The Pied Piper of Death (7 page)

Rocco held the transparent bag up to a ceiling light and slowly turned it for a better perspective as he examined it carefully. “Damnedest thing I ever did see.”

“If it weren't so large, it would slightly resemble a pellet shot for one of those compressed air guns,” the doctor said. “As a bullet she would be about a …” He took a small instrument from his breast pocket and measured the size of the object through the acetate. “About fifty caliber or more, I'd say.”

Rocco nodded, “Could be, but it's far too large for any air gun. How about something for commercial use?” Rocco suggested. “A compressed air tool of some sort that would eject something this size with considerable force?” He handed the envelope to Lyon.

“Maybe,” Larsen agreed in an uncharacteristically serious vein.

“Possibly it has something to do with heavy construction equipment,” Rocco said. “I'll check it out with some civil engineers and the highway department in the morning.”

Lyon handed the bag back to Rocco. “No need,” he said. “It's a bullet.”

Hansen returned to his examination of the body, shining a penlight into the fixed pupils. “Wish I could be that sure about things. I'm not even sure this guy's dead.” He laughed. “I also doubt the judgment of anyone dumb enough to buy a balloon like that Cloudhopper you just bought. Face it, Wentworth, bullets are not your specialty. When was the last time you fired a rifle, or any firearm for that matter?”

“He doesn't believe in guns,” Rocco answered. “He feels that if guns don't kill people then bullets act as damn good surrogates.”

“You're something else again, Lyon,” Happy said. “I see bullets all the time and this is the strangest looking one I ever saw. Look at the concave rear. What in hell kind of metal is it made from? The state police forensic guys will go ape trying to figure it out and will finally end up shipping it off to the FBI lab.”

“It's a minié ball,” Lyon said.

“You may be Minié, but I'm Mickey,” Happy Hansen said with a further burst of laughter that made Rocco wince and roll his eyes behind the examiner's head.

Rocco took Lyon's comment seriously enough to reexamine the evidence bag. “The thing is bullet shaped, Lyon. The front part is rounded to a near point like any ordinary bullet load. If you're thinking of a minié ball like in antique firearms, you have it wrong.”

“I don't think so. The minié principle was used in military firearms from about the 1850s on. It had extensive use during our Civil War.”

Rocco shook his head. “I've seen old firearms loaded. The rifle had a ramrod, which you used to shove powder and paper wadding into the barrel. That was followed by the musket ball, which was nearly as large as the caliber of the weapon. The projectiles were large round jobbers like fat marbles.”

Hansen chuckled. “Guys who write kiddie books shouldn't throw musket balls. Hell, Wentworth, what do you know about ordinance?”

“Minié balls were not round,” Lyon continued as if he had not heard the medical examiner's last remarks. “They were bullet shaped, with a concave rear that rested on the powder charge which was shoved down the barrel with the ramrod. The minié principle held that when the rifle was discharged, the rear of the bullet expanded until it fit snugly against the rifling, thereby making it more accurate. They were called minié balls after a Captain Minié, but they were what we call bullet shaped.”

Hansen raised an eyebrow at Rocco. “You taking notes from our arms expert here, Chief?”

“The guy's like that,” Rocco responded. “He's got all kinds of weird knowledge that seems to come out of nowhere.”

“Usually out of books,” Lyon finally countered, “but in this case it's knowledge from a different source. When I first started teaching I had a contract with Gettysburg College. Since English instructors are not overpaid in the heartland of Pennsylvania, for extra money I studied and passed an exam to be a weekend guide at Gettysburg battlefield. I've picked up many a minié ball from the ground where they fell.”

“Call them what you want,” Hansen said. “But at least two of those suckers killed this guy.” He guffawed again.

Captain Norbert, commander of the nearby State Police Barracks, nodded to a trooper corporal. His subordinate acknowledged the signal with a barely perceptible flick of his eye and then brought his fist down on the wide wooden panels that made up the front door of the gatekeeper's cottage.

