Death Under the Lilacs (4 page)

“I demand that you unstrap me at once!” Bea said.

“You aren't in any position to demand anything, lady.”

“Who are you?”

“Just call me a friend.”

“What do you want?”

“You.”

“If you're wearing a mask I must know you. Do I know you?”

Her abductor turned and walked to the door. Bea saw that at the entrance there was a barred grille that was ordinarily chained to a heavy hasp by the crypt entrance. A foot before the heavy metal bars was a massive arched metal door leading into the interior. He carefully pulled the door shut and returned carrying a large cardboard box which he placed on one of the stone sarcophagi. He methodically began to unpack items from the container and align them neatly on the stone surface. She watched in detachment as he placed everything in precise rows: several plastic water bottles, canned meats and bread, and a length of chain to which was welded a pair of handcuffs.

He turned to face her, holding the chain in both hands.

“What's that for?”

“To make you more comfortable.” He stepped toward the sarcophagus on which she lay. He snapped one handcuff over her right wrist and ran the chain over to the wall, where he padlocked it to a metal ring embedded in the masonry.

He unstrapped her feet and hands and stepped quickly away to the far side of the narrow vault.

Bea swung her feet to the floor and tried to stand. She had to grab for the edge of the sarcophagus in order to keep her balance. She felt light-headed and dizzy.

“Now, isn't that better?” he asked.

“Who are you?”

“Please. Not the same questions over and over again. Are you ready to make a recording for me?”

“On a cold day in hell!” she said as she massaged her legs. The chain clanked as she moved her right hand.

“Then you'll die,” he said mildly as he unloaded the last of the food containers.

“I suppose you want money?”

“That's the general idea.”

“Where am I?”

“From the looks of it, it would seem that you are chained in a tomb.” He began to stuff batteries into the small cassette player.

Bea wondered what she could hit him with. Perhaps she could loop part of the chain over his neck and … She would have to wait and bide her time. He was not a large man; she judged him to be about five foot nine and weighing around 150 pounds. He seemed to be in shape. He would be stronger than she.

He finished adjusting the small recorder, inserted a small microphone cord into its receptacle, and placed the unit down on the sarcophagus. “I would like you to say a few innocuous words to prove that you are alive and well. Then I shall make my presentation to your husband.”

“I've got a few words for you, and they all have four letters.”

“I'm not in the least interested in your opinion of me, Senator Wentworth; only in your value to your husband.” He held the small microphone toward her. “Talk to your beloved,” he commanded.

Bea spoke directly into the microphone. “Some creep's got me, Lyon. He's holding me in a crypt, probably somewhere in the state. It's an old place, at least over a hundred years old, and that should narrow it down. The creep wears a mask, but he's about five foot …”

Her abductor turned away, took two quick steps to the tape player, and withdrew the cassette. He threw the small reel across the room, where it fell against the wall and clattered to the floor.

“What do you take me for? This isn't a damn telephone you're talking into, it's a tape. Quit with the information and tell him how scared you are.”

Bea sat down heavily on the edge of the stone sarcophagus. She had to think. She had to insert something into her short message that would give Lyon a lead. What? And there was so little time.

He turned back to her after reloading the recorder. “Let's get it right this time, little lady. No travelogues. Just tell him how mean I am and how frightened you are. Got that?”

“Yes, I think I do,” she said in a low voice.

3

The men in camouflage suits, combat boots, and fatigue caps were stretched along the tree line in a skirmishers' formation. Sergeants and junior officers behind the long line urged them forward in hoarse voices. The commands echoed from the hills and forced Lyon Wentworth into a rigid posture.

“Spread out! Spread out! Ten feet between each man.”

“Watch for newly turned dirt or any article of clothing.”

The major standing next to the jeep wore knife-edged fatigues starched in stiff folds. He swung his binoculars rapidly across the moving formation. “I've got some of our Recon people rappeling down the cliffs along the riverbank, Mr. Wentworth. The police are using a boat with grapples to search the water along the edge.”

