A Child's Garden of Death (17 page)

Lyon looked at the man across from him whose white fingers gripped the edge of the leatherette chair. He wondered how much the man's greed caused his continuing extortions, or how much was caused by an innate enjoyment he took in seeing men like Houston assume obsequious positions in their attempts to thrust money upon him. “I guess there never is enough,” Lyon replied, although his context was far different than Coop's. “What did Houston say?”

“Funny,” Coop replied. “At first he said he didn't remember, and I had to remind him. Then he laughed. Told me the statute of limitations had run out, that the planes involved were scrapped long ago; that no one cared about those times anymore—after all, it was several wars ago.”

“That's all?”

“Almost. I told him I didn't have long left … and then he … do you know what he told me?”

“What?”

“He told me not to loiter.”

“Would you sign an affidavit for me?” Lyon asked.

Coop sat upright and looked at Lyon with glinting eyes. He smiled. “How much will you pay?”

“Nothing.”

“Pity.” He lay back in the chair again and closed his eyes.

Lyon was on his feet. “For God's sake! You have nothing to lose. It's possible that I can use your information to find a murderer.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Wentworth. I don't see anything in it for me.”

“What about the poor bastards who flew the planes with the defective parts?”

“They're dead, aren't they?”

Coop lay back in the chair to bake in the sun as Lyon went into the saloon. He found the kit in an attaché case under the divan. He opened it to find several hypodermic needles and a dozen vials with a small piece of rubber tubing. He snapped the case shut and carried it out onto the deck. He sat on the edge of the stern, one hand dangling the case over the water.

“Mr. Coop,” Lyon said. “Coop!”

The other man opened his eyes, and on seeing the case held over the side of the boat sat upright. “What are you doing with that?”

“I'm about to drop it overboard.”

“You wouldn't do that.”

“I think I would, Mr. Coop.”

“I don't think you're a very nice man, Mr. Wentworth.”

“I'm beginning to wonder about that myself. Shall we go inside and begin our statement?”

With slow movements Coop went inside and sat at the dining table. From a nearby drawer he pulled out writing paper and pen. Lyon followed him in, still holding the attaché case tightly against his chest. As he sat opposite Coop he began to wonder what kind of men they were, and what kind of man he was becoming.

Eight

Rocco Herbert was comfortably positioned in “Sarge's Place” with a clear view of his favorite stop sign. The accommodating Sarge had placed a low stool for his leg cast near the window. His free arm had easy access to a stein of beer and a walkie-talkie radio. His uniform cap was neatly aligned between beer and radio.

Lyon stood in the doorway and viewed his friend benignly. “By God. I didn't think they made Bermuda shorts that big.”

Rocco looked down at his shorts and cast-clad leg. “Well, I'm only half on duty.”

Carefully avoiding the raised leg cast, Lyon sat at the table, opposite Rocco. Tearing himself away from the television over the bar, Sarge poured a glass of sherry and placed it before Lyon. “Can I autograph your cast for you?” Lyon said with a smile.

“Knock it off unless you want to write your Florida adventures on there. Come on, tell. Your phone call was rather cryptic.”

“I will, but first, just what in hell are you doing? Even if you spot a traffic transgressor, by the time you hobble out there he'd be in Boston.”

“Modern criminal methods,” Rocco replied. “Beyond the knowledge of you ordinary laymen. I have here a radio.” He picked up the radio and pressed the transmission switch. “Charlie, you awake?”

“Right, Chief,” the eager voice answered back over the radio.

“Charlie's in a cruiser at the back of the bar. I see 'em, he tickets 'em. We've already gotten three this morning. You would have been the fourth, Mr. Wentworth, except that I felt sorry for you.”

Lyon laughed. “That's the only reason I'm friendly with you. If we had any other chief in town my license would have been suspended years ago.”

“Are you going to tell me what happened, or are you waiting for my leg to heal?”

“Have you ever tried to pay a motel with a check drawn on a Murphysville bank?” Lyon asked.

“Not outside of Murphysville.”

