A Child's Garden of Death (19 page)

Lyon was a Unitarian. A faith that some chided was a little about God, a little about religion, and mostly about Boston. He didn't know if he believed in an afterlife, and never thought of his daughter in those terms, although in some mystical way she sat specterlike at his elbow when he created his books for an audience of one—one who would always be eight years old.

It wasn't the beating by Houston's security force that bothered him. It was the all-consuming anger that had made him hit another man, something he hadn't done since grade school days. And yet, in the light of recent events, the action wasn't unusual. In the past weeks he had killed one man, threatened to throw a dying man's medication into the sea and physically attacked another man.

His past life had been dedicated to an artistic orderliness; even the few years in the Army had fallen into that category, and, except for an isolated example or two, his service as an intelligence officer had been an intellectual game.

Did it matter that Houston might be the creator of the ancient grave? Was justice, whatever that was, served by his admission or nonadmission of guilt? Lyon knew the answer.

His anger and attack had been directed as much at his own helplessness in the situation as against Houston. He was at a loss in which direction to go—and yet he couldn't drop the matter and let it fade into an insignificant memory.

He tried to order his thoughts. In one sense they had come far; they had established identities and tied the Houston Company into the murders; and now it was impossible to disengage the relationship of the dead Meyersons from the bribery of the government inspector.

She started up the hill. When she saw him her pace quickened. Her hair blew in the wind and her eyes squinted slightly against the sun as she looked toward him, and Lyon loved his wife very much. She was now almost running toward him, her legs flashing in the sun; her knees and hips had changed little from those of the girl he had married.

She was out of breath when she reached the top of the hill. The squint faded as she seemed to be about to say something but instead sat next to him on the grass. After a few moments she turned toward him. “
WE
'
VE BEEN WORRIED ABOUT YOU
.”

“I'm O.K.”

“Rocco called the Houston Company and found out what happened. Are you sure you're all right?”

“Sure.”

“You've been up here all night.
THAT
'
S A KOOKY THING TO DO
,” she said and seemed to regret it instantly. “I'm sorry, I know you're upset.”

“I wanted to kill him, Bea. If I'd been stronger, or trained, or had had a weapon, I might have. At that moment I wanted to kill him.”

“You never will again, Lyon.”

“I wouldn't have thought so, but recently …”

“No, not him. Not ever again,” she said. “Asa Houston is dead.”

Rocco's cruiser was at the cemetery gate, and as Lyon and Bea got into the rear seat Lyon's right leg began to tremble and his hands to shake. He hadn't been able to assimilate Houston's death—the velocity of events was beginning to take its toll, reality taking on a strange tinge that gave a dream quality to ordinary and mundane things. His nerves were stretched to an unhealthy tautness.

Rocco drove a few miles to a small restaurant off the main roads. Inside, the large man took command of the ordering—heavy drinks immediately, followed by steaks. Lyon drank his double sherry, and as the warmth spread through his body the trembling began to subside. He exhaled slowly and leaned back. “All right,” he said. “I guess I'm ready for it. What happened to Houston?”

Rocco pulled the notebook from his breast pocket. “You want it exact?”

“Exact.”

“This morning while Bea and I were chasing over half the state trying to find you, we caught the bulletin over the car radio. I called downtown and got some of the details from a friend of mine.”

Beatrice put her hand on Lyon's. Lyon brushed his forehead with his free hand. “I don't know what to say. It's too fast. Details, Rocco. Details.”

“This morning at twenty-two minutes past ten Asa Houston shot himself in his office.”

“How do you know he shot himself?”

For a moment Rocco looked tired and then continued in a factual monotone. “At exactly ten twenty-two this morning a shot was heard from Asa Houston's office. A foremen's meeting was going on in the board room next door; they broke open the door and found him behind the desk, the gun next to his body.”

“His own gun?” Lyon asked. “The one from the desk?”

