The Pied Piper of Death (8 page)

She watched his movements without expression.

He wrapped his handkerchief around the stock of the weapon and held it up. “What's this?”

“I don't know,” she answered. “It looks like one of those guns they have in glass cases over at the big house.”

He recognized the weapon as a .58 caliber carbine based on an Enfield pattern that had been made at the Confederate States Arsenal at Tallahassee, Alabama. It was capable of firing the minié ball that the ME had discovered. “What time did you go out into the garden?”

“Around nine. There's a light out there. I was picking greens for our salad.”

“You hadn't eaten yet?”

“No. Markham liked to eat late, in the European tradition. I always suspected that a late dinner extended his matinee hours.”

Rocco appeared in the doorway and looked skeptically at the weapon in Lyon's hands. “What do you have there?”

“I found it under the bed in here.” Lyon handed him the carbine. Rocco took the weapon carefully, gripping the stock through the handkerchief. He tilted the barrel to smell the muzzle opening. “It's been fired recently,” he said. “We'll have it checked out at the lab.” A patrolman standing immediately behind him bagged and labeled the weapon.

“Have you touched this rifle?” he asked Loyce.

“I might have. Markham was constantly bringing all sorts of historic items home from the big house as part of his research. He'd keep them a couple of days and then exchange them for other items. He's had all sorts of guns in here, cluttering up the room. I'd have to move them around to dust or make up the bed.”

“In other words you might have touched this weapon?” Rocco pressed.

“Yes. I just don't remember.”

Rocco sighed. Lyon recognized the gesture as his friend's continual lament for the human condition, which even after all these years seemed to disappoint him constantly.

“We're going to need a serious talk, Loyce,” Rocco said.

He was going to get her.

Oh, God, was he going to take her. When he was through she'd be a complete wreck, useless for any other activity. So, they had a wall around her and guards at the gate. He welcomed the challenge. The fence was only ten or twelve feet high. There were trees with low branches along the lane near the wall that practically invited intruders. It would be a simple matter to shinny up a tree, work out on a limb that extended over the wall, and then drop over. If there did happen to be a protective layer of cut glass running along the top of the wall, he could work farther out on the limb before he dropped to the ground on the other side.

Bridgeway wasn't built for security. You would have thought that the Pipers, with all their blood money, would have taken proper precautions. Any bright munitions manufacturer would have installed a proper security fence with heat-sensing devices, guard dogs, and a battery of television cameras equipped with a sophisticated alarm system. Piper was too cheap. All that he seemed capable of doing was marching out his wooden soldiers, who weren't good for anything but beating up old ladies.

He'd pay for that one too. No one hit his people and got away with it. Oh, God, he'd think of some delicious way to make the capitalist pig squirm. It gave him satisfaction to know that his actions tonight would punish the factory owner.

He pressed back against the wall. The next step was to work his way toward the orchard a hundred yards farther on. Light fell from a lamp near the cottage. He stepped around it so as not to be silhouetted in its glare.

He found the proper tree, with branches that hung conveniently over the wall's far side. It couldn't have been easier. The tree was meant for climbing. He bent his knees and jumped high enough to grab an overhead branch. He hung suspended for a moment and then swung his feet up into the tree's crotch. He levered his body up. It was an easy step to two more limbs and then he was above the wall. He tested a thick branch that jutted over the wall and when he was satisfied that it was strong enough, he swung out and hand-walked a few feet before he dropped to the ground on the far side. He seemed to be in some sort of garden. It was dark and hard to identify the plants, but they may have been roses. He pressed back against the wall.

A shot sounded and then another.

He automatically fell to the ground and rolled under a bush while simultaneously pulling his legs up toward his chest as he curled into a fetal position.

Running footsteps coming toward him. They were by his side now and then gone. Whoever it was had gone past him. A man's bouncing silhouette disappeared down the walk. He was convinced that his pounding heart and rasping breath would alarm a dozen security guards, but as he continued to lie quietly, the breathing and heart rate gradually returned to normal.

The shots were not meant for him. Except for the distant sounds of the party the estate was quiet.

Where were the guards? They must have heard the shots. They should have mounted a full-scale search, but evidently there wasn't going to be any further activity. Perhaps they hadn't heard the sounds over the noise of the party. It was just as well. He was risking his life on the inadequacy of their security, the lack of night-vision apparatus and regular patrols. The risk would be rewarded if tonight's objective were attained.

He had memorized a rough drawing of the estate's interior. He knew each nook and cranny, every turn and hall of the place. He knew she would be in her room. That was where he would take her. The greatest risk in the operation would be during the last few feet. For thirty seconds he would be exposed on the balcony before her door. It was a risk that had to be taken.

He left the protection of the wall shadows and cut across the walk and lawn until he reached the east side of the house. His trajectory had been perfect and he had arrived only four feet away from the narrow door that entered into the auxiliary pantry. He knew the door would be unlocked. He slowly turned the handle, slid inside, and pulled the door shut.

“Who are you?”

The deep voice from the shadows startled him so badly that he nearly fell. He couldn't see anyone.

“Who you?” the slurred, deep voice persisted.

He frantically searched the narrow pantry for the voice's owner. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he was able to see a little man sitting in the doorway of a cupboard near the floor. He clutched a bottle of brandy and stared at the world belligerently. He was dressed in formal wear that looked like a waiter's or butler's uniform. It took him a moment to realize that he was in a dim room with the one they called Rabbit.

“I'm a friend of Paula's.”

The little man smirked. “Sneaking in for a little hanky-panky?”

He nodded. It was to be a little more than that, but he wasn't about to tell this gnome that. “I know where her room is,” he said and left the drunken elflike man inside the cabinet as he took the backstairs by twos.

Her room was at the end of the balcony, only a few feet from the small interior stairwell. He would be exposed for only seconds as he slipped in her room.… A sliver of light seeped out from under the heavy wood door. He slipped out of the stairwell and put his hand around the brass handle and slowly turned it. He stepped inside and closed the door.

She sat at a dressing table half surrounded by mirrors. She wore a short teddy that barely covered the top of her thighs.

He couldn't help but stare at her.

She looked at his image in the mirror without turning. The hairbrush paused in midstroke as their eyes met in the mirror.

“What do you want …?” she asked.

“You know damn well what.” He stepped toward her.

“Don't hurt me,” Paula said in a pleading voice.

“Come here.” He grabbed her by the long hair that cascaded over her shoulders and yanked her to her feet.

She turned to face him a moment and then jerked violently away. “Please …”

“God, you are a lousy actress,” he said with a smile. “Next I expect you to threaten to throw yourself from the parapet if I ravish you.”

“I'm torn between that or being a modern girl who might give you a shot in the groin. You wanted the games.” she said with a shake of her head that splayed hair around her face.

“How else was I to get in here?”

She flung herself at him as they fell back on the bed.

“When I was on the Middleburg force we posted a uniform at the door when we tossed a place.” Harry, the security lieutenant, belched his disgust at the TV monitor focused on the gate cottage. “Look at those clowns,” he remarked to no one in particular. “Keystone Kops.”

At the lockers against the far wall, Barry Nevins gave his ex-superior the finger in the mirror. He continued stuffing some of the contents of his locker into a small gym bag. His eye caught movement in the TV monitor on the far right of the left bank. Someone had slipped into the girl's bedroom. Old retread Harry didn't know how to scan the newly installed system.

Screw him. Harry had just given him the old firing shaft, so let him do his own work. It wasn't his responsibility when he was off the clock—and he'd stay off the clock until sometime tomorrow when he'd recovered from the hangover he was going to create tonight. Only then would he call a certain unlisted phone number and talk to old Peyton Piper Poo and suggest that he be rehired. Somehow, he thought he would be, with some proper excuse given to Harry.

