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Death in the Secret Garden

A Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mystery

Richard Forrest

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

For Patricia Hale Forrest

One

‘Spook did this!’

There was a slight quiver in the young patrolman’s voice as he stooped to look more closely at the naked corpse. The flesh around his cheek bones tightened. His fists clenched and unclenched as he turned toward his superior who paced a dozen yards away. His first words had been inaudible due to a stiff breeze blowing from the river in eddies that swept through the high stand of pines lining the promontory.

‘Spook killed her!’ he repeated in a louder voice.

Police Chief Rocco Herbert acknowledged the statement with a nod. He continued to pace a slow parabolic path that traced an orbit a dozen yards from the body. He carried his large bulk on a massive frame with surprising lightness. He walked with a supple grace that belied his six-and-a-half-feet height, which was matched by a body weight that was closer to three than two hundred pounds.

Patrolman Jamie Martin stood rigidly erect. He exhaled with a snorting vent of air. Although he had been on the Murphysville, Connecticut police force for several years, Jamie presented a naivety and innocence. Town residents still referred to him as ‘that nice young policeman.’

‘Spook ripped her clothes off, raped her, and then killed her.’ He delivered the assessment in a near shout that bounced off the large glacial boulders that bounded the perimeter of the small wooded cove. ‘I don’t know, maybe he raped her after he killed her,’ he said in a lower tone.

Rocco stopped at the foot of a black and white checkered blanket spread neatly on the ground on the far side of the clearing. A carefully folded pile of clothing—panties, bra, simple white blouse and jeans—was placed to the side. ‘Think not, Jamie.’

The police chief had purposely not advanced further toward the body. He had recognized the young woman from a dozen feet away. He had faced her at least once a week for the past six months as she worked the express checkout counter at the town’s only supermarket. He knew her as an attractive, flirtatious young woman, with a ripe voluptuousness and zest. Her darting eyes at men of any age were the merriment of a girl passing over the cusp of youth into womanhood. The flirting gestures did not promise future commitments as much as they expressed feminine vitality. The live girl of the express check-out line had somehow come to represent all young women of that age. He had casually enjoyed her youthful energy, which was now dissipated by the obscene position that signified a violent death.

The nude girl sprawled in the clearing was nearly the same age and build as his own daughter, who was a rising sophomore at a small liberal arts college in upper New York State. It was this similarity that kept him from an immediate examination of her body. ‘Why do you think it’s Spook?’ he asked tiredly.

Jamie Martin reached toward the corpse’s outstretched hand and prized the fingers apart. He removed a small piece of cloth containing yellow and black markings. He waved it overhead like a miniature flag. ‘Here’s the evidence that proves it!’ he crowed.

‘Oh, my God,’ Rocco muttered as he turned away. This violation of the rules of evidence made him want to bang his head against the nearest rock in complete frustration. ‘Jamie,’ he finally managed to say after a pause that was long enough for him to regain control. ‘During your training at the Police Academy, did they not casually mention, in passing, something about the proper method to establish a proper chain of evidence? Did they not touch on the rules of gathering said evidence?’

The young patrolman looked sheepishly at the patch of yellow and black clutched in his fist. ‘It’s a First Cav army shoulder patch, Chief. Look.’ As if in propitiation, he thrust the patch reverently toward Rocco. ‘Everyone knows how Spook is about the First Cav. He hands these things out to anyone who will take one. It was clutched in her fingers.’

As he knew he would eventually be forced to do, Rocco approached the body. He walked gingerly as if the ground beneath him were brittle enough to shatter and hurl him into a deep abyss. He avoided her as long as he could while he looked toward the distant Connecticut River below the cliff. He took the patch from Jamie and glanced at it long enough to establish that it was a First Cavalry Division shoulder patch. He gently placed the cloth in the dead girl’s outstretched hand and folded her fingers shut.

‘You never touched her, understand, Jamie?’

‘Yes, sir. I never got close to her.’ He backed halfway across the clearing. ‘She died hard, Chief.’

Rocco ignored his subordinate. ‘Go back to the car and radio Communications to send an assistant medical examiner out here. And for Christ’s sake, tell them not to send laughing Lars this time.’ Jamie gave a half salute. ‘Bring an evidence bag and tweezers from my car,’ Rocco yelled after him. ‘I want the ME to take the patch from her fingers. Go!’ Rocco turned his attention back to the sprawled cadaver as Jamie jogged toward the logging road.

Her painful progress across the clearing was obvious. A trail of blood flecks and disturbed leaves led from the blanket to the far edge of the clearing. She seemed to have fallen midway across and crawled the last few yards with the last shreds of her strength. Her direction seemed to be toward the cliff path that led down to the river.

He forced himself to kneel for a closer examination. She lay on her side while the hand clutching the patch stretched beyond her head. An apron of blood below her waist covered the belly and pelvic area. The injury seemed to indicate a low wound near or through the umbilicus that possibly severed the lower abdominal aorta. The autopsy would confirm that and indicate any sexual activity as well as the exact cause of death.

There was no question that the patch Jamie had taken from her fingers was a First Cavalry Division shoulder insignia. Every resident of Murphysville knew that Spook was obsessed with the First Cav, which was his old Viet Nam unit. The traumatized veteran had forced the patch on countless adults and numerous children. Its appearance clutched in the dead girl’s fingers could be very significant or perfectly innocent.

He took a last look at the young woman’s face before he stood and turned away from the body. Her after-image haunted him. The final freeze of expression had multiple meanings: a look of astonishment at the ferocity of her attack, utter disbelief in her mortal wound, and a look of despair that only the young can create when their past visions of immortality are shattered.

He walked the perimeter of the clearing. This small cove was only one of many scattered through the thousand acres of state forest that ran in a narrow band along the promontory above the river. It was an undeveloped park area traversed by a few old logging and maintenance roads. There were no formal recreational facilities for camping or hiking. Rocco knew that the area was used by only the most ardent naturalists, illegal hunters, and lovers. The neat pile of clothing near the spread blanket indicated the latter possibility for the dead girl.

If there had been a sexual attack there might be signs of a struggle or perhaps other evidence. He mentally divided the small clearing into grid squares and began a methodical inspection. He found tiny blood spatters on a six-foot-high boulder that squatted near the blanket. These markings were consistent with the trail that led across the cove to the place where she had finally expired.

He imagined her reeling back against the boulder after the wound. The blood on her hands indicated that she had probably clutched her belly while she stumbled across the clearing until she fell. Unable to stand, she began a painful crawl on hands and knees in a desperate attempt to escape.

A deep cackle from the nearby logging road shattered the glen’s quiet. Rocco cringed. His request had been ignored. That laughter signaled that Happy Hansen was the assistant medical examiner assigned to the case.

The doctor stepped into the clearing and thumped Rocco on the back with sufficient force to stagger the large man. ‘What say, little guy?’ Hansen chortled.

‘I’m saying,’ Rocco said over the medical examiner’s shoulder, ‘that Jamie Martin had best check out that old car parked on the shoulder since it may belong to the victim.’

‘Now that makes sense,’ Hansen said with his usual chuckle. He looked at the distant body. ‘I pronounce the victim female, young, and unclothed.’

Rocco frowned. ‘Lars, didn’t medical school, the state health commissioner, or anyone else ever teach you to show a modicum of respect for the dead?’

The medical examiner turned abruptly serious as he sauntered toward the body. ‘The school of tragedy taught me that if you are to survive in my business you have to laugh. Men like you, who work and live in pleasant little towns, don’t face this type of thing two or three times a day. You guys have coffee with friends at a neighborhood breakfast table, run a school crossing at noon, check out the library for loitering problems, stake out a stop sign, and handle a drunk in the late afternoon. My patients are always dead and have departed in more ways than you can possibly imagine.’ He knelt next to the body. ‘Yep. This one is dead like the others.’ He tried to restrain his laughter, but his shoulders convulsed and squirts of merriment bubbled through.

Rocco refused to become involved in this doctor’s aberration. ‘Can you give me a hint as to how she might have died?’

‘Usually the heart stops. In fact, the heart always stops.’

‘Damn it all, Happy! You know what I mean.’

‘Spook did it,’ Jamie Martin announced from the edge of the clearing. ‘She’s got a First Cav patch clutched in her hand.’

Rocco cast his subordinate a withering glance.

Lars Hansen glanced at Rocco with a shrug. ‘Let us preserve the evidence,’ he said to himself as he reached toward them. Rocco slapped an acetate evidence bag and tweezers into the ME’s fingers. Hansen carefully removed the patch from the fingers. ‘First Cav all right,’ he said. ‘Jamie, do you really think that Spook is ever sober long enough to hold a small-caliber weapon steady enough to make a low wound like this?’

‘Thirty-two?’ Rocco asked.

‘I should think so. Small entrance wound in the lower belly. Ballistics will tell for sure.’

‘Entrance wound through the umbilicus,’ Rocco said. ‘With that much bleeding it must have severed the lower aorta.’

‘Need about a ten-degree upward trajectory to do that,’ Lars added. ‘I’ll tell you for sure when I get her on the table.’

As a line of vehicles began to gather along the dirt logging road, groups of men and women began to filter into the clearing. Two paramedics pushed a gurney toward the body and stood to the side waiting for the ME to finish. Lab techs from the state forensic lab were accompanied by a photographer and a detective from the state police barracks. They talked of mundane things in subdued voices.

‘Time of death?’ Rocco asked.

‘A quick estimate based on lividity is three to five hours ago,’ Lars said. ‘Who found her?’

‘The minister of Saint James Church came across the body.’

‘Canon MacIntire?’

‘The good reverend was out here watching for eagles.’

‘See any?’

‘Jesus, Lars, I’m not into eagles today. I have enough other problems. I know this girl and she’s all of maybe eighteen.’

Happy inserted a thermometer into the corpse. ‘What’s her name?’ He read the thermometer. ‘Based on temp, I change the estimate to three to four hours.’

A mental image of the girl’s supermarket name badge flashed before Rocco. ‘Boots,’ he said as he searched for her last name. ‘Boots Anderson, I think.’

‘That must be Lister Anderson’s kid,’ Lars said. ‘He’s a mechanic down at the Chevy agency.’

‘That old Impala in the road is registered to a Bonnarah Anderson,’ Jamie Martin said.

Rocco nodded. ‘I’ll have the lab boys impound it and do their thing. It’s time to interview the neighbors,’ he commanded.

‘Hell, Chief,’ Martin said. ‘No one lives around here. The river is down there.’ He made a sweeping gesture along the promontory. ‘The state forest runs along this ridge for nearly a mile. We’re in like the boonies.’

‘See if Lyon Wentworth saw or heard anything. He lives up the road in the other direction at Nutmeg Hill.’

Lars Hansen laughed as he looked up from his examination of the body. ‘Wentworth hear anything? He probably heard a lot. Like maybe voices crying in the wilderness.’

‘How about space aliens?’ Jamie Martin added.

‘There’s a real space cadet for you,’ Happy Hansen said as the two men laughed in unison.

Rocco frowned until the patrolman’s laugh gurgled to a stop. ‘See Wentworth now,’ he commanded. ‘Do I have to say more?’

‘No, sir.’

Lyon Wentworth couldn’t work. He glared at the computer monitor with dislike. Its blank blue face stared back like an indifferent Cyclops. The words necessary to give life to his Wobbly monsters and place them in a coherent story were unavailable. The elusive words had fled to some unknown region where they hid and defied location. He couldn’t resurrect the missing sentences, much less type them into the machine on the desk.

His newest children’s book, The Wood Wobblies, pitted his red-eyed, long-tailed, but benign monsters against ecologically evil paper companies who were clear-cutting a New England forest. The Wobblies’ intention was to haunt the woods until the paper company reformed. Today there was little haunting and absolutely no reform.

He clicked to the software icons and placed the cursor on an entertainment program. When the game menu appeared he immediately entered ‘Rodent’s Revenge’. He knew it was avoiding work, and he felt vaguely ashamed, but was soon immersed in the shifting computer images of mice chasing cats through a complicated maze.

The door chimed.

Lyon catapulted from his chair with gratitude for the interruption. Nutmeg Hill’s isolation discouraged casual visitors. The usual caller was either a Federal Express delivery man or a stranded motorist who wanted to call a motor club.

Several years ago, only short months after the death of their young daughter, Lyon and Bea had literally stumbled across Nutmeg Hill. To deal with their grief they had forced themselves into the habit of taking long walks. They pushed these lengthy hikes until they were physically tired to the point of exhaustion. Only sleep allowed partial relief from their bitter memories.

One Sunday morning they had followed the ridge line from the state forest. They found an abandoned house with boarded windows that was nearly covered with undergrowth. It had been vacant for a generation. Its solid New England construction, built by shipwrights for a whaling sea captain, had allowed the building to survive its abandonment.

They bought the house from the estate of the sea captain’s last surviving relative. The aged shell of a house, with fifty-nine acres, abutted the state forest. Nutmeg Hill’s reconstruction took several years of hard manual labor. The daunting refurbishment occupied them to such an extent that they were able to survive their grief.

Their home was located on a high saucer-shaped promontory above the Connecticut River. Anyone who approached the reconstructed building on the long driveway leading up from the secondary highway first saw the widow’s walk, which stretched the length of the gambrel roof, and then the solid square lines of the house.

Lyon opened the front door to find Jamie Martin slouched against the wall. The youthful-looking patrolman straightened when he saw Lyon. ‘I didn’t hear you drive up,’ Lyon said.

‘I came through the woods from the state land,’ Martin said as he smiled at the tall man in the doorway.

Lyon Wentworth was a slender six feet. He had a shock of brown-greying hair that protruded over his forehead. He often brushed the forelock back with an unconscious gesture. He had an infectious smile, which often transmitted a fey quality. His usual dress was boat shoes without socks, khaki work pants and a loose sport shirt. His ensemble was not necessarily color-coordinated.

‘We got a shooting in the woods. The chief wants to know if you heard or saw anything about three hours ago,’ Jamie continued.

‘I thought I heard a pistol shot about then,’ Lyon answered. ‘That’s not unusual around here. People are always going to the state forest to plink or try out a weapon.’ Jamie made meticulous notes with large letters in a small pad. ‘Who was injured?’

‘Injured, hell! She’s deader’n a baited squirrel. Young kid who works down at the supermarket, name of Boots Anderson.’

Lyon felt that small jolt people experience when they meet the unexpected. ‘I know her. She graduated from Murphysville High School last year. I gave a talk on children’s literature to her English class last May.’

‘She learned more than English this year. Word at Sarge’s bar is that Boots was getting her bones jumped by Eddy Rashish.’

‘Eddy of Rashish Motors? He’s old enough to be her father.’

‘Well, Eddy’s old lady sure ain’t Boots’ mother.’

‘Is Rocco interviewing Eddy?’

‘I don’t know if he knows that Eddy and Boots were playing house. Don’t matter none, Mr. Wentworth. Spook is the one who killed her.’

‘Spook hasn’t been sober since the Viet Nam war.’

‘I found a First Cav patch clutched in Boots’ hand. And you know how Spook is about the First Cav. You want to come over to the woods and talk to Chief Herbert?’

‘No way, Jamie. The last thing I need is to get involved in another murder investigation. Besides, from what you say, it would seem that Spook has finally crossed the line.’

‘I don’t know what line you mean. It sure ain’t no lunch line. He’s been out to lunch for years, but this time he’s grazing in never-never land. I’ll tell the chief about the shot. Did you see anything?’

‘No. Tell Rocco that I heard one round of small arms fire about three hours ago. That’s all I know.’

‘Gotcha. Is Senator Wentworth home? I got to interview her, too.’

‘The State Senate’s in session today. Bea’s in Hartford. My wife wasn’t home when I heard the shot.’

Jamie gave him a casual salute and turned to jog toward the faint path that led through the woods.

As Lyon looked after the retreating police officer, last spring’s high school English class materialized in Nutmeg Hill’s side yard.

Boots Anderson sat in the first row directly in front of Lyon’s podium. Her short skirt was barely within the allowable limits of the school dress code. Her exploratory seductive gaze was disconcerting. At the end of his presentation she had raised her hand with a slight squirming motion to the rest of her body.

‘Mr. Wentworth, about those Wobblies you write about, are they a boy and a girl or are they the same sex?’

‘Boy and a girl.’

‘Then do they … Well, what I mean is, do they …’

‘Make out?’ a male voice blurted from the seat behind Boots.

‘Make what?’ Lyon had automatically asked. He immediately regretted his naive response as laughter swept the room. He remembered Boots valiantly attempting to maintain her composure. Laughter built within her like strong pressure from an underground spring. When the giggles broke through she leaned her head back and was convulsed by a paroxysm of guffaws. That was his remembrance of the dead young woman.

The phone rang inside the house. Lyon took his time going to the kitchen phone. He hoped that the caller would get discouraged. He counted twelve rings and became certain that the caller would persist. The insistent caller won. He snicked the phone from its wall bracket. ‘I will not come over there to view the body of a dead girl,’ he said without preamble.

‘How did you know it was me?’ Rocco asked. ‘Don’t you have any other friends?’

‘I know how you operate,’ Lyon answered. ‘My other friends do not call when they know I am trying to work. I refuse to scour the woods for clues or get more upset over the death of a young woman who I knew.’

‘I’ve got to bring Spook in, Lyon. I don’t want to use a state police SWAT team to do it. I need your help.’

‘Spook didn’t kill her. I don’t care if you did find one of his souvenirs in her hand. He may be in orbit, but he’s not a killer anymore.’

‘Jamie Martin doesn’t keep police investigation secrets well, does he?’

‘A lot of men served in that army division.’

‘That may be, but Spook has to be brought in and I need your help. If I have to do it formally he could get hurt.’

‘Damn it, Rocco! I’ll go with you, but I don’t like it.’ He slammed the phone into its mounting to break the connection.

Two

On Route 40, beyond the trailer park, Lyon turned into the narrow lane that led to Spook’s acre. He parked his red Saturn behind car one of the Murphysville Police Department. He waited while Rocco finished a cellular phone call. A heavy growth of brush marked the boundaries of the property. Through a narrow opening hacked through the overgrowth he could see the large tree that held Spook’s house.

Rocco finished his call and slouched over to the Saturn. He placed both hands on the roof by the driver’s window. ‘He’s home,’ he stated laconically.

‘Maybe you had better call your brother-in-law on the state police and ask him to send over that SWAT team he’s so proud of.’

‘Very funny. You know Spook would go ballistic if he spotted a bunch of guys wearing camouflage suits carrying automatic weapons.’

‘I suspect he would consider their intentions dishonorable.’

‘Exactly. So, it’s going to come down my way. Same as last time. I’m the company commander and you are the battalion surgeon.’

‘OK. We’re going to do another “he’s in trouble for not taking his malaria tablet again” scenario.’

‘You’ve got it,’ Rocco said.

‘He might remember that we used that only a couple of months ago to get him down to the VA hospital for his medication change.’

‘Hell, it worked then, it will work again.’

They pushed single file into the narrow path that cut through the overgrowth into the hedged perimeter containing the huge oak tree. The tree divided into two distinct sections twelve feet up the trunk. It was at this junction that Spook had constructed his tree house. Short lengths of two-by-fours nailed to the trunk provided a ladder access. A twelve-by-fourteen-foot room had been built using the tree’s wide crotch as a base, with support pillars provided by the divided trunk. Tar paper covered a slanted roof and the wooden sides.

Looking directly up toward the floor of the tree house revealed that it was primarily built from scavenged lumber of assorted sizes and types.

‘I would think living up there would be OK in the spring and summer,’ Lyon said. ‘But in winter the wind would swirl around the trunk and seep up through the wood flooring and freeze him out.’

‘He’s got carpet remnants covering the floor and a potbellied wood stove that makes him snug as a bug. You’ve never been inside, have you?’ Rocco said.

‘No. How does he perform his private functions?’ Lyon asked.

‘A bucket. He brings it down every morning and dumps it in a lime pit over in that corner.’ He pointed toward the newly turned earth of a slit trench. ‘I make sure he sets it up properly. Periodically I make him fill in the trench and dig a new one. Put in a sprinkling of lime and it’s decent field sanitation.’

‘Let’s get it over with. I hate lying to the man,’ Lyon said.

‘In the long run it’s the most painless way to bring him in for questioning.’ Rocco stepped to the base of the tree and cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Spook!’ he called. ‘Corporal Williams! This is Captain Herbert. You up there, soldier?’

‘I hear you, Captain,’ was the muffled reply. A trapdoor above the makeshift ladder opened. A face peered down at them. ‘What’s up, Cap?’ a quavery voice asked.

‘You got an Article Fifteen, Spook,’ Rocco said.

‘Hey, man. I done nothing.’

‘You got punishment, Corporal. Doc here says you didn’t take your malaria tablet today. You know that’s an Article Fifteen under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I won’t lean on you hard, maybe a little extra guard duty.’

‘I hate their damn taste, Cap.’

‘Corporal, get your ass down here. And I mean now!’

‘Yes, sir.’ The trapdoor slowly opened to reveal a tall cadaverous man of indeterminate age whose long locks of hair fell over his shoulders. He wore holed sneakers and faded army fatigues. He cautiously climbed down the makeshift ladder leading from the tree house. When he reached the base of the tree he straightened into a caricature of attention and attempted to give Rocco a smart salute.

‘I just forgot to take the pill, Doc,’ Spook said to Lyon.

‘You have to come to headquarters with me, Corporal,’ Rocco said.

‘Yes, sir. Whatever the captain says.’ Spook turned to hand Lyon a wadded First Cavalry Division patch with its distinctive dark horse head silhouette set against a vivid yellow background. ‘You need to sew this on your uniform, Doc. Pill pusher or not, we’re all First Cav here.’

The Murphysville Department of Police Services consisted of twelve sworn officers and three communications operators, who also doubled as department clerks. Their new location was a block down from the town green, across from the volunteer fire department. The building was occasionally mistaken for a reform temple due to its stained-glass window whose abstract design vaguely resembled a burning bush.

Except for the fact that it was twice as large, Rocco Herbert’s new office was similar to the one he occupied when they shared space with the town library. Although the construction budget allowed for new furnishings, Rocco insisted on retaining his old. The room contained the same massive wooden desk and worn leather couch. The ancient Mr. Coffee machine still squatted on the marred credenza.

Lyon sat on a wooden side chair next to Rocco’s desk. Spook slowly lowered himself on to the leather couch. He used both hands to clasp his knees.

‘I know you got a little taste there, Captain,’ Spook said.

‘You know we can’t drink on duty, Corporal,’ Rocco replied.

‘Come on, man. Just a little goddamn taste. And I ain’t no corporal anymore. Fact is, I think I’m out of the service now.’

Rocco arched his eyebrow at Lyon before he reached into his bottom desk drawer to pull out a pint of Smirnoff vodka. He poured three ounces into a jelly glass and carried it to Spook.

The former corporal grasped the glass with both hands and steadied their tremors by pressing his elbows against his thighs. He slowly bent toward the glass and drank greedily. ‘Oh, boy, that tastes good.’

‘Do you know Boots Anderson?’ Rocco asked mildly.

Spook shrugged and chugged down the remains of the vodka. ‘Yeah, I know her. She works down at the supermarket.’

‘How well do you know her, Spook?’

Shutters clamped shut behind the veteran’s rheumy eyes. ‘I know what you’re after, Captain.’

‘Glad you do,’ Rocco answered in a non-judgemental tone.

‘I’m not saying another word.’

‘I think you should seriously reconsider that position, Williams,’ Rocco said. ‘Things are coming down heavy.’

‘My lips are sealed. I know that the manager at the market sicced you on me. But you get nothing from me. Not a word.’

‘The manager?’ For the first time Rocco sounded puzzled. He wondered if Larry Bell, the market manager, was involved. Were she and Boots an item?

‘You can bring in Viet Cong torturers and you won’t get anything from me. I owe her.’

‘Boots went out to the state forest today with either Eddy Rashish or Larry, right?’ No answer. ‘You saw them on the blanket without clothes on,’ Rocco continued. ‘The guy left and Boots decided to sunbathe without clothes …’

‘Huh? What are you talking about, Captain?’

‘Don’t fade out on me now, Spook,’ Rocco snapped. ‘You’re here. You’re in Murphysville. Earlier today you were in the state forest watching a lovely young woman parade around naked. It turned you on.’

‘You better stay away from the booze for awhile, Captain,’ Spook said. ‘You’re talking crazy.’

‘You couldn’t help yourself, Spook,’ Rocco continued. ‘I understand how it was. I don’t blame you. No one blames you. You just got carried away and had to shoot her.’

‘Shoot her!’ Spook stood on trembling legs. ‘She was an angel. I thought you got me here because the manager made you because of the check-out line stuff.’

‘What in the hell are you talking about?’ Rocco snapped impatiently.

‘Boots kinda ran her own food bank down there at the market. Toward the end of the month, when my disability check runs out, she lets me buy tuna fish and crackers cheap. If she knows you don’t have much money she keeps the cost down. She kinda slides stuff around the scanner, know what I mean? I don’t want to get her in no trouble. What you talking about, naked girls and can’t help myself? The manager sent you after me because of the tuna fish, right?’

‘Oh, Lord,’ Rocco groaned. ‘Where were you today, Spook?’

‘Hell, Captain. It’s the end of the month and I don’t have no money left. If I had a few bucks I’da been down at Sarge’s place tossing down a few.’

‘You’ve been in your tree house all day?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Did you kill Boots, Spook?’

‘I don’t kill no one anymore, Captain. You know that.’

‘What did you do with the gun?’ Rocco pressed.

‘I don’t have no side arms since I turned in my army forty-five when I was shipped home from Nam. You know that, Cap.’

Rocco sighed. ‘We’re going to have to check out your tree house. Is that OK with you?’

Spook held out his tumbler for more vodka. ‘Hell, yes. That’s OK with me, Cap. That’s your job, right?’

Sarge’s Bar and Grill was a neighborhood bar that occupied the ground floor of a clapboard house. It was set back from a secondary highway by a small parking lot. Sarge Renfroe, the retired army master-sergeant owner, had living quarters on the second floor. The bar room had wide plank flooring, a massive wooden bar with a brass footrail and faded red stools. A half-dozen booths lined the walls of the remainder of the space. Large jars of pickled eggs bracketed each end of the worn bar, while the wall decor consisted of several beer company posters. Sarge Renfroe occasionally swiped the worn wood with a dubious-looking bar rag and cooked fat hamburgers on the grill.

At noon a dozen men lined the bar for hamburgers washed down with draft beer. Jamie Martin, his police uniform replaced by chino pants and a checkered sports shirt, drank a beer with a side shot of bar whiskey. He’d just finished his midnight-to-eight with three extra hours of overtime due to the girl’s murder in the state forest. Now it was catchup time.

‘The chief says no way did Spook blow her away,’ Jamie announced authoritatively to his section of the bar.

‘Spook’s not only out to lunch, he never made breakfast,’ Sarge mumbled as he flipped another burger on the grill. ‘He’s crazy enough to think that Boots was Viet Cong.’

‘Well, maybe Chief Herbert just better look into who was jumping the kid’s bones,’ Jamie said.

‘Yeah, does Rocco know about Eddy?’ Sarge asked as he slapped a burger into a roll and slipped it on a paper plate next to a large pickle and a handful of potato chips.

‘I told him,’ Jamie said as he pushed his shot glass forward for a refill. ‘I figure that Eddy might have put a bun in Boots’ oven and now wanted to turn off the pilot light.’

Sarge nodded and poured Jamie’s shot. He waved away payment. ‘That makes sense.’

‘What are you talking about?’ A large meaty hand grasped Jamie’s shoulder and spun the police officer around on his stool. He faced an overweight, ruddy-faced man with wisps of dull red hair.

‘Uh oh,’ Sarge mumbled as he reached under the bar for his baseball bat. ‘I didn’t see you come in, but you keep it calm now, Mr. Anderson. We want no trouble in here and Jamie is the law.’

Anderson ignored the bar owner. ‘You talking about my kid, Boots? That who you talking about, brother?’

‘Jesus Christ, Mr. Anderson, didn’t they tell you yet?’ Jamie said.

‘Do not take the name of the Lord in vain. Tell me what?’

‘About what happened to Boots.’

‘You been saying in here that my daughter was breaking a commandment with Eddy. You mean Eddy Rashish of Rashish Motors?’

‘Well, yes, sir. But there’s something you should know.’

‘I don’t need to know nothing more, Jamie. Eddy has sinned once too often and the wrath of God shall punish him. I am His messenger and I shall call upon the avenging angels.’

‘Sir, please listen to me. About your daughter …’

‘I don’t want to hear anything more about Boots. I’ll deal with her tonight. Right now I’m going out to that cheap excuse of a used-car lot that Eddy runs to have a talk with the sinner.’

The large man started for the door. Jamie Martin pushed off the bar stool and hurried after him. He put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. ‘Please, Mr. Anderson …’

Anderson pushed Jamie back against the wall next to the door. ‘Listen to me, brother. I don’t care if you are a cop. Eddy’s going to get his. He’s fooled around for the last time.’

‘About your daughter, she’s …’

‘She’s what?’

‘She’s dead, Mr. Anderson.’

Lister Anderson was a man who thought with his hands. His sensitive fingers could run across an engine block and sense the miscue of bad timing or a maladjusted carburetor. This ability did not translate into verbal understanding. At times, when his auditory senses became overloaded, he suffered from a type of auditory dyslexia. It took a certain amount of time for him to assimilate conversationally imparted information and sort out the meaning of the words and phrases. He clearly heard what Jamie Martin had just said. The words did not directly register, but created immediate images of road kill—pictures of small animals flung to the side of the road by speeding vehicles that snuffed life from their furry bodies. He could not immediately transpose these images and those words into the acceptance of his daughter’s death.

‘I didn’t hear what you said,’ Lister Anderson said to Jamie Martin, although he had heard every word quite clearly.

‘Your daughter is dead, sir. She was found in the state forest by a bird watcher. We think she had been shot. The medical examiner has the body and they will probably want you for a formal identification.’

‘And Eddy Rashish did this?’

‘We don’t know for sure. I didn’t mean to say …’

Lister Anderson knew there was no need to talk further. Words were unimportant. There were actions his hands could take. Here was a physical course of action. He broke away from the light grip that Jamie Martin had on his shoulder and marched through the door of Sarge’s bar out to his waiting pickup truck.

‘I’ve never tossed a tree house before,’ Rocco said. They had just climbed the wooden rungs and entered through the trapdoor. Although the exterior construction was of different materials scavenged from a dozen sites, the interior was neatly papered with Sunday newspaper funnies. The taut blanket that covered an army cot was made with neat hospital corners. Two footlockers on each side of a card table provided storage and seating. A single electric line, run from some illegal connection, provided power for a single hanging bulb, a small television, and a hotplate. Three orange crates along the far wall provided space for food storage and a place for a few dishes and other utensils. The potbellied stove and discreet toilet bucket completed the furnishing. The room was spartan, neat, and well kept. It was the room of a cadet or professional soldier.

Lyon ran his hand along the cot blanket. It was tight enough to bounce a coin. ‘This is a waste of time, Rocco. Spook didn’t kill the girl. Boots may have given him a break on the price of tuna fish, but no way would she go into the state forest alone with him.’

‘Probably no girl in town would want to be alone with Spook, even if he is harmless. That’s not the way I see it happening. Spook just happened to be in the forest. Maybe he took a bottle out there, or thought he was on a search-and-destroy mission, I don’t know. He doesn’t just march to a different drummer, he carries a whole marching band in his head. Anyway, he sees Boots and her boyfriend making love. The guy leaves and Spook watches Boots parading around au naturel. He’s turned on. He goes into the clearing. He gives her a First Cav patch as a gift and then when he touches her she screams. He goes berserk. He kills her.’

‘Where did the gun come from?’

‘He’s had it a long time. We may find it here.’

‘If Spook had a handgun he would have sold it long ago for whiskey money.’

‘Maybe yes, maybe it’s here. The place has to be tossed. I’d be derelict if I didn’t.’ Rocco began a meticulous search of the small room.

Lyon opened the first footlocker and lifted out an open shoebox stuffed with dozens of First Cav patches. ‘There’s over a hundred patches here. He must order them by the gross.’

‘If we find a handgun there’s no way the poor bastard will ever get out of jail,’ Rocco said as he continued his search.

Lyon watched the police officer’s efficient movements and began to help. In twenty minutes they had thoroughly gone through the small room containing the man’s meager belongings. Lyon climbed to the roof and carefully examined the top of the structure for possible hiding places.

‘Come look at this,’ Rocco said as Lyon climbed down from the roof. Mounted on the wall above the cot was a metal crossbow with a sheaf containing half a dozen bolts.

‘Could that have fired a missile that caused the girl’s wound?’ Lyon asked.

‘I don’t think so, but this thing has an interesting background. Did you know that in Nam, Spook was known as the Bowman? On clandestine missions he took out sentries and guards with a weapon like this. These things are easy to operate, silent, accurate, and powerful.’

Lyon hefted the weapon in his hand. ‘It’s called a Cranequin. It uses a rack and pinion system for spanning.’

‘How in the hell did you know that?’ Rocco laughed.

Lyon shrugged. ‘Read it somewhere. This method of spanning is five hundred years old.’

‘What’s spanning?’

‘Drawing the string back,’ Lyon said.

Rocco took the bow and remounted it on the wall. ‘Be that as it will. Nothing like this shot Boots Anderson.’

Now that their search was complete, the stark bareness of the small room was disquieting. It seemed to be a place without corners, maintained so demons would find little to hide behind. Lyon wondered what the emotionally wounded Spook had encountered during his two tours of combat that had rocked his personality to its most primitive roots.

‘Chief, you up there?’ the voice of patrolman Jamie Martin called from the base of the tree.

Rocco stuck his head out the trap door. ‘What’s up, Jamie? I thought you were off duty.’

‘I am, sir. I went over to Sarge’s place for a beer and a hamburger.’ He omitted the three shots of whiskey he’d gulped to accompany the beer. ‘We got a problem, Chief.’

‘We often have a problem at Sarge’s,’ Rocco answered. ‘What’s Renfroe up to this time, besides sampling his own products too early in the day?’

Jamie shifted from one foot to another for a moment before blurting out, ‘I told the girl’s father about her killing.’

‘Oh, Jesus H. Christ,’ Rocco mumbled under his breath. He forced himself to think positively. ‘Well, thanks for taking on that unpleasant task, Jamie. It shows a growing maturity on your part. Having to break the news to the relatives of the recently deceased is not an easy job. I was going to speak with the Anderson family as soon as I was finished up here. Now, since you have taken care of that little task, I won’t have to.’

‘It’s not exactly like you think, Chief. Lister sort of overheard me talking about Boots and Eddy Rashish. When he learned she was dead, he looked real pissed and scratched off in his pickup.’

‘Oh, God!’ Rocco climbed down the makeshift ladder quickly followed by Lyon. ‘Lister will blow Eddy away if we don’t get there first.’

Eddy’s Motors was located north of Murphysville just before the highway reached the bridge across the Connecticut River. The sales lot contained two dozen vehicles of mixed breed and age that were parked nose-out on an open dirt field. The office was in a red striped trailer at the center rear of the property. Multicolored triangular flags were hung from a wire stretched across the front of the lot. They flapped lazily in the breeze above windshields whose white messages announced: A CREAM PUFF, GUARANTEED CREDIT, PAY WEEKLY or PRICE SLASHED.

Eddy had a live one. The customer hovered over a red pickup. Eddy hovered over the customer. ‘You pay here weekly,’ Eddy said casually. ‘Seventy-five little ones gets you this little buggy,’ he said more exuberantly. ‘You bring in the payment every Friday afternoon. That’s when you get paid at the factory, right?’

‘We get paid on Thursday,’ the customer said as he kicked a tire.

Eddy smiled and clapped the man’s shoulder. ‘Hell, I’m easy to work with. Bring in the payment Thursday or Friday. I don’t care. Every week and no sweat. That way there’s no big payment to pony up each month. And, I don’t give a squiggly damn about your past credit.’

‘What if I miss a week?’

Eddy smiled. It was a grin that would have frightened dragons, but his ‘live one’ was too intent on trying the stereo of the red pickup to notice the skewered grimace. ‘Hell, we can always work something out if you’re up front with me.’ Bull diddle, he thought to himself. You jump a payment and you miss the truck cuz I hold the title until you’re paid off. That means I can drive her away anytime I want.

‘Well, I don’t know.’

‘She’s a beauty, and you can use her for hunting and fishing. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to throw in a cap for the truck bed. With a cap on the back you can put an air mattress in there. Dunk in a beer cooler and you got a hunting and fishing camper.’

‘That would be nice.’ The customer had already begun to dream of swigging apricot brandy around a campfire peopled with visions of plump fish and swift deer. ‘How much a week again?’

‘Only seventy-five.’

‘For how long?’

‘Two years.’

‘That comes to—’

‘A little more than the sticker price cuz I’m financing you like a bank would. Your bank would charge you a heavy percentage, wouldn’t they?’

‘Sure,’ the customer replied, even though he didn’t have a bank account or credit with any lending institution.

‘Want a test spin?’ Eddy counted on the customer’s ignorance of percentages to hide the true cost of the vehicle. The pay-weekly amount for two years nearly doubled the cost of the truck.

Lister Anderson drove his pickup over the curb and across the lot until he slammed into the side of the office trailer. He jumped from the cab after grabbing a .12 gauge from the gun rack mounted across the rear window. He peered around the lot until he saw Eddy with his customer. As he walked toward them, Lister broke the .12 gauge open to see that shells were seated in both chambers. He snapped it shut and thumbed back the triggers.

