A Child's Garden of Death (5 page)

“Palladium? No, none. What does that mean?”

“It probably means that our adult male victim was either European or else someone who liked to get his dental work done in the old country.”

“Where in hell did you pick that up?”

“Three years ago when I had my front teeth capped, nothing to read except my dentist's library. We've been using palladium in dental work since the early thirties; European dentistry didn't start until after the war.”

“That might help.” The Chief's voice was interested and contemplative. “Maybe Immigration can help us, although I'm not quite sure how.”

“Let's think about it. See you tomorrow.”

Lyon hung up and rolled over in bed. After ten minutes he realized that the attempt was useless. Sleep was gone, and he went downstairs to the study to see what machinations he might invent for his precocious cat.

“You're not going to cut my balls off!”

The prospective gubernatorial candidate stood by the fireplace shaking his finger vehemently at Beatrice.

“I am not recommending that,” she replied. “I don't advocate cutting, chopping, or in any way amputating any part of man's anatomy. I just say our platform should include encouragement for vasectomy clinics and information centers.”

“I've had twelve children and might have twelve more.” The ice clinked in the candidate's glass and sloshed liquor over onto the hearth.

“You didn't have them.
YOUR WIFE DID
.” Beatrice had lost control of her voice again and the candidate looked startled.

“Some call that genocide of the blacks,” the black attorney in the corner of the room said and looked startled to be in agreement, for the first time, with the candidate.

“
I
'
M GOING TO GIVE YOU A LESSON IN MALE PLUMBING
,” Beatrice told the candidate in her usual tone.

“Don't you yell at me, Senator.”

Lyon Wentworth slipped out the french doors onto the patio as his wife, followed by a phalanx of other women, stalked the candidate.

The other party noises subsided, the various conversational islands giving differential preference to the dialogue by the fireplace between Bea and her opponent. Lyon shut the patio door behind him, cutting off all but the slightest murmur of the argument. He swished the ice in his drink and drained half the glass.

At the edge of the patio a small parapet ran the length of the rear of the house, and he stood, one foot on the edge, looking off toward the river.

“You're a quiet one,” the voice behind him said.

He turned to see Martha Herbert. “Hi. Not really, it's just that I'm afraid that the politicians have taken over. Where's the Chief?”

“Sulking and hiding. He saw all the politicians in there, turned white as a sheet and made a triple drink and then disappeared. He never knows when he could do himself some good. Go see him, Lyon. He should be in there socializing with those people.”

“I'll talk to him,” Lyon said, knowing that he would talk to Rocco, but that he certainly would not force the large man into the maelstrom now prevailing in the living room.

“Now, he's got this thing with my brother,” she said vehemently.

Lyon turned toward her. Martha Herbert was a diminutive woman of barely five feet whose hair hung to her shoulders and who constantly wore demure white dresses, a little girlish idiosyncrasy that now seemed slightly ludicrous. Her head came to Rocco's shoulder, and Lyon wondered how she and Rocco ever … and caught the half-formed erotic thought before it completely formed. “What's this thing you're talking about?”

“His feeling about the State Police. You know, I wanted him to go into the state when he got home from the service. My brother was already a sergeant. If we had all those state benefits now … and Rocco would probably be a captain by now too.”

“He's talking about running for town clerk.”

“There's no future in that. I mean, once you're town clerk, you're town clerk. There's no chief town clerk or anything … we'd be at a dead end.”

“Yes,” Lyon said. “I suppose you would.” It bothered him that he didn't care for Martha Herbert very much, and he wondered how many bickering arguments his large friend had endured, although he'd never mentioned them to Lyon. “If Rocco wants to be town clerk, it might make him happy.…”

She tossed her hair in a contemptuous gesture. “Oh, he doesn't know what he wants. All he can say is that he's tired of giving out parking tickets, and now this business about those bodies.…” She grimaced.

“Can I get you another drink?”

“Yes, thank you. Scotch and water.”

