them aside.

“It meant a lot to the parents,” Jud said. “It was terrible for them to lose their son, of course, but at least they were able to know the truth.”

She didn’t look at him, but kept her eyes on the cup of steaming coffee. She touched it with both hands, not raising it from the saucer. It seemed to Jud her fingers were trembling slightly.

“You don’t mind my asking,” he went on, “I’d like to know how you realized where he was.”

She didn’t respond, and for a moment he wasn’t sure she’d understood him. But then she replied, her voice so low he could barely hear her over the babble of conversation in the diner. “I just guessed.”

“You guessed?”

Her lips compressed, and she bobbed her head.

“You mean that all the places he could have gone, all the things that could have happened to him, you just guessed he’d drowned in a pond a couple miles from his house? A pond his family says they never knew him to go near?”

She looked up then, fixing him with a defiant stare. “Kids often go places they shouldn’t, and they like to fool around on the ice. It seemed to me the pond would be a good bet.”

Jud sipped his coffee. It was his third cup of the morning, but it tasted good to him, better than the stuff the cops brewed in the locker room at the stationhouse. Oddly, everything Karen Wilson had said thus far had done more to pique his curiosity than to satisfy it.

He put the cup down and returned her gaze. “How did you happen to pick Kretchmer’s as the place to look? There are plenty of other ponds and lakes around here.”

Tiny pinpoints of anger flared in the green eyes. “Why—did I do anything wrong?”

He spoke quietly. “Hey, of course not. I told you, everyone is grateful for your help. I’m just curious. Philip Mariski said you didn’t even know where Kretchmer’s was—he had to tell you how to get there. But he said you were certain that’s where they’d find his son.”

“And I told you it was just a hunch. I wasn’t certain at all. I—just thought it was a possibility …” Her voice trailed off.

The air in the diner suddenly felt even warmer. It was obvious now that she was hiding something, and Jud thought he understood what it was. “You knew, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“I said you knew. You knew just where to look. Isn’t that true?”

Color rose in her cheeks, and for a second or two he thought she might snap at him or even get up and walk out. But he could see that instead she was struggling to regain control of herself. He turned his face away, wanting to give her a chance to calm down.

The waitress moved along the counter and stopped opposite him. She smiled. “Get you anything else?”

“No thanks. All set just now.”

“You need anything, just yell.” She stepped away.

“I’m sorry,” Karen Wilson said.

Jud glanced at her. “No problem. Sorry I upset you.”

“It’s—hard to explain.”

“I’m sure it is. But I’d like you to try.”

She picked up her cup. This time Jud was sure of it, her hands were trembling. It looked as if she might spill the coffee, but again he saw her force herself to regain her poise. Her hands steadied, and she drank from the cup as if she was proving to herself she could do it. She carefully returned the cup to the saucer.

He tried again, gently. “But you did know, didn’t you?”

This time her reply held none of its earlier truculence. “I told you the truth. I didn’t know. I had a feeling. An impression. And that’s all I had.”

“An impression. Was that like a dream or some kind of a picture in your mind?”

The green eyes narrowed. “What makes you think that—that I saw a picture in my mind?”

“Look, Miss Wilson. Karen. Okay if I call you Karen?”

“Yes.”

“From time to time, people claim they have the ability to see things, to know them in a kind of—extrasensory way. Sometimes they call it a sixth sense. Sometimes they say it’s just a feeling. Other times they say they actually see things in their minds. They see people or places, just as if they were looking at photographs. I think you know that, don’t you?”

“I—yes. I know it.”

“Is that what happens to you?”

“You think that’s how I came to believe the Mariski boy had drowned?”

“It’s possible, isn’t it?”

Her features continued to register suspicion. “What do you know about that kind of thing?”

“Not much. What little I do know comes from my experience as a police officer. Not that I’ve ever personally encountered anybody who had that sense or ability. But I’ve heard of cases where a psychic—” he saw her bristle and quickly corrected himself “—where gifted people sometimes volunteered to help the police.”