Aidan shook his head. “I’m almost certain it’s not,” he said. “I think he grabbed that matchbook wherever he was—could’ve been anywhere—and jotted down a note. I agree with you that it’s highly unlikely he was ever in that strip club—not when he was here on an important speaking engagement. I think he just saw the matchbook somewhere. In a dressing room or at a lunch counter, maybe. Or someone gave it to him. And I think Lizzie grave means...Lizzie’s grave. But the first thing we need to do is discover the identity of our other victim.”
“God help us,” Purbeck said. “We started out looking for a body. Now...now, we’ve got to find another head.” He turned to Mo Deauville. “You and Rollo ready?”
Aidan believed she was fighting her own mental battle, but she nodded. “Yes, of course,” she said. She brought the wolfhound to where the headless corpse leaned. The cops made way for her. The dog stood at a distance, but lifted his nose high—almost as if he were weighing the merits of a perfume.
Mo Deauville commanded the dog to sit, then approached the corpse and rested her hand gently on the woman’s shoulder.
As if she could...somehow feel something. A communication—from the corpse!
She lowered her head, then looked at Purbeck.
“We’re ready,” she said.
She touched the dog’s head. Aidan couldn’t be sure, but he thought she was giving Rollo some kind of signal.
Well, of course she was. She was asking him to find...the rest of the woman.
No, it seemed to be more than that.
But she quickly set off, tightly clutching the dog’s leash.
With the exception of the crime scene personnel and a few cops left standing guard, everyone trailed after her. They went up and down hills as they walked through one cemetery to get to the other, and eventually wound up on the street again.
“Oh, no. Oh, God, no,” Purbeck said.
Yes.
Across the street, at yet another headless horseman effigy, this one in front of a dry cleaning business, a crowd was gathering.
People weren’t alarmed; they seemed to be in awe.
There were pictures being taken.
The crowd wasn’t even being particularly ghoulish. The horseman stood in the midst of a Halloween display of pumpkins, bats, black cats and flying witches.
“Get the people away,” Purbeck said quietly.
Rollo woofed.
Voorhaven and Van Camp went running across the street, along with half-a-dozen men in uniform.
Aidan glanced at Mo. She stood there, holding Rollo’s leash. She didn’t turn away, although he could tell she wasn’t going any closer. There was a stoic expression on her face, but sadness in her eyes.
“Thank you,” Aidan murmured to her. He crossed the street and hurried over to the display. The area was now being cleared of people.
He knew the crowd hadn’t understood that the horseman with its witch’s head wasn’t part of this gruesome display. The head...was real.
Purbeck followed him. As Aidan stepped up onto a bale of hay beside a wire-and-plastic assembly, he heard the lieutenant mutter.
“God, I pray this means both our bodies are complete!”
Aidan thought they were. It was difficult to be sure, but he had to believe this was what they were looking for. The “witch’s” wealth of long dark hair had been adorned with a black pointed hat. Van Camp stood on a second bale near him, silently inspecting the scene. He motioned to one of the photographers to capture the image from a number of different angles. When the photographer finished the initial shots, Aidan turned to Van Camp, who nodded. He removed the hat and passed it down to Jimmy Voorhaven. Jimmy bagged it, then he carefully brushed aside the tangle of dark hair.
“Mid-thirties?” Van Camp murmured. “Attractive, good bone structure. It doesn’t appear that any of the bones in the face were broken or disturbed.”
“No bruises or contusions. Naturally, the skin is somewhat...”
“Yeah,” Van Camp said.
“You recognize her, by any chance?” Aidan asked him.
Van Camp shook his head. “No. And I guess we can’t be a hundred percent sure if this head goes with the body by the vault until...until the M.E. puts her together.”
The two men scrambled down; the police photographer got into position to take more pictures. Members of the crime scene unit assembled to search for trace evidence.
Aidan rejoined Purbeck. The man just stared at the display. He shook his head. “You know what our murder rate is around here? Practically zero.”
“Doesn’t help that we’re close to Halloween,” Voorhaven said.
That was probably true. There were few places in the country to rival the Sleepy Hollow area for Halloween. It came complete with the rolling hills, brooks, fog and spooky woods that first gave rise to legends and then to the stories written by the first American recognized as a great writer by the European community. So there were a zillion “haunted” venues: haunted houses, haunted hayrides, haunted happenings. Usually, it was an entertaining and commercially successful time—and the merchants were in a frenzy of happiness.
And the headless horseman reigned supreme.
“Whoever did this has to be stopped. Fast,” Van Camp said.