Death on the Mississippi (27 page)

Bea looked up at the large house perched on the cusp of the cliff above the Connecticut River. Dark scudding clouds had moved across the sky obscuring the last of the day's dim light. The steep approach, the bleak sky, and the harsh outlines of the stone outcroppings that composed the building's walls caused the mansion to cast a looming, sinister-looking shadow.

“Very foreboding digs,” she said.

“A dwelling fit for a munitions manufacturer,” Lyon added.

Bridgeway was more than a dark, massive structure. During his first visit years ago, Lyon had decided that only a very strange man could have created a building that seemed to transform a bad dream suffered by a returning Crusader knight into reality. The insomniac Templar must have somehow confused Baroque, Byzantium, and Gothic architecture. Although this mixture was historically improbable, it probably reflected the yearnings and miseducation that a Piper forebear had imported from an obscure Germanic village. Whatever its intended design, the building had been constructed in massive proportions out of brownstone rock quarried nearby. The resulting creation was a surrealistic square gargoyle perched on a rock high above the river.

Lyon knew that the building had been begun by the original emigrating Piper and finished by his son just prior to the Civil War. Caleb evidently became a lonely and embittered old man who survived two wives and the death of his oldest son. Perhaps it was this sour personality that had imbued the house with its sinister characteristics.

They swerved into the final switchback in their approach to the house. The golf cart slowed and came to a silent stop. The house loomed high on the promontory above them; spasmodic windows cast irregular light across the hill, while faint nostalgic notes of a string ensemble drifted faintly toward them.

Their driver, his face barely visible in the dim light, carefully stepped down from the golf cart and stood stiffly before them in a posture that indicated anxiety.

For a brief moment Lyon wondered if it were possible to be mugged by a tuxedo-wearing highwayman who drove a golf cart. The possibility of robbery seemed even more remote when it became obvious that their quixotic chauffeur was considerably less than four feet tall. The small man extended a stiff hand toward him.

“R. Welch, Mr. Wentworth,” he said formally. “When I heard them call up to the house to pick you up, I took it because I wanted to speak with you.” He nodded toward Bea. “Senator, I have always voted for you.”

Bea automatically switched on her political smile, oblivious to the fact that it was not visible in the dim light. “Thank you, Mr. Welch.” Her firm grip was extended toward the small man who stood stiffly before them.

“You're here to see Swan,” he said.

“Yes,” Lyon answered, more puzzled than ever.

“I have lived at Bridgeway all my life. I know that something is bad wrong here. Real bad.” He looked up at Lyon and even in the gloom it was apparent that he expected some pronouncement. “Well?” he asked after a pause.

“Swan asked to meet with me.”

“I know your history, Wentworth,” the surprisingly deep voice stated with a hint of menace. “You better not blow this one. Too much is at stake. It has to be stopped. Now!”

He turned and bolted from them. Within several steps he was lost in the shadows.

“I think we have just met Igor,” Bea said. “If the townspeople storm the hill with lit torches, I'm leaving.”

“I think our small friend has been drinking,” Lyon said.

“You smelled something?”

“Yep. We may have just been accosted by a drunken dwarf.”

“I'm not quite sure if that's politically correct,” Bea said. “But what in the world was it all about?”

Lyon shrugged as another employee, dressed in the Piper Corporation's ubiquitous coveralls, appeared in the drive before them. “The Rabbit said for me to take you the rest of the way,” he said as he climbed behind the wheel.

“Thanks,” Lyon answered. They were deposited on a spacious stoop under a porte cochere in front of a wide oaken door that was slightly ajar. Dual security cameras mounted on the walls on either side of the door swiveled toward them.

“Welcome to Bridgeway,” Bea said.

Lyon gave a short bow and extended a hand toward the open door. Arm in arm they entered.

A chamber ensemble was playing somewhere in the interior of the house. They followed the sound of muted music through a high stone vestibule and down a wide hall that emptied into an immense living room.

The three-story-high room had wide, curving stairs at each end that led to a balcony that ran along three of its sides. A number of doors entered off the balcony, and Lyon assumed that these led to bedrooms and other suites. The chamber music group played in an alcove located to one side of a massive fireplace that occupied nearly a whole wall on the room's outer side. Uniformed waiters, including their diminutive chauffeur from the golf cart, circulated unobtrusively with canapes and flutes of champagne.

There were two dozen other guests in the room. Several political figures acknowledged Bea, while Lyon recognized department heads and nationally known scholars from Middleburg University and two other prestigious schools. He assumed that most of the other well-dressed men and women who carried themselves with such assurance were members of the state business community, which consisted primarily of insurance companies and defense contractors. The aggregate influence present in the room added up to a large percentage of the state power structure.

A portion of the party spilled through several French doors leading onto a patio much like the one at their home, Nutmeg Hill. Although their house was far smaller and more modest than Bridgeway, its similar location on a high promontory across the river sustained the remote kinship Lyon felt for Peyton Piper. In their youth they had been college classmates. Their interests and philosophies were now so divergent that no vestige of a relationship would have remained except for this vague alumni connection threaded together by their mutual homes facing each other high above the river.

The Wentworths had taken their first sip of champagne when Peyton Piper waved from across the room. He immediately began to make his way toward them. He slipped through the crowd, leaving a practiced wake of arm squeezes, busses, and hand clasps. It was an orchestrated movement of social tacking that Lyon had to admire.

Bea watched Peyton Piper's progress with a politician's eye. “He moves through crowds better than a lot of presidential candidates I've met,” she whispered to Lyon.

“He could do that when we were in college, but like good wine he improves with age. I've always had the feeling that Peyton started to hone those social moves in kindergarten.”

“No,” Bea answered. “Men like Peyton go directly from nursery school to prep. They don't do all that other stuff like the rest of us mortals. You know, he'd be a damn attractive man if he weren't politically right of Genghis Khan, in addition to manufacturing explosives and being so beautifully unctuous. I bet he plays great tennis and bridge?”

“Of course.”

Peyton had finally reached their side. He kissed Bea while simultaneously grasping Lyon's arm at the elbow. “God, it's good to see some real people here tonight,” he said for their benefit.

“As if the rest are all clones,” Bea thought to herself as she caught the faintest aroma of his after-shave lotion. She didn't ordinarily care for scents of that nature, but whatever he was wearing smelled terrific. She wondered where he got the stuff.

Peyton was Lyon's age and height although slightly heavier. With his even tan and compact body kept trim by social sport exercise and exquisite tailoring, he exuded an aura of fitness and well-being. His physical appearance was only a backdrop to his complete social assurance. Lyon had always felt that smug confidence was best represented by royalty or by those who came from old New England money. They were educated at certain prep schools that fed them directly into certain Ivy League colleges. They were not only accepted by but automatically assimilated into old-boy networks. It could be an intimidating facade, as shown by the nervousness that overcame Richard Nixon in his confrontations with Jack Kennedy.

While a caterer spoke confidentially with Peyton Piper for a moment, Lyon leaned over to whisper in Bea's ear. “Musk of Tahitian virgins.”

She looked puzzled. “What?”

“The after-shave lotion.”

“How did you know I wondered?”

“I saw your little nostrils quiver.”

Bea sighed. “How can a man who can't change a faucet washer notice subtle things like that?”

“Because I don't sleep with kitchen faucets.”

Peyton turned his full attention back to them. “As I said, so glad you two could come. It's always good to see you, Lyon, and later on I want to have a little tête-à-tête with Bea and Congressman Candlin.”

“We were met by a crowd outside the estate who were definitely not happy campers,” Bea said.

Peyton Piper laughed. “They're wimps compared to the protesters Bridgeway attracted during the Vietnam war, when we manufactured napalm. That's when we really had a parade of loonies climbing the walls. Now they're criticizing the Tommy land mine. You know, I think if I manufactured rosary beads and crucifixes they'd call me anti-Semitic.”

