The Headsman (28 page)

Jud waited for her to continue.

“Over these past few days I felt so … torn. I had nothing to base it on, really. Except these crazy experiences I’ve had. That’s why I decided I wouldn’t tell anybody.”

“What changed your mind?”

Her eyes locked on his. “I saw him again.”

For the second time, Jud felt an involuntary contraction of the muscles in his gut. “When?”

“Last night.”

“What did you see?”

“I saw the headsman fighting with a young man. They were sort of wrestling, and the headsman had him by the throat. The young man tried to hit him with something shiny. A metal tool, or something.”

Holy shit
—
the wrench
.

“What did the young man look like?”

“He was slim, and he had long brown hair. There was loud rock music playing.”

Now it was Jud’s turn to conjure up a mental picture, and what he saw was Buddy, his hair flopping down over his forehead. “Go on.”

“Then the headsman threw the boy down and—and—” She bent over, struggling to hold back tears.

“What happened then?”

“He kicked him. And then he—chopped him with the ax. There was all this blood. It was awful.”

“What then?”

She shook her head. “That was all. I’ve been going out of my mind. I haven’t been able to sleep or eat and I have this terrible headache. I keep feeling I’m going to be sick.”

“Listen, won’t you let me get you—”

“No. Thank you. All I want you to do is believe me and not let the news people get hold of me. I couldn’t stand that. See, I know how crazy all this is. That’s why it was so hard for me to tell somebody. But I kept thinking maybe I could help. Maybe I could help stop him from doing it again. But I know what would happen if what I’ve told you got out.”

“It’s okay. I won’t let anybody know.”

For a lot of reasons
.

For one, if she really could help, he wouldn’t want her to be ripped apart by the press and by the cops as well. God only knew what Pearson would do with something like this. And who was to say anybody would believe her anyway? More than likely she’d be labeled a nut, just as she feared.

But if she could use this thing she had, this
vision
, to help him, then he had to protect her. To say nothing of another angle that suddenly occurred to him: if it became public knowledge that Braddock’s chief of police was relying on a psychic, or whatever she was, he’d look like a buffoon.

He sat back in his chair. “I’m glad you came in, Karen. It took a lot of courage.”

Tears formed again in her eyes, and she wiped them away. “Are you? Thank God. I wasn’t really all that sure about you, either.”

“You thought I wouldn’t believe you?”

“Yes. Or you’d think I was just off the wall, or something. But that morning in the diner you seemed to understand. A little, anyway. And you didn’t try to push me. For somebody I didn’t know, and a policeman at that, you were kind. At least that’s the impression I got. So I finally decided to trust you.”

“I’m glad you did. And now I’m going to tell you something. Last night a high school boy disappeared. He’d been working on his car in the barn behind his family’s house. Marcy Dickens was his girlfriend.”

She put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, God.”

“Yes. His name is Buddy Harper. That name mean anything to you?”

“No. Wait—yes. Where I work—Boggs Ford? There’s a Peter Harper who’s a customer.”

“His father. As you can imagine, the media will give the boy’s disappearance quite a run.”

“I’m sure they will.”

“I want you to promise me you won’t say anything about this to anyone.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. I promise.”

“Where do you live, Karen?”

“Maple Street. With my grandmother. I came here from Shippensburg after my mother died.”

“Does your grandmother know anything about this—ability you have?”

“No. My mother never said so, but I think she was always a little ashamed of me. Not that she knew all that much about it. I think it also scared her, just the way it did me. So she never discussed it with other people, never let on about it. Not to anybody, including my grandmother. All my grandmother thinks is that sometimes I have emotional problems. And that they give me headaches.”

“I see. Is there anyone else?”

Jud saw the shadow of an ironic smile cross her face before she answered. “Some man, you mean? No. There’s nobody.”

He thought about what she’d told him. “Your vision. Can you tell when it’s going to happen? I mean, do you have any warning?”

“No. It’s always right out of the blue. And it could be any time of the day or night. But like I said, usually it’s just a little piece—a fragment of something.”

“Then you can’t influence what you’re going to see, can’t will yourself to receive anything?”