“They were very unpleasant about it, and for a while I wasn't sure they'd take my cash.” Lyon took Coop's affidavit from his pocket and handed it to Rocco. Rocco read it through slowly once and then went back over it. He thought for a moment. “Jesus,” he said. He drummed his fingers on the table and signaled for another glass of beer. “Now, Coop was an employee of the federal government, but working at the Houston factory. Exactly how does that work?”

“Any factory engaged in government contracts has either an official inspector assigned to the plant or one who travels to the plant on a periodic basis. The inspector in charge is responsible for seeing that the contract specifications are fulfilled, that the goods, whatever they are, are up to the standards set in the original contract.”

“And if they're not, he rejects them and they start over again.”

“Exactly.”

“So, if Coop was bought off, he'd pass shoddy or sub-standard parts.”

“Right. And as I see it, at that time the plant was expanding like crazy. Houston's credit was probably stretched as far as it would go, and the rejection of a large shipment would have pushed him into insolvency.”

“It points directly at Houston himself. Who else would benefit?”

“There's no one else that I can see.”

They were both startled by laughter from the doorway. Sarge grinned at Rocco. “You missed one, Captain. A son-of-a-bitchin' Mercedes Benz didn't even slow down at the stop sign.”

Lyon laughed. Rocco grimaced. “He who passes stop sign once will do so again and get busted,” the Chief said. As best he could, he shifted his plaster-clad foot slightly and flexed his leg. “So, we have it?”

“Could be. Coop was bought, Bull Martin knew it, and then Meyerson found out about it. Meyerson and Bull had a fight on the plant floor. Meyerson still wouldn't drop it. Martin reports the state of things to Houston. Houston, seeing his new-found gains threatened, panics … kills the family, dumps the trailer, and tells everyone they've left for California. Bull knows too much, but can be bought off and sent into the Army.”

“Then why does Bull come after us?”

“Two possible reasons. Houston paid him, or they were both in on the murders. That way he'd be protecting himself. He knew we were getting too close.”

“Then Houston's the one we want,” Rocco said.

“With Bull dead, it's going to be hard to tie this to Houston.”

Rocco Herbert pressed the transmission switch on the radio. “Wake up, Charlie.”

“Jeez, Chief. I was only resting my eyes from the glare.”

“There's no glare back there, Charlie. You're in the shade.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rocco and Lyon stared out the window into the late morning sun. The Sarge was nodding sleepily at the bar, while one other customer nursed a small beer and looked at himself in the bar mirror. The only sound was the faint hum of the refrigerator unit from the depths of the building and the occasional swish of tires in the street outside.

“Knowing and proving are two different things,” Rocco said.

“We don't have a shred of evidence, do we?” Lyon replied.

“Nothing.”

“Have the State Police found anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Damn it all, Rocco! There's got to be something we can do.”

Rocco shook his head. “Like what? Arrest Asa Houston, the most powerful man in this state next to the Governor, take him to the back room for a working over? Let me tell you something, Lyon. My police station doesn't even have a back room. Not that I haven't wanted one from time to time, but my back room is the town library.”

“That's a sad state of affairs.”

“For what? Police work?”

“No. Our town having a library that small.”

“We can't even get a warrant for the bastard. On as little as we've got he'd sue the living be-Jesus out of us.”

“Any ideas?”

“No,” Rocco said and went back to watching his stop sign. “That is unless you want to go talk to Houston. I can't—I'd he too vulnerable—but you could.”

“What would that do?”

“Probably nothing, but a few well-placed remarks might scare the living hell out of him, and could turn up something.”

Lyon thought for a moment. “All right.”

“Fine,” Rocco said, “but be careful as hell.”

Lyon sat in his study and looked at the telephone. He felt ill-prepared for this sort of thing and had been postponing the call for several hours.

“I'll call the capitalist pig,” Kim said from behind him. “It's a perfect example of a materialistic murder.”

“I can hardly convict the man with a copy of Marx,” he said.

