The Headsman (26 page)

All of it—the terrible burden of knowing what she’d witnessed—came down on her like some huge weight. There were times in her life when Karen wanted to die, and this was one of them.

She forced herself to move, to get out a sponge and paper towels. Then she set about cleaning up the mess.

Eight

THE SUSPECT

1

J
UD ARRIVED AT
police headquarters earlier than usual; it was only a few minutes past eight when he parked the cruiser in the town hall lot and went inside the building. He said good morning to Grady and the cop who’d just come off the midnight tour, and got himself a mug of coffee. Then he entered his office and hung up his cap and jacket before sitting down at his desk and going through the copies of the previous night’s reports.

A guy in a pickup truck had hooked another driver’s bumper in front of the Sears store on Main Street, and instead of simply exchanging insurance information these two characters had punched each other around. The investigating officer had issued summonses to both of them. It was funny, the way minor vehicle damage could get people so riled up they’d try to commit mayhem. Maybe it recalled primitive instincts, the kind of thing cowboys felt about their horses.

Whatever it was, people seemed to take on a whole new dimension of aggressiveness when they got behind a wheel. Put a guy in a driver’s seat and he was ready to do battle if anybody as much as brushed him or even crossed his path.

There had also been one domestic squabble, but that wasn’t much either: a guy who worked at Squam’s Dairy came home drunk and found his wife had locked him out. He broke a window to get in and she called the cops. By the time a patrol car arrived the guy had passed out. The whole thing was resolved when the cop helped the drunk’s old lady roll him into bed.

An altercation on Weaver Street had been more serious. Two young men had cut each other with knives in an argument over an issue that was unclear. The cops hauled both of them to the emergency room for a patch-up and then brought them in and booked them. They’d spent the night in separate cells.

That one caused Jud concern. Weaver Street was in the town’s black neighborhood, and there had been reports lately of an increase in crack use. He’d look into it; if there was anything he didn’t want boiling up in Braddock it was a crack problem.

Pot he could live with. There was no way it could really be controlled anyway—the stuff was cheap and available anywhere. And while smoking it no longer had the cachet it once had, when if you blew grass you were making some kind of political statement, using it was still considered hip by a lot of kids.

Coke was even less of a worry, chiefly because it was so much more expensive. Some of the more well-to-do young people in town could afford a toot now and then, but by and large its use wasn’t all that common. As long as it stayed small-time and nobody got into trouble over it, Jud would leave it alone.

Of course, this kind of hard-headed acceptance was an attitude the cops kept to themselves. As far as the town was concerned, they were battling drugs tooth and nail, but as with any small-town police force, that was so much bullshit. If they really tried to run down everybody who bought, used or sold an illegal substance, they’d never have time for anything else.

Crack, on the other hand, was another thing entirely. For only a few bucks you could buy a high that would take you over the moon, and while you were on it anything was possible. The national crime statistics showed skyrocketing increases in crack traffic and homicide, with a direct link between the two. The mere thought of a crack epidemic could cause Jud to break out in a cold sweat. And right on the heels of crack was this new thing from the West Coast, something called ice. Where the hell was it all leading to? And did he really want to know?

He initialed the reports and busied himself with paperwork. He’d pay the night fighters a visit later.

Grady came in after he’d been at it awhile. Jud pushed back from his desk and told the sergeant to sit down. “How’s it going, Joe?”

The big man slumped into a chair. “Not great. This guy Pearson is a ballbuster.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Him and the corporal, Williger, been driving us nuts. They got Kramer and Delury working for them, which makes us short-handed, and they keep asking for more help. That’s on top of their own guys.”

“I’ll talk to Pearson.”

“Yeah. If you ask me, all they’re doing is spinning their wheels. They been interviewing everybody who knew the Dickens kid, but they haven’t come up with shit. Not one real lead.”

“How do you know that?”

“Delury told me. They’re just running all over telling the world how hard they work. Every time you turn around, Pearson’s talking to the papers or the TV. You’d think the guy was running for office.”

“Maybe he is.”