“Never. There have been times when I tried, just out of curiosity, I guess. But I’ve never been able to do that. I’d think, what if I could make myself see something really valuable. Like tomorrow’s newspaper. Or if I could see what was going on behind some closed door. But I couldn’t. All I get is what comes into my head, and most of the time when it does happen I don’t even know what I’m seeing.”

“All right. I’m sure you know where I was going.”

“Yes. But that’s something I just can’t give you.”

“As it is you’ve been a great help.”

“Have I really?”

“Yes, you have. I believe you.”

Her shoulders slumped as if in relief. “I’m so glad you do. I was so worried about how you’d react. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d—”

“If I’d what?”

“Nothing. But I’m glad.”

He stood up. “I want to show you something.”

He got out his keys and unlocked the closet behind his desk, then swung the door open. This was where he kept his personal files, along with anything else he wanted to secure. He reached inside and lifted out one of the paintings he’d brought from the Braddock Museum. It was the one that depicted the headsman waiting for his victim as soldiers dragged the condemned man onto the platform.

He turned and held it up so she could see it.

Her jaw dropped. “Oh, God. That’s the man. That’s exactly what he looked like.”

“Exactly? Here, take a closer look.” He passed the painting to her.

She studied it, holding the frame in both hands. “This is so strange. It shows him just the way I saw him. The hood, the eyes, everything. Even the ax is the same, with the double blades.” She looked up. “Where did this come from?”

“A friend lent it to me. Is there anything you see in it that’s different from what you saw last night? Anything at all about him that’s different?”

She stared at the picture once more, then looked up. “No, nothing. Even his size looks right. Tall, husky.”

“Okay, thanks.” He took it from her and returned it to the closet, closing the door and locking it.

He stepped to where she was sitting and held out his hand to her. “Thanks, Karen. I really appreciate this very much.”

She took his hand and shook it briefly as she stood up. “Is that it?”

“For the moment, yes. I want to think about what you’ve told me, and then I’ll contact you and we’ll talk some more. In the meantime, if you see anything, call me right away. Either here or at home.”

“I will.”

He scribbled his home number on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “It’s in the book, but this’ll make it easier.”

She put the paper into her bag. “Okay. And Chief?”

“Jud.”

She smiled. “Jud. Thank you. I feel so much better, just from talking about it. It’s such a tremendous relief not to have to keep it all bottled up inside me.”

“Here, let me show you out.” He took her arm and led her back out to the front entrance of the station.

4

Inspector Pearson scheduled a press conference in the station house for 2:30 that afternoon. Grady asked Jud if it was about the Harper kid’s disappearance, and Jud said it was. Why get the press into it at this point, Grady wanted to know. Jud told him to ask Pearson. Grady muttered that Pearson was a dickhead.

Jud went out for a sandwich a little before two, and when he got back there was a cluster of reporters at the outer desk, Sally among them. Some of the reporters he recognized from the conference held after the Dickens girl’s body had been discovered, and from the sniffing around the press had done since. For them to get here this fast from Albany and Syracuse and Binghamton and wherever else they’d come from must have taken some doing. A couple of them greeted him and tossed questions at him, but Jud told them it wasn’t his show, Inspector Pearson would be briefing them.

Promptly at 2:30 Pearson walked in, Williger trailing as usual. The guy was well trained, Jud thought. Pearson didn’t even have to tell him to heel.

The inspector looked especially crisp this afternoon in his gray tweed jacket and his white buttondown with a repp tie, red and black stripes this time. His mustache had been freshly trimmed and he’d combed his hair. All he needed was Ed McMahon urging the crowd to applaud. He stood with his back to the desk, and when the buzzing had quieted down he said he had an announcement to make. You could feel the tension; they were expecting to hear there’d been a break in the case, or maybe even that the cops had made an arrest.

Pearson cleared his throat. “We have a suspect in the Dickens homicide.”

Predictably, that set off a roar of questions, and Pearson raised his hands and shushed them. When the reporters finally quieted down he said, “The suspect’s name is Peter Harper, Junior, known as Buddy.”