“Sounds thorough,” Lyon was finally able to mutter.

“If she's here, we'll find her,” the major said with a touch of pride in his voice.

The line of National Guard troops was soon lost from view in a heavy stand of pine. Occasionally a shouted command would reach Lyon, and he came to fear the hearing, for the next shout from the searching men could mean that Bea's body had been located. He kept assuring himself that she was alive, that the phone call from the man with the voice box was valid, and that she was being held somewhere.

He turned away from the self-satisfied Guard major and looked down the dirt logging road to their rear. A police cruiser, its dome light flickering, was jouncing in the ruts as it sped toward them at a pace too fast for the road's poor condition. The Murphysville cruiser swerved to a stop a few feet from the jeep.

Rocco Herbert and Captain Norbert erupted from the car.

Lyon watched his friend and the state police officer hurry toward him. Again the fear. Its tentacles sapped the strength of his legs. Behind him he heard the men searching in the woods and the voices of command reverberating through the forest. He searched Rocco's face for a sign.

“Any news?” Lyon asked softly.

“That goddamn postmaster is going to be up on charges!” Norbert snapped. “As soon as I can think of the right ones.”

“What?” Lyon looked perplexed as he swiveled his gaze from one man to the other.

“We have a man at the post office,” Rocco said quickly. “We were waiting for the morning mail, and when yours was sorted, our guy tried to take it.”

“Goddamn officious bureaucrat,” Norbert mumbled.

“As you can gather, the postmaster wouldn't give us your mail without a court order,” Rocco said.

“Where is it now?”

“On its way to your house for delivery. We did get a glance at it. There's a padded envelope addressed to you without a return address.”

The three men began to walk rapidly toward the still idling cruiser. “Where was it postmarked?” Lyon asked.

“New York City—Manhattan.” Rocco slammed behind the wheel and Norbie climbed in the passenger's side while Lyon sat in the rear seat behind the wire mesh.

“The National Guard will call us at your house if they find anything,” Norbert said over his shoulder.

In a series of jerky turns, Rocco turned the cruiser on the narrow logging road until he was headed in the other, direction. He switched on the car's siren when they reached the paved secondary road. The trip back to Nutmeg Hill was a bone-jarring nightmare as Rocco pushed the car to its limits.

When they reached the driveway to his house, Lyon saw the mail jeep parked by his rural mailbox. The diminutive postman was arguing with officer Jamie Martin. “You can't have the mail!” they heard him shout.

The police car rocked to a halt. Lyon fumbled for the nonexistent interior door handles in the rear, while Rocco and Norbert loped toward the mail van. Lyon began to pound on the window to attract Rocco's attention.

Rocco turned sheepishly and returned to release him from the police car.

“I'll take the mail,” Lyon said to the indignant mailman.

“I don't know who these guys think they are, Mr. Wentworth,” the mailman said as he thrust several letters and the small padded envelope into Lyon's hands.

Lyon glanced through the mail. Several letters that were obvious bills, a letter from his publisher in New York, a few pieces of junk mail, and the package.

“Don't open it,” Norbert commanded. “We'll do it properly up at the house.”

A state police specialist carefully placed the padded brown envelope on the center of the kitchen table and proceeded to walk a circle around it. He hovered over the package, squatted and stood on his toes, and observed the article from several angles. He finally shook his head in satisfaction and proceeded to remove, with a pair of tweezers, the staples that shut one end. He took care not to touch the body of the envelope. When the last staple was removed, he lifted the envelope with the tweezers and shook it above a small felt pad he had placed on the table.

A mutual grunt went up from the men surrounding the table as a single cassette slid from the envelope and came to a careful rest on the felt pad.

“Bag the envelope and take it for prints,” Norbert commanded.

“The cassette too?” the technician asked.

“Wait a minute,” Rocco interjected. “I think we had better play the damn thing first.”

Norbert nodded. “Get me the recorder from the equipment near the phones.”