Grady’s mouth curled in an expression of disgust.

Jud gestured at the report on his desk. “These two guys who were carving each other up. Were they on crack?”

The sergeant shrugged. “Hard to say for sure, but I think so. One of them’s been in a couple of times before. Stolen car, suspect in a convenience store burglary, shit like that.”

“Okay, I remember now. I thought one of the names sounded familiar. You talk to them?”

“Yeah. It was an accident, they say. Like switchblades are for cleaning your nails.”

“Let’s stay after it. Maybe we can get something out of them. I sure don’t want a crack blowup around here. We got enough to deal with.”

“All right, will do.”

Jud twiddled with a pen on his desk. It was strange, but he never felt completely at ease with Grady. The resentment over Jud’s promotion was obviously still there. And in some ways it seemed as if it might be more than that. On the surface, Grady came off as just a big, stolid, hardworking cop who’d been on the job his entire adult life. He was streetwise and cynical, and like most police officers he was suspicious of anybody who came into his purview.

Grady had also caught enough crap from the town government over the years to be able to handle it; obviously he’d learned long ago that when the punches came your way you rolled with them. Jud depended on him and made it clear that the sergeant was his number-one man. He made it a point to defer to the older cop whenever he could and to treat him with respect. Yet the attitude was always there, so palpable Jud could feel it.

Grady stood up. “Anything else?”

“No, Joe. That’s it for now.”

There was a knock at the door and Bob Brusson stuck his head into the office. “Excuse me, Chief. We just got a call from Peter Harper. He says his son is missing.”

“Buddy?”

“Right.”

Christ
. Jud looked at Grady, whose face was impassive, and then back at the young officer in the doorway. “What did he tell you?”

“He said the kid wasn’t in the house this morning. His car was in the barn but he wasn’t in his room. Harper wants you to call him.”

“Okay, thanks.” He reached for the phone.

Peter Harper answered on the first ring. The strain in his voice was apparent. “Chief, I think you’d better get over here right away. Buddy’s gone.”

Jud felt a tightening in his chest. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I am. His mother and I are worried sick something’s happened to him. It’s just not like him to take off someplace without saying a word to us. His car’s here, too. And that’s even more odd. If he was going to go someplace, you can bet he’d use his car.”

“Okay, I’ll be there right away. I know you’re upset, but try to think about anything Buddy might have said or planned to do that might give you an idea where he is. Could be a simple explanation after all.” He hung up.

Grady raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

Jud got up from his desk. “I’m going over to the Harpers’. Anybody’s looking for me, give me a call.” He reached for his jacket and cap and put them on.

“What about Pearson?”

Jud stopped in the doorway and looked back. “Yeah, I better let him know.”

He went down the hall to the office he’d turned over to the two state police detectives, but neither of them was there. Jud told Stanis where he was going and said to let Pearson or Williger know what had happened.

“You want me to try to run ’em down?” the cop asked.

“Sure,” Jud said. “Do that.”

He hurried out the back door of the building and climbed into the cruiser. When he pulled out of the driveway his wheels kicked up gravel.

2

The Harper home was near the Nepawa River, a two-story gray colonial that Buddy’s great-grandfather had built for his growing family. That was years before the opening of the drugstore; the old man had started a company to produce chemical fertilizer when that industry was in its infancy. When he died his son sold the company and opened Harper’s Drug on Main Street, thereby blowing a great opportunity. But the son had lived comfortably enough, and had passed the store on to Peter, Buddy’s father. Peter Harper had built it into a thriving business, more of a department store than a pharmacy.

There was an old-fashioned portico on one side of the house, and the drive went on out to a garage and beyond that was a barn. Jud parked in the drive and walked up to the front entrance. He knocked on the door and Peter Harper opened it.

Harper was close to fifty, Jud would guess, but his thinning hair made him look older. He’d earned a reputation as one of Braddock’s better amateur golfers, and his name often appeared in the sports pages of the
Express
. He was almost always listed as a low-scorer in tournaments at the country club. He took Jud’s jacket and cap and hung them in the front hall closet, then led him into the living room.