‘Oh, shit,’ Eddy said as he saw the man with the wispy red hair stalking across the lot. ‘You just look this baby over some more,’ he said to his customer. He smiled and began to walk toward Anderson. ‘Hey, how you doing, Lister?’

‘You laid with my daughter.’

‘Now wait a minute, Lister. Everything can be explained.’

‘Sinner!’ Lister Anderson said as he raised the shotgun and fired both barrels directly into Eddy’s abdomen.

The two shots, fired nearly simultaneously, hit Eddy Rashish directly in the midsection and lifted him bodily off his feet and flung him back against a ’92 Chevy utility wagon.

Three

The Millrace Inn was built on the bluff of the third of the Seven Sister hills. It was located almost directly across the river from Nutmeg Hill. Its high perch overlooking the valley demanded broad expanses of window. The recent return to the area of a few eagles provided further amusement for the inn’s customers. These large birds, in their predatory circling over the river, often rode the air currents that swept past the inn. From time to time they would turn to watch the guests with the same curiosity they usually reserved for small scurrying prey.

Bea Wentworth stood in the entryway of the inn’s Forge Room and waited to be seated. She glanced at her appointment book. It occurred to her that she must be aging. Recently she had formed the habit of making lists of her ‘things to do.’ There were three entries on her calendar for today’s luncheon date with Helena Rabnor of the State Life Committee. Her intern had made one entry, Bea another, and God only knows the author of the third. Inefficient redundancy, she thought.

This was an important meeting. The outspoken Helena was a heavy-set feisty woman who had manned the feminist barricades for two decades. She could be a close friend or a dedicated enemy. Since they agreed on most issues, Bea considered herself a part of the friendly contingent.

Bea was not a large woman although her compact figure was too full for her to be called petite. Her close-cropped hair often created a gamine-like appearance. This innocence was quickly dispelled by darting intelligent eyes and an intense manner that revealed itself when she was deeply concerned.

The inn’s owner, Mike Maresca, presented himself with a slight bow. ‘Senator Wentworth, we have your reservation. A window table?’

‘Please, Mike.’ She followed him to a table set for two with a fine view of the river. ‘I’m expecting Helena Rabnor, do you know her?’

The owner sighed. ‘But, yes. She had the inn picketed in eighty-nine because all the waiters were male.’

Bea gave him her best political smile. ‘Well, try and not poison her today, please.’

Maresca pulled out her chair. ‘I have selected a special wine for you. A 1992 Au Bon Climat, a Californian Chardonnay.’

‘Not hemlock?’

Maresca held both palms up in supplication. ‘A promise.’

‘I place myself in your trusted hands,’ Bea said with another smile at the departing owner. She looked out over the river. It was a magnificent technicolor day.

A vague sense of malaise suddenly seeped over her and she wondered at its origin until its genesis jolted her. This day, like so many others at this time of year, reminded her of one years ago when their daughter had died. It had been Sandra’s birthday. They had given her a two-wheeler bike and she had squealed in delight.

‘I don’t need training wheels. I can do it! I’ve been practicing at Mandy’s. Watch me!’

She began her wobbly ride on the sidewalk in front of their home on the Murphysville Green. Suddenly she had run over the curb into the street and lost her balance. Before Lyon could reach her she was struck by a car and killed.

Bea turned from the window in pain as Helena Rabnor appeared at the table.

‘How’s my favorite state senator?’ Helena said as she snatched a chair from the table and plunked into it.

‘A moment ago old ghosts were a-haunting, but they’re leaving.’ Bea forced a smile. The remembered horror of witnessing her daughter’s death now changed into concern over her ticking biological clock. She often felt that her internal timepiece was rapidly approaching its last tock. If she and Lyon were to have another child, they would have to begin in the relatively near future. She wasn’t sure if she had the strength to go through with it.

Bea forced her best political smile toward the woman sitting across the table as menus appeared and wine was poured.

‘We have problems at the capital, Wentworth,’ Helena said in her usual forceful manner. ‘I need a bill.’

Why does that not surprise me? Bea thought. Was it because Helena always needed legislation? ‘What do you have in mind?’ Bea responded casually as she scanned the menu for the fish of the day.

‘I want legal teeth!’ Helena demanded. ‘The clinic protestors must be stopped, or at least controlled. They are frightening some of our young women clients.’

What goes around comes around, Bea thought. Yesterday’s avid protesters want protection from today’s avid protesters. ‘Can you be more specific as to what you had in mind?’ she asked and inwardly sighed as Helena produced a thick sheaf of documents.

Bea was still making notes over coffee when the inn owner diffidently approached them. He whispered in her ear. ‘Senator, we seem to have a problem of the utmost delicacy. Could I speak with you privately in my office?’

‘Of course. I’ll be there in a few moments.’ Bea smiled at the owner and her tablemate. ‘Give me a few days on this,’ she said to Helena. ‘I’ll see what support I can gather in the senate.’

Helena pushed away from the table with the same vigor she exhibited in most activities. ‘Very good. You always give our needs your best shot, Beatrice. That’s why we support you.’ They shook hands firmly.

As Helena left for the parking lot, Bea knocked on the office door by the inn entrance. Maresca’s muffled ‘Come in’ sounded depressed. She found the inn owner slumped dejectedly in a deeply upholstered desk chair.

‘What is it, Mike? The Restaurant League want a bill banning all fast food introduced in the legislature?’

‘Don’t I wish!’ He turned to her, his face wrinkled with worry lines. ‘I believe you are good friends with the governor?’

‘Margaret and I have been friends for years. We go back to the days when we were both freshman representatives.’

‘Her husband, the congressman, is here.’

‘Bill Tallman? Oh, I didn’t see … OK, Mike. What’s the deal?’

‘As you know, the inn has a dozen rooms upstairs for our small bed and breakfast clientele. The congressman is presently occupying one and all is not well.’

‘Did you call 911?’

Maresca cleared his throat. ‘It is a matter of a little delicacy, since the congressman had a companion with him and is now dead.’

‘Which one is dead?’

‘The congressman has left us.’

‘Oh, ho.’ Bea slumped into a chair. ‘He is unclothed?’

‘But, yes. For amore that is the way.’

‘How complicated do we get? Is the companion a man or woman?’

‘A girl.’

‘Over eighteen?’

Maresca looked thoughtful. ‘I would say … Yes. Young, but a definite over eighteen. Let us put it this way, I would not card her in my bar. But I must say that she seems to be a young lady of dubious background.’

‘This is going to kill Margaret.’

‘The publicity will not be good for the inn. I have not built my reputation as an establishment known for matinee performances by older men with dubious younger women.’

Bea sighed. ‘Let’s see what we can do.’

Ashley Towers claimed to be an emergency pharmacist to her family and friends. In reality, she was the most requested woman working for the Middleburg Escort Service. While her formal education had ended after an incomplete first year at Middleburg Community College, she claimed to be operating as an emergency pharmacist under a temporary certification.

She explained to everyone that she was on constant call for a chain of twenty-four-hour drug stores. It was her assignment to temporarily replace sick and absent pharmacists. In reality, her extensive call-outs were due to an erotic education gained during extra-curricular activities experienced that single year in college. She had been considered an outstanding date for a quick and satisfying evening.

After two failed marriages to real losers, Ashley had answered a newspaper ad for attractive hostesses. It was her assumption that by working for the Middleburg Escort Service she would be taken to dinner by out-of-town salesmen. She might or might not have a romantic interlude. She quickly learned that there was very little eating done in the escort business, but a great many romantic interludes in a variety of motel rooms.

Congressman Bill Tallman had been a regular. He always went first class. They drank good champagne and usually stayed in the Clara Barton suite of the Millrace Inn. She enjoyed their sessions and his tips were generous. His only requirement, besides her complete enthusiasm, was discretion.

She didn’t think it was very discreet of him to die on her. And it didn’t take the brain of a real emergency pharmacist to diagnose that the man on the bed was quite definitely dead.

The inn had a large man from the grounds crew blocking the outside of the door so she couldn’t leave. They wouldn’t let her telephone Baby Dumpling for advice. She shivered and waited for the owner to return.

Mike Maresca and Bea entered the Clara Barton suite and firmly closed the door. ‘What happened?’ Bea snapped at the red-haired girl sitting uncomfortably on a Victorian chair.

‘We were doing it when he just clutched his chest. Then he said, “Oh, God,” and died.’

Bea looked at the corpse. Her first thought was that an interim election would be held. She might have hated herself for her uncharitable spirit if the dead man hadn’t been such a bastard. She nodded grimly at Maresca before turning her attention toward the girl. ‘Do I know you?’ she asked the red-haired girl.

‘I know who you are, Mrs. Wentworth. I grew up and live in Murphysville.’

‘I want you back across the river,’ Bea said. ‘Do not talk to anyone about this. Do you understand? If you speak with a soul, I guarantee you will be in deep trouble.’

‘I understand. I won’t say a word. I just want to get out of here.’

‘Then leave. Quickly!’ Bea said.

‘I haven’t been paid.’

‘Paid!’ Bea snorted. ‘He didn’t finish.’

For a moment Ashley seemed poised to object, but then thought better of it. ‘OK, I’m going,’ she answered as she gathered her purse and hurried from the room.

‘We dress him and move the body to the sofa in the sitting room,’ Bea said. ‘Then you call 911 and tell them that he might be having a coronary. We will say that Bill felt ill while driving his car and pulled in here to rest. You gave him a room and when you checked back you found him like this.’

Maresca nodded. ‘Do you think we can pull this off?’

‘I hope so, Mike. I’m doing this for Margaret, not for this roué. She’s a great governor and doesn’t deserve this.’

Lyon was very uneasy. This was not an unusual condition when he rode with Rocco in the police cruiser. His friend seemed to prefer Formula One speeds combined with a nonchalant attitude toward the mechanics of driving. He casually draped one elbow out the side window, while two fingers of his other hand lightly caressed the steering wheel. The speedometer began to inch up as they passed the town green with its historic homes. Rocco pressed for more speed when they turned down Route 40, which contained the shopping mall and the ubiquitous strip of fast food emporiums that were endemic to every American town. Once clear of congestion the speedometer inched toward eighty as they sped toward Eddy’s Motors with dome light flashing and siren wailing.

The radio sputtered. Rocco flipped the mouthpiece off its stanchion and donned small headphones to hear properly. ‘Car One. Herbert,’ he announced laconically. He listened for a moment and then, ‘Patch him through … Yes, Lars,’ he said to the medical examiner. ‘What do you have for me?… Thanks. Over and out.’

‘What was that about?’ Lyon yelled over the sound of the siren’s screech as he pressed both feet against the floor in a vain attempt to restrain forward momentum.

‘Our joyful ME says the deceased did have recent sex,’ Rocco shouted. ‘She was shot in the periumbilical area with an entrance wound of 1.5 by 1.5 centimeters. There was massive hemorrhaging, with large blood clots found in the abdominal cavity. There were extensive perforations of the small intestine. The bullet was lodged near the lower abdominal aorta. The projectile was a single round from a small-caliber weapon. The bullet has been preserved for a ballistics test when we have something to compare it to. She was also two months pregnant.’

‘We had best get to Eddy’s fast,’ Lyon said.

Although Rocco had been born and raised in Murphysville and Lyon in nearby Middleburg, they had not met until they served together in a war zone. Lyon was an infantry battalion’s intelligence officer, while Rocco was a ranger and leader of the recon platoon that acted as the unit’s eyes and ears. They had established a working relationship then that still continued. Rocco, as the man of action, took to the field to obtain the raw data for Lyon’s evaluation. Rocco’s intelligent harvesting of information combined with Lyon’s unique perceptions created a team whose total exceeded the sum of its parts.

Their army cooperation had naturally evolved into civilian crime investigation. A full working relationship and friendship had blossomed after Lyon and Bea moved to the house on the green with their young daughter. An irrevocable bond had been forged after the hit-and-run accident. Rocco had spent dozens of sleepless nights until his state-wide check of body shops had revealed the guilty driver.

Lyon and Bea had walked away from the house on the green on the day of the accident and had never returned. The bond with Rocco and the memory of their daughter had kept them in Murphysville. It was shortly thereafter that they had immersed themselves in the restoration of Nutmeg Hill.

At Eddy’s Motors the double shotgun blast had discouraged the owner’s latest hot prospect. The sight of the sprawled car salesman propped against the Chevy utility made the prospective customer’s gas-eating, oil-chugging truck, with its wooden stake bed, look almost attractive. He passed the speeding police car as he churned away from the lot.

Lister Anderson’s wrath was not satisfied by Eddy’s mortal wound. He proceeded to destroy as many pickups and used cars as his remaining time allowed. His method was certain and efficient. He swung the .12 gauge by its barrel to smash the front windshield of each vehicle, and then proceeded to blow out the tires with the weapon. Lister had managed to dispatch most of the inventory when Rocco’s cruiser screeched to a stop by the trailer office. The large police chief catapulted from the car and held up both hands palms forward in a gesture of command.

‘Drop the weapon, Lister,’ Rocco ordered.

‘Mostly out of shells, Chief.’ Anderson let the shotgun fall to the ground. ‘About got them all, anyway.’

‘That you did, Lister,’ Rocco said as he handcuffed his prisoner’s hands behind his back. ‘That you surely did.’

Lyon ran over to the sprawled body of Eddy Rashish. The salesman had somehow managed to temporarily survive the double blast and struggled to sit up. It was obvious from the massive trauma that his time was limited.

Lyon propped the dying man’s head on his lap. ‘The ambulance will be here soon, Eddy.’

Eyes blinked open. ‘Don’t let him get away. Don’t let him go.’

‘Rocco’s got him cuffed in the back of the cruiser,’ Lyon answered.

‘I mean my live fish. If you have to, tell him sixty a week for two and a half years. Just close the deal.’

Eddy Rashish died uttering incomprehensible things about deal percentages and forging odometer readings.

Bea Wentworth cut the skin off two large chicken breasts and seasoned them in preparation for grilling. Lyon worked at the chopping block reducing vegetables into salad-size portions.

‘I thought about it today,’ Bea said. She knew it was not necessary to identify the event further. Lyon would know her meaning even if they hadn’t talked about it in months.

Lyon stopped with his cleaver poised in mid-air. ‘So did I. It came back to me while I was riding in Rocco’s cruiser.’

‘I was at the Millrace Inn about to have lunch with Helena Rabnor when it hit me. We had other excitement at the inn, which I’ll tell you about next.’

‘We’ve been married too long. That accounts for this mental similarity.’

‘Do you believe it’s that?’

‘Not completely,’ Lyon said. ‘I think it’s the same time of year combined with today’s weather and light …’ He mistakenly brought the cleaver down on a large tomato with a blow that splattered it across the room. ‘Any thoughts on it?’ he asked as he wiped juice and pulp from the cabinets.

‘I have concern over my biological clock.’

‘It’s been ten years,’ Lyon said. He returned to the chopping block to scrape carrots. ‘I applied to Big Buddy today.’

She turned toward him in amazement. For her husband to volunteer to be a mentor to a young child was an astonishing step of recovery, considering the massive pain they both felt. ‘Can you handle it?’

‘I think so. It’s a first step. They have a few kids on the waiting list in the Murphysville area. They’ll assign me to a child as soon as they check me out. They’re pretty careful about backgrounds nowadays. I’ve asked Rocco to vouch for me. If I’m properly vetted they match me with a single parent’s young boy.’

‘Not a girl?’

‘It doesn’t seem to work that way. Basically, they want an adult male to do things with the kid. We’re supposed to go places and do masculine activities. It comes down to mentor stuff while we act as a male role model.’ The phone rang and Lyon snicked it off its kitchen-wall stanchion. ‘Wentworth here.’

‘I told them the truth about you,’ Rocco said without preamble. ‘I’m talking about the query I received from the Big Buddy organization. I vouched that you are a fine upstanding citizen at least fifty percent of the time. I did have to point out that in the fall, when the Canadian geese make their flyover, you are apt to leap from your parapet in an attempt to join them in flight.’

‘Thanks, old buddy.’

‘I have two male holding cells in my little lockup,’ Rocco said. ‘We have Spook in one and Lister Anderson in the other. Lister has been born again and is trying to bring Spook to Jesus. Spook is trying to recruit Lister for the First Cav’s motor pool.’

After dinner they made espresso coffee in the machine that Rocco and his wife had given them last Christmas. As they sat on the patio and watched the sun brim the horizon, Bea told Lyon about the discovery of the congressman’s body at the inn. She described how the governor’s husband had been found dead in the inn’s Clara Barton suite with his red-haired friend.

‘I suppose that, strictly speaking, what Mike Maresca and I did was illegal,’ Bea concluded. ‘But damn it all, Lyon. Margaret doesn’t need to be hurt any further by that guy.’

‘Of course not,’ Lyon said. ‘But I hope that’s the end of it.’ He wondered how the governor could have remained ignorant of her husband’s peccadillos all these years. For at least the last half decade it had been well known on both sides of the aisle that Bill Tallman considered it perpetually open season on all women.

‘You’d really like to consider having another child, wouldn’t you?’ Bea asked.

‘For the first time in years, I’m able to consider the possibility of considering,’ Lyon replied. ‘It’s up to you, of course.’ He looked across the patio table to see tears in his usually pragmatic wife’s eyes. He was instantly remorseful. He never wanted to hurt her.

‘God only knows I want a child,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know that I am strong enough to go through another loss like that.’

‘As I said, we are only considering the possibility of considering it.’

Bea nodded and wondered if this was to be a day marked by two postponed problems.

At ten in the morning, Sarge Renfroe was usually his own best customer. The rules set by Rocco Herbert forbade his personal consumption of hard liquor before the sun was over the yardarm. Sarge understood, as legions of senior enlisted men before him had, that officers’ rules were meant to be discreetly disregarded. ‘Sun’s over the yardarm somewhere in the world,’ he mumbled aloud as he brought the first shot of the day toward his eager mouth.

The second drink of bar whiskey was loaded and ready to fire when a large hand clamped down on Sarge’s wrist. The heavy shot glass clanked to the floor and rolled under the footrail. ‘Come on, Captain,’ he pleaded with Rocco. ‘I’m really hung this morning.’

‘Winston Churchill once said that often the most important accomplishments are done by men who don’t feel well in the morning.’

‘I don’t suppose you have any coffee?’ Lyon asked.

Sarge shuddered while he pulled two steaming mugs of inky coffee from the machine at the rear of the bar. He slid them across the scarred bar and plunked a sugar bowl and small cream container by each mug. He sulked on a stool hidden behind the sports page.

‘He is not a happy sergeant,’ Rocco said.

‘Listen,’ Lyon said. ‘After I drink half this coffee I go back to work. I have a deadline on this book and you aren’t helping. Your case is wrapped up. Spook didn’t kill anyone. Eddy killed the girl and Lister killed Eddy. You have an eye witness to Lister’s shotgunning, and all you need is a little back and fill to tie Eddy to Boots’ murder. A nice double solution.’

Rocco arched an eyebrow too high for it to be a natural movement. ‘Do you believe that?’

‘Is that a rhetorical question?’

‘I have a gut feeling about this case,’ Rocco said.

‘That it’s not over yet?’

‘We’re a small town,’ Rocco said. ‘A ripple in the water expands to the town line. Man gets girl preg, man kills girl. Man is killed by irate father. Everything over and all back to normal? Maybe. Or maybe we need to know what caused that first ripple.’ Rocco drummed his fingers on the bar before calling out, ‘Sarge!’

The owner gave a start as the newspaper fell from his fingers. ‘Huh?’

‘What in the hell was Lister Anderson doing in here yesterday? In my holding cell last night he spouted bible talk to Spook for ten hours straight.’

‘I think Spook is a Buddhist or something,’ Renfroe responded.

‘What’s a bible thumper like Lister doing in a dump like this?’

‘Lister Anderson has been coming to this establishment every other day for the past two years. He comes in at noon with the other mechanics from the Chevy agency. The other guys have a beer and a burger. Lister has a Coke with his. He keeps his mouth shut about the religious stuff or he wouldn’t be welcome here.’ Sarge rocked back on his heels so pleased with himself that he poured a shot of bar whiskey and drained it in one fluid motion. ‘Right, Cap?’

‘Right, Sarge,’ Rocco answered, ignoring the latest liquor transgression. ‘You know we have to go see Mrs. Anderson,’ he said to Lyon.

‘We?’ Lyon said. ‘Why do you need me for a closed case? We’ve already decided, older man gets involved with younger woman. She gets a bun in the oven. They argue. She wants marriage or money for abortion. He wants out. More argument. He shoots her. Bible-thumping father decides on divine retribution. Daddy with shotgun blows away philandering used-car salesman. How much more typical can you get, Rocco?’

‘Eddy Rashish would sell his grandmother for twenty dollars a week payable every Friday for two years. But I don’t think he would shoot his lover in the lower abdomen.’

‘Maybe he was a bad shot,’ Lyon countered.

‘He might hire a hit man,’ Rocco said. ‘I can see Eddy hiring a guy and paying him off with a bad check. But to make love on a blanket in the woods and then shoot her in the gut … No.’

‘Rocco, Eddy was not a very nice person.’

‘He wasn’t evil either,’ Rocco said contemplatively. ‘Well, he might lie a little about an odometer, a creaky transmission, finance charges, or about divorcing his wife in the near future in order to seduce a girl, but …’

‘OK,’ Lyon said. ‘Another scenario. He takes her to the woods for their usual slap and tickle. When he finds out about the baby he decides to throw a real scare into her. He waves the gun around and it accidently goes off and hits her in the abdomen. There is no way he can explain things so he panics and takes off.’

‘What were Eddy’s dying words?’ Rocco asked.

Lyon watched Sarge surreptitiously down another quick shot. ‘Something about closing deals and odometers were his last words.’

‘I rest my case on his priorities,’ Rocco said as he slipped off the bar stool. ‘Let’s get on with conversing with Mrs. Anderson.’

The front and back yards of the Anderson house looked like a rusted lawn sale. Engine blocks without pistons, old lawnmower motors in varying stages of disassembly and other strange pieces of machinery were scattered across the yard. Clustered around the small garage at the rear of the property were three automobiles of unknown vintage that were in dire need of reconstruction. It was a disaster area that was tolerated by the neighborhood because adjacent properties also contained herds of motor vehicles in various stages of perpetual repair.

The house was a small ranch with a large picture window in the living room. The window faced the street and overlooked a rusting school bus, which sat on concrete blocks. Rocco looked at Lyon with a shrug when the doorbell wouldn’t respond to his touch. He thumped heavily with a door knocker made from a hood ornament.

A tall man whose body was dominated by an elongated face opened the door to look at them with somber dark eyes.

‘Is Mrs. Anderson home?’ Rocco asked.

‘Sister Anderson is in grief and not receiving.’

‘Tell her Chief Herbert is here to talk about her husband.’

‘I said the sister is not receiving.’

‘Who be you?’ Rocco asked.

‘Pastor of her flock.’

‘You will be herding your flock from my lockup if you don’t produce the lady in five seconds,’ Rocco said in a quiet voice.

Eliza Anderson had a slight body and a face too deeply grief-worn to have been accumulated in one life. Some of the ravages were inherited from past generations, who had fought icy fish lines off the Grand Banks, or scrabbled a living from Maine’s rock-strewn fields. Lister and Eliza had immigrated from the harsh Maine coast to Connecticut where new generations faced hardships of a different type.

Eliza had already lost her eldest child when his pickup went airborne after striking a bridge abutment on the interstate. Her daughter Boots occupied a slab in the medical examiner’s office. Her husband was in jail. Her last offspring sat sullenly before the television in his ill-fitting meeting-time clothes and glared at them resentfully. Rocco nodded at the teenager. They were acquainted due to several juvenile charges that would probably escalate in the coming year. Rocco knew it was only a matter of months until the kid would be caught and charged as an adult for grand theft auto. It seemed like an irrevocable pattern.

‘Pastor was with me through the night,’ Eliza Anderson said. ‘He read from the Book of Job and we prayed. Nothing more can be done.’

‘Did you know that Boots was pregnant?’ Rocco asked with an abruptness that startled Lyon.

‘She done told me. We decided not to tell her daddy until after the wedding. You saw what happened when he found out on his own.’

Lyon was puzzled. It was not a secret in this small town that Eddy Rashish was very permanently married.

‘Marriage?’ Rocco questioned.

‘To Skee Rumford. They’ve been sweet on each other since the eighth grade.’

‘Lister killed Eddy Rashish,’ Rocco pressed.

‘Lister always did get things mixed up,’ Eliza Anderson replied. ‘Sometimes I think he didn’t listen none, or maybe he didn’t hear none. Anyway, he always got things wrong unless it was a piece of machinery that he could put his hands on.’

‘Are you telling us that Eddy wasn’t the daddy?’ Rocco asked.

‘Not saying that.’

Rocco sighed. ‘What are you saying, Mrs. Anderson?’

‘Boots was beddin’ them both.’

‘She was involved with Eddy and Skee?’

‘That’s what I’m saying. Boots always did like variety. She would kinda alternate them.’

‘Then who was the daddy?’

Eliza Anderson shrugged. ‘God knows,’ she finally replied as she looked at Rocco and Lyon. ‘Don’t matter none now, does it? And I wouldn’t pick one over tuther cuz I wouldn’t want Lister to think he shot the wrong man.’

Four

The young man with the broom wore a baseball hat with the bill turned to the rear, a Grateful Dead tee shirt and bleached cut-off jeans. He made lame broom passes at the mass of broken windshield glass that littered the used-car lot. A black motor scooter leaned against the wall of the office trailer.

Rocco parked the cruiser on the highway shoulder away from the car lot to avoid tire damage from the broken glass. He hitched his trousers and adjusted his long holster before he walked toward the sweeper. ‘Who’s the kid?’ he asked Lyon.

‘I’ve seen him around, but don’t recall his name.’

The lethargic sweeping slowed to a stop as the young man watched their approach with mild curiosity. ‘Lot’s closed,’ he announced.

‘Who be you?’ Rocco asked softly.

‘I work here.’

‘That might be questionable,’ Rocco said, ‘since I watched your sweeping.’ Rocco’s authoritative manner slipped into place. ‘What’s your name?’

The sweeper immediately detected the voice change. He reacted by imperceptibly straightening his posture and tightening the grip on the broom. ‘My name is Skee Rumford. I work here part-time.’

‘Do you know that the owner is dead?’

‘Yes, sir. Mrs. Rashish asked me to clean the place up. She wants to try and get a buyer after the windshields and tires are replaced. I told her I could replace the tires, but she’s got to get a glass guy to do the windshields. It’s going to cost her a friggin’ fortune.’

Rocco walked through the lot and stopped occasionally to examine a shattered windshield. The sweeper followed behind him. ‘You’re a friend of Boots Anderson, aren’t you?’ Rocco said nonchalantly without looking directly at the young man.

‘We were in high school together.’

‘You know she was also killed yesterday?’

‘I heard about it.’

The voice was familiar. Lyon remembered last year’s high school class. Skee sat directly behind Boots and exchanged what they obviously considered meaningful glances. Lyon suspected that he was also the culprit who spouted off about the sex life of the Wobblies.

Rocco turned away from his examination of Lister Anderson’s carnage. ‘Her murder got you off the hook, didn’t it, Skee?’

‘Huh?’

‘She’s dead with your kid.’

‘What are you talking about? I told you we were in high school together.’

‘Her mom says you two did more than share a little homework.’

‘I might have dated her a couple of times.’

‘Do you know what I think, kid?’ Rocco said. ‘I think you’ve been seeing Boots since the eighth grade and I think you’ve been making out with her since then.’

‘I date lots of girls.’

‘She was carrying your baby.’

‘I don’t know that.’

‘Her mom seems to think so.’

‘It coulda been Eddy’s.’

‘Boots’ body is at the medical examiner’s office right now. Suppose I just ring them up and get a DNA report on that unborn child?’

‘Maybe it was mine. I don’t know. She was fooling around with Eddy, too. That’s why her dad came out here and did what he did.’

Rocco slowly folded his hand around the broom handle and deliberately removed it from the young man’s grip. He tossed it aside. ‘I find it extremely interesting that you’re working for the guy who was making out with your girl. Did you both do her in the trailer over there? What I’m asking is, did you take turns?’

‘I don’t have to listen to that!’

‘Don’t you? Would you prefer we chatted in my lockup?’

‘No.’

‘Then how come you work for Eddy, who was playing around with Boots? I find that strange, kid. In fact, I find that downright weird.’

‘I didn’t know what was going on when he hired me. I needed a part-time job while I’m going to Middleburg Community College. I found out later what was happening between them.’

‘How much later?’

‘I began to have my suspicions,’ Skee said. ‘It got routine that when I came to work at the lot, Eddy would take off. I’d try to call Boots and she was never home when Eddy was gone. She worked the four-to-eleven at the market and should have been home.’

‘So what happened?’

‘The night before last we had it out. She told me Eddy hired me so he would know exactly where I was when they went together. Boots promised me that she was dumping Eddy. She said the relationship wasn’t going anywhere and he would never divorce his wife. She said she was sorry it ever started.’

‘So, she told you the night before she died that she was going to meet Eddy in the state forest?’ Rocco pressed.

‘She didn’t say where she was going to tell him.’

‘Do you know if Eddy had a gun? Maybe a small handgun?’

‘Lots of his customers paid weekly in cash. He was always afraid of robbery so he kept a pistol. It’s somewhere in the office.’

‘Let’s have a look,’ Rocco said as they walked toward the trailer. Lyon helped Rocco search the narrow office. They found a mass of pornographic magazines, stacks of various MVD forms, and bank loan papers from several institutions. There wasn’t any gun of any caliber.

‘Where do you suppose Eddy put that gun you told me about?’ Rocco asked Skee.

‘I don’t know,’ Skee said in a subdued tone that bordered on obsequiousness. Any trace of his initial belligerency had disappeared.

‘Where were you yesterday morning?’ Rocco snapped.

‘I was in school. I had classes all morning at Middleburg Community College. They’re very particular about taking attendance. You can ask them at the administration office.’

‘I will,’ Rocco said. ‘You may rest assured that I will.’

The governor of the state of Connecticut began to cry.

Bea Wentworth sat uncomfortably before the desk in the governor’s study at the mansion on Hartford’s Prospect Avenue. While the state’s chief executive fought for composure, Bea turned her attention to the books that filled the cases along three walls. Lyon’s Wobbly books were there, along with hundreds of other volumes written by Connecticut authors. Writers were a breed that seemed to sprout throughout the Nutmeg State. She was never certain if this was due to pleasant rural areas or proximity to the publishers of New York City.

‘Forgive me, Beatrice,’ the governor said as she stuffed her hanky into a skirt pocket. ‘It hurts. Oh, God, his going hurts. I remember years ago, when we served together in the legislature, that you and your husband suffered a terrible loss. You lost your little girl, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, on her birthday,’ Bea answered.

‘How did you stand it? How did you find the strength to go on?’

‘I don’t really know, Margaret,’ Bea said. ‘You just go on because … Because you have to.’

‘Perhaps it’s like the old saying that time heals all wounds.’

‘It never gets better. You just don’t think of it quite so often.’

‘You heard where he died, didn’t you?’ All traces of prior tears disappeared as the governor leaned toward Bea conspiratorially. ‘The Millrace Inn. The owner told the paramedics that Bill drove his car into their parking lot and said he didn’t feel well. They escorted him upstairs to one of their rooms. He went before a doctor could arrive.’

‘I think I did hear that on the news,’ Bea answered, thinking that the statement was not a complete lie.

‘I wonder what he was doing in that part of the state? It’s not even near his own district. The inn is near your home, isn’t it?’

‘It’s directly across the river from Nutmeg Hill,’ Bea answered.

‘Interesting. We go back a long way together, don’t we, Bea?’

‘A long way, Margaret.’

‘You were one of my first supporters when I ran for statewide office.’

‘I’ve always had faith in you.’

‘I’m the first Jewish woman governor, Bea.’

‘You were a logical choice after we had our first Jewish governor and our first woman governor.’

‘I’m the first Jewish woman governor, Bea. I didn’t get this far by being dumb. You don’t win elections in a state like Connecticut without being a pragmatic politician with a ton of survival savvy.’

‘You’ve always been a survivor, Margaret,’ Bea said. ‘That’s why you’ll eventually get over Bill.’

‘Oh, I expect I will. Of course, I’ll always miss the rat,’ the governor said. ‘Did you know he lived in the Watergate while Congress was in session? He ate in a restaurant near there called Blinkers. You know the kind of place. Young flirty waitresses who wear short-shorts real tight. His regular waitress was a nubile twenty-year-old called Bambi. Evidently Bambi was personally responsible for delivering Blinkers’ venison to Bill’s apartment. When I investigated, I found out that Blinkers doesn’t even have takeout. It would seem that Bambi was his appetizer, entrée, and dessert.’

‘Margaret, you’ll only make yourself more upset.’

‘Of course, I’m even more unhappy when I consider that when Bill died he was—as they would say down in the pool hall—in the saddle. Which is rather fitting since that’s the way he would have wanted to go.’

‘Drop it, Margaret.’

‘Oh, I’ve known about his sex games for years. For several reasons I chose to ignore them. There are certain things I needed from my marriage and discretion was one of them. For the most part he tried to be discreet. However, there is a major question that is troublesome. Who was Bill with when he so rapidly departed us? Now, the Bambis of this world don’t bother me. They are non-threatening fluff. They aren’t my competition. A woman of substance and intelligence would be a different matter. A woman of accomplishment would be very threatening to me.’

‘It could have been like they said. He felt ill and pulled over to—’

‘Don’t be condescending, Beatrice! That inn was a favorite trysting place for Bill Tallman when he was in your section of the state. I’ve known that for a year. You live right across the river, don’t you?’

‘I just said that I did, Governor. You’ve been to my home half a dozen times. You know where I live. I’m not altogether certain that I’m comfortable with the direction of this conversation.’

‘I’m not interested in your comfort. I also know that you had a luncheon reservation at the inn the day Bill died. Now isn’t that another coincidence?’

Bea stood. ‘Let me explain.’

The governor also stood, her grief replaced by anger. ‘You will explain nothing. Bill always joked that he’d have you one day. He said he’d get by your airhead husband and conquer Miss Liberal Arts. I obtained a copy of the paramedics’ report. It states that an M. Maresca and a B. Wentworth were present with the body when they arrived. How neat, Beatrice. I’m glad for his sake that you joined him on his last ride, but I’m not glad for you, Senator. My hurt for that raunchy rat will be replaced by my hatred for you. I will see you ruined. As you well know, I have a lot of ammunition and power to accomplish that end. Think about that today, tomorrow, and the next day. Now, get the hell out of my office before I call my state troopers.’

Lyon leaned against the police cruiser as a deeply thoughtful Rocco carefully paced the perimeters of the used-car lot. He walked with a lowered head as if expecting to discover the footprints of some prehistoric predator. The car radio cackled. Rocco waved. It was an obvious gesture that signaled for someone to answer the call.

Lyon slid behind the wheel and snicked the hand mike from its clip on the dashboard. ‘Murphysville One,’ he answered before he pressed the receive button.

‘Tell the chief that Judge Styles had another one out at the supermarket parking lot. Over and out.’

‘Styles had another something or other at the supermarket,’ Lyon yelled over at Rocco, who was slouched against the office trailer.

Rocco pounded a fist into a palm. ‘Damn! And it’s important that we hit Eddy’s house while the lab guys are doing their thing.’

‘As a matter of curiosity, what has the judge had another of?’ Lyon asked. ‘I’ve always thought he was a harmless old man.’

‘He’s got a short-term memory of about ten seconds,’ Rocco answered. ‘The judge has reached a point where he makes Spook sound like an oracle of clarity. However, the good judge does not live in a tree house, but in that Victorian gingerbread monstrosity behind the green where he is zealously guarded by a stubborn daughter. Which still might be OK if he wasn’t in the mid stages of Alzheimer’s and still in possession of a valid driver’s license. I’ve talked to the daughter, but she refuses to admit anything is wrong. She won’t do anything about it. She doesn’t understand that the judge is a traffic menace as he tools that ancient Lincoln around town. One of these fine mornings he’s going to lose control and run down a bunch of kids waiting for a school bus. This is the final time! I’m going to yank his driver’s license one way or the other. You’re going to have to go out to Eddy’s house and talk to the wife.’

Lyon shook his head. ‘I’m not getting involved any further.’

‘All you have to do is interview Eddy’s wife—what’s her name?’

‘Mildred. If you’re too busy, turn the case over to the state police.’

Rocco glared. ‘The commander of the local state barracks would be in charge.’

‘So, that keeps everything in the family. Captain Norbert is your brother-in-law.’

‘You know what a horse’s ass Norbie is. I will never give jurisdiction to that martinet. Besides, you’ve got a finely tuned criminalist mind.’

‘You have a whole police department to call on.’

‘Jamie Martin is the only cop I could rotate on to this assignment and his results would boggle your mind.’

‘May I remind you that I am not a sworn police officer?’

‘You’re still a town constable.’

‘That was done years ago as sort of an honorary thing.’

Rocco raised Lyon’s right hand. ‘Puff! You are now sworn. That makes you an official—unpaid, mind you—member of the Murphysville Police Department. I’ll drop you off at the Rashish house on my way to beard the judge.’

Later, Lyon sat on the couch before the coffee table in the Rashish living room. Mildred sat across from him in a wide easy chair. She smiled with a menagerie of teeth that seemed to be more than the normal complement. A loud thump from the upstairs front bedroom startled him. He knew that the state forensic team had obtained the necessary legal documents and also had Mildred’s permission for the search, but it still reeked of a gross invasion of privacy and a violation of a family’s most intimate space.

