A Child's Garden of Death (23 page)

“You forgot the five thousand Houston sent.”

“Of which you gave half to Rocco. Oh, and I forgot the money you gave that private investigator.”

“It's for a good cause.”

“I'd call it a rather expensive hobby. So, please tell me what you're doing.”

“I think I'm getting ready to kill a Wobbly.”

Pat Pasquale arrived before Rocco and sat sullenly in a corner of the living room nursing a scotch and water. Kim snorted and disappeared to her apartment when the unmarked police car pulled into the driveway, and now Bea sat on the sofa looking thoroughly dejected.

“I'm on my own time, Wentworth. So, where's your big friend?” Pat said.

“He had to go over to the State Police barracks and borrow something.”

“He borrows and you buy,” Bea said. “I wonder if I can get a state civil service job typing envelopes? It would pay better than State Senator, and at this rate we're going to need the money.” She turned to Pat. “How's the incidence of forcible rape in Hartford this year, Sergeant?”

“Not bad, Senator. We expect a year-end decrease due to more men on foot. Which is where I'll probably be next week.”

Beaming, Rocco Herbert strode into the room. “I've got my end,” he announced.

“I refuse to comment on that remark,” Pat said.

“My wife will never believe what I'm doing,” Pat said.

“I'll set things up,” Lyon said.

Pat was on his feet. “Wait just a minute, you two. Let's see if I understand this parlor game we're playing. You guys have two suspects. During the time of the suicide which you call a murder, one was out in the parking lot copulating with the chauffeur and the other was in a meeting in front of fifteen reliable witnesses.”

“Exactly,” Lyon replied. “And we're going to show you what happened that morning.”

The police sergeant looked at them with a skepticism that gradually turned to interest. “You really think you've got something?”

“We do,” Rocco said.

“Then I'm interested,” the sergeant said.

“All right, then,” Lyon said. “Let's imagine that my study is Houston's office, that the windows can't be opened, and that this room is either the secretaries' office or the board room.”

“I'm with you so far,” Pat said.

“Good. Now, Rocco, if I can borrow your gun.” Along with his service revolver Rocco handed Lyon a paper bag. “It's now 8
P.M.,
but we can imagine it as 10
A.M.
It's the time lapse that's important.”

“Be careful with that gun,” Bea said.

Lyon left the living room, closing the heavy study door securely. He took a stuffed Wobbly doll from the mantel and placed it in his desk chair and inserted a cassette in the recording machine. Glancing at his watch, he turned the recorder on. He took the silencer from the paper bag Rocco had given him and screwed it onto the barrel of the thirty-eight caliber service pistol.

Glancing at the sweep second hand of his watch he pointed the gun at the stuffed toy's head. “Sorry, old chap,” he said, “but you're repairable.” He fired and the gun went off with a short pop. With stuffing flying through the air, the doll spun upward and landed against the far wall.

He unscrewed the silencer and slipped it in his pocket and laid the pistol on the desk. He threw the switch of the electrical system he'd attached to the edge of the desk that afternoon, and immediately heard the click of tumblers falling into place at the door. The small, airline flight bag was on the mantel in place of the destroyed doll. He picked it up, its deceiving weight almost forcing him to drop it. At the door he passed the bag back and forth across the lock face as the tumblers clicked open.

Leaving the room with the flight bag held behind his back, he held it against the door frame until he was satisfied that the door was again locked. Lyon walked across the living room and poured a sherry.

“Now what?” Pat said.

“We wait,” Lyon replied. “I've got it set for five minutes, but it could be any length of time up to ninety minutes. The murderer has just left Houston's office, and Houston, supposedly alone, has locked the doors.”

“I'm with you so far,” the detective said.

Lyon looked at his watch. “Just about …” The loud shot startled the group in the living room. Pat leaped across the room to the study door and fumbled with the handle.

“It's locked,” the diminutive detective said.

