Death Under the Lilacs (18 page)

“How about finding out who Lucy Something is and calling me?” Rocco said.

“Is that necessary?” Roy asked.

“You can bet your country-boy manner it is,” Rocco snapped as he shoved a legal pad at Roy. “Now write down Gretchen's address.”

Lyon hardly recognized Bates Stockton. His hair had been cut and styled, and he wore knife-creased gray flannel slacks, a navy-blue sport coat with gold buttons, and a regimental tie. His Gucci loafers were shined, and he shook hands with Rocco with a sincere, junior-executive combination of self-confidence and deference to authority. Bates sat down on the side chair and waved at Lyon. “Hi there, Mr. Wentworth.”

Rocco was puzzled. He glanced through Bates' folder again as if he had been missing something. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Stockton,” he finally said.

“If I can be of any help, sir.”

“I understand that you know the Wentworths?”

“Mr. Wentworth only. I have never had the pleasure of meeting his wife.”

“In what capacity did you know Lyon—Mr. Wentworth?”

“Years ago he was my faculty adviser.”

“And you had an altercation?”

“I wouldn't exactly call it that.”

“Over a matter of plagiarism.”

“It wasn't quite that serious, Chief Herbert. There were some similarities between my thesis and a previously published work, and rather than redo the work, I opted to leave school.”

“Without hard feelings?”

Bates shrugged. “Disappointments fade in time. I'm not a baby, Chief. The problems of life that seemed important years ago are not quite as painful today.”

“Where were you the night of June the twelfth?”

Bates laughed. “That happens to be a night I remember well, as it is the only time in my life that I was incarcerated.”

“Explain that.”

“I was driving back to Connecticut from a job interview in Syracuse, New York. I stopped in a gin mill in a little town near the state line. I guess I had a snootful and passed out on the shoulder of the road. The local gendarmes put me up for the night—in a cell.”

“What town?”

Bates hesitated a moment. “Same name as a southern city. Ah … Raleigh. Yes, Raleigh, New York.”

Rocco glanced quickly over to the couch. Lyon knew by the glance that Rocco had already verified Bates' alibi. The interview with the former graduate student was only a formality to satisfy the Wentworths.

“Thank you for coming by, Mr. Stockton,” Rocco said.

Bates walked toward the door and gave them a short farewell wave.

“You didn't see him at the house when he attacked me,” Lyon said.

Rocco picked up a folder. “Obviously he was on his best behavior, but I've called Raleigh, New York. Bates was in their lockup that night.” The intercom buzzed, and Rocco picked up the phone and grunted an acknowledgment. “Reuven's on his way in.”

Bea burst into the room and threw herself on the couch next to Lyon. She looked slightly disheveled and blotted her face with a paper towel. “That cubbyhole is a miniature Black Hole of Calcutta. It must be 120 degrees in there.”

“Any of them resemble the guy who took you?” Rocco asked.

Bea shook her head. “You can rule out Traxis and Burt; their ages aren't right. But the twins and Bates … it could be any of them.”

“Then pay particular attention to our next visitor. Reuven is the right age, has a prior record of similar attacks, and works for Traxis.”

“You think Traxis paid him?”

“I think he's capable of it. You had better get back to your peephole.”

“Let me face this one straight on,” she replied. “It's death in there, and recently I don't care for confined places.”

“If you insist.” Rocco bent over the tape recorder, jotted the time on a pad, and turned the cartridge over.

“It would seem that everyone involved has an alibi except Reuven,” Lyon said.

Rocco's pencil tapped impatiently on the desk. “I want Bea to see Reuven. We'll talk a few minutes, and then I want to sweat him—alone.”

“I just want this over with,” Bea said tiredly.

“Where the hell is he?” Rocco snatched the phone receiver from its cradle and punched in the communication clerk's number. “Where's the last guy who came through?” he barked. He listened a moment. “It takes ten seconds to walk down the hall. Send Martin in here.”

In seconds there was a soft knock on the door as Patrolman Jamie Martin stuck his head in the room. “You wanted me, Chief?”

“A guy just checked in the station and never showed in my office. Look in the John. Go through the whole damn building in case he's wandered off.”

“Right.” The door closed.

Time hovered over the room. Each was lost in thought. Rocco, the most impatient, tapped his pencil. Bea, the most frightened, braced herself for the coming interview.

The door burst open and startled them from their reveries.

Jamie Martin, his face ashen, leaned into the room with both hands clutching the door frame. “I found him.”

“Well, damn it! Let's get this show on the road. Get him in here.”

“It's not that easy, Chief.”

“Is he some sort of reluctant dragon or something?”

“Not exactly. He's dead.”

13

The basement floor of the Murphysville police services building contained a pistol range, three holding cells, a small gymnasium, and a boiler area. The three holding cells were directly across the hall from the firing range. Two of the cells were empty. Reuven was hanging in the third.

Bea took one look, turned away, and entered the open door of the first cell, where she sat on the bunk and put her head between her knees.

Lyon and Rocco stood in the cell doorway with Jamie Martin hovering behind them.

“Well, I'll be goddamned,” Rocco whispered.

“Let's get him down,” Lyon said as he rushed to the rear of the cell, where Reuven was hanging suspended by a belt from the small grillework that covered the high, narrow window. Lyon yanked at the belt unsuccessfully until Rocco came to his aid and lifted the body high enough to allow for slack. Lyon ripped the belt from the dead man's neck, and Rocco let the corpse topple over onto the bunk.

Lyon knelt next to Reuven's head and pried open his mouth in preparation for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He looked up at Rocco. “Do you know CPR?”

“We're all certified in it, but it's, a waste of time. He's gone.”

“It can't be. There wasn't enough time.”

“I've seen too many.” He turned to Jamie Martin. “Call the medical examiner.”

“Yes, sir.” The patrolman bolted for the stairs.

“Wait a sec,” Rocco called after him. “You had also better call Captain Norbert at the state police barracks. We'll have to have an outside investigation of this one.” He shook his head sadly. “In my own police station yet. Good God, why? You know what Norbie will think. You know what the newspapers will make of this.”

“That you were sweating him and he took his own life.”

“You're damn right! That's the story that will be spread over the whole damn state.” Rocco rushed down the hall to the wall phone by the stairwell. He flipped the receiver into his hand and clicked impatiently for the communications clerk. “This is Herbert. Don't let anyone except official personnel enter or leave this building. That's a firm order.” He slammed the phone down and walked pensively back to the cell. “What in hell are you doing?”

Lyon had emptied Reuven's pockets and spread their contents over the blanket next to the body. There were the usual pocket items such as wallet, comb, handkerchief, and key ring. He held a single loose key in his hand and displayed it to Rocco. “Any ideas what this opens?”

Rocco took the key. “It looks like a padlock key.”

“Want to make any bets?”

“No.”

“Who has the lock that held the mausoleum door shut?”

“Norbie has all that material.”

“You had better ask him to bring it along when he comes over here.”

Rocco stomped back to the phone. “Why did he choose my police station to hang himself? He could have used a tree. There's a fine tree on the town green where several people have been hanged.”

As Lyon bent over the body, he decided that strangulation was a hard way to die. The belt had dug deeply into the neck, leaving a broad swatch of discolored flesh. Reuven's eyes protruded slightly, and their sightless stare contained a mass of broken blood vessels that radiated out from the corneas.

Lyon surveyed the cell. A three-legged stool lay turned over on its side by the door. “He could have stood on that while he attached the belt,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” Rocco agreed. “And then kicked it away.”

“In a scaffold hanging, the springing trap drops the body and breaks the neck, causing immediate death,” Lyon said. “Reuven died of strangulation.”

“He probably knew we were zeroing in on him and couldn't face doing more time.”

“You're convinced he killed himself?”

“Aren't you?”

“I'm not certain.” Lyon squatted by the cell wall underneath the window grille. He ran his fingers lightly across the surface. “You keep a clean jail.”

“Hell, nobody's hardly ever here except for a few drunken housewives.”

“You wash the cells down regularly?”

“A cleaning woman comes in once a week and does them top to bottom. You won't find a roach anywhere.”

“Nor a scuff mark.”

“What's that mean?” Rocco asked with a puzzled frown.

“I don't care how much a man wants to die, when that belt tightened around his neck, there had to be automatic struggling.”

“Sure, and he'd reach up and try and pull up on the belt.”

“His feet would flail. His heels would have kicked against the wall.”

Rocco knelt and ran his hands over the clean surface. “And there aren't any marks.”

“Exactly.” Lyon returned to the bunk and bent over the body. He gingerly spread the neck flesh apart.

“Don't fool with the merchandise until the ME gets here.”

“Look at this.” Rocco bent over the corpse. “See the deep narrow gash under the belt bruises?”

“Oh Jesus,” Rocco said. “That's a wire-ligature mark.”

“Right. Reuven was garroted with a thin wire until he was unconscious, and then he was hanged by the belt from the window grating.

“The son of a bitch was murdered.”

The official chroniclers of the violently killed began to gather in the narrow hallway in the basement of the police services building. A doctor knelt on the cell floor next to the bunk and examined the body while a police photographer stood in the doorway shooting pictures from different angles. Two paramedics lounged against the wall near the phone smoking while their gurney with its empty body bag waited nearby.

Captain Norbert and two accompanying corporals stalked down the hall. He glanced contemptuously into the cell containing the body and then turned angrily to Rocco. “Don't you take a man's belt before you lock him up?”

“Usually.”

“You sweated him, right? And then you threw him in here to think things over.” He waved a deprecating arm across the small cell. “Not even closed-circuit TV monitors. You small-town cops are all alike. What'd you do, Herbert? Stick his dick in a light socket?”

“That's enough, Norbie. I did not beat the slob. I never even saw him come through the front door.”

“Hear no evil, see no evil. And I bet every damn cop in town will back you up. Boy, talk about cover-ups.”

Bea came out of the cell where she had been sitting. “Will you two stop it! Don't you have an investigation to run or something?”

“Something like that,” Rocco replied. “You bring the lock, Norbie?”

“Lock. Lock.” Captain Norbert snapped his fingers, and one of the corporals produced an evidence bag containing the broken lock. Rocco took it gingerly, opened the bag, and inserted the key Lyon had found into the keyhole. He slowly turned the key.

“It fits.”

“Looks like we've got the kidnapper,” Norbert said. “Too bad he's dead.”

“You two are too much.” Bea started down the hall. “I'll be in Rocco's office if anyone needs me.”

The medical examiner turned away from the body. “Mr. Wentworth is right. This man didn't hang himself. He was strangled from behind, probably with a piece of piano wire.”

“Even we small-town cops aren't that merciless,” Rocco said.

The paramedics moved forward with their gurney and prepared to take the body away. Norbert gestured to the second corporal, who produced a small hand vacuum which he proceeded to move slowly across the floor of the cell.

“All right, Herbert. Tell me what's going on.”

Lyon stepped around the senior police officers and opened the door to the small gym. Barbells and exercise machines cluttered the room. It was empty of people, and there were no closets, windows, or exterior doors. He continued down the hallway to the boiler room. It, too, was empty. The narrow firing range was not in use, although a vague smell of cordite permeated the firing lanes.

The only entrance to the basement was the lone stairwell at the far end of the building. The only windows were those high on the holding-cell walls, and they were covered with a heavy metal grating.

He mounted the stairs to the main floor and opened the first door off the hall. The room contained fingerprint equipment and a camera mounted on a tripod. Rocco's office was next, and then came the youth-services room, occupied by a single desk and two chairs.

On the far side of the hall was an open area with half a dozen school desks interspersed throughout its space. It also contained a bank of vending machines, a large bulletin board, and a water fountain. This was the assembly room for the small shifts that Rocco mounted to protect the citizens of Murphysville.