Death Under the Lilacs (6 page)

That bastard would get his wife back either way, but he wouldn't know that until the last possible moment.

He flipped the envelope onto the passenger's seat next to the ski mask. He threw the van in gear.

The ski mask!

He turned off the ignition and pounded the steering wheel in frustration. How could it have happened? He had planned everything so carefully. All had gone exactly as planned, and now for this to have happened.…

He had gone into the crypt the last time without wearing the mask.

She had seen him full face by the light of the Coleman lantern!

He turned and looked through the rusted fence up the hill toward the crypt at the apex of a small rise. She was now securely chained and locked inside, and yet, once released, she would be able to identify him.

Everything for nothing! It had all come apart.

He left the van and stood by the gates as the wind ruffled his chair. Of course he would have to kill her.

The only weapon he had with him was a small pocket penknife. It would be a messy and bloody affair, one that would give him nightmares during the plush days ahead.

That would not be necessary.

He turned and looked back inside the van. The letter telling of her location, the one he intended to mail in Atlanta, still nestled on the seat. He reached inside and crumpled it as he brought it toward him.

He ripped the letter into two dozen pieces, threw them in the air, and watched the breeze blow them out over the meadow.

She would die, of course, but then, that was the way it had to be.

He got back inside the van and restarted the engine. There was plenty of time to catch the flight to Atlanta. After all, he had planned it all so carefully.

4

Lyon typed the envelope with two careful fingers:

Mr. R. Willingham

Hotel Dalton

72 Raven Street

London NW 7

England

He carefully removed the envelope from the typewriter, folded a piece of blank paper which would hide the stamps from outside view, and slipped the paper into the envelope. He put the envelope into the inside pocket of his sport coat.

It was time to go. He switched off the typewriter and left the room.

He paused in the hallway as if listening to her voice. The house was quiet, and yet filled with Bea's presence as if she still occupied the rooms. He hurried down the hall and out the door toward the car waiting in the drive.

Two cars bracketed his on Route 15 as he approached the entrance ramp to the Interstate. He honked and waved them away, but the other car's occupant motioned for him to pull over on the shoulder. He jammed his foot on the accelerator and the small Datsun jumped ahead.

Their speed matched his as they continued their frantic waving. He slowed, and the police cruiser to his right signaled to him. He swerved to pull off on the dirt shoulder. Lyon angrily slammed from the station wagon.

“What is this? I'm in a hurry to get to New York City.”

“Chief wants to see you,” Patrolman Jamie Martin said.

“I don't have time.”

“He said to meet him at Sarge's Place,” the uniformed officer insisted.

“And if I don't, you guys are going to stop me.”

“Something like that.” Martin grinned.

“I don't think it's funny,” Lyon said as he returned to the Datsun. He backed off the shoulder and reversed direction. It was nearly noon. Of course Rocco would be at Sarge's; he always was at this time of day.

Lyon had long ago decided that Sarge's Bar and Grill was a whimsical masquerade of a real drinking establishment. Sarge Renfroe, a retired army master sergeant who had once served as Rocco's ‘First,' had decided that knowing a town's police chief was an excellent reference for operating a gin mill, although he rarely served gin to his shot-and-a-beer customers. Sarge ran the establishment as a cross between a servicemen's beer club at a remote army post and an off-limits Korean “hooch.” The scarred tables and booths were of prehistoric vintage, and the bar stools seemed to have been planted a century ago. Dusty bottles of never-eaten pickled pigs' feet and hard-boiled eggs decorated the shelf behind the bar.

Rocco usually lunched at Sarge's because for a dollar the ex-noncom provided him with a large stein of beer and a hamburger on a soft roll. The thick, juicy burger was undoubtedly the best in the state. Six months ago Lyon had discovered Sarge's secret. He had accidentally gone in the small back room and caught Sarge grinding up prime steak for Rocco's exclusive hamburger. He estimated that Sarge lost three dollars on every hamburger he served the large police chief. Lyon had never informed on Renfroe and could only stare jealously at Rocco's succulent hamburger as he devoured his own of more mundane quality.

