The Betrayed

2

Purbeck looked in and sighed. “Back out, everyone but Mahoney, Van Camp and Voorhaven. I don’t want evidence compromised. Get the M.E. and the crime scene people here,” he ordered.

Aidan followed him, then carefully stepped through.

He threw the beam of his flashlight over the stone floor. No hope of prints, since the stone was bare of dust. He walked carefully toward the body, touching nothing, keeping his light trained on the corpse.

Aidan wasn’t an M.E., but it seemed to him that the head had been cleanly severed with great strength and probably a single blow. Highsmith hadn’t been killed in the tomb; there wasn’t much blood. And, of course, Aidan couldn’t know if he’d been killed and then decapitated—or killed by decapitation. He found himself reminded of a history lesson: Queen Anne Boleyn asking Henry VIII for a headsman from France so her execution would be swift and clean.

Purbeck had come in behind him. He, too, touched nothing and studied the body.

As the two detectives—Van Camp and Voorhaven—also walked into the tomb, Aidan put down his flashlight and checked for Highsmith’s wallet with gloved hands. He found it in his pocket, just as he’d expected to.

“Anything in there?” Van Camp asked him.

“Wallet, keys...”

Carefully, Aidan checked Highsmith’s other pocket. Lint—and a matchbook. He held it up to Voorhaven’s flashlight glare.

“From some place called Mystic Magic,” he said.

“Whoa,” Van Camp muttered.

“It’s a new strip club down close to Irving,” Voorhaven explained.

“Doesn’t sound like Richard Highsmith,” Purbeck said.

Voorhaven produced an evidence bag, but Aidan briefly held on to the matchbook, flipping it open. He wasn’t surprised to see that Highsmith had scribbled something in it. “‘Lizzie grave,’” he read aloud.

“Odd name for a stripper,” Van Camp commented.

“I doubt it’s a stripper’s name,” Aidan told the others.

“Then what?” Van Camp asked.

“Maybe it has to do with a dead woman named Lizzie. Lizzie’s grave,” Aidan said impatiently, dropping the matchbook in the evidence bag.

Voorhaven snorted. “Ah, hell! Do you know how many Lizzies have died and been buried here over the last several hundred years?”

Purbeck shook his head. “Let the M.E. and the crime scene techs in now,” he said, turning to leave the vault. He paused at the door. “We have another victim out there—and another head to find.”

Aidan stayed behind for a minute, his gloved hand resting lightly on Richard’s arm. Rigor had come and gone; he’d been dead awhile. He’d probably been killed soon after he disappeared.

“Old friend,” he murmured. “I’ll get whoever did this to you.”

The young woman, Maureen—or Mo— Deauville, had not come in. She stood with her dog just outside the gates and Aidan felt her eyes on him, even though he was darkness and shadow.

He exited the tomb and approached Maureen just as Purbeck came up beside her. The place was now crawling with people. Voorhaven and Van Camp were by the corpse that had been so strategically arranged to look like a host—welcoming them, inviting them to enter the tomb. They had to discover the identity of this woman. Her death was as great a crime, as great a tragedy, as Highsmith’s.

“I know Van Camp already mentioned this, but are we sure it’s not a name? Lizzie Grave?” Purbeck asked Aidan. “Not necessarily a stripper’s name. Maybe someone he met?”

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.

“Van Camp, I need you and Voorhaven to go to the station with Special Agent Mahoney. Get him up to speed on everything. Mahoney, you’re alone on this?” Purbeck asked him, apparently puzzled.

Aidan hesitated. It wasn’t that he couldn’t be a team player; he usually enjoyed working with others. True, he wasn’t completely familiar or completely comfortable with his new team yet. But he trusted that would happen in time.

Everyone wanted a trusted coworker at his back.

Still, he was well aware that he didn’t work like most agents. Sometimes his methods of investigation were...different.

Just as he’d heard that the agents in the Krewe had what might be considered different methods of investigation.

His methods worked—and that was why, he assumed, his superiors had decided to make use of him in a way that brought about results.

“We’ll bring in more people, I’m sure,” Aidan said. “When necessary.”

“Nice. Seems they give the locals some respect,” Voorhaven muttered sarcastically.

Aidan looked squarely at the man. “Detective, I’m here because Lieutenant Purbeck called my office. Because, thank God, there aren’t many murders in this area. I was sent because I grew up here. More than that, I grew up here with friends—one of whom was Richard Highsmith. I know how the man thought. I know his habits, his virtues and his weaknesses. I’m not here to step on toes. But I’m going to get whoever murdered my friend.” He realized that, without really thinking about it, he’d made the decision to disclose his relationship with Richard to these policemen, even though he hadn’t yet told Jackson Crow.

Voorhaven stared at him awkwardly. “I, uh, I’m sorry. By all accounts, Highsmith was a really good man.”

