The Pied Piper of Death (19 page)

“For God's sake, those guys were sicced on me by her father,” Chuck said. “If I start rattling that Pandora's box it will work its way back to him and I'll end up in a court case against my potential father-in-law.”

“How potential?” Lyon asked.

“Very, as far as I'm concerned,” Chuck replied.

“She's awfully young,” Lyon said.

“Eighteen going on thirty-two,” Chuck answered.

They were nearly at the end of the short trip and the ferry was positioning for the docking when Lyon made his proposal. “If you do what I say, Rocco will drop all charges against everyone.”

“I will?” Rocco asked without a great deal of protest.

“I am sending Paula away for a few weeks,” Lyon said. “You will not know where she has gone nor will anyone else. I want you to insist that she go for her own safety.”

“That makes sense,” Chuck agreed.

The house, which Fraxer shared with several graduate students, was located a block from the campus. The building was a rambling wood-frame dwelling typical of homes built in the late twenties. A wide porch containing an assortment of mountain bikes, old car seats, and piles of newspapers circled three sides of the first floor. The upstairs windows boasted an assortment of coverings that included torn window shades and psychedelic throws.

Rocco helped the limping Fraxer up the outside stairs, past the broken screen door, and into the hallway.

“God, I hurt all over,” Fraxer moaned.

“They did a professional job on you. Notice they didn't break anything or do permanent damage. This is called the warning. They'll go for broken bones at some future time no matter what sort of deal Lyon thinks he cut with you.”

“I believe in nonviolence, but if they keep this up I may go in for that paramilitary revolutionary bit.”

“It's my job to take care of them,” Rocco said.

“No way. This is between me and her old man,” he said with a nod toward Paula. “The bastard has had his shot, even if he did use surrogates. Next time is my turn.”

“Knock that off!” Rocco ordered as he steered him into the living room.

The long room took up the bulk of the first floor and was a strong contender for a World War One battlefield look-alike. What had once been built-in bookcases on either side of the fireplace were now filled with beer bottles, potato chips, and assorted junk food wrappers. Paper cups, partially filled with indeterminate beverages, were placed along every available flat surface. The furniture consisted of several couches and easy chairs whose protruding stuffing identified it as early American curb. Throw pillows strewn around the floor completed the decor, except for a large photograph of a rather nondescript man that dominated the mantelpiece.

Rocco glanced casually at the large picture. “That guy looks like Willie Sutton the bank robber.”

“Jack Kerouac,” Lyon answered. “He's the beat generation author who wrote
On the Road.”

Chuck Fraxer looked at Lyon through a swollen eye with more respect than he had shown previously. “That's right.”

Lyon gently took Paula's arm. “What did you mean back in the woodlot when you said that your father had Swan killed?”

Paula hesitated before answering. “I was very upset over seeing Chuck beaten. I just meant that it was possible. Swan was beginning to hit on me and Daddy knew it. Everyone at Bridgeway knew something was going on between Swan and my stepmother. Daddy said that he intended to fire the man, and I just wonder if Barry didn't follow those orders literally.”

“Barry was in the house at the time of the killing,” Lyon said.

“It took me about three minutes to get from the gate cottage to the house,” Chuck said. “Barry could easily have done it in one of those silent carts.”

Rocco made a note. “Nevins has his foot in everything, doesn't he?”

“The bastard Swan deserved what he got,” Fraxer said with a wince. Paula had taken over the treatment of his injuries and was dabbing his various cuts with a strong antiseptic solution.

Lyon picked up a thick book with a heavy cover from the couch partially covered with the ripped Indian blanket. “This is the second volume of
Lee's Lieutenants
. Who's the history buff?”

“Ow,” Chuck Fraxer said as Paula dabbed a particularly sensitive injury.

“Chuck's a graduate history major,” Paula said with pride.

“Really,” Lyon answered. “What's your area of expertise?”

