“The Harvest Man is a local legend—I’ll tell you about him later. But I think our guy is crazy, and that he thinks he’s the Harvest Man reborn or something,” she said.
“Well, our guy is definitely crazy in one way or another, and given the way that body was rigged up, I’m willing to bet he knows the area and its legends backward and forward.”
“You really have to go through the research,” Rowenna said. “Honestly, I’m sure I’m onto something.”
“Even if that’s the case,” Jeremy told her, “he’s still flesh and blood, very dangerous—and out there somewhere.” He found himself rising as he talked. “Where are you, exactly? I’m on my way over.”
She gave him the address of the little sushi place off the main drag where she and Daniel were. It was close enough that he decided to walk. He cut through the pedestrian mall, envisioning where Damien had set up his tent. Assuming he’d been the one to abduct Mary, how had he pulled it off? Somehow he would have had to close up and store his tent, then spirit Mary out of the cemetery. Of course, according to Brad the area had been deserted, so that meant no one around to see what was going on.
As he passed the shops, he noticed Rowenna’s friends Adam and Eve Llewellyn changing the display in the front window of their store. They seemed to be arguing as they arranged brilliant purple fabric to provide the backdrop for whatever merchandise they planned to feature.
Eve looked up, as if instinctively, and saw him. The scowl she’d been wearing disappeared as if it had never existed. She smiled broadly and waved, and elbowed Adam in the arm so that he could wave and smile, too. It was interesting, Jeremy thought. Adam hadn’t seen him, so he’d been arguing away, the tension in his features betraying his anger. But just like Eve, he slipped an instant grin onto his face and waved as if he were as happy as a clam.
With no alternative, Jeremy smiled and waved back.
Eve escaped from the window and reached the door before he could stop at a wave and keep going.
“Where’s Rowenna?” she asked.
“Having lunch with Dan,” he told her.
“Lunch? Where?” Eve asked.
“Some sushi place off the main drag.”
“Asaki,” Eve said knowingly. “Wait for me? I’m starving, so I’m just going to tell Adam to hold the fort.”
Before he could answer, she had hurried back into the shop.
Through the window, he could see Adam frown, then argue.
Eve ignored him and hurried back outside, wrapped in a long black cape and smiling broadly, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
Smiling far too broadly, it seemed to him.
“Let’s go, shall we?”
She linked an arm through his. “Do you like sushi?” she asked brightly.
“Sure. I like just about anything. I’ve already eaten, though. I’m just catching up with Rowenna,” he said. “She was over at the museum researching something called the Harvest Man.”
Eve laughed, and it seemed as forced to him as her smile had been. “Well, I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you. Dan’s a nice guy, but he can be a little dull. I’m sure they’ve had their noses stuck deep into some old book all morning. How they think that looking into the past can help solve a modern murder…” Her voice trailed off, and she paused, shuddering. “Do they know who the woman is yet, or where she came from?”
“They’re looking into it now,” Jeremy told her. But I’ve got a pretty good idea, he added silently.
Eve shuddered again and tightened her grip on his arm tightly as they kept walking at a brisk pace. “It’s so horrible,” she said. “I mean, you read about things, but they happen other places. Or they’re awful, but make some kind of…sense. A wife kills her abusive husband, a drug dealer shoots a rival drug dealer. This…this just gives me chills.”
“Hopefully they’ll catch the killer quickly,” Jeremy said.
“They know it was a man?” Eve asked.
“She was sexually assaulted, which certainly suggests a man,” he said. They had all been working off the assumption that the killer was a man, but there had been no seminal fluid to collect. A condom would have seen to that, but it was possible that she had been sexually assaulted with a foreign object, though there had been no unusual injury to support that theory. Definitely an organized killer, but every killer eventually made a mistake.
This killer would, too.
Except that Jeremy had the sinking feeling that if they didn’t catch him in time, this killer’s next victim could be Mary.
“How is your friend holding up?” Eve asked, as if following his line of thought.
