A Child's Garden of Death (28 page)

“I think your characters, the Wobblies, look like this,” Stacey had said in an embarrassed aside.

Lyon had been stunned. With a few lines the colonel had created a drawing that brought the Wobblies to life. Lyon's benign monsters stared from the paper with the exact qualities he had always imagined they possessed. From that point on, there had never been any doubt that they would continue as a team.

For a moment he speculated on his two uniformed friends: one, a retired military officer who approached a near caricature of his breed; and the other, a police chief whose massive appearance seemed to categorize the man. And yet, in each man a deep vein of gentleness, often hidden from the exterior world, was the very essence of his being. In that, there might be hope for us all.

The phone rang again, and he snatched it up in irritation. “Go to sleep, Stacey. I'll call you in the morning.”

“I've got something on the Llewyn killing,” Rocco Herbert's voice said without preamble.

“I'm not home,” Lyon said and stuffed the phone into the bottom desk drawer and covered it with a thesaurus and a dictionary.

He rolled a piece of paper into the typewriter and began to type: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party”—over and over again as the phone continued its muffled, incessant ringing.

Then he shrugged, opened the drawer, and grabbed the receiver. “Many times no, damn it! I promised Bea I wouldn't get involved. I don't want to get involved. Call your brother-in-law on the state police, call in the F.B.I, for violation of civil rights. Good-bye.”

Before the receiver hit the cradle he heard Rocco say that he was calling from the squad car and would be at Nutmeg Hill in five minutes.

Lyon sighed and poured himself a glass of sherry.

Rocco Herbert eased his large frame into the leather chair in the corner of the study and drank his vodka neat. The single light from the desk lamp gave a diffused illumination to the room, and it made Lyon recall nights in Korea. Then, Rocco Herbert had been a Ranger captain. After intelligence-gathering missions he would come to Lyon's tent at division headquarters, and with a Coleman lantern swinging from the center pole, the two men would talk softly and drink whatever was available. As an intelligence officer, Lyon had existed on the information the large Ranger officer provided, and the relationship had grown and ripened when they discovered their mutual origins in Connecticut.

There was an immediate juxtaposition of fragmentary pictures from earlier in the day. Rocco, at the political rally on the green taking two small tow-headed children across the street, their fingers entwined in his. Rocco, kneeling, the Magnum sputtering calculated shots at spaced intervals toward the church steeple.

“I thought you'd be interested in what I've turned up so far.”

“Come on, Rocco. Don't bait me like that. Bea and I knew Llewyn well. He was a friend more than a political ally of Bea's. We're as interested in your catching his killer as anyone in the state, but don't try to grapple me into this. It's headline stuff. You can get all the help you need.”

“We did pretty well together the last time.”

“I had a personal reason to work on the little girl's killing.”

Rocco didn't answer. He poured himself another drink, sat back in the chair and twirled his glass. “Perhaps as an old friend you'd be interested in my shop talk.”

“You're as obvious as a rattlesnake. What about Captain Norbert?”

“I'm only using the state police for lab work.”

“Oh, great. An ego trip.” Seeing Rocco wince, Lyon regretted the remark. As Murphysville's chief of police, Rocco commanded a force that sometimes totaled twelve men and was often sensitive about the mundane nature of his work.

“No, Lyon. Not an ego trip.”

“I'm sorry, and I am interested in your work, but in this instance there are other considerations. Bea is understandably very upset. It was pretty damn traumatic for her to be so close to the killing. I just can't have myself involved in something so painful for her.… Hell, it's not my job or my duty as a citizen.”

“Didn't say it was.”

“You're a big boy now.” That he was, Lyon thought. At six feet eight and 270 pounds, Rocco Herbert was the largest police officer in the state. “You're also a bright man who will do all anyone can.”

“We found the weapon in the church. A thirty-thirty, two shots fired.”

“Shell casings?”

“Two.”

“I want to compliment you on your fast reaction at the green. Immediately picking out where the shots came from and returning fire must have disconcerted the sniper.”

