Death on the Mississippi (6 page)

“Is he leaving the company?” Pan asked as Dalton rejoined them.

“I think not. I believe I have persuaded Mr. Dice that it is in his best interests to remain a member of our cozy organization.”

“Okay people,” Pan said exuberantly, “let's go ashore.”

“And where in the hell do you think you're going? We live on this thing now,” Dalton said.

“Not me, sweety,” Pan said. “Miss Conviviality will not sleep here tonight, and maybe not even tomorrow night.”

They were a subdued trio as they drove back down the river to the bridge. Lyon was at the wheel with Bea at his side, while a very quiet Pan sat in the rear seat. Bea had tried to make conversation, but the lack of response had quickly stifled the attempt. Bobby and Katrina had driven off in the resort's station wagon claiming a host of errands. They had left Dalton standing on the upper deck with a drink in his hand, staring sullenly down at them.

“You're welcome to stay the night at Nutmeg Hill,” Bea said in her second attempt at dialogue.

“I don't want to be a bother,” Pan replied. “I have a cottage at the resort where I can stay. I think I'd rather be alone tonight to do some serious thinking.”

“I understand,” Bea answered. “Borrow our car.”

“Wake up, Wentworth!”

He winked open one eye to see Bea bent over him bathed in bright moonlight. She poked him in the ribs. “What is?” he managed to mumble.

“Someone is downstairs pounding on the front door.”

“Equal rights say you go.” He pulled the pillow over his head.

“I would, except that it's probably your large policeman friend here to discuss some interesting case.”

“Okay.” He stumbled from bed and toward the door. “What time is it?”

“It's three
A
.
M
., and in case it isn't Rocco down there, you had better put something on.”

“Oh, ya.” He realized he was nude and reached into the closet to snick a robe from its hook. He slipped it on and belted it. “You know, I think Katrina looked better in the string bikini than she did
au naturel
.”

“At this stage of life you should know that all of us look slightly ludicrous in that position. Go answer the door.”

Pandora Turman was leaning against the house near the front door as she mechanically raised and lowered the large brass doorknocker.

“You didn't have to return our car this early,” Lyon said before he realized the inanity of the remark.

“He's gone. I went back to where the boat was docked and Dalton is gone.”

“He probably went into town.”

“You don't understand, Lyon. The
Mississippi
is gone. The whole houseboat has disappeared.”

5

They stood in moonlight on the patio and took turns looking through the telescope. They swept the river in both directions until their vision was obscured by its change in course.

“I can't see it,” Bea said, “and it would be hard to miss something that large.”

Pan paced nervously behind them. “I went to our cottage back at the resort, but I couldn't get to sleep worrying about how much financial pressure Dalton's been under lately. I decided to go back to him and drove back down here. When I couldn't find the boat, I just thought he'd moved it for some reason. I drove up the river to Hartford, and back all the way to the Sound. I can't find it. He's gone.”

“Let me check it out with Rocco,” Lyon said. “He's our local police chief.” He went into the kitchen and dialed the wall phone. The call was answered on the first ring. “I have a problem,” he said without preamble.

“When you call at three in the morning and I'm still awake, we both have problems.”

“Dalton Turman is missing.”

“Is that a promise?”

“I'm serious. The guy and his boat are gone. His wife is here and she's worried sick. She doesn't deserve that, Rocco.”

“Her marriage proves that she's paying for terrible sins from past lives. She must have been Typhoid Mary.”

“I'm calling you as a friend who happens to be a police officer.”

“Did it ever occur to you why I'm awake? I will tell you why. I am trying to create a DD twenty-three–forty-one.”

“What's that?”

“An official form called, ‘Unauthorized Discharge of a Firearm.' Copies go to the Mayor, the State Police, and the state. You're the writer, tell me how to explain why I was at a party, drinking pepper vodka, and then chose to empty a Magnum at a dish cabinet filled with large snakes. You don't happen to have any snake remains around, do you?”

