Read Online The Headsman by James Neal Harvey - Free Book Online Page B

coffee and a bran muffin she’d bought at the luncheonette down the street, she picked up the newspaper lying in front of the showroom and unlocked the door. Once inside she turned off the alarm and put her breakfast and the paper on her desk, then took off her coat and hung it in a closet. She returned to her desk and sat down, wishing she could turn around and go home.
    But she couldn’t. She needed this job, and as it was she often had trouble concentrating on her work when she was having one of her bad spells. When that happened she was apt to be forgetful and make mistakes. And when it got really bad, when she was afflicted by one of these migraines—or whatever they were—and she experienced a vision, she could hardly function.
    That was when she fully expected Charley Boggs, who owned the dealership, to fire her. But he’d always looked the other way when she had her problems. Which wasn’t so hard to understand, as she thought about it. She was an attractive young woman with an exceptional body, and although Boggs had never come right out and made a direct pass, Karen had caught him staring at her often enough, when he hadn’t thought anyone would notice. She had no illusions about him; he was undoubtedly just biding his time.
    She opened the bag and took out the container of coffee and the muffin. After removing the cap from the Styrofoam cup she sipped the black liquid, finding it still steaming hot. She closed her eyes, and despite her resolve not to let the images return to her consciousness, she suddenly recalled them once more: the black hood, the glittering ax, the woman’s face contorted by fear. And finally the dripping head held high in a black-gloved hand.
    She shuddered, and opening a drawer got out a bottle of aspirin. She shook two tablets out of the bottle and stepped over to the water cooler, where she swallowed the aspirin and chased the tablets with a cup of water.
    Back at her desk she seemed to feel a little better. It was just after eight o’clock, her usual arrival time, and she always enjoyed these few minutes of peace before the day’s activities began. This was Saturday, the busiest day of the week. But she’d have enough time to eat her breakfast and glance through the morning edition of the Express .
    As it had been recently, the news was mostly bad. The front page carried a story about a running battle between Moslems and Christians in Lebanon, and another about a train wreck in China that had killed more than a hundred people. Still another reported that the U.S. economy was in decline. That one took the view that the president was to blame, which irritated her. The problems went back years. Was the president supposed to just wave a magic wand and make everything wonderful again?
    There was also a story about another B–1 bomber crashing in Nevada with the loss of five crew members. This was the second fatal crash of an air force jet in the past month.
    She turned the page. A semitrailer had overturned on the interstate. The truck had been carrying crates of oranges from Florida, and the cargo had scattered all over the highway, causing cars to slip and slide as they ran over the fruit. Some of the vehicles had collided as drivers lost control. But the damage was relatively minor, and the truck driver was only slightly bruised. ORANGE CRUSH, the headline said. Karen smiled and turned to an article about the town’s plans for issuing municipal bonds to finance an overhaul of the water system. She finished her muffin as she glanced through the story.
    And then she saw the piece on a missing child.
    At first she tried to skip over it, deluding herself that she hadn’t really noticed it, that it didn’t concern her. But her gaze was drawn to the story as if by a magnet. Resignedly, she read the article.
    The boy was eight, the oldest of three children in a family that lived out on the Norrisville road. Their name was Mariski. The father was a machinist. The boy, Michael, had been