The Pied Piper of Death (28 page)

“My advice is that you attach a very large wind sock to the widow's walk of Nutmeg Hill. I wanted to drop the legal paper off before I drove Katherine Piper to rehab at Silver Hills. Come say hello and good-bye.”

In the living room Katherine Piper sat rigidly on the long sectional couch trying to force her shaking hands to grasp the coffee mug. She bolted to her feet as she tilted her coffee mug too far to one side and its contents spilled over the couch. “Oh, I'm so sorry.”

“Don't worry,” Lyon said. “It's very washable.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bea cringing in the kitchen as she poured her own coffee.

“I'm going into rehab today,” Katherine said. “Although I'm not quite convinced that eight weeks at Silver Hills will sop up a decade of tippling.”

Lyon saw Bea in the kitchen mouth, “It's a good start.”

“But I'll do the best I can,” Katherine said. “Now that Peyton is gone I certainly have the time. I have asked Loyce Swan to say on at Bridgeway,” Katherine continued. “She can live in the gate cottage for as long as she likes. God only knows we owe her at least that much. And of course Frieda will stay on in the little house until Rabbit comes home. I think we ought to rename the hills of the Seven Sisters, the hills of the Three Widows,” Katherine said bitterly.

Bea shuffled into the living room in a robe and fluffy slippers. She waved and perched on the arm of the easy chair across from the sofa. “How's Paula doing?”

“I sometimes think Paula and I got along better when I drank,” Katherine said. “Since her father died she's had more interest in the Dow Jones than in suicidal poets. She's dropped out of school and is working full time at the Piper factory. Her newest project is working some sort of self-destruct device into the land mines. It has something to do with the explosives becoming contaminated and inoperable after a year in the ground.”

The phone rang and Bea snicked the wall unit from its fixture. She spoke briefly before handing the portable unit to the chief.

Rocco spoke in a low monotone for a moment before jumping to his feet with the phone still pressed to his ear. “Good Christ!” they heard him say. “I hope someone kicks ass over that one!” He smashed the phone down. “This is no way to start a day,” he said.

“I'd laugh if it wouldn't hurt,” Katherine said. “I know him too well. How did he do it?”

Rocco brushed his forehead with his massive hand. “During the van trip to max security he bit a deputy sheriff. He'd already slipped his cuffs, and was able to jump out of the van.”

“I hope you are kidding, Rocco,” Bea said. “I can't believe that Rabbit has escaped.”

Rocco shook his head. “Well, it won't be for long. When we put out the APB, how many men fit his description? He's probably at home with his wife. That's where they always go when they break out.” He started for the door. “I better go down there and see about him before someone gets hurt.”

“Well,” Katherine Piper said with relief, “I can always start rehab another time.”

Bea and Lyon shook their heads and Katherine Piper's smile faded.

“I'll drive you up there,” Bea said. “Give me three minutes to throw some clothes on.”

Lyon stood at his computer console and looked out the window of his study that overlooked the patio of Nutmeg Hill. The quiet scene reinforced his conviction that there was a certain balanced symmetry in life. Rabbit would be captured soon. Rocco was right, there was no place for him to run. No burrow was remote enough to hide him for long. Eventually Rocco's solid police procedures, mixed with an intuitive sense, would lead him to the fugitive. Rabbit would be escorted back to prison with several years added to his sentence.

It was time for the Wobbly monsters to return. His book must be restarted and life must begin again.

His benign monsters were down on the river below the house. The two furry animals were zipped into an Eskimo kayak, paddling furiously downriver. Their strong furry shoulders moved in practiced unison as they propelled the small craft through the center of the channel.

It might be a possible story. Perhaps something about the Wobblies and how they saved baby seals from vicious fur pirates. It might be worth thinking about.…

The barrel of a pistol pressed into that spot where his spinal column joined the base of his brain. The movement behind him had been so silent that he had no advance warning of the approach.

“Do not move. Do not even breathe or I blow your head off.”

