“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