“I haven’t seen him today. I’ll check in with him soon,” Jeremy told her.
A moment later they opened the door to the restaurant. Rowenna and Daniel were at a booth in the back, deep in conversation. She looked beautiful, Jeremy thought. And when she saw him, she looked up with a smile so genuine that he couldn’t help smiling back. He wondered how she had managed to slip into his life, his heart, so easily. Arguing with someone was one thing, attraction was another and sex—even great sex—was still another. She was all three of those things and more. Maybe he’d kept away from her so long because he’d known she was going to have this ability to rock his world with merely a smile.
Daniel turned and looked up, and gestured invitingly. They made a strange duo, Jeremy thought. Dan looked like a stereotypical professor, with his slightly ruffled hair and glasses. He was even wearing a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches.
In contrast, Rowenna was an image of vibrance. Her coloring was electric; even sitting still, she seemed to exude energy and life.
Eve added to the diversity of the picture. Rushing up in her flowing cape and dangling pentagram earrings, she was the personification of a Salem “witch.”
“Hope you don’t mind me barging in on lunch,” Eve said now. “I saw Jeremy passing by and accosted him. When I heard where he was going, I forced him to bring me,” she said, sitting and, without compunction, diving right in and snatching a piece of California roll from Rowenna’s plate.
“I’m always happy to see you,” Rowenna said.
Daniel, looking up at Jeremy, rolled his eyes. Jeremy had the feeling that they were friends because they were both friends with Rowenna, not because they really had much in common. Daniel’s love of history and books seemed pretty obviously at odds with Eve’s free-spirited approach to life.
He found himself suddenly anxious for Rowenna’s safety, even though he could see that she was safe, and no doubt would stay that way so long as she stuck with her friends. In fact, there was no reason to assume that she was at any more risk than any other young woman walking the streets of Salem.
That was what a smile could do, he thought. Twist a man’s psyche so he found himself afraid for a woman just because she was a woman. No, if he were honest with himself, he had to admit that it was more. It was because she was edging into being part of his world, part of life as he knew it. What an idiot he was. He’d somehow managed to avoid her in New Orleans despite seeing her on a daily basis, but now…
Just then Daniel stood to shake his hand, interrupting his thoughts. “We did some interesting reading this morning,” he said.
“I got a hint of it on the phone,” Jeremy said, sliding next to Dan in the booth, since Eve had taken the spot next to Rowenna and was busily sharing her sushi.
“Remind me that I need a to-go order,” she said. “I told Adam I’d bring something back for him.”
“What about you?” Daniel asked Jeremy politely. “You hungry?”
Jeremy laughed. “I wasn’t. I just ate, but those rolls look good.” He figured they were going to have to dispense with the meal before they did any real talking. And though he knew that no legendary killer had come back from the dead to murder women, he thought it was definitely possible that someone was playing a modern game of death based on the past.
When their waiter approached, Eve ordered quickly. “
Edamame, please, a salad with ginger dressing, a dragon roll and a miso soup. And just double the whole order and pack the second one to go, will you? Thanks.”
Having ordered, Eve looked very happy. The simple things in life, Jeremy thought.
The rolls really did look good, and seafood didn’t seem quite as…dead as his hamburger had.
Jeremy opted for two rolls, one tuna and one salmon.
“The decorating is coming along great for Thanksgiving,” Eve said as the waiter promptly arrived with two more water glasses, another teapot and little cups. “And then we’ll do it up for Christmas.”
“Christmas?” Daniel teased. “But you’re a wiccan.”
“And we have our own holidays, but I—unlike some people I know—respect all kinds of beliefs. We carry items to appeal to wiccans, Christians, those who recognize Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius—we even have customers who celebrate Kwanzaa. Oh,” she added, nodding sagely toward Jeremy, “we also have a few things for anyone who’s into voodoo.”
Jeremy realized that she didn’t know that he wasn’t originally from New Orleans, nor that not everyone in the city practiced voodoo.