Rocco picked up the flight bag and walked to the study door. He passed the bag back and forth across the door and then opened it. “We've got ourselves a portable electro-magnet,” Rocco said.

“Well, I'll be damned,” Pat said as they entered the study.

Bea stood in the doorway and surveyed the mass of stuffing throughout the room. “My God, Lyon, you've made a mess,” she said.

Lyon picked up the Wobbly doll and handed it to the detective. From his pocket he took the silencer. “This is on loan with the compliments of the State Police Museum.”

“I've got to return it or Norbert will have my head,” Rocco said.

“Now the tape,” Lyon said and reversed the direction of the cassette player. When the tape passed his pre-determined mark he stopped it and ran it forward on play. “Listen to this.”

The voice from the speaker was unmistakably Asa Houston's. “I have come to the end,” the tape intoned. “There are few alternatives left, and I am taking the only course of action open to me. Everything is in order, and the lawyers will know where to look.” The voice stopped. Weak, hardly discernible noise, then the opening of the drawer. Again silence until the faint click of the revolver's engagement and the shot.

As it had when he'd heard the original tape in the Hartford police station, the shot startled Lyon. The tape continued running—a muffled pounding on a door, and then silence as the cassette reached the end of the spool.

“That's just fine,” Pat said. “But how the hell did you steal the tape from my office?”

“We didn't; it's bur own.”

“It's identical to the one I took from Houston's office that morning,” Pat said.

“I know,” Lyon said as he inserted another cassette tape in the machine. He ran the machine forward to the spot he wanted and turned up the volume.

“I have come to the end,” the voice of Houston intoned. “This crap with the unions is breaking my chops. I'm Goddamn ready to meet with the business reps today if it'll do any good at all.”

Lyon switched off the machine. “These tapes,” he said and indicated the boxes strewn throughout the room, “come from the Houston Company. It's a chore, but not difficult, to go through and pick out appropriate words and phrases, re-record them with a gunshot and a little door pounding.”

For the first time in several days Bea looked pleased. “I get it,” she said. “The murderer went into the office earlier, shot him, put the cassette on with the pre-recorded sequence and then left.”

“Houston was already dead,” Rocco said, “when two dozen witnesses heard a shot and rushed into the room.”

“It was all on the cassette,” Pat said. “So when I arrived, the machine was still on, and the playing was synchronized to give the murderer the length of time he needed.”

“Ah, the light breaks through for the Hartford police,” Rocco said.

“The murderer made a mistake,” Lyon continued. He inserted the cassette back in the recorder. “Listen to the end once again.” He ran the tape to Houston's voice and let it play.

“… the lawyers will know where to look.” The voice stopped. Faint rustling could be heard, then the opening of a drawer, the click of the revolver and the shot.

“So, I …” Pat started to say until Lyon put his fingers over his lips. The tape continued in silence until the muffled sound of someone beating on the door and then the tape ran out.

“There's no body falling,” Lyon said. “Our friend had a hell of a lot of work to do that night, listening to tapes and re-recording sounds. He or she worked it out beautifully except for staging one sound … the body falling. Notice the fidelity of everything else: the sound of the drawer opening, even the revolver. It would have picked up the sound of the gun and the body falling.”

Pat walked slowly around the room. He hefted the revolver, flipped open the cylinder and extracted the spent cartridge, then handed the gun back to Rocco. He walked over to the tape recorder, examined it, brushed some stuffing from the desk top and sat at the desk to contemplate the mutilated Wobbly. “You know,” he said, “you two guys have done one hell of a job.”

“Pure intellect,” Rocco said and laughed.

“Only a couple of problems left,” Pat said.

“Which one did it?” Bea said. “Helen Houston or Jim Graves?”

“Couple of problems before we get that far,” Pat said glumly.

“What's that?” Rocco asked.

“Item one,” the small detective said. “The recorder in Houston's office was on when I arrived.”

“It was on from the time the murderer turned it on,” Lyon said.

“The microphone had the record button depressed. In other words, it would have erased over anything else on the tape. How do you explain that?”

