The Death at Yew Corner (15 page)

A golf cart chugged down the driveway and swung in a half-circle in front of them. Lyon recognized the driver as Serena Truman's companion of the night before. “The big one driving the cart is Horace,” he whispered to Bea.

“They both look big,” she replied as the first guard swung the gate shut behind them and locked it.

Horace reached from the golf cart and grabbed Bea's pocketbook. He unlatched it and began to paw through the contents.

“Hey!”

Lyon was unceremoniously braced against the wall and frisked for weapons. The two men nodded to each other and motioned to the Wentworths to climb into the golf cart. Horace drove silently up the long driveway.

As they approached a portico, Lyon noticed another guard with a leashed dog pacing along the side of the house. “Has the estate always been an armed camp like this?”

“Only the last few days,” the guttural voice replied. The cart swiveled to a stop near the front door. Horace beckoned them to follow.

The door was opened as they approached. The butler who admitted them was a carnival mirror image of Horace. Where Horace was tall and chunky, he was short and thin; where Horace's features were flattened and broad, the butler's were aquiline. They had one thing in common: they both carried shoulder holsters.

Bea and Lyon followed the butler while Horace fell into step behind them. A wide hall bisected the house with various rooms off to either side. Somber portraits of nineteenth-century men and women graced the walls.

“I think the pictures came with the place,” Bea whispered to Lyon as she glanced at the portraits.

“Instant family.”

They were ushered into a library where Serena Truman sat at an elegant French Provincial table, which had obviously been pushed to the side, away from a direct line with the windows. Horace took an alert, expectant position by the door while the butler disappeared into the interior of the house.

Serena wore a dark blue pantsuit and half glasses that perched on the edge of her nose. She looked over the lenses at them and gestured to two uncomfortable-looking chairs. “You're late.”

“The body search at the gate delayed us,” Bea said coolly.

“I've had to take a lot of precautions lately.”

“Like moving your desk away from the window?”

“There's no sense in tempting a marksman hiding in the hills with a high-powered rifle.”

“Your house is very … unique,” Bea said.

“We haven't had many visitors since we moved in, but tonight will be a unique dinner party. I know you will both find it interesting.

“I'm sure.” Lyon wondered what sort of strange guest list this unusual woman had concocted.

Serena closed a file folder containing computer print-out sheets she had been examining and removed her glasses. “Tell me, Mr. Wentworth. Is Marty Rustman alive?”

“We're not sure. Officially he's listed as missing.”

“Missing! That could be a euphemism for almost anything.” She stood and Lyon was surprised at her height. Although she was not a beautiful woman, there was an inchoate quality about her that hinted at a sublimated sexuality. She walked to the window and stood looking out pensively until she realized where she was standing and rapidly moved away. “I'm afraid to leave here. I'm a virtual prisoner.” When she turned to face them, her façade had momentarily fallen away and it was obvious that she was frightened. “It's the way the deaths have occurred that bothers me the most.”

“Asphyxiation?”

She looked beyond them toward something invisible to the Wentworths. “Yes. Asphyxiation. I suppose that all of us have one particular terror that frightens us the most, one special way of death that haunts our nightmares.”

“And that's yours?”

Her steel veneer slipped further. “Yes, God, yes!” Her retreat was complete, and she now inhabited some long-ago place where she had been as a child. “We once lived in a house on a hill. My brother was two years older and rarely allowed me to play with him. One day he started to build a fort and tunnel into the side of the hill and he let me help. We didn't know about such things, of course. How many children know about shoring and roof supports? It caved in with us inside. We weren't missed for a long while. I remember choking, gasping for breath in the small space left open around me. Finally I lost consciousness, knowing I was dead. The ambulance was there when they finally got me out, and the attendants were able to use the resuscitator. My brother died. Perhaps that was why my father made me into the son he lost.” She looked at them blankly until recognition slowly returned to her eyes. “You've got to help me. The dreams have started again.”

“You're certainly safe enough here with your guards.”

“Am I to live like this for the rest of my life?”

“The authorities will eventually solve the case.”

“Eventually could be an eternity for me.”

“Mrs.…”

“Serena.”

“You know that we've found what may be Rustman's grave.”

“How can there be a ‘may have been' grave?”

“It didn't hold a body.”

“Then it's not a grave” was her pragmatic reply.

“It did once.”

She made an impatient gesture. “That's no help.” She paced the room in masculine strides. Her veneer had fully returned. “I manage rather extensive holdings. In that position I deal in facts, cause and effect, profit and loss. If I apply that same logical system to my present circumstances, I come up with unpleasant answers.”

“I'm sure that any costs to your interests will be salvaged when it's over.”

“Cost! I'm concerned about my life! People have died who are connected to me. Someone is methodically destroying my operation by murdering my subordinates. I am convinced that I am next.”

“I mentioned your security.”

She laughed bitterly. “My father would have loved it. I live in a fortress, Wentworth. A prison. As long as I stay hidden away here I am safe.”

“Has it occurred to you that keeping you immobile might be beneficial to someone?”

She appraised him with nearly a smile. “Of course. That's why I want you here. You sense these things. I'm well aware that my nursing home executive is about to engage in a proxy fight with my major corporation. It is most beneficial to him that at this critical time I am a prisoner.”

“Anyone else?”

“My husband is a philanderer. It is most convenient to him for me to be locked away in this place. Then there is Mr. Smelts who seems to bear me some ill will due to a certain recent confinement of his. But, you shall see them for yourselves. Tonight at dinner you can observe all the leeches.”

“I would like to see more of the house,” Bea said.

“The full guided tour? Why not?”

They followed her into the hall where Horace, who had been waiting patiently, fell into step behind them. Serena led them through the mansion while commenting more on security arrangements than decor.

“In addition to the gentlemen at the gate, whom you met, we have metal detectors over all the entrances. I believe they're of early-airline-hijacking vintage. The ground floors have some interesting burglar alarms on each window. They produce a rather loud noise if necessary.” Her tone had changed to that of a rather bored tour guide in the caverns of a musty cathedral.

There was an antiseptic quality about the rooms that bothered Lyon. The furnishings were obviously expensive and arranged in an orthodox manner; and yet they resembled a decorator's showroom more than a home that was lived in by vital people. He imagined that Serena had had very little to do with the actual decorating.

“How many men do you have on guard?” Bea asked.

“Around-the-clock shifts of six hours each. I feel that eight-hour shifts make men less alert, and alert is how I want them. There is always someone on the gate and another patrolling the grounds with a Doberman. Horace or his counterpart is always near me personally. Other members of the household are armed, exceptionally well paid, and loyal.”

“My God, Serena. You have more protection than the President of the United States.”

They entered a large living room. Serena walked over to a mahogany dry sink centered unobtrusively along one wall. An iced pitcher of martinis had previously been prepared and a bottle of Dry Sack sherry had been decanted. She poured a cocktail for Bea and sherry for Lyon. Bea noticed that her drink contained an olive. The woman had done her homework well.

Serena raised a glass of Perrier. “To my health. May I have it for the requisite number of years.”

Lyon sipped his sherry. The woman standing by the sink fascinated him. He assumed she was a person of some education if the interesting book titles lining the walls in the library were actually read; and yet she was a shrewd and unethical businessperson. It never ceased to amaze him that well-read individuals who had a true appreciation for art and music could still operate in everyday life with ruthless force, with no regard for the basic tenets of human decency.

“I'm not exactly sure what you want Lyon to do,” Bea said.

“Merely to observe and draw conclusions from the reactions of people at dinner tonight. I have approached the problem as I would any other and planned my assault accordingly. Those I have invited here tonight have strong motives for killing me. I am going to add to their discomfort with certain disclosures.”

“Such as?”

“We have already spoken about Gustav Tanner and his unbridled ambition. He will be informed that I am not only aware of his attempts to pick up voting rights in Shopton, but he will be told that I have circumvented his efforts. His services will be terminated at once.”

“If he doesn't have a motive when he arrives here, he will when he leaves,” Bea said.

“My husband, who wants the security of marriage to my money along with the sexual license of a college boy, will be informed of our imminent separation. Needless to say, the legal documents will be drawn by my new law firm.”

“It doesn't sound like the type of dinner party I'd prefer,” Bea said under her breath.

“Mr. Smelts will be asked to resign from the union due to ill health. Which, if he doesn't comply, he will certainly have. We are going to be under pressure in that area soon, and I would just as soon that he took the fall.”

“He blames you for what happened to him in his office.”

“Mr. Smelts always blames others for his own stupidity. His inefficiency will no longer be tolerated.”

“Who else is going to be at this happy gathering?”

“Marty Rustman's wife. I am most interested in her reaction when I tell her that her husband is alive and aware of her bedding down with Mr. Tanner.”

“Marty may not be alive.”

“It doesn't matter as far as my remarks are concerned. What will matter is how Mrs. Rustman reacts. That is what you will watch, Mr. Wentworth. I will expect your conclusions later.”

“I told you that I am not …”

“I know exactly what you are and what you have done. That is why you are here.”

“I think you have been given a royal command, Lyon,” Bea said. “And I think it's time for us to go home.”

“We'll stay,” Lyon replied quietly and put his hand over Bea's.

“I have arranged for the personnel and other files of all my interests to be brought here. I would like you to review them for any further possibilities I may have missed. I pay well, by the way.”

“I can't accept money.”

She smiled crookedly. “Everyone has a price. We'll discuss that aspect later.”

“I will look at the files. It would be helpful also to have the union files here.”

“That has been arranged. Mr. Smelts has seen fit to loan them to me.”

“How convenient,” Bea muttered.

“As I said. The files are in the study. Cocktails will be served at seven, dinner at eight. The other guests will arrive at seven.”

Lyon sat at the French Provincial table in the study surrounded by folders. He could see a guard outside walking back and forth along the side of the house. His Wobblies sat on the edge of the windowsill. Their tongues lolled to the side as they watched.

The Ferret in the Fortress
. Maybe not a bad idea. He would set the book in an interesting historical period, perhaps during the early Crusades. Richard Lion-Heart would be the leader of a band that …

“Lyon.”

“Huh?” He returned to reality to look at Bea.

“What do you think of her?”

“I think she's a piranha.”

“Then why did you agree to stay and participate in this charade?”

He thought for a moment. “Because she may be right and because it intrigues me.”

“The deaths of Maginacolda and Falconer were not any great loss to society.”

“There's also the man in the produce company that we don't know anything about, Marty Rustman, and Fabian Bunting.”

“So we stay.”

“Have you looked at the union files?”

“I'm doing it now.”

“I would imagine there might be enough there to show illegal connections.”

“Enough so that I can file a complaint with the state labor commissioner in the morning. I'm surprised that she's so willing to reveal them to us.”

“You're being used.”

“How's that?”

“She's letting us see the files because she knows that you will file a complaint. Then Smelts gets hung. She's a survivor, Bea. As she said, she'll let Smelts take the fall and extricate herself. I'd be very surprised if you found anything that had a direct connection to Serena.”

The sun fell behind the estate walls throwing shadows of elongated trees across the grounds. Lyon looked up from his study of the files, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and sat looking across the darkening yard.

A phone rang somewhere.

Bea was working at his side. She had filled a dozen pages on a yellow legal pad with names, facts, and dates. Lines crisscrossed from one name to another in a confusing maze.