A Child's Garden of Death (11 page)

“You're probably right, but like a great many other things, the element of luck or fate can't be discounted.”

Asa Houston leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms behind his neck. “Meyerson,” he said aloud. “I can't recall the man. My interest in this whole matter, Lyon, is the fact that the man did work for me, did live right next door to the plant. I'd like to see justice done. If I could only recall the man … but recalling a great many things during that period of my life is difficult.” He tapped his coffee cup. “I didn't drink coffee in those days. In fact I made a valiant effort to drink the distilleries dry, but they won and I quit. And another thing, when the war started I had a small machine shop with hardly a dozen employees, and I ran a lathe right alongside them. By the time the war ended I had a factory employing over twelve hundred. Those days were a whirlwind. A lot of the details blur, and we had hundreds of employees in and out. Some of them worked a couple of months and moved on, others we hired and tried to train but couldn't … a blur, a real blur.”

“Well, no one expects you to recall your employees of thirty years ago,” Lyon said.

“Damn it all! I have an obligation to that poor bastard and his family. Just like I have an obligation to my present workers. Are you still going to continue with it?”

“Yes, I'm afraid I'm caught up in it.”

“Well, there is one thing I can do. I'll call my personnel manager first thing in the morning. I personally guarantee the cooperation of my whole staff.”

“I'd be very appreciative.”

“Oh, by the way, are there any leads … anything further to go on?”

“Yes, a couple of items that I haven't released to anyone. Mostly speculation at this point, so I'd just as soon not go into them.”

Asa Houston took Lyon's arm as they walked back to the living room. “It seems to me,” Houston said, “that to this point you've done pretty damn well with your speculation.”

“Perhaps,” Lyon replied. “Perhaps.”

Five

The Fox in the Factory.

As he looked through the room-length windows overlooking the factory complex, the idea came full-born to Lyon. Froelich Fox danced along the distant water tank and then appeared on the roof of the foundry, only to scamper along the conduit pipes toward building number three. Undoubtedly he'd have a comfortable lair hidden deep in the recesses of the warehouse. The idea was well-shaped, and Lyon felt the excitement that preceded the actual writing of the book.

He turned from the window and sat down at the large conference table. In front of each place was a legal pad and well-sharpened pencils. He began to make notes at a furious pace.

“You've got something,” Rocco said from the other end of the large table.

“Yes, yes,” Lyon muttered without looking up.

“I knew you would, I knew it.” Rocco came around the table and stood behind Lyon to peer over his shoulder at the pad. “Jesus H. Christ,” the large man said. “The Fox in the Factory.”

“Yes,” Lyon muttered again and turned to a fresh sheet of paper.

“Christ, man, we're looking for a murderer.”

Lyon looked up. “What?”

“Oh, man.” Rocco slapped the leather-backed chair with both hands. A secretary appeared and began to serve coffee from a silver setting and bone china cups.

“Mr. Thompson will be with you shortly,” she said and quietly disappeared.

The board of directors' conference room was on the third floor of the administration building of the Houston Company. Along one long wall, framed architect's renderings of the factory were tastefully hung. On two other walls, several of the company's products were displayed: airplane engines, circuit wire, and calibrated machine tools. The remaining wall opened to floor-length windows that overlooked the panorama of buildings comprising the factory.

Lyon folded his notes carefully and stuffed them in a rear pocket. He turned toward the windows where Rocco stood. “Big mother, isn't it?” the Chief said.

“Impressive,” Lyon replied. “There's a strange beauty about a factory, the lines of the buildings, the latent power. Used to be an artist who painted water towers, dynamos, all that sort of thing—can't remember his name, but it'll come to me.”

“You know, Lyon, I could be doing something useful, like checking the high school washrooms for pot.”

“We have the same problem here,” the voice behind them said. They turned to be introduced to Willis Thompson, director of personnel and employee relations. “Yesterday we found a young employee at a punch press stoned out of his mind. ‘Chunch, chunk, what bunk' was all he kept saying.”