They were silent as Pat walked over to the door and waved the flight bag back and forth over the lock; he admired the clicks as the tumblers fell and opened. “Your electro-magnet idea is fine and dandy,” Pat continued. “I can really appreciate it, except that I examined the doors to the room that day. Houston was a bug, a real fanatic about security and industrial espionage. The buildings have back-up security systems everywhere, all sorts of things, including shielded locks.”

“Shields?” Lyon asked.

“That's right. He wasn't any amateur, you know. The man was a damn fine engineer and machinist. The door was shielded under the wood veneer. No way your little gadget here would work.” He tossed the flight bag back to Lyon. “Any more ideas, guys?”

“Well, back to the drawing board,” Lyon said.

Sunday afternoon Beatrice and Kimberly held the mooring lines securely as Lyon made his pre-flight tests on the balloon. The bag above his head was now filled to tautness and the propane burner was chugging away, pumping more hot air into the balloon envelope. The balloon hovered over the yard at fifty feet, its body straining upward.

Lyon glanced into the sky toward the top of the envelope. It was taut, the sleeve above the burner fluttering at the right inclination and the ripping panel lines secure. He turned and waved at the waiting women and they released the mooring lines.

At first the balloon seemed to bounce upward until, after the initial thrust on release, the rate of ascent normalized to a slow, stately ascent. He flipped the toggle switch on the small citizens' band radio. “Bea, who's following today?”

“Kim will follow in the pick-up truck.”

“Fine. The wind's southeast at about four knots. I don't expect a great deal of drift, so ask her to go down route 9 and 9A.”

Lyon turned the radio off and attached it securely to the edge of the basket. He made a small adjustment to the propane burner slowing the rate of ascent, and checked the rate of southeast drift. It was a perfect day for ballooning, with only faint wisps of cloud layer many hundreds of feet above, the majority of the sky bluish and clear.

At four thousand feet he stopped the rate of ascent until the balloon seemed to hang motionless in the air, the slight drift hardly perceptible. With the propane burner adjusted to pilot, the world became silent.

“Bunch of Goddamn amateurs playing games,” Pasquale had muttered as he left the house the night before. “Stick to traffic violations,” he'd yelled back at Rocco as he slammed the car door. “In that area you're a whiz.”

The car had driven off with a screech of gravel. Bea had shaken her head while Rocco turned to Lyon.

“Where to now, old buddy?”

“I want to talk to that security captain and the foreman who broke in the door,” Lyon said.

“All right,” Rocco had replied as he climbed into his car. “I'll pick you up at eight tomorrow.”

The security control center for the Houston Company reminded Lyon of the fire control center of a large ship he'd once visited. The major difference was that TV monitor screens replaced the sweeping glow of radar scopes, although the dim room with flickering lights and chairs bolted to the floor in front of monitor banks was similar.

As he greeted them and ushered them into the control center, the security captain had been pleased to see Rocco, a professional who would enjoy the display of gadgetry, and he ignored Lyon. He immediately made Rocco sit in the control chair, and pointed with pride to the various monitors within easy reach of the chair's occupant. They dutifully listened as he explained the security systems, foot patrols, and TV monitoring of over seventy percent of the plant's premises. Finally he had asked what they wanted in the way of further information.

“It's about the doors to Houston's office,” Rocco said. “As we understand it, the locks are shielded so that no outside interference can open them.”

“Of course,” the captain had replied. “On Mr. Houston's insistence. Otherwise any decent technician could walk through the plant, opening any locked door or area at will.”

“And you're absolutely sure that only two keys existed? You have one and Houston had the other?” Rocco asked.

“I swear to it. My key never left me, and Houston's was found on his body.”

“Any chance a duplicate could have been made?” Lyon said.

“Impossible. The lock would have to be removed from the door, which is one hell of a job in itself. A duplicate key for the tumbler system would then have to be manufactured and the lock replaced. My patrol men would have reported any activity of that nature.”