“American history,” Fraxer mumbled as he grabbed Paula's hand. “How about working to get that paint off my chest?”

“Any particular period?” Lyon asked.

“Civil War and Reconstruction,” Fraxer replied.

“Ever fire a musket?” Rocco asked in a casual tone.

“Once, at a Powder and Ball gun exhibition.”

“That's damn interesting,” Rocco said. “I don't suppose many people have done that these days?”

“Of course they have,” Fraxer replied. “There are lots of gun nuts who collect working muzzle loaders and fire them as a hobby.”

“Lots?” Rocco asked.

“Jeez, Chief, what is this? A class in logic? Okay, there are some people around that know how to fire those old weapons. What does that mean?”

“It means that if you're over a hundred and thirty years old you're in big trouble,” Bea said.

Since Congressman Roger Candlin had to run for office again in November, it was time for him to pretend to be an appealing personality. In his case, the most drastic change consisted of portraying himself as an ordinary worker. This ruse was not entirely successful, and he was as ill-suited for that role as aristocratic members of the ancien régime might have been.

Candlin was a grand manipulator in the heritage of the great puppeteers. His present control was primarily restricted to two Connecticut counties. Nevertheless, this power was sufficient for him to act behind the scenes on a state and, to a certain extent, national level.

Bea Wentworth, as ingenuous as it was possible for a politician to be and still survive in elective office, did not care for Congressman Roger Candlin. Since he had long ago given up any attempt to control her activities, their mutual hostility was obvious but suppressed.

They met by prearrangement at the gates of the Piper Corporation's main plant during the 7
A.M.
change of shift. Candlin wore a hard hat and casual clothes that made him seem more awkward than a dark Brooks Brothers suit, and carried a handful of leaflets. His brush with the unwashed would last only long enough for the mobile television crew to get their byte.

Bea stood by the congressman's side as he handed out leaflets and offered a limp hand to the emerging shift workers. It was his usual habit to mumble something completely immaterial to the passing workers. On one past occasion Bea had heard him repeat the phrase, “Down with Carthage,” several hundred times to batches of confused submarine welders. Their frowns had provided poor television coverage. A bright aide had suggested that he now use the phrase, “Hope you win the lottery this week.” This had produced far more telegenic results.

“Why do you do this, Roger? These people all know how insincere you are.”

“They're setting up the cameras now, Beatrice. After that we can have some decent coffee,” he said without moving his lips.

“Please warn me before they film since I don't care to be seen at the gates of a munitions factory owned by a man I detest.”

“You don't know what you're talking about, lady,” he mumbled as the camera operator and producer moved into view.

“Hold it like that, Congressman,” the mobile television producer said as Bea stepped aside. That command caused an immediate metamorphosis in the congressman that was just short of miraculous. His smile broadened. His handshake instantly changed from a fish-fin dip to a hearty grasp that would do a lumberjack proud. His lottery comments to the workers as they passed through his gauntlet seemed to carry a special significance, as if he had personally rigged the drawing on their behalf.

“We got it, Congressman. Thank you, sir.” The television crew began to pack up their equipment. Candlin instantly dropped the remaining handouts to the ground, where they were promptly retrieved by an assistant. He turned and strode away from the gate, leaving several workers looking after him with their hands still extended.

Bea followed him to an RV parked in the corner of the lot. The Winnebago had a huge banner across its side that read,
RE-ELECT CONGRESSMAN ROGER CANDLIN. YOUR FRIEND AND MINE
.

Candlin shrugged Bea toward a built-in table. He stood in the kitchen area at the small sink and began to scrub his hands with bacterial soap. An intense young woman served coffee from a Silex.

“God, I hate campaigning. I really ought to run for the Senate. At least then I'd only have to do it every six years.”

“Why don't you try for the nomination?” Bea asked. It had instantly occurred to her that, for all his faults, Roger would be the far lesser of two evils compared to Peyton Piper.