Mildred Rashish seemed extremely self-possessed. She was fortyish, with bright hair-salon blonde hair divided by a slender streak of silver grey. She wore an expensive, tailored but incongruous for a recent widow, red pants suit which accentuated a full-figured body.

Lyon smiled across the coffee table as another series of thumps sounded along the upstairs hall. He knew the team was now testing for hidden locations within the walls. ‘I’m sorry about this, Mildred. There are certain procedures that must be followed.’

‘I’m surprised they want to search the victim’s house,’ she replied in a well-modulated voice. ‘I’m aware that under different circumstances even the wife might be considered a suspect, but everyone knows that Lister Anderson killed Eddy in the car lot.’

‘That’s a fact,’ Lyon replied. ‘I believe the search has to do with the death of Miss Anderson earlier that day.’

Her eyes flickered nearly imperceptibly.

Lyon was well aware of Mildred’s reputation. She was the top salesperson in the Seven Sisters Real Estate Agency. The other agents referred to her as ‘superlady’ to her face and ‘the shark of Murphysville’ behind her back. Her lack of popularity stemmed from a compulsive need to steal prospects and listings from other brokers whenever possible. Once she had a live prospect, of her own or stolen variety, she engaged in a feeding frenzy equal to any school of predators. She would close a deal even if it turned out to be a one hundred percent financed mobile home with a split commission marketed through multiple listings.

Lyon wondered what type of sales negotiations might have occurred in that upstairs bedroom. When ‘pay here every week Eddy’ bedded with ‘the shark of Murphysville’, who did what? He let the thought drop, but it was an interesting speculation.

‘You had better explain what the authorities think about the relationship between Eddy and the Anderson girl,’ Mildred said.

‘There has been some information disclosed that would seem to point toward a possible romantic involvement.’

Mildred snorted. ‘Eddy wasn’t romantic about anything except percentage deals in his favor. What you mean is that they think he was screwing her? I knew that. I mean, I hope they don’t think Eddy killed her over that kind of fun and games.’

‘Often the heart of police work is ruling out suspects.’

‘He’s dead. For God’s sake, why don’t they leave him alone?’

‘You knew that they were involved?’

‘He was always involved with some other woman, or in this case, girl. Why do you think I took my opportunity to get even?’

‘How’s that?’ Lyon asked.

‘I had my own affairs.’

‘You don’t have to go into those things, Mildred. I don’t think Rocco is interested in your private matters.’

‘Better it is out in the open and that you understand my reasons. I don’t want to end up as a suspect in the Anderson girl’s killing because some boob cop thinks I wanted to protect my marriage.’

‘Then you’re telling me you had an open marriage?’

‘Not quite. His end was open, my end was secret. He didn’t know what I was doing, but I did and that was enough to satisfy my getting even.’

Lyon didn’t care to dwell on the morality of this relationship, but it would be worth noting in his summation to Rocco. On an end table to his right was a group photograph in a gold frame. It caught his eye and he picked it up. It was a photograph of two dozen men sitting on low bleachers. They were young men wearing shiny helmet liners and starched army fatigues. All the field jackets had a First Cavalry patch on the shoulder.

‘Is this a picture of Eddy’s army unit?’ Lyon asked.

‘First mobile air assholes,’ she answered. ‘It gave them a good excuse to have a monthly reunion at the Murphysville VFW club and all get falling-down drunk. It gave Eddy a sales pitch to every Viet Nam vet in town.’ She began to imitate her husband’s sing-song sales pitch. ‘As a fellow grunt from Nam, would I cheat you? No sirree bob. A pittance every week and I’ll put you in traffic.’ She finished with a short bitter laugh. ‘Almost as bad as my handy man’s special, a house pitch for a falling-down shack.’

‘Do you know where his gun is?’

‘I made him keep it at the lot. It’s probably somewhere in that hole he calls an office.’

‘It’s not.’

She shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe he threw it in on a truck deal.’

If it were here the forensic team will find it, Lyon thought as he looked back at the photograph of serious young soldiers. A third of the men in the picture were dead six months after it was taken. The picture might or might not be significant, since the army’s method of individual replacements meant that thousands of men were rotated through the First Cavalry Division.

The case was probably over. Eddy had an affair with Boots Anderson. They argued and he shot her. He probably disposed of the weapon by chucking it in the river. Girl’s father kills Eddy and it’s all over. Maybe.

Five

‘It’s too early,’ the mild voice behind him said.

The shot glass clattered into the bar sink where its contents seeped through the drain. Although he had served in two wars—including three Viet Nam tours—was a holder of a bronze star, a purple heart, and a combat infantryman badge, Sarge Renfroe was frightened by Rocco Herbert.

‘What’s your night action these days?’ Rocco asked.

‘Yuppie singles,’ the former master-sergeant replied. It had been Sarge’s initial intention to open a sports bar catering to serious drinkers. That had worked for a time until the local fiberboard factory closed. The dip in the working man’s crowd had been replaced when the bar was discovered by the gay group. After three months the gays had disappeared as mysteriously as they had arrived.

Topless was next. Once again business boomed until complaints forced Rocco to declare an edict. ‘Booze or boobs’ had been the police chief’s choice. Sarge would not be allowed to retain his liquor license if drinks were served by naked women. To Sarge this was no choice. Boobs went.

Lyon entered the dimly lit bar. Before his eyes adjusted to the darkness he asked, ‘Is Rocco here?’

‘How could you miss him?’ Sarge pouted as he poured the children’s writer some coffee.

‘Skee’s alibi checks out,’ Rocco said as Lyon slid on to the adjoining stool. ‘I called the college and an administrator checked the attendance sheets. He was in class when Boots was killed.’

‘Then he’s off the hook?’

‘He was never on very firmly, but now he’s completely out of the line of investigation. Thanks for the report on Mildred Rashish. I don’t often get interviews with lines such as, “the demeanor of the widow verged on nonchalance as she obliquely hinted at certain intimate assignations.” That’s got a nice ring to it. Jamie Martin would have written “the broad didn’t give a damn. She was playing around.”’

‘There’s something to be said for short declarative sentences,’ Lyon said. ‘What’s your thinking at this point?’

‘That Eddy would have made a deal with Boots. He lived for negotiations and bartering. He would have taken perverse enjoyment in making a deal with Boots and her threats, if she made any. As a trained infantryman he would not have shot her in the belly. He would have gone for a head or upper-chest wound.’

‘Based on my report, what about his wife, Mildred?’

‘A possible,’ Rocco said. ‘Suppose she has a serious lover and wants to get rid of Eddy? What better way than to wait until Eddy and Boots play house in their wooded glen. When Eddy leaves, Mildred or her lover kill the girl. Lister finds out, as they knew he would, and takes revenge.’

‘I think you’re reaching. How would she know Lister would blow Eddy away?’

‘Maybe that was icing on the cake since it allows her to collect two hundred and fifty grand on a term policy we turned up.’

‘Oh, boy. That’s a tasty school of fish for the Shark of Murphysville.’

‘Isn’t it? Now, the next question is, who is Mildred playing musical beds with?’

‘That might be interesting to know,’ Lyon admitted.

The phone calls started.

The first and most disturbing message was from Arnold Torant, the house majority leader. Arnold always spoke in a breathless manner that gave the most mundane announcement a slightly conspiratorial tilt. Today’s call to Nutmeg Hill was hardly ordinary.

‘You’ve got to watch your flanks, Bea,’ Arnold said. ‘There’s bad guys coming around the corner to box you in.’

‘Where are they coming from, Arnold?’ she was forced to ask, although she suspected and feared the answer.

‘I don’t know exactly. The pressure’s coming not only from right field as you’d expect, but seems to be coming from the whole damn infield. There’s no question that somebody highly placed is orchestrating an elaborate plan. If I didn’t know you two were really tight, I’d think it was a squeeze from the governor.’

‘Exactly what do they want?’

‘Your head. They start by demanding a party caucus to oust you as senate majority leader. After that they want to attack your committee assignments, particularly your chair of the social services committee.’

The most important nut of all, Bea thought. ‘Do you think I have any real concerns, Arnold, or is this all a lot of noise?’

‘Beatrice, I don’t know how to say this politely other than that you are hip-deep in the barnyard sludge. I still don’t know who’s masterminding this ploy, but whatever group it is has enough power to bring it off. They just might get you.’

‘I really appreciate your warning, Arnold.’

There was a significant hesitation in the politician’s voice before he answered. ‘If there’s anything I can do …’ The connection was broken and it was apparent to Bea that friendly Arnold was wondering if it wasn’t time to ignore their past relationship and cut his losses.

Bea walked slowly through the house. She did not underestimate the power of the governor. Margaret was a very savvy political lady who had learned a lot of tricks over the years. She also had a lot of favors to call in. Her position at the top of the state’s masthead gave her terrific leverage through patronage and veto power. What was surprising was the depth of her anger. It seemed apparent that a good part of this vehemence was displacement over unresolved grief at her husband’s death and the sordid way he had died.

Bea’s defense was difficult since Margaret wanted it to be her on Bill Tallman’s last ride. If Bea and Bill had been lovers, then at least the man died with a little style. The truth that a red-headed whore named Ashley was the congressman’s last partner diminished him.

She was in a deep impasse with very steep walls. She had always known that any political career can end abruptly. She could come to terms with a negative vote by her constituents, but a finish orchestrated by this type of political skulduggery was devastating.

Lyon felt like a participant in a critical interview for an important job. His interrogation for a tenure tracked teaching position at Middleburg College had been mild compared to this lady’s intensity.

He had arrived only a few minutes earlier after parking his car next to a mailbox neatly labeled R. DIRK. The boy had opened the front door and pointed to a straight chair with a needlepoint seat in the small but immaculate living room.

They triangulated the space. Lyon at one side of the sofa, Rebba Dirk in a similar chair on the other, with the ten-year-old boy centered on the couch as the focal point. Edward Dirk was a boy of slight build with blond-white hair and deep blue eyes that seemed capable of looking for long periods without blinking.

His mother, Rebba, wore an austere business suit, her hair pulled back in a severe bun, and only a trace of lipstick with no other make-up. Her knees were pressed tightly together while the rigidity of her posture broadcast mild tension.

‘Mr. Dirk was a firm man of strong character,’ she announced to Lyon. ‘I have attempted to raise Edward in the same upright manner.’

‘You seem to have done an excellent job,’ Lyon said with a smile at the young boy. His look was met by an impassive stare that transmitted a hint of arrogance. He was a little surprised that the boy had automatically occupied the center of the couch, which forced Lyon and his mother to take the less comfortable side chairs.

‘Mr. Dirk was run over by a fire truck two years ago,’ the widow announced. ‘Obviously it was an unexpected departure. There was an out-of-court settlement, but you know how things are. They take advantage of the little people. They tried to claim that Mr. Dirk was inebriated at the time of the accident. I took the stand and swore under oath that my husband had never been known to drink hard liquor.’

Lyon nodded, although he knew—as many people in town did—that slightly over two years ago Dirk Senior had taken to drink with a zest. He was a high-school math teacher who was usually halfway to squiffdom by first period in the morning. Dirk’s day was punctuated by periodic sips from a Thermos of orange juice, which perpetually sat on the edge of his desk. He claimed that the juice was necessary for a throat condition, although no mention was made of its vodka base. The school administration and Board of Education attempted to fire the teacher, but the teachers’ union prevailed.

The collision between Mr. Dirk and the fire engine occurred shortly after school was dismissed for the day. Dirk Senior was proceeding on his walk home with his empty jug of orange juice. The volunteer fire department claimed that their truck had its siren blasting at the time the teacher had stepped directly into their path. Some felt it was an almost deliberate action. Lyon ignored fact and legend. If myth were needed for the sake of the young, so be it.

Rebba smiled at her son and gave his leg a pat. The boy ignored her and continued to stare impassively at Lyon. ‘I believe that at this stage of his life Edward needs a male role model. The Big Buddy program seems to offer him that possibility.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Lyon said. ‘I’ve tried to put together a program that will be physically active and mentally stimulating.’

‘Edward is very intellectual,’ Rebba said hastily. ‘He is a bright boy who tests in the very top percentile of his age group. Because of that he is very bored in school since the work is far beneath his abilities.’

‘I am not a dork,’ were the boy’s first words. He began a wispy asthmatic wheezing that increased until his shoulders shook. Rebba looked alarmed. She hurried from the room and quickly returned carrying a small white inhaler. Edward snatched it to suck greedily on the mouthpiece until his wheezing subsided. He dropped the device on the floor for his mother to retrieve.

‘What did you have in mind for your first activity?’ Rebba asked with an intensity that bordered on that of a she-fox protecting her lair.

‘The eagles have begun to return to the river,’ Lyon answered. ‘Yesterday I saw one fly by my window. I thought it might be fun to go into the state forest for an eagle watch. Afterwards we can stop by my place for sherbet.’

‘That sounds delightful,’ Rebba Dirk said.

‘I think it sounds like I’m going to get bird do-do dropped on my head,’ the boy said.

‘Oh, Edward, stop that,’ Rebba said with lyrical good nature.

Lyon wondered if you should continue as a Big Buddy to a kid you were beginning to actively dislike. He chided himself for the thought. That was why he was here, to make a difference to the boy.

‘I’ll go with you on the first outing until Edward gets used to you,’ Rebba continued.

Lyon did not think the Buddy program contemplated family affairs, but the first time wouldn’t be disastrous. ‘Shall we go? I have binoculars in my car.’

They had driven halfway to the state forest when Lyon realized with a start that this location was a recent murder scene. He knew the police and lab people were finished, but he would make it a point to stay far from the crime-scene tape. There was no sense in introducing this rather odd boy to such bizarre circumstances.

Lyon and Edward sat in the front while Rebba assumed a formal pose in the exact center of the rear seat. ‘A few years ago my wife and I took a trip on the Amazon River to bird watch,’ Lyon said. ‘Do you know where that is?’

‘I thought school was over for the day,’ the boy answered without looking at Lyon.

‘Oh, boy,’ Lyon muttered under his breath.

‘Now stop that,’ Rebba said with a gentle tap on the boy’s shoulder. ‘I want you to be super polite to Mr. Wentworth.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I asked you to,’ his mother replied without missing a beat.

‘I don’t want to watch any stupid birds. Those woods scare me.’

‘Scare you?’ Lyon glanced at the young boy by his side. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Dorks hide there and pop out at you.’

‘Oh? Exactly what are dorks?’ Lyon asked. He had a subliminal feeling concerning this boy, the recent murder, and the woods. He was about to pursue the thought when the mother’s strong reply shattered the flimsy premise.

‘He means child molesters, Mr. Wentworth. I have always warned Edward about men who entice young boys into the woods to do nasty things to them.’

‘They like to feel you up,’ the boy added.

‘Edward!’ Rebba reacted.

‘Nix on the woods and screw the birds,’ the boy said.

‘Of course, dear,’ Rebba said. ‘We won’t make you go into the scary woods if you don’t want to, will we, Mr. Wentworth?’

Actually, Lyon had had every intention of continuing on to the state forest, but her determined remarks from the rear seat discouraged the possibility. ‘We can go on to my place and have our sherbet,’ he said.

‘Oh, goody, goody,’ the boy said. ‘Wow! Real ice cream sherbet.’

Lyon turned the Saturn into Nutmeg Hill’s drive that wound its way up to the promontory. He idly wondered if a fall from a moving car would kill the kid.

‘What a lovely place you have, Mr. Wentworth,’ Rebba said. ‘I’d heard a lot about it, and a few years ago I took the Garden Club tour when Beatrice had the house open to the public.’

‘I think that one day it’s going to fall off the cliff into the river,’ added the architectural critic in the front seat.

A few minutes later they stood on the patio by the parapet and looked out over the river valley. Lyon wondered if a fall from the cliff might do the trick. An eagle flew in the distance. They didn’t have to go to the state forest after all.

‘You have a good life here. You must be a contented man, Lyon.’

‘Yes, I am,’ Lyon replied and wondered why she had suddenly switched to a first-name basis. He turned to point out the eagle to Edward. The boy had disappeared. ‘Where is he?’

‘Oh, he’s just playing a game with us. Didn’t you ever play hide-and-seek when you were young?’

Lyon’s smile was tempered by the thought of a dozen insidious possible mischiefs the boy might be perpetrating. ‘I’ll take a look,’ he said and bolted from the patio.

He found Edward Dirk sitting at the computer console in his study. The boy had managed to switch the machine on and boot it up. He was banging on the mouse to flit from icon to icon.

‘Sherbet time,’ Lyon said.

‘Werbet time,’ the boy answered with a double wham on the mouse.

Lyon contemplated rewiring the computer mouse for an electrocution. The kid was small enough so that it probably wouldn’t take a great many volts.

They sat in the breakfast nook with bowls of peach sherbet. Edward consumed his with great appetite while his mother smiled across the table at Lyon. ‘The three of us together like this are just like a family,’ she said.

Lyon coughed.

‘Yuk,’ Edward responded.

‘Edward is really a very good boy,’ Rebba said hastily. ‘He knows that I work very hard at the Nutmeg Insurance Company and he tries to do his part by delivering papers.’

‘I’d make out better in an orphan asylum,’ the boy said as he handed Lyon his empty bowl for a refill.

‘See you later, alligator,’ Lyon called after them as he delivered Rebba and Edward back to their small ranch home. He knew it was silly, but often kids liked that sort of stuff. He expected a return of ‘after a while, crocodile.’ Instead, the kid flipped him a finger.

Rebba Dirk fumbled in her purse for the door key. Lyon was not sure if she saw the finger or chose to ignore it. Either way, the gesture created the final decision concerning his mentorship of Edward Dirk. There was no way he could continue to be a Big Buddy for this child. He made the phone call as soon as he arrived back at Nutmeg Hill.

‘Big Buddy,’ Ed Larsen, the organization officer, said when he answered their Middleburg telephone.

‘This is Lyon Wentworth and I quit.’

‘You have the Dirk kid, don’t you?’

‘How did you guess?’

‘Sweet, isn’t he?’

‘You could say that. I’m afraid I’m just not up to it. We’re on different wavelengths and he’ll do better with a different man.’

‘You’re his fourth and last Big Buddy. We can’t keep anyone with the little bastard. And each time someone quits the case they quit being a Big Buddy. One visit with Edward and guys want all kids tried as adult offenders.’

‘I’m the last?’

‘We can’t fool with the little monster forever.’

‘I’ll give it another shot,’ Lyon said reluctantly. ‘But just one more time to see if it gets better,’ he said to the silent phone after Larsen quickly severed their connection.

Barbara Styles had been the secretary of Murphysville’s Saint James Episcopal Church for twenty-six years. She hated unbalanced accounting records, liturgical changes, and Romans. But not in that order. The Romans, or RCs as the Roman Catholics were called for short, were the worst of the lot. They were not only incorrect in apostolic succession and papal infallibility, but were poorly represented by Saint Anne’s directly across the street from Saint James.

It was a known fact that Saint Anne’s was made up of the dregs of Murphysville society. Saint James had the highest proportion of professionals, wealth, and old families on its membership rolls. Saint Anne’s had parishioners like that horrible Rocco Herbert, who had recently humiliated her daddy over that driver’s license business. So, her daddy was a little forgetful these days, but that was no reason to trick him out of his license and then destroy it. Only a Roman would feel the need to humiliate a member of the bar and former probate judge in that manner.

The Catholics had Father Magrusky, who still spoke with an accent, while Saint James had Canon Mead MacIntire. Oh, how she had preened when that cathedral in Scotland had made Mac a canon. Not that Mac was all that much. He really wasn’t much good for anything except looking beatific at the altar. He might be a canon, and he might look beatific as hell while the hymns were sung, but he kept the church too low for Barbara’s high desires.

Mac might be a canon, but Barbara pretty well ran things. It was not unusual for the canon to ask her advice on what organization meetings to attend, or anything having to do with church finances or maintenance. The only matters she did not dip her fingers into were theological. She was content to let the canon handle the metaphysical matters while she took care of everything else, which included his marriage, children, and most day-to-day decisions.

Barbara Styles was a no-nonsense sort of person who dressed the way she acted. She wore a comfortable middle-aged body that was well nourished, but still functional for her purposes.

She looked up in annoyance when the door to her first-floor office opened. She did not like to be disturbed while reconciling the bank statement.

‘What do you want?’ she asked crossly. She waited impatiently for an answer. ‘Well? You know what happened last time.’ When there was no reply she snapped her pencil in two. ‘Are you going to say anything or just stand there all day?’ She stood and took a step around the edge of the desk. ‘What’s that in your hand?’

The pistol shot in the small office was not loud. The bullet’s impact was not sufficient to knock Barbara Styles from her feet. She gripped the edge of the desk with both hands until the outside door closed. She reached for the phone with one hand, knocked it from its cradle, and dialed 911.

‘You won’t believe who just shot me,’ she said. ‘I can’t wait long. I am hurt.’

Barbara Styles dropped the phone with the emergency operator still talking. She lurched through the door and down the four front steps. She stumbled past the church sign before she veered into the road. She collapsed midway across the street, halfway between the two churches.

Six

The Murphysville Volunteer Fire Department was the first unit to arrive at the murder scene. A fireman covered the body in the center of the street with a bright-yellow raincoat containing the large black letters MVFD on its back. A hand clutching an army division patch protruded beyond the covering.

Rocco Herbert, oblivious to his training and orders, pried the horse head patch from dead fingers. ‘Find out where Spook went and bring him in,’ he ordered an officer standing nearby.

Father Magrusky pushed past a line of firemen and knelt by the body. He began to offer last rites. He looked up in annoyance when Rocco put his hand on the priest’s shoulder. ‘She must have them.’

‘Barbara Styles is under that raincoat, Father,’ Rocco said. ‘For God’s sake, let Canon MacIntire mumble his things over her or we’ll restart the Thirty Years War.’

The priest slowly stood. ‘You have fallen a long way from your church, Rocco Herbert.’

‘It’s the nature of my profession,’ Rocco replied without a smile.

Sergeant Vince Niles issued a low command over his hand radio. ‘You want we should storm Spook’s tree house, Chief?’

‘God, no! If he is armed that would be asking for it. Leave a man at the base of the tree and check out his usual haunts: Sarge’s place, under the gazebo on the green, and look beneath all the bridges. Spook is very partial to sleeping under bridges.’

‘He could be anywhere in town, Chief. When that guy roams, he really travels.’

‘Just keep looking, OK?’ Rocco ordered as Happy Hansen parked the assistant medical examiner’s Pontiac next to the Fire Department’s emergency van.

‘Hit and run?’ Hansen asked in nearly serious mode as he knelt by the body and lifted the raincoat.

‘You tell me,’ Rocco answered.

‘How about small-caliber bullet in the groin area?’ the doctor said after a cursory examination. ‘Hold on, ladies and gentlemen,’ he exclaimed. ‘This is Barbara Styles. No lover’s argument here. Barbara was faithful to her old daddy the judge all her life. Wonder where she was going. She seems to have fallen in the middle of the street halfway between Saint Anne’s and Saint James.’

‘She sure in hell wasn’t on her way to Saint Anne’s,’ Rocco answered. ‘She was probably trying to get home. She and her daddy live down the street in the next block.’

Hansen looked with interest toward the large Victorian house surrounded by an iron picket fence. ‘All those Episcopal gals are old money. Take her away as soon as the pictures are done,’ he said to the paramedics waiting nearby with a gurney. ‘Who the hell would shoot Barbara Styles, a pillar of our little ingrown community?’ Lars asked Rocco without humor.

‘Good question,’ Rocco answered as the photographer finished and the paramedics loaded the body into their waiting ambulance. ‘Radio me when they locate Spook,’ he said to Sergeant Niles.

‘Where will you be, Chief?’ the sergeant asked.

Rocco gestured toward the large home down the block. ‘I’ll be at the Styles’ house. Canvass both churches and the surrounding homes to see if anyone heard or saw anything.’

Warren Street ran parallel to the town green. Although the homes on this street were newer than those on the green, they had been built by nineteenth-century mill owners and were larger than the older but more modest colonial-era buildings in the center of town.

An iron stag dominated the front lawn of the Styles’ house. Its raised head signaled that it was poised for flight. But that stance had not kept it from countless deer-nappings. On at least six occasions, all of which occurred on Halloween, Rocco and his men had rescued the metal animal from numerous places as varied as the town gazebo, the Connecticut River, and the high school gymnasium.

A small sign on the lawn on the opposite side of the walk from the deer announced that the offices of Judge Raymond Styles, attorney at law, were located here. The ‘Judge’ prefix was now honorary, although it had been earned twenty-five years ago after his election to probate judge. God help any misguided souls who might actually stop here for legal advice.

The front door opened before Rocco knocked. It was answered by a distinguished-looking elderly man who would have been impeccably dressed if his vest had not been buttoned wrong near the top. He observed the police chief with suspicion. ‘What do you want, young man?’

‘I’m here to talk about your daughter, Judge.’ When this request was met by a blank stare, he continued, ‘I’m Chief Herbert of the town police.’

‘I know perfectly well that Thadeus Martin is Murphysville Chief of Police. I do not know what sort of macabre sense of humor you have, young man, but I do not have a daughter. I am not married.’

Rocco stepped by the old man into the Victorian house. He was about to find out how you tell a man, whose short-term memory has been destroyed, that his middle-aged daughter he cannot remember has just been shot to death.

Lyon and Bea sat across from each other in the breakfast nook. They had steaming mugs of Earl Grey tea before them and shared a deep shroud of depression.

Lyon sardonically smiled as he recalled that only two hours earlier, Edward Dirk and his resourceful mother had sat at this table. That singularly offensive child cast a repugnant web over the whole fabric of childhood. He had to shake his head in denial of that ridiculous logic.

‘Does that head shake mean that you whinny next?’ Bea asked. She knew he was troubled about something, but for the present her political problems seemed to be occupying all her empathy space.

‘It was my Big Buddy afternoon,’ he answered and proceeded to tell her of the day’s visit.

‘I didn’t know the Big Buddy agenda included dating the single mother.’

‘It doesn’t. It just happened to work out that way this afternoon. She won’t be along next time.’

‘I’ll bet.’ Bea took a long sip of tea. ‘She’s after you. Take my word that you have already been measured for the marital suit. That’s why the kid is acting like such a monster. He feels competition on the horizon and doesn’t want his princely place usurped.’

‘Waxing philosophical tonight, aren’t we?’

‘The phone calls are driving me batty. Margaret has mounted a brilliant campaign against me.’

‘You’ve got to tell her the truth.’

‘I can’t even get a phone call through to her, much less explain anything. I’m officially on her leper list.’

‘Then resign and we’ll get pregnant.’

‘Is that like in stay home and be pregnant and barefoot? You know I can’t just quit.’

‘I don’t mean it as an escape from your political problems. I thought that if we are going to try again that this might be a good time.’

Bea forced a small laugh. ‘After your session with Edward today I thought you might be in the market to open abortion clinics.’

Lyon looked out the window to see a dark sedan coming up their drive. ‘Someone’s coming to visit.’

‘If it’s a messenger bearing ill tidings from the governor, spear him,’ Bea said.

Canon Mead MacIntire stood at the front door. He wore a dark suit with a clerical collar and a dark shirt. A small gold cross was centered on his chest. Carefully coiffured, prematurely white hair above slightly pink cheeks, combined with a placid manner, created a near beatific appearance.

For a brief moment Lyon considered kneeling to receive a benediction while kissing the Papal ring.

‘It’s nice to see you again, Mead,’ Lyon said. He extended his hand, which was limply shaken by the Episcopal priest. ‘Since we are not parishioners, and I know you are into bird-watching, I’ll bet this has to do with establishing an observation blind for an eagle count at Nutmeg Hill.’

The minister sighed. ‘I wish that were the reason.’

‘Coffee?’

‘Yes, please.’

Bea served coffee in their silver service, which usually rested undisturbed and unused on the dining-room break-front. The canon sat stiffly on the edge of a straight chair with a porcelain cup balanced on his knee. ‘I’ve come for your help,’ he said after an embarrassed pause. ‘I was hoping that perhaps because of your friendship with Chief Herbert, that you might make some confidential enquiries on behalf of Saint James Church.’

Lyon was puzzled. ‘Of course. Anything we can do.’

‘A disturbing matter has arisen within our congregation. It would seem … It would seem as if one of our most trusted members has been … has been borrowing church funds for her unauthorized use.’

Bea looked grim. ‘Barbara Styles has been skimming the collection plate.’

Canon Mead MacIntire’s startled look increased his discomfort. ‘How did you know?’

‘I was a member of the congregation until Lyon and I married and became Unitarians,’ Bea answered. ‘Barbara Styles has been the pillar of the administrative staff of Saint James since any of us can remember.’

The canon nodded. ‘She never took a vacation or asked for time off. She was always there, which I considered a display of complete loyalty.’

‘How much is missing?’ Lyon asked.

‘We can only guess,’ the canon answered. ‘But we think she has been borrowing two hundred dollars a week.’

‘For how long?’ Bea’s pragmatic approach cut to the heart of the problem.

‘About fifteen years, give or take a year. It evidently began when the judge’s practice began to decline.’

‘A hundred and fifty thousand,’ Bea said. ‘That’s just about enough to make up the loss of the judge’s legal income when he began to fail. It would seem that maintaining appearances with a high standard of living were important to her.’

‘Probably coupled with a misguided protection of the judge’s pride,’ Lyon added.

‘That is also our conjecture,’ the canon replied.

‘How did you find out?’ Lyon asked.

‘We have a relatively new church member who has become quite active in church affairs. John Chimes is a CPA with an accounting firm in Middleburg. He became suspicious when he heard that our bookkeeper never took a vacation. He asked my permission to do a money count of the collection plates each Sunday before the funds were turned over to Barbara. Of course I turned him down since I felt that such underhand tactics would have shown our lack of faith in Barbara. John kept on at me about the secret audit. He said I would be derelict in my duties if it wasn’t done. I finally gave in and allowed them to proceed.’

‘How long did you do it?’ Lyon asked.

‘We counted the money every Sunday for two months,’ Mead replied. ‘Monday’s bank deposit was consistently two hundred dollars short. Never a penny more, and never a penny less.’

‘And the money was in Barbara’s possession?’ Bea asked.

‘Yes. Four ushers pass the collection plates during the service and then bring them forward to the altar for my blessing. The four plates are then taken into the vestry where the money is consolidated on to one plate. That one is taken to the church office where Barbara waits with the door to our small safe already open. She puts the money in the safe, shuts the door, and spins the dial.’

‘And on those Sundays, you counted the collection in the vestry before it went to Barbara?’ Bea asked.

‘John Chimes counted in front of the three other ushers who acted as witnesses. The reason I’ve come to you, Lyon, is that we want a third party to intervene. We don’t want to formally charge Barbara with a crime. We only want restitution of the funds and her resignation.’

‘You don’t want her to do time?’ Bea said.

‘My goodness, no. We are a Christian institution. We must forgive those who transgress.’ He stopped abruptly and looked at them in confusion. ‘Do you know, I have to honestly confess that it will be a great relief to me personally to have her out of the church office. For years she has been smothering me.’

‘And you want me to talk to Rocco off the record?’ Lyon said.

‘If you would,’ Mead answered.

‘She could raise the money by selling that old house of theirs,’ Bea said. ‘The parcel is large enough for several building lots.’

‘It’s going to take real pressure from Rocco to bring Barbara into that frame of mind,’ Lyon added.

‘I have no choice but to insist on restitution,’ Mead said. ‘It is not a question of my personal forgiveness. When the bishop finds out about this he will insist on it. The bishop is a very frugal man.’

Lyon went to answer the phone in the kitchen. ‘Yes?’

‘Barbara Styles was just shot in the office of Saint James Church,’ Rocco said. ‘She made it outside and died in the street from a wound in the umbilical region of the lower abdomen. The killing is similar to the young woman in the woods. A prelim ballistics test indicates that the same gun fired both shots. In addition to all that, Spook is missing.’

Movement caught in the corner of his eye caused Lyon to look out the kitchen window toward the barn at the side of the property. The loft door slowly swung shut. ‘He’s in my barn. What about the division patch?’

‘We found one clutched in her fingers just like Boots Anderson. Who’s in your barn?’

‘I think Spook may be in my loft. Who did you say found the Anderson girl’s body?’

‘Canon MacIntire from Saint James … Oh, for God’s sake, Lyon. We’re talking about the saint of Murphysville here. His idea of living dangerously is climbing a tree to count the eggs in a bird’s nest. He’s not into shooting women in the groin.’

‘Come out here and collect Spook. When you arrive, ask the good canon about Barbara Styles’ creative bookkeeping.’ Lyon hung up and returned to the living room. ‘Tell me, Mead, did you know a young woman by the name of Boots Anderson?’

‘Oh, you heard about her tragedy. A terrible thing. Yes, I knew her. The Andersons are not members of Saint James, but the Rumfords are. Young Skee Rumford came to me recently for pastoral counseling. It would seem that he and the Anderson girl were … I guess I can break the confidence now that the child is dead. Well, they were intimate and came to me for help.’

‘They came together?’ Lyon asked.

‘Oh, yes. We had several sessions between the three of us and then I met separately with each of them alone.’

‘And you are the one who found her body?’ Lyon said.

‘Oh, yes. It wasn’t far from here, out in the state forest. I was bird-watching for returned eagles.’

‘I think your problem with Barbara Styles has just disappeared,’ Lyon said.

Mead MacIntire looked confused again. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘She died today,’ Lyon said. ‘In the street outside the church. She was shot to death in the same manner as the Anderson girl.’

Seven

Sarge Renfroe crossed his arms over his apron and smiled over the bar at Spook. The former First Cav infantryman had three beers with matching shots of whiskey neatly lined in front of him. He was diligently working his way through the formation. After he downed the last shot, Sarge gleefully poured another with an accompanying hit for himself.

‘The captain sure knows how to treat his men,’ the bar owner said conspiratorially to his customer.

Spook placed empty shot glasses over his eyes and smiled impishly. ‘He said if I came down without trouble he’d buy me a snootful.’

‘How much is that?’

‘You’ll know when I fall off the stool.’

Rocco and Lyon sat in the far booth. The large police officer had placed himself so that he was turned away from the spectacle at the bar. ‘It’s got to be destroying his liver,’ Lyon said.

‘Do you really believe he has one left? He’s been known to drink shaving lotion toward the end of the month.’ Rocco began to scratch his chest with both hands. He yelled across the room to Sarge. ‘Shut off the spigot. That’s all I’m paying for.’

‘He’s got a couple coming from the well,’ Renfroe shouted back.

‘What is wrong with you?’ Lyon asked as his friend continued a frantic scratching.

‘It’s the damn body armor Martha makes me wear. It’s itchy as hell.’

‘When did that start?’

‘Since I got shot last year during the bank hold-up. I promised her that whenever I do anything confrontational I’d wear the damn stuff. Spook might get confrontational one day if he mistakes me for Cong.’ He stood and handed Lyon a flimsy copy sheet. ‘Read this. It’s a copy of the 911 call Barbara Styles made after she was shot. I’m going to the latrine to shuck this stuff.’

Lyon read the sheet. ‘You won’t believe who has just shot me. But I can’t wait for you. I am hurt.’ He looked up as Rocco returned.

The chief threw the armor vest on the seat and slid into the booth. ‘She dropped the phone, but the line was open and there was a 911 trace to the number. Get the wording? “You won’t believe who has just shot me.”’

‘The implication being that it was someone known to most people in town, but a rather far-fetched killer.’

‘Agreed,’ Rocco said. ‘But Spook is not in that league. I get complaints every month about him. Most people in town think he’s capable of anything, although all he ever seems to do is pee on the gazebo or pass out on a playground slide. I think if he had shot her, Barbara would have said “the Spook has finally done it,” or words to that effect. She didn’t say that. The killer was someone completely unexpected.’

‘Like hinting at the saint of Murphysville? You’re suggesting that the good canon is planting red herrings by dispensing First Cav patches to all his victims?’

‘Those patches are why I have to stash Spook somewhere safe. If I don’t there will be lynch mobs a-gathering.’

‘I don’t think we’ve lynched anyone in town since they strung Hetti Brun to the hanging tree on the green and called her a witch.’

‘After I arrest our Episcopal Pope for popping a teenage girl and then offing his secretary,’ Rocco said, ‘they’ll call me worse things than that.’

‘Evidence?’

‘Working on it. We do know that the canon found out Barbara Styles had her own share of the wealth plan. It’s not too far from that to have him knock her off in a rage. He knows you and I are friends so he drives out to your place to establish an alibi.’

‘That’s within the realms of possibility, but how do you line up our saint with sexy Boots?’

‘He misread her come-on. She flirted with him during one of their private sessions and he didn’t know how to handle it,’ Rocco said.

Lyon thought of his own teaching background with its exposure to slightly similar situations. Young women, just discovering their sexuality, sometimes experimented with their seductive skills. Although they might not have any real sexual intentions, their flirtations could be misunderstood. He sometimes compared adolescent seductresses to kittens learning to pounce on harmless things before becoming true predators. He didn’t think his wife would care for that analogy. ‘So, maybe the girl was a little comeonish, but few mature men, particularly a minister, would put any significance in her true sexual signals.’

‘Some men are naive. When his holiness gets the teenage seduction number done on him, he takes it for real. He makes a date to meet her in the woods for a little hanky-panky bird-watching. Or, it came down another way. He’s out there alone checking on a sparrow flyby. He catches her nude sunbathing. When she turns him down he kills her in a rage.’

‘Do you have much experience with crime among the bird-watching set?’

‘I admit to very little. But new dimensions in modern decadence are constantly being discovered,’ the police chief said.