Aidan nodded. “Yeah.” He looked at the headless horseman effigy—with its head. “And now we have a Jane Doe and she might have been a good person, too, and if not...well, she’s still entitled to the very best law enforcement can give her. So, I’m willing to do anything it takes to get to the bottom of this.”

“Of course,” Voorhaven said.

“The kid just got his shield a year ago,” Van Camp told Aidan. “He’ll learn. When you’ve been around long enough and you see something like this, you’re happy to accept whatever assistance you can get.”

Aidan nodded.

“So, now we’ve kissed and made up,” Purbeck said. “Good. You two, give the nice Fed anything he needs or wants, okay?”

“You got it, yeah, sure, of course,” Voorhaven said.

Aidan looked across the street.

Mo Deauville was still there, Rollo at her side. She was watching them.

Purbeck raised a hand in a gesture of thanks or farewell or both.

She waved in return. For a moment, the wind caught her hair and lifted it around her. The Cousin Itt comparison no longer seemed the least bit apt and he wondered why it had ever occurred to him. She might have been wearing a trench coat, but she suddenly created an image in his mind. He pictured her as an ancient warrior princess. A Viking goddess, maybe.

A moment later, she was gone, but the image lingered.

* * *

Mo moved through the different cemeteries until she reached her point of arrival that morning—street parking by the Old Dutch Church.

Rollo trotted obediently along. She thought she should’ve put on his service-dog vest, since dogs weren’t really allowed in some of the places she walked through to get where she was going. But it was a Thursday morning, and although there were a few people in the various historical cemeteries and burying grounds, she remained at a distance and no one bothered her. Still, she did hear a few people exclaim what a beautiful dog Rollo was and, one girl squeaked that there was a woman walking around with a pony.

She pretended not to hear any of it as she made her way back to the car. Everything she’d seen that morning seemed to be imprinted on her mind.

The scenes she’d witnessed weren’t easy to forget.

“Remember, Rollo? We figured it would be such a lark, living here!” Mo said aloud.

Rollo let out a deep, rich woof, as if he understood.

She’d worked with the police for a long time. First in New York City and then—when she moved out here—with the county.

Fortunately, she could live wherever she wanted. She had a freelance career and was lucky enough to have a nice contract with a greeting card company. Many of her cards were e-cards, but many were also constructed of paper. Her company was actually based not too far away, in Connecticut, and she drove over for meetings once a month. Other than that, she worked on the internet and with graphic programs. She produced her paper creations by hand and on her own time, which allowed for her sideline of finding the lost and missing with Purbeck and Rollo.

Purbeck called her whenever a child went missing in the woods, and she and Rollo would find that child. It wasn’t always children. The last time she’d been called out, Mr. Husseldorf—one hundred and two, and looking forward to his next birthday—had wandered out of his nursing home. She’d found him down by one of the brooks, fishing without a pole. But the expression on his face and his every movement showed her that in his mind he was fishing.

She’d left the city because she preferred to find the living. In the city, it seemed, she too often found the dead.

But then, that was her real talent, wasn’t it?

Arriving at her car, Mo opened the door for Rollo to hop into the front, then walked around and slid into the driver’s seat. Technically, she was in Tarrytown and not Sleepy Hollow. There were signs that announced when you actually reached Sleepy Hollow.

She loved her home. It was right on a little twist on the river. She could stand in her backyard and see Sunnyside, the home where Washington Irving had lived for many years, and where he’d died. And sometimes, looking across the river, she could see him. He was older; he walked with a cane. But he was tall and lean, an extremely attractive older man. Sometimes, when a train went by, he lifted his cane as if cursing it.

Everyone in the area knew how much he’d hated it when the tracks had gone in. The trains blocked his view of the river when they went by, creating a nuisance with their horns and whistles and noise, day and night. After all, the writer had purchased Sunnyside because he loved peace and quiet. He’d added rocks to his stream so he could better hear the rush of the water and he’d built up a mound in front of his cottage so it wasn’t easily seen when visitors—or the curious—arrived via the road.

“Well, Rollo,” she murmured, “why do you think you and I live in a cottage and not a house? It means I’m going to have to look that up, the difference between a cottage and a house.”

Rollo had no answer, other than a wriggle in the passenger seat. She assumed he was trying to wag his tail, but he barely fit in the car.

Her home was surrounded by trees and stood about a quarter of a mile off the road.

It had always astonished her that you could leave New York City and less than an hour later, you’d reach a countryside of hills and vales and streams and trees. The wonder of it had been with her from the time she was a child.

She parked beneath the porte cochere at the side of her cottage. Once, the parking spot had been a carriage drop. She hadn’t closed it in, although sometimes, in the dead of winter, she ended up scraping a lot of ice off her windshield. She just couldn’t bring herself to add clunky garage doors to a spot that was so lovely.

Rollo went bounding out of the car, ready to find a tree of his own choosing.

Mo walked down to the river and gazed out toward Sunnyside. She shielded her eyes against the late-October sun that had risen through the clouds and the mist. And there he was.