“Open up! Police!” Without further prompting, he began a two-handed beat that created a staccato thump of noise.

Years ago, Norbert had barely qualified for entry into the state police academy due to the height requirement. As time went on, he had seemingly tried to erase this deficit by enlarging the upper portion of his body. He had eventually produced a pronounced pyknic build with a barrel chest that seemed to make him slightly top-heavy. This change in his center of gravity forced him to walk with a slightly forward tilt that appeared remarkably like a bantam strut. The other members of his accompanying force resembled recently discharged Marine drill instructors.

Doctor Happy Larsen tore the door open and glared at them over the rim of his granny glasses. “You guys want to wake the dead?” His belch of laughter nearly convulsed him but failed to move the stone-faced state police, who pushed past him into the small building.

“Rocco! Chief Herbert! I know you're here,” Norbert bellowed.

“Will you shut up, Norby,” Rocco said as he poked his head out of the dining room. “And I'd appreciate it if you'd quit monitoring my radio frequencies.”

“Secure the crime scene,” the state captain commanded his corporal.

Rocco pointed a long finger that froze the corporal in midstep. “It's been done. Trooper, you touch a damn thing and you are dog meat,” he commanded in a low voice.

The confused corporal looked at Captain Norbert for confirmation. The state police captain shrugged. “It's his jurisdiction … temporarily,” he said. He stepped closer to the taller police chief and spoke in a whisper that carried throughout the downstairs. “One-horse towns with hick police shouldn't handle sophisticated crimes, particularly those committed on the estate of one of the most prominent men in the area. Stick to your traffic tickets and occasional gas station holdups.”

“The ME is here and the state forensic people are on their way,” Rocco said. “We have a suspect upstairs who is presently undergoing preliminary interrogation.”

“It's the wife if it's the usual deal,” Norbert said. “The deceased is Markham Swan, right?”

“Right,” Rocco answered.

“We busted him a few years ago. Stat rape as I recall.”

“The charges were dropped,” Rocco replied. “He married the girl.”

“It figures. The guy couldn't keep his pants zipped and he was roving again. The wife knows the symptoms. She finds out what fluff he's bouncing on and blows him away. Tidy and neat. These cases make a great record for the closure statistics since wifey usually feels so bad she'll confess to killing anyone. We let her attorney plead it to manslaughter, and we have another quick conviction to take to the major.” He peeked into the small dining room to glance at the body slumped over the computer. He waved at the ME. “Gunshot wound, Happy?” he asked.

“What'd you expect?” the ME replied with a chortle. “Although some around here would speak about a whiff of the grape?”

“Grape? What kind of talk is that?” The State Police captain looked uncertain. “You mean poison?”

Doctor Happy shrugged. “Minié balls I will not discuss with this guy,” he muttered. “Call it death by unknown projectile,” he said in his most authoritative manner.

Norbert whispered to his standby corporal and Rocco. “God, he's a horse's ass. Who did you say was breaking down the wife?”

“I didn't say,” Rocco answered, “but Lyon Wentworth is the one talking to her.”

Captain Norbert flushed red, which gradually deepened into a purplish hue. “Wentworth! I can't believe you would leave a primary suspect with that liberal airhead! What kind of idiot are you?”

The corporal and Rocco exchanged swift looks. The trooper's grim lips curled into the slightest trace of an anticipatory grin. The captain's subordinate was obviously going to relish the physical confrontation he expected to begin momentarily. “I can't do a damn thing about this guy,” Rocco said to the corporal. “Captain Norbert's my brother-in-law.”

“I would like to point out that Wentworth is a civilian,” Norbert said.

“A very perceptive one,” Rocco added.

The bedroom was small, but as comfortable as the other rooms in the cottage. There was one narrow window near a canopied bed that had curtains which could be drawn to the floor on drafty nights. A small bedside table and an ornately carved wardrobe completed the remainder of the room's furnishings. White walls with colorful cafe curtains gave a cheerful touch that lightened the room.

