The girlfriend, who’d called the cops, was standing off to the side with some of the uniformed officers. She was wearing yoga pants and a tank top. Looked like a gym bunny to Maria.
“Should we go chat with her?” Jenna said.
Maria had hoped to be home early with Tim tonight. They had plans to binge watch Game of Thrones and catch up on the series. Tim called it the “swords and boobies” show, which was fairly accurate. “Let’s see what she had to say.”
The detectives approached her. The young woman’s eyes were red and raw. She was hugging herself to stop shaking. It wasn’t working.
“I’m Detective Greco and this is Detective Martz. Can we ask you some questions?”
“Sure.”
Maria said, “You called us. Tell us what happened.”
“Me and Greg were out for a jog.”
Martz took out a notepad. “What was Greg’s last name?”
“Schwartz.”
“He live here in town? Address?” Jenna asked.
Stacey rattled off an address. Maria knew it. Quiet side street on the other side of the village. They would send a uniform to deliver the bad news to his next of kin.
“So you’re out jogging and then?” Maria asked.
“We stopped for a break. Near the bench.”
“You typically jog at night?” Maria said.
“Is that wrong?”
“Not wrong. Just wondering,” Maria said.
“Not usually. But we got out of work late. Thought it was a nice night. We were at the bench when I heard something in the woods. It got louder, then the man came.”
Her chest hitched and she sobbed quietly for a moment.
“Take your time,” Maria said.
Stacey wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “He pulled Greg to the ground. He was really strong. Then he broke Greg’s neck.”
“We noticed the blood. How did that happen? I know this is hard for you,” Jenna said.
“After he broke Greg’s neck, he took out a knife and removed his head.”
The last part of her statement came out rapid fire: knifeandremovedhishead.
“I’m sorry, you said he cut off Greg’s head?” Maria said.
Stacey nodded. “Then he dragged Greg’s body into the woods.”
Hence the footprints and drag marks. “Can you describe him?”
“Long, dirty coat. His skin was kind of blue and gray, pale. He had a hoodie on under the coat. Long, stringy hair. I didn’t get a look at his face. I think he’d been burned in a fire. He came out of the woods really fast.”
Jenna said, “And you hadn’t seen him before? Wasn’t hanging around the park?”
“The first time I saw him was when he came out of the woods,” Stacey said.
“What kind of knife?” Maria said.
“Big. It had teeth.”
“Like Rambo used?” Jenna said.
“Who?” Stacey said.
“Never mind. You’re too young,” Jenna said.
They asked Stacey a few more questions and then she called for her parents to come pick her up. Maria told her they’d be following up at some point. After making some more notes and roughing up a sketch of the scene, they went off to the side, away from the commotion. One of the uniforms was keeping the first news van on the scene away from everything, a camera guy from Channel Two filming the whole thing.
“So what the hell just happened?” Jenna said.
“Well, a man was murdered, Detective,” Maria said.
“Smart-ass,” Jenna said.
“Something nasty. Who the hell shows up and cuts a guy’s head off?” Maria said.
“We haven’t had a murder here in what, fifteen, twenty years? And that was before we were on the job.”
“Yeah. The Lassiter killing. Old fucking farmer starts hearing the devil’s voice coming out of his tractor and takes an axe to his wife and three kids,” Maria said.
“There were those kids by the creek,” Jenna said.
“And the other missing kids,” Maria said.
“Presumed murdered. Good bet.”
Now a second news van was rolling through the park. It stopped short of the crime scene tape. Channel Four news. Two was already here. All they needed was Channel Seven for the trifecta.
“Don’t even start with that Walking Man bullshit,” Maria said.
“I’m not. But it couldn’t hurt to check out the house.”
“We’re not going to find the boogeyman there, Jen.”
“Our head chopper could be hiding there.”
“Fine. But no urban legend crap, huh?” Maria said.
“Best get home before it’s dark,” Jenna said. “Now he’s cutting heads off in the park. I made up that last part,” Jenna said.
The old kid’s rhyme. “You’re brilliant. I hate you sometimes. Let’s go check it out.”
Three
Maria steered the unmarked down the twisting road that led to the old house. She got a glimpse of it through the trees; it reminded her of a plantation house plopped in the middle of suburbia. It reportedly had forty-some rooms. The last owner had died in the late sixties. A suicide. Set himself on fire. Everyone knew the story. Thomas Harwell, despondent over the murder of his daughters, decided to end it. There was supposedly still a scorch mark on the dining room floor where he’d lit himself up.
“I see the Walking Man. Look!” Jenna said.
“I really hate you. I mean it,” Maria said.
She stopped the unmarked short of the estate’s gardens, which were now a tangle of brown weeds. A rusted, fifties-model Ford pickup sat on blocks, the tires gone. A path led up to through the dead gardens, and next to the path stood a wooden sign on a stake: No Trespassing.
“Guess technically we’re trespassing,” Maria said.
“It’s abandoned. Don’t even know who wound up owning it after that guy torched himself. Probable cause? We saw someone hanging around, decided to look.”
“Sounds as good as anything. Let’s get this over with.”
Maria took