Rocco nodded noncommittally. “The lab checked out the rifle and established it as the murder weapon to the exclusion of all other rifles.”

“Any prints?”

“No.”

“Damn it all, Rocco. You're trying to involve me. Seriously, I have a wife who is upset, and a book to finish for a contract deadline.”

“Because of his helmet, my description of the bike rider is no damn good. Of course we've made plaster casts of the tire marks. By the way, he got into the church through …”

Lyon swiveled his chair and began to type: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of …”

Rocco continued, raising his voice over the typing. “Back door of the church was unlocked and the sexton was out on the green listening to the speeches.”

Exasperated, Lyon turned to face Rocco. “I will talk about old army times, you can give me the latest gossip from around town, we will commiserate together over the state of the world, but no murder details.”

“The selectmen are going to be mad as hell over your wrecking the squad car.”

“Me wreck it! We were chasing the bastard.”

“You were driving. An unauthorized driver at that. You never could drive well, Lyon.”

“It wouldn't fit between the rocks.”

“Shouldn't have tried,” Rocco said and smiled.

“Isn't it time for you to go home?”

“I need another belt,” Rocco said as he poured another drink.

“You're really hitting the stuff tonight.”

The two men were quiet until Rocco eased himself from the leather chair and crossed to the fireplace. He put his glass on the mantel and ran his hand along the rough fieldstone for a moment before beginning to pace the room. “There's something …” His voice trailed off.

“I absolutely refuse to ask what,” Lyon said and found himself discomfited by the obvious agitation in his friend. “It's not all incumbent on you, Rocco. As I said, the state has a host of back-up facilities to help you. No one in the world expects you to tackle the case with your small force.”

“I have to tell you.” The brittle words died away in the quiet room.

“Something I really should know?”

“I'm afraid so,” Rocco said softly.

“You had better get it over with.”

“It's in the car. I'll be right back.”

Rocco left, and in a few minutes Lyon heard the slam of a car trunk. Fear slipped into the room. His study had always been a refuge, a place away from the world, a sanctuary which had now become filled with apprehension. He knew his friend well enough to discern that he was concerned, and that the concern dealt with Lyon.

Rocco returned carrying a large case and a portable movie screen. Wordlessly he set up the screen and positioned the projector.

“If it's pornographic I don't want to see it,” Lyon said with an attempted laugh. “Unless she's terrific.”

“Uh-huh,” Rocco replied as he bent to plug in the movie projector.

“If it's a film monument to that great day you tagged fourteen cars for speeding on Route Sixty-six, I'm already bored.”

Rocco reached over and snapped off the desk lamp and turned on the projector. “Debbie Williams took the film this afternoon at the green.”

“She's only sixteen.”

“I know, and the camera is one of those Kodak deals that sell for thirty or forty dollars. The state lab rushed a print for me.”

They fell silent as Rocco adjusted the focus. As the film started, Lyon noticed that the camera wavered and frames blurred and sometimes slipped out of focus. He conjectured that the camera was a recent acquisition of the young girl's and that perhaps the filming of the activities on the green was her cinematic baptism.

“She got it yesterday on her birthday,” Rocco said. “The camera, I mean.”

“Figures,” Lyon replied.

The camera panned to a beautiful, belligerent black face. “Hey, that's Kimberly Ward,” Lyon said with delight. Kim lived in the apartment over the Wentworth garage with her teenage daughter. She was Bea's administrative assistant, secretary and factotum for the Wentworths—when she wasn't organizing protest marches. The camera moved from Kim's face to the placard she was carrying. It paused there for a moment, and they could read the sign:

“W
ELFARE
L
AWS
A
RE
U
NFAIR
”

“I get it,” Lyon said. “You're arresting Kim for unlawful protest without a permit.”

“No. Just watch.”

