The Headsman (6 page)

“Yes. I went out the back way.”

“Door locked?”

“Yes. I remember unlocking it. It has a snap bolt that sticks. I keep reminding myself to put some oil on it. That’s how I remember it was locked.”

“Uh-huh, okay. Over the last few weeks, or months even, do either of you recall Marcy having any problems you were aware of?”

Helen Dickens shrugged. “She’s had a few with her schoolwork sometimes. I don’t recall anything else bothering her.”

“Over that time, did you ever notice anything different about her personality—any change in her moods, for instance?”

“She has her ups and downs,” Helen said. “Like any kid. But most of the time she’s pretty happy.”

“No period of time when she seemed unusually down, or withdrawn?”

“No,” Helen said.

Jud looked at Ed Dickens, who again shook his head.

There was a knock on the door jamb, and Jud looked around to see O’Brien standing there. Jud excused himself and went out into the hall.

“We covered it good,” O’Brien said. “Took three rolls.”

“Okay. Tell Ostheimer to stay up there on the door. You start a check on the house. Look for any sign of forced entry, footprints near the windows, anything like that.” He reminded himself that O’Brien was an old hand. “You probably know the routine better than anybody.”

“Yeah,” O’Brien said. “I do.” He turned and went back up the stairs to give Ostheimer his orders.

When the cop had left him, Jud again called the stationhouse on the hall telephone and this time told Grady to have the Harper kid picked up and brought in for questioning. He hung up and went back into the living room.

The Dickenses remained sitting on the sofa, their faces wearing the same blank, stunned look. Jud told them to stay in the house, but not to go upstairs. He explained that the state police would also want to question them. Then he thanked them for their cooperation.

“I’m very sorry about your daughter,” he said, knowing how awkward he sounded. “And I’m sorry you have to go through all this, I really am.”

He felt stupid and clumsy, but he didn’t know what else to say. Jud had no children, wasn’t even married, but he could imagine what this was doing to them. He was also aware of the process: first the blinding shock, and when that wore off, there would come a bitter, empty agony that wouldn’t leave them. As soon as he could, he’d find out who their family doctor was and call him. He stuffed his notebook and pen back into his pocket and left the room, putting on his cap and jacket.

He had guessed correctly; the crowd out front had grown to several dozen people. Shit—that would make it harder to question the neighbors. There were two more cops out there now, and they had strung a rope between a telephone pole and a tree near the road in an effort to hold back the gawkers. As Jud stepped off the porch he saw the coroner speaking to one of the cops, who let him pass. Jud met him on the walk.

Reinholtz was a small man, gray-haired and with a mustache. He squinted at Jud through gold-rimmed glasses and spoke in a high-pitched voice that made him seem younger than his age. “What the hell happened here, Chief?”

Jud described what he’d seen in Marcy Dickens’ bedroom, and Reinholtz shook his head again. Jud could imagine what the doctor was thinking; he knew Reinholtz had a couple of daughters himself, and one of them had to be about Marcy Dickens’ age.

“What’s it look like?” Reinholtz asked. “Was there a robbery?”

“I don’t think so,” Jud said. “Nothing’s disturbed in the house, at least that Mrs. Dickens was aware of.”

“Think he raped her?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, I didn’t see any signs of a fight.”

“Yeah, okay. The autopsy’ll tell us. I better go have a look.” He went on up the walk toward the house.

Jud turned his attention to the onlookers, most of whom were eyeing him curiously. He spotted Art Ballard, the old man he’d passed on the way in and walked over to him. “Hiya, Art.”

Ballard nodded. “Hello, Jud.” His face was rosy from the cold and his nose was dripping. He was wearing a cap that said Caterpillar on the front and there were wisps of white hair sticking out from under the cap.

Jud lifted the rope and beckoned to Ballard to duck under it. Then he guided the old man to a place near one of the oak trees, out of earshot of the others.

“You live near here, don’t you, Art?”

“Just down the road there. The gray house.”

“How’d you hear about this?”

“I was out front, puttin’ back one of my storm windows. Glass was cracked, ’n’ I fixed it.”

“Yeah. So what happened?”

“So Helen Dickens, she come out her front door yelling. Lucy Keevis there, lives in the house next door, she heard her too. We both run over here and Helen was hysterical about what’d happened to Marcy. Lucy called the police right away. After that Lucy stayed in the house with her until the cop got here.”

