Death Through the Looking Glass (10 page)

“Games are over,” the quiet voice said from the doorway.

The man whirled to face Rocco. “You want some, big bastard?”

“Try me.”

The two men met at the middle of the hall. Rocco's turn at the last moment threw the other man off balance. The chief's rapid chops hit under the other man's neck and across the larynx as his foot crashed on the goon's instep. As his opponent fell, Rocco's knee came up into the solar plexus. He knelt next to the gasping man, twisted his arms back and cuffed them.

Lyon struggled onto all fours and shook his head. He saw a frightened Bea by the hall door and staggered to his feet. He lurched toward her. “Are you all right?”

She put a hand to her cheek, where a red welt was beginning to appear. “Yes, I'm O.K., but you look a little glassy-eyed.”

“Our friend is carrying a piece,” Rocco said as he drew a .32 from the prone man's shoulder holster.

“I got a license. A legal right to carry it.”

“Let's see it.” Rocco undid the cuffs and propped him against the wall. “Take it out of your wallet, nice and easy.”

“I'm a licensed private investigator and have a gun permit.”

“You
were
a licensed investigator,” Bea said. “The secretary of the state just this minute revoked your license.”

“Here's my permit.” He handed Rocco a card from his wallet. Rocco glanced at it and handed it to Lyon.

Lyon looked at the name Gabriel Respampte on the permit and wondered if Gabriel had an interest in Far Eastern culture. He handed the card to Bea.

Bea glanced at the permit and ran a tentative finger across the red slash on her cheek; then she took a step into the hall lavatory and flushed the toilet. “He
had
a permit.”

Rocco took the pad from his pocket. “Carrying a gun without a permit.”

“Hey, wait a minute!”

“Driver's license and registration.”

Mumbling, the man handed Rocco two cards. “All in order.”

Rocco continued writing in his pad and, without looking at the documents, handed them to Lyon, who gave them to Bea, who flushed the toilet. “Driving without an operator's license, improper registration.”

“You can't hold me on those charges!”

Rocco continued writing. “Attempted murder, two counts; extortion, two counts; carrying a concealed weapon; counts of assault, battery, disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, trespass, mischievous mischief.…”

“Knock it off, pig. My lawyer will get me out in two hours.”

“As soon as bail is posted.”

“Isn't Judge MacElroy deep-sea fishing today?” Lyon asked.

“In Florida,” Rocco replied, and kept writing. He put the pad away and, bunching the man's shirt front, lifted him to his feet. “How were Esposito and Giles involved?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

Rocco cuffed the man's hands and propelled him out the front door. There was a short scuffle outside, and Rocco reappeared at the door. “Do you have some water?”

Bea filled a bucket in the kitchen sink and handed it to Rocco. They heard the splash of water as it was thrown over the fallen man, then another crash. Rocco again appeared in the doorway. “Gabriel is terribly clumsy. Could I have some more water?”

“Wait a minute, Rocco,” Lyon said. “Enough is …”

Rocco shrugged. “There are two other partners in the tontine. Giles, Esposito, and two others. That's all he knows, but I'm putting my money on Esposito.”

8

Lyon parked the Datsun down the street from the school crossing. As if by mutual agreement, the children appeared along the walk and moved toward the patiently waiting Rocco, positioned in the center of the street. The little girls moved in small, serious clusters, while the boys hung back, engaged in the conspiratorial formation of secret clubs that would engulf them for the summer. Rocco raised his hands to stop traffic. As they moved across the street, some of the boys took furtive glances up at the towering police officer with the revolver strapped to his hip.

There was a low tap on the car window, and Lyon turned to look into a wooden salad bowl that was thrust under his nose. Several coins and two rumpled bills lay in the hollow of the bowl. He looked up at the two white-robed figures with begging bowls, standing obsequiously by the car.

“For the Kingdom of the Blossom, sir. A contribution assures you of a place by His right hand.”

