Deadly Harvest (28 page)

“You were with him when the kids were found?”

“It was a bad day, bringing up those little corpses. Hope is a hard thing. It's great when it pays off. But when you hope for something and it doesn't come through, then hope becomes vicious.”

Hope. He was hoping and praying that his wife was alive.

They finished eating and had second cups of coffee, then he walked her down to the History Museum. “Aren't you coming in?” she asked him.

He'd paused outside to look at one of the window displays, one that was new since yesterday.

A mannequin dressed as the Harvest Man.

“No. Jeremy was pushing for me to hang out, but you'll be okay with your friends, right?” When she nodded, he went on. “I think I'll walk in a different direction today. Or maybe I'll go back to the cemetery. I won't go off the deep end,” he promised. “When should I come back for you?”

“Say noon? We grab some lunch, or find out what Jeremy is up to and go from there.”

“Sounds good. You have my cell number, right?”

“I do. You just gave it to me at breakfast, remember? And you have mine.”

He smiled, waved to her and started off down the street, his hands shoved into the pockets of his suede jacket.

Rowenna headed on into the museum. An older couple was paying for admission, and two young women were already starting through. June Eagle was at the desk.

“Hey,” she said cheerfully to Rowenna after she had sent the couple on their way.

“Hey. If you don't mind, may I have the key to the reading room?” Rowenna asked her.

June shook her head, grinning. “No need. Dan is already in there. He wanted to get an early start.”

“Thanks, June.”

June nodded and turned her attention back to the latest issue of
People.

Rowenna quickly bypassed the people who were visiting the exhibits and kept going toward the section on the Harvest Man. Though she knew that they were only mannequins, she found herself pausing at the display dedicated to the four real-life murderers who had come after the legend.

They were just mannequins, but there was…something about all four of them….

They had been designed and manufactured by the same company, of course, but it was more than that. They were positioned differently, and dressed in the appropriate period clothing, so what was it…?

The faces, she thought.

They were all lean and narrow. It was as if they had been specifically designed to wear a look of cold, calculating ruthlessness.

She felt a chill just looking at them, and she hurried on, anxious to reach the reading room and another living, breathing human being.

Daniel was sitting back, fingers laced behind his head, books open in front of him. Anyone else, she thought, would have had his feet up on the desk.

“So what have you found?” she asked, after a quick hello.

He shoved one of the books toward her. “Read about our boy Hank Brisbin.”

She sat down across from him and looked at the page he had indicated, then leafed back. The book had been written in 1959, she saw, by Sam Jackman, professor of law, Harvard University.

“Impressive,” she said.

Daniel leaned forward. “Back then, it wasn't as hard as it is now to convince a jury to see beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt. There was no physical evidence connecting the man to the murders that occurred. They found the girls' bodies rotted down to nothing but bone, picked clean by crows, and lying in the fields near scarecrows. Brisbin lived out that way in a farmhouse that has since been demolished. The night he was hanged, the townspeople burned it to the ground.”

Rowenna glanced over the text. Jackman said that it had been difficult to piece the story together, because so many of the references to it in the records had been excised. Apparently Brisbin had been arrested because he'd been seen with the last of the three girls to die and because he had “behaved suspiciously.” He was indicted, and the case went to a jury. He was condemned, with a comment by the jury foreman that the verdict had been unanimous.

Still, if there had been any lingering question in anyone's mind as to his innocence, it had been eliminated by his gallows speech.

Rowenna looked up at Daniel when she finished reading.

“Okay,” he said, and pushed two more books toward her. “Now check this guy out. Victor Milton. Once again, you've got bodies found in a cornfield. And look at this reference to the old records. ‘She was found by the stake where should have stood a scarecrow.'” He sat back again. “I think these guys were imitating the Harvest Man, and our guy is imitating
them
.”

“Dan, this can't just be coincidence—the police need to know this,” Rowenna said.

“I've told Joe. He agrees that we have someone on our hands who's imitating the past, bringing the legend to life. Whether it's because he really thinks he's the reincarnation of these men, the tool of the Devil and the Harvest Man reborn, or whether he's just some clever psycho trying to hide his real motivations behind a historical mask, he doesn't know yet. Anyway, I've marked what I found for you.”

“Thanks.”

He stood up. “I'm going to spell June so she can take a coffee break. If you need me, I'll be at the desk.”

“Thanks.”

She started reading. It turned out that Hank Brisbin's wife had also disappeared mysteriously. There was a photograph of him in one of the books. He had the narrow-faced, evil-eyed countenance of all four mannequins. Maybe the mannequins had been designed from this picture.

She picked up another of the books. Victor Milton's presumed victims had also been found in the local cornfields. He had never been apprehended or brought to trial, but the locals had been convinced of his guilt.

She yawned and stretched, about to reach for the next book, when her cell phone rang.

It was Eve.

“Hey, you,” Rowenna said.

“What are you doing?” Eve asked her.

“I'm at the museum. Reading.”

“Can you come over here? Right now?”

Rowenna glanced at her watch. It was only ten-thirty.

“Are you at the store?”

“Yes, and I need you to hurry. He's gone now, but he'll be back.”

“Who's gone? Did you see someone you recognized?”

“No! Adam. I'm talking about Adam. Please, Rowenna, please!”

“All right, I'll be right over.” Brad wouldn't be back to pick her up for another hour and a half. And Jeremy wouldn't be back from Boston at least till then, either.

“Hurry.
Please.
”

As soon as she hung up, Rowenna carefully closed the book she had been reading, rose and headed out.

She averted her eyes from the mannequins as she passed, ridiculously afraid that if she looked at them, they might come to life.

She stopped at the desk on her way out and told Daniel that she would be back in a bit, warning him that he had the key, so she hadn't been able to lock the door and some unauthorized tourist might wander into the sanctum sanctorum.

He grinned and assured her that he would take care of the door.

Outside, the day seemed colder than when she'd arrived. The sky was an iron-gray, and not even the brilliance of the fall leaves could combat its oppressive effect.

Maybe the tourists felt the same way she did, because the streets were nowhere near as crowded as they usually were this time of year. Everyone was probably inside, drinking coffee and hot chocolate, fortifying themselves to face the cold on the streets.

The minute she entered the shop, Eve grabbed her arm, locked the door and hung a sign that read Back in Five Minutes—Promise!

“What on earth is the matter?” Rowenna asked, genuinely worried by her friend's behavior.

“You have to see this,” Eve said urgently and dragged her into the back of the store. There were two small curtained-off rooms near the door to the storeroom, separated from the rest of the store by deep cobalt velvet drapes embroidered in gold thread with the sun, the moon and the planets. One was the room Eve used when she did readings, and the other was Adam's.

Eve led her to Adam's.

A tapestry covered a small table holding a crystal ball and a deck of medieval tarot cards. The only decoration in the dark-painted room was a Colonial candle holder with a scented candle, standing on a small desk along the back wall.

Rowenna looked at Eve. “Okay…I'm supposed to see…what?”

“I'll show you.”

Eve walked around the table, opened the top drawer of the desk and produced a book.

“Is it on Alistair Crowley? Satanism?” Rowenna asked, still baffled as to why her friend was so upset.

“No. It's a spell book,” Eve said.

Rowenna lowered her head to smile. She would never mock Eve or her beliefs, but she simply couldn't bring herself to believe that mixing a few herbs together and reciting some words could create a love spell or any other kind of spell.

“Eve, you have tons of spell books in—”

“Open it to the marked page,” Eve told her.

Rowenna did, but could barely read what was written. The light in the room was too dim, and it didn't help that the printing was archaic. Finally, as her eyes adjusted to the low light, she began to make it out.

“‘Seven,'” Rowenna read aloud. “‘The number is seven. And when the seventh is taken in the prescribed manner, the man becomes the god. Be it known that the god is male, and that woman is subservient to man, and so shall it be. But he who would be the god must perform the prescribed sacrifice, and the number is to be seven. The harvest must be fed, and nourishment must be returned to the earth.'” Rowenna looked up at Eve.

“Keep reading,” Eve said.

“‘The god must first be a man, and act in the carnal way of man,'” Rowenna went on.

“She was raped, right?” Eve demanded.

“What?”

“Dinah Green. She was sexually assaulted,” Eve said.

“Yes, but—”

“I've been lying. I've been lying to protect Adam. Because I believe in him. I love him.” She paused, and the look of desolation that came over her face nearly broke Rowenna's heart. “I
did
love him. I
did
believe in him. But, Rowenna, he won't give up these awful books. He says he needs them. Oh, Ro! He left here on Halloween, and he was gone a long time—right around the time Mary Johnstone disappeared. He was in and out all day—but he was out then. And then…before…that other woman. Dinah Green. When she was in the store, he was flirting with her. She came on to him first—I guess she thought I was just someone who worked here—but he was definitely flirting back. And when she left the store, he left a few minutes later. Oh, God, Ro! I think I might be married to a murderer!”

 

Joe had to talk the talk, Jeremy thought. The guy was a cop, and he had to do some things by the book.

And as they drove into Boston, Joe ran through the cop playbook.

This man was the first real lead they'd had on the case, and his alibi for Halloween was so full of holes, rabbits could have leaped through them. But as Jeremy listened, he got the feeling that Joe didn't believe his own words, no matter how logical they sounded. They were following clues the way all cops followed clues, but Jeremy didn't think Joe expected those clues to lead anywhere any more than he himself did.

Finally Jeremy turned and asked, “Joe, do you honestly think this man is our killer?”

Joe frowned, glancing over at him. “He was the last person seen with the victim.”

“Dinah Green was seen all over the city—she met a lot of people. Any one of them could have arranged to meet her later. I just think our killer has to be someone closer.”

Closer.
That was better than saying flatly that the killer had to be a local, someone Joe might know and like. At the same time, he knew it didn't matter how he phrased it. Misplaced tact wasn't going to help them find a killer, and anyway, Joe was no fool. He knew what Jeremy was really saying.

“There's still a possibility this man did it. Scenario—they get into a lovers' spat. Or he's picked her up, planning to sleep with her, only she doesn't come through and he gets mad. He rapes her and kills her. What then? He has a body, and he has to get rid of it.”

“So a guy who just happens to get into an unplanned argument with a woman and kills her just happens to have gloves on, so his prints aren't found anywhere, like on the stake he's miraculously found hanging around beside the road to tie her up on?” Jeremy said.

“I should have left you back in town with the moping husband,” Joe muttered.

“No, sorry. I know it's important that we talk to this guy, even if all we do is eliminate him from our pool of suspects.”