He set his own book aside and came to stand behind her. Rowenna began to read aloud.
“‘She was picked bare of flesh, and she left no blood. Scratch marks on the skull indicated that beaks had pecked the eyes. Other carnivores and carrion eaters had come, and thus they had scattered those pathetic bones that were found. No man came then to justice to pay for the act of murder, nor would any man pay for the indignity for years to come. Only after the disappearance of Annie Rigby, in seventeen twenty, would there be a suspect. The people had whispered of the Harvest Man. They sometimes said that he was a black man, for it was poor Tituba’s race and color that made the people think she had the mark of a witch. She was from a foreign land, and thus she innocently began the witchcraft hysteria that created the age of darkness here. Those days were over, though. Witches were not to blame. Then they claimed that it was the Devil himself in the dress of the Harvest Man. But Annie Rigby had been seen in the company of a man, and when his cottage was stormed, it was seen that though he laughed at the charge of witchcraft, he told his accusers that he did indeed worship the Most Divine, and that the Most Divine being was none other than Satan himself. At trial, Andrew Cunningham said that he was the Devil in the flesh, that the Devil cohabited within his bones, and that the Devil demanded his due. They ate, they survived, because the Devil was given his due. Thus was Andrew Cunningham—who also claimed he became Satan in the flesh—condemned, and thus should he have gone to the gallows, but for on the day of his scheduled execution, he was not to be found. Indeed, they searched the dungeon—that same dungeon beneath the sheriff’s office where so many had waited their fates not three decades earlier, that pit of rankness and leaking sewage and rats that none had escaped before. Cunningham was gone, and the people were very afraid, not that he might walk among them again, but that the Devil was at large. In their rage they dragged from his house and hanged the old hag who was his housekeeper, as it was always said that the Devil needed a handmaiden.’”
Daniel peered over her shoulder to see that she had reached the end of the page. “Is that it?” he asked.
Rowenna stared at the next page. There was only one sentence to finish the chapter.
She looked up at him, and then she continued reading.
“‘The Harvest Man will come again.’”
10
By noon Jeremy was back at the bar in the Hawthorne Hotel, sitting with Joe Brentwood and going over every recent missing persons report from the Northeast, a time-consuming process.
He’d been surprised that Joe was more or less willingly including him in all facets of the investigation, but when he had thanked him and asked why, Brentwood had merely shrugged and told him, “Hey, my pop always taught me, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
“But I’m not your enemy,” Jeremy had told him.
“The jury is still out on that one,” Joe had replied.
Jeremy had chosen not to argue the point.
Maybe Joe had decided that even if he was the enemy—because of his relationship with Rowenna?—he had the skills and training to help in an investigation that had boiled down to looking for a needle in a haystack without knowing whether it was even there.
So they went over data and, when they got hungry, headed to the bar and ordered sodas and hamburgers.
The numerous federal and state agencies had finally learned to cooperate in trying to apprehend kidnappers, rapists and murderers; technology had been the key. Despite that, they found themselves engulfed in information.
They had extended their search as far south as New Jersey, as far west as Pittsburgh, and north to the Canadian border. If they couldn’t find the identity of their Jane Doe within those parameters, they would have to extend their search cross-country. But Halloween wasn’t like Thanksgiving or Christmas; it wasn’t a holiday when people traveled to join their families or went far because they had extra vacation time. Since their Jane Doe apparently wasn’t local, she had most likely come from somewhere not too far away.
They had an approximate height of five-three, weight of one-twenty. In decent physical shape. Age, seventeen to thirty-three. They had no eye color, given that she no longer had eyes, and her hair was dark brown to black.
“Here,” Joe said, indicating one of his data sheets. “Lily Arnold, last seen at her parents’ place October twenty-eighth, went out for a date with a new guy.” He looked pleased with his discovery, but then he swore softly. “Never mind. There’s an addendum. The mother called in to say that she’d heard from her—she’d quit her job and gone up to Toronto.”