Lyon marched through the front door, picked up the glass of sherry from the bar that Sarge automatically poured for him, and plunked himself into the booth opposite Rocco. “It had better be important,” he said. “I'm on my way to New York to pick up the stamps.”

Rocco consumed the last of his hamburger in a large final bite and washed it down with a gulp of beer. Lyon noticed that the chief was in a suit rather than his usual uniform.

“Got something for you,” Rocco said. “I didn't want you to go without it.” He reached into his pocket and handed a folded check across the table.

Lyon let the check lie before him. He looked down at it with dread. “What's this?”

“Refinanced the house,” Rocco said as he drank the remainder of his beer and signaled to Sarge for a refill. “It's remarkable the way real estate has appreciated. I got an additional forty, but I had to take twenty-five hundred for expenses.”

“Closing costs?”

“No. For my trip to London.”

Lyon opened the check to see that it was in the amount Rocco had indicated. “You can't do this.”

Rocco shrugged. “What the hell. We'll catch the bastard and get all our money back.”

“And if we don't?”

“Then I continue paying on the damn house until I'm eighty-five.” He leaned across the table. “You know, I don't think the bank's very smart. I don't think I'm going to live to be eighty-five.”

Lyon reached into his own pocket and withdrew the London envelope and a check of his own. He handed the check across the table. “I never thought there was that much money in the world, much less that Bea and I were worth that much.”

“You closed on Nutmeg Hill?”

“Yesterday afternoon. I have thirty days to vacate. I'll worry about that when Bea is back. Rocco, you can't use your own money to go to England.”

“The town of Murphysville isn't going to foot it. I took a week off and have already talked to an inspector at Scotland Yard. He promised to help in every way he could.”

“I can't let you.”

Rocco squinted. “I'm going to be there when he picks up those stamps, Lyon. I'm going to be right there.”

Lyon stood. “I have to go. It's over a two-hour drive to the city.” He handed Rocco's check back. “I have enough, but thanks.”

Rocco gestured. “Sit down. We're going down together, with the dome light on. We'll make it in less than two hours. I've made arrangements with the NYPD to take the letter by special car to the airport, along with yours truly. The letter and I will be on the same flight to London.”

Lyon sat down and gestured to Sarge. The thirty-year-man shuffled around the bar and over to the booth. “Rocco wants another hamburger, and I'll have a Dry Sack.”

Renfroe nodded and ambled over to the grill.

“I can't eat another bite,” Rocco said with a puzzled look.

“This one is for me,” Lyon said.

“Have you had any thoughts?”

“Dozens,” Lyon replied. “But nothing that's any good. That remark about the lilacs keeps going around my head. Bea was telling me something, but I don't know what. If I could only get a handle on what she meant.”

“Norbie's useful for once,” Rocco said. “The state police have requested all the flight manifests for planes flying to England for the whole week. I'll see that you get copies. One of the names just might be familiar, and you did say that you might have known the man.”

Lyon shook his head. “He could be traveling under a false passport, or what about connecting flights, say a flight to Amsterdam with a connector to London?”

“I have a feeling we can narrow it down even further, but I will call Norbie about the connector flights.”

“How's that?” Lyon asked.

“I figure the perp is a stamp collector. He's got to be pretty damn sophisticated in that area to know how to lay off the stamps once he has them. He had to know which ones to demand.”

“Of course,” Lyon said. “He's got to be a collector, which means he probably belongs to the American Philatelic Society and subscribes to the
American Philatelist Journal
.”

Rocco nodded with a smile. “You've been doing your homework. Now, let's say that we get a copy of the APS
Journal
subscription list, which I understand is about fifty thousand, and cross-check that against the plane manifests?”

“We might come up with a list of duplicate names.”

“Odds are that only a few names will appear on both lists.”

“It's worth a try,” Lyon said.

“It'll give you something to do until I get back or we hear from the perp.”

Her voice suddenly seemed to fill the room, and Lyon lurched back against the rear of the booth as if struck.