Although an exact determination was difficult because of their robes and the fact that the man had had his head shaved and the girl was turbaned, he placed them at about Robin's age. “I'm afraid I don't contribute to just any guruism,” Lyon said and smiled at his witticism.

The robed figures bowed politely and began to flow down the street. He wondered what lack of love, what Weltschmerz or inadequacy had bent them toward their Kingdom of the Blossom … which made him think of Robin—which he didn't want to do.

When the last child, small legs pumping rapidly, ran for the school, Rocco walked toward Lyon.

“I didn't know the town's police chief doubled as a school-crossing guard.”

“Last day of school, and Hinton's on vacation. Meet me at the station for coffee.”

The Murphysville town hall, off the green, included the selectman's office, the town clerk, library, police station and health inspector's office. The police station was on the ground floor, in front of the library. Lyon entered the small suite, waved at the dispatcher, and went into Rocco's office to start the coffee maker.

He'd made two cups and had his feet on the desk when Rocco arrived. “Well?” he asked as his friend gratefully drank the coffee.

“Nothing new. Norbert's kept me advised on the investigation.”

“My visitor Gabriel?”

“We were able to set bail at fifty thousand, but he still got out. I don't know that I can make his connection with Esposito stick, either. Once his lawyer arrived, he wouldn't say a word.”

“What did the state people say when we established that there had been a phone call from the lake house?”

“Norbie feels that Karen knocked her husband off at the cottage and then called her boyfriend to come out and help her get rid of the body.”

“It didn't happen that way.”

“Because you got a call from Giles?”

“Not just that. Whoever killed Giles tried to establish a false lead with the Carol Dodgson identification.”

“Karen Giles, the pilot, or Esposito could have done that.”

“Bea pointed out that there were cosmetics in the handbag along with the ID, but no mirror. Karen Giles wouldn't have made that mistake.”

“But a man would have?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the way it sits now, Norbert leans toward the Giles woman, and I'd put my money on Esposito or his hired gun. But where in hell do we go from here?”

Lyon brushed a forelock back from his brow. “Let me think about it, and maybe I'll have something when I see you tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“We're having people in for cocktails and barbecue.”

“I hope you have a lead by then, Lyon. This damn thing is playing havoc with my quota of speeding tickets.”

“And also my dolphins, Rocco.”

Lyon ritualistically sat at his desk before the typewriter and glanced into the machine to see whether there was an adequate amount of ribbon on the carbon spool. He adjusted the yellow second sheets on his right and the unfinished manuscript of Danny on his left. A glass of ice water sat on the far edge of the desk. He had found over the years that this almost sacramental preparation aided him in breaking out of mundane trains of thought and involved him almost immediately in what some called the “magic circle of writing.”

He glanced out the window as a transient thought teased his consciousness. Robin sat on the patio with a sketch pad on her bare knees and her head tilted back to catch the sun.

It wouldn't have been quite so disconcerting if she hadn't been wearing the damn bikini. The dolphin of wise thought retreated deep into the inner recesses of his mind.

He walked slowly out onto the warm flagstones and kicked off his sneakers. She looked up and smiled. “Hi.”

“We thought you'd be gone for days checking out the airports.”

“Like you guys say, negative all the way.”

“Forty airports in half a day or so?”

“Twenty-three in the circle you drew. This swell guy out at the Murphysville airport did it for me. I went out there first, and when he found out what I wanted, he radioed around and saved me that long trip.”

“Did he take you to his A-frame for ground-school lessons?”

“Yes; how did you know? He had me on the couch when the police came and took him away.”

“Robin, that was Gary Middleton. He is a suspect in this case and not the person to ask for help in tracking down a possible lead.”

“Well, no one told me he was the one.”

He looked down at her drawings. “And besides, your dolphins look more like fish.”

She tore out the page and wadded it up. “I know. Truth of the matter is, I've never seen a dolphin.”

“I've got a set of
Britannicas
in the study.”

She let the sketch pad fall from her lap. “I don't believe that real things can be learned from books.” She looked into his eyes. “I was thinking it might be more helpful if we rented a cabin cruiser and went out to sea.”