Lyon closed the kitchen door quietly and blocked it with his back. At the sink Beatrice was pouring ginger ale into a highball glass. She continued pouring until the foaming liquid spilled over the lip of the glass and ran over the counter into a small puddle on the floor. He went up behind her and put his hands gently on her shoulders.

She half-turned and smiled through the tears. “I blew it, Lyon. I really blew it and I don't give a damn.”

He kissed the back of her neck and she sniffed through the tears. “It's all right,” he whispered. “If it hadn't happened tonight it would have been some other time with that joker.”

“I suppose so.”

“Beatrice, there is one thing you must do.”

She turned and threw her arms around his neck, “
I KNOW
… about time to have my hearing tested.”

“I made an appointment for you on Tuesday.”

She kissed him and he pulled her closer. “I love you,” she said.

“I have an idea,” he replied. “The barn; they won't miss us.”

“Later. I've got to get my face repaired and go back out there and fix that bastard.”

“Work against him at the state convention. Back Ed Maddaloni; he's a good man.”

“Maddaloni, yes.
YES
.” The glint returned to her eyes and she hastily brushed the remaining tears from her face. “That pompous, ignorant ass has already alienated half the people here. Let's see what I can do about the other half.” With a flounce and a twitch of her rear she strode from the room, and Lyon had a picture of her adjusting her lance as she galloped onward to meet the black knight.

Lyon made drinks for Helen and Rocco and a double for himself. He went in search of the Chief.

He found Rocco Herbert at the desk in the study making aimless doodles on a yellow legal pad. He put the drink firmly in the Chief's hand.

“You didn't tell me you were going to have a Goddamn political convention here,” Rocco said without turning.

“I didn't know, but should have guessed. This time of year they slither under the doorway.”

“Sontilly of the Hartford
Courant
is here. If he spots me he'll think I'm bucking for first selectman.”

“I won't allow that. I'll tell him that the Murphysville chief of police is in my study getting stinking drunk.”

“Very funny. You know, old buddy, it's against FAA regulations to land balloons on golf courses.”

“How did you know about that?”

“One of the players who you almost landed on top of is mayor down there and made a complaint to headquarters. I squelched it this time. You know, it's getting so I have to practically have a unit watching over you to keep you out of trouble. Another incident or two and you'll be barred from highway and airway.”

“Thanks.” Lyon picked up the large blow-ups Rocco had brought with him from the police photographers. The largest, taken from the balloon almost directly overhead, he pinned to the edge of the mantel, the edge of the photo held firmly by the feet of the Wobblies. He sat in the leather chair next to Rocco and looked at the picture.

“You've got a good camera,” Rocco finally said. “Excellent clarity and detail.”

They pulled on their drinks and kept looking at the aerial photograph. “You know,” Lyon said, “it is too far up the hill to make sense.”

“Almost on the leading edge of the ridge,” Rocco replied. “Oh, man, if we were still in Korea, I'd say it would be a good spot for a company defense perimeter.”

“Yes, wouldn't it,” Lyon said. He took the photograph from the mantel and spread it out on the desk. Getting map dividers from his balloon navigation kit, he calculated a scale from a section of the stone wall along the road that he carefully estimated at fifty feet. Using the dividers carefully, he made calculations on the edge of the photograph.

“What do you think you have?” Rocco asked impatiently.

Lyon tapped the pencil against his teeth and stood back from the photograph. “The grave site is 375 yards from the road, but of course that doesn't include the incline of the hill. For someone to cart three bodies through all that brush all that distance.… Now, look at the other side of the hill … right over the ridge, less than fifty yards from the grave.”

Rocco squinted at the photograph, and Lyon handed him a magnifying glass. “There's a cut through there, along the edge of the ridge; it runs down through the hill on the other side of the lake.”

“Right. It's an old logging road. I'll lay you ten to one that thirty years ago it was passable by auto.”

“Old maps would verify that.”