‘If I buy that possibility,’ Lyon said, ‘I’d want to know why the good canon was out in the woods with a handgun.’

‘He was worried about an attack by a flight of crazed robins.’

‘Think about how our canon looks and how he ordinarily acts,’ Lyon said. ‘How many rages do you think that guy gets in a decade?’

‘Enough to kill two of our women.’

‘Come on, Rocco. Even you can’t cobble a case against the canon with a straight face.’

‘Let me tell you something, old buddy. Outside of innocent bystanders gunned down during a drug turf war—which we have none of in Murphysville—most killers and victims know each other. They have some prior relationship.’

‘I have another possibility,’ Lyon said. ‘You’ve scratched Skee Rumford off your list. He had a relationship with both women. He was Boots’ lover and his family were church members at Saint James. Let’s assume Skee finds out about Barbara Styles’ collection-plate pilfering. He tries to shake her down. She objects. He threatens her with the gun stolen from Eddy Rashish. Gun goes off. He plants patch to implicate Spook in a second killing.’

‘He has an airtight alibi for the morning Boots was killed.’

‘Allegedly in class.’

‘Attendance records prove it.’

‘What class?’

Rocco consulted his ubiquitous small notebook. ‘Survey course in English lit.’

‘I taught for too many years, Rocco. A large undergraduate seminar like that could have a hundred students. Attendance is taken by signing a sheet, not by personal knowledge of the instructor.’

‘Does that mean anyone could sign for someone else?’ Rocco asked.

‘A possible. Did you personally examine the sign-in sheet?’

‘Hell, Lyon, I have twelve officers in my department. On a good day I can muster three for a shift. I called the college and someone in the Dean’s office verified Skee’s attendance.’

‘I think you had better check it out in person,’ Lyon said.

‘Incoming!’ Sarge Renfroe bellowed before he broke into huge belching laughs.

‘Take cover!’ Spook screamed. His shot and beer rocketed toward the ceiling as he dove across the room to slide head-first under a booth.

Rocco ignored the incident, but seemed mesmerized by a vehicle driving past the bar. ‘I think we have two stops on our way to check attendance sheets at the college.’

‘Take Spook to the VA hospital is one; what’s the other?’ Lyon asked.

‘Judge Styles just tooled his Lincoln down the street doing a cool seventy.’

‘I thought you yanked his license?’

‘I did. And this is a thirty-mile-an-hour zone. Bring Spook,’ Rocco said as he dashed for his cruiser.

Lyon bent over the booth to see that Spook had both arms pulled over his head. ‘You’ve been wounded by a small piece of shrapnel, soldier. We’re going to the battalion aid station.’

‘Thanks, Doc. But it’s not bad. I can stay with the unit.’

‘Captain’s order,’ Lyon replied. He tried to recall at what point in their relationship with Spook they had abandoned all pretense of reality.

The two passengers in the back seat of Murphysville Police Cruiser One were a dissimilar pair. The judge sat stiffly erect with his hands on his knees. He stared rigidly ahead. Spook, anesthetized by a series of boilermakers, leaned his head against the window and snored.

‘I have a sanity hearing in my court, Randolph,’ the judge said imperiously to Rocco.

‘That’s for sure,’ Rocco mumbled in reply.

‘Drop me at court and pick me up in two hours.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Rocco answered as he turned down Route 40 toward the Murphysville Convalescent Hospital. He had radioed ahead to make arrangements. Two male aides were waiting by the front entrance and approached the car as soon as it stopped.

‘We’re there, Judge,’ Rocco said.

‘Thank you, Henry. Remember, be back as soon as the luncheon is over.’ The judge left the car and regally allowed his arms to be grasped by the two aides as they guided him inside.

‘I wonder who Randolph and Henry were,’ Rocco said as they drove away. ‘Next stop is the VA hospital, which is practically on our way to Middleburg Community College.’

The college was nearly astride the Connecticut River and it occupied buildings that once housed a textile mill. The factory had long since moved south, but the brick construction and strong interior support walls allowed for extensive renovation.

An administrator in the Dean’s office showed Rocco copies of the attendance sheets. She told them that the course instructor kept the originals with his grade book. They were directed to a small office located near a lecture hall where the instructor was holding office hours.

The door was opened at Rocco’s knock by a lanky teacher dressed in corduroy pants and sports jacket with leather elbow patches. He smiled until he saw the badge on Rocco’s shirt. The door slammed shut.

‘I’m in the police business because I love people,’ Rocco said to Lyon before he shouldered his way into the small office.

‘I’m Chief Herbert of the Murphysville—’

‘I know who you are,’ the teacher mumbled. ‘You busted me for a stop sign violation two years ago. Those extra points were just enough to have my license yanked for a year.’ He avoided looking at them as he picked up a blue book and made a note in its margin.

Rocco looked at his pad. ‘You are Theodore Stratton and are the instructor of English 101. Skee Rumford is one of your students.’

The teacher continued to read the examination book intently without answering.

‘Oh, boy,’ Rocco muttered. ‘Would you please step out a moment, Lyon? Mr. Stratton and I have a matter to discuss.’

‘I don’t talk to pigs,’ was Stratton’s comment made without looking up.

Rocco shrugged. ‘Aren’t you a little young to be of the pig-calling generation?’

‘Leave my office unless you have a warrant.’

‘In the police game,’ Rocco said, ‘we call this attitude latent hostility to authority figures.’

‘Doesn’t seem to be so latent to me,’ Lyon replied as he stepped from the room and shut the door.

In two minutes, Rocco called him back to the office.

The English instructor did not appear to be damaged. His stiff posture, grim smile, and the disappearance of all blue books, seemed to indicate that he was now giving Rocco his full attention.

‘I hope to God you didn’t hit him, mash his fingers, or whatever it is you do,’ Lyon said.

Rocco frowned. ‘Of course not. Mr. Stratton has made a voluntary decision to be cooperative.’

The teacher’s nearly immobile expression crumbled. ‘How would you like it if you could never drive through the town of Murphysville again? How in the hell do you get to the beach from here without going through that jerkwater burg?’

‘You start by giving the town’s police the information they need,’ Lyon said.

It took four minutes to examine the original attendance sheet and see that it contained a forgery. Skee Rumford’s name was signed with a green pen that appeared again for the signature of Lori Wappinger. Small flourishes with tiny circles embellished both signatures. No attempt had been made to disguise the handwriting.

‘Do Miss Wappinger and Skee sit near each other?’ Rocco asked.

‘Usually,’ Stratton replied. ‘If they sat any closer they’d be in each other’s pants.’

Rocco sighed. ‘So much for airtight alibis.’

On the trip back to Murphysville, Rocco edged the cruiser’s speed over eighty. Lyon’s feet pressed against the fire wall in a vain attempt to slow the vehicle. ‘I have my yearly meeting with the school crossing guards in a few minutes,’ Rocco said. ‘Your assignment is to interview Skee about his sudden lack of alibi.’

Lyon considered protesting the assignment, but since he was probably going to die in a fiery car crash in the next fifteen seconds, it seemed a minor point. ‘Uh huh.’

‘I love Hollywood car chases,’ Rocco said. ‘I get off on those great scenes where a car hurtles through the air while it turns over and over. I wonder how they do that.’

Lyon suspected they were about to discover that secret, but somehow the gods prevailed and they survived the trip. Rocco let him out at the green where the Saturn was parked. A parking ticket was jammed under the car’s windshield wiper. Lyon waved the overtime citation at the departing police car. The chief ignored the hint and turned toward the Mary Bolan Elementary School where the crossing guards were gathering in the lunchroom.

Lyon knew that the Rumfords lived in one of the newer subdivisions called Sunnyside which was in the northeast part of town. He was driving past the Rashish house when he noticed a familiar black motor scooter at the rear of the drive, half-hidden around the corner of the house. He considered the sighting as he continued down the street. An identical machine had been parked near the office trailer at the used-car lot when Skee was cleaning up. He made a U-turn and drove back to the Rashish house. He pulled into the drive behind a large sedan with a ‘Seven Sisters Realtors’ logo on its sides.

He felt the engine of the scooter and found that it was still warm. There might be completely innocent reasons for Skee to be at Mildred’s house. The young man had worked for her dead husband. He could be doing chores in the yard. They might be discussing a further clean up of the used-car lot. The only disclaimer for these possibilities was the fact that a half-hearted attempt had been made to hide the scooter.

He remembered the predator look on Mildred’s face when she hinted at her affairs. He recalled the brooding sensual aura of the tanned muscular college student as he swept the car lot.

That brooding sexuality had already attracted a respectable count of conquests. Skee had been involved with the dead girl, who was probably pregnant by him. Simultaneously he carried on an affair with a fellow student who cared enough for him to risk expulsion by forging his name. Could Skee and Mildred Rashish be … Would they? Could be. The kid seemed to have lots of energy.

He mashed the front doorbell and heard chimes. He couldn’t hear any movement inside the house and he rang again. He recalled the living room. Double rear doors led out to a wide deck that overlooked a pool. Anyone going out on the deck and down to the pool could wheel the scooter away in the opposite direction. Once the couple inside were convinced that the caller was not about to leave, Skee would move the scooter. He would take it down the side street before starting the small engine.

Lyon rang the chimes again before he walked around the side of the house. In less than ten seconds, Skee Rumford vaulted the deck rail and grabbed the scooter’s handlebars.

‘Hi,’ Lyon said from where he slouched against the rear of the house. ‘How was English 101 the other day?’

Mildred Rashish ran her fingers through Skee’s hair in sensuous caresses. ‘He’s a tiger. A real man.’

Lyon cringed as he drank the tea Mildred had just served. It was a mild supermarket brand. He preferred a tangy Earl Grey.

Mildred smiled at Lyon as she slid her hand under Skee’s tee shirt and ran her fingernails gently across his back. What the widow intended to convey as a woman’s sexual intimacy came out as pouty belligerence. ‘So, we’re lovers. I told you I had lovers.’

‘So it would seem,’ Lyon replied. Good God, he thought, this woman didn’t seem to comprehend that she had just implicated herself as a suspect. The dead, pregnant Boots was having an affair with her husband and her boyfriend. No matter whose child it was, either way Mildred stood to lose. ‘Where’s the gun?’ he asked mildly. ‘We know Eddy had one, but it seems to be missing.’

‘In the Connecticut River,’ Mildred said. ‘I dropped it off the Hadlyme Ferry.’

Lyon sipped more of the awful tea. If that were true, the weapon would never be found. Where the ferry crossed the river was deep enough to be navigable by large craft. The ferry’s route was always similar, but never identical due to wind and tide. The gun could have been dropped anywhere along the route. ‘I understand why you killed Boots Anderson, but why Barbara Styles?’

The unflappable Mildred Rashish looked startled. Her hand dropped from the young man’s back as she tilted nervously forward. ‘What are you suggesting? I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘You just said that you disposed of the murder weapon.’

‘I did not. I only said I dropped Eddy’s gun in the river.’

‘Why?’

Her quick darting glance at Skee was explanation enough. She obviously feared that he had killed the young woman. ‘I didn’t want anyone hurt with it,’ Mildred said lamely.

‘You knew Skee wasn’t in class at the time the girl was killed. We know who forged his signature.’

‘He was with me. We were in bed.’

‘That’s right,’ Skee said belligerently. ‘We were in the sack, Daddy-O. Not out killing people.’

Eight

‘Only recently eagles have been upgraded from an endangered to a threatened species,’ Lyon said as he drove. ‘I guess they’re not going to die out after all.’

‘Kill them all and let God sort them out,’ said the boy in the seat next to him. His gasping asthmatic breathing began. Rebba handed him his inhaler from the back seat. ‘I think I’m allergic to this Big Buddy, just like the last one,’ Edward said when he was able to talk.

‘Oh, boy,’ Lyon said softly.

Rebba leaned forward and gently touched Lyon’s shoulder. ‘Isn’t he precocious, Lyon?’

‘You could say that,’ Lyon said. He decided to press grimly forward with his lecture. ‘The female eagles often go fourteen pounds and the males nine.’

‘Guess we know which bird gets on top,’ the boy said as he flipped the inhaler over his shoulder to his mother.

‘Now you stop that, Edward,’ Rebba said. ‘Mr. Wentworth probably does not like that kind of talk.’

‘He’s not my father, he’s a Big Buddy,’ the boy answered. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To the state forest. It’s not far from here.’

‘I don’t want to go there. Can’t we go someplace else? Aren’t we supposed to play baseball or something?’

‘You don’t play baseball, Edward,’ his mother chided from the back seat.

‘I don’t play the game very well myself,’ Lyon said with a smile at the boy.

‘Big deal.’ Edward flapped his hand so that his loose fingers flipped back and forth. ‘What do you play, Went?’

‘I was on the lacrosse team in prep school and college.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It has a goal net and sticks with nets on them. Actually, it derives from an old American Indian game. You know, that’s something we can do! My old school, Greenfield Academy, is playing Choate next Saturday. We’ll drive up there for the game and I can explain the rules as we watch.’

‘Isn’t Greenfield in Massachusetts, Mr. Wentworth?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘I don’t think I could allow you to take my son out of state.’

‘If Edward and I are going to work this out, you have to cut us some slack, Mrs. Dirk.’

‘I remember your daughter’s death since it coincided with Edward’s birth.’

He had a strong suspicion concerning the thrust of her thinking. He was astonished at her lack of consideration and compassion. He took a moment before answering. ‘It was a hit-and-run accident near the green.’

‘She was playing unsupervised in the street.’

He resented the implication. No wonder the morose boy by his side had problems. He was not about to argue that their daughter was not unsupervised.

‘Your daughter was an only child, so I know you can appreciate how protective I am of Edward,’ Rebba continued.

‘Yes, she was an only child,’ Lyon finally answered. Her attempt to rescue the inadvertent statement was inadequate. ‘Perhaps you need another Big Buddy, Mrs. Dirk. One who’s more careful with children in his charge.’

‘You seem to be our last chance, Mr. Wentworth.’

He knew this to be true. They passed the driveway to Nutmeg Hill and proceeded toward the dirt road that led into the state forest. He parked at a pull-off a hundred yards into the woods and reached under the seat for the binoculars. ‘Here we are,’ he announced cheerfully.

‘I don’t like it here,’ Edward said as his small fingers clutched the dashboard. ‘This place is scary.’

Lyon examined the surrounding woods in an attempt to perceive them through the eyes of a frightened boy. It had rained recently. Lush spring foliage was luxuriantly green. Deadfalls of clustered brush and fallen tree limbs created by heavy snow were still bare without their future moss covering. Glacial rocks, some the size of a tall man, were strewn in a haphazard pattern as if they were dropped grains of sand filtered through a giant’s fist.

Although he knew that a dead body had recently been discovered in the area, the woods now seemed a benign place. The forest was a habitat that would be comfortable for Bambi, Thumper, Flower, and other forest friends so dear to children.

‘There are deer in here,’ Lyon said. ‘But it’s the wrong time of day to see them.’

‘There are ghosts here.’

He looked sharply at the boy. ‘Have you been out here before?’

‘He’s just a very sensitive youngster,’ Rebba immediately answered. ‘Wasn’t that girl’s body found somewhere near here?’

‘That could have happened anywhere in town.’

‘Edward senses those things.’

‘Well, be that as it will.’ Lyon forced an exuberant enthusiasm. ‘Let’s go find us some eagles!’

‘You two go on without me,’ Rebba said. ‘I have hose and heels on and am hardly prepared to cavort in the woods. Just make sure you stay within voice range. If Edward should fall, hose or not, I want to be able to come immediately.’

Lyon took the boy’s hand and led him down the road. ‘Keep a sharp eye.’

‘Not too far,’ Rebba yelled after them from the car.

‘You got a cig, Went?’

‘A cigarette?’

‘You hard of hearing or is English your third language?’ the boy asked. ‘A cigarette. A butt.’

‘I don’t smoke,’ Lyon said as the boy yanked his hand from his.

‘That figures. Where are the damn birds?’

Lyon briefly considered telling the kid that eagles often ate little boys, but he imagined that would be considered bad form in the Big Buddy manual of conduct. He pushed on with bird lore. ‘An eagle can have a six-foot wingspan and fly forty-five miles an hour,’ he prattled on, distracted by the memory of his heated phone conversation with Rocco the night before.

‘Mildred did what with the gun?’ Rocco had exploded after Lyon recounted his interview with the widow Rashish and her young lover.

‘She dropped it in the river from the Hadlyme Ferry.’

‘Jesus! We could dredge for a month and never find it,’ the chief had snorted.

‘She and Skee claim they were in the sack together during the time of the murder.’

‘That kid gets around a lot.’

‘You could say that he is sexually active,’ Lyon had replied.

‘I think I had better bring them both in for a lean-on party.’

‘Separately?’ Lyon asked.

‘God, yes. I don’t interview lovers together during murder investigations.’

‘Good luck,’ Lyon had said as he hung up.

‘Can we go home now?’ the boy asked, bringing Lyon back to the present. ‘I don’t see any big birds.’

Lyon saw its shadow on the ground first. He jerked his head up and snapped the binoculars to his eyes. He didn’t need their magnification. The huge bird, whose wings seemed over seven feet in length, swooped across the tree tops in an effortless glide. ‘Look,’ he said.

‘I see it,’ the boy whispered.

They watched in awe as the eagle swooped off the cliffs and dove directly toward the Connecticut River. It pulled up at the last moment and skimmed the surface. Lost its prey, Lyon thought. He glanced down at the silent boy.

Edward looked at the bird through an opening in the trees with complete awe and astonishment. His wide eyes reflected the image of the soaring eagle as it returned to the cliffs. His hand slipped back into Lyon’s.

‘Wow.’

By eight the next morning, Lyon had been sitting at his computer for an hour. A small light blinked. His word-processing program was replaced by a dialogue box.

‘You are idle. Do you wish a screen saver?’ the box asked.

He wondered how the Pentium chip would react if he shoved a blunt instrument through the screen.

‘I’m going,’ Bea said from the doorway.

‘Have a nice day,’ he said automatically without turning.

‘I am trying to salvage my career,’ she replied. ‘And I would remind you that it was a nice day when they hung the town witch on the green.’

‘Stay away from cat familiars, incantations, and the governor of this state,’ he said.

Bea almost chuckled as she left. He watched out the window to see her stride determinedly to her car. Her manner indicated decisions had been made. He hoped they worked.

He ignored the ringing phone until its continued insistence forced him reluctantly to pick up the receiver. ‘Wentworth here.’

‘Guess whose gun fired the fatal shots into those two women?’ Rocco said without preamble.

‘Billy the Kid’s. Dillinger’s. Bonnie and Clyde. How many guesses do I get?’

‘The state lab just called with a three-way ballistics match. There is a definite match with the slug taken from Boots Anderson, killed in the state forest; Barbara Styles, shot in Saint James church; and a third bullet taken from a man’s body last year.’

‘A man here in town?’

‘It was plucked out of my rear.’

‘You were shot by Wiff Stamen during last year’s First Federal hold-up.’

‘How well I remember. Get down here! I’ve resurrected the surveillance camera photos from that little incident.’

‘Wait a minute. How did Wiff escape maximum security?’

‘I’m so damn paranoid that I called the warden of Somers Prison. He tells me that Wiff is still as incorrigible as ever, but was present as of this morning’s head count. Because of his charming personality, they keep him out of the general population and confined to his own private little box. He spends twenty-three hours a day in his cell and is only taken out in shackles.’

‘You are confusing me,’ Lyon said.

‘Get down here fast and we’ll watch movies of yours truly getting shot.’

Within the hour Lyon was stretched out on Rocco’s worn leather couch. The chief tilted back in his swivel chair and plunked his size sixteens on the desk. Patrolman Jamie Martin cursed under his breath as he attached a VCR to a TV on a wooden table in the corner of the room.

‘How was your interview with Mildred and Skee?’ Lyon asked.

‘I don’t know what to believe,’ Rocco replied. ‘When she talks about her lover, Mildred’s shark eyes glaze over like she’s describing a large tuna fish. That boy must have real talent.’

Jamie Martin finished his connections and held up a tape cassette. ‘Ready, Chief?’

‘Let’s see movies, Jamie.’

‘Right.’ The patrolman switched on the sets and shoved the tape into its slot.

‘You are about to see state-of-the-art surveillance film,’ Rocco said. ‘Harry Slavit, CEO of the bank, is also the owner of the Murphysville Radio Shack franchise. Mucho bank money has been spent on electronic wizardry.’

‘I didn’t know Harry had his finger in that pie,’ Lyon said as the edited film began.

The initial camera sweeps of the bank interior made it apparent that robberies were a rarity in Murphysville, Connecticut. There were no armed security guards in the lobby. There were no sheets of bullet-proof glass separating tellers from customers. A chest-high counter with wide openings by each teller divided customer from money handler.

On the right side of the lobby was the platform containing four desks: two for bank officers and two for senior clerks. Harry Slavit’s executive office had a glass partition separating it from the rest of the banking floor. On the far left was a comfortable grouping of chairs around a fireplace.

‘It’s the handgun we’re interested in,’ Rocco said. ‘Wiff’s damn gun.’

A camera mounted over the front entrance showed a rear view of several customers standing patiently in lines before the tellers. Those photographs captured the routine look of the tellers as they went about a day’s ordinary business. The next series of pictures captured the rear view of a man in jeans and a blue work shirt entering the bank. A switch to the surveillance cameras mounted above the tellers showed the newest customer’s approach to the counter. He had a handgun clenched in his right fist. His face was covered with a ski mask. He pushed past a customer and shoved the gun in a woman teller’s face.

The entrance camera showed an enlarged facial shot of the frightened teller in front of the gunman. Her eyes were wide in terror. Her hands shook as she filled a paper bag with money.

‘She’s so damn scared she forgot the dye-marked decoy,’ Rocco said in a low voice.

Lyon knew that he referred to a special package of bills that each teller kept in their drawer. This money was primed to explode outside the bank and cover the bandit with red dye.

Another camera shot from above the tellers showed Wiff tearing off his ski mask to reveal feral features. His thin lips were pulled back from blackened teeth. His grimace turned into a triumphant smile. His look announced that he was in command. His godlike bearing had them all cowering before his awesome power. He was enjoying this complete control.

‘That son of a bitch!’ Rocco said. ‘He put that teller, Linda, in Middleburg General’s psychiatric wing for three hysterical weeks.’

Wiff stuffed the bag of money inside his shirt and turned to wave the weapon at the other customers. They knew from the incident reports that he was screeching in a high falsetto. ‘Everyone on the floor! Bite dirt, scum bags.’

It was time for Rocco’s innocent entrance. He came through the front door examining his monthly pay check. Wiff’s first shot shattered the door glass to Rocco’s right.

Rocco dropped to one knee and drew his Trooper Mk. V Magnum in one fluid movement. The film showed his weapon’s recoil as he fired.

Wiff fired a second time almost simultaneously with Rocco’s shot. A moment later he threw up his hands and clutched his stomach. He staggered two steps before he fell face forward.

‘Wish I’d killed the scum,’ Rocco said. ‘Now you know why Martha makes me wear that damn breastplate.’

In the bank film, Rocco walked carefully over to the fallen bandit and stood over him. He levelled the Trooper Magnum at Wiff’s head and knelt to begin handcuffing the man’s hands behind his back.

It was at that moment that Rocco seemed to jerk slightly forward. He quickly regained his equilibrium and finished cuffing his prisoner.

Lyon catapulted to his feet. ‘Reverse the film! Take it back to where Rocco makes his entrance.’

‘OK,’ the patrolman said as he rewound the film a bit and then started it forward again.

‘What did you see?’ Rocco asked.

‘When you were shot.’

‘It was Wiff’s second shot. The first shattered the window. The second got me in the rear end.’ Rocco stopped stock-still. ‘That’s impossible. Everything happened so quickly. I have always assumed it was that second shot.’

‘I think there was a third shot,’ Lyon said. ‘When Wiff fired, he … Look at it again.’

They watched Rocco come through the door again. Wiff fired. Rocco dropped to his knee and shot at the robber. Wiff fired again and then fell.

‘I think that second shot of Wiff’s went through the large hole made by the broken glass,’ Lyon said. ‘There was no way that second shot could hit you in the backside.’

‘The bullet struck a hard surface and ricochetted back to get me?’ Rocco suggested.

‘Didn’t the state lab guys search for ricochet marks?’

‘Sure, but they could have missed it.’

‘Unlikely unless it passed outside through the window,’ Lyon said. ‘But, seconds later, when you were bending over Wiff …’

Rocco nodded. ‘When I was cuffing him I gave that slight jerk. You know, during that whole incident I had an adrenalin rush. You probably could have run over me with a train and I wouldn’t have noticed until later. If Wiff didn’t shoot me, who in the hell did?’

‘Whoever picked up his pistol,’ Lyon answered. ‘Look.’ They rewound the film and played it again. Wiff fell face forward and his handgun spun across the bank floor.

‘We never did recover the weapon,’ Rocco said. ‘We knew someone picked it up, but we could never find out who.’

They played the film from the beginning to view the bank’s customers immediately prior to the attempted hold-up.

‘My God!’ Rocco said as the cameras slowly panned around the lobby. ‘It’s a damn menagerie of our suspects.’

Skee Rumford was first in line at the right-hand teller’s booth. Immediately behind him stood Canon Mead MacIntire of Saint James Church. Mildred and Eddy Rashish were together behind the canon.

To the far left Spook clutched his monthly disability check while Judge Styles glared at the veteran with repugnance.

When Wiff turned and ordered everyone to the floor, a camera showed Rebba Dirk huddled against the writing counter in a far corner. A man and woman, who could not be identified, were also in the lobby of the bank that morning. The four bank employees on the platform seemed out of range for obtaining the spinning handgun.

‘One of those people picked up Wiff’s piece,’ Rocco said.

‘And shot you with it,’ Lyon added.

‘No one reported a third shot,’ Rocco said.

‘Including you, who didn’t even realize exactly when he was shot,’ Lyon countered. ‘Our gun collector has now managed to kill two women with the same weapon.’

Nine

Ashley Towers was on the telephone with the manager of the Middleburg Escort Service. She angrily tapped bare toes against the floor under the phone table.

‘I’m telling you, Baby Dumpling, this story is worth at least ten thou to the tabloids … Just because I know it is. People in that OJ thing got paid millions. I had a congressman in the sack who was the husband of the governor of this state. He went out like a light right in the middle of it … I told you I didn’t get paid. He was a regular and I trusted him … Come on, Baby. I know the rules about payment in advance, but he was a congressman … What do you mean, that’s even more reason for money up front?… Now, how much can we get from the tabs? I’ll even do some dirty pictures for them … What do you mean, nothing? They won’t shut you down … Well, in that case, maybe I’ll just get a literary agent and write a book.’ She slammed the phone down with a flourish that was followed by a flipped finger at the inanimate object.

She began to have second thoughts. You didn’t fool with Baby Dumpling that way. The escort service had been good to her. The money was terrific. After the first month, when she had learned the techniques of maximizing her tips, she was earning two thousand, tax-free, a week.

She never considered herself ‘in the business’, a prostitute, whore, or call girl. She was an escort who charged a fixed hourly rate which she split with the agency. If men insisted on tipping her an extra two hundred a pop for going to bed with them, she acquiesced without thought of giving any commercial description to the coupling.

Each week she made a Saturday-morning trip to Murphysville Federal’s vault and her safe deposit box. The tidy little hoard continued to grow. In vague daydreams she planned to quit the escort business when she grew really old, like maybe thirty. At that time she would open a smart boutique. Her excellent taste in clothing and accessories would turn it into one of the smartest fashion shops in the area.

Today, like most days, she had slouched from bed at noon. After a leisurely shower she belted a robe and went to the kitchen for brunch. Ordinarily it would be soap opera time, but today required the Baby Dumpling call. Actually, life was pretty good. It would get even better when she figured out how to squeeze some more tax-frees from that unfinished session with the dead congressman.

Ashley frowned when the doorbell rang. She ignored it until it rang three more times in rapid succession. She strode angrily to the door, her short robe flapping around bare thighs. If it was a salesperson or Jehovah’s Witness she would burn them with a couple of good wisecracks she’d learned from Baby Dumpling.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ Ashley said when she opened the door. ‘What are you staring at? You want a peek, pervert?’ She flipped the robe open to reveal the full length of her nude body.

The small handgun fired.

She staggered backwards until the small of her back jammed against a door knob. The robe fell in a pool at her feet. She looked at her stomach in astonishment. Blood oozed from a hole in her lower belly.

‘My God,’ Ashley said. ‘What have you done to me?’

She lurched toward the phone and dialed 911 with trembling hands.

‘I need an ambulance,’ Ashley said before she dropped dead.

When the phone rang, Lyon sensed it was Rocco.

‘We have another one,’ the chief said over a connection filled with background noise. ‘A woman with a First Cav patch in her hand.’

‘Who was she?’ Lyon asked.

‘Ashley Towers who lived on Beacon Street.’

‘Don’t know her.’

‘I would hope not. She’s in the business.’

‘What business?’

‘The sex business, Lyon. Jesus.’

‘You’ve always bragged about how proud you were to keep that stuff out of town.’

‘She worked an escort service out of Middleburg.’

‘OK. She had a job problem with her pimp and he killed her in a copy-cat murder.’

‘Escort girls don’t have pimps, they have agents.’

‘How was she killed?’

‘The same as the others. A small-caliber bullet in the lower abdomen. She died like the Styles woman, in that she managed to dial 911. No ballistics match yet, but I’d stake my career that it’s the same weapon. Her house door was wide open and a neighbor saw her on the floor before an ambulance could get there. Similar to the Anderson woman, Ashley was nude when she died. Meet me.’

‘Where on Beacon did she live?’ Lyon flipped a piece of copy paper from a desk drawer.

‘The lab guys and Lars are here. I have to go to Spook’s tree house. He walked off the grounds of the VA hospital earlier today.’ The connection went dead.

‘Great timing, Spook,’ Lyon said to himself as he searched for the car keys.

Rocco was leaning against Spook’s tree when Lyon arrived. He gave a short wave and continued talking on his hand radio. ‘Good work, Jamie. Now come over to Spook’s and relieve me. He’ll come back here eventually. It’s just a question of time. Out.’

‘What’s up?’ Lyon asked.

‘At the time of Ashley’s death, Canon Mead MacIntire claims he was bird-watching out near your place. Jamie just told me that Skee Rumford claims he was in the sack with his college girlfriend, Lori Wappinger.’

‘That guy gets around,’ Lyon said. ‘What about Mildred Rashish?’

‘Said she was at home. No witnesses to verify.’

‘And you think?’

‘Still fishing, but I’m thinking sin here. How about the good canon has gone around the bend and decided to take the atonement of sin into his own hands? He’s grown impatient waiting for heavenly thunderbolts and settled on a thirty-two-caliber handgun for divine retribution. Look at the profile of our victims: Boots is pregnant after an affair with a married man; Barbara Styles was robbing the church blind; and Ashley was a hooker. He’s handing out retribution by the fistful.’

‘And yet we know that the Wappinger girl will lie for Skee.’

Rocco sighed. ‘And Spook takes today to walk away from the hospital while Mildred R. has no real alibi.’

‘I can’t see any possible connection between Mildred the Shark and Ashley Towers,’ Lyon said.

‘Predator realtor needs high political favors and in payment eliminates a dead congressman’s mistress.’

‘I know anything is possible,’ Lyon said, ‘but that seems to be reaching.’

‘Which is why I lean toward the canon,’ Rocco said. ‘He’s into sin.’

‘I would assume he’s against it.’

‘I’ve been in police work long enough to work up a high dose of cynicism,’ Rocco said. ‘Maybe the Reverend has become addicted to dispatching the wayward. Let’s check out Ashley’s employer.’

The Middleburg Escort Service did not have an office as such. In fact, no address was listed in the phone directory or on its advertising. The Yellow Pages ad contained a phone number surrounded by credit card logos.

Rocco called one of his counterparts in Middleburg. The cruiser’s radio was patched through to Lieutenant Tommy Lark. ‘How’s the angle of the dangle, Tom?’

‘I heard you was on hazard duty, Rocco. Writing parking tickets at the green underneath all those pigeons.’

‘I was. It’s a tough life, Tom. I need a quick check on an outfit called the Middleburg Escort Service. They were running a girl from Murphysville.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Rocco,’ the gravelly voice of the Middleburg police lieutenant said. ‘I can’t talk that dirt on an open radio. There are nine thousand housewives with police scanners in their kitchens. Call me on landlines. Better yet, meet me at Charlie’s.’

Charlie’s Bar was located on Middleburg’s Main Street and was obviously an establishment devoted to serious drinkers. Four men stood in a line at the bar. They each held a drink in one hand and stared at their reflected souls in the mirror behind the bar. A dark-complexioned fifth man stood with his back against the far wall. He was half turned toward the door. He did not seem interested in his reflected soul.

Lark was middle-aged, but he kept in shape. His forehead had hardened into a perpetual scowl and there was an inner tenseness about him. His manner made others uneasy. If he sat next to you on a bus you would want to change seats.

Rocco feinted a blow to the other officer’s abdomen. Lark did not flinch, but continued watching them with dark-pooled eyes. He tilted his head toward Lyon. ‘If he’s one of your new guys you must really be scraping up bottom feeders.’

‘Lyon, meet Tommy Lark.’

Lyon’s extended hand was ignored. The bartender refilled the lieutenant’s glass without request. Lark drank before answering. ‘Yeah, I heard about some guy who worked with you. We get those police nuts sometimes.’

‘He’s more than a police groupie,’ Rocco said. ‘Pepper vodka. Stoly if you have it, and a Dry Sack for my buddy,’ he said to the bartender.

The bartender looked puzzled. ‘Dry what?’

‘Coffee,’ Lyon said.

‘Why the hell do you want to speak to Baby Dumpling?’ Lark asked. ‘Jesus, Herbert, are you that desperate to get your ashes hauled? But I got to tell you, cop or not, Baby doesn’t let her girls give out free samples. If you’re really horny, I’ll try leaning on her a little. She’s got this one redhead in her stable who gives the best head in the state.’

‘Let me ask you a question, Tommy,’ Rocco said. ‘How do you talk when you are in polite society?’

‘I don’t travel in polite anything. If you haven’t noticed, I am a street cop. In Middleburg that means tough. In country club towns, like yours, street cop means you got school crossing guard duty.’

‘Who is Baby Dumpling?’ Lyon asked.

‘Baby is the Middleburg Escort Service,’ Lark answered.

‘And where does Baby park her playpen?’ Rocco asked.

Lark nearly smiled. ‘Dumpling doesn’t get around much. You’ll see why when we meet her.’ He tossed back another shot and left the bar without paying. ‘We’ll take my heap.’

Lark drove with Rocco next to him. Lyon sat in the back and noticed that the rear doors did not have inside handles.

‘How come you let a whorehouse operate in your town?’ Rocco asked.

‘In the beginning we busted Baby a couple of times. But she’s a duly registered business and nothing would hold up in court. We could harass her and make life unpleasant but, as you will see, there are certain logistical problems in busting Baby. This visit have anything to do with the killings you’ve had down there?’

‘One of Baby’s employees, Ashley Towers, got whacked earlier today,’ Rocco said.

‘Christ! I know her. That’s the redhead I was telling you about. Here we are.’

Lark braked abruptly in front of a small ranch house located in a working-class neighborhood. The lawns and walks of the other homes seemed to sprout small children’s toys. A low white fence bordered the Dumpling home with a neat sign that said ANTIQUES.

‘What’s with the antiques?’ Rocco asked.

Lark slammed from the car. ‘The antiques business is a front for the credit cards. When Baby lets the girls take plastic money, she can’t hardly submit chits reading “one straight, one French, and an around the world.” She writes them up as Chippendale, Empire or French Provincial.’ He began to pound on the door with the flat of his hand.

‘Please come in,’ a melodious and cultured voice said over a speaker system. ‘It is unlocked.’

Lark pushed the door open and stepped inside.

‘I keep informing you, Lieutenant, that we only service out calls. We do not provide escorts in my home.’

Since Baby Dumpling occupied nearly all of the small living room, Lyon understood why the local police had logistical problems in her arrest. The cultured voice did not match the gigantic woman who occupied most of the custom-made hospital bed. He estimated that she must weigh over five hundred pounds. Her massive bulk created a huge mound on the bed even when it was tilted to an upright position.

Centered on a hospital caddie close to her ponderous arms were Baby’s working tools: a ten-line phone console and notepad.

‘This looks like a bust,’ Baby said. ‘Since I’ve gained a pound or two, this time you’re going to have to remove the picture window to carry me out.’

‘Tell these gentlemen how the service works,’ Lark commanded.

‘I am a licensed business who pays state and federal taxes,’ Baby began her automatic recital. ‘Our escort services are listed in the Yellow Pages, and certain other classified advertisements. When I receive a client call requesting an escort, I contact one of my independent contractors. This young lady meets with the gentleman for an escort fee which the independent contractor and the service divide.’

‘Get to the good part, Baby,’ Lark said.

Baby Dumpling glared. ‘If they get romantically involved, that is not my responsibility. As I said, the women are independent contractors. Romance is their personal business.’

‘That’s romance?’ Lark said to no one in particular.

‘Now, Lark, honey,’ Baby cooed. ‘I do not ordinarily do in-house escorting, but in your case I’ll make an exception. You turn me on, honey. That big gun you carry really turns me on.’

If Lyon did not suspect that the lieutenant was incapable of the emotion, he might have thought that Lark was blushing.

‘Not today, Baby. Chief Herbert has some questions for you.’

The huge woman’s gaze turned toward Rocco. ‘You are a big one,’ she purred. ‘I give you the same offer that Lark turned down.’

Rocco Herbert did blush. ‘One of your girls—’

‘Escorts,’ Baby snapped.

‘Ashley Towers lived in my town.’

‘Lived?’

‘She was murdered earlier today,’ Rocco answered.

For the first time Baby registered a true emotion. Shock. ‘On one of my calls? Who? What motel? Wait a minute. Ashley called me this morning. She wasn’t on a job, she was into things literary. If that bitch was freelancing …’

‘She was killed in her Murphysville home,’ Rocco answered with the pleasant thought that at least this woman was not one of their suspects. The logistics of moving Baby Dumpling to Murphysville were too daunting to imagine. ‘Do you happen to know if any of Ashley’s recent escorts were politically connected?’

It was difficult for Baby to squint due to her puffy cheeks that pressed toward her eyes. She looked at Rocco with renewed interest. ‘You speak of a certain recently departed congressman?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ashley did have a job at the Millrace Inn. A political luncheon, I am sure.’

‘Do you have any men working in your organization?’ Lyon asked.

‘We have several young men on call for occasional feminine escorts. You know how it is these days. Women are in all the occupations, including traveling sales and management. Some get lonely when they are in Middleburg. From time to time we get a call for a personable young man. As a matter of fact, we have a young man from your town that we occasionally use. He’s quite popular due to his stamina. Clients often request a return visit when they come back to the city.’

‘Who is he?’ Rocco said as he snapped open his small notebook.

‘His name is Skee Rumford and I have his address right—’

‘Never mind,’ Rocco said as he closed the notebook without an entry. ‘I’d like to see a list of Ashley’s clients for the past month.’

‘I do not keep those records,’ Baby immediately answered.

Tommy Lark, who had been leaning against the doorway with his arms folded, took two steps toward the bed. Without a visible gesture the man’s movement seemed menacing. ‘I think your memory will improve as you work,’ Tommy said softly. ‘Start making the list, Baby.’

There were sixty names on Baby Dumpling’s final list. Rocco crossed off the obvious phony ones such as Ulysses S. Grant, a Don Juan, and four Bill Clintons. He underlined several: E. Rashish, M. MacIntire, and Jamie Martin.

‘How did Jamie afford Ashley on what we pay him?’ Rocco wondered aloud.

Lyon wondered if M. MacIntire had worn his clerical collar.

Ten

Rocco drove the cruiser with his usual one-handed grip. He flipped the notebook from his breast pocket. ‘Read that list of Ashley’s customers again while I phone the lab about those ballistics.’ Lyon went through the list line by line while Rocco made his call. ‘What’s the ballistics match for the specimen we sent over today?… OK, thanks.’ He abruptly ended the call. ‘The slug is damaged. They can’t make a positive match with the other two.’

‘Then we could have a copy-cat murder,’ Lyon said.

‘That’s a possibility. Maybe we had better have another look at Congressman Bill Tallman’s autopsy report. It’s possible that someone just might have wanted Ashley out of the way.’

‘That’s going to stir up more hornets for Bea.’

‘Can’t be helped. The good canon’s on Ashley’s list, isn’t he?’

‘A similar name,’ Lyon answered. ‘I can’t believe the canon was dallying with our departed redhead. M. MacIntire certainly does not stand for Canon Mead MacIntire of Saint James Church.’

‘This could be a first,’ Rocco said. ‘A sexually crazed, bird-watching canon.’

‘Who’s a serial killer?’

‘That seems to be what we’ve got here.’

‘How many victims does it take to make a serial killer? We have three, do we go for four?’

‘That isn’t funny.’

‘Then stop the nonsense about the canon. One simple way is to ask him if he knew Ashley.’

‘That has to be done, although it would be a hell of a lot more politically expedient if you did it.’

‘Look at the good news. Spook wasn’t on Ashley’s list,’ Lyon said.

Rocco grimaced. ‘I doubt that he’s capable of performing after his years of substance abuse.’

Lyon laughed. ‘What desk clerk would let him in the lobby, much less allow him on an elevator to go up to a room?’

Rocco slowed the cruiser as they exited the bypass and drove toward police headquarters. They passed the green with its gazebo and hanging tree. He turned right at the Congregational church.

‘Oh, my God!’ Rocco said as they neared the police services building. ‘Look at that.’

An assortment of vehicles clogged the street. A television van squatted directly in front of the building. It extended its microwave tower and slowly rotated it toward Hartford. The logos on two other cars marked them as belonging to the Hartford Courant newspaper and Channel Seven. Other vans and sedans were not so readily identifiable. A disgruntled group of men and women milled around the sidewalk in front of the building. Jamie Martin, a nightstick clutched across his chest, barred any entry.

‘Whatever number it takes to make a serial killer,’ Rocco said, ‘I believe we have reached it.’ He pulled the cruiser in the drive and drove around to the rear of the building. They entered through the back door. Their hope for a quiet sanctuary in Rocco’s office was shattered when he opened his door. ‘Jesus H. Christ,’ Rocco said.

Lyles Stanton, the town’s First Selectman, had expropriated Rocco’s desk. He immediately clasped his drumming fingers together as he looked expectantly at the chief.

Lyles, an allstate insurance agent, had run unsuccessfully for elective office five times before his surprise win. He had always laughed at his past defeats, and chortled that he didn’t care, name recognition was the secret of insurance sales. A snow-filled winter, which caught the town short of sand and plows, had swamped the incumbents and saw Lyles elected. He seemed to prefer the precise answers found in underwriting manuals, because he always looked bewildered when faced with official town decisions.

Standing to the side of the First Selectman was Captain Norbert of the state police. The shortish captain, whose barrel chest strained against a heavily starched white shirt, stood at a rigid parade rest.

‘Hey there, Chief,’ Lyles boomed in his best insurance agent greeting. ‘Come on in and take a load off.’

Rocco ignored the invitation and turned angrily toward the state police officer. ‘What in the hell are you doing here, Norby?’

‘The First Selectman will explain,’ Norbert said without modifying his stiff stance.

‘What in the hell does that mean, Lyles?’ Rocco demanded.

‘I must explain that this decision was based on thorough discussions with the state attorney general, the state police, and the other selectman.’

‘What decision?’ Rocco demanded in a voice far too loud for the small office.

‘You’ve been dumped from the serial murder case, Herbert,’ Norbert said.

‘Bull crap!’

‘You’re way out of your league, traffic jockey,’ Norbert answered.

Lyles attempted to soothe the breach with conciliatory mews. ‘It has been suggested that since we now have three killings, our facilities would be stretched far beyond our small-town capabilities. The state police can afford to send in a team of trained investigators. I have also discussed this with our police board and they agree.’

‘No way can you shut me out!’

‘We can and we have,’ Norbert retorted. ‘You got space in here for a couple of my men?’

‘Take the whole damn office! Your first order of business will be the exhumation of Congressman Bill Tallman.’

Norbert blanched. ‘The governor’s husband?’

‘You got it.’ Rocco ripped the badge from his shirt and plunked it on the desk. ‘I quit.’

‘You’re going to put my sister on welfare,’ the state police officer said.

‘How in the hell my wife came from the same gene pool as you is a greater miracle than the immaculate conception,’ Rocco said as he strode from the office.

They were halfway down the hall when Jamie Martin caught up with them. ‘Spook is back, Chief. He’s in his tree house with firepower.’

‘What?’

‘Spook’s armed and dangerous,’ the young patrolman said excitedly.

‘That was a rhetorical what, Jamie,’ Rocco said. ‘Take it from the top and tell me exactly what happened.’

‘I was waiting out by his tree like you ordered. He snuck up on me, Chief. He came around behind me and pressed a gun against my neck. He snatched my service weapon from my holster and climbed into his tree house. I radioed Captain Norbert, who sent two guys to guard the tree until the SWAT team arrives.’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Rocco said.

‘They’ll kill him,’ Lyon said.

The First Selectman followed by Captain Norbert rushed down the hall. ‘We’d like you to reconsider, Chief Herbert.’

‘Done,’ Rocco said as he snatched the badge from the Selectman’s hand and sprinted for his cruiser.

Rocco stood sheltered behind a tree ten yards from the tree house. He cautiously leaned out from its protection and cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Corporal Williams, report down here at once!’ No answer. ‘Front and center, soldier.’ He snapped back behind the protective trunk.

A few yards away, Lyon had taken the added precaution of stretching prone behind his tree. ‘Where did he get a weapon?’ he yelled over to Rocco.

‘He was in the bank when Wiff’s gun disappeared.’ Rocco leaned out from behind the tree and called again. ‘You hear me, soldier?’

‘Yeah,’ was the faint answer. ‘Martin says I killed Ashley and you’re going to fry me.’

‘Did you?’ No answer. ‘Did you waste the redheaded woman?’ Rocco yelled.

‘I don’t know. They stuffed me so full of pills up at the VA that I been stoned for days. I don’t know what’s been happening.’

‘Did you do Boots and the Styles woman?’ Rocco yelled.

‘I don’t remember, Captain. Maybe I did … Probably I did.’

‘You wanted to show them a good time. They turned you down so you killed them. Right?’

‘Yeah, that’s probably the way it went,’ was the faint reply from the tree.

‘Do you believe that?’ Lyon asked Rocco. ‘You’re the one who said that Spook’s been on substances so long that he couldn’t make it.’

‘He didn’t have to consummate anything. Maybe he just thought about it and said something to the victims. You can imagine how they would react. They either laughed or were horrified. Either way might have been enough to drive him over the edge.’

‘Move it! Move it! Move it!’

Lyon recognized the authoritative commands of Captain Norbert coming from the road behind them. The SWAT team had arrived.

Men in full battle gear began to infiltrate through the tree line. They wore camouflage fatigues, helmets, flak jackets, and carried enough armament for the Tet Offensive. Their orchestrated movements were performed with little sound except for an occasional metallic clink. They assumed protected positions and aimed automatic rifles toward the tree house.

Captain Norbert’s bantam figure sank to one knee behind the tree between Rocco and Lyon. He raised a bullhorn to his mouth. ‘You in the tree house. Come down at once! That is a state police order.’

‘No Cong takes me alive!’ was the answer.

Lyon cringed. ‘Oh, God.’

‘You are under arrest! Throw down your weapon and climb down immediately,’ Norbert commanded.

‘Rot in hell!’ Spook yelled back.

‘Give him one,’ Norbert said to the SWAT member kneeling next to him holding an M-79 grenade launcher.

‘HE or gas?’ was the reply.

‘You fire any high explosives and I’ll pound your ass,’ Rocco promised.

‘The situation is out of your hands, Herbert,’ Norbert said. ‘The perp has defied an official police order. I have him on resisting.’

‘Get the hell out of my backyard,’ Rocco answered.

‘Blow the sucker out of his tree,’ Norbert commanded the officer with the grenade launcher.

It took two strides for Rocco to cross to the other tree and pull his weapon from its holster. ‘You launch anything at that man and you will pay for it, so help me God.’

‘What do I do, Captain?’ the officer asked in a tone that indicated he fully believed Rocco was capable of blowing his head off.

‘Do nothing,’ Rocco said as he walked away from the protection of the trees and began to climb the ladder to the house.

‘Get away from there, damn it!’ Norbert yelled after him.

‘I’m bringing him down.’

It was hardly a minute before two weapons were thrown through the trapdoor. While everyone else’s attention was drawn to the trapdoor, Lyon picked up the police service revolver and stuffed it inside his shirt. He handed the plastic machine gun to Captain Norbert. ‘I think they sell these play guns at the discount stores for a buck ninety-eight,’ Lyon said.

‘We were told he had a machine gun,’ Norbert said defensively. ‘We were prepared for a machine gun.’

Rocco and Spook climbed down from the tree house.

‘You’re standing for drinks at Sarge’s place again, right, Captain?’ Spook said as he was thrown to the ground and handcuffed by the state police.

‘Let that man go!’ Rocco ordered. Two troopers ignored the command and hustled Spook toward a cruiser.

Rocco and Norbert verbally resumed their continual jurisdictional battle. Lyon walked back to the road where Jamie Martin was manning the police barricade that closed off the street. The young officer gave Lyon a two-fingered salute.

‘This yours?’ Lyon said as he handed the officer his weapon.

Jamie blushed. Both men were aware of the shame felt by a disarmed officer. ‘Thanks,’ he said in a near whisper.

‘You knew Ashley Towers professionally?’ Lyon asked.

Jamie’s red hue deepened. ‘I never busted her, no, sir.’

‘I mean in other ways.’

‘You and the chief talked to the escort service, huh?’

‘We did,’ Lyon said. ‘A J. Martin appears on her list of clients.’

‘I’m engaged to a great girl, Mr. Wentworth.’

‘I heard that, Jamie. The Dockery girl, right?’

‘We’re getting married in October.’

‘That’s great, Jamie, but it doesn’t answer my question.’

‘Jeannie is a very normal and passionate person, but she won’t … She really feels strong about …’

‘Full love-making before marriage,’ Lyon finished the young officer’s thought. He was a little surprised that there were still young women who felt like that.

Jamie seemed relieved that Lyon had stated the problem. ‘Yes, sir. And I get really frustrated, you know. One day I had this overtime check. It was like found money. I knew Ashley worked escort, and so I called for her. Just that once, Mr. Wentworth. Honest to God.’

Lyon was about to turn into the drive at Nutmeg Hill when a familiar dark Pontiac passed him. Mead MacIntire sat stiffly at the wheel. Lyon followed the other car.

Mead turned up the dirt access road that led into the state forest. He parked his car at the small parking area near the head of the overgrown trail that followed the ridge line. He left the car to face Lyon with a quizzical look.

The Episcopal priest was not wearing his traditional dark suit with clerical collar. In its place he wore khakis with a red down vest. Binoculars and a camera with a long lens were hung from his neck. He stood stiffly by the side of his car as Lyon approached.

‘Are you following me?’ Mead asked while his beatific smile animated his face.

‘Mind if I walk a way with you?’

‘I never knew you were into bird-watching, Lyon. I thought hot-air ballooning was your avocation.’

‘Ordinarily it is, but I am interested in the return of the eagles.’

‘Yes. Is that not magnificent? It is truly God’s gift that the species has been returned to us.’ He stared off into space for a few moments. ‘I heard about Ashley,’ Mead said. ‘I suppose that is why you are here. I expect that Chief Herbert has an interest in me.’

‘You and several others,’ Lyon said. ‘We went to the Middleburg Escort Service and found that an M. MacIntire was one of Ashley’s clients.’

‘I did not realize that the Devil’s disciples kept such accurate records of sin. Can we go on the cliff path? There’s a certain spot where I like to sit for my observations.’

‘Of course.’

They walked in single file along the vague path that followed the ridge line. Lyon knew that this interval allowed Mead time to order his thoughts and construct some casual circumstances for his meetings with Ashley. However, the slumped shoulders and plodding pace of the man in front of him seemed to indicate a profound disturbance rather than someone plotting an explanation.

Mead stopped before a clump of rocks that formed a haphazard stairway to the top of a large glacial boulder. The minister climbed to the summit and then sat down at the top of the rock. He sighed and hugged his knees as he looked out over the river valley. ‘After my undergraduate days, before I went into the seminary, I was in the Peace Corps.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘The experience was deeply moving and significant for me. I awakened to the problems of the undeveloped world and its peoples. I vowed to do what I could to relieve suffering. I didn’t feel comfortable with hard science and so health services were not an option for me. I chose the ministry as my vehicle. I truly intended to work in some foreign mission in a third-world country. I learned fluent Spanish so I could serve in South America. I was going to be a worker priest. Not that we have that in the Episcopal Church, but if it were necessary, I was prepared to embark on a personal mission.’

Lyon considered the striking contrast between South American poverty and the comfortable manse of Saint James Church. ‘Murphysville is a long way from the Andes,’ he finally said.

‘Yes, isn’t it? The flesh is weak. I married Joan and she wanted children. She pointed out to me, in a very logical manner, that it would be difficult and immoral to raise our children in a South American slum.’

‘So you chose here?’

‘Yes.’ Mead looked out over the distant Seven Sisters hills. ‘It would seem that I am very weak.’

‘Ashley?’ Lyon said softly to steer the conversation back to its intended subject. He suspected that the minister had his own reasons and agenda for what had just been said.

‘Miss Towers’ mother is one of my most faithful parishioners. She came to me one day, very disturbed and agitated, over something Ashley had said. It would seem that Miss Towers told her mother that she had a job as an emergency pharmacist.’

‘A what?’

‘That was the girl’s cover story to family and friends to account for her late hours. Her mother was uncertain about the truthfulness of this and asked if I had ever heard of such a thing. I said that I hadn’t, but that I thought that with the right educational credentials it might be possible. To be on the safe side I checked with the state licensing bureaus. Of course, I had to tell her mother that Ashley wasn’t listed with the state.’

‘Did you tell Ashley?’

‘I confronted her with my information.’

‘And?’

Mead MacIntire pursed his lips a moment before answering. ‘She directed me to perform an unnatural sexual act upon myself. Then she yelled at the top of her voice that she was the most requested escort in the state. That outbreak was followed by a threat that if I didn’t leave her house she would scream rape.’

The pieces were beginning to fall into place. Lyon felt the pressure of a tight abdominal knot as the possibilities evolved. The name on the client list documented what he was now going to be told. ‘You phoned the escort service and requested her,’ he said to ease the man’s obvious pain.

‘Yes. We met at the Dew Drop Inn Motel. After she stopped laughing she made me pay in advance. You do understand that it was my mission to discuss her salvation and offer redemption. I had the best of intentions, but I was so weak.’

‘What did she say?’

‘That she would show me some tricks that would blow my mind. She touched me and … I lay with her in the biblical sense.’

‘And then she had to be punished in order to be saved,’ Lyon said softly.

‘She was punished, wasn’t she?’

‘As was your church secretary and the wanton young woman from the supermarket.’

‘They were all punished.’ He faced Lyon. ‘It was truly divine retribution.’

‘You were God’s agent.’

‘I might have helped them if I hadn’t been so weak.’ Mead MacIntire stood to face the river.

Lyon sensed the minister’s intended actions and immediately moved behind him. When Mead lunged toward the edge of the rock, Lyon grabbed the rear of the down vest. ‘Stop!’

‘Let me go!’

‘No!’ Lyon spun Mead in a half circle. The minister’s forward momentum carried him across Lyon’s hip and over the far edge of the rock where he fell into a pile of brush.

Lyon scrambled down the rock face in the hope that Mead was not badly injured.

‘Let me die!’ Mead MacIntire sobbed into the ground.

Eleven

Canon Mead MacIntire huddled by the Saturn’s door, closed his eyes, and pressed his head against the window. Slight tremors racked his body.

Lyon drove out of the access road and turned right at the highway. He gave a concerned glance toward the anguished clergyman. After a moment’s hesitation, he reached across the quietly sobbing minister and snapped down the door lock.

Mead’s eyes opened. ‘I want to die.’

‘You don’t really mean that,’ Lyon said automatically, knowing full well that his passenger did mean it. He unconsciously accelerated toward Murphysville.

‘I have violated my religious and marital vows. I have disgraced God, the Church, and my family.’

‘You have counseled enough people to know that we all make mistakes.’ Lyon mentally cringed at the inadequacy of his response.

‘I knew the weakness of the flesh for I had charted the paths of temptation. What I did not know was far more dangerous. I speak of that which makes us all so vulnerable.’

‘What is that?’ Lyon asked automatically.

‘How enjoyable are the sinful ways of the flesh.’ Mead clenched his eyes to block motel-room images. ‘I had never before experienced such pleasures or reached the heights of ecstasy she revealed to me. She was a true sorceress. A handmaiden of the Devil. She was a temptress of exquisite ability.’

‘If sins weren’t pleasurable they’d be easy to avoid,’ Lyon said.

‘My weakness was not just of the moment. I returned to her. I went back the following week, and the week after that. I took money from our children’s college savings and paid her fee. And worse, I would have returned again. Once she forced me to wear my clerical collar. Another time she had me bring my vestments. She made me wear my chasuble and girdle. She laughed at me before she lifted the garments to perform unspeakable things on my body.’

Lyon shook his head in acknowledgement of Mead’s confession and the realization that whores also had fantasies. He had a vague impression that a vestment’s color varied according to the appropriate ecclesiastical occasion. He wondered what was applicable for motel-room sex. He would not ask, just as he would stifle his curiosity concerning what unspeakable things Ashley performed. He and Bea had agreed long ago that as long as you did things by mutual consent and without physical harm, that most anything was allowable in the marital bed.

Mead attempted to force the car door as they turned into the police services driveway. ‘We’re there,’ Lyon said.

‘If this isn’t hell, we are not in the proper place,’ the canon said. ‘I cannot seem to open this door.’

‘Let me.’ Lyon sprinted around the hood of the car and unlocked the passenger door. Mead nearly fell to the pavement when the door swung open. Lyon helped the minister inside the building and into Rocco’s office.

The police chief was on the phone. He arched an eyebrow at their entrance. Mead sank down on the leather couch. The minister hunched over, drew up his feet to a fetal-like position, and turned toward the wall. Rocco shrugged and hung up the phone. ‘What is this?’ he asked.

‘I think that Mead wants to make a statement,’ Lyon said.

‘Oh?’ Rocco still looked puzzled, but turned his attention to the minister. ‘Did you know Ashley Towers, Canon?’

‘I fornicated with her,’ was the muffled reply.

‘He means in the biblical sense,’ Lyon said.

‘Damn it! I know what the word means. Do you know what you are saying, sir?’

‘I copulated with the harlot several times,’ the minister said as he turned to face Rocco. ‘I lay with her and paid for the use of her body. I enjoyed the pleasures of that body immensely. Do you hear me, Chief? I reveled in the sins of the flesh, and I paid her again and again. I deserve to die, for I have violated my sacred oaths.’

‘You don’t have to be celibate in the Episcopal Church, Canon,’ Rocco said kindly. ‘And even if it were required, I am afraid that breaking sacred vows is not a police matter. I cannot punish you.’

‘I broke a promise to my God, wife and self.’

‘Ashley’s list of customers was quite extensive. If you are to be punished, it might be with a social disease.’

‘I would welcome infestation by maggots.’

‘The State of Connecticut can not sentence you to maggots, Canon,’ Rocco said. ‘Not even for adultery.’

‘Isn’t Lascivious Carriage still on the books?’ Lyon asked.

‘God, Lyon, I haven’t used that one since I closed down the nude dancing at Sarge’s place back in eighty-seven. Besides, it’s only a misdemeanor. I don’t think a monetary fine is what the canon has in mind.’

‘I desire the complete mortification of my flesh.’

Rocco nodded. ‘Did you kill Ashley Towers, sir?’

‘I killed her like I killed the others.’

‘Others being the young woman in the woods and your church secretary?’

‘They are dead because of my sins.’

‘Sir, I am not going to arrest you for murder in order for you to expiate your sins.’

‘That is not for you to judge.’

‘Then let’s get more detail,’ Rocco said. He reached into his lower desk drawer and pulled out a small tape recorder. He checked the battery and cartridge before placing it on the edge of his desk. He identified the time and place. ‘Also present in my office are Lyon Wentworth and Canon Mead MacIntire. The Reverend MacIntire wishes to make a statement.’

Silence.

‘Did you kill the women?’ Rocco pressed.

‘My name is legion,’ was the reply. ‘The sins of all men rest upon me for I am the power and the glory.’

‘Are we into divine retribution here?’ Rocco asked.

Canon Mead MacIntire’s attitude changed as his lethargy became energized. He stood and threw out his arms in an expansive gesture. His deep voice rang in a sing-song cadence. ‘I am the way! I am thy savior and redeemer! My punishment is in retribution for thousands of sins. We face a millennium of purgatory and I shall lead the way.’

‘You have the right to remain silent,’ Rocco said as he pulled a small laminated Miranda card from the desk. ‘You are not required to say anything to us at any time or to answer any questions. Anything you say can be used against you in court.’

‘I would like to point out that you do not have a murder weapon,’ Lyon said. He cupped his pony of Dry Sack sherry in their booth at Sarge’s place.

Rocco threw back a shot of vodka. His glass was immediately refilled by a hovering Sarge Renfroe. ‘I take it you don’t buy thunderbolts from heaven striking them down?’

‘The guy is overwhelmed with guilt,’ Lyon said. ‘At this point in his life he’d confess to active participation in the crucifixion.’

‘I’ve got a confession from him. In fact, I have several confessions from him. Some are written, some are on audio, and a particularly effective one is on video tape. I have four signed Mirandas. Everything has been done by the book and the guy still insists he killed three women.’

‘And no murder weapon. Not a single eye witness. You have arrested an emotionally distraught clergyman with no prior record, not even a traffic ticket.’

‘He’ll probably never go to trial,’ Rocco said. ‘In his present mental state no judge would rule him competent.’

‘That’s true,’ Lyon admitted.

‘Then again, look at what I do have. Our murdering canon feels surrounded by sin. He knows of a young woman having an affair with a married man while she carries another’s baby. He’s bird-watching in the state forest and comes across her stretched out naked on a blanket. He misjudges her naturally flirtatious nature as a real come-on. We know he’s recently become filled with the raptures of the flesh, as he calls it, from Ashley’s doings. He touches Boots intimately. She laughs or screams. Whichever way it came down it’s enough to set him off and she gets herself shot.’

‘Barbara Styles, the church secretary, is punished for stealing.’

‘Appropriating the Lord’s tithe was her death warrant,’ Rocco said.

‘Killing Ashley was a way to permanently remove her unspeakable pleasures of the flesh.’

‘She was the instrument of his fall and therefore had to go. He could not live with his guilt.’

‘Where did the good canon say he stashed the murder weapon?’ Lyon asked.

Rocco sighed. ‘He doesn’t remember.’

Bea parked her Ford in front of Sarge’s place. For the hundredth time she surveyed the bar’s exterior. It hadn’t changed. It was still a dump. It was a hard drinker’s spa run by a man who had long ago fallen off the cusp of daily drinking into complete alcoholism. Last winter she had finally persuaded the two men to change their movable feast to the Murphysville Inn. She had permanently reserved a table near the large fireplace. It had been a comfortable place that was atmospheric, clean, and nearly quaint. All had gone well until Rocco tilted his chair too far back and had nearly fallen into the open hearth. Without consulting her, they had returned their moveable feast to Sarge’s.

She had her hand on the bar’s front door when the feeling struck with overwhelming force. The power of the vivid memories was breathtaking. A montage of bright impressions clicked by so rapidly that they excluded the present-day world. She saw her daughter’s wobbly progress on the birthday bike that carried her toward the deadly street. Time reversed, and she watched a child’s first unaided steps punctuated with a triumphant smile. This was followed by the pure innocence of a sleeping one-year-old that she kissed and covered up. Then she saw herself standing before their full-length mirror. She watched her belly in amazement as the first bird-wing flutters of life awoke within her.

Bea placed both palms against the wall of the building and leaned forward as she fought to regain her breath.

Sarge Renfroe was at her side. ‘You all right, ma’am?’ He grasped her arm. ‘I saw you through the door. Want me to get Mr. Wentworth?’

‘No,’ she managed to say. ‘It’s passing and I’ll be OK.’

Sarge was gone. Lyon was by her side with wide eyes of concern. ‘I’ll take you to the emergency room.’

‘No.’ She straightened and pushed away from the wall. The visions fled as quickly as they had arrived. ‘I’m all right. Perhaps some coffee will set me right.’

‘What happened?’

‘Suddenly, without warning it all came back. I saw her whole life and relived it again.’

Arm in arm they entered the building. Further comment was not necessary. They had both suffered from these vivid flashbacks of their daughter’s life and death. In the beginning the pain had been nearly unbearable, but as years passed the visions had become less frequent. Today’s episode had caught her by surprise.

‘You look pale,’ Rocco said as they sat at the booth.

‘What’s happening with you guys?’ Bea asked with forced joviality.

‘Rocco has arrested Canon Mead MacIntire as our serial killer,’ Lyon said.

Bea was appalled. ‘That man walks around ants on the sidewalk. He nurses sick birds with broken wings. He is completely dominated by his wife and secretary.’

‘That’s it right there,’ Rocco said. ‘I believe he’s gone through his own personal revolution.’

‘He was a professional client of Ashley’s,’ Lyon said.

‘In the biblical sense?’ Bea asked.

‘Old and new testament,’ Rocco added.

‘Hey, guys, wait a cotton-picking minute,’ Bea said. ‘What about the used-car salesman’s wife, Mildred the shark and her young lover? I can see those two coming up with some weird murderous agenda, but the canon? It’s like charging Mother Theresa with lascivious carriage.’

‘Don’t hardly get to charge anyone with that these days,’ Rocco said sadly. ‘The good canon has confessed. In fact, he keeps on confessing. We have our killer, all right.’

‘What about your army friend in the tree house?’ Bea asked.

‘I think that is a possibility that should be considered,’ Lyon said. ‘Spook is certainly delusional. Perhaps he perceived the women as Viet Cong agents who had to be killed for his own survival.’

‘The medical examiner tells me that all three women were shot in the umbilicus,’ Rocco said. ‘Lars says you could cover the shot pattern with a quarter. If Spook took to shooting people at close range, he might hit them somewhere in the body, but not with shot patterns covered by a coin, no matter what its denomination. Norby buys the case against the canon and has released Spook.’

‘Phone for you, Senator,’ Sarge said laconically from the bar. He extended the phone as far as its cord would reach as Bea picked it up. ‘Says she’s the governor,’ Sarge snorted.

‘Yes, Margaret,’ Bea said without hesitation.

The governor’s voice was nearly a whisper. ‘I knew you would retaliate, Beatrice. I never dreamed you would sink to these depths.’

‘What are you talking about, Governor?’

‘Your having Bill’s body exhumed is despicable. You knew that would raise all sorts of questions in people’s minds.’

‘I had nothing to do with any exhumation. That is a police matter.’

‘Everyone in the state knows how tight your husband and that Murphysville police chief are. It was easy enough for you to arrange. What are you up to, Senator? Trying to see if he still has an erection?’ The connection clicked dead.

‘Oh, boy,’ Bea said.

Canon Mead MacIntire kneeled on the rough concrete of the holding cell. He had been in that position for some hours now. The duty officer checked on him every fifteen minutes and always asked, ‘You OK, sir?’

‘Yes,’ he always answered in a soft voice.

They would leave him alone then, and close the outer door when they left. He slid his knees along the rough concrete and felt the flesh abrade. Blood seeped through his trousers from the scrape wounds. It hurt. He delighted in the pain.

He had planned to terminate his life immediately as he did not deserve to live. They had removed his belt and shoe laces. The rough blanket on the metal bunk was hemmed with a closely stitched heavy thread that made it impossible to unravel a strip for a proper hanging.

There must be a way to reach purgatory. Perhaps God would reveal the way. He pressed his eyes shut and then it came to him. The way was led by prayer.

Canon MacIntire grasped the cell-door bars and pulled himself painfully erect. His violated knees were painful, but he was able to back to the bunk and sit with both hands clasped between his knees. He would wait patiently until the next personal check.

Patrolman Jamie Martin stood outside the cell and looked at the minister with concern. ‘Are you all right, sir?’

The canon looked at the young officer with bleary eyes. ‘Are you a parishioner of mine, my son?’

‘No, sir. Me and my family go to Saint Anne’s.’

‘Then you know Father Magrusky?’

‘Yes, sir. I was an altar boy when I was a kid.’

‘Were you now?’ Canon MacIntire unconsciously straightened his posture. He looked at the patrolman with renewed interest. ‘That is excellent.’

‘For three years,’ Jamie added.

‘Then you know of the importance of the mass and the eucharist?’

‘Sure.’

‘You are aware that we of the Anglican Church are very close to the Romans in our service?’

‘I’ve heard that you guys are half-assed Catholics.’ Jamie reddened. ‘I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.’

‘I understand. You are aware of how important it is for my everlasting soul that I, as a minister of God, serve a personal mass.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That it is the only way to salvation.’

‘Got it.’

Mead’s voice assumed a sing-song quality. ‘That my soul has deep needs.’

‘Yes.’

‘That God must be served.’

‘Yes.’

‘I must perform my ministry and I need my vestments in order to do this.’

‘You mean your costume? The stuff you wear at the altar?’

‘That is correct. Would you get them for me? The church is only two blocks from here. The front door is unlocked, and the vestments are in the vestry. That’s the small room behind the altar.’

‘I can find it.’

‘Would you do this for me, my son?’

‘Yes, sir. What do you need?’

‘I must have the dark vestments for a requiem.’

‘Tell me what I should get, Father. I have a break coming up in five minutes and can be back in fifteen.’

‘Here is what I must have …’

It was twenty minutes before Jamie returned to the holding cell. He carried a bulging gym bag. ‘I think I have everything you requested, Father.’

‘Thank you, my son.’

Jamie unlocked the cell door and handed the canon the gym bag. ‘Anything else I can get you, sir?’

‘No, my son. Now, leave me alone so I can make peace with my God.’

After Jamie Martin left the holding cell, MacIntire unzipped the gym bag and ceremoniously removed the garments. He unfolded them with great care, taking pains to kiss each item as he laid it neatly in a row on the bunk. When the vestments were in proper order, he began slowly to put them on.

The silk and linen vestments were not the vivid and joyous colors of an Easter celebration, but were the muted black required of a requiem. He did not have a cassock in the gym bag, but he donned the vestments in proper order as if he did wear one. First was the alb, a full-length vestment with long sleeves. The chasuble, a sleeveless outer vestment, was next. He reverently kissed the black silken stole, or maniple, before he placed it around his neck. The girdle, a rope of hemp with tassels used to confine the alb, was placed temporarily aside.

He fell to his knees before the bunk and clasped the rope-like girdle in his fingers. He prayed with the garment as if it were a holy relic.

When his prayer was complete, Canon Mead MacIntire looped one end of the girdle around his neck in a slip knot. Then he tied the other end to the top bar of the cell door and hanged himself.

Twelve

Skee Rumford admired Lori Wappinger’s body as she led the way into the state forest. She carried a small wicker picnic basket stuffed with egg salad and chicken sandwiches. He toted the blanket and a cold six pack of Sam Adams beer.

Lori had good moves when she walked. She had a firm body that really turned him on. She didn’t have the sophisticated expertise of the mature Mildred Rashish, but what young woman could match the Shark’s extensive sexual background? He had discovered that Lori was a quick learner who took to his tutoring with an enthusiastic zest.

Skee had realized when he was fifteen years old that he was blessed with remarkable attributes that satisfied certain women. He wasn’t quite sure where these talents originated—certainly not from his old man, who was a world-class klutz scared to death of Skee’s mom. From time to time he had attempted to understand this ability, but he had quickly become confused. He had given up any attempt to understand, and just enjoyed the fact that many women seemed to admire his body and ability to bring them satisfaction. Hey, don’t knock it, he thought without further insight.

‘Not much further?’ he called to Lori.

She turned to smile without stopping. ‘Soon now, lover boy.’

A few minutes more and maybe a double header, his body sang. He walked behind her and let his hand run across her round rump.

She stopped and dropped the picnic basket. ‘Hey, man,’ she said. ‘Come here.’ She opened her arms. He carefully put the beer down before stepping into her arms. He felt her shiver as they clung together. ‘Hey, I’m really turned on. Spread the blanket.’

‘I know a better spot.’ He retrieved the beer and blanket. ‘It’s a clearing just ahead. Come on!’ He jogged between two granite boulders that led into a small clearing. He heard her lilting laugh behind him as he quickly spread the blanket and skimmed off his tee shirt.

‘This is about the same as the other place,’ she said as he nuzzled her neck. ‘What’s so special?’

‘This will really turn you on.’ He whispered into her ear. ‘This is the exact spot where Boots got whacked.’

‘What?’

‘That’s right. This little clearing is where they found her body. This is where some guy offed her.’

‘Here?’ Her arms dropped to her side as she stepped away from him. ‘She died right here?’

‘This very spot.’

‘You brought me here to do it? You want to make love where your last girlfriend died?’

‘That’s a turn on, huh?’

‘That’s sick.’

His smile faded. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Just what I said. That is really sick.’

‘All right, forget it. We’ll go back to the first place.’

‘How can you forget something that’s already been said? I’m going back to the car, el creepo.’

‘Hey! You got me worked up.’

‘You should have thought of that before you decided to play Friday the Thirteenth.’ She started for the road.

‘Come back here.’

‘Go screw yourself.’ Lori started to run.

‘Hey, bitch!’ Skee caught up to her and grabbed her arm. He spun her around. ‘You’re going to give me some.’

Lori looked at him as if for the first time. ‘Wow, have I been wrong.’

He attempted to kiss her as she turned her head away. He put his hand under her chin and forced her to face him. She clenched her teeth as he mashed his lips against hers. ‘Bitch!’ he spat again.

‘Weirdo,’ she replied as she attempted to spin away from his grip.

‘We came out here to screw and that’s what we’re going to do.’

‘Over my dead body.’

‘That’s what Boots probably said.’ Skee Rumford was not about to squander his gift to women. He wasn’t going to let some naive little twerp turn him down after all the women he’d serviced in his short life. ‘I’m getting some.’

‘You’ll have to rape me and I’ll fight.’

‘You do and I’ll knock the shit out of you.’ He put his hands into the waistband of her shorts and ripped them off.

Lyon Wentworth hated grass. Although only two of their acres were lawn, they seemed to possess extremely zesty grass that grew at a phenomenal rate. Last summer he left it unmowed for the month of July and that had forced him to use a hand blade to trim it low enough to mow. This year he had an innovative answer.

Lyon stood near the tool shed holding hedge clippers as he watched two grazing sheep. He had rented them from Randy MacDougal who lived down the road and raised them professionally. Randy had delivered the animals that morning along with a few simple instructions for their summer care. The only problem might be that Nutmeg Hill could be a three-sheep spread.

He still felt a dull sheen of depression concerning Mead MacIntire’s suicide. Rocco seemed even more depressed. The chief was now venting his displeasure by ticketing cars with a vengeance. An astonished Jamie Martin was suspended.

The placidly grazing sheep paid no attention to the girl’s scream. She screamed again with a sound that echoed from the river bluffs.

Lyon watched her emerge from the state forest. At first he thought she was nude, and then realized that what clothing she did wear was in tatters. She wore sneakers, a ripped blouse that barely clung to one shoulder, and panties. Blood was smeared across her lower face and a long red welt streaked across the right cheek.

She ran toward him. ‘Help me!’ she cried.

Skee Rumford emerged from the woods at the moment Lori Wappinger threw herself into Lyon’s arms. She buried her head on his shoulder and trembled. Lyon dropped the hedge clippers and held her.

‘Let the bitch go,’ Skee demanded as he stopped ten feet away.

‘Don’t let him touch me,’ she cried into Lyon’s shoulder.

‘She’s my girl,’ Skee said defensively. ‘I got rights.’

‘He’s sick,’ Lori said. ‘He attacked me. Don’t let him near me.’

‘She trying to say that I tried to rape her? If that isn’t something.’ Skee banged his thigh with a loud slap and laughed. ‘We’re going together. I’ve boffed her maybe a dozen times already. How can I rape her?’

‘You had best leave,’ Lyon ordered.

‘Like hell. No bitch turns Skee Rumford down.’ He grabbed Lori’s arm and pulled her away from Lyon. ‘Give me two minutes, bitch, and you’ll be begging me not to stop.’

‘I’m telling you to lay off!’ Lyon said as he slammed Skee’s shoulder hard enough to knock him off balance. Lori fell to her hands and knees.

‘You got a black belt in judo or something else I don’t know about?’ Skee asked.

‘No. But I am telling you to stay away from her. Now, get off my property!’

‘Well, la ti da,’ Skee said as he aimed a roundhouse right at Lyon’s face.

The blow snapped Lyon’s head back. He stumbled, fell to one hand and nearly went down the rest of the way. When he straightened, Skee was on him with a flurry of pummeling fists to the abdomen and kidneys. They went into a clinch.

Skee’s knees buckled as he slid out of Lyon’s grasp on to his knees. Lyon stepped aside as Skee fell face down on the newly grazed grass.

‘Asshole,’ Lori said. She still gripped the hedge clippers by the blades. The tool’s handles were what had felled her former boyfriend.

Lyon felt Skee’s pulse. ‘Well, you didn’t kill him.’

‘Too bad,’ Lori said as she dropped the clippers.

Lyon took her hand. ‘Come up to the house and I’ll find you something to put on.’

He located jeans and a blouse in Bea’s closet. It would have been difficult to carry the chunky Skee out to the drive, so to the sheep’s dull-eyed amazement, Lyon drove the Saturn on to the lawn. He tied the young lover’s hands behind his back and levered him into the rear seat. With Lori at his side he drove back across the lawn and down the drive to the highway.

‘Are we going to the police?’ she asked in a little girl’s voice.

‘You want to bring charges, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know. Like he said, we’ve been together before, you know.’

‘That still doesn’t give him the right to physically harm you.’

‘We would have done it today except he had this sick idea about making love where Boots died. He wanted to spread our blanket on the exact spot where she was killed. When I wouldn’t, he went kinda crazy.’ She turned to Lyon with concern. ‘I don’t want the police, Mr. Wentworth. My old man will kill me if he finds out that Skee and I been doing it. I mean, my pop still thinks I’m like the Virgin Mary or something. Once he caught me making out with a guy on the couch, and we weren’t even doing it, and he nearly killed the kid.’

Lyon sighed over another version of Lister Anderson, Boots’ father who had gunned down the car dealer. ‘I’m afraid we have to speak with Chief Herbert about this, Lori. If you don’t want to bring charges, that’s up to you. The chief has to know about Skee’s violence and his knowledge about where Boots died. You knew that they were serious lovers too?’

‘That jerk’s not serious about anything but sex,’ Lori said as the subject of their discussion awoke on the back seat with a groan.

Rocco gave Skee two aspirin and a cup of water. The young man greedily sucked the pills down. ‘Like to hurt women, do you?’ Rocco asked.

‘Only when they’re so damn dumb.’

‘Ever shoot them in the belly?’

‘What’re you asking me, Chief?’

‘About murder, Skee. Premeditated murder of three women you knew.’

Most of whom he’d been intimate with, Lyon thought, although he excepted the church secretary.

That afternoon Lyon realized it was Big Buddy time again. The event seemed to arrive with remarkable regularity. Part of him wanted the Buddy routine to be scheduled as often as a leap-year Christmas. He approached the ‘getting through’ to Edward Dirk with the same anticipation he felt for extensive root canal work.

When he braked in front of the Dirks’ modest home, curtains fluttered in a window. He knew that the Big Buddy office had called Rebba about her participation in the outings, and he wondered how effective their suggestion had been.

The front door burst open. Edward, wearing a small backpack, ran toward the car. He was alone, which meant that the Big Buddy suggestions to Rebba had worked.

‘Can we see the eagles again, Mr. Wentworth?’

‘Sure. We know the area where they nest, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to find them.’

‘Great!’ With enthusiasm Edward climbed into the car and voluntarily buckled up. Lyon made a U-turn to head back toward the state forest. The boy maintained a continuous monologue about his teachers, all of whom seemed dedicated to tormenting Edward Dirk. A generous allowance for the sometimes natural paranoia of boy student against teachers made the kid almost likable. But then, Lyon supposed that if you lived during the Middle Ages you even came to terms with the plague.

Edward struggled out of his pack and put it by his feet. ‘Got a snack in there?’ Lyon asked.

‘Sort of. Sure hope we see an eagle today.’

Lyon smiled as he turned on to the county highway that led to the state forest. Wanting to see eagles was the first positive attitude this kid had expressed. They reached the entrance and turned down the rutted dirt road that led into the forest.

Edward shivered. ‘Sure is spooky. If the birds weren’t here, I wouldn’t want to come.’

Lyon glanced at the rigid boy who sat with his arms pressed stiffly against the dashboard. ‘There’s nothing in here but harmless animals. There could be a few copperheads, but I’ll show you how to avoid them.’

‘I’m not afraid of no snakes.’

‘Something else then?’

‘Scary things like ghosts.’

‘There are no ghosts,’ Lyon said, although he knew of at least one who inhabited his own mind.

‘Yes, there are.’

Lyon parked the car and they walked through the woods to the cliff above the river. ‘There’s the nest,’ Lyon whispered as he pointed.

The deep roots of the huge oak tree were imbedded in the river bank far below. In the upper reaches of the tree, nearly at their eye level only thirty feet away, was the stove-sized eagle nest. They had an excellent view of the nest when they lay prone at the edge of the cliff.

‘For years pesticides and PCBs from industrial plants polluted the river,’ Lyon whispered. ‘This meant that the fish who swam in that water were contaminated. When the eagles ate the fish they ingested that junk into their systems. The birds couldn’t survive the toxic material and they died off. As they cleaned up the river the eagles could live here again and they have returned. Look!’

A large bird circled above them in silent flight. It held a wiggling fish in its beak. When the eagle was satisfied that their presence posed no threat, it swooped down to the nest with the recently caught fish.

‘To bring live fish back to the nest means there must be a new baby eagle here,’ Lyon continued with excitement. ‘If there’s an eaglet in there it could be the first one born here since they returned.’

Lyon raised the binoculars without noticing the boy’s actions. Edward opened his backpack and removed a pellet pistol. He turned the knob at the rear of the barrel to full velocity.

‘Bye, bye, birdie,’ Edward whispered as he steadied the gas cylinder pistol in a two-handed grip. He took aim as the large bird exited the nest.

‘Have a look,’ Lyon said as he turned to offer the use of the binoculars. He watched in horror as the boy’s finger tightened against the pellet gun’s trigger. He slammed the binoculars against the gun barrel at the moment of discharge.

‘Hey! I almost got the sucker,’ Edward said.

Lyon wrenched the pistol from the boy’s hand. He grasped it by the barrel and twirled it overhead before he let go. They watched it arc over the river and gradually fall toward the water. If it caused any ripples they were too far away to be seen.

‘Good riddance,’ Lyon said. He glared at the boy. ‘I’m astonished at you. You were going to shoot the mother bird.’

‘You threw my gun away. It cost me forty bucks.’

‘You were about to kill an eagle.’

‘It’s only a bird.’

‘It’s a precious life. An endangered species.’

‘I wanted it for my cemetery.’

‘Did you really believe that I would drive you home with a dead eagle in my car?’

‘My cemetery’s not at home. It’s right over there.’ He pointed to their right.

Lyon gave the boy a puzzled look. ‘You have things buried out here?’

‘Sure. Lots of birds. A couple of cats. A puppy. Things that have died.’

‘Show me,’ Lyon said as he reached for Edward’s hand.

The boy allowed his hand to be grasped. ‘My mom’s going to be real mad about you throwing away my pellet gun.’

‘Have you killed other birds with it?’ Lyon asked as he let the boy lead him through the woods.

‘Sure. Lots of them. Robins, blue jays, stuff like that.’

‘And you bury them out here?’

‘Yeah. I collect them during the week and wait till Saturday to come out here. I put them in a box on my bike rack.’

‘Does your mother know about your pet funeral business?’

‘She wouldn’t care. She mostly lets me do what I want. We’re there.’

They had arrived at a small clearing midway between Boots Anderson’s killing ground and Nutmeg Hill. There was a circle of stones in the center of the cove with a few charred logs indicating past fires. The spot also contained other evidence of occupancy: a few beer cans, a forgotten tent peg, and several wrappings of indeterminate origin. There wasn’t any evidence of an animal cemetery.

‘I don’t see your graves,’ Lyon said.

‘Over here!’ Edward said excitedly. He led Lyon around a fallen tree that was covered with moss and mushroom growth. Beyond the deadfall was a shallow strip of land a yard wide and ten long. A neat row of crosses, constructed out of tree branches and string, was spaced at even intervals. ‘This is my secret place and you are the first person to see it.’

‘Your secret garden of death,’ Lyon said.

‘Yeah,’ Edward agreed with awe.

‘This is very interesting,’ Lyon said as he counted thirty-two crosses. He wondered if the police forensic team had discovered the garden, but realized that its banality wouldn’t have caused attention. ‘Edward, if you come out here every Saturday, how come you claim to be so frightened of these woods?’

‘Because of the man in the pointy hat.’

‘What man is that?’

‘Don’t know his name. He was just scary, that’s all.’

‘Oh?’ Lyon said quietly and non-judgementally. ‘Exactly what did he do that frightened you?’

‘After he shot that lady he laughed when she tried to crawl across the ground. I was afraid he might see where I was hiding and shoot me, too.’

Holding the boy’s arm firmly, Lyon led him back to the car. ‘Then you were out here when Boots Anderson was killed?’

‘Don’t know her name.’

‘You weren’t in school that day?’

‘I played hooky. My mom made me go see Uncle Duncan on Saturday so I had to do the cat burial during the week before he stunk up the place. You won’t tell her, will you?’

‘I won’t tell her about the hooky part,’ Lyon said. ‘Let me get this right. You were in the woods and saw the man who shot the girl? You saw her crawl across the ground?’

‘You won’t tell anybody because we’re buddies, right?’

‘We’re buddies all right. Do you think you could identify the man who shot the woman?’

‘He had funny clothes on and was scary. I’m afraid he will come and kill me.’

Everything seemed to almost fit. The boy’s fear of the woods now made sense. The funny clothing might be clerical vestments, which would mean that Mead’s suicide did have a coherent logic. They reached the car.

‘Let’s go talk to Chief Herbert and tell him what you saw. He will probably want to show you some pictures to see if you can identify the scary man.’

Edward violently shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Chief Herbert is a policeman. He won’t let the scary man get you.’

‘Cops suck.’

‘Damn it all, Edward!’

‘I didn’t see anything.’

Thirteen

Lyon walked a few feet behind Rocco and Edward. The police chief’s hand rested lightly on the boy’s shoulder as they ambled across the green toward the gazebo. Rocco had suggested that questioning the boy in the police station would be inhibiting. A casual walk around the town green, a spot familiar to everyone in town, might be more conducive to an honest account of what the young boy had actually seen.

‘You like it in the state forest?’ Rocco asked.

‘It’s scary. I don’t want to go back there.’

‘But isn’t that where you have your graves?’ Rocco casually pressed.

‘That was before the man with the pointy hat and the long beard came out there. He scares me.’

‘What does he do that is so scary, Edward?’ Rocco asked.

‘It frightened me when he hurt the lady. He laughed as she crawled.’

‘And you saw him stab her?’

‘With a long curvy sword that he shoved right through her tummy.’

Without breaking stride, Rocco glanced at Lyon. He returned his attention to the boy by his side. They went inside the gazebo to sit on the bench. The green was nearly empty except for parked cars around its perimeter and a man at the far end tossing a frisbee to his Dalmatian. Rocco’s hands lay loosely on his thighs as he bent conspiratorially toward Edward.

‘I bet that sword had jewels in the handle and glinted in the sun. His pointy hat was like … like what, Edward?’

Lyon sat far enough away to be out of their intimate space, but near enough to hear the questions and answers.

‘His pointy hat was red and he had a long gold robe. He hacked her into a hundred pieces.’

‘Where were you when all this was going on?’ Rocco asked.

‘I was hiding in a tree where he couldn’t see me, but I ran away when he started chopping.’

Lyon estimated that in another minute and a half the kid was going to have a full circus in those woods, complete with elephants and clowns. The police officer and the boy were attempting to manipulate each other. Edward’s current lies were obvious, while his first version of the killing had been a straight story of a man shooting Boots and laughing as she crawled across the clearing. Those events were similar to the official crime reconstruction. Initially there had been no mention of a sword, much less someone chopping anyone into pieces. In all probability the bright kid had seen through Rocco’s trickery, and for unknown reasons had turned the situation around to his own benefit.

‘How tall was this man?’ Rocco asked,

‘Eight feet not including the hat,’ Edward immediately answered smugly.

‘And I’ll just bet he had very broad shoulders too,’ Rocco answered.

‘You seen him too?’

Rocco’s ‘OK’ was long and drawn out. He stood and rubbed his hands along his trouser seams. ‘Suppose we go over to the Dairy Queen and get us a cone?’

‘Yeah!’ Edward said with the exuberant realization that he had won his battle.

Rocco and the boy walked toward the gazebo steps until Lyon put both hands on Edward’s shoulders. ‘You told me in the woods that you saw him shoot her,’ he said in a low voice. He felt the boy stiffen under his grip.

‘I was lying. He hacked her up.’

‘Sure he did, Edward,’ Rocco said in a soothing voice.

‘You believe me, don’t you?’ the boy asked Rocco.

‘Of course I do,’ Rocco said.

‘I don’t,’ Lyon said. ‘You told me the truth the first time. You saw something that day. Don’t you understand how important it is for us to know what you saw? Chief Herbert will protect you. He will not let anyone harm you. Do you understand, Edward?’

‘No,’ was the reply.

Rocco’s returned interest was tempered with skepticism. He was not foolish enough to believe in eight-foot men with swords, but he did put trust in Lyon’s opinion. If his friend’s assessment was that the boy had seen something, he would listen. ‘Why don’t you tell us exactly what you did see?’

‘He will hurt me.’

‘I promise that I won’t let anything happen to you,’ Rocco said.

‘Leave me alone!’ Edward kicked Rocco in the shins and broke from Lyon’s grip to run across the gazebo and slide under the railing at the far end. While Rocco rubbed his ankle, Lyon vaulted the rail. He landed on the concrete walk with a force that stung both feet. He began to run after the boy.

By the time Edward reached the street, Lyon was close enough to grab his shirt tail. The boy nearly tumbled backward before he turned and began to pummel Lyon with clenched fists.

‘Let me go!’

‘We have to talk about this,’ Lyon said.

‘No!’

‘You told me the truth the first time. That is what you must tell Chief Herbert.’

‘Let me go!’ He struggled to break Lyon’s firm grip.

Tires screeched to announce a car’s abrupt halt. Lyon was still struggling with the squirming boy when a high-pitched voice yelled, ‘Leave my son alone!’

Lyon faced an irate Rebba Dirk. ‘We have to …’

‘You pervert! How dare you manhandle my child? They called me from the police station and said you were there. They told me something happened that required a meeting with Chief Herbert.’ She pulled her son toward the car. Edward began to wheeze and buried his head against her side. ‘What have you done to him?’

‘Nothing, Mrs. Dirk,’ Rocco said as he joined them. ‘We believe your son may have some important information for us. We were trying to talk to him about it when he ran away.’

‘He’s hysterical and sick. That means you did something to him.’ She clutched her child and backed toward the car. ‘I see now what’s going on. You two are big friends. Everyone in town knows that. You are child-molesting together. I will see you broken for this, Chief Herbert. You and your sick friend will end up in jail where you belong. Do you hear me?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Rocco sighed. ‘But I would like to talk with your son again. I will arrange an interview, in your presence if you require.’

‘If I ever see you within a hundred feet of my boy you will surely pay for it.’ She turned her venom toward Lyon. ‘And you, a so-called Big Buddy, are the lowest of the low.’

‘In addition to a crime he may have witnessed in the woods,’ Lyon said, ‘your son needs help. He has his own cemetery for animals that I believe he kills.’

‘He finds dead animals in the street. I know about his cemetery and encourage his concern in taking care of those poor dead things.’

‘I think it’s a sign of deep disturbance,’ Lyon said.

Their eyes met. There seemed to be a faint signal from her, and Lyon felt her momentary doubt. It quickly disappeared to be replaced by a flaring anger. ‘Disturbed! How would you know?’ She slid behind the wheel and turned the ignition. ‘You care so little about children that you allowed your daughter to ride her bike in the street and get killed.’ The car jolted forward.

Rocco put his arm on Lyon’s shoulder. ‘Don’t pay any attention to her.’

‘I’ll try not to.’ Lyon turned away, surprised to realize he had tears in his eyes. He was not certain whether this grief was for his dead daughter or the disturbed Edward. Possibly it was a poignant mixture of both children.

They watched Rebba Dirk drive around the green and accelerate down Main Street.

‘I could give chase and ticket her for speeding, reckless driving, and she’s probably not buckled up,’ Rocco said.

‘I don’t think that would be a particularly good idea at this point,’ Lyon said distantly.

They looked at each other and knew what they must do next.

Sarge’s place had two patrons nursing beers at the bar while they argued over the New York Mets. Sarge was bored, but looked up and smiled when they entered. As they walked in single file to their booth by the window, the bar owner poured a double vodka for Rocco and searched for the Dry Sack sherry. He delivered the liquor to the booth and slid in next to Lyon with his own shot and beer.

‘Cheers,’ Sarge said as he downed the drink of shimmering whiskey followed by a long slurp of beer.

‘Sarge, did you ever see a man die of liver failure—cirrhosis? It’s a bad way to go. Lots of regurgitated blood,’ Rocco said.

‘Mud in your eye,’ Sarge said as he downed the remaining beer. ‘Sorry to hear about your bad medical news, Captain. Liver failure is the pits.’

‘Not me. You,’ Rocco said before he shrugged and temporarily gave up on this perpetual battle. ‘Run this kid thing past me again,’ he said to Lyon. ‘Exactly what did he say to you while you were bird-watching?’

Lyon tried to remember as exactly as he could what was said in the woods. ‘I said to him, if you have your cemetery here, how come you are so frightened of the place? He replied that it was because of the man in the pointy hat. The other stuff he added later. I asked him what the man did that was scary. He said that after he shot the lady he laughed as she crawled.’

‘She did crawl across the clearing before she died,’ Rocco said. ‘And that fact wasn’t released to the media. Then the kid did see something?’

‘He probably did, but what? And what does it mean?’ Lyon asked.

‘He mentioned funny clothes?’

‘Possibly clerical vestments. Were the good canon and our friendly check-out girl playing fantasy games learned from Ashley?’ Lyon wondered.

‘I’ve got to interview that boy again,’ Rocco said. ‘I’ll probably have to get a warrant.’

‘I hope to God you aren’t talking about the Dirk kid,’ a voice behind them said sharply.

They were startled to see Captain Norbert of the state police flanked by his two ever-present corporals. The bantam captain was barely the minimum height for trooper requirements, but this deficit was overcome by his barrel chest, which gave him a top-heavy appearance that created a rooster-like strut to his walk.

‘Uh oh,’ Sarge said as he slid from the booth. He had been present during past confrontations between the two brothers-in-law and the results were not conducive to a happy hour.

‘You had better hope you never see that Dirk kid again,’ Norbert continued. ‘His mama called the barracks with mucho complaints re certain people’s perverted habits. What’s wrong with you, Rock? Pedophilia your bag this month?’

Rocco exploded from the booth followed by quick intervening movements from Lyon and the two corporals. The large police chief grabbed the captain’s neck with one hand while his other ham-like fist was cocked for a devastating blow. Lyon stepped in front of the fist while the corporals pulled their superior officer away from the line of attack.

‘He’s gone too far this time,’ Rocco said. ‘He’s getting a snootfull.’ He tried to slide around Lyon, who sidestepped with him.

‘Knock it off,’ Lyon said.

Norbert shrugged off the corporal’s restraining hands, but made no threatening moves toward Rocco. ‘All right, I headed Big Mama off at the pass this time, but you’re on the edge of trouble, Herbert. When I talked to the Dirk woman she didn’t have anything specific against you except that you were terrorizing her kid. She’s not pursuing the matter at this time because I gave my word that you won’t bother the kid again. Got me, Rocco? Don’t get within a quarter of a mile of that kid. In fact, stay away from the whole family.’

‘That boy is a possible material witness to a murder,’ Rocco snapped. ‘I can’t stay away from him.’

‘The kid has an active imagination and lies,’ Lyon said. ‘There’s no telling what he’s told his mother.’

Norbert cast a venomous glare at Lyon. ‘You are included in the hands-off policy, Wentworth. Not that I give a shit about protecting your ass, but I made a package deal, so that includes you. Got me, you two? No kiddy interviews. And stay away from cemeteries. The ME called me all pissed about that exhumation of Bill Tallman. The congressman had arteries that were clogged like the interstate on Christmas Eve. His ticker just blew.’

Bea wanted to stomp a foot but considered the gesture a trifle over-dramatic. ‘No way,’ she said. ‘I am a civilian. I am worse than an ordinary citizen in that I am a politician. I am not a police officer. I am not a constable. I am not suited to talking to obnoxious children whose mother hates us.’

‘Why don’t you call Rebba Dirk and tell her that you have important information for her?’ Lyon suggested.

‘What information?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll think of something before you have to go.’

‘Sometimes you take me for granted, Wentworth.’

‘But of course. That’s one of the advantages of long-term relationships.’

‘OK,’ Bea said in resignation. ‘Fill me in.’

Fifteen minutes later Bea made the phone call. Lyon sat in the living room sipping sherry as she used the kitchen phone. He could not hear her words from this distance, but he could read his wife’s body language. She started out with a smile that merged into a half frown which gradually changed into a full frown. When she started making expansive political-type gestures, he knew she was in the final rounds of a hard sell to convince Rebba. She finally hung up and returned to the living room.

‘Well?’ Lyon asked.

‘She finally agreed to talk to me and me alone,’ Bea said. ‘That is if I bring her a check for eighty-two dollars for some pellet gun you wantonly destroyed.’

‘The kid was going to kill an eagle so I threw it in the river. By the way, he told me it cost forty-two dollars.’

‘Another forty for the insult,’ Bea said. ‘I hope this meeting is worth the better part of a hundred dollars to you and Rocco.’

Patrolman Jamie Martin’s short suspension was over and he was grateful for the opportunity to hand the breakfast tray through the bars to Skee Rumford. The holding cell’s prisoner sat on the edge of the bunk and balanced the tray on his knees as he wolfed down the food.

‘We’ll take you over to the court house in Middleburg for arraignment about nine this morning. They’re only going to charge you with assault and attempted rape so you don’t have to worry about the murder charges yet.’

‘Thanks a million,’ Skee mumbled through a mouthful of egg.

Jamie shifted from one foot to the other. ‘Gee, Skee, you’ve got a rep in this town for being a master swordsman. Why did you put the arm on Lori? You never had to resort to that stuff before.’

‘I never got turned down by a girl I’d already boffed.’

‘She didn’t want to do it where Boots died, right?’

‘I guess. A lot of broads would have got turned on just thinking about it, but not Lori. I should have known. She’s one of those broads that think they’re going to save the world.’

‘My girl’s like that,’ Jamie said. ‘I’m getting married in October to Jeannie Dockery.’

‘Great hooters.’

‘She won’t do it, Skee.’

‘So, you’ll get it in October.’

‘I know that, but in the meanwhile she’s driving me nuts. She does everything but go all the way. I can’t stand it.’

‘Talk to her about it. She’ll put out if she has to.’

‘I did. We have talked, but she still won’t.’

‘Have you, like we used to say in junior high school, gotten to third base?’

‘Third base, hell! I’m practically sliding into home plate, but then a wall crashes down and she stops.’

Skee finished his meal and rubbed his hands along the seams of his chino pants. He slid the tray out through the aperture in the bars. ‘That’s a problem I don’t run into. If I get a girl to go that far she’s at the point where she begs for it. Of course, you have to know what to do. You have to be professional about it.’

‘Professional?’

‘Hell, yes. None of this second or third base kiddy stuff. This is the real thing, this is going for the gold.’

‘Is there something special you do?’

‘For God’s sake, Jamie. You have to know about the spot.’

‘What spot?’

‘That really turns them on. You get to there and you’re not only home free, you’re planted in their dugout.’

‘I still don’t understand.’

Skee approached the cell door and stood with his hands hanging by his sides. He seemed to be considering something. He raised one hand and balled it into a fist. ‘Now, look carefully at my hand and pretend—well, just pretend. I’m going to show you exactly what to do to really score. She’ll beg you for it.’

‘Beg?’

‘Cry for it. Now look carefully.’

Jamie bent over to look into Skee’s right hand while the left snaked through the bars and clutched his neck.

Fourteen

Rocco poured coffee from his battered Mr. Coffee machine. He handed Lyon a mug. They sipped the strong brew.

‘Bea’s going to see Rebba and Edward Dirk later today,’ Lyon said. ‘She’s good at that kind of interview.’

‘You’re still convinced the kid saw something?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘My prime suspect is sitting in our holding cell. In a couple of minutes we’re taking him to Middleburg for arraignment.’

‘Murder one?’ Lyon asked.

‘Not yet. There’s still a few unanswered questions. We have him firm on the attempted rape and assault charges, so that will hold him awhile. I’d like you to drive over with us and give the state’s attorney a deposition on what you saw when Lori charged out of the woods,’ he said as he led Lyon down the hall.

Rocco clenched the bars in front of the holding cell. ‘I do not believe what I am seeing. Please tell me this is a practical joke.’

The twisting man on the cell’s metal bunk mumbled through his gag. He rocked back and forth within the limited mobility allowed by his bound hands and feet. Rocco unlocked the door and ripped the tape from Jamie’s mouth.

‘Ow! That hurt, Chief.’

‘I wish it had been a guillotine,’ Rocco said as he cut the bindings with a penknife. ‘How long ago did this happen?’

‘Maybe like an hour.’

‘I’ll tell them to start a search,’ Lyon said as he rushed for the corridor.

‘A couple of guys ought to be writing shift reports in the ready room,’ Rocco yelled after him before turning back to Jamie. ‘All right, duck butter, tell how this came down.’

Jamie was gone when Lyon returned ten minutes later. Rocco sat on the bunk glowering at the blank wall. He looked up with half a hope. ‘Any luck?’

‘No. Sergeant Niles organized an immediate search of the neighborhood. Martin’s moped was stolen and there’s no trace of Skee.’

‘Glad about the moped. At least Jamie will suffer more than just a suspension.’

‘I hate to suggest it, Rocco, but you have to get rid of that officer. I don’t think he is constitutionally equipped for police work. He’s the one that brought Mead’s vestments, he lost his service revolver, and now he’s allowed Skee to escape. You owe it to yourself and the town to stop this aggravation.’

Rocco shook his head. ‘Can’t. Nepotism rules. Jamie is a Martin. My mother was a Martin. Jamie’s dad was my uncle, who was chief here when I joined the force after the service. I learned most of what I know from Thadeus Martin.’

‘Wasn’t he killed on duty?’

‘Shot to death over a stolen tire. A young punk stole a tire from the front of Mac’s Sunoco in full view of Mac. Uncle Tad went out to the kid’s house to bring him in. He was going up the walk with his service revolver still in its holster when a shotgun blast nearly blew him in two. He died in my arms after I promised him that I would put Jamie on the force and look after him. Jamie’s got normal intelligence, but he doesn’t think things through. I once thought of putting him in charge of the school crossing guards, but I didn’t want to jeopardize the children.’

Rebba Dirk sat in a straight chair on one side of the sofa. Bea occupied its twin on the other side. The two women triangulated the ten-year-old boy who sat between them at the center of the sofa.

‘I believe you have some money for us,’ Rebba said.

Bea handed her the check. ‘You said eighty-two dollars for the pellet gun Lyon threw in the river.’

The other woman verified the amount and placed the check on the coffee table in front of her son. ‘You can purchase a new gun tomorrow, Edward.’

‘Under the circumstances, are you sure that’s a good idea?’ Bea asked.

‘I believe I know how to raise my son, Mrs. Wentworth. I wish you would inform your husband that I have made a formal complaint to the Big Buddy organization. I will not have your husband in the proximity of my son. I suspect that they will rule him ineligible for any further assignments.’

Bea clenched her teeth to stifle a nasty reply. ‘Be that as it will, Mrs. Dirk. I have come to ask your son about what he might have seen in the state forest.’ She retrieved a large envelope that leaned against her chair leg. She opened it and pulled out several large photographs: a clown in a dunce cap, an eighteenth-century English grenadier, and the Pope in full vestments. They weren’t exactly what she wanted to convey, but under hurried circumstances they were the best she could assemble. ‘Edward, I am going to show you pictures of three men in pointy hats. I want you to look carefully at them and tell me if the man you saw in the forest wore one like it.’ She handed the pictures to the boy.

Edward studied the photographs intently for a moment before he pointed to one in horror. ‘That’s him! That’s the same man who came to the forest. He killed the woman and laughed when she tried to crawl away. Mama!’ He ran to his mother, who threw her arms protectively around him. ‘Mama, I’m scared. The bad man is going to get me.’

Rebba glared at Bea over her son’s shoulder. ‘Now you see what your husband and his friend have done. Do you see the terror they created?’ She held the boy tightly while she crooned to him. ‘There, there, little boy, Mommy will protect you. The mean people will not get you.’

Bea waited until the sun was over the yardarm and Lyon had completed his day’s writing before she mixed their first drink. In his case, since he drank only Dry Sack sherry, little mixing was required. She didn’t speak until Lyon was settled in his favorite chair and had taken the first sip of sherry.

She raised her manhattan in toast. ‘To Edward Dirk, boy-wonder witness, who has positively identified Pope John Paul II as the killer of Boots Anderson.’

Lyon took another sip. ‘Really? Not often you get a Pope as a serial killer, particularly one with health problems.’

‘Wearing full papal regalia, too,’ Bea added. ‘Where do you go from here?’

‘Are you sure he didn’t name the Dalai Lama as an accessory?’

‘I’m sure he would have done if I’d stuck around, but the witness’s mother made me leave.’

‘That leads us to Skee, master of sex and jail break, as the prime suspect.’

‘How about none of the above?’ Bea added.

‘A possibility,’ Lyon said. ‘I think early tomorrow morning would be a good time for a hot-air balloon think.’

Bea groaned when the small alarm clock on the bedside table went off at six A.M. She pulled a pillow over her head with one hand while the other groped for the timepiece. The rings stopped when she mashed down the proper button.

‘Too late,’ Lyon said. ‘I heard it.’

‘Go back to sleep,’ she mumbled. ‘There’s a forty-mile-an-hour wind that would destroy your balloon.’

‘I’ve already checked with the coastguard weather service and the day is forecast as mild with winds from the east at six miles an hour.’ He dressed quickly, looking forward to the balloon trip.

A half-hour later they drove the ancient pickup loaded with balloon equipment from the barn. In the nearby field they lowered the tailgate and began to unload.

Working as a well-trained team, they unrolled the envelope along the ground. They aligned its bottom aperture with the passenger basket, which now lay on its side. When the balloon was properly spread, Lyon hooked a power fan to the truck battery and directed its cool air flow into the balloon opening. As air filled the envelope the balloon began to bulge but not to rise. He walked inside the envelope to make a preflight check of all seams and emergency lines.

When he was satisfied with the state of the interior he lit the pilot light of the propane burner mounted on the top bar of the passenger basket. When he pulled the ignition lanyard the burner whooshed and began to heat the air inside the envelope. The balloon seemed to come alive as it slowly started to rise.

Bea tethered the mooring line to a metal stake encased in a concrete base. The huge black balloon, with WOBBLY II stenciled on its side, majestically filled the yard at Nutmeg Hill.

‘Stay away from the Congregational church steeple,’ Bea said.

‘Got to. The volunteer fire department refuses to get me down anymore.’

Lyon climbed into the wicker basket. He checked the three instruments: a variometer, which indicated up and down movement; a pyrometer, which gave a reading of the envelope’s internal temperature; and an altimeter, which registered changes in air pressure to provide altitude in feet.

‘Ready in the gondola?’ Bea yelled up at him.

‘Gondolas are aluminum; this is a wicker basket,’ Lyon mumbled. They had discussed this proper nomenclature dozens of times. He had the vague feeling that she mixed the terms deliberately to tweak him. He gave another long propane burn and felt the balloon strain on the tether line. ‘Let her go!’ he yelled.

Bea slipped the rope from the mooring post as Lyon wound it into the basket. The balloon bobbed into the air.

The craft’s upward momentum slowed at 1200 feet. He had a panoramic view of the river valley with its high bluffs bracketing the meandering Connecticut River. Nutmeg Hill, on its high perch above the river, was directly below him. The balloon began slowly to drift west over the state forest.

As always, Lyon was amazed at the sense of freedom these flights created. Balloons and gliders were the nearest man could come to the free flight of birds.

It wasn’t a new sport. In 1783 the Montgolfier brothers had provided a hot-air balloon for a Paris exhibit. Major Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes had ascended majestically in full view of 400,000 Frenchmen and one American: Benjamin Franklin. Ironically, it was only a few months later that the major became ballooning’s first fatality when he attempted to cross the English Channel.

Lyon reached for the propane burner lanyard and gave it a short jerk. The loud whoosh was startling after a period of such quiet. Silence returned when the burn was complete.

This was his time to think. These trips, so removed from day-to-day cares, provided a mental focus that he often used to solve problems.

The balloon’s gentle drift followed the course of the Connecticut River and the adjoining sliver of state forest that ran for several miles along the river bank.

Lyon reviewed the murder suspects. The deceased canon Mead MacIntire seemed the prime candidate. He was connected with all the dead women. Incoherent as they may have been, he had made several confessions. He admitted a physical relationship with the escort girl. The church secretary had been stealing from his church for years, and he had a counseling relationship with Boots Anderson. He was a repressed man whose sexual desires might have exploded into violence.

Skee Rumford’s jail escape seemed to shout guilt. He had been Boots’ lover, knew Ashley, and had a vague connection with the church secretary. His assault on Lori Wappinger certainly indicated violent tendencies. Skee also had a relationship with Mildred, who had good cause to wish for her husband’s removal.

Spook loomed over the crimes like a malevolent presence. He was addled, and although usually harmless, the veteran’s ghosts or delusions of threat might have returned him to violence.

Edward Dirk had seen something in the forest. Something lurked under his lies about a man in a pointy hat. What had the boy seen? How could they get a truthful statement from him?

For a moment, what Lyon saw didn’t register. He was leaning over the edge of the basket gazing casually down at the forest when something sped toward him. He recognized an arrow as it swerved toward the balloon and buried itself in the envelope.

He glanced up in alarm. While he watched, a second arrow followed the same trajectory and punctured the balloon a few feet from the first.

Lyon grabbed the suspension ring that supported the basket. He pulled himself up to the rim. His shifting weight caused it to tilt precariously. He climbed higher until he stood on the ring, but he was not able to reach the arrow shafts.

A third arrow punctured his right forearm. The searing pain caused that hand to slip from its grip on the ring. He dangled over the basket 1200 feet above the river.

He groaned in pain. Swinging his body in a pendulum motion until it was directly over the basket, he released his grip and fell to its floor.

He groaned again as he yanked the arrow bolt from his flesh.

Another arrow easily found its oversize target. Lyon gripped the rim of the basket with his uninjured hand to pull himself erect. The balloon, without a recent propane burn, was beginning to cool. As the temperature dropped it began to sink at an alarming rate. The lower the balloon descended, the easier the target.

He risked an additional wound by exposing himself to yank on the propane lanyard. A satisfying burner whoosh heated the envelope interior and gradually slowed the descent.

Lyon examined the punctures in the balloon made by the arrow bolts. The holes were too small to cause a critical loss of buoyancy. There was little actual damage.

It was entirely possible that the archer had a confused conception of balloons. Many people lumped dirigible, fixed, and hot-air balloons in the same category. The films of the flaming Hindenburg dirigible burning to cinders at its mooring post was etched on many people’s memory, regardless of age. The fact was that the Hindenburg carried pockets of hydrogen gas, which were highly flammable when punctured or sparked. Modern fixed balloons or dirigibles carried the nonflammable helium. Hot-air balloons stayed aloft simply because warm air was lighter than ordinary air. All the punctures in the world would not cause a fire.