“Running from the van was a very foolish thing to do. You can't avoid Rocco for long.” Lyon turned slightly, to look into the muzzle of a very long-barreled pistol that the small man held. He recognized the weapon as an exhibit from one of the display cases in the Piper library. It was a percussion-cap Colt single-action revolver from the Civil War era.

Lyon's close view included a look into the gun's chambers. It appeared as if the weapons were primed and ready to fire. “Appropriate gun. Fires a minié ball, I would suppose,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Why, Rabbit?”

For the first time Rabbit looked directly at him. His eyes were surrounded by dark hollow rings, giving him a raccoonlike appearance. “If I don't do it here, it will be in the cop car with Rocco. I'll run and he'll have to shoot me. If not with him then when the deputies take me to the prison. If not then, then when I get to max security. On the first day I will run for the wall and they will have to shoot me. Somewhere soon it will happen, but I would rather do it here.”

Lyon understood but couldn't answer.

Rabbit looked at him with a wistful smile. “Thank God you didn't call me a determined little man. I think I would have thrown up.”

“I'm still not satisfied, Mister R. How come the Welches were the family forced to fulfill the covenant?”

“I understand that in the beginning we were just onlookers. Young Swan swore to his dying father that he would do it. When he was killed in the war it was assumed that Candlin would step in to fulfill the covenant.”

“The same Candlin who was having dinner on the patio when the first Mrs. Colonel didn't take a dive off the parapet.”

Rabbit nodded. “Yep. The same man who started the meal as a farmhand and was a private banker by dessert. Doesn't take much to figure out that he was bought.”

“So the promise became the Welches' by default?”

“We were the only men of honor left. It helped that our size protected us as long as the Candlin who fought in the Civil War was alive. He was too pompous to seriously consider little people as the perpetrators.”

“Honor that carried down for over a hundred years. Honor that kept men killing young men and women for generation after generation.”

“The Pipers helped matters by generally being very unpleasant people.”

“And was Rebecca also unpleasant enough to be murdered?”

“That was distasteful, and the reason that I decided to stop the covenant when it came time to include Paula. I could no more kill her than my own kid.”

“If you hadn't pled guilty this might have come out during a trial, but I still don't understand,” Lyon said. “What possessed your family, generation after generation, to keep this thing going?”

Rabbit's gaze seemed drawn toward the river far below the promontory, or perhaps to the wooded hills across the water, or perhaps to a time long ago. “At first a kid doesn't know anything is wrong. The other kids are about your size, but they keep growing and you don't. They can be mean, Lyon, God they can be mean. And it hurts. You become the class clown who won't take any crap, but it gets worse when you're a teenager with all the problems that implies.”

“And they rescued you with a secret ceremony in that hidden room under the graves,” Lyon said softly.

“Yes, you've got it. All that spooky candles and knife stuff can be heavy for a fourteen year old. But it was the ceremony that made us giants among men. We were the only keepers of honor, no matter our size, and for that we swore a blood oath that had to be obeyed.”

“You didn't fulfill it.”

“I declared the game over. I don't have children and never will. The covenant is finished.”

“Then it is truly over,” Lyon said as he left the swivel desk chair and walked to the study's door. He saw the aghast look on Rabbit's face as he pushed past him.

“Where in the hell do you think you're going?”

Lyon didn't answer but continued through the living room and out on the patio.

The Colt exploded behind him and the minié ball shattered a window pane in the French door by his side. Large chunks of glass clattered to the floor. Lyon kept walking.

“You touch a phone and I will blow you apart,” Rabbit said behind him as he ran to catch up.

Lyon continued off the patio and down the few steps into the side yard. He sat on a grassy knoll overlooking the Seven Sister hills in the distance. He flicked a long blade of grass from between his feet and stuck it in his mouth. The lawn needed to be cut. Perhaps this afternoon he'd get the lawn tractor from the shed and do the job.

Rabbit came up behind him. “Are you nuts?” He sat on the grass next to Lyon. Both men let the still day close around them. Clouds moved overhead at a leisurely pace. It would be a good day for ballooning, Lyon thought.

“Is Rocco Herbert looking for me at my house?” Rabbit asked.

“I imagine.”

“Then it's only a question of time until he figures out where I am.”

“Yes.”

“I know he tried to help me on the sentencing, but five years is still a long time. I don't think I'll make it, Lyon.”

“You're still young. The prison is only an hour-and-a-half drive from here, which means Frieda can come up to see you.”

“I was only in jail for ten days after the gas station holdup. The black guys don't bother you because they know what it's like to be different. Most of the white guys don't give a damn and only want to do their time without bothering anyone. But there's a cage full of sadistic dumb white bastards up there who give little people a hard time.”

“That kind gives everyone a hard time,” Lyon said.

“I don't take shit. I fight back and that makes it worse. I know that's the case, but I have to fight them. It's what they call a vicious circle.”

Lyon didn't answer, because it was difficult to argue with what he knew to be the truth.

“I'm going to die there, Lyon. I'm not crying about it. I'm just stating a fact. I'm going to die because I can't take what they will do to me. I will fight them and eventually they will kill me. I'm not going out to Munchkin Land bleeding to death in some prison shower or laundry room.”

“I can get Bea or Roger Candlin to have you assigned to the prison infirmary. That's always safer.”

“Sure, and I get dwarf-tossed wearing whites. You know, I was standing in my yard at the little cottage the day you flew over the Pie in your balloon. What's it feel like to float over the world like that?”

Lyon thought about it a moment. “Like a very large bird that can float on air currents for hours at a time and silently glide over the land.”

“Over everyone's head. I think I'd like that. Get the balloon ready.”

“No.” Lyon heard the hammer of the single-action six-gun click as Rabbit thumbed it back. “You're not going to shoot me.”

“I may have to. You would give me no choice.”

“Rabbit, no one, but no one, has ever escaped from anywhere in a hot-air balloon. Even in the relatively small Cloudhopper, you are attached to a huge vehicle. It is visible for at least ten or more miles on a day like this.”

“I said fill the balloon and show me what to do.”

“There isn't much to do actually.”

“Then get started.”

Lyon trundled the Cloudhopper envelope and equipment from the barn in its three-wheel cart. He began to spread the flat balloon out on the grass. After a few moments of labor he noticed that Rabbit was working alongside him. They continued without speaking until it was time to start the compressor.

While Lyon held the propane burner across his waist and directed the flame inside the envelope, Rabbit had stuck the large six-gun into his belt. The barrel's length was awkward and undoubtedly uncomfortable because of the small man's stature.

“Was your Dad a big person?” Lyon asked. “He was the one who killed the Piper at Fort Dix during the Korean War, wasn't he?”

“He was and he wasn't,” Rabbit responded. “I mean, he was not a big person and he did kill the young Lieutenant.”

Lyon was puzzled. “I don't understand. Lieutenant Piper was killed in the company street after a training exercise. One of his own men must have done it.”

Rabbit laughed. “Pop was clever. Each barrack had a boiler housed in one end. Pop was one of the civilian employees who stoked and maintained them.” He held the far end of the balloon envelope off the ground so that it would fill easier. “I know you're wondering how he did it. He snuck into the barrack while the men were showering, borrowed a weapon and stuffed the minié ball on top of a blank. He fired from the boiler room and snuck the rifle back to the rack. They never even interviewed him. The Provost people were certain it was one of the men in the platoon. A couple weeks later he managed to get himself fired from the job.”

“And the cannon at the cemetery that fired at Paula was a blank?”

Rabbit's face clouded. “It wasn't going to be in the beginning. At first I loaded it with a regular cannonball. And that bothered me so I considered canister shot that would take us all out … including me. That's when I realized I couldn't do either and decided it would have to be Peyton who got it. At the last moment I didn't load any shot, just the charge. I couldn't hurt Paula, for God's sake.”

“The bodies were moved around the colonel's tomb for ease of access?”