Repair work was going on at Sunnyside, with scaffolding up by the porch where Washington Irving had often sat, enjoying the peace of the river—when the trains weren’t rattling by. There was no train at the moment.

Irving wasn’t sitting. He was walking, as if taking a midday constitutional. Shoulders high and squared, he moved slowly but with dignity, handsome in a jacket, vest and cravat. She watched him for a few minutes—and she saw him look down the slight bend in the river to where she stood. She wasn’t anywhere near close enough to see his face clearly, but she knew he was watching her, too. He waved at her, and she waved back.

She doubted he knew yet that his beloved Tarrytown–Sleepy Hollow area had been visited by a flesh-and-blood demon who was killing people—and taking heads.

During his life, people had often asked Irving whether he believed ghosts existed. Irving always said that if they did, and if he came back as one, he’d certainly haunt a place he’d loved. Sunnyside.

And, of course, there were frequent sightings of “the ghost.” He was often caught in “orbs” and “patterns” on film and digital cameras

This amused Irving no end. He’d told Mo once that he derived great pleasure from studying people as they walked around Sunnyside gaping at their photos—and swearing they’d captured his image in a slew of dust motes when he’d actually been standing right behind them as they’d taken the pictures.

She didn’t have the opportunity to speak with him often. It only happened on days when she went back to Sunnyside to walk the grounds and revel in the peace and beauty of the place.

And to shop in the gift store. She loved going in at this time of year; they always had delightfully spooky things for sale. Sometimes, the “essence” of Irving—as he liked to refer to himself—followed her into the store and teased her as she did her shopping. He was quite a prankster and particularly liked making her look as if she were talking to herself—ostensibly driven crazy by the ghosts of Sleepy Hollow.

“Rollo! Let’s go in,” she called to the dog.

He came loping over to her from the woods, where he’d no doubt had a number of good sniffs and marked several trees—an Irish wolfhound was capable of a lot of “marking.” She stooped to give him a massive hug. She’d taught him long ago not to jump on people, since he’d knock most of them to the ground if he did.

In the early 1800s, her home had been a one-room wooden farmhouse. Sometime before the Civil War, the Ahern family had come from Boston and purchased the house. They’d added a wing as well as a second story. During the war years, Sean Ahern had built another wing. He’d had a son killed at Shiloh and had turned his pain into a passion for helping wounded soldiers. He’d taken in many who had been displaced.

The ivied entrance with its small pillars led to a long hallway. The dining room was to the left of the kitchen, which came complete with modern conveniences. A door from the dining room led out to what was still called the “hospital porch.” To the right was the staircase and the parlor, and beyond the parlor was an office/library. Behind that, she had a large family room. The house was filled with marvelous little features—a recessed area in the office for a daybed, a bay window at the front of the parlor and built-in shelving for bric-a-brac and plates and books. The family room had French doors that opened onto the back porch with its view of the river. There were the trains, of course. That was okay. For her beautiful little piece of the world, she could deal with the trains.

She set her keys on the eighteenth-century occasional table by the door and pulled off her jacket, hanging it on a hook. Then she started a pot of coffee in the kitchen, and after that, went to the office to sit at her computer—and stare at it. While Halloween might be approaching, she was working on designs for Valentine’s Day.

His nails clicking on the hardwood floors, Rollo came down the hall and settled in her office, next to her desk. She tried to focus on the screen. She’d been working on a verse for a pop-up card she’d designed that revealed a cherubic cupid pulsing with sun rays when the card was opened. He was aiming an arrow with a heart for a tip, and so far she’d written, “Roses are red, violets are blue, my world is brilliant, since I have you.”

Mo loved what she did. She’d been a visual arts major, and while still in college she became fascinated with pop-up cards. She’d worked for a number of card companies, but eventually she’d started working at home. She did the artwork and the “paper engineering” on the cards before they were sent off to be replicated in large numbers.

She made a decent living from her art. She and Rollo never accepted money for working with the police; to her, it wouldn’t have seemed right.

“What do you think of my latest card, Rollo? Simple and sweet. Gotta tell ya, this isn’t easy when...”

She could still see that first horseman—with the head of Richard Highsmith on it.

Mo heard the slight creak of old floorboards and turned around. Rollo was already at her feet so she knew it wasn’t the dog moving.

Her heart quickened for a moment. She had just seen two people who’d been decapitated. Noises in the house didn’t usually bother her. It was old; it was constantly settling. And, of course, she had several resident ghosts—some better than others in their abilities to make floorboards creak and cause solid objects to move.

This time it was Candy Lewiston who had come to see her.

Even as a ghost, Candy was rivetingly beautiful. She’d come to the house through the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. Her heritage was mixed—African-American, European and Native American. She had large, dark eyes, her cheekbones were perfectly sculpted and she moved with effortless grace. Ghosts could appear to float, yes, but Candy moved as if she were still flesh and blood, graceful and lithe beyond measure.