“Normal people,” Purbeck agreed. He stood awkwardly for a moment, watching his officers and the crime scene technicians working. “But if you actually know the dog, he’s one friendly guy.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Lieutenant—Rollo can be fierce!” Maureen bent down to hug the dog. He didn’t exactly prove her point when he rewarded her with a sloppy kiss. One of her mom’s best friends had bred Irish wolfhounds; the dogs had been special to her from the first time she’d seen them. She and Rollo were family.
“And Richard Highsmith—” She started to turn back to the head on the mannequin but stopped herself. “He was a politician, in from the city. I do have to wonder whether someone decided to kill him and to use the legend to get away with it. Let’s face it, no one can look at this without thinking that a maniac is at work. That could throw an investigation in the wrong direction.”
“I almost hope you’re right.” Purbeck glanced at the effigy and the head—now covered with blue canvas in case the gawkers arrived. And in case media cameras showed up. Given media presence at the convention center last night, Mo was surprised that no members of the press were here this morning—and equally relieved. That was obviously because not many people knew there was a severed head here or that it had belonged to Richard Highsmith. They would soon enough. Police were trying to protect the scene of the crime and, she felt, Richard Highsmith’s dignity. No one wanted the grotesque and heartbreaking image of Highsmith’s severed head appearing on TV or the internet or the papers. “I hope this is a political thing. Because if it’s not...”
“You think there really might be someone here...who’s crazy and going after heads?” Maureen asked. “But we have the head.”
Purbeck nodded grimly. “What we don’t have is the rest of the body, and that’s the next order of business. But you—”
Detective Lee Van Camp, a lean man with a thin face and a haggard appearance, stepped over to them, interrupting whatever the lieutenant was about to say. Mo knew he’d be lead man on the case. He worked with Jimmy Voorhaven, a younger detective, and they were probably the two best men in the county. Purbeck was a good commander and usually directed his detectives from his office. Purbeck was here himself because Richard Highsmith’s disappearance—and now confirmed murder—was about as high-profile as it got.
He would remain involved. The media had already gone crazy but news people were being kept at a distance.
She’d worked with Detective Van Camp before. In fact, of all the local cops, she’d worked with him the most. They’d met when she was just a teenager. She hadn’t had Rollo then; she’d had his mom, Heidi. Working with the wolfhounds had been a godsend for her. When she was in her teens, her parents had discovered how effective she and Heidi were at search and rescue, and she remembered hearing them argue about whether they should allow her to continue. They’d decided that yes, if she could help, they were morally bound to let her do so.
She’d never really known what Van Camp thought about her and her almost foolproof ability to find the missing. He simply watched her with his dark, unblinking eyes. And he was always courteous.
“Well?” Purbeck asked softly.
“Political execution taken to a dramatic extreme?” Van Camp asked Purbeck. “Or mental case?” He turned to Mo. “What do you think?”
Maureen wasn’t taken aback by the question. And it wasn’t because she and Van Camp knew each other or that they’d worked together before. He’d told her once that he just listened and tested everything he heard; he listened to everyone, taking in what worked for him and ignoring what didn’t. But he didn’t brush off anyone or discount any opinion. Mo liked him a lot. He was an exceptional detective for that very reason.
She took a deep breath. “It’s certainly dramatic. But in the legend, the headless horseman is looking for heads. He takes the heads and leaves the bodies behind.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Van Camp said.
Purbeck narrowed his eyes. “People say there are really no new stories, just new ways to tell them. The headless horseman was an old legend in the area—Washington Irving just wrote it up with literary talent. Whoever this is, they’re putting a new twist on it.”
“If you go by the legend, the horseman is searching for a head,” Van Camp continued. “And he killed old Ichabod Crane with a pumpkin head he’d been carting around. But if you read between the lines, either Bram Bones did in his rival or Ichabod went off to live happily ever after somewhere else. But if you think this is a political assassination, the drama’s an attempt to throw off suspicion. Hard to be sure at this point.” He cleared his throat. “We’ll know more, I’m sure, after autopsy. I mean— Well, we’ll need to know how the head was removed from the body.”