Jean Harper was waiting for them, and as always when he saw her Jud was struck by this woman’s appearance. She seemed at least ten years younger than her husband. Her tawny hair hung to her shoulders in soft waves, and her green wool dress showed off the trim lines of her body. He couldn’t help wondering what she’d say if he told her about the last time he’d seen her.

They sat facing each other, with Mrs. Harper nervously twisting a Kleenex in her fingers. Harper explained that when they’d called Buddy that morning there had been no response, which wasn’t unusual—they practically had to blast him out of bed on school days. But this morning Harper had finally gone into his room and found the bed hadn’t been slept in. Then he went out to the barn and saw his son’s car sitting there with the engine opened up, where he’d obviously been working on it. But no sign of Buddy.

Harper clasped his hands in front of him. “That’s when I really began to worry. If Buddy was going anywhere, you could be sure he’d drive his car. That Chevy means the world to him.”

Jud nodded. “I asked you to try to think of anything he might have said or anything he might have been doing lately that would have some bearing on this.”

Harper shook his head. “No, there’s nothing I could think of that would explain it.”

“Have you tried his friends?”

“I did,” Jean Harper said. “I called several of the kids he runs around with, but nobody’s heard a word from him. They sounded as surprised as we were.”

“Did he take anything from his room, or the house? Like a suitcase, or extra clothes, or anything that could suggest he expected to be gone for awhile?”

“We thought of that,” Peter replied. “But there doesn’t seem to be anything missing. In fact, there was even some money he’d left on his dresser. It was just a few dollars, but you’d think if he planned to go anywhere he would have taken money with him, right?”

“Yeah,” Jud said. “You’d think so. Tell me, how’s he been acting since Marcy’s death? When I talked to him he was still in shock, of course. But since then?”

“He seemed numb for the first couple of days,” Jean said. “Sort of pulled himself into a shell. Lately he’s been better, though. At least I thought so. Didn’t you, Peter?”

“I don’t know. Or I guess so. Lot of times it’s hard to tell what’s going on in a kid’s head.”

“Beyond that, you notice anything unusual about the way he was acting, either of you?”

Peter shook his head, but his wife said, “Can this be between us? I’m worried about him, but I don’t want anything I might say to lead to further trouble.”

Jud could guess what she was getting at. “Of course. What is it?”

“Lately I have noticed something. In fact, I found it.”

Both men looked at her quizzically.

“The other day I went into his room, and I decided to take some of his things out and put them in the laundry. He forgets now and then, and his clothes can get a little ripe. Anyway, what I stumbled across was his stash. He had a pretty good load of marijuana in a plastic sack. I knew what it was, of course. When I was in college everybody smoked it. I know a lot of kids do today, but I couldn’t help wondering if maybe Buddy hadn’t gone over-board. I left it there, and I didn’t say anything to him. It wasn’t the first time I’d come across something that suggested he was smoking it, but I was surprised at how much he had. So it was a problem I was trying to figure out how to deal with, and now I wonder if it could have something to do with his going off. Or whatever he’s done.”

“Jesus,” Peter said. “I didn’t know anything about that. You never told me—”

She cut him off. “I know I didn’t. There are some things I handle better than you do, Peter.”

Jud had a feeling she would have said more on that subject if he hadn’t been there, but he wasn’t in their house this morning to referee a squabble. “What did you do with it?” he asked her. “The marijuana?”

“I left it where I found it. Next time I looked, it was gone.”

“Generally speaking, how do you get along with him?”

An ironic smile lifted one corner of her mouth. “Generally speaking, I don’t. Peter leaves the responsibility for disciplining him to me, unfortunately. As a result I’m often not very popular.”

They were on the verge of getting into it, Jud saw. Again he tried to steer the discussion in another direction. “You said he was working on his car last night?”

“It seemed so to me,” Peter said. “I got home a little late, and when I put my car in the garage I looked out and saw lights on in the barn. He was often there in the evenings, so I didn’t think anything of it.”