“Go on, Lyon, make your phone call,” Bea said. “I want to hear you call one of the wealthiest men and largest philanthropists in the state a murderer.”

“What do you want me to do?” he said crossly.

“I want you to knock it off,” she said. “I learned during my first term in the legislature that I couldn't single-handedly change the state. Some things I could do something about, others I could work to improve … there were still a lot of gross inequities, poverty, a whole bunch of things, that I couldn't do anything about. I worked toward limited goals I could achieve.”

“And the bastard goes free.”

“You said you had no evidence against him.”

“I would at least like the satisfaction of his knowing that I know what he did.”

“Send him an anonymous letter, you know the kind, words clipped from newspapers and mailed from Nova Scotia.”

“What ever happened to Battling Beatrice?”

“Sometimes she gets frightened.”

“And so do I,” Lyon said as he picked up the phone. The receptionist at the Houston Company switched Lyon to Houston's secretary. After some delay Houston was on the phone, his voice dry.

“Yes, Lyon?”

“There have been further developments on the Meyerson matter. I wonder if I might see you?”

“You caught me at a bad time, Wentworth. In two days we have the annual board meetings. I'm looking at my calendar now. How about Tuesday the fourteenth?”

“That's two weeks away.”

“As I said, you caught me at a bad time.”

“Tomorrow.” Lyon was surprised at the authoritative tone of his own voice.

“That's impossible.”

“I believe it will be highly informative, Mr. Houston.”

There was a pause as Houston considered the proposal. “All right. Tomorrow at my office. Four sharp.” The phone went dead in Lyon's hand.

In the late afternoon the two little girls had their tea party on the gable of the barn near the weather vane. They solemnly passed cups and poured tea with great formality. The dark-haired girl laughed, and Lyon's daughter laughed with her. They proceeded to eat scones and tarts, feeding crumbs to teddy bears.

Lyon got slowly up from his desk and the tea party disappeared. He went into the dining room to have a silent meal with his wife.

There was a subdued luxury inherent in the executive wing. The heavy carpet nap muffled footsteps, while indirect lighting gave an almost dreamlike appearance to the paneled hallway. The young receptionist flounced ahead of Lyon as they passed the board room. Asa Houston's office filled the corner of the building next to the board room. The receptionist opened the door to the anteroom and stepped back to let Lyon enter.

Two secretaries clattered at typewriters, one with a transcription listening device in her ear. The older of the two secretaries looked up and smiled.

“Mr. Wentworth?”

“Yes. To see Mr. Houston.”

“Mr. Houston had to go over to Building Three for just a few minutes. He's terribly sorry. But if you could wait just a minute or two.”

“Yes, thank you. Doesn't Mr. Graves have offices near here? I wonder if I might see him for a moment or two?”

“Of course,” she replied and led him down the hallway.

“Thirty-one, thirty-two.” He continued with his count, his face slightly flushed as Lyon examined the office. For its size, and Graves' position in the company, the office had an austere and modest quality. Functional was the best term. The manuals and engineering books in the case were obviously well thumbed, and the desk was a jumble of papers and charts weighted down with a slide rule. The few ornaments on the walls were testimonials from manufacturers and time-study groups, with one large picture showing Graves standing proudly next to the Governor during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the opening of their automated assembly line in Building Three.

Graves jumped to his feet and quickly toweled his face. “How are you, Wentworth?”

“Fine, just fine. I was hoping I could catch you for a minute before I met with Asa Houston.”

“A minute is all you get with me and with Asa.” He donned a dress shirt, leaving the knot of his tie halfway down the shirt front. “What can I do for you?”

“Do you know a man named Jonathan Coop?”

“Not offhand.”

“He was a government inspector back in the forties.”

“Oh, Lord, Wentworth. We've had a hundred inspectors here over the years. Right now I think we've got five permanently assigned to those departments doing government work.”

Lyon dropped the line of questioning and bent toward Graves in a conspiratorial manner. “You could be a great help to me. I have an appointment with Houston on a personal matter. If I knew more about the man …”