“It is my feeling that a state income tax is the only equitable way to levy our tax obligations on a fair basis,” Bea Wentworth said. “As it stands now, we are in effect overburdening the poor to the benefit of the rich.”

“Bea …” Lyon said.

“Those were the last recorded words of the popular Senator Beatrice Wentworth,” a male voice said. “She has now been missing for—”

“Turn that damn television off!” Rocco bellowed.

“Let's get out of here,” Lyon said.

They reached New York in under two hours and double-parked in front of a brownstone on Fifty-ninth Street. Lyon looked at the address and then up at the building. It took him a few moments to locate the discreet brass plaque next to the doorbell that simply announced, “Brumby, Philatelists.” He gestured to Rocco, and they climbed from the car.

Lyon heard muted chimes toll within the brownstone after he rang the bell. The door was immediately opened by a white-maned man dressed in an impeccable pinstripe suit with a carnation in his lapel. He gave a sonorous “Yes?”

“I have an appointment with Mr. Brumby,” Lyon said. “The name is Wentworth.”

“Mr. Brumby is expecting you, Mr. Wentworth.” He cast an oblique glance at Rocco.

“This is my associate, Mr. Herbert,” Lyon said as they followed the man inside.

The main hallway had been widened and carpeted with Turkish rugs, and display cases were arranged every few feet. Paintings from the Hudson River School adorned the walls and were illuminated by recessed overhead lights. On top of each display case filled with stamps was a magnifying glass, aligned neatly next to a piece of felt. Two patrons sat on high upholstered stools before the display.

Lyon and Rocco were ushered into a paneled office with bookshelves filled with stamp catalogs and were seated in side chairs before a vacant oak desk. Out the rear window Lyon could see a well-tended rose garden.

A door closed quietly behind them.

“Mr. Wentworth. I am Edward Brumby.”

They shook hands, and Lyon introduced Rocco as his associate. Edward Brumby wore a three-piece suit of the same cut, but obviously more expensive, as that of the floor manager who had met them at the door. He was a rotund man with tufts of soft white hair growing spasmodically on either side of his head. Round, heavy glasses made his face appear even more symmetrical than it was. He was a short man of considerable girth and slow, precise movements.

Brumby sat behind the desk and spoke softly as he removed a piece of felt and a list of stamps from the center desk drawer. “You must be an insatiable collector, Mr. Wentworth, to request such beauties as these?”

“Not really,” Lyon answered and wondered how long this session would continue.

“You were perhaps recommended by one of the Boston Wentworths?”

“No.” Another highly placed source, Lyon said and thought to himself, Ray Dupress of the FBI Dupresses.

“Yes. We at Brumby consider ourselves the Tiffany of philatelists.” He searched through a vest pocket and extracted a stamp encased in a small acetate envelope. He placed it reverently on the center of the felt and handed Lyon a magnifying glass. “Ah, such a stamp. The Hawaiian 2-cent of 1851. A rare beauty. A gem for any collector.”

Lyon glanced quickly at the stamp. “I can assume the authenticity of this stamp?”

“Mr. Wentworth! Our whole reputation stands behind our sales.”

“I'm sure it does.”

Brumy glanced back at the list of stamps. “Ah, yes. Four 24-cent inverted airmails.” He searched his pocket and again brought forth a clear envelope containing the stamps. “The inverted airmails. Such drama. You know, of course, the story? Mr. W. T. Robey on May fourteenth, 1918, brought a block of one hundred at the post office. He immediately recognized their worth, and today they are priceless.”

Lyon was getting edgy. “Were you able to obtain all of the stamps on the list I phoned?”

“But of course.” Brumby glanced down at the list. “I had to pay premium prices. Your time schedule did not allow me to try foreign sources or the usual auctions.” He began to check the list with a small gold pen. “One Confederate States of America Mount Lebanon Provisional of 1861, one Cape of Good Hope 4-pence red color error of 1861. Yes, the list is complete.” He continued rummaging in his pockets and produced the other stamps. He spread them all out on the felt. “For your examination.”