Spasmodic camera shots showed the green filling with people, the speakers arriving, and part of the speech given by the congressman. At one point the camera tilted in a skewed angle, swerved away from the speaker's platform and slid along the green, showing Amsten House and the Congregational Church. Rocco stopped the projector. He reversed the machine for a moment and then started it forward. The shots of the house and church slid past. Rocco again stopped the machine and isolated the church.

“We were able to blow this frame up,” he said. “The astronomy department at the university isolated it and used a computer method developed for some of those space fly-bys. Look at the definition on the blowup.” He switched on the light and propped up a fifteen-by-fourteen picture of the church.

“I can see him in there!” Lyon said. In the dark recess behind the belfry window, partway up the steeple, the definite image of a man holding a rifle could be discerned. “Too many shadows. You'll never get an ID on that.”

“I know, but I thought you might like to see it.”

“Hey, no kidding, Rocco. I'm not being coy. I really don't want to get involved.”

“That's not why I brought this stuff here. Keep watching.” He turned off the light and again started the projector. Bea was at the speaker's podium making her introductory remarks for Randolph Llewyn. Even though Lyon knew what was coming, the muscles in his stomach tightened and he could feel the perspiration forming in the palms of his hands.

As the introduction drew to a close, he could follow the movement of Bea's lips. “The camera's close in.”

“First row,” Rocco mumbled.

Lyon knew what Bea was saying: “A fine lawyer, dedicated family man, I give you the next governor of this state, Randolph Llewyn.”

He saw his wife turn quickly and reach for Llewyn. Llewyn stood and was immediately flung backward by the impact of the bullet.

The camera pointed to the sky, and then went dark. After the shots Debbie had probably flung herself to the ground as many others had.

“I'm going to run the last few feet again,” Rocco said. “In slow motion.”

Again Lyon watched the film and saw Bea finish her remarks, turn quickly from the podium and reach toward Llewyn. Llewyn died again and the film was finished.

“Oh, my God,” Lyon said, and knew why Rocco had wanted him to see the film.

“Yes,” Rocco replied.

“Run it in slow motion again.”

For the third time they watched Randolph Llewyn's last filmed moments. Lyon felt his fingers cramp as he clutched the chair arms.

Catapulting from the desk chair, he flung open the study door and staggered to the downstairs lavatory, where he vomited repeatedly into the toilet bowl. When the peristaltic motions subsided, he washed his face in very cold water, toweled himself and walked slowly back to the study.

Rocco had poured another drink.

“Do you think it's conclusive?” Lyon asked.

“I'm afraid so. I've had blowups made of the last few frames.”

“I'd like to see them,” Lyon said as he moved his manuscript and typewriter from the desk.

Rocco adjusted the lamp and spread the film blowups across the desk. He arranged them in frame sequence, starting at the top right-hand corner of the desk. They showed Bea's last remark, her turn, Llewyn's standing and then falling under the shot, and the second shot's point of impact.

“What's the elapsed time from this frame to this frame?” Lyon asked, pointing.

“Half a second.”

“Exact distance from the steeple window to the platform?”

“Two hundred and nineteen yards.”

“Scope on the rifle?”

“Yes, with windage adjusted. He knew what he was doing.”

“Trigger squeeze would take—?”

“Part of a second.”

Both men looked again at the movie blowups. The first shot hit Llewyn, and as he fell, Bea bent toward him. The second shot, as the pictures clearly indicated, entered a sign immediately to the rear of where Bea had been standing.

“It would have hit her neck or lower face,” Lyon said in a low voice.

“I know,” Rocco said and put a hand on Lyon's shoulder. “He was using a soft-nosed bullet, hollow point; it flattens on impact. One for each of them.”

“He could have been a nut who didn't care.”

“Do you believe that?”

“No, too much care and preparation.” Lyon reached into the bottom desk drawer and took out a rolled geodetic map and a pair of dividers. “All right, let's see where the bastard was going.” He unrolled the map and weighted the edges with books. He bent over the map and began to draw intersecting lines leading away from the Congregational Church and cemetery.