“Hey,” somebody yelled. “Isn’t that the boyfriend?”

This time it took even longer to stem the noise. Over the uproar Pearson said, “I can’t give you information if you just stand here and shout. If you want to hear this, you’ll have to shut up.”

When they subsided once more, he continued. “The suspect was a friend of Marcy Dickens, yes. He was with her the night she was killed. He was questioned extensively after the homicide, but not charged because of lack of evidence. Last night he disappeared from his home without advising his parents or anyone else we’ve talked to about his plans. At this point he is considered a prime suspect, and we’ve put out a nationwide alert for his arrest. Harper is seventeen years old. He has brown hair and brown eyes. Five eleven, a hundred forty-five pounds. He’s a senior at Braddock High School. He could be armed and dangerous.”

Now the questions came in a flood:
This guy’s the headsman? You find the ax? Why’d be wait until now to take off? You got any other evidence? Has he been in trouble before?

Jud stood in a corner of the room, and after a few more minutes of this he tuned out. There were a number of things he wanted to do now. One of them was to have Grady check the floorboards of the Harpers’ barn, see if he could come up with anything from that oil spill.

The other thing he wanted to do had first been suggested to him by Sally, an idea he had scoffed at at the time.

He told Grady what he wanted him to do at the Harper place, and then left the stationhouse via the back door.

Nine

STALKING

1

T
HE EDITORIAL OFFICES
of the
Braddock Express
were only a few doors from police headquarters. Jud walked it, saying hello to people he passed on the street and seeing his breath appear in small clouds of vapor. The wind was out of the south, so maybe they’d be spared another snowfall for the time being anyway; he hoped so. He turned his collar up against the cold, but he could still feel the crinkling at the edges of his nostrils that told him the temperature was well below freezing. He could hear it under his boots as well, frozen bits of snow and ice crunching as he stepped along the sidewalk.

Ray Maxwell was in, and he greeted Jud with a smile and a handshake. The publisher was in shirtsleeves as usual, wearing his trademark bowtie. His gray flannel pants were held up by a wide leather belt with a western buckle made of silver and inset with turquoise. Maxwell’s hair was touched with gray at the temples and Jud knew he was close to sixty, but his grip was strong and he had a way of looking sharply at you with his pale blue eyes, as if he were trying to read your thoughts.

“Surprised to see you,” Maxwell said.

“Why’s that?”

“Press conference going on, isn’t there?”

“Not my show,” Jud said. They were standing out in the open area where people were working. “Can we go in your office? I’ll tell you about it.”

“Got a better idea,” Maxwell replied. “Let’s go over to the Century Club. We can have a drink.”

Jud smiled. “If it’s off the record.”

“Positively.”

They went in Maxwell’s station wagon. On the way Jud filled him in on Buddy Harper’s disappearance and what Pearson was telling people from the press. Maxwell would hear it all from Sally Benson anyway, but that wasn’t the subject Jud wanted to talk to him about.

The club occupied an old mansion at the north end of Main Street, constructed of the same red stone that had been used in so many of the town’s buildings. It took less than ten minutes to get there from the offices of the
Express
.

A black man greeted them at the door and took their coats. Maxwell had put on a navy-blue blazer that added to his jaunty appearance, and he obviously was in his element here. Members of the Century boasted that it was the best men’s club in Brad-dock, and they were right; it was also the only one.

As they walked through on their way to the bar they passed a game room, where two men were playing chess, and the main reading room, where several others were leafing through magazines and newspapers. Most of these guys were ancient, Jud observed. But if you could sit around here wasting time in the middle of an afternoon you had to be either rich or retired, and that eliminated most of the younger members.

It was also interesting that Maxwell prided himself on his fiercely liberal editorial positions in the
Express
, and yet membership in this place was like belonging to some organization from another age. Women were not allowed even to set foot in the building, and there had never been a black member. Before either of those policies could be altered, the directors had vowed, the club would be shut down. A lot of the town’s political maneuvering was conducted here, and Jud knew that Sam Melcher’s becoming mayor had been pretty much decided within these walls before the election ever took place.