Jud made a mental note to question Mrs. Keevis later. “Let me ask you, Art. You see anything unusual in the neighborhood last night—maybe a stranger, or anybody who might have caught your attention? Have you seen anything like that?”

Ballard’s eyes were rheumy, a watery green. “Oh, he was here, all right. No doubt about that.”

Jud was startled. “Who was, Art?”

The green eyes narrowed. “The headsman, of course. He’s come back.”

3

Jud had been at the Dickens house almost two hours when the New York State Police inspector arrived. He said his name was Chester Pearson and he carried himself with an I’m incharge here manner. He looked about ten years older than Jud, as broad as the chief but not as tall. Under his prominent nose a thick mustache sprouted, and he wore no hat on his bushy black hair. He was in civilian clothes, a raincoat over a brown tweed jacket and a white buttondown shirt with a red-and-white striped tie.

In the hallway outside Marcy Dickens’ bedroom Jud recounted to the detective what he’d seen and learned so far, including his questioning of the Dickenses and several of the neighbors. Inside the room the coroner and the M.E. assisting him had finished their preliminary examination and the two-man ambulance crew had put the corpse into a rubberized bag and was trussing it onto a gurney. People from the State Police Crime Scene Unit were dusting for fingerprints and taking blood and fiber samples.

Pearson listened impassively until Jud finished. Then he said, “Okay, Chief. Don’t sweat it. We’ll be setting up in town here while we run our investigation. Or at least I will, along with Corporal Williger, my assistant. The CSU’ll be going to Albany so the lab can run checks on what we get here. In the meantime, you say the girl had a boyfriend who took her to a dance last night?”

“Yes. The kid’s name is Buddy Harper. I’m having him picked up for questioning.”

“Good. He was the last one to see her alive, right? Except for the killer. So maybe they’re one and the same. I’ll want to talk to him right away.”

“Sure. But I—”

“Yes?”

“Nothing. Coroner says he’ll see to it the autopsy is done as soon as possible,” Jud said. “Probably tomorrow.”

Pearson fingered his mustache. “Yeah, I spoke to him. We’ll cover that, of course. No need for you to be there.”

Jud felt a touch of annoyance, but he put it aside. “We’ll start interviewing the girl’s friends, and my men will see if we can get a line on strangers in the area or a tip on anybody talking about planning a burglary.”

“Uh-huh. You better go light on the questioning. Too many people doing interviews can cause a lot of confusion. Anything comes your way, report it to me, of course. But leave the rest of it to us. Okay?”

“Sure. But there’re a few things I’ll want to look into myself.”

“Before you do, check with me. We’ll work out of your headquarters, so what I’ll need from you is an office with a separate phone line. You can set that up for me first thing.”

Jud wanted to ask if he’d require maid service, but he bit his tongue.

“You got a good motel around here?” Pearson inquired.

“There’s a Howard Johnson on Route Six,” Jud said. “Isn’t too bad.”

“All right.”

Jud wondered if Pearson was expecting him to make reservations. If he was, fuck him. The more he saw of this guy the more he realized having him around was going to be a strain.

The ambulance attendants wheeled the gurney bearing Marcy Dickens’ body past them and one of the Braddock cops gave them a hand getting it down the stairs.

Doc Reinholtz came out of the room then, along with a resident from Memorial County Hospital who acted as assistant medical examiner. Pearson and MacElroy turned to them.

“Interesting,” the assistant said. “I never saw one like that before.” His name was Porchuk and he looked like a college kid, wearing a blue V-necked sweater over a white shirt, carrying a ski jacket in one hand and an equipment case in the other. Jud wondered just how many homicides he had in fact seen.

“Took her head off with one whack,” Porchuk went on. “Had to be from an ax.”

“That’s what I thought,” Pearson said. He looked at Reinholtz. “You agree with that, Doc?”

“Yes, I do,” Reinholtz said. “There was just the one clean wound. No sign he hit her more than once. I’ll make a more detailed examination when I do the autopsy, of course. But for now I’d say yes. One blow, and from an ax.”

Pearson’s assistant, Corporal Mark Williger, had trailed them out of the room. He was also in plainclothes, taller than Pearson and not as husky, but about the same age. Below his thinning sandy hair his features were bland. He spoke up. “I think we’ve got something else says it was an ax. Come take a look.”

