A Child's Garden of Death

by Forrest, Richard;

  “Now, he’s got this thing with my brother,” she said vehemently.

  Lyon turned toward her. Martha Herbert was a diminutive woman of barely five feet whose hair hung to her shoulders and who constantly wore demure white dresses, a little girlish idiosyncrasy that now seemed slightly ludicrous. Her head came to Rocco’s shoulder, and Lyon wondered how she and Rocco ever … and caught the half-formed erotic thought before it completely formed. “What’s this thing you’re talking about?”

  “His feeling about the State Police. You know, I wanted him to go into the state when he got home from the service. My brother was already a sergeant. If we had all those state benefits now … and Rocco would probably be a captain by now too.”

  “He’s talking about running for town clerk.”

  “There’s no future in that. I mean, once you’re town clerk, you’re town clerk. There’s no chief town clerk or anything … we’d be at a dead end.”

  “Yes,” Lyon said. “I suppose you would.” It bothered him that he didn’t care for Martha Herbert very much, and he wondered how many bickering arguments his large friend had endured, although he’d never mentioned them to Lyon. “If Rocco wants to be town clerk, it might make him happy.…”

  She tossed her hair in a contemptuous gesture. “Oh, he doesn’t know what he wants. All he can say is that he’s tired of giving out parking tickets, and now this business about those bodies.…” She grimaced.

  “Can I get you another drink?”

  “Yes, thank you. Scotch and water.”

  Lyon closed the kitchen door quietly and blocked it with his back. At the sink Beatrice was pouring ginger ale into a highball glass. She continued pouring until the foaming liquid spilled over the lip of the glass and ran over the counter into a small puddle on the floor. He went up behind her and put his hands gently on her shoulders.

  She half-turned and smiled through the tears. “I blew it, Lyon. I really blew it and I don’t give a damn.”

  He kissed the back of her neck and she sniffed through the tears. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “If it hadn’t happened tonight it would have been some other time with that joker.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Beatrice, there is one thing you must do.”

  She turned and threw her arms around his neck, “I KNOW … about time to have my hearing tested.”

  “I made an appointment for you on Tuesday.”

  She kissed him and he pulled her closer. “I love you,” she said.

  “I have an idea,” he replied. “The barