Death Under the Lilacs (2 page)

Lyon placed the full ice bucket on the cart, and Rocco immediately scooped up half a dozen cubes for his pitcher. Lyon poured a snifter glass half full of Dry Sack sherry. He waited for his friend to finish his drink ministrations.

Rocco carefully stirred his martini and poured himself a double. He held up his glass in a toast. “Cheers.”

“Skoal,” Lyon replied and both men drank.

“Martha's at her sister's for the night. I thought you and Bea might come over, and I'll throw a couple-three steaks on the fire.”

“Sounds good.” Lyon sipped his sherry. “It will be an improvement to an otherwise lousy day.”

“Mine wasn't exactly a winner either.” Rocco leaned back on the couch, his six-foot-six frame overlapping the furniture. “Do you realize that the proportion of drunken housewives is increasing arithmetically? They get a snootful and then, for reasons I do not comprehend, call my office and insist that I throw them in a cell.”

“The spouses call?”

“Hell, no! The drinkees. Booze seems to bring out all the original-sin syndromes.”

“I won't ask who it is. Murphysville's too small and I would probably know them.”

“You do.”

Rocco's gigantic proportions presided over the town's constabulary, which sometimes reached a peak force of twelve men, or, more recently, ten men and two women. He and Lyon had been friends for decades, a friendship formed during the Korean War, when Rocco had been a young Ranger officer and Lyon the most junior officer on Division G-2. Their relationship had started with symbiotic necessity; the young intelligence officer needed the eyes and ears of an aggressive patrol leader. Out of this contact a friendship had germinated and still flourished.

They were silent as they sipped their drinks; self-conscious small talk was unnecessary. Rocco slouched farther back on the couch and examined the ceiling.

“Ceiling needs painting,” he said laconically.

“Probably. Something always needs to be done around here.”

“It's turned into a fine house,” Rocco said after a slight pause. “A lot of work, but a fine house.”

Lyon remembered the day years ago when they had first discovered Nutmeg Hill. It was a fall Saturday, and the brisk air and autumn foliage had dictated an aggressive walk. Lyon and Bea had made their way along the ridge line that ran above the river. Their progress had been slow, impeded by rock formations, heavy shrubbery, and finally by the desolate looming house with boarded windows and doors that perched on the tip of the promontory overlooking the river.

The building had been unused for years. Initially constructed by a sea captain who had made a fortune in the triangle trade, it had suffered through the years by dissolute progeny who committed that prime New England sin—dipping into capital.

“I've got to have it,” Bea had said.

“It's been vacant for years,” he had replied. “The interior structure is probably completely rotted out.”

“Find out, Wentworth. Find out if I can have it,” his wife had demanded.

The New York law firm that handled the small remaining trust for the final descendant of the sea captain had been pleased to sell them the house for a price within their range. The interior had been a shambles, but an engineer's report had indicated surprisingly that the basic structure was still sound.

Their work had begun. Room by room, as time and money afforded, they had lovingly restored the house.

“Ceiling still needs painting,” Rocco repeated.

“My day has been less than productive,” Lyon replied. “You are forcing me into an untenable position.”

“I'll get the drop cloths. You have paint in the cellar?”

“We always have paint in the cellar.” Lyon went down into the basement for the necessaries, knowing that Rocco's suggestion was partial therapy for both of them. He shrugged as he walked down the steep steps. “So that the day is not a complete loss,” he said aloud.

Bea Wentworth circled the supermarket aisles counterclockwise. This sometimes placed her in traffic jams with other grocery carts heading in the more conventional direction, but she insisted on doing her produce shopping last in order to coordinate salad and fresh vegetables with her choice of future main courses. She pondered over fresh mushrooms and delicately began to pluck the most succulent ones from their basket.

She ran a hand lightly over a mound of iceberg lettuce. A faintly perceived pressure seemed to tingle in the small of her back. It was the type of sensation she felt when someone stared at her. She wondered what sort of primeval brain stem still functioned inchoately within her.

Bea whirled.

The aisle behind her was empty except for a young couple who had just wheeled their cart through the front door. They seemed innocent enough. She saw a blurred movement through the plate-glass window, and then it was gone. Had someone been watching her from outside the store? She'd imagined for several days that she was being watched. She shook her head and smiled. Mild paranoia, she thought, probably caused by the upcoming battle over the senate majority leader position. She turned back to the iceberg lettuce.

Bea got in the checkout line with the diminutive blond checker she liked. She bent deep into the cart and began to line up her purchases on the conveyor belt. With her back turned to the front window, she again felt the nearly imperceptible pressure in the small of her back. She shook her head and continued unloading her purchases.

“How are you tonight, Senator Wentworth?” the checker asked with a smile.

“Just fine, Lena. But it's been a long day.”

“You know it.” The checker quickly finished tabulating the order, and together they bagged the groceries and loaded them back into Bea's cart.

The shopping center was closing down as the lights in the smaller shops began to wink off. Bea pushed the cart across the nearly deserted parking lot. One of the cart's wheels canted in a crazy angle, and she had to use force to continue her forward momentum.

The story of my life, she thought wryly. Shopping carts with broken wheels and post office lines with people ahead sending outsize packages to Hong Kong. She reached the small red Datsun station wagon, unlocked the tailgate, and swung it upward preparatory to unloading her groceries.

She heard the van door a few spaces away slam and then perceived footsteps rapidly approaching her. She half turned to look over her shoulder.

The approaching man wore jeans, a dark Windbreaker, and a multicolored ski mask pulled down over his face.

Bea instinctively reached into her shoulder bag and fumbled for the container of Mace.

The man's right hand closed over hers, while his left came up toward her face. In the dim light she saw cheesecloth clutched in his fingers. The cloth closed over her face, and she smelled the sweet odor of chloroform.

She turned her head rapidly back and forth to escape the anesthetic cloth and simultaneously brought her knee up into her assailant's groin.

The man gave a mild grunt as her kneecap connected painfully with a hard curved surface at his groin.

A single screaming thought shook Bea. He was wearing a cup!

The cheesecloth was again pressed over her mouth and nostrils—and then blackness.

Rocco and Lyon finished painting the ceiling without appreciable damage to the rest of the room. Rocco carefully folded the drop cloths while Lyon capped the remainder of a gallon of paint.

“I'm hungry,” Lyon said. “What time is it?”

Rocco glanced down at the large watch strapped to his wrist with a heavy leather band. “Jesus Christ! It's after ten. Where in the hell is Bea?”

Lyon lifted the kitchen phone off its wall mounting and checked to make sure that the instrument gave off a steady dial tone. It did. The phone was in working order. If she had called they would have heard. “She's probably met someone political and gone for coffee,” he said. The words fell hollowly between them. Bea's Thursday-night schedule rarely changed—she was always home by nine or nine-fifteen. She knew he hadn't eaten and would wait until she returned.

“Want that I call headquarters and have the boys on patrol look out for her?”

Lyon shook his head. “I think not. The call would go out over the radio and half the people in Murphysville have scanners—the gossip would be all over town that the senator's husband was looking for his wife.”

Rocco nodded. “Makes sense.” He began to buckle on his belt with its holstered magnum that he had looped over a kitchen chair. “Why don't we just pop down to the shopping center and see?”

Lyon nodded affirmatively. “The car's probably busted down somewhere between here and there, and I wouldn't want her walking the roads alone this time of night.”

Rocco's meaty hand propelled him toward the front door. “Then let's move it!”

They found the small Datsun station wagon parked in the middle of the empty center lot. They sat silently in the car a moment as Rocco splayed the police car's spotlight over the empty car.

“Stop!” Lyon commanded, and Rocco trained the light on the shopping cart nosed against the rear of the vehicle. It was still filled with several bags of groceries. Lyon catapulted from the car and ran over to the cart. Rocco stood behind him with the beam of his powerful flashlight flickering over the bags.

“Over there,” Rocco said as he directed the light on a spot just behind the tailgate. “See them?”

Lyon stooped. “Yes.” He picked up the key chain. It was familiar; he recognized the car keys, the house key, and several others. He knew it belonged to his wife. “They're Bea's,” he announced softly.

Rocco stepped around the side of the vehicle and turned his light into the empty interior. “I wonder how long it's been?”

Lyon felt several items in the grocery bags: a package of steaks, a carton of milk, and a container of ice cream. The milk was lukewarm and the ice cream mushy. “At least an hour,” he said.

“Scanners or not,” Rocco said, “I think I had better put this on the air.

“I agree,” Lyon said. “Let the state police know too.”

“Right.” Rocco loped over to the patrol car and snatched the transmitter from its stanchion on the dashboard. He began to talk in a low voice.

Lyon listened to his friend's description of Bea and then looked out over the deserted shopping center with its empty parking lot. She was somewhere in the darkness beyond. He tried to will a picture of her, but the only response was a distant streetlight, partially hidden by a high tree, that winked back an indecipherable message.

2

Two cops sat on the edge of the parapet overlooking the Connecticut River. Cops have much in common that transcends their locale. They could have been two cops sitting near the Chicago or Hudson rivers rather than on the patio of a two-hundred-year-old home above the Connecticut River.

“You bring in Flash Warden?” Jamie Martin asked.

“Yeah. Rocco sweated him for two hours, but there's nothing there.”

“I always figured Warden for flashing, not abduction.”

The other cop responded reflectively through a wad of chewing tobacco. “I don't think the perp comes from around here. I think he's a transient who saw Senator Wentworth and stashed her in his car. Then he took off for the state forest.”

“Where he …”

“Yeah.”

Lyon Wentworth was standing in the doorway within hearing of the two officers on the parapet. His fingers began to tremble, and he felt a weakness in his knees. He turned away from the door and walked over to the bar cart to pour himself another pony of sherry. His chin was stubbled with unshaven beard, and his pants were rumpled from two days' use. He hadn't slept, and the fatigue was beginning to make his mind sluggish. He tossed the sherry down in one gulp, as if it were a shot of cheap bar whiskey, and instantly regretted it. The combination of sleeplessness and anxiety had reduced his tolerance.

A large arm snaked over his shoulder, and he felt Rocco's presence. “You okay, old buddy?”

“How in the hell are you in such better shape than I am?” Rocco had somehow found the time to shave and change his uniform. Lyon knew that the large police officer had had as little sleep as he, but Rocco seemed refreshed and alert.

“I've done this before,” Rocco said in a low voice. “After a while you almost get used to it.”

“What happened to her, Rocco? It doesn't make any sense.”

“The world is filled with crazies, Lyon. They lurk under rocks and pop out when we least expect them.”

“I guess.” Lyon walked over to the corner of the living room where a large map of the upper portion of the state had been tacked. He bent over to study the streets of Murphysville and then squatted near to get a better look.

They had searched the town until dawn. Rocco's calls had alerted his own men, and the dispatcher had called most of the off-duty patrolmen in to help with the search. Lyon had ridden in the chief's car, hour after hour, using the vehicle's spotlight to search culverts and road shoulders—frightened at what he might find.

“You got the list yet, Wentworth?”

Captain Norbert's voice boomed across the living room and seemed to intrude into every particle of Lyon's being. He felt his body tense as the state police captain moved toward him. “No, not yet,” he said, hoping the reply would discourage the man's approach.

“I need the list, Wentworth. I need a list of your wife's enemies.”

“My wife is a politician, Captain Norbert. She has a good many friends … and enemies.”

“This guy want his wife back or not?” The comment was addressed to Rocco at Lyon's side.

“You're out of order, Norbie,” Rocco said as he stepped between Lyon and the state police captain.

“Listen, Herbert. I wouldn't even be in on this case so soon if you hadn't begged.”

“You're all heart, Norbie. You're really one hell of a sweet fella.”