The four men followed Williger back inside. After taking samples, the State CSU cops had cleaned the blood off the floor. Williger squatted beside the stained rug the girl’s body had been lying on. He pointed. “See here? This cut is in a straight line through the rug. Now look underneath.”

He flipped the rug aside. In the floorboards was a clearly defined mark about six inches long that appeared to have been freshly made. “The blade was curved,” Williger said. “That’s why the cut’s deeper in the middle than at the ends. You see it?”

Pearson bent down and ran a finger along the depression in the wood. “That’s an ax cut, all right.” He straightened up. “He cut her head off while she was down here on the floor, and then he put her head on the dresser.”

Brilliant, Jud thought.

Pearson turned to Williger. “Good work, Mark. Be sure you get pictures of it.”

Williger rose, looking pleased. “Will do.”

Reinholtz glanced at Jud. “You turn up anything so far?”

MacElroy shook his head.

“We’re taking over the investigation from here on in,” Pearson said to the coroner. “We’ll be working out of police headquarters. Any questions, or information you have, get in touch with me or with Corporal Williger here.”

“Okay, sure,” Reinholtz said. He looked down once more at the cut in the floor and then at the other men. “I’ve got to get back to my office and make out my report. Thanks, gentlemen. I hope to God we can get this thing put away in a hurry.” He stepped past them.

“I’ll walk out with you,” Porchuk said. He raised a hand to the others. “See you at the autopsy.” The two men left the room.

Pearson turned back to Williger. “Go on down to police headquarters. See if NYSPIN has anything to match this M.O.” NYSPIN was the New York State Police Information Network. Law enforcement agencies throughout the state were linked to it by computer.

“I had one of my men do that,” Jud said. “Nothing fit this.”

“Oh? Double-check it, Mark,” Pearson said. “And see if you can get anything by running down known sex offenders.”

Jud was about to tell him he’d done that too, but then he thought, the hell with it. Let Pearson find out for himself.

“I’m going to stay here awhile,” the inspector said to Williger. “I want to talk with the girl’s parents. You go ahead.” The corporal left the room.

“Excuse me, Chief.”

Jud turned to see Kramer standing in the doorway. “Yeah, Bob?”

“There’s a TV crew out there, and some reporters. They want to ask some questions.”

“Tell ’em no statement yet,” Jud said. “The investigation’s just getting under way.”

“Hold on a minute,” Pearson said. “It’s always smart to cooperate with the media. They can be helpful, if they’re handled right. And there’s nothing wrong with good PR, either. The citizens want to know the police have things under control.” He glanced at Kramer. “Tell ’em I’ll be down to talk with them shortly.”

Kramer looked at Jud, who nodded. The cop turned and went back toward the stairs.

“You can come along, if you like,” Pearson said to Jud.

“There’s one thing you ought to know,” Jud said.

“What’s that?”

He’d debated getting into this, but he thought he at least ought to clue Pearson in before the news people jumped on it. “There’s an old legend in this town. According to the story, the early settlers had an executioner who did his work with an ax. A headsman. The legend says that every so often, he comes back to Braddock.”

As he spoke, he saw a glint of amusement appear in the inspector’s eyes. But he went on with it. “There was another homicide here twenty-five years ago, never solved. Woman named Donovan was decapitated. People said it was the headsman who did that one, too. You can bet they’ll be tying this murder to the same legend.”

Pearson brushed his mustache with a fingertip. “So what are you suggesting, Chief—we say we’re looking for a ghost with a big ax?”

Jud felt his face get hot. “I’m just telling you something I thought you ought to know about before they start firing questions at you.”

“Questions don’t bother me,” Pearson said. “Even screwball questions. So thanks for tipping me off, but I can handle anything they throw out. When you’ve been on the hot seat as long as I have, you learn to deal with that stuff. What was it Harry Truman said? If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”

I’m beginning to wish, Jud thought, you’d stayed the hell out of Braddock.

“Which reminds me,” Pearson went on. “I’ll give these guys from the media the answers to whatever they ask. It’s better that way—keeps the crossfire down to a minimum. And you can tell your men that, too. There’s just one official spokesman on this case, and that’s me. Understood?”