“I wouldn't know where to look for a school of dolphins,” he said hastily.

“We could try. Even if it took three or four days, and I know Bea has a lot to do at the state capital.”

“Robin, no girl, even from the mountains of North Carolina, is that naïve.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me explain.”

Bea Wentworth stepped from the shower, wrapped a large bath towel around herself, and went humming into the bedroom. She slowly began to dress, savoring the anticipation of tonight's party. She donned a light red pants suit. They'd use the long outdoor barbecue and serve corn on the cob smothered in butter and wrapped in foil, quartered chicken with barbecue sauce, and of course the ritual steak for the conservatives. She mentally ran over the contents of the liquor cabinet and found them adequate.

They were sitting below her window. Lyon held both Robin's hands as he leaned forward to talk intently to the young girl.

She watched them silently for a few moments, her eyes clouded. Then she stepped backward to sit heavily on the edge of the bed.

There was a knock at the door, and Kim stuck her head inside. “I have the chicken. You pick up the steaks and salad?”

Bea nodded. “In the refrigerator,” she said absently.

“Are you all right?”

Bea pointed to the window. Kim strode across the room and stood looking down at the patio. She finally turned to Bea. “You want me get ma' razor and cut on her?”

“Knock it off, Kim.”

“You trust him, don't you?”

“I trust Lyon implicity.… But I'm not sure for how long.”

“Then send her home—that is, unless you plan to adopt her.”

“I've tried. It's hard to keep her on airplanes.”

“You know the trouble with you middle-class whiteys? You're so damn polite that you forget where things are at. Come right out and say it, for God's sake. Use a little ghetto language on the little bitch. Tell her to get her little ass back where it belongs.”

“That sums it up nicely.”

“You want me to lay it on her?”

Bea looked up and blinked back a tear. “Would you mind terribly?”

Bea stood at the sink, shucking corn and wrapping it in aluminum foil, as Lyon entered the kitchen. “What in hell is up with Kim?”

“A message for Garcia.”

“She stormed out, and for a moment I thought she was going to push me off the parapet.”

“She's delivering a message for me.”

Lyon pointed an ear of corn at his wife. “You sicked her on Robin.”

“Exactly.”

“I was getting things in hand.”

“That's what I was afraid of.”

They watched Kim shake a finger under Robin's nose. Robin, with downcast eyes, talked in an inaudible whisper. Kim's hands went to the girl's shoulders.

“Robin is from the South; you don't suppose …” Bea said in a soft voice.

“Better than South Boston. But Christ only knows what Kim will say when she gets going.”

As they watched, the two women fell into each other's arms. Robin buried her head in Kim's shoulder, and then broke away and ran for the house. The kitchen door banged open. Robin stopped and stared at Bea and Lyon a moment, broke into a sob, and ran for the stairs.

Kim entered the kitchen slowly and stood by the doorway.

“What did you say to her?” Lyon asked.

“I told her to get the hell back home, and then she …” Tears coursed over Kim's cheeks. “And then she told me how it felt, how much it meant to her, what it was … it was a lovely, sweet, innocent and beautiful thing.…” Kim choked and ran from the room.

“I don't think the ghetto makes them as tough these days,” Bea said and handed Lyon thirty-two ears of corn to husk.

The lieutenant governor stood in the center of the patio beneath the gently swaying lanterns and brought his hand down in a long chopping motion. “… and then she said, ‘Today we unlock the pay toilets, and tomorrow the world.'”

There was laughter from the surrounding group as Lyon moved away from the periphery of the crowd toward the long barbecue at the far end of the patio. Rocco Herbert, looking slightly ridiculous in a high chef's hat, brought a large steak impaled on the end of a fork over to the barbecue and delicately dropped it onto the coals. He looked up at Lyon. “How'd I get snookered into this?” he asked as he flipped over the steak.

“I think your wife volunteered you,” Lyon said, “and unless you're feeding a lion, you had better flip that steak back again.”