“Why are they protesting since we aren't at war with anyone this week?”

Peyton Piper smiled. “We don't really know the shelf life of a Terrible Tommy land mine once it's buried. Of course, it's a passive weapon, but it might be lethal for as long as a century.”

Lyon wondered if the industrialist's smile was due to irony or pride.

Bea looked incredulous. “Do you mean to say that those things are buried all over the Third World and last practically forever?”

“A Tommy has never been buried in American soil,” Peyton said proudly.

“That's because they were developed after our Civil War,” Lyon added and received a sharp look from Peyton. “In some parts of the world they're planted in more acres than rice or maize.”

Peyton put his arm on Lyon's shoulder and flashed his most winning smile at the couple. “You know, Beatrice, even at college Lyon was always argumentative. Probably why he didn't get invited into the Thumpers lunch club. If my old man, the colonel, was still around he would have called you anti-class.”

“Oh, God, Peyton,” Lyon said. “You'll be calling the protesters serfs before the evening is out.”

Their host's eyes widened in mock horror. “You mean they aren't my vassals? Did someone release the serfs without telling me?”

Peyton flashed another winning smile after this great jest. Bea wondered if perhaps the humor was the actual camouflage and a part of this man actually believed in his divine rights.

“I promised I'd talk with you about those mines,” Bea said.

“You could never imagine the corporate battles we had over the Tommy, Beatrice. Let me tell you a little story. When I was first elected to the board of directors, the colonel still ran this company with an iron fist. At that time the Terrible Tommy was set to detonate at three feet. Army ordnance people felt that men couldn't hunch lower than that unless they were flat in the dirt. Well, I went to the mat for a four-foot explosive height in order to protect the children who might wander on the field. The colonel, my own father, opposed me, but I won that battle, kids. And to this day the Terrible Tommy detonates at four feet.”

“It only maims taller children,” Bea said.

Peyton shook his head. “No wonder you two are married. You think alike. Isn't that Congressman Candlin in the doorway? Excuse me. I'll go net him for our little chat.”

Peyton began working the crowd back toward the room's entrance, where the tall congressman stood cataloging the party participants with mild interest.

“It's been a long time, Lyon.” The woman's voice was low and intense.

Lyon was startled at the change in Katherine Piper during the two years since he had last seen her. Peyton's wife was a thin woman who now wore heavy base makeup to disguise a chalk-white complexion and dark hollows around her eyes. Her other attempts to restore a past haunting beauty had succeeded only in making her appear slightly grotesque. Her carefully articulated movements and speech were the deliberate actions of the near inebriated.

“Katherine, I would like you to meet my wife, Bea.”

The woman took Bea's hand with a limp grip that conveyed limited interest. “Yes, I have heard of you, Bernice.”

“Bea.”

“Of course, Lee. I hear you're one of those superactive women who manages a career, puts down men, and still bakes cakes.”

Lyon could sense his wife's antennae quivering. “Only on Mondays and Wednesdays,” Bea answered. “On the other days I sell my body.”

“Really, is there much of a market for it?” Katherine Piper said as the diminutive butler served her a tall glass containing what appeared to be orange juice.

“Ixnay,” the butler said to her. “Ocknay offnay.”

“Keep your place, you little troll,” Katherine Piper replied in a stage whisper.

Lyon stepped into the breach. “Did you know that Katherine was in grad school at our university when Peyton and I were undergraduates?”

“I noticed that my husband trotted out his ‘going to the mat with the colonel' anecdote. That little fable is designed to prove that he's not as bloodthirsty as his annual report would lead you to believe. Actually, his father was quite a man.”

“Granddaddy was a malicious warlord.” A young woman with glowing blond hair that fell past her shoulders appeared at their side. Her hand gripped Lyon's. “Remember me, Mr. Wentworth? Paula Piper.”

Lyon took her hand and felt the same firm pressure her father transmitted during his greetings. “Of course, Paula. I haven't seen you since I don't know when. But I see that the braces are off.”