There was no forward progress. The balloon hovered as motionless as a wind-becalmed sailboat. There was nothing he could do about forward momentum. The only control he could exert on the craft was vertical. He could ascend or descend, but lateral movement was completely dependent on the wind.

And his assassin waited below.

There was an audible hiss from the exterior of the basket. It took only moments to determine that an arrow had separated the rubber propane tube that led to the burner from the nipple of its storage tank. His supply of propane was hissing away into the atmosphere.

The gauge on the tank indicated that it was nearly empty. He quickly reattached the burner line to the tank and stopped the escaping gas. The wind would eventually push him away from this area, possibly to the safety of the other side of the river. However, the huge loss of propane might not allow the necessary time for the wind to return.

He was sinking. A glance at the rapidly shifting numbers on the pyrometer and altimeter indicated that the air within the envelope had cooled and the balloon was going down.

His attacker would notice the huge balloon’s descent. He would have the perfect opportunity to shoot again. Lyon would be an easy target when the balloon landed or, as was more likely over a forest, when it crashed into the trees.

He was afraid to present another choice target by leaning over the edge of the basket to check his position. He attempted to estimate his exact position by sightings across the river. His intimate knowledge of the area verified the fact that he was descending directly into the heart of the state forest.

With the small amount of remaining propane, he attempted to give short burns in order to descend in an orderly step-like manner. A few feet above treetop level the propane burner sputtered out. He was out of fuel.

Lyon braced as the basket crashed into the top of a tree. He immediately pulled the ripping panel to spill the remaining air from the envelope so he would not be pulled along the treetops. The balloon bag settled over the wicker basket, which was now firmly wedged in the top of a tree.

An angry eagle circled overhead.

Fifteen

Lyon lay on his back with his feet braced against the side of the balloon basket. His right hand clutched a four-foot length of branch he had broken from a limb that pierced the wicker. He had sharpened one end to a point with his Swiss Army knife. The knife was still in his left hand with its longest blade open. Because he would be vulnerable as he climbed down from the tree, his assailant would wait below for him to descend. As time passed and nothing happened, his curiosity would be overwhelming. The attacker would be forced to inspect the wreckage to see if Lyon were dead or injured.

He was neither. The balloon’s tree crash had been jarring, but did not cause injury. He was now forced to play a waiting game, since any attempt to reach the ground would be catastrophic. Eventually a curious face would peer over the edge of the basket. His only chance was a spear lunge toward that face followed by a slashing knife attack.

‘Anyone up there? Hello in the balloon! Anyone there?’ a voice shouted from below. After a few moments without a response there was the sound of exertion, rustling leaves, and the occasional crack of a small limb. Someone was climbing the tree.

Lyon gripped his weapons. He would not cower in the basket and allow his attacker to casually pump arrow bolts into him. He would probably not win, but would make a fighting attempt to save his life.

A pale face appeared over the rim of the basket. Lyon thrust the spear directly toward the man’s throat.

At the last moment he recognized the lopsided grin, now merging into a grimace of terror, as belonging to patrolman Jamie Martin. Lyon was able to deflect his thrust slightly so that the spear imbedded itself in the basket’s wicker, inches from the officer’s body.

‘Jeez! Watch it, will you, Mr. Wentworth?’ The face disappeared as Jamie clambered down the side of the tree.

‘What in the hell’s going on up there?’ Rocco boomed from below.

‘He tried to stick me like a pig!’ Jamie yelled.

Lyon peered over the edge of the basket with relief. ‘Is anyone else down there?’

‘Nope. But we did find this,’ Rocco said as he held a crossbow over his head. ‘Someone taking shots at you?’

‘Something like that,’ Lyon said as he began the tricky climb from the tree.

‘Bea saw you go down from Nutmeg Hill and called us,’ Rocco said.

‘How in the hell am I going to get my stuff down now that the volunteer fire department won’t help?’

‘Why don’t you just leave it? The basket would make a fine eagle’s nest,’ Rocco said. ‘Hey, what happened to your arm?’

‘The archer took more than just potshots at the balloon. Some of those bolts were meant for me.’

Rocco looked contemplatively at the crossbow. ‘The last time I saw one of these was in …’

‘Spook’s tree house,’ Lyon said.

‘They called him the bowman in Nam. The silent killer, the noiseless special ops assassin.’

‘Is he alive?’ Bea’s voice came from behind a thicket a few feet away.

‘Mostly,’ Lyon answered. ‘Thanks for calling Rocco.’

Bea circled around the underbrush. ‘You know, Wentworth, if we ever divorce it will be over stuff like this. I am not a happy camper when I watch my husband drop out of the sky over a forest near a cliff above a river.’

‘This didn’t help any,’ Rocco said as he showed her the crossbow. ‘Our guy, Spook or whoever, took a few shots at Lyon with this thing.’

‘The “guy” part is sexist,’ Bea said. ‘With a device like that, a hundred-pound woman could have loaded, cocked, and fired those arrows. No upper-body strength is needed when you can arm it by winding the ratchet. Now, let’s do something about that wound.’

In Lyon’s study at Nutmeg Hill, Rocco attached a VCR to a small television and loaded it with the bank robbery surveillance film. Lyon wheeled in a blackboard and began to diagram First Federal’s lobby.

Bea was on the phone at the desk. ‘I’m telling you, Gus, there is no way we can get that thing out of the trees without the help of the volunteer fire department … No, of course he’s not still in it … What do you mean, too bad? If a cat was up there you’d rescue it … Oh, you don’t do cats anymore either … OK, Gus, a donation to the volunteer fire department retirement fund. How much?’

Lyon paused in his diagraming to hold up a single finger. Bea retaliated by holding up five. Lyon groaned while Rocco laughed.

‘Thank you, Gus,’ Bea said. ‘The check will be in the mail.’

Lyon finished his diagram. He had drawn in the counter and room dividers with circles to represent the tellers, other bank personnel, and customers. ‘Run the tape, Rocco.’

‘I would like to remind you two that this film brings back bad memories. I sat on an inner tube for a long time after this little episode.’ The TV flickered until the tape began.

‘Three tellers behind the counter,’ Rocco announced in a monotone.

On the far right were the four bank officials at their desks. The teller to the right had a line of customers that consisted of Skee Rumford, Mead MacIntire, followed by Eddy and Mildred Rashish. Spook, clutching his disability check, was first in line at the left-hand teller. Judge Styles was behind Spook, while an unidentified man and woman were in front of the center teller.

‘That’s Rebba Dirk at the deposit slip counter,’ Bea said.

‘Enter bank robber Wiff Stamen holding a pistol and wearing a ski mask,’ Rocco said.

They watched in thoughtful silence as the drama repeated itself. Wiff threatened the teller and then whipped off his mask in an act of bravado. He ordered everyone to the floor and they obeyed as if poleaxed.

Rocco entered the bank. He dropped to one knee and the short gunfight began.

Rocco bent over Wiff as he handcuffed the wounded man.

‘Run that back,’ Lyon asked. ‘Start when you come through the door. Do we have a different camera angle?’

‘We got angles up the spangles,’ Rocco said as he fast-forwarded the film to another preselected position.

When the frames began again they had a better view of the weapon as it fell from Wiff’s fingers and slid across the floor.

‘It went to the left,’ Bea said. ‘Toward Rebba Dirk at the deposit slip counter and near where Skee dropped down at Wiff’s order.’

‘It comes around to Skee, doesn’t it?’ Rocco said. ‘But you know, we never did identify that man and woman in front of the center teller. Needless to say, I was occupied with taking down Wiff and later on the wound in my backside. The unknown couple must have slipped out before the back-up cars arrived.’

‘They could have actually been in on the hold-up,’ Lyon mused.

Rocco nodded. ‘It’s possible, although we never could get Wiff to implicate anyone else. What was it you said out at the state forest about a woman and the crossbow?’ Rocco asked Bea.

‘That a slender woman could have fired the thing as easily as a man.’

‘True,’ Rocco agreed, ‘but assuming that Rebba did get Wiff’s gun, which has been identified as firing the murder shots, why would she? What possible motive would she have to kill a teenager, a whore, and a church secretary?’

‘I think we have a division of labor here,’ Lyon said. ‘Rocco locates Skee, while Bea and I make a valiant attempt to interview Edward Dirk and his mother.’

At the Dirk home Lyon let Bea take the lead.

The two women were of equal height and build. Their personalities were entirely different except for their mutual stubbornness.

Rebba stood rigidly in the doorway. The door was only open as far as the safety chain would permit. ‘You cannot come in. I thought I made that quite clear the last time you were here.’

‘We must talk to your son,’ Bea countered strongly.

‘I consider this harassment. If need be, I will get a court order. For some reason, the Big Buddy organization poisoned your husband against Edward. You all seem to have this obscene desire to frighten him.’

‘Oh, Rebba, stop that,’ Bea said. ‘You know it’s not true.’

‘I warned you. I’m going to close and lock this door and then call Judge Styles to get me a court order.’

She tried to slam the door. Bea winced as it crashed against her foot.

Lyon wondered if he should tell this stubborn woman that Judge Styles had decided to take up permanent residence in the Murphysville Nursing Home.

‘Let me tell you something, Rebba Dirk,’ Bea said in a low voice. Lyon recognized the tone. It was usually reserved for political opponents who were treading on one of her cherished ideals or projects. ‘I am chair of the State Senate Social Services Committee,’ Bea continued. ‘If you do not let us in, I will make a phone call to the commissioner. Within the hour you will be swamped by hordes of social workers armed with all sorts of legal documents. Believe me, Rebba, one thing you never want is to be attacked by social workers investigating the welfare of a child. Not in my state, you don’t.’

Rebba blinked. Edward hovered in the background. Her voice changed slightly, preparing to negotiate. ‘Why are you so concerned about this?’

‘Someone tried to kill my husband today,’ Bea said. ‘And for obvious reasons that pisses me off.’

‘I can understand that. But what does that have to do with Edward?’

‘Your child saw something in the woods the day Boots Anderson was killed.’ Bea held up an envelope of suspect photographs. ‘We think he saw who did it.’

‘It frightens him to talk about it. You saw how scared he gets.’

Bea waved the envelope of pictures. ‘Give us five minutes. We want to see if he recognizes any of these men.’

Rebba seemed to be pondering the balance of an invasion by social workers versus her son’s possible fright. She evidently decided against the social workers and the chain fell away from the door. ‘Five minutes. Not a second more. Edward is extremely sensitive, so try and not frighten him.’ She opened the door and stood aside. ‘What happened to your arm, Mr. Wentworth?’

‘It’s from an incident earlier today.’

‘Someone shot him with a crossbow,’ Bea said.

‘A crossbow?’ Rebba Dirk drew out the words as if their origin was from some strange and exotic language. ‘A crossbow?’ she repeated.

Edward retreated before them. He went around the couch and stood with his back against the wall. He clutched a paper bag with both hands.

‘Where is the crossbow you bought with the money Mrs. Wentworth gave you for your pellet gun?’ Rebba asked.

‘I don’t have it.’

‘What happened to it?’

‘A man saw me shooting cats and took it away from me.’

‘We can make him pay us for it, Edward,’ Rebba said. ‘You know how hard money is to come by. We can get him to pay for it just like the Wentworths did for your pellet gun.’

‘He already paid me for it.’

‘Oh? How much did he pay you?’ Rebba asked.

Edward stepped around the couch and emptied his pockets on the cushions. Handfuls of First Cavalry Division patches covered the seat. ‘The man who lives in the tree gave me these for the crossbow.’

Bea spread the enlarged police mugshots over the patches. ‘Which one of these is the man who lives in the tree?’ She did not look at the pictures to avoid leading his answer. She knew that Spook’s photograph was the second from the left.

‘This one,’ Edward said without hesitation as he picked up Skee Rumford’s picture.

Skee turned over in bed and brushed at the object pressed against his cheek. ‘Come on,’ he mumbled without opening his eyes. ‘Give me a couple of minutes’ sack time and we’ll rock and roll again.’

‘Time to get up, duck butter,’ Rocco said softly as he pressed the barrel of his service revolver deeper into the young man’s cheek.

Skee’s eyes snapped open to stare into Rocco’s hovering face. ‘Oh, shit!’ he mumbled.

‘You aren’t exactly a rocket scientist when it comes to evasion, are you?’ Rocco said. ‘With you a getaway means a quick jump into some woman’s bed. It was only a question of figuring out which girlfriend.’

‘How’d you know who?’

‘Let’s just say that the widow Mildred was high on my list.’

Awakened by Rocco’s voice, Mildred opened her eyes. She saw the pistol and screamed. It was a loud piercing yell that startled both men. Rocco stepped away from the bed.

‘Get him, Skee!’ Mildred screeched. ‘Beat him up!’

‘For God’s sake, woman!’ Skee said. ‘The man has a gun. He is, like, nine feet tall, and he is the man. What do you want me to do, knock him out with my dong?’

Rocco shook his head as she sat up. ‘Mildred, Mildred, you have harbored a fugitive, which is not a very bright thing to do. Both of you, get your clothes on. We’re taking a trip to my office and we will not pack a picnic lunch.’

It was another half-hour before he had them dressed and delivered to police headquarters. He turned Mildred over to a policewoman for processing and booking. Rocco took Skee into his office and shoved him down on the couch. He turned on his small tape recorder and placed it on the edge of the desk.

‘Have you ever heard the rumor that I am not a very nice person?’

Skee shrugged. ‘Any cop as big as you gets that word out and around.’

Rocco nodded. ‘As it should be. Now, you must understand my position with you. I am very embarrassed. Not only have you escaped my jail, but people are getting killed in my town. Three women have been shot, and in one way or another, you are connected with each of them.’

‘I didn’t kill them.’

‘I figure you were out in the woods with Boots Anderson.’

The prisoner stared ahead without answering.

‘Have they ever told you what I do in here when I desire the cooperation of my … guests?’

‘No.’

‘Imagine my methods. Just let your imagination run wild. However, I shall give you one small hint. I usually let my methods fit the personality of the recipient. Do you understand what I say? In other words, I tailor my doings to your particular circumstance.’

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘Did I say that, duck butter? Just let your imagination run wild and think on what I just said.’

Skee was obviously thinking. His brow furrowed until his hands slowly cupped his testicles as if to protect them from a massive blow.

‘Are you letting your imagination run wild?’ Rocco asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Sir.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Have you anything to tell the good chief?’

‘No.’

‘Think on it some more,’ Rocco said as he stared at Skee’s cupped hands.

After a huge intake of breath, Skee’s words poured out in a jumble. Rocco held up a hand for him to stop and then had him start at the beginning.

‘OK. I was with Boots the day she was killed. She drove out to the state forest before her shift started. I went out there on my motor scooter to meet her. It was a thing with us on nice warm days. We did it, like, lots of times out there. Well, we did it. On the blanket like before. That’s all. And then I left while she was kinda snoozing on the blanket.’

‘Clothed?’

‘She was naked as a jay bird. She liked to sunbathe like that.’

‘When you left she was asleep, naked?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Did you see anyone as you left the state forest?’

‘Only the little kid riding his bike.’

‘What little kid?’

‘The paper boy. You know. The Dirk brat.’

Sixteen

The tableau of adults in the Dirk living room reacted in different ways to Edward’s identification of Skee. Rebba regarded her son with concern. Bea was confused, because Murphysville was a small town. Most residents knew nearly everyone at least by sight. This would be particularly true for an active young boy with a paper route who would certainly be aware of anyone who lived in a tree house.

Lyon rapidly reviewed several alternatives until he reached an inescapable conclusion that had been festering for hours. ‘Tell me about your paper route, Edward.’

‘What does that have to—’ Rebba began until silenced by Lyon’s raised hand.

‘The paper route, Edward,’ Lyon pressed. ‘Tell me now.’ Although the request was delivered in his normal voice, it was an obvious command.

The boy looked at him for a moment before beginning an answer that was delivered with flat effect. ‘They dump a pile of newspapers by our door before I get home from school,’ he began. ‘I fold them for throwing and then load them on my bike carryall. I chuck them at the walk or porch of everyone on my route, except for Friday when I do the collecting.’

‘Tell me about that route,’ Lyon said in a low voice.

Rebba Dirk seemed poised to interrupt, but then fell silent as she gazed intently at her son.

‘The route, Edward?’ Lyon repeated.

The boy’s emotionless delivery was gradually replaced by a creeping nervousness. ‘Ah, well, it goes down this street and then past the Catholic church and then up Beacon.’

‘Saint James is across the street from the Catholic church. Does the office at Saint James get a paper from you?’

‘That lady yelled at me and said I couldn’t just throw it on the stoop like I do with everyone else. I got to go all the way into her office with it.’

‘I see. And then you go down Beacon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ashley Towers lived down that way. Did she get a paper from you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You killed the woman in the forest, didn’t you, Edward?’ Lyon said in a non-accusatory tone.

The boy shook his head violently. ‘No! The man in the picture did it.’ He shook Skee’s mugshot for a moment before he dropped it to grab Spook’s photograph. ‘They wore pointy hats and laughed when she crawled in the dirt.’

‘Which one?’ Bea asked.

‘Both of them. There were two of them. I couldn’t do anything. I’m just a kid.’ He began a deep asthmatic wheezing and looked imploringly at his mother. ‘Mama.’ He clutched his paper bag and dropped the photographs, which fluttered to the floor.

‘You are evil!’ Rebba yelled at Lyon. ‘What possessed you to say such a horrible thing?’

Bea looked at her husband with consternation.

‘You were in the bank during last year’s robbery,’ Lyon said to Edward. ‘We didn’t see you on the film because you weren’t tall enough then to be seen behind the deposit counter.’

‘Of course he was there,’ Rebba said. ‘He was with me. That robbery traumatized him into a terrible asthma attack that nearly killed him. That’s why we don’t need more of this ridiculous business. The whole question of a court order is settled. I’m getting one today!’

‘When the gun slid across the bank, you picked it up,’ Lyon said. ‘Your mother didn’t see you because she was on the floor on the other side of the counter. You shot Chief Herbert and then hid the gun. Perhaps you put it in a book bag or small backpack.’ Edward’s only answer was the continuation of his wheezing.

‘You need your inhaler,’ his mother said as she dashed from the room.

‘Today you went to the woods looking for eagles to kill with the crossbow. You saw my hot-air balloon when it was launched from Nutmeg Hill. You thought I was coming to stop your killing, didn’t you?’

For the first time that day the boy’s face became animated as it convulsed into an ugly anger. ‘You had no right to make me stop! They’re just birds. A dead one would have made the biggest grave in my cemetery and you wanted to stop me!’

‘You shot at me with the crossbow,’ Lyon continued. ‘The police found it in the woods where you dropped it when you saw them coming. The police found your fingerprints all over the bow.’ He told the lie in a matter-of-fact manner, which was then verified by the truth in the boy’s face.

Rebba returned in a rush, grasping the white inhaler as if it were a poison antidote. Her son moved away from her as she approached. ‘I don’t want it.’

She took another step toward Edward. ‘You know how …’

‘Be quiet,’ the boy said to his mother in a strange voice that stopped her stock-still.

‘You started out killing small birds,’ Lyon said. ‘Then you graduated to larger pets such as cats and dogs. After you killed one, you took the body to the state forest where you buried it with ceremony in your secret garden.’ He began slowly to close the distance between them. ‘And you had the bank robbery gun hidden away because you knew that one day killing pets wouldn’t be satisfying.’

‘Children don’t murder,’ Bea said. ‘And he’s only a little boy.’

‘But some do,’ Lyon said. ‘Don’t they, Edward?’

‘Yes,’ the boy answered.

‘You killed all three of them, didn’t you?’ Lyon said. ‘You came across Boots in the forest, but the other two were on your paper route.’

‘I went out there to bury a cat and I saw the woman and the guy doing it without any clothes on. When he left on his motor scooter I shot her.’ He put a hand inside the paper bag.

‘Tell me about the red-haired lady called Ashley,’ Lyon said.

‘She used to make me peek at her naked, and then she’d laugh and call me the town’s littlest pervert. She didn’t laugh when I shot her.’

‘And the lady at the church?’

‘She was always getting me in trouble by complaining to the newspaper that I was late or cheating on the money.’

‘He couldn’t shoot arrows at you,’ Rebba implored. ‘He might try, but he would never be able to hit anything with a crossbow.’

Edward glared at his mother. ‘I can. The man in the tree house who gave me the patches showed me how to work it. He said I was good. He said I could kill people with it when I was grown. He said I could go in the army and shoot people with a gun or arrows just like he did. That’s why I gave them all an army patch. That way they’d think some army guy was doing it and not me.’

A car screeched to a halt in the drive. Bea glanced out the window to see Rocco hurry toward the house.

‘The gun’s in the bag, isn’t it?’ Lyon said.

Rebba stared blankly at her son with a look that slowly changed to mounting horror. She dropped the inhaler and folded her arms tightly across her chest to begin a muted cry: ‘No, no, no.’

‘You have the gun in there?’ Lyon repeated.

‘Want to see it?’ Edward snatched the small handgun from the bag.

‘Everybody down!’ Rocco boomed from the doorway.

Lyon and Bea dove for the floor. Rebba remained standing while she rocked slowly back and forth.

‘Drop it!’ Rocco ordered.

Edward smiled at the police chief. ‘You are very big. You will need two.’ He fired twice, hitting Rocco both times in the center of the chest. The large police officer had reflexively drawn his weapon as he fell, but it slithered from his hands as he collapsed.

‘Your turn, Big Buddy,’ Edward said as he turned to Lyon.

‘Oh, my baby,’ Rebba said. ‘Let’s do your inhaler and you’ll feel better.’

‘No, thank you, Mommy. I am going to shoot Mr. Wentworth.’

‘No!’ Bea was on her knees, holding Rocco’s large handgun in her right hand while her left steadied her wrist. ‘Drop the gun and go to your mother,’ she said softly.

Edward smiled again. ‘I am going to shoot my Big Buddy in the head. Then I am going to shoot you in the tummy and watch you crawl.’ He placed the barrel of the revolver against the side of Lyon’s head.

‘Please …’ Bea wailed.

‘With sugar on it?’

‘Please with sugar on it, yes, yes, yes,’ Bea said.

‘Too bad,’ Edward Dirk said as he smiled at Bea one last time. His finger tightened on the trigger.

‘God help me,’ Bea whispered as she fired.

Epilogue

At the bar cart in the living room of Nutmeg Hill, Lyon poured a pony of Dry Sack sherry and a tall vodka. He handed Rocco a drink as they sat at opposite ends of the couch.

Rocco raised his glass in toast. ‘To everyone’s recovery.’

‘Skol,’ Lyon said. They drank. ‘You’re a lucky man, Rocco. Not many cops would think to wear body armor to arrest a ten-year-old.’

‘The vest never came off that afternoon. I promised Martha I would wear it during anything confrontational. I put it on to bring Skee in and never had a chance to remove it. A protective vest can protect you from a small-caliber weapon, but two shots in the chest is still like getting whacked with a baseball bat.’

Rocco looked out the French doors that led from the living room on to the patio. He saw Bea in the garden below. She held a hoe motionless and seemed to be looking across the river toward the Seven Sister hills.

‘Perhaps there are worse things than bullet wounds,’ Rocco said. ‘How long has she been like that?’

‘Since it happened,’ Lyon answered. ‘She gets up early every morning and puts on her gardening clothes. She doesn’t eat breakfast, but drinks maybe half a cup of black coffee. Then she announces she’s going to work in her garden. She goes outside, gets the proper tools from the shed, and then just stands.’

‘You’ve talked about the shooting? You’ve told her it was inevitable? You’ve explained how inaccurate a handgun is in the hands of anyone but the most accomplished marksman? You’ve explained that her attempted shot at the boy’s arm was too difficult, that it wasn’t her fault that the shot was fatal?’

‘Of course. I’ve gone over all of that a dozen times. She listens, but she doesn’t hear.’

‘Does she cry a lot?’ Rocco asked.

‘I wish to God she did. She hasn’t cried or shown any emotion whatsoever. She didn’t even react to the governor’s call.’

‘I figured the fearless leader would call with condolences,’ Rocco said.

‘She gave that and more. Bea and the governor had a very nasty feud going over Bill Tallman’s death at the inn. The governor was convinced Bea was involved with the congressman. There seemed to be no way to get through to Margaret until the woman who had lunch with Bea that day told the governor the truth of the matter in no uncertain terms. Helena Rabnor may often be a difficult and militant woman, but she doesn’t lie and the governor knew that. It changed things.’

‘Something positive like that should have made Bea feel better,’ Rocco said.

‘I would have thought so, but when she hung up and told me what had been said, she spoke in a flat, unemotional voice as if nothing had happened, or if it had, it didn’t matter.’

‘Do you mind if I talk to her?’ Rocco asked.

‘Give it a try,’ Lyon said to his friend. ‘I’m really worried about her.’

‘You’re thinking shrinks and Prozac?’

Lyon nodded. ‘We’ve tried that. I’m afraid she’s going to need more than that. We’re getting to the point where we have to seriously consider hospitalization. She can’t continue like this emotionally, and I’m also concerned over her physical health. She isn’t eating enough.’

Rocco finished his drink. ‘I’ll give it a go.’ He walked down the patio steps to the garden. Bea had her back to him. She clutched the hoe in both hands and stared across the river toward the distant hills. He wondered what she was looking at, but when she shuddered he knew what she saw.

‘Beatrice,’ he said softly. ‘You had no choice. There was no decision to be made. You did what had to be done under the circumstances.’

‘He was a child. A little boy,’ she replied without turning. ‘I should have fired at the ceiling to scare him. But I was the frightened one who tried to do an impossible thing. I never should have tried to wound him with such a powerful gun.’

‘He would have killed Lyon, and you next. He was a monster. He was God’s genetic mistake.’

‘I don’t believe that. He could have been helped. He had so much of his life to live. I snatched away that life.’

‘Monsters do happen, Bea. A child can be born physically deformed through some genetic mix-up. The electrical chemistry in Edward’s head was screwed up from the day he was born.’

‘That’s wasn’t for me to decide.’ She turned toward him. Her eyes were cloudy but without tears. She spoke in a flat monotone without feeling or emotion. ‘Do you know why we haven’t executed anyone in this state since Joseph Taborsky in 1960? Partly because of me. I’ve fought executions since I was a child. I lobby against them. I protest against them. I hold vigils against them. If those avenues don’t work, I pester the governor for clemency. Sometimes, if the crime and its perpetrator are heinous enough, I am nearly alone. At other times I am surrounded by legions. I am against capital punishment, Rocco. And yet that day I carried out an execution after unilaterally declaring myself judge, jury, and executioner.’

‘You had no choice. He was going to kill your husband.’

‘Why didn’t you do it? Why didn’t you come into that little house with your gun drawn? By that time you suspected Edward might be the one, and yet you walked in there like you were a school crossing guard about to escort him across the street. We hired you to be our executioner if it were necessary, Rocco. You are our protector who must kill when it is inevitable.’

‘I misread the situation. I’m sorry.’

She turned away to haphazardly chop the ground with her hoe. Rocco stood near her for a few moments before he turned and slowly walked up the steps to the patio.

Lyon stood in the French doors and handed his friend a fresh drink. ‘I heard. You’ll need this.’

Rocco slouched into a chair. ‘I was served with a writ by Skee Rumford’s attorney earlier today. Skee claims that I violated his civil right by forcing him to make a statement. He claims I threatened to put his testicles in a wood vise. Luckily I had a tape-recording of the interview.’

‘Then you didn’t actually say you were going to put them in a vise?’

‘Skee thought I did. In addition to all that, my wife says I drink too much,’ Rocco said as he finished the vodka.

‘There’s an element of truth in that,’ Lyon said. ‘You know, Rocco, I’m concerned that Bea may harm herself.’

‘I’ve never seen her so … Uh oh.’ Rocco pulled his service revolver from its holster as he strode out to the patio. ‘You needn’t worry about Bea hurting herself. I think harm’s way just drove up your driveway.’

Lyon stood by Rocco as they watched Rebba Dirk leave her car and walk toward the unsuspecting Bea. ‘I thought she was in the psycho ward at Middleburg Hospital.’

‘She was,’ Rocco said. ‘But they couldn’t keep her for ever. If that woman makes one quirky move I’m blowing her away. I’m certain that crazy runs in that family.’

When the women were a few feet apart, Bea’s sixth sense made her turn. She raised the hoe across her chest.

Rocco tensed and flipped the safety off his handgun. ‘What do you want, Rebba?’ he called.

‘To talk with Bea,’ she answered without turning.

‘Careful,’ Rocco commanded.

‘It’s all right,’ Bea called, although she did not loosen her grip on the hoe.

‘I do not think I could live knowing he was still alive and locked up for the rest of his life,’ Rebba said. ‘I know he would have been put away. There was no other solution for Edward. I think I’ve known for two years that something was wrong with him. It began when he was eight and his father and I discovered the remains of his pet gerbil that had been … Never mind. I don’t want to go over all that. I ignored the symptoms and built the highest wall of denial that you can imagine. No, I did more than that. I pushed evidence away. I refused to recognize what I was seeing. And worse, I abetted it. I guess I was just about the champion abetter in town.’

Bea took two steps backward without changing her protective stance. ‘What does that have to do with me? Why are you saying this?’

There was a pause as both women, each bound by mutual grief, instinctively moved toward each other. ‘I am telling you that I understand what you had to do,’ Rebba said. ‘I tell you that I forgive you. I forgive you, Bea Wentworth.’

Bea stared at the other woman for long moments until the hoe slipped from her fingers. She took a tentative step forward and then another until they were in each other’s arms. Their keening cries of anguish echoed from the hills.

A startled eagle circled overhead while in Bea a new life fluttered awake.

The police chief holstered his revolver. Both men turned away from the patio without speaking. Rocco knew that he would never tell the recovering women below that after his last shots at him, the small boy had menaced them with an empty gun.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries

One

The sword swept through the air and bit into a tree trunk inches from Lyon Wentworth’s head.

A five-inch wood chip spun away as it was carved from the pine. The sword twisted free and was slowly raised for another thrust. The blade shifted for a vertical blow with enough force to nearly cut him in half.

He threw himself to the side and stumbled backward over a moss-covered boulder. The sword’s downward arc followed his fall. Metal and rock clashed with a clang that echoed through the misty woods.

He lurched to his feet to stumble forward. His breath came in rasping gulps. He ran in a weaving pattern toward the edge of the high promontory a hundred feet above the Connecticut River. He was confused. His vision was faulty, and his legs were leaden and unresponsive. His pursuer moved slowly but persistently forward. It was impossible not to glance back. The approaching figure was an unfamiliar dark hulk in the shadowy woods, but the raised broadsword glinted a refracted moonlight off its blade in diamond-shaped shards of reflection. The medieval weapon made small loops in a nearly ritualistic preparation for the killing thrust. Its next devastating blow would destroy any living thing in its path.

Lyon tripped across an ankle-high root near his right foot. He plunged face forward into the ground. His forehead struck a rock and dozens of black dots swarmed across his vision. His body was drained. His vision clouded as he raised his arms in a futile attempt to ward off the impending sword thrust.

His adversary closed the distance between them. They were now close enough that their feet were nearly touching.

An inappropriate thought surfaced. Historically, men led to the killing block tipped their executioner with gold to assure that the first blow was true and fatal.

The sword glinted in the moonlight as it slowly descended. He tensed in anticipation of the blow. The point sliced through the remains of his shirt.

The light was still too diffuse for him to make out the features of the dark figure looming above him. The only clear object was the broadsword, which sparkled in the dim light that seeped through the leaf cover.

‘Why?’ The word burst forth in an unfamiliar hoarse voice. He could hear the deep breathing of the figure above him, but there was no reply. He tensed again, waiting for the blow.

The apparition disappeared into the darkness as quickly as it had appeared. Lyon grasped a tree limb as he struggled to his feet. He swayed as he tried to focus his eyes. He was dizzy, and disoriented.

He took two steps and pitched forward into the darkness.

Police Chief Rocco Herbert slowed the police cruiser as he turned into the long drive that led to Nutmeg Hill. He unconsciously eased the handgun holstered at his hip an inch or two up and down to confirm that it was seated properly.

Bea Wentworth’s early-morning long-distance phone call to his home had been worrisome. There was more than a hint of concern in her voice, an unusual condition for the usually unflappable state senator.

‘They told me the phones were out of order, Rocco,’ she had said. ‘What bothers me is that I have a second line going into the house for my political calls, and for two phone lines to go out simultaneously doesn’t make sense. If it weren’t for the fact that Morgan is parked in our drive, I’d think the main line to the street was down. You know, Morgan’s been getting those weird threats recently?’

‘I’ve heard about them. He refused the guard the Middleburg Police offered to put at his house. You want me to check it out, Bea?’ he had asked.

‘I’d feel better. Would you mind terribly driving out to Nutmeg Hill on your way to work this morning to make sure everything is all right?’

His first thought had been to dispatch a patrol unit, but a glance at the bedside clock told him that he had time to make the trip himself. He could have coffee with his friend Lyon, and still get to the police station in time for his scheduled meeting with the town’s first selectman. ‘Sure. I’ll be glad to. I’ll leave as soon as I’m dressed. You want I should call you in Washington?’ He picked up the tiny pen attached to the note pad on the night table next to the bed.

‘You can’t,’ she had replied. ‘I’m on the road right now, on my way back to Connecticut. I’d just feel better knowing you were checking things out.’

He pulled the cruiser to a stop immediately behind the RV parked near the home’s front door. He eased from the car with his right hand resting lightly on the butt of his handgun.

The house was quiet. Bea had evidently driven her small sedan to Washington, and the only other vehicle besides the modified Winnebago in the drive was Lyon’s ancient pickup truck, parked by the barn.

He walked slowly around the RV. Lyon Wentworth had told him how Warren Morgan, a professor at nearby Middleburg University, had changed the configurations of the vehicle until it hardly resembled the standard model. The front doors had been strengthened with interior braces and welded shut. All of the windows had been replaced with the special safety glass utilized on armored cars. Steel plates that could be lowered had been mounted over the living compartment windows. A steel shield had been welded under the chassis for added protection. The final result: a vehicle with all the protection of an army tank and the interior comforts of a hedonist’s house trailer.

The only means of access into the vehicle was a single rear door which he pounded on with his fist. Near the door was a lock combination panel. ‘Hey, Morgan! You in there? Anyone in there? Open up! Police!’

No answer.

He repeated the process several times before he shook his head and walked slowly toward the house.

Nutmeg Hill was located on a saucer-shaped promontory that rose a hundred feet above a sharp bend in the Connecticut River. The house was at the apex of this rise and was reached by a winding drive that twisted up from a secondary highway. High stands of pine marched along formal lanes on either side of the lawn. The structural lines of the house were dominated by a widow’s walk that ran the length of the gambrel roof. Leaded glass windows reflected the early sun as it brimmed the hills to the east.

The Wentworths had purchased the property a number of years before. It had originally been constructed in the early nineteenth century by a successful sea captain. After the Civil War, the original family’s fortunes faltered. The house began a slow process of decay until a last surviving spinster moved south and boarded the windows and doors. Vandals and weather hastened further deterioration. Lyon and Bea had discovered the building accidentally while on a walking trip. They had fallen in love with its secluded location and panoramic perch. They finally arranged a purchase through the estate of the deceased spinster. It had taken them years of painstaking labor to refurbish the house.

Rocco noticed that the front door was slightly ajar. As he slow approached it, a wind eddied up from the river and blew the door fully open.

‘Hey, Lyon!’ Rocco yelled. ‘You in there?’

No answer.

He drew the revolver and braced his right wrist with his left hand as he stepped carefully through the doorway.

Police Chief Rocco Herbert was a large man with a craggy face. He was too big to be a professional football linebacker, although a guard or tackle’s position might have been suitable. His six foot six frame carried closer to 300 than 200 pounds. His massive bulk did not slow his reflexes and he could move with a surprising alacrity if the situation warranted.

He went methodically through each of the twelve rooms. They were all unoccupied. The master bedroom was undisturbed, the king-size bed still neatly made. In the adjoining bathroom, he ran his fingers lightly over the surface of the stall shower wall and sink bowl. They were both dry and obviously had not been used since the day before.

His search was complete except for the widow’s walk on the roof. He stood by the narrow door that led to the steps up the walk. In all his years of visits to Nutmeg Hill, he had never been on the widow’s walk. He shrugged. What the hell, there’s always a first time, he thought as he proceeded up the stairs with the service revolver tightly clutched in his hand.

The roof was deserted except for a solitary crow that immediately took flight at his approach. He stood by one of the chimneys and looked out over the side lawns, then toward the tree lines on either side of the house, and finally down toward the river. He saw a small motorboat proceeding downstream and a coastal tanker making its way upstream toward the tank farms near Hartford. In the opposite direction he could see a church spire on the Murphysville town green. The single-story police services building two blocks from the green was obscured by intervening trees, but he knew its exact location by instinct, just as he knew all the dimensions of his domain.

Movement by the edge of the pines to the north attracted his attention.

Lyon Wentworth, hunched and bloody, stumbled toward the house. In one hand he clutched the hilt of a long sword that he dragged across the grass.

‘Lyon!’ Rocco bellowed.

Lyon looked toward the house in a bewildered manner and continued his stumbling forward movement.

Rocco took the stairs two at a time and reached the front door as Lyon lurched through the entryway.