“Yeah?” Daniel asked, his lips quirked in amusement. “Is that what those hideous masks on the wall are all about?”
Eve made a face. “I don’t like them at all,” she admitted.
“But you sell them,” Daniel said.
“What masks?” Rowenna asked.
“We just put them out this morning,” Eve said. “I have so much beautiful stuff—and Adam decided we had to buy those masks. They’re by a local artist. Well, a guy who grew up here and made it big doing special effects in the movies, and then decided to come back home. His name is Eric Rolfe.”
“Eric? I remember Eric,” Rowenna said, and looked across the table at Jeremy. “He was a few years ahead of me in school. He wanted to do special effects, even when he was a kid. He always made the creepiest scarecrows.” A troubled look crossed her face. “In fact…his scarecrows were almost as scary as a real corpse.”
Jeremy knew he needed to look up this Eric Rolfe immediately.
“So he just moved back here recently?” Jeremy asked.
“Yeah, a couple of weeks ago, but don’t go getting ideas about him being a homicidal maniac,” Eve said, waving a dismissive hand in the air. “He’s the sweetest little thing you’ll ever meet,” she said in a mock Southern accent.
“Sweetest little thing?” Jeremy repeated.
Rowenna laughed. “He’s actually about six-three, and he was built husky, even back in high school. But he is a really nice guy, the kind who wouldn’t hurt a fly. I heard that a few years ago, one of the high schools managed a senior trip out to California when he was working on some monster movie. He gave all the kids a tour of his shop, got them on the set—he was really generous to them. I’m kind of anxious to see him. I didn’t know he was back.”
“What’s the story with his masks?” Jeremy asked Eve.
“Eric was always interested in what makes people tick,” she said. “He thought it was fascinating psychologically, the way the Puritans believed in witches and actually thought people could sign the Devil’s book and all that. So now he’s made a series of masks depicting what the Puritans thought the Devil might look like. And let me tell you, they’re creepy as hell. Adam insisted we carry them.”
Was that what they’d been fighting about? Jeremy wondered.
She sighed. “At least I managed to hide them in the back of the store. Oh, on a brighter note…Ro, do you remember Angie Peterson? She’s doing beautiful jewelry designs in silver—she got her degree in New York—and she’s come home now, too.”
When the two women started discussing Angie’s life and art, Daniel turned to Jeremy and said, “We found a reference to a body being left in a cornfield almost three hundred years ago.”
“Rowenna said something about centuries ago,” Jeremy told him.
“I think it could be important, don’t you?” Daniel asked, and gave him a rundown on the Harvest Man and the related history they’d uncovered.
“Could be. It certainly looks as if the killer is local and knows this Harvest Man legend,” Jeremy agreed. “Then again,” he added, “whoever did this obviously knows the local fields and when the roads were likely to be empty so he could go out and put up his ‘scarecrow.’”
“Local?” Eve looked positively ashen. “I know just about everyone who lives around here,” she said. “And I don’t know any homicidal maniacs, thank you very much.”
Rowenna looked at her friend, clearly worried by her pallor.
“Sorry,” Eve said, looking around the table. “It’s just—it’s just very upsetting.”
“Of course it is,” Rowenna said soberly.
There was silence at the table.
At that moment the waiter arrived with the miso soup and salad.
Eve bent over her soup immediately, as if it were the most important thing in the world.
“Are you afraid?” Daniel asked her quietly.
She paused with her spoon midway to her mouth and looked up. “Me? Why should I be afraid?”
She obviously was, though.
“You should both be afraid,” Jeremy said bluntly. Daniel stared at him, surprised, so he went on to explain. “I don’t mean hiding-under-a-table afraid. I mean aware and careful. One woman is dead. Another is missing. I hope there’s not a panic, but you should be extra vigilant, yes.”
Rowenna was staring at him with a frown puckering her brow.
“Rowenna, where is your car now?” Jeremy asked.