“Yes. Anyway, that's about it, except they found a message on his office recorder. A classic suicide message.”

“I don't believe it,” Lyon said.

“
OH
,
FOR GOD
'
S SAKE
,
LYON
,” Bea said. “Come off it, really.”

Rocco turned to Beatrice. “He means he can't believe in a different sense, Bea. Too much has happened; it's hard to realize that it's all over.”

“That's not at all what I meant,” Lyon said. “I don't think Asa Houston killed himself.”

“People do it all the time, old buddy.”

“Let's take him home,” Bea said and attempted a laugh.

Rocco leaned forward in his best professional manner, and for a moment Lyon felt that he'd run a stop sign and the Chief was preparing a lecture. “Now listen, old friend, and listen good. Here's what happened. You saw Houston yesterday afternoon; you obviously got to him or he wouldn't have reacted. He knew you couldn't be kept out of the way indefinitely, that eventually you'd be back with additional evidence.”

“I hinted that to him.”

“Right. Now, he's already shook because we traced the bodies and linked them to Houston Company. You've tracked down the government inspector; you're hot on his trail. He can't bear up under it; he spends a restless night, can't see any way out, and this morning … whacko. It's all over. Now, doesn't that make sense?”

“Yes, it makes a lot of sense. Houston was afraid of us, arranged for Bull Martin to pull his deal, knew I saw Coop in Florida …”

“A question of time.”

“We didn't have a damn thing, Rocco. Not really. You know that, I know that and he knew that.”

“Did he? What about his guilt all those years? Why do you think he was the state's biggest philanthropist? He'd created an image, and you were about to destroy it.”

“What more do you want, Lyon?” Beatrice said. “A dozen people saw Houston go into his office, thirty people heard the shot, and within minutes twenty of those were in the office where Houston was dead by his own gun. No one else was there.”

“And a message on the recording machine,” Rocco said.

“I'd like to hear that message,” Lyon said. “I'd like very much to hear it.”

Rocco Herbert pushed the police car to seventy on the deserted Interstate as Lyon clutched the edge of his seat. As he glanced down at the floorboards, the sight of Rocco's leg in a cast did not reassure him at all.

“Will the Hartford police cooperate?” he asked.

“Yes, as a courtesy, but if we release anything to the news media they'll have my head.”

“That's understandable.”

Police headquarters on Morgan Street in downtown Hartford nestled underneath the raised junction of two Interstate highways on one side and a large plaza and office complex on the other. The interconnected buildings were a maze of diverse architecture, the front section a relatively modern edifice, connected to an older portion containing the courts and offices.

Rocco slid the cruiser into the official lot and led Lyon through a maze of corridors to a small office.

Detective Sergeant Michael Pasquale met Rocco with a jab to the solar plexus. Rocco countered with a bear hug that lifted the slim detective several feet into the air and made him gasp for breath.

“Put me down, you half-guinea bastard,” the raised man finally managed to gasp.

“You're getting thinner, Pat. What's the matter, not getting enough off the pad these days?”

“Screw you. If I had half a grain of sense I'd be in a cushy spot like yours, laying half the housewives in town.”

“Only the ones under seventy.”

“With them on top, you big bastard.”

They went into the small office. The room was bare, the peeling walls partially covered by a large map of the city, with a battered desk and two wooden folding chairs for visitors.

“You got the tape?” Rocco asked.

“I got it for the time being, but for Christ's sake don't breathe a word about hearing it. The Houston family would have my badge.”

The detective pulled a small cassette player from the desk and inserted a cartridge. He positioned the tape and looked at them expectantly. “Ready for the command performance?” They nodded and he pressed the play button.

The tape hummed for a few moments, and then they could hear the rustle of papers and the unmistakable voice. Lyon knew it was Houston's voice, but the quiet monotone surprised him.