The broadsword clattered to the floor and Lyon leaned against the wall. His breath came in short gasps. It took a few minutes before he registered Rocco’s presence. A half smile of recognition and relief crossed his face. ‘My God, Rocco,’ he said in a choked voice. ‘Something happened to me out there last night and I’m not sure what.’ He stumbled forward and grasped the stair banister with both hands.

Rocco noticed that the touch left bloody prints on the burnished wood. His friend’s torn shirt was covered in blood, with streaks down the length of his khaki pants and across his face.

Rocco overcame his initial surprise and moved quickly to help his friend. He placed his hands on Lyon’s shoulders and gently forced him down until he sat on the steps. ‘Easy now. Do you know where you’re hurt?’

‘No.’

‘I’m concerned about shock.’ He strode down the hall into the living room, where he grasped the edge of a heavy window drape and yanked it from its runners. Bundling the material, he reached through the swinging door into the kitchen and snicked the phone from its wall mount.

‘Damn,’ he said into the dead phone as he recalled that the lines were out. Rocco hurried back to Lyon and began to wrap him in the drape. ‘I’ll get the first-aid kit from the car and radio for an ambulance. Hold on, old buddy, and we’ll pull you through.’

‘I don’t think I’m hurt, Rocco. This isn’t my blood.’

‘You look like a fugitive from a fire fight. Are you sure you’re all right? What in the hell happened?’

‘I’m OK, just dazed,’ Lyon insisted as he unwound himself from the drape and stumbled up the stairs toward the master bedroom.

Rocco followed as his friend stripped off his bloody clothes and dropped them in the center of the bedroom floor. Lyon stepped into the shower and turned the water on full force.

Police Chief Rocco Herbert stared down at the pile of bloody clothing heaped on the floor. He grimaced as he pulled out a mechanical pencil from his breast pocket. He inserted the point under the edge of the torn clothing and gingerly lifted the sport shirt and khaki pants into the acetate evidence bag he always carried folded in a rear pocket.

‘You know, I could send this stuff to the state forensic lab for testing.’ There was no answer from the man in the shower. ‘Do you have any cuts? Perhaps a nosebleed that would account for the blood?’ Still no answer. He sealed the evidence bag and continued staring at it. ‘Can you hear me in there, Lyon? This could be damn important.’

The water was abruptly shut off. Lyon came out of the bathroom wearing a terry-cloth robe and toweling his hair. The shower seemed to have refreshed him to the point where his manner had begun a return to normalcy.

‘There’s not a cut on me except for a bruise on my forehead,’ Lyon said. ‘That isn’t my blood on the clothes.’ He threw the towel toward a hamper in the corner of the bathroom. It missed and draped over the sink, where it hung loosely toward the floor.

‘Then whose blood is it?’

Lyon Wentworth lowered himself on to a straight chair near the mirrored clothes closet, where he dressed in khaki pants and a sports shirt similar to the bloody clothes in the bag at Rocco’s feet. The two men in the bedroom of the house on the promontory high above the Connecticut River were a study in contrast. Lyon was a tall slender man with a shock of sandy brown hair that often fell in an unruly forelock. A children’s book writer, he was well known for the Wobblies, a pair of benign monsters who specialized in adventure and rescue. His fey grin, usually accompanied by a somewhat bemused look, often made him appear distracted.

‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ Rocco snapped.

‘I think I’ve pieced together what happened to me last night,’ Lyon said.

‘Where did you get that gigantic pig sticker you dragged across the lawn?’ Rocco pressed.

Lyon shook his head in a gesture of confusion. ‘It was evidently left by my attacker. The whole bit had the feel of a nightmare, but it was real enough.’

‘Please explain.’

‘Since I dragged the sword home, I obviously wasn’t dreaming. I think I may have been drugged with some sort of hallucinogen.’

‘Tell me what you remember.’

As he finished dressing, Lyon described the attack in the dark by the hooded figure with the sword. ‘I thought I was going to be killed,’ he concluded.

‘And you have no idea who it was?’

‘Its face was obscured by the cowl of the robe.’

‘Could it have been Morgan playing another one of his sadistic games?’

‘Not tall enough for Morgan,’ Lyon responded.

It was Rocco’s turn to shake his head. ‘People running around in the middle of the night waving crusader swords? What is this?’

‘When I woke up, the sword was sticking upright in the ground not ten feet from where I was,’ Lyon said. ‘It was late and dark. Whoever attacked me thought I was Morgan. They pursued me until they discovered at the last moment that I was not Morgan. That’s when they backed off and left the sword and blood as a sign of some sort. If we have the blood tested, I wager it’s not human blood.’

‘Maybe. What about Morgan? Isn’t that his RV in the drive?’

‘He sleeps and eats in there,’ Lyon answered. ‘But the way he’s got that thing constructed, he’s safe enough.’

‘Is he in there now?’

‘As far as I know.’

‘He didn’t open the door for me. When I first arrived, I pounded on the door loud enough to wake the … I think we had better have a look.’

Lyon led the way down the wide stairs to the front door that led into the drive. ‘How about coffee before we wake Morgan up?’

‘Come on! I can’t do anything until I see if that guy is all right.’

‘I guarantee it,’ Lyon said. ‘He gave me the guided tour the other day and I’d feel safe in that RV during a war.’

Rocco circled the Winnebago. ‘Well, I hope so, because I can’t get inside it. I think we had better find out if we have a crime scene here. I checked all the rooms and didn’t find a thing. Was anyone else here overnight?’

‘No. There were a few people over for drinks and barbecue but everyone left except Morgan. He locked himself in his RV fairly early on. Bea’s away at a conference for women legislators in Washington and will be back sometime later today.’

‘I know. She’s concerned about the threats to Morgan and called me at home this morning. She said she’d been trying to get in touch with you for hours, but the phones are out of order.’ Rocco pounded on the side of the RV. ‘Morgan! I kid you not, open the door.’

Rocco appraised the modified RV again. ‘I estimate that doing what he did to this vehicle would have set me back about two years’ salary.’

‘I know the amount of your salary, since it’s in the town’s annual report, so make that about three years’ worth.’

Rocco began to impatiently pound on the side of the Winnebago. ‘Damn it, Morgan! Open this can of tuna fish or you’re getting a citation. You hear me? It’s going to cost you a fine.’

‘Morgan is contrary. He opens up when and if he chooses to,’ Lyon said.

‘Oh, yeah,’ Rocco said with a twinge of anger. ‘Well, I think something’s happened out here. Look at that.’ He pointed to a thin trail of blood across the drive that the sword had left as Lyon dragged it to the house. ‘Something’s damn sure coming down unless you were hunting rodents with that crusader impaler.’

Lyon shook his head. ‘You’re an alarmist. I’m still convinced that’s animal blood meant for a warning. Morgan’s OK unless someone put a lot of pounds of plastic explosives underneath the RV, which they obviously haven’t. He modified the thing for protection and I think he succeeded.’

Rocco stalked around the vehicle as he examined it for damage or means of entry. ‘Hell, I don’t know. Maybe they gassed him through the air vents or something.’

‘He anticipated that possibility and installed an air-filtration system. It’s built into that air-conditioning unit on the roof.’

‘Isn’t there a way to get into this damn thing?’

‘It’s a combination lock and only Morgan and I have the combination,’ Lyon said.

Rocco stopped to glare at his friend. ‘This is all a set-up to get me, right? Crusader swords and impregnable vehicles are Morgan’s idea of funning me, right? Listen, you two wise-guys, I have a meeting with the first selectman in half an hour and she is trying to cut my budget. No more fun and games this morning or I will get really grumpy.’

‘No games, Rocco,’ Lyon said.

‘If you have the combination, open the damn thing. Under the circumstances, I can hardly leave the premises until I am satisfied that Morgan is alive and well.’

Lyon punched two numbers into the combination panel next to the door, cleared them and inserted another set of three. He cleared those and hesitated. ‘I forgot it.’

Rocco pointed to the long sword on the floor just inside the vestibule. ‘You see that thing. Forget your hooded apparitions; I am going to cut your head off with it. You forgot it! Wake up, Lyon!’

‘Come to think of it, I do believe I made a note of the numbers in my study.’

Lyon hurried through the house and into his study down the hall from the kitchen. Sitting at his desk in front of the computer console, he pulled out the secretary drawer. Years ago he had taped a piece of yellow typewriter paper on the pull-out and had made a practice of jotting down serial numbers there that he never seemed able to remember. These included their car and truck marker plate numbers, his social security number, their safe deposit box number, and the other useful numerology of their life. Scrawled in the far right-hand corner was an unlabeled series he had recently written. He remembered the sequence as the RV’s door combination. He glanced at it and hurried back to the drive.

‘Got it,’ he said to Rocco as he punched the numbers into a combination panel to the right of the door. ‘Have it open in a sec.’

The door swung open and Rocco stepped inside and stopped. His body blocked the entrance. ‘Good God!’ he said in a low voice.

‘What is it?’ Lyon asked, suddenly aware of the alarm in his friend’s voice.

Rocco stepped back out of the Winnebago and leaned against the side of the vehicle with both hands pressed against the metal. Lyon started inside until Rocco’s hand grasped his shoulder. ‘Don’t,’ the large chief said. ‘You don’t have to. I do.’

Lyon shook off the restraint and stepped into the RV. Once inside, he saw what Rocco meant. The chief re-entered and stood by his side.

‘He’s been butchered,’ Lyon said.

‘And that sword you dragged across the lawn is what probably did it,’ Rocco said.

‘This is impossible,’ Lyon said in an attempt to deny the undeniable. ‘There was no way for anyone to get inside to do this.’

Two

Lyon Wentworth sat on a wrought-iron chair on the patio by the parapet at Nutmeg Hill. He looked, without seeing, at the hills bracketing the Connecticut River as it wound its way toward Long Island Sound.

‘This is impossible, you know,’ he repeated to Rocco, who sat nearby on the parapet wall. ‘There was no way anyone could get inside that van to murder Morgan.’

Rocco looked past his distraught friend, toward the rapidly filling driveway. The accumulation of cars and vans was in response to his radio call to the town dispatcher. Near the drive entrance a second Murphysville cruiser was parked on the grass while its driver directed traffic at the secondary highway below the house. An ambulance passed several state police cruisers, a state forensics lab truck, and the medical examiner’s car before stopping near the RV. Two uniformed attendants exited the ambulance and casually opened the rear doors to pull out a folded gurney. They weren’t in any hurry, since they knew it was a homicide.

‘You’re the ones who always say there’s an explanation for everything,’ Rocco said as another state police cruiser occupied by two corporals and a captain turned up the drive with an impatient honk. ‘Oh, Christ,’ Rocco mumbled. ‘Here comes my brother-in-law the Lone Ranger with his two Tontos.’

Lyon stood so abruptly that his chair fell backward on the fieldstone with a clatter. ‘There’s got to be a way someone got into that RV and I’m going to find it.’ He started off the patio toward the driveway.

Rocco took two quick strides. His hand curled over Lyon’s shoulder. ‘Let the pros handle it.’

Lyon abruptly halted and turned toward Rocco. ‘Is that a suggestion or a command?’

‘A little bit of both. You can’t go in there now. It’s a crime scene.’

‘Am I allowed back in my own house?’

‘There’s a uniform in the doorway who will keep all unauthorized persons from the premises until it’s released.’

‘You’re beginning to sound like an official manual,’ Lyon said.

‘These guys seem to have a pretty good handle on things,’ Rocco replied. ‘They’ll wrap it up as quickly as possible and depart.’

‘What I’m beginning to wonder,’ Lyon said, ‘is whether I’m going to be required to go with them when they leave.’

‘That depends,’ Rocco replied

Both men watched the medical examiner leave the RV and give the signal to the two ambulance attendants to remove the body. A forensics tech came out the front door, carefully carrying the sword cradled in his arms. He had fashioned a large evidence bag from several smaller ones until the weapon was completely encased in transparent acetate.

Captain Norbert of the state police followed the medical examiner out of the RV. Both men examined the encased sword in the tech’s arms until the doctor gave an affirmative nod.

‘Looks like the sword was it,’ Rocco said softly.

‘If that blood on my clothing matches Morgan’s …’ Lyon left the remainder of the thought unspoken.

Norbert, deep in thought, walked slowly toward the patio steps. He was followed by a corporal. He nodded at Rocco. ‘Chief Herbert.’

‘Captain Courageous, I presume,’ Rocco replied.

‘Cut the crap,’ the captain snapped.

Norbert was a bantam-size man. He had barely qualified for the trooper height requirements, but, as the years passed, he compensated for this lack by increasing the girth of his upper body. He now appeared to be slightly top-heavy. His forward momentum had matured into a minor strut that seemed necessary to propel his pyknic physique forward.

‘Here they are, Captain.’ The second corporal hurried to the captain’s side and handed him the acetate bag containing Lyon’s bloody clothing. Norbert took it with a grimace and thrust it toward Lyon.

‘This your clothing, Wentworth?’

‘Yes.’

Norbert handed the evidence back to the corporal. ‘They tell me you were wandering around the woods carrying that sword.’

‘Yes.’

‘The medical examiner informs me that it might be the murder weapon. Lab tests will or will not confirm that.’ The last remarks were directed directly at Rocco. ‘His prints are probably smeared all over the damn thing.’

Lyon seemed oblivious to the remarks. ‘Since the death threats against Morgan began—’

‘That’s Warren Morgan, the victim,’ Rocco said.

Norbert snapped his fingers and the first corporal began to take rapid notes.

‘Morgan,’ Lyon continued, ‘has recently been living in his recreational vehicle. It’s a radically modified Winnebago. It’s those structural changes that complicate matters.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I was never quite sure what kind of attack he expected,’ Lyon said. ‘He had modified it until the whole thing became a rolling fortress.’

‘There was absolutely no way to get into that vehicle when Morgan had it buttoned up,’ Rocco said. ‘And on the night of his death it was shut up tighter than a Sherman tank. Theoretically there was no way anyone could get in without his permission. And since he always locked the door when he left, if Morgan came outside voluntarily and was killed in the open, there would be no way to get his body back inside.’

‘But you somehow managed to open it and find the body?’ Norbert said skeptically.

‘Morgan had installed a combination lock on the Winnebago’s side door,’ Rocco said. ‘He changed the number settings yesterday and, as far as we know, Lyon was the only person who had the combination to that lock. He’s the one who opened it for me.’

‘How cooperative of him,’ Norbert said. ‘Getting this down?’ he snapped at the corporal.

‘Yes, sir. Every word.’

‘Let’s proceed with the matter of the death threats. Exactly who was threatening Morgan?’

Lyon looked out over the hills. ‘It’s a rather extensive list. I suppose you might start with two literature professors from Middleburg University, and include his half-brother and sister.’

‘Then there’s the Satan crew,’ Rocco said. ‘They call themselves the Brotherhood of Beelzebub. We understand from the broadsides they posted that a few dozen of them have sworn a sacred vow to kill Morgan.’

‘Satan worshipers?’ Norbert asked. ‘Do we know who or where they are?’

‘We haven’t been able to track them down yet,’ Rocco said. ‘Probably a bunch of disgruntled college dropouts. The broadsword fits rather nicely into their ritualistic beliefs. The chief mucky muck of the Brotherhood of Beelzebub, whatever they call him, recently placed a hundred-grand bounty on Morgan.’

‘The brother and sister were after the control of the trust fund,’ Lyon added. ‘But I don’t know how much money is involved there.’

‘Tell me about these Beelzebub characters. Why were they so upset?’ Norbert asked.

‘Their leader was displeased, and that’s putting it mildly, with a series of articles that Morgan wrote for New Forward magazine. That really set them off,’ Lyon said.

‘Some sort of pungent postmodern criticism, I suppose.’

‘It began with a literary pastiche called “Bloody Rights or Bloody Rites”. It satirized them as being all puerile bluster and no action.’

‘They were not amused,’ Rocco added.

‘What are the faculty members after?’ Norbert asked.

‘Morgan was chairman of a department, and there’s a battle over the appointment to a new endowed chair,’ Lyon said. ‘The faculty takes that sort of business rather seriously.’

‘Captain,’ the second corporal said. ‘There’s a civilian van coming up the drive.’

Norbert snapped around to see a television remote unit with a satellite dish on the roof approaching. It was stopped fifty yards from the house by a Murphysville police officer.

‘Oh, Christ!’ the state police captain said. ‘How do these paparazzi do it? If we were that efficient, the crime rate would drop thirty per cent.’ He went through the open French doors that led into the living room. When no one followed, he gave an impatient signal to Rocco. ‘Come on, let’s get a rough statement down before we get buried by the reporters. Keep the media away from the house!’ he yelled to one of his corporals. He put his arm around Lyon’s shoulder. ‘I hope there is a logical explanation for everything that’s happened here, Mr Wentworth. By the way, where is Senator Beatrice Wentworth?’

‘She’s out of town,’ Lyon said.

‘Let’s get your feedback on what we’ve got so far,’ Norbert said. He read from his corporal’s notes and made slashing checks at each item. ‘The deceased was Warren Morgan, chairman of the English department at Middleburg University. He was evidently a man of exceptionally poor social skills. The deceased was under some sort of ritualistic sentence of death by some cult of the devil. Two days ago he parked his modified Winnebago in the Wentworths’ drive. Last night, prior to the murder, there was a small gathering for drinks and barbecue at the Wentworth home. Present were two teachers from the university, Morgan’s half-brother and sister, along with the sister’s boyfriend. The victim, Morgan, and the host, Wentworth, were also present.

‘At some point during the night or early morning, Wentworth was possibly drugged. While in a confused state of mind he was pursued by a hooded individual waving a large sword.’ Norbert looked up at Lyon and slowly shook his head before continuing. ‘Wentworth evidently passed out during this attack. He awakened at about the time Chief Herbert arrived to check out a phone request from Mrs Wentworth, who was not present during these activities.’ He gave a baleful look at Lyon. ‘You are evidently a very sound sleeper. Morgan was last seen alive when he retired to his armored vehicle parked in the Wentworths’ drive. He was observed closing and locking the combination door that led into the vehicle. This morning Chief Herbert discovered Mr Wentworth dazed and wandering toward the house wearing blood-smeared clothing and carrying a large antique sword. The medical examiner states that the deceased’s injuries could have been made by that type of sword. Forensic tests on the blood spatters are yet to be performed. The deceased’s body was found inside the armored vehicle. Access into said vehicle was gained by the only other person besides the victim who possessed the combination to the door, Lyon Wentworth.’

Lyon nodded. ‘That seems correct. I know this all sounds rather bizarre,’ Lyon said tiredly.

Norbert glared at Rocco and gestured toward the hallway. Both men stepped into the kitchen. As soon as the senior police officers left the room, the attitude of the remaining corporals moved from attentive note-taking to guardianship. They shifted positions and seemed alert to any abrupt movements by Lyon.

‘You know, Herbert, I don’t really need this,’ Norbert said. ‘This guy’s wife is one of the most prominent state legislators in Connecticut. She’s a friend of the governor, at least one of our US senators, and my commissioner. On top of that, this guy comes up with a story that makes me want to believe in the tooth fairy. Jesus, I can’t win on this one.’

‘He happens to be my closest friend, Norbie,’ Rocco said.

‘The guy, Wentworth, he’s not in local politics or connected to the financial community, is he?’

‘No. He’s still writing children’s books, mostly about things he calls his Wobbly monsters,’ Rocco said.

‘I hope he’s not a goddamn intellectual.’

‘He’s a trustee of Middleburg University.’

‘Jesus, why did you involve me? A hell of a brother-in-law you are. In the past you’ve always been the one to fight for your jurisdictional rights to keep us out of a case.’

‘I couldn’t take jurisdiction this time, Norbie. I’ll do anything in the world I can to help Lyon, but my conflict of interest is so obvious the media would hang us both if I stay on the case. That would do more harm than good for Lyon.’

Norbert sighed. ‘God. I’m stuck with a no-win deal here.’ He shook himself as if to ward off further onslaughts. ‘We’re knee-deep in barn droppings, Rocco. You neatly disqualified yourself, but how long do you think it’s going to take for the media to find out that you and I are related by marriage? About ten seconds, that’s how long. So, I’m warning you. I want any information you have, or your conduct goes straight to a one-man grand jury. What else do you have? And I mean really what else!’

Rocco’s craggy facial lines seemed to harden into rocky faults as his inner torment became obvious to the state police officer. ‘There’s been talk recently.’

‘Of what? Damn it all, man, spit it out!’

‘Forget it.’ Rocco started back toward the living room.

‘Forget hell!’ Norbert grabbed the chief’s arm and whirled him around. Although he had to tilt his head to look up at Rocco, it didn’t seem to diminish his belligerency. ‘It’ll come out eventually. You know it always does. What do you know?’

‘It’s unconfirmed. So forget it.’

‘Something about Senator Wentworth playing house with the deceased?’ Norbert asked.

‘Where’d you get that crap?’

‘From your wife, my sister. And it could be true.’

‘It’s just stupid talk that Martha picked up somewhere, and I can’t possibly believe it.’

‘It’s a possible motive.’

‘Hell, Norbie, it’s only beauty-parlor gossip.’

‘We don’t have to prove motive, Rocco,’ Norbert said. ‘All we have to produce is probable cause as to who done it. The motive bit narrows down our suspect list, which in this case seems to have a single name on it.’

‘There are others who had it in for Morgan,’ Rocco said.

‘Your friend in the living room was in possession of what will probably turn out to be the murder weapon. He was covered in blood. You tell me that when you found him he seemed dazed and confused. He had the opportunity, since he possessed the door combination, and he had a possible motive. Jesus, Rocco, the only thing left to get is his confession.’

‘Assuming the forensics check out.’

‘I would be amazed if they didn’t,’ Norbert said as he started through the swinging door.

‘At this point Lyon had best shut up,’ Rocco said.

Again Norbert performed his belligerent pivot to approach Rocco. ‘You keep your mouth shut? In fact, why don’t you get the hell out of here, since this is my case?’

‘There’s a matter of reading his rights,’ Rocco said.

‘When I make the arrest. A couple more loose ends and then we make the arrest and go for the confession. That’s when he gets his Miranda. But I’m warning you, Herbert. Back off and don’t interfere.’ His anger seemed to increase the angle of his strut as he stormed back to the living room with Rocco reluctantly following. ‘A few more loose ends, Mr Wentworth,’ Captain Norbert said in an even and reasonable voice. ‘I assume that the deceased was more than a casual acquaintance of yours.’

‘At one time I taught in his department. We’ve known each other for nearly fifteen years.’

‘And how long have you known of the deceased’s affair with Senator Wentworth?’

Lyon’s face rapidly merged through a series of emotions. The sequence began with blank incomprehension which shifted temporarily into anger and finally humor. ‘You’ve got to be kidding?’

‘I do not joke,’ the captain replied.

‘That’s for sure,’ Rocco agreed.

Lyon laughed. ‘My wife is a very independent person, but Morgan …’ He laughed again.

‘Let’s go back to when you were on the Middleburg faculty,’ Norbert said.

‘We were both instructors in the same department before I resigned to pursue my career as a freelance writer.’

‘I wanted to get to that,’ the captain said. ‘You write anything we might know?’

‘My most successful book was one I did a few years ago during the Bicentennial. You may have heard of Nancy Goes to Mount Vernon.’

Norbert made no effort to conceal his disdain. ‘Years ago we used to confiscate filth like that. I remember one hot number in particular called Debbie Does Dallas.’

Rocco was unable to control himself any longer. ‘For God’s sake! The man writes children’s literature.’

Norbert shrugged. ‘Whatever. We can assume that Senator Wentworth knew the deceased for an equal amount of time, that is to say fifteen years?’

‘You know, Captain, at this point, you’ve really lost me,’ Lyon said.

Norbert nodded. ‘I see. Can we assume that you are terminating this interview, Mr Wentworth?’

‘You may so assume,’ Lyon answered.

‘In that case,’ Norbert said as he stood before Lyon, ‘I must warn you.’ He held out his hand toward one of the ever present corporals, who promptly slapped a laminated Rights Warning card in his palm.

Rocco pushed Captain Norbert aside and clicked a handcuff over Lyon’s right wrist. ‘It’s my collar, Norbie. You are under arrest,’ he said to Lyon. ‘You have the right to remain silent. You are not required to say anything to us at any time or to …’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Bea Wentworth said from the French doors. ‘He didn’t kill Morgan. I did!’

Three

‘What in the hell is going on here?’ Captain Norbert’s face flushed a deep red. His quick angry glance included everyone in the room. ‘Are you deliberately creating a circus here, Herbert? What sort of stupid games are you people playing?’

‘I’m making it my collar, Norbie,’ Rocco answered. ‘Wentworth is my prisoner.’

‘Come with me, Chief,’ Norbert said as he gestured Rocco back into the kitchen. As soon as they were alone, the state police captain exploded in a paroxysm of whispered rage. ‘What are you doing? Are you trying to taint all our actions out here today? This is unprofessional behavior of the worst magnitude and the state’s attorney will be so informed.’

‘You wear blinkers, Norbie,’ Rocco responded. ‘And you always have. Once you zero in on a suspect, you move the rocks of hell to gather more evidence for your conviction, but never look around the corner for another suspect. Your blinkers don’t allow you to see beyond the one you’ve decided on, Captain. You’ve always been that way and so are a lot of other cops.’

‘Your fear of conflict of interest seems to have flown with the rest of your senses.’

‘My best friend is going to twist in the wind if I don’t help him. I know in the depths of my being that he is innocent.’

‘Innocent! I’ve got everything except a confession or eyewitness. And tell me what in hell the senator is pulling?’

‘Pulling?’

‘She’s evidently playing games, unless …’He stopped in mid-sentence, to continue in a conspiratorial tone. ‘Unless they are both in it together. The family Wentworth knocked Morgan off and will now cover for each other. I’ve ridden that merry-go-round before.’

‘I’m buying Lyon some time, Norbie. Now go along with me on this and don’t hound the state’s attorney for your warrant.’

‘I’ll be in his office a half hour after I leave here. If you don’t have that man arraigned no later than tomorrow, you are in deep shit, Herbert.’

Rocco turned without a word and returned to the living room. Norbert followed, but his voice dropped two unctuous registers as he approached Bea. ‘There are circumstances here, Senator, that—’

‘I demand to be remanded into custody,’ Bea said. ‘I insist on being fingerprinted and shoved in a lineup.’

‘We don’t have lineups in Murphysville,’ Rocco said tiredly. ‘Everyone knows everyone else.’

‘Isn’t anyone interested in my confession?’ Bea asked. ‘Take those cuffs off Lyon and slap them on me.’

‘Oh, Christ, the media is going to crucify all of us,’ Norbert mumbled.

‘You haven’t had any firearms training, Bea,’ Rocco said. ‘Only a trained marksman could have pulled off the shot that killed Morgan.’

‘Nice try, Rocco,’ she replied. ‘Except that I know he was killed with a sword. It so happens that I was on the fencing team in college. You can verify that from my yearbook.’

‘Morgan’s fatal wounds were hardly the result of fancy épée thrusts.’

‘The saber was always my weapon of choice,’ Bea responded.

Norbert was fascinated by this pert, feisty woman who stood defiantly before them. Bea Wentworth was slightly under medium height, with a figure that might be described as petite except for the fullness of her breasts and hips. Her short hair was worn in a fashion that bracketed her face and gave her a gamin-like appearance. This innocent quality was usually belied by the darting intelligence and intensity of her eyes. Norbert had known her casually for years, and had followed her political career from state representative to secretary of the state and then state senator. He had also watched several television interviews when she was spokesperson for a cause or sponsor of specific legislation.

Patrolman Jamie Martin of the Murphysville police force stuck his head through the French doors. ‘Call for you on the radio, Chief. Dispatcher can’t get through on land lines. He says the first selectman is really pissed that you missed her meeting.’ Rocco groaned and followed the officer out.

‘I was told you were in Washington, Senator Wentworth,’ Norbert muttered in a polite voice far below his usual interview standards.

‘I left last night and drove straight home to Connecticut.’

‘Do I handcuff one of them or both?’ the taller of the state police corporals asked.

‘Hold on and let me sort this out,’ Norbert answered. He struggled to regain his interview dominance. As a consequence, his next question was asked in a manner more harsh than intended. ‘And you were somehow able to open a locked RV door? Once inside, you managed to overpower Morgan?’

‘I knew where the door’s combination was kept. It doesn’t take much strength to murder a sleeping man.’

‘You had the combination? How strange!’ Norbert said as he searched back through his notes. ‘And how did you manage to obtain the combination? I understood that the lock was recently changed and only Lyon and Morgan knew the new setting.’

‘It was quite simple actually. I merely went to where Lyon kept the combination and let myself in,’ Bea said.

Norbert looked at Lyon. ‘Where Lyon kept the combination? Where he’d written it down for the world to see?’

‘Not hardly everyone,’ Bea said. ‘I’m the only one who knows that Lyon can’t remember things like his own social security number. He records all his important numbers in the same place: on the pull-out shelf at his desk. All manner of our life’s numerology are scribbled on a yellow piece of typewriter paper he scotch-taped there years ago.’

Lyon blanched in a manner so noticeable that Norbert and his corporals exchanged glances.

‘Is what she says true?’ the state police captain asked Lyon.

‘Well, yes. Bea knows I jot down all sorts of numbers in that particular place.’

‘Including the RV door combination?’

‘Yes.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Nice try, honey, but I really don’t need you to do this for me.’

‘Let’s get back to work. I believe we were discussing your affair with the deceased, Senator Wentworth.’

‘My what?’

‘We were about to develop detailed facts concerning your liaison with Morgan. The affair is a rather important element in this case, since it provides motive. A motive which someone brought to the attention of the state police. It is almost immaterial which one of you was the actual perpetrator, since the existence of the affair provides a possible motive for either or both of you.’

Bea looked startled. ‘I don’t mean to appear hopelessly naive, but what affair are you referring to?’

‘Were you involved with the deceased?’

‘Captain, Morgan was a very talented man, in some ways a very interesting man. Believe me when I say that a sexual relationship with him would be as likely as my seduction by Rasputin.’

‘Will you please answer the question directly? Were you lovers?’

‘That’s even more preposterous than her killing him,’ Lyon said.

‘We have known him for years,’ Bea said. ‘We met him during the early days of our marriage, when Lyon and Morgan were new instructors at the university.’

‘Then you were good friends with the man?’

‘I won’t say friends,’ Bea replied. ‘I’m not sure anyone was really friends with Morgan. Perhaps longtime acquaintances would be a better term.’

Captain Norbert sighed. ‘To move on. Can you tell me where you were yesterday and last night, Senator?’

‘I was at a convention of women legislators in Washington DC,’ Bea said. ‘I was at meetings all day yesterday and attended the banquet last night. I drove home immediately after the dinner.’

‘Nope.’ Rocco stood in the doorway shaking his head. ‘Nice try, but no way, Beatrice. You spent the night with a United States senator.’

‘What senator?’ Norbert asked softly. ‘Is he, pray tell, from the State of Massachusetts?’

Lyon shook his head in disgust at the man’s prurient interest. ‘She was probably with Senator Katherine Turman, who has a husband and five kids.’

Bea shrugged.

Norbert looked at Rocco. ‘Was it Turman?’

‘Yep. I patched through to our station phone and it took a single call to establish that she spent the night at the home of our state’s junior senator. She also phoned Nutmeg Hill repeatedly last night and again early this morning. The house phone was reported out of order each time. She told Senator Turman that she was very concerned because of the recent death threats against Morgan. This morning she phoned me at home. If we need her, Senator Turman will make a great witness, but the phone company records will establish that the early call to my house came from a pay phone on Interstate Ninety-Five.’

‘Her deposition will do,’ Norbert said. ‘I’m glad you cleared that little matter up, Rocco. Now, will you take your cuffs off your friend so we can formally charge him?’

‘You don’t seem to understand, Norbie. Mr Wentworth is my prisoner. He will be formally booked in Murphysville and arraigned in superior court in a few days.’

‘You’re out to lunch.’ Norbert turned to his two corporals, who seemed poised for instructions. ‘Take our prisoner to the car.’

Both troopers immediately moved toward Lyon until Rocco inserted himself in their way. ‘You guys are going to have to come through me.’

The taller of the state police officers, who was still six inches shorter than Rocco, turned toward his commanding officer. ‘Captain?’

‘You have just shot your career down the tube, big man,’ Norbert said. ‘My sister will probably end up on welfare.’ He stalked out the doors and down from the patio towards the cruiser parked in the drive.

‘I think you’ve created a mess for yourself,’ Lyon said to Rocco.

Bea stood outside the French doors, looking down the drive. ‘Norbie is talking to the television crew. There’s one guy with a microphone and another with a camera. I think they’re interviewing him.’

Rocco closed his eyes momentarily and then looked up at Lyon. ‘I would imagine that I am in deep, but you, old buddy, are so far down in a hole that you can’t even see the top. Once you get in the clutches of a police bureaucracy that’s convinced you’re guilty, you won’t even get bail. They’ll stop looking for anything except evidence that will hang you even higher.’

‘It looks that bad?’ Lyon asked.

‘Don’t be naive. Those guys have you convicted. I’ve bought a little time. If I don’t take you into superior court for arraignment in a few days, the state’s attorney will send Norbie a warrant, and there’s no way I can fight that. We had best make good use of the little time we have.’

‘To find out who killed Morgan,’ Lyon said.

‘I’m sure there’s not another person in this world who knows that Lyon keeps the numerology of his life on that paper in the desk,’ Bea said. ‘So there must be another way into that RV. Why don’t we start by finding out how Morgan was killed?’

‘That makes sense,’ Lyon said as they left the house through the patio. They saw the RV, its front wheels raised up by a tow truck, start down the drive.

‘What are they doing?’ Bea asked.

‘They’ve impounded it and are taking it to the state garage for evidence examination,’ Rocco said.

‘Then we don’t get to go through it,’ Lyon said.

‘Not at this point,’ Rocco replied. ‘Let me get the TV guys off the property.’ He moved quickly down the drive toward the television station’s van.

Lyon walked along the edge of the house and glanced up at the gutters. He reversed direction and moved a dozen feet away from the corner of the house nearest the drive and stooped to pick up the severed ends of telephone lines. ‘I knew it had to be cut outside the house,’ he told her. They walked back to the corner of the building where the phone lines had entered the dwelling. He stood on the seat of a wrought-iron bench near the wall and found that he could reach up to the port where the line went into the building. ‘Easy enough, huh? Anyone could have cut it. All of us were either in the kitchen, study, or the far side on the rear patio by the parapet. It would have taken only seconds for someone to come around the house, hop on the bench and reach up to cut the lines.’

‘It could have been done by someone not at the party,’ Bea said. ‘You wouldn’t have noticed anyone coming up the drive or across the lawn.’

Lyon nodded. ‘True.’

They were silent as they looked down the drive toward the entrance, where Rocco was arguing with the television crew. It was obvious that he had prevailed, as they were beginning to repack their equipment.

‘Until last night our biggest problem was Camelot over there,’ Bea said as she looked toward a high-rise building under construction on the corner of the promontory. Three floors of steel superstructure had already topped the tallest pine trees. A large crane squatting next to the building lifted steel girders to waiting iron workers who nonchalantly walked the narrow high beams.

They knew that the construction was a pricy, trendy condominium. Each unit would come equipped with a spectacular river view. The extra proposed amenities took up half a page in their brochure, and included bridle paths, tennis and paddle courts, a health club and indoor pool.

As the nearest and largest property owners in the area, the town knew they opposed the project. They beat it back twice. The developers knew they’d fight it to death at future public hearings.

The builder waited patiently for two years until the Wentworths took an extended trip to Europe and then rammed a variance through the Zoning Board.

Rocco stood at the bottom of the patio steps with an end of the cut telephone lines. ‘Let’s recreate your story,’ he said. ‘A person, who you cannot identify, threatened you with a sword.’

Lyon pointed to a stand of pine trees that began fifty yards from the side of the house. ‘It happened over there.’

Bea Wentworth watched the two men walk across the lawn toward the tree line. Lyon had to look up to speak to the taller Rocco. A breeze unexpectedly swirled in off the river and ruffled Lyon’s hair. She automatically brushed the edge of a hand across her own forehead in an exact duplication of the gesture her husband performed two dozen yards away. Her tight smile reflected a nostalgic wistfulness. She knew him so intimately that even his small unconscious gestures and the other nuances that create a unique person were familiar.

At the tree line, Lyon looked over his shoulder and saw his wife enter the house. It was apparent that she’d remained outside to watch them cross the field. He wondered what she’d been thinking.

‘Are you with me, Lyon?’ Rocco said.

Lyon refocused his thoughts. ‘Yes, sorry. Last night, I was returning to the house after helping someone remove a car from a ditch when this thing came out of nowhere. It was dark, but in the moonlight I could see light refractions from the sword blade. I fell.’

‘Let’s back up from that point,’ Rocco said. ‘Start with the early evening and tell me exactly what happened. Include every detail you can recall, no matter how inconsequential it might seem.’

‘Early last night, while it was still light, I was on the patio having drinks with Ernest Harnell,’ Lyon said …

Buy Death at King Arthur’s Court Now!

About the Author

Richard Forrest (1932–2005) was an American mystery author. Born in New Jersey, he served in the US Army, wrote plays, and sold insurance before he began writing mystery fiction. His debut, Who Killed Mr. Garland’s Mistress (1974), was an Edgar Award finalist. He remains best known for his ten novels starring Lyon and Bea Wentworth, a husband-and-wife sleuthing team introduced in A Child’s Garden of Death (1975).

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2004 by Richard Forrest

Cover design by Andy Ross

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3791-4

This 2016 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Epilogue

Preview: Death at King Arthur’s Court

About the Author

Copyright Page