“What did you do with him?” Rocco asked in a professional manner.

“Referred him to our employee rehabilitation unit. We have a full time psychologist and family counselor on the staff,” Thompson said.

Lyon judged Willis Thompson to be in his early thirties, slightly myopic, and if school ties were in vogue, his would be Harvard Business School, MBA, 1968. He placed several neat folders on the conference table, and as he talked, he proceeded to align them obsessively.

“I received a personal call from Mr. Houston. He asked that we all give you our fullest cooperation.”

“Thank you,” Lyon replied. “It's greatly appreciated.”

“As background,” Thompson continued, “I've brought some pictures and other information of historical interest. This one shows the factory in 1943.” He extracted a glossy print from one of the folders and handed it across the table.

“It's sure changed,” Rocco said.

The 1943 picture showed the Houston Company as a hodgepodge of quonset huts, unpainted structures, and a muddy parking lot, the total grouping one-fifth the size of the complex presently visible outside the conference room windows.

“We've grown and improved quite a bit over the years,” Thompson said. “In 1943 we had a period of rapid expansion. That point in time when a small plant began to grow into a major industrial factory. You will notice the temporary nature of many of the buildings. Since then, as you can see, we have landscaped the area and provided picnic benches, a recreation area, cafeterias, and of course full medical and dental care. I might say, we probably have the most extensive employee benefit package in the state.”

“Very impressive,” Lyon said.

Thompson held the photograph by its edge and carefully replaced it in the folder. “Unfortunately our records for that period are not very complete. The personnel records were destroyed. Now, of course, everything is microfilmed for permanent and perpetual storage.”

“You must have some employees who were around during that period,” Rocco said.

“Thirty years is a long time ago, and you have to keep in mind that then we were a struggling company. Many of the workers who came here were temporary wartime workers. Many were older men who couldn't serve in the Armed Forces, that sort of thing.”

“There must be some,” Rocco said.

“Well, yes, of course. Some retired and a few still here. Exactly what do you want?”

“We'd like to talk to an employee who worked here in 1943.”

“Mr. Houston personally asked that we give you our complete cooperation.” He opened another folder and examined it carefully a moment. “Perhaps you'd like to start with Mr. Graves. He's our senior vice-president in charge of production. He started here in 1942 as an apprentice machinist. A real success story.”

“That would be fine,” Lyon said. “Let's start with Mr. Graves.”

“Hell, yes! I remember those years. We worked in those days, we really worked—no molly-coddling union to make rules for us. Let me tell you, one day in forty-three I worked around the clock. That's right, around the clock, twenty-four hours. No office work, either; I was on a machine in those days, a lathe man.”

Jim Graves sat at the opposite end of the conference table, but his robust voice filled the room. As he talked, his expensive suit coat opened to reveal that he wore suspenders, and the aura of the factory floor still seemed to surround him.

“I started here when I was nineteen. Didn't know a lathe from a Bullard in those days. Worked right alongside Asa Houston himself in the beginning; then later on Asa had to travel down to Washington to see about the government contracts. But not in the beginning; he worked and set up just like anyone else. That's where I learned to work, and I mean really work. Not like things are now.”

Lyon took the picture from his pocket. It was a blow-up of the temple picnic, with the serious Meyerson to the far right. He handed the picture to Thompson, who walked around the table to hand it to Graves. “Do you recognize any of the men in this photograph?” Lyon asked.

Graves examined the photograph, took glasses from his coat pocket, donned them and looked again at the picture. “Can't say that I do. Sure don't know this guy in the center with the beard. Nobody wore beards in those days; everyone was clean-shaven. Now, we have to put hair nets on some of the guys. Can you imagine—hair nets so they don't get caught in the machinery.”

“Anyone in that photograph look familiar?” Rooco asked.

“I wouldn't recognize a picture of myself thirty years old. Besides, all these guys look like foreigners, and look at the funny little caps.”