“At the police station,” she said, her gaze absent. She was concerned for Eve, he could see.
“What are your plans for the afternoon?” Jeremy asked her.
“I was going to go back to the museum with Dan and do some more reading,” she said.
“Good, stay there until I come for you, all right?” Jeremy asked.
“Hey, you said you’d stop by the shop,” Eve said, hurt.
“Fine, I’ll stop by the shop, and then I’ll go back to the museum,” Rowenna said. “Why? Where are you going?” she asked Jeremy.
“I have a few errands to run, and I want to check on Brad,” he told her.
The sushi arrived, but Eve, who had been starving earlier, seemed to be having a problem swallowing.
Conversation petered out.
Daniel tried to get it moving again. “Hey, I just remembered, we’re sitting in the company of a queen.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Eve said, smiling. “Rowenna is this year’s harvest queen.”
“Just what does it mean, being the harvest queen?” Jeremy asked.
“We have a parade on Thanksgiving day,” Daniel explained. “It’s kind of a silly thing. A lot of the local businesses create floats. It’s kind of cool—art majors from the local colleges get involved. They get extra credit, and sometimes they even wind up on TV. We usually end up with about twenty floats. It’s not like the Macy’s parade or anything, but it’s fun. It starts out—”
He broke off abruptly, staring at the women across the table.
“It starts out in the cornfields,” Rowenna said with forced brightness. “The queen rides on a big fixed-up hay wagon drawn by four horses. The route is only a few miles long. The harvest starts right after. Or it used to. Now, sometimes, it’s already started. It’s just for fun these days, though I guess it had more significance years ago.”
“It’s part of a pagan ritual,” Eve said.
“There’s nothing pagan about it,” Daniel protested.
“Yes, there is,” Eve insisted. “It’s a way of giving thanks for the harvest. According to pagan belief, the harvest queen was like the goddess, Mother Earth, the one who shares her bounty with those around her.”
“Well whatever it used to be, all it is now is a good time,” Rowenna said, stepping in to end the argument. “Local farmers—and just people who have houses along the route—set up fruit stands,
they serve hot apple cider, and there’s a dinner-dance at one of the colleges that night. You’ll enjoy it,” she assured Jeremy.
He smiled, but he wasn’t as sure as he was pretending to be. Anything with the word harvest connected to it was suspect in his book these days, as if the very word carried an aura of evil.
“So there’s no harvest king?” he asked.
“The harvest king is chosen at the dinner,” Eve told him. “Think of Rowenna as Queen Elizabeth the First, choosing her king from among her courtiers. And the dinner will be really nice, I promise. I’m on the decorating committee.”
“Am I invited?” he asked Rowenna.
“Of course. Anyone can come.” She smiled then, as if to let him know he would have been invited anyway.
Jeremy looked at his watch and stood. “I’ll catch up with you at the museum, then,” he told Rowenna. “I need to get going.”
She nodded. “Sounds good.”
As he headed to the front, he saw the waiter bringing Eve her to-go order. He wondered what she and Adam had been fighting about. Married couples squabbled, he told himself. That was life. Still, there seemed to be something off about the way they’d tried to cover for their fight. Maybe there marriage was in real trouble and they just didn’t want anyone to know.
He found the hostess and paid the bill, then hurried out.
He was sure Joe would call him as soon as he had any information to share, but meanwhile, he had a few stops he needed to make, and he was anxious to get moving.
He wanted to stop by the MacElroy farmhouse at some point, for one thing.
The farmhouse by the cornfield.
The MacElroys were Rowenna’s next-door neighbors—even if “next door” meant something different out in the country than it did in town—and they owned the cornfield where the body had been found. The police had undoubtedly already contacted them and asked every imaginable question.
But he wanted to get a few answers himself.
However, he now had a new plan. He wanted to find Eric Rolfe.
He had only gone a few steps down the sidewalk when he heard his name called. He turned around and saw that Rowenna had come running out of the restaurant after him.