“Happy Lars has the case,” Harry announced. “Boy what a weirdo that sawbones is.”

“I think someone is going to blow the girl away,” Barry said in a voice almost too low for Harry to hear. What the hell. Maybe some excitement would come out of all this.

“Yeah sure,” Harry replied automatically. “Rocco Herbert is trying to run the murder case. God, that big jerk can't keep the school crossing guards in line. Swan's old lady did him in and can't say I blame her. The guy was jumping all the bones at Bridgeway.”

“So, I'm like history, huh?” Barry said as he stuffed his favorite sap, a sock filled with two rolls of quarters, into his gym bag.

“Sorry about that Barry,” the security chief said, “but the senator saw you hit the dame. I had no choice. You had to go.”

“Thanks for backing me, old buddy.”

Harry shrugged. “Nothing I can do, man. She saw you. It was a dumb thing to do.”

Barry wondered if he should try to tell Harry about the intruder again. His former supervisor, intrigued with events at the gatehouse, had obviously missed the man's entry into Paula's room. It was probably too late now, anyway. The kook had probably either raped or killed the girl by this time, or maybe both. Barry savored that possibility for a brief moment until he realized that his fantasy was interfering with a great game plan.

“I'm cutting out,” Barry said as he zippered his small bag and started for the door. He waited until the last possible moment, when he had his hand on the handle and the door partially open. “By the way, there's an intruder just went inside the girl's room. If you'd been watching the monitor you'd seen it.”

Harry's eyes shifted automatically to scan the appropriate monitor. The far right screen now showed an empty upstairs hallway. “I don't see anything.”

“That's because he's not in the hall now. He's inside her room with a knife to her throat as he jumps her.”

Harry jerked to his feet so abruptly that his wooden straight chair fell over on its back with a clatter. “Jesus H. Christ! We're in deep shit. Come on, let's go!” He dashed for the swinging door that led to the living room and the main stairwells. He stopped abruptly when he realized he wasn't being followed.

“I don't work here no more,” Barry said with a smirk.

“Christ, man! I need you now,” Harry said. “You're hired back. I'll square it with Mr. Piper because you spotted the break-in.” He stopped stock-still to cast a withering glance at the other guard. “There better be a guy up there.”

“There is,” Barry said. “He's probably doing the girl right now.” Both men dashed for the stairs. “We need backup,” Barry gasped as he pressed against the wall next to Paula's bedroom door. “This guy is probably carrying.”

“No time. No damn time,” Harry wheezed.

The moans started.

“No question about it, he's doing it to her now. We got to go in,” Harry commanded as he slipped the revolver from his holster. “On three we move in.”

“Jesus, Harry,” Barry replied. “I didn't buy into this kind of heavy stuff.”

“He's killing the girl. Just listen to it,” Harry said as she moaned again. “Now!”

Both men took two steps back and rushed forward to throw themselves against the door. The wood splintered under their combined impact.

“Freeze, bastard!” Harry commanded. He assumed a shooter's crouch immediately inside the room and swept the revolver in a circle until it was aimed at the bed.

“I think we got a situation here, Harry,” Barry said.

“Oh, Jesus,” Harry said as Paula sat up in bed.

It was quite obvious to both of them that the couple on the bed did not have any hidden weapons. Paula's physical position and accompanying glare made it apparent that she was more than a willing participant.

“How much does unemployment insurance pay, Barry?” Harry asked.

The zip of the body bag was an instant call for silence.

Everyone momentarily stopped what they were doing. The forensic lab people with their evidence envelopes, fingerprint experts, and photographers all paused for a moment as the gurney containing the body was wheeled from the small cottage. The laughing medical examiner managed to restrain his sense of humor until the gurney reached the ambulance.

Loyce Swan was still in the small bedroom where Lyon had talked with her, but was now watched over by a police matron. Markham's widow had curled up on the bed and closed her eyes. The policewoman carried a paperback novel, which she began to read under the dim light.