Death at King Arthur's Court (23 page)

The roiling hate that had been partially defused with the shedding of blood was beginning to rise again. Its focus was narrowly directed toward the meddling couple who had complicated all future plans.

The conclusion was simple. They must be destroyed. The original intention had been to kill the woman first. Through quirky luck they'd managed to overcome that threat, but at least the bomb had finally detonated. They were already suspicious, which put them on the alert and increased their investigative activities to the point where they might discover the truth.

The Wentworths must perish! The next attempt would be simple in execution. The final attack would utilize the most direct and surest way to eliminate them.

They would be dead before this day was out.

They did not speak during the ride back to the house. From time to time Lyon looked at his wife as she stared grimly ahead. Her features were taut as she sat stiffly erect.

‘This killing has to stop,' she said in a voice barely audible over the wheezing thump of the pickup's laboring engine.

‘I know,' Lyon replied.

‘If we don't end it, it won't stop until we're dead.'

Lyon was silent. There was no easy answer. ‘Since the legislature's not in session, why don't you go away for a few weeks?'

‘Like where?' she asked without interest.

‘I was thinking of that place in Maine we went to a few years ago. You remember, the cottage on Little Diamond Island in Casco Bay? You'd be isolated and safe, with an opportunity to recharge your batteries.'

She snapped him a sharp look. ‘You know I can't do that and leave you alone.'

‘I'm concerned about your safety. That bomb was planted in your car, not in my truck.'

‘It was meant for both of us.' Her outburst seemed to have drained her. She shifted on the seat until she was turned toward him. ‘I'm not going to live in terror. We'll go through this together.'

Lyon turned the pickup into the long drive that led up to the house. He unconsciously slowed as they neared the end of the promontory. Their home, perched on the highest point of the bluff, had darkened windows that bracketed the red front door in a manner that seemed to create a jack-o-lantern face. Once again the total effect had switched their home to a place of menace.

Bea's shiver told Lyon that the feeling of unease had been transmitted between them.

‘Even our house has changed,' she said in a quiet voice.

He parked near the front door and quickly left the truck. He stood in the center of the drive and visually searched the lawns and tree lines in all directions. The driveway down to the highway was empty. The fields on either side of the house contained only a lone brown rabbit momentarily posture-frozen near the trees. The only movement was in the gentle wave of tall grass as a wind swept up from the river.

She stood by his side. ‘What are you going to do now?'

‘I'm going to search the house and barn to make sure we're secure,' he said. ‘Later, we'll write a statement for the police, but before that I want to think through all that's happened. The best place to do that is up in the cloudhopper.'

She groaned. ‘You have got to be kidding? We're practically under siege, and you're going to fly in the sky like a bobbing target in a shooting gallery.'

‘I'll stay nearby and keep an eye on the roads and other approaches to the house.'

‘I still think you're making a target of yourself. We'd be better off in a storm cellar.'

‘We don't have a storm cellar,' Lyon replied.

‘Maybe we both could go to Little Diamond Island?' He shook his head and she knew that further argument was useless. Lyon could be a very stubborn person. She suspected that he expected some sort of imminent attack, and this was his way of placing himself in jeopardy in order to protect her.

She followed as he walked briskly through the house, opening and shutting closet doors, looking into each room, and checking the security of window locks and doors. When he was convinced that no monsters lurked within their home, they searched the two outbuildings. They finished in the barn, where Lyon wheeled the balloon cart into the yard. He began to spread the envelope out on the grass preparatory to inflation.

Bea picked up the parachute harness, which was attached to a ring hung below the balloon's bottom aperture. She ran her fingers over the webbing and shook her head. ‘If you're so intent on ballooning, why not fly in something substantial? At least you'd be in a real gondola and not dangling from a belt a thousand feet up. I'll help you launch the Wobbly II, if you want?'

‘No, thanks. I can get the cloudhopper in the air fast and get down quickly if need be.'

They worked as a well-trained team as they unrolled the envelope and arranged it for inflation. Lyon started the small compressor that blew air into the balloon until it was filled sufficiently for the interior to be heated. When the bag began to billow, he braced the propane burner across his waist. He directed the nozzle through the aperture, adjusted the propane gas flow, and lit it. The flame jet quickly heated the interior air. Slowly the balloon began to rise. It bobbed from side to side as hot air increased its buoyancy. When the bag was erect, he hooked the propane burner to the ring and tied a line to the metal mooring post anchored in cement by the barn.

Bea shook her head as he slipped into the parachute harness. ‘I'm not usually an overly anxious person,' she said. ‘I've flown with you more than a hundred times in the Wobbly I and II, but this damn cloudhopper is scary.'

‘Ho ho ho!' Lyon said as he adjusted the propane burner. He lit another burn for adjustment until the balloon bobbed at the end of its tether. ‘If I stay away from high-tension lines, and watch where I come down …'

‘Like on church steeples?'

‘I miscalculated.'

‘You know, most sane people who want to ruminate sit on the porch and slowly rock back and forth.'

‘I find ballooning very conducive for abstract thought of a nonlinear nature.'

‘Your nonlinear mind may be vertically challenged when that toy decides to make a rapid descent. I hate it so much that I am tempted to sneak out here some night and slice it to ribbons.'

He stopped his preflight check to smile. ‘The midnight rectifier strikes again. Give her a can of spray paint or scissors and she'll convince you of anything.'

‘Believe in me,' she said. ‘The New England genes that made my ancestors spice Boston Harbor with tea are still active.'

‘I want you to take your New England genes inside and stay away from windows and doors,' Lyon said. ‘Better yet, go to the rec room and bolt the door.'

‘You mean, get out of the line of fire,' Bea said, ‘while you drift over half the state making a target larger than Humpty Dumpty.'

‘The wind is from the sea. I'll be safely over the river and won't be a target.' He released the mooring line. Another short burst of flame from the burner changed the balloon's lift. It quickly rose two hundred feet while he dangled from the harness. ‘Go inside!' he yelled down at Bea.

She shook her head and began to walk toward the tool shed.

The cloudhopper's ascent to 1,000 feet was rapid due to the excess buoyancy. At that height the balloon leveled off and Lyon gave only occasional propane burns in short quick bursts to maintain equilibrium. He grasped the harness lines overhead to stabilize his body swing before he looked down.

Bea hadn't returned to the house as he had requested. She had taken a hoe from the tool shed and was working in the small vegetable garden planted on the sunny side of the barn. He should have suspected that she'd react that way. As frightened as she was, and he knew how deeply the exploding car had affected her, she would refuse to withdraw and cower. It was not in her nature to cringe at every creak and shift of their ancient house. She would not allow herself to believe that normal noises were a prelude to some marauder's attack. She might be frightened, but she would not surrender to a paralysis of fear.

A thousand feet above the surface of the river gave him a commanding view of the surrounding road network. No cars were traveling toward Nutmeg Hill. Except for a single van parked near the crane, the workers had left the construction site for the day. If there was a stalker, he either hadn't started yet or was working his way toward them through a mile of woods.

A five-mile-an-hour sea breeze carried the balloon northwest and parallel to the meandering course of the Connecticut River. He could see Clay's condominium development with its new construction on the north side of the artificial lake.

The sniper who killed Bambi had fired from the second house. It had been a long shot across the water into the top of the Boston woman's head. It was a difficult shot, but not an impossible one if the rifle were supported on the window ledge and the victim motionless.

The murder of the topless dancer was worrisome. Why bother? What threat did she pose to anyone? Her only interest was in the financial protection of her son. That was hardly threatening to anyone, and only a minor inconvenience to Morgan. Lyon doubted that she was involved in any murder conspiracy, and that would be the only valid reason to eliminate her. Then why bother to kill her? Unless she was not the intended victim.

He examined the condominium again and drew an imaginary line from the shooter's position to the chaise lounge.

There was a possibility that the killer did not know who was occupying the lounge. The ordinary assumption anyone would make was that Clay was the one on the deck. Unless the killer actually saw who came out to the lounge, distance and the angle of the body would make definite identification impossible.

The wind began to shift as eddies from the north changed the balloon's drift. Lyon gave the burner lever a few tugs to maintain altitude.

The balloon gradually reversed direction and began to drift toward the sea. The new course would carry it back over Nutmeg Hill.

If errors had been made in Bambi's murder, perhaps there were other inconsistencies that had been overlooked. He thought back over the details of Morgan's death.

His sherry and Morgan's Pernod meant that he and the dead man shared a common desire for slightly unusual drinks. It was entirely possible that they had both been given a slow-acting drug. Lyon was convinced that he had suffered from some type of hallucinogen that completely confused him when he was chased through the woods. Morgan might have suffered from another sort of narcotic whose effect kept him from hearing anyone attempting to enter his RV.

Anyone at the house that night could have contaminated the liquor. The bottles on the bar cart were accessible to everyone throughout the evening.

The wind had carried him back over Nutmeg Hill. The balloon's shadow fell across Bea as she worked in the garden. She looked up and waved.

The most important clue to the puzzle lay on the ground before him.

As the balloon's huge shadow slowly crept across the lawn, Lyon realized that the answer could only be revealed from this particular angle and height.

He was now able to see the nearly imperceptible tracks that crossed the grounds of Nutmeg Hill. The shallow ruts across the meadow and lawn stopped at a point only a short distance from the drive where Morgan's van had been parked.

Backtracking, the faint indentations led across the meadow to a cut in the tree line that entered the construction site. The tracked crane that had created the ruts was parked at the corner of the partially completed building.

The killers knew that Morgan and Lyon were drugged. They had driven the crane to the edge of Nutmeg Hill's drive. The cable had been lowered and attached to the air-conditioning unit in the center of the RV's roof. The crane had lifted the unit straight up a distance of less than two feet, not far enough to rip the wiring loose. The unit's temporary extraction opened a hole large enough for someone to slip into the vehicle, murder the drugged Morgan, and leave without a trace. The crane had then carefully replaced the air conditioner in its slot without leaving a mark on the roof of the RV. With everything in order the crane had retreated across the yard back into the construction site.

Lyon knew who had killed Morgan and the others.

The slow drift of the balloon had carried it past Nutmeg Hill toward the apartment-building construction.

He looked down and saw the killer framed in the window of the crane. The cab window had been lowered so she could lean out with support as she carefully aimed the rifle.

It was immediately apparent that Bea was the intended target. She was innocently working in the garden and would be an extremely easy target for anyone with the slightest ability with a rifle. Lyon knew full well that Rina's marksmanship was far from rudimentary.

‘Rina!' He yelled as loud as he could. ‘Dead Head, look up here!'

For the briefest of moments they were suspended in a wide tableau. Bea looked toward the crane in astonishment as she saw Lyon hovering above the construction site in the cloudhopper's harness. Rina, five stories high in the crane cab, swivelled the rifle away from Bea to aim at the large overhead target.

Rina fired and immediately fired again.

Lyon saw that her shots were on target, but they were passing harmlessly through the balloon's envelope. Rina would quickly realize that the hits created holes too small for the loss of hot air to have any appreciable effect. He would be in trouble when she directed her fire toward him as he hung helplessly suspended in the harness.

Lyon pressed his legs together and began to pump back and forth as if swinging at a playground. His body began to swoop forward. He complicated the maneuver by violently lunging from side to side. His movements which had begun as a pendulum swing shifted into a skewered parabolic curve.

Rina fired a third time, but the bullet passed harmlessly to the side.