“I have come to the end,” the tape intoned. “There are few alternatives left, and I am taking the only course of action open to me. Everything is in order and the lawyers will know where to look.” The voice stopped. Faint indescribable sounds could be heard, then the opening of a drawer. Lyon could imagine Houston's hand reaching into the center drawer and withdrawing the pistol. The drawer closed. Again there was silence on the tape until the faint click of the revolver's action, followed by the shot.

The sound filled the room, and, although expected, it startled the three of them. There were several seconds of silence again before the muffled sound of someone beating on a door, and then complete silence as the tape reached the end of the spool.

“How did you discover it?” Lyon asked.

“We would have eventually, but his secretary noticed that the recorder light was still on. We played it back and got this.”

“What's on the rest of the tape?” Rocco asked.

“Absolutely nothing of interest. Letters he dictated, memoranda and other routine stuff. I had the secretaries listen to it also. They told me that there was nothing out of the ordinary.”

“How do you reconstruct it?” Lyon asked.

“What you hear is what we got,” the short detective replied. “No reason to feel otherwise. At approximately ten o'clock he locked his door, which is not a particularly unusual thing for him to do, they tell me. He was a real bug for privacy. He was despondent, mumbled those few remarks into the recorder and then shot himself. My God, you heard what happened on the tape.”

“What's the pounding after the shot?” Lyon asked.

“We're not sure if that's his secretary from the outer office or the foremen next door in the board room. It's up to the coroner, of course, but my report is as conclusive as I can make it. Self-inflicted gunshot wound. How could it be anything else?”

At nine the following morning Lyon Wentworth slowed his small car at the security gate of the Houston Company. As he waved to the guard and attempted to accelerate again, he was forced to slam on the brakes as the rail gate closed in front of him. The guard approached the car.

“The plant is closed for the day in honor of Mr. Houston,” the guard mumbled.

Lyon saw that the large parking lots were almost empty, that the broad expanse of asphalt usually filled with cars, pick-up trucks and campers was now empty, except for an occasional vehicle inexplicably parked in various parts of the two large lots. Four cars were parked directly in front of the administration building.

“I see that there's someone in the administration building,” Lyon said.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Wentworth. We're closed.”

There was an unusual harshness to the guard's voice, a return to police authority from this heretofore friendly man.

“It's really quite important,” Lyon said.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Wentworth. I'm trying to make it as easy as possible on you. My orders are never to let you in here. I can't.”

The guard stood directly in Lyon's path, and outside of running the man down, Lyon had no access to the plant. A flash of memory concerning all the private investigators he'd read about flicked through his mind. A Sam Spade would slip the intransigent guard a few dollars and quickly speed to the administration building. Lyon patted his side pocket … he didn't have a few dollars. He didn't even have his wallet.

Parking at a nearby diner he scrounged through the glove compartment and eventually discovered two dimes. He dialed Rocco's number and explained the problem.

“No way,” the large man's voice boomed back at him over the phone. “Go home. It's over, man. Over.”

“You want the nomination for town clerk at the town committee meeting next week?”

“You make it sound like you're asking if I still have relatives in Germany. That's lousy and rotten.”

“I feel lousy and rotten.”

“Pasquale will never buy it.” His voice dropped to an almost solicitous tone. “I'm sorry I ever got you into this.”

Lyon looked down at the single dime in the palm of his hand. “I'm at the diner on Elm Street. Hurry up, will you? I only have enough money for one cup of coffee.”

Rocco reluctantly agreed, said he'd phone Detective Pasquale and they'd pick Lyon up in forty-five minutes. However, he found he was wrong. Coffee was fifteen cents a cup. He waited in his car and read the owner's manual completely through several times before Rocco and Pasquale arrived in an unmarked city police car.

Pat Pasquale jumped from the car and grimly approached Lyon. “Listen, Wentworth. Your big buddy here has talked me into this, but if these people should complain … if word gets back to the police commissioner, it'll be my ass—and if it's my ass and I'm back on the beat … you'll never drive the streets of Hartford again.”