“Wouldn't it make a lot more sense, with three bodies, to drive a car up that way, move them a few yards and then dig the grave? Far less chance of being seen, and far more practical.”

“Yes,” Rocco said.

“Then what would he or she do?”

“Get the hell out of there.”

“Three bodies, probably killed within minutes of each other, carried in a car or pick-up truck, near a lake …”

“Jesus H. Christ! The lake!”

“Drag the lake, Rocco. Let's drag that damn lake now.”

“The secret is not to have the grappling men grapple the scuba divers,” Rocco said as they stood at the edge of the lake watching the dim figures at work.

“I've got a hangover,” Lyon said.

The Chief's big hand slammed into Lyon's back, almost knocking him off the bank into the lake. “There's coffee in the thermos over there. Hell, you ought to be glad I didn't take you up on starting this last night when we were both half squiffed.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Lyon poured a cup of steaming black coffee from the thermos and scorched his throat as he gulped part of it. Going back to the edge of the bank, he saw Rocco bent over a large geodetic survey map. He had divided the lake into a grid system of numbered sections approximately five square yards each. Two men in each rowboat worked the edges and shallows of the lake with grappling hooks, calling back to Rocco as they finished each section. In the deeper parts divers periodically disappeared as they worked their sections.

The early day was hazy, and wraithlike tendrils of fog rose from the lake's surface. The men working the far edge of the lake were only spasmodically visible as their rowboats appeared and disappeared in lake fog.

The helmeted and goggled scuba divers rose to the surface occasionally to gesture a hand signal to Rocco which he marked down on his map.

“How long is it going to take?” Lyon asked.

Rocco shrugged cheerfully. “Who knows? An hour, maybe days.”

Lyon groaned.

“You're the one who said drag the lake,” Rocco said.

Lyon huddled into his coat, thankful that he'd had the foresight to bring the sheepskin jacket. Early spring mornings, particularly just after dawn, could be cold as hell. He sat down on the ground and leaned back against a tree, pulling his jacket collar high up around his face.

Rocco Herbert awakened him by kicking his insteps roughly. He blinked his eyes open and looked up at the Chief looming over him. “What is it?”

“We've found something about thirty yards down the way.”

Lyon scrambled to his feet and followed the large strides of Herbert. The rowboats, about twenty yards apart, were gathered in a semi-circle off shore.

“The grapplers hit something, and I just put the divers down. We'll know in a couple of minutes if we have anything.”

They stared into the opaque waters, the morning still except for occasional frog croaks and the thunk of an oar in a boat. Two helmeted scuba divers broke surface simultaneously, and one raised his hand with upturned thumb. They waded awkwardly to shore and were aided up the bank by Lyon and Rocco. With triumphant faces, they stood with dripping wetsuits and removed their mouthpieces and cowls.

“We found it, Chief. A 1938 Ford coupe.”

“Good work, men,” Rocco beamed.

“No, sir,” the other diver said. “It's a 1938 Plymouth coupe.”

“Ford,” the first diver replied angrily.

“Damn it all,” the second diver said. “I know an antique Plymouth when I see it.”

“Ford.”

“It had a hood ornament in the shape of a boat with a ring around it. I could tell that even with the rust.”

“That's a Ford.”

“You're out of your cotton pickin' mind,” the second diver said and threw his helmet at the other's webbed feet.

“Knock it off!” Rocco bellowed.

“Yes, sir!” He snapped to attention.

“Would both you officers agree that there is a car down there, a coupe of pre-World War II vintage?”

“That's right, Chief.”

“Well, then, that's just fine,” Rocco continued softly. “Did we see anything else down there that we all might agree on?”

“Yes, sir. There's something else down there. Near the car, but deeper, like it went into a hole. It's longer than a car and half buried, like a wagon or some other type of vehicle.”

“A caravan,” Lyon said.

“No, sir,” the diver said seriously. “There's no caravan, there's only one of them.”

“I mean house trailer,” Lyon replied. “A caravan is a house trailer.”