“We sent them to the dump, but we still have the bullet holes in the wall.”

“That won't help. All right, how long has Dalton been gone?”

“A couple of hours.”

“I can't start an official investigation for at least twenty-four hours, and you know his tricks never last that long.”

“He's had threats, and today someone took a shot at us.”

“I haven't seen any official reports of a shot, and as far as threats are concerned, not only is Dalton Prankenstein, he is also a builder. In his case, threats should be expected. If you think the bad guys are after him, you're really a glutton for punishment.”

“The houseboat seems to be gone.”

“It's either on the river or on the Sound. If we're really lucky, he's in Spain by now.”

“I repeat,” Lyon said, “someone shot at us on the boat today with a high-powered rifle.”

“You
thought
someone fired at you. That's easy enough to stage. You know, this guy is going to keep chewing you up until you stop playing his games.” Rocco paused, waiting for Lyon's agreement. When it wasn't forthcoming, he continued. “Okay, if you're going to spend the rest of the night looking for the
Mississippi
, you might try the bridges. That barge is as big as a damn destroyer and can't go upstream or out into the Sound without making it past a bridge. Do you know the ones I mean?”

“Yes, there's one upstream from us at Haddam's Neck, and another at the mouth of the river.”

“Right, and either one would have to be opened for the
Mississippi
. They're manned twenty-four hours a day, and the operator keeps a log on each opening. Go talk to bridges while I try and invent a good story about snakes.”

Lyon had prepared a hot Thermos before they left the house, and they drank coffee as they drove toward the Haddam's Neck bridge. Pandora cupped a plastic mug with both hands and spoke in a quiet voice that was far removed from her earlier staccato speech.

“Something terrible has happened to him or he has decided to leave me.”

“Or he's going to let us spend all day looking before he appears with a drink in his hand and that damn laugh of his.”

“Either that rotten man who calls at night has gotten him or he's run off with his new girlfriend.” She glanced at Lyon with a feline ferocity. “A woman can always tell when her man is doing it with someone else. If I ever catch them together, I'll kill him and tear her face off.”

“There are other alternatives, Pan,” Lyon said. “You had a minor argument and in a fit of pique he hid the boat in a cove. If he didn't pass through either of the bridges, we'll know he slipped into a dock area near here.”

“Will these help?” She handed him a packet of photographs. “Dalton took these to send to some boat magazine.”

Lyon glanced down at the spread of color photographs taken of the houseboat from a score of different distances, heights, and angles. “They'll be a big help.” He reached over to squeeze her fingers, but her hands were tightly clutching the dashboard.

“He just better be busted up by baseball bats,” she said. “If I find him in the saddle with some bimbo, he's dead meat.”

The Haddam's Neck bridge was of ancient steel-girder construction that seemed to form a confusing maze of beams above the roadbed. At the direction of the operator, perched in a control shack high in the superstructure, the entire center section could be swiveled in order to allow large boats to pass through.

They parked the car near the entrance to the bridge and walked out over the water. The river below shimmered in the thinning darkness as clouds of predawn haze began to rise from its surface. In both directions, the only visible craft was a single fishing boat moving slowly downstream with upright naked rods swaying gently in metal brackets near the stern. They reached the center of the bridge where a metal ladder led up to the small booth nestled high among the girders.

Pan craned her neck to look up the vertical ladder. “I can't go up there,” she said. “Would you mind going alone?”

Lyon did mind, but without answering, he gripped the cool metal rungs of the ladder and began to climb. In recent years his fear of heights had increased geometrically with his age. For reasons he could not understand, a flight in his hot-air balloon did not bother him, but climbing a ladder slick with river mist scared the hell out of him. He did not look down.

His head topped the window glass of the control room and he looked inside to see the operator bent over a desk. A discreet knock would require releasing one frantic grip from the ladder. He considered the problem a moment, and then banged his forehead against the glass.

The bridge operator looked up at Lyon with a startled glance and then vehemently shook his head. “You can't come in! Authorized personnel only, so beat it before I call the cops … unless you got a cigarette?”

“Always carry a couple extra packs,” Lyon lied. The door was thrust back against the wall and two hands helped Lyon into the small room. “Have you opened the bridge tonight?”

“I open the bridge, I close the bridge, and in between I read a lot of books and try not to think about cigarettes. Where are they, for God's sake?!”

“I'm looking for a large houseboat called the
Mississippi
,” Lyon said.

“Don't usually have to move the bridge for houseboats, they're too low in the water. Hope you got some real cigarettes, no filters, no low nicotine. I need a real lung grabber.”

Lyon began to pat his pockets in a fruitless search for the photographs and nonexistent cigarettes. “This boat has a high superstructure and mast. I'll show you a picture when I find them.”

The operator pointed to the open door. “I don't look at nothing without a burning coffin nail in my hand. Get your pictures and there's a cigarette machine in the restaurant vestibule at the far end of the bridge.”

Lyon closed his eyes as he stepped outside.

The second operator was located on the railroad bridge near the mouth of the Connecticut River. Somehow, Lyon's appearance at the control-room window seemed quite natural to him, and he waved a friendly greeting while simultaneously shoving his pint of rye into a desk drawer.

He bent over the desk where Lyon spread the
Mississippi
photographs and squinted at them. Still not satisfied with his focus, he covered one eye with the flat of his hand. “Nope. I'd remember that baby. Only things I opened for tonight were a coastal tanker and a large motor sailboat.”

Lyon reluctantly gathered the photographs. “Thanks anyway.”

“Wait a minute!” The operator flipped back a page in the bridge log. “Here are two entries for a large houseboat.”

“Where?” Lyon eagerly bent over the book.

“She went out yesterday morning and came back later in the day.”

“We know about that trip,” Lyon said, for it was obviously their round-trip excursion to the resort the day before. “Thanks anyway. I'd be appreciative if you told me of another way to get down from here.”

“Sure.” Lyon smiled. He wasn't ready for another bout with the ladder. “You can jump,” the operator said with a laugh.

“We've bracketed the
Mississippi
,” Lyon told Pan when he was back in the car. “We know she didn't go up- or downstream past the bridges.”

She looked doubtful. “Dalton once told me that he could buy anyone if the price was right. How much do bridge operators go for?”

“I've considered that,” Lyon said. “I don't think either of the operators were lying to me, but I have a way to double-check. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has a channel dredger near Haddam that operates twenty-four hours a day. I'll also check with the Coast Guard at Lynde Point on the Sound. It will only take a couple of phone calls to verify what we've learned. Even Dalton couldn't have reached all of them.”

“I suppose you're right,” she said dubiously.

“The boat has to be moored somewhere between the two bridges, in a cove, at a marina, or in open water. It's one of those choices.”

“I hear what you're saying, but I have a very bad feeling about this.”

Bea's legs flicked through the opening of her bathrobe as she strode angrily across the kitchen and thunked down two coffee mugs on the breakfast table. “And where is Miss Conviviality now?”

“In our guest room. She's pretty well zonked out, but she made me promise to wake her as soon as the plane arrives.”

Bea's sugar spoon missed her mug by several inches. Powdery grains scattered across the table. “The
what
?”

“I've rented a float plane for the morning. I thought that would be the best way to explore the coves and marinas along this stretch of river.”

“And your seaplane will taxi to a landing at the foot of our promontory where you and Miss ‘C' will be waiting hand in hand.” She sipped coffee. “Do you ever intend to finish your book?”

“It hasn't been going too well lately,” Lyon said and was surprised to see his two Wobblies standing in the doorway and beckoning frantically for him to return to the study.

“You know he's pulling another prank and you're going to feel like a horse's ass falling for three in a row. Does Pan realize how much this plane ride is going to cost her?”