They certainly seemed normal. They’d read all the books, gone through all the rigors of training. They’d passed the academy classes. Everyone he’d met seemed bright, efficient, competent. Nice. He’d liked them all.
But they had a reputation for being called in on the weird cases. And weird was an area he’d rather avoid.
The new base for the NYC Krewe unit had only recently come into existence. Before Aidan had seen the paper today—heard the voice!—he hadn’t expected to be in the field anytime soon. He’d been told by his old superior that Jackson Crow had been watching him, noting his methods and his work, and had specifically asked that Aidan be brought in when the Krewe’s New York office was formed.
Aidan was still getting to know his new unit, accepting that he was part of it.
“We’ve got some serious trouble,” Crow said.
Yeah, Aidan thought. Richard’s dead. But he didn’t speak.
“The New York office got a call from the sheriff up in Westchester County,” Crow said. “The director called me—since you’re part of the Krewe now. You’re the man he wants. I understand you’re from the area. Plus, he’d like to cover all the bases—the usual aspects of an investigation into a disappearance like this...and, shall we say, the unusual ones.” There was a brief silence. “This one could be described as unusual in that Richard Highsmith apparently disappeared into thin air. He was in Tarrytown for a fund-raiser yesterday. He disappeared around dusk. He was there—at the center where he was scheduled to speak—and then he wasn’t. He still hasn’t made an appearance and his staff is worried sick.”
“The locals are on it?”
“They’ve been on it. They did a lockdown at the center for several hours. They questioned everyone there before letting anyone go. His car was in the lot, and there was security all around.” Crow was quiet for a moment. “If he was your average Joe, they wouldn’t even have a Missing Persons report on him yet, but...”
“But it’s Richard,” Aidan said quietly. He probably should have told Crow right then that Richard Highsmith was more than a rising politician to him. The reason he didn’t was that he wanted the assignment.
He chose not to mention that he knew Richard well. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure about his new position with the agency, but he knew one thing. He was not going to be pulled off this case, and while he didn’t want to be dishonest, he wasn’t going to tell his new supervisor about his friendship with the missing man—yet.
“Yes. And it’s hitting the news this morning,” Crow said. “Tarrytown’s about an hour away from here—”
“Less,” Aidan told him. At this time of morning? Hell, yeah, he could get there fast.
“Then go. I’ll call your cell with any particulars we have. By this evening, I’ll have a few more agents assigned.”
“Consider me gone.” Aidan hung up, drained his coffee and started for the door.
They got me, my old friend. They got me.
He was going to find Richard Highsmith.
And the saddest thing of all...
Aidan knew he was going to find him dead.
It was a horrific sight.
And, bizarrely enough, one that might be missed, at least in Sleepy Hollow. Here, and in the surrounding villages and towns, images and effigies of headless horsemen were common.
A pole had been stuck into a man’s likeness created from wood and stuffing and plaster and cotton—a likeness that ended at the neckline. Right where the Revolutionary-era jacket and shirt left off.
And Richard Highsmith’s severed head had been stuck onto the pole.
It was bloody, and the midlength, salt-and-pepper hair was matted and dark. The face might once have held character and dignity.
Maureen Deauville stood with her enormous wolfhound, Rollo, and stared at it. For a moment, she felt as if she’d been teleported back to medieval times. The breeze rustled through the trees and the sounds of traffic from the road seemed to fade. She might have been standing in distant woods, viewing the results of a gruesome execution carried out by some long-ago government.
In reality, she was on the street that bordered a cemetery to the west. There were houses here—some very old, some not so old—and a few businesses, including Tommy Jensen’s Headless Horseman Hideaway Restaurant and Bar. His effigy of the headless horseman, a good seven or so feet high, lurked on the roadside to attract clientele.
And it had been used to display the head.
The parking lot was filled with cars, mainly cop cars. It was barely 7:00 a.m. At least seven uniformed officers were there, ready to handle crowd control and keep the few cars on the street moving along. A crime scene unit van had just arrived and jerked to a halt, followed seconds later by the ambulance from the morgue.
They’d begun the search for the missing man that morning, just half an hour earlier.
“You’ve done it. You and Rollo have done your jobs,” Lieutenant Purbeck said with a sigh. “Not what we expected to find, or hoped to find, but...” He paused. “But that’s part of Richard Highsmith, anyway.”
The blood was congealing. It had dripped over the crisp collar and seeped onto the shoulders of the white cotton shirt and blue jacket on the should-have-been-headless mannequin. The eyes were open in death, and crows and blackbirds lurked, waiting to attack. Even as Maureen stared up at the atrocity before her, a crow zeroed in, aiming for the soft tissue.
“We’ve got to get that down!” One of the cops, a young man, new to the force—Bobby Magill, Maureen thought—groaned, sounding ill.
“Anyone who’s going to puke, get the hell away from the crime scene! Let’s get it covered!” Lieutenant Purbeck shouted.
At Maureen’s side, Rollo gave one of his deep, bone-jarring barks. Maureen quickly soothed the large wolfhound. “Good job, Rollo,” she murmured. Men scrambled, as Lieutenant Purbeck said, “I want a step...a block...something. We need an investigator up there. And crowd control! Someone arrange detours until we’ve got all this out of here. And I sure as hell don’t want anyone around gaping and snapping shots for Twitter and Facebook!”
Gina Mason, head of the forensics unit, stepped forward and yelled at them. “Get the birds away! And then get some kind of screening set up. We have to preserve the scene! Can we get rigging and tarps around the—the— Around it! Everyone will be breathing down my neck for trace evidence and I’ll have to say we were defeated by a crow!”
Dr. Aaron Mortenson from the coroner’s office had arrived, as well. He got out of his car and walked over to Gina.
“Let the photographer up there first, and then I’ll take a quick look. I won’t disturb anything until you’ve had a chance to get what you need,” he told her.
Mortenson was middle-aged, trim in appearance and always reserved. He saw Mo and Rollo. To her surprise, he nodded to her with something that was almost a smile. A silent acknowledgment that said, Work well done. He sighed loudly. “Since it’s so early, thankfully no four-year-old saw this and realized the head was real. God knows— Halloween. It might well have taken hours even in broad daylight before anyone saw that it wasn’t just part of some grisly display.”
She nodded solemnly back at him.
Lieutenant Purbeck came to stand near Mo, allowing the technicians and the medical examiner the space they needed.
He