“Yarmulkes,” Lyon said.

“Oh, Jewish,” Graves said. “I worked alongside a German Jew when I first started here. Serious little guy, used to practice his English while he worked. Always had a book on the bench right next to him, and all day long he'd say words over and over again. Good toolman too. Meyerson was probably one of the best I ever saw, a real stickler on the job.”

“Meyerson?”

“I think so. Yes, Meyerson.” Graves picked up the photograph again and examined it closely. “The one on the end, the serious little guy. That could be Meyerson.”

“What happened to him?”

“Meyerson? Best thing that ever happened to me was when he left. He'd have the job I have now, no question about it, but then he moved to California. When he left, they made me foreman.”

“Foreman?”

“Sure. Meyerson became foreman when he got his English down pat. A Goddamn good man.”

“How do you know he went to California?” Lyon asked.

“That was thirty years ago … I don't know. Someone must have told me. I remember his leaving pretty clearly because of the fight.”

“What fight?” Rocco asked.

“Meyerson and Bull Martin. They had it out right on the floor. Meyerson was a little guy, but spunky … and Bull … well, you don't call a man Bull if he's a ninety-pound weakling. I finally had to help stop it when Bull had him on the floor and was kicking him in the head.”

“What were they fighting about?”

“I don't know. Probably something about production; Bull was a foreman too, but fights happened a lot in those days. Everyone was on edge, the long hours, no sleep …”

“Was Meyerson hurt?”

“Beat up. Nothing serious. As I remember, he finished the shift, and then the next day he moved away.”

“What happened to Bull?”

Graves leaned back in the chair thoughtfully. “You know, I don't know. Seems to me he left the plant a little after that. I don't know what ever happened to him. I remember him though, mean as a snake.”

“His first name?”

“Just Bull. At least that's what everyone always called him. Funny, if it hadn't been for those two fighting and then leaving, I'd probably still be on the floor myself. Funny.”

“Yes,” Lyon said. “Funny.”

Lyon Wentworth's feet dangled over the edge of the hayloft; a piece of straw dangled from his lips, and a sailor's needle and heavy thread were clenched in one hand as he tried to thread the eye. The hot air balloon envelope was stretched in the interior of the barn, and after a careful examination he had discovered a small rent in the material and was now attempting to sew it.

Through the open loft door he could see, across the yard, the women approaching the barn. Martha Herbert's small but determined steps put her in the apex of the group, with Bea and Kimberly only a few feet behind. They blinked as they entered the barn and peered through its dim interior.

“
ALL RIGHT, WENTWORTH. WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU
?” Bea's voice filled the building.

“Gone fishing,” he replied. As the women looked up at him he waved and dropped his thread spool. “Damn!” Lyon stood and turned to go down the loft ladder. “What can I do for you ladies?”

“
TIME FOR A CONFERENCE
,” Bea said.

“Turn up your gizmo, darling,” he replied.

“You're ruining my husband's career,” Martha said.

“You've had it, man,” Kim added with glee.

“If someone will thread a needle for me, we can all sit on the veranda with lemonade and listen to the happy darkies chant in the fields,” Lyon said and gave Kim a pat.

“Make your own fucking lemonade,” Kim replied.

On the veranda the three women talked in low voices, a chore for Bea, while Lyon made lemonade in the kitchen. Placing the iced pitcher and glasses on a tray, he kicked open the door and served the determined group. Sitting on the porch railing, he smiled at them. “Well?”

“We want action,” Bea said. “How about something like the Tick in the Typewriter, the Bat and the Book, the Raven and the Royalties, the Moose and the Money?”

“You've sent Rocco down to Washington, and you know the town won't reimburse him for that,” Martha Herbert said.

“And you know how them Washington chicks are,” Kim said with a laugh as Martha stared daggers at her.

“Someone else could have gone to Washington,” Martha said.

“It's a job for the State Police. They're equipped, they have the money, and after all, Lyon,” Bea said, “it is their case now.”