“Because the nomination's not going to fall that way this year. I am also not convinced that I am the right person to make that run now or in the future.”

“And Peyton Piper is?”

With a nearly imperceptible gesture, Candlin signaled to the woman with the coffee. She evidently received the command clearly as she immediately left the RV. “Peyton's an ass.”

“But a wealthy one?”

“Of course. You know, Wentworth, you blow my tanks.”

“Egalitarian today, aren't you? That's real assembly line talk.”

“You are a hypocrite. We need the Piper plant here in our district. You know it. I know it, and God only knows the people who work here know it.”

“Even if they make a product that maims people throughout the world?”

“Even if they make botulism that is used anywhere but here. We need the wages. Wake up to economic reality.”

“Sometimes I do wake up. It's usually in the middle of the night. I sit bolt upright and think, now why in hell is the congressman backing me politically? What am I doing wrong?”

“The more wrong you do the better I like it, Senator. Your state district covers a good chunk of my national district, Beatrice. You're very controversial and often in the limelight. I try to be inconspicuous. Your liberal churning fogs over my backstage maneuvers. You take most of the heat and I am elected because of my incumbency. It's a marvelous trade-off. Actually, our relationship is rather like that of those jungle parasites. The pairing of the ferocious predator with a nearly inconspicuous parasite living on his left ear who performs some small but necessary function.”

Bea didn't much care for his analogy since she had an idea which of the pair she was meant to represent. “That may be, Roger, since I'm not a big important fish. But if Peyton gets the senate seat he will be on the national scene.”

“It keeps the factory here. His nomination also funds our soft money by at least two hundred thou, and it shuts him up.”

“You know, Roger, there's always the chance that he could be elected. Then what?”

“I'll handle him if he ever gets to the Hill. You know, his family and mine go way back. We've always been able to control the Pipers, whether they're colonels or senators.”

“How far back do your families go?”

“The Civil War.”

“Your people served with the old colonel in his regiment?”

“Practically every eligible man in this county served with that drunken coot during the war. He raised the regiment.”

“And everyone basked in his glory.”

For one of the few times since she had known Roger Candlin, he actually smiled. It was a thin-lipped affair, but since it was neither a grimace of pain nor a preamble to a sarcastic remark, she could only construe that it was an actual smile. “Glory, you say? They gave the old bastard a medal and then shipped him off to run an ordnance depot for the rest of the war to keep him out of trouble.”

“I understand that your family lost a great deal of money because of some machinations by one of the Piper colonels.”

Candlin shrugged as if it were a question of little significance. “Over dinner one night at Bridgeway, the colonel confidentially told my grandfather that the company earnings were going to be way down that year. Those were the days when there wasn't any law against insider trading. My family sold thousands of shares of Piper Corporation stock short. It was the colonel's idea of a fearsome joke. The earnings figures were released and they were excellent. When my family came to replace the short sale they had to pay through the nose to buy stock from the colonel.”

“Enough to start a generational family hate?” Bea asked.

“That was over sixty years ago when the world was populated with a different cast of characters.”

T
WELVE

“Are we going to observe Confederate artillery positions from our hot air balloon?” Bea asked. She leaned against the barn door with her hands folded across her chest as she watched Lyon spread the balloon's empty envelope carefully across the lawn in preparation for inflation.

Lyon finished his preliminary work and began the process of inserting hot air into the balloon. “Very funny.”

“Recently we seem obsessed with the Civil War. Didn't they use balloons for observation?”

“Yes, but there are few gun emplacements around Murphysville, Connecticut, so I thought I'd just think.”

“About minié balls?”

“And of people who shoot them.”

“You know, catching this guy is really simple. All we have to find is someone either one hundred thirty years old or with a weird picture in their attic.”

“How about climbing inside the balloon and extending your arms so the bag fills faster?”

“You're out of your mind. The last time I did that, I ended up with the shortest haircut in New England. You know of course, that thing is really only half a balloon. It does not have a cockpit.”