When Rocco radioed for backup and the medical examiner, Loyce Swan had left the dining area and the body of her husband and climbed the stairs to the small bedroom. Now she lay fully dressed on the bed and stared up at the canopy.

Lyon stood at the foot of the bed. She gave no sign that she was aware of his presence. “What happened?” he asked.

There was a delay before she answered. “I don't know.” Her voice was flat and devoid of feeling.

“Did you kill him?”

“No. I often wanted to, but I didn't.”

“Tell me about it,” he said.

“I was in the garden. That's in the side yard just outside the kitchen door. I heard voices arguing and then the shots. When I ran inside he was slumped over the computer like you found him. The front door was closed and no one else was there.”

“Were the voices you heard male or female?”

“I really couldn't say. I could tell that one was Markham's, of course. The other person could have been anyone. I was outside, beyond a heavy door, and they were in an interior room. I really didn't see or hear anything.”

“Why did you want to kill him?”

She sat up with an abrupt movement and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her gaze looked through him as if she were actually focusing on a spot just over his head. It was a look of fright, loss, and the bewilderment that precedes the horror of overwhelming acceptance. As she spoke, a tremor caused her hands to shake. “If I had killed him it would have been because of all the women he made love to. He was a philanderer who gave the word a bad name. He didn't just want some women, he wanted all of them. And I still loved him. Which probably proves that I had a problem.”

“If you didn't do it, who do you think did?” Lyon asked.

“Hand me the phone directory.”

“You have an address and number?”

“Hell, no! I'm going to give you a list of suspects. Any man who is a father, husband, lover, or friend to any woman is a potential suspect. I'll keep it simple and restrict it to the state of Connecticut since he hasn't traveled much of late.”

“That many?”

“And then some.”

“Why didn't you leave him long ago?”

She pushed off the bed and walked over to the small window, where she leaned on the sill to look out over the shadowed grounds. Her face was illuminated by the revolving flash of the dome lights from the state police cruisers parked below. Her body shook slightly with quiet cries. Lyon knew that he had these golden minutes, if you could term them that, to find her at her most vulnerable. It was during this time that he might be able to obtain the most valuable information concerning her exact role in the killing. He was aware of the unsavoriness of what he was doing, but rationalized its necessity.

“Can you possibly narrow down a list of suspects?” he asked again.

“Like I said, the numbers are legion.”

“Could it possibly have been someone here on the estate? Someone here at Bridgeway?”

“I think he was making love to Katherine Piper, and maybe the young girl, Paula. Markham did not discriminate because of age, race, religion, or national origin.”

“And yet you still stayed with him?”

She whirled to face him. “Yes. When he got me I was a kid. I was a child of seventeen who'd learned some nasty sexual tricks from my stepfather that I was using to extract my own version of personal revenge.”

“Abused kids often become promiscuous and Markham took advantage of that.”

Her attitude softened. “It wasn't as you think. I made an appointment for his office hours and I intended to play my little game with him. It was an inventive little enticement that I had used on several of my more interesting male teachers. Markham almost immediately sensed what I was up to and turned it around in a strange and wondrous way. Instead of my being the seducer, he became the lover. Gently and subtly he took control and I became the beloved. It was the first time that had happened to me and it changed me in ways that were for the good. Bastard that he was, I loved him then and I love him now. In a sense he made an honest woman of me because he taught me how things could be. He loved me, you know. In his own strange way. Unfortunately, he had this compulsive need to spread this talent of his around. I wanted to kill him and I would have died for him. Does that explain anything?”

“Yes. I suppose it does. Markham called me early today and asked that I stop out here tonight. He also wrote Paula a short note. Do you know anything about that?”

Loyce shook her head. “Not really. He did say that he might have you stop in, but that's all he said. I can imagine what he said to Paula.”

Lyon felt an object with his foot and looked down at the toe of his shoe, to see that it rested against something protruding from under the bed. He stooped and ran his fingers along the contours of what was obviously a gun. He bent over to pull a short rifle out from under the bed.