The technician quickly procured the recorder, plugged it in at the kitchen counter, and lifted the cassette with his tweezers. Carefully, as if defusing a bomb, he placed the tape in the recorder, closed the lid, and pressed the “play” button.

The recorded voice boomed from the small player at a volume that startled everyone. The trooper hastily adjusted the sound. Bea's voice was flat and devoid of feeling. It was as if she were delivering statistical facts on a dry piece of legislation to the state senate.

“He picked me up at the shopping-center parking lot, Lyon, but I suppose you know that by now. I have not been hurt, and he tells me that he will let me eat after this tape is complete.” The inflection of Bea's voice changed slightly, and there was a hollow ring to her words. “It would seem prudent for you to do exactly as he says. Please do, Lyon, because I love you and I want to come home to take care of my lilacs.”

There was a blank portion on the tape, and then Bea's voice again. “Is that all right?”

“Just fine.” The voice that answered had the now familiar whine of machinery in the timber of its inflection. “The lady's location will be revealed when I receive the following stamps express-mailed to: Mr. R. Willingham, Hotel Dalton, 72 Raven Street, London NW 7. The stamps are as follows: four 24-cent inverted airmails, United States; one Hawaiian 2-cent of 1851; one Confederate States of America Mount Lebanon Provisional of 1861; and one Cape of Good Hope 4-pence red color error of 1861. When these stamps are received in England, you will be notified of the lady's whereabouts. You have seven days.”

The tape ended.

“Play it again,” Lyon said softly.

The technician nodded, rewound the cassette, and again pressed the “play” button. Bea's nearly emotionless voice began.

Lyon Wentworth sat on the kitchen counter and leaned forward with his hands on his knees as he listened intently. “Again,” he said when the short tape finished for the second time. The tape was replayed.

“What kind of crap is that? Sending stamps to England?” Norbert snapped.

Raymond Dupress, an FBI agent who had been standing unobstrusively in the corner, looked down at the small pad he held in his hands. “Hardly crap,” he said. “I'll make a rough guess that the perp is asking for half a mil.”

“What?”

“That's right. Those inverted American airmails must go for nearly a quarter of a million by themselves.”

“Are you a collector?” Lyon asked the agent.

“I dabble a bit.” The agent laughed. “Nothing on the scale of this guy. That's heavy stuff. Those are some of the most expensive stamps in the world.”

“How will he unload them?” Lyon asked.

“There are auctions all over the world,” the agent replied. “He can enter them in separate lots under a number. He'll probably spread them out to stamp houses in different countries so that no two appear at the same place. It will be next to impossible to get him, even with Interpol in the act.”

“Or he might have arranged for buyers prior to the kidnapping,” Lyon said.

“So much for homing devices,” Rocco said.

“He still has to pick up the letter and expose himself,” Norbert said.

“There's a problem with that tape,” Lyon continued.

“What's that?” Rocco asked.

“One, I don't have five hundred thousand dollars with which to buy those stamps; and two, Bea hates lilacs. She has for years.”

The command post in the living room had been dismantled, and the police officers had left except for Rocco on the couch and a lone guard by the front door.

“How much sleep have you had since this started?” Rocco asked.

“Not very much.”

“I have some yellow jackets at home. Want me to go get them?”

“Some what?”

“Nembutals.”

“No, I have to think. Where am I going to get that kind of money?”

“Then you're going to buy the stamps?”

“Of course. If I can figure out a way to do it. We'll worry about catching him later. Right now I want Bea released. I want her safe. I want her home.”

“I know you do, Lyon. We all do.”

“Five hundred thousand worth of stamps. It may as well be ten million. I looked at our bank accounts a few minutes ago, and you know what? We have eight thousand in the savings accounts, and two in the checking. There's a few shares of stock worth a few thousand more. I'm owed some royalties, and Bea has money in the state retirement fund. I made the list and added it up. We have a net worth of forty-two thousand dollars, and that's one hell of a long way from five hundred thousand or whatever those stamps end up costing me.”