The Headsman (32 page)

The other side of the coin was almost as grim. If Sally were to learn about the time he’d already spent with Karen Wilson she’d accuse him of deceiving her. Which was just too damn bad. His job was to run a police department, not to worry about the interests of a newspaper reporter—even if she was his girlfriend. All that part of it did was complicate things further. Christ. Everyplace he looked, he saw hornets.

They refused dessert but had coffee, small cups of strong, rich espresso.

Karen put her hand on his. And then she turned his mood around with one sentence. “Now let’s forget all these silly arguments and go to my place—I’ll bet you have some interesting ideas of your own.”

He grinned. “I do, and they’re all obscene.”

“Wonderful.”

He signaled the waiter for the check.

2

Her apartment was on the top floor of a four-story building on Water Street. She’d told him one of the things she liked about living there was that she could walk to work, which she said was good for her figure. He knew she also went through a lengthy routine of calisthenics each morning, and sometimes she put on a sweatsuit and jogged a mile or two before her shower and breakfast.

Whatever it was, the figure was terrific. She was full-breasted and her belly was taut and flat, her buttocks and legs smoothly rounded. Whenever he saw a layout in one of the skin magazines, he inevitably made a comparison of the girl in the picture with Sally, and Sally always won. But then, he was prejudiced.

He was feeling fine by the time they reached the apartment, full of good food and a little flushed from the wine, but most of all he was excited by the prospect of what was to happen next. He promised himself he’d take his time, make every move last as long as possible. No matter how many times he’d undressed her, going about it just this way, very slowly and deliberately, it never failed to get him so excited he felt like a kid going to bed with a girl for the first time in his life.

She put on some mellow, dreamy music and turned the lights down, and then she kicked the rug back from the parquet floor and folded herself into his arms. The music was awful—some saccharine thing with strings and a rippling piano—but the beat was right in sync with his mood. It was steady and pulsing and Sally pressed her body against his and moved with him as if they were joined together. By the time the music ended and he eased her into the bedroom he could almost taste her.

He started with the blouse. It was made of light, slippery material—silk, probably—and it fastened down the front. He turned her around so that he was tight against her rear end and as she felt him pressing against her she squirmed a little. He undid the buttons one at a time, starting from the top. The music playing in the living room drifted into the bedroom as fragile as smoke. He kissed her neck as he worked on the buttons, and she nuzzled him with her cheek.

When he got her blouse open he didn’t pull it off but instead draped it back from her shoulders. He put his hands under her breasts, continuing to kiss her neck, moving his lips down to the hollow where it joined her shoulder. He held her like that for a long time, his hands barely moving, just enough so that she could feel him caressing her.

His fingers moved to the front of the bra, and he deftly unhooked it. Then her breasts were free and he was stroking them, his fingers lightly brushing over her nipples, feeling them grow erect. She’d begun to make little whimpering sounds in her throat, and he knew what that meant. He slipped the blouse away from her and tossed it to one side. It floated to the floor like gossamer.

Then she turned around again to face him, and her eyes had that wanton look he loved. They were half-closed, but he could see the fire in them. He kissed her hard then, her mouth opening to him and her tongue probing. She put her arms around his neck and stood on her tiptoes and he held her buttocks in his hands, feeling the tautness as she strained against him. She pulled back, and her fingers went to his belt buckle, fumbling to get it open.

They were standing at the foot of the bed. Jud pulled her bra away and flipped it to the floor. Then he placed both hands on her shoulders and shoved just hard enough to make her topple over. She lay on her back, the hungry expression on her face deeper now, and he unbuttoned her skirt and pulled it off. She’d kicked off her shoes, and that left only her pantyhose. He reached down and took hold of them by the waistband, peeling them off. When he drew them down to her buttocks she arched her back so that he could get them down, and as he pulled them off the fragrance of her came up to his nostrils and he could feel his pulse pounding in his temples. She lay before him, watching, and it took an effort to stay with the slow, steady pace.

He took almost as much time removing his own clothes as he had hers. She kept her eyes on him through every second of it, staring at the broad shoulders and the heavy pectoral muscles as the shirt came off. When he got down to his shorts, she raised herself up on her elbows for a better view. He pushed her back down again.

He began by kissing her. All of her. Her mouth and her eyes and her ears and her throat, her back and her buttocks. He kissed the soles of her feet and licked her toes until she shivered. Then he lay between her legs and buried his face in the hot sweet musk of her. His head was whirling now, his heart pounding as she writhed and moaned.

After that he had no concept of the passage of time or the exact order in which things happened. They went through a slow-motion ballet, sweat glistening on their bodies, twisting and turning, trading places, moving in the rhythm of love.

Later they lay quiet in each other’s arms, warm and relaxed and content. When Jud opened his eyes he realized the music had stopped. The room was silent.

“Jud?”

“Mmm?”

“Do you love me?”

“Yes. Of course I do.”

She snuggled closer and seemed to doze, as if his reply had reassured her, leaving her secure and happy.

Did he love her? Not just enjoy her company both in and out of bed, but really care for her with all the commitment the term meant? Absolutely. He had for some time, in fact had almost taken it for granted they’d be married, perhaps within the year. But the relationship suddenly seemed different.

Why?

It was because Sally was different, he realized. She was the same bright, enthusiastic, interesting young woman who’d dazzled him from the first time he’d seen her, but now she was showing him a dimension he’d never known existed. You could call it ambition, but it was more than that. What this case had provided wasn’t just an opportunity to do well in her job; it had given her the chance to perform on a level much higher than probably even she had imagined she was capable of. And so her horizons had broadened, and she’d gained confidence. And she’d never again be the same person he thought he knew.

Then too, the momentous events of the last few days had changed Jud as well. It was strange, the way you could work to organize your life, thinking you had everything in hand, that you were going in exactly the direction you’d set for yourself, and then in an eyeblink something could happen to make you see you had no more control over your fate than if you were a speck of dust tumbling in the wind. And could also make you see that what you’d been so rock-solid sure of wasn’t necessarily true at all.

Just a short time ago he’d thought he had it made. Not only was he doing work he enjoyed, but he’d reached a pinnacle that made his success official. He was the chief of police in Braddock, New York, an important figure in the community, responsible for the protection of its citizens and highly respected.

So why did he suddenly feel this gnawing discontent?

It was because he’d been given a glimpse of the future and what he saw was not the idyllic path he thought lay there but something else entirely.

For one thing, he couldn’t imagine Sally settling down after this, going back to writing about gatherings of the Garden Society and then later on dividing her time between that and raising a family. Sooner or later she’d feel an emptiness that would make her not only unhappy but bitter.

Even worse was the thought of his own prospects. Was he really prepared to live the rest of his life being servile to people like Sam Melcher and Swanson and the others—eventually spending his winters the way old Chief Stark did, with nothing to look forward to but the arrival of trout season?

Or had he come to understand that what he’d thought of as reaching the peak of a career was in fact bumping his head against a ceiling, and a low one at that?

The more he struggled with the questions, the more troubled he was by the answers.

Sally nudged him. “Not going to sleep on me, are you?”

He chuckled. “You know me better than that.”

She stroked him lightly and he felt himself respond. “That’s better,” she said.

He turned to her and kissed her long and deeply, and in some ways what happened then was even more satisfying than the first time, because there was less urgency now, and he felt it could last forever.

Afterward he slept. And dreamt that a man dressed all in black was standing beside the bed, raising an ax high above his head. He awoke with a start and saw that the clock on the bedside table read 2:40.

Sally was in deep sleep. He slipped out of bed, taking care not to disturb her, and dressed quietly. In the dim light he could see her dark hair streaming out on the pillow.

He carried his shoes into the living room and put them on. Then he stuffed his tie into a pocket of his coat and left the apartment.

3

Karen Wilson stopped in at the luncheonette as she did every morning, ordering a black coffee and a muffin to go. She was in a hurry to get to her office, not knowing quite what she’d find in the pages of that morning’s edition of the
Express
.

The reporter who’d interviewed her yesterday had been persistent, but also friendly and pleasant. Maybe she’d taken Karen at her word and hadn’t blown the story out of proportion. Or better still, maybe the paper had decided against running it. Karen certainly hoped so. She paid for her breakfast, and carrying the brown paper sack walked quickly up the street to Boggs Ford.

As usual she was the first to arrive, and the newspaper was in front of the office entrance, where it was every morning. She picked up the paper and unlocked the door, then stepped inside and turned off the alarm. After hanging up her coat she sat down at her desk and opened the sack. She removed the top from the container of coffee and sipped some of its contents, then bit into the muffin. As anxious as she was to see what might be in the newspaper, she realized she was putting off looking at it.

Go on, you jerk
—
open it
.

She unfolded the newspaper and scanned the front page. There were two stories with big black headlines—one about a trucker’s strike, and the other about a fight over nuclear power stations that was developing in the state legislature.

But there was nothing about her role in helping the police locate little Michael Mariski’s body. Karen felt a surge of relief and turned the page.

And there it was.

PSYCHIC LED SEARCHERS TO BOY’S CORPSE

With a picture of Karen and one of the Mariski boy. She felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach.

The story carried Sally Benson’s byline and ran a column and a half. Karen read through it rapidly, flinching at some of the lurid phraseology. It said she had “strange powers,” and that she was unable to account for them. And that she had received information on the location of the body as if in a dream. The piece also quoted Mrs. Mariski, who said she and her husband had been struck by the peculiar way the young woman had suddenly appeared at their home “like she came from another world.”

When Karen finished reading she was conscious of heat in her face. Her pulse was racing and she was slightly nauseous. It was the nightmare she’d always dreaded, and it had been laid out for the whole town of Braddock to see and shake their heads over. She was a freak, all right, and now it would be public knowledge. She read through the story again, slowly this time, and it didn’t get any better. She wished she could go off somewhere and crawl into a hole.

Her picture—where had that come from? She didn’t remember it, and yet it seemed vaguely familiar. The photograph was grainy and not quite sharp. As she studied it she realized it was from a group shot of the Boggs Ford staff that had been taken a few months back. The paper obviously had cropped it and blown it up, but how had they gotten it in the first place? Not that it mattered much now.

The phone on her desk rang and she jumped at the sound. She answered it: “Boggs Ford.”

A male voice said, “Is Karen Wilson there, please?”

“This is Karen.”

“Good morning. This is Jud MacElroy, chief of police.”

“Yes?”

“Have you seen the story in this morning’s newspaper?”

“I just read it.”

“I’m sure you’re upset by it.”

“I—yes, I am.”

“Karen, I just wanted to say I’m sorry the paper got hold of it, and I hope you won’t let it bother you too much.”

Tears welled in her eyes and her voice trembled. “Won’t let it bother me too much? With what it says about my strange powers, and how it’s like I came from another world? You’re telling me you hope I won’t let it bother me?”

“It’ll blow over, Karen. In a day or so it’ll be forgotten. That’s the way those things are. In the meantime, just shrug it off. If anybody asks, tell them it was only a hunch and that the paper blew it out of proportion.”

“I—I’ll try.”

“Good. I just wanted you to know I was thinking of you, and I realize how tough this is for you. If there’s anything I can do to help you, just let me know.”

“Thank you. And thanks for calling.” She hung up.

She went back to the newspaper, trying to read the rest of it but not succeeding as her eyes blurred and her thoughts kept going back to that hateful story. Breakfast was also a bust. The coffee tasted acidic and the muffin was like sawdust. She put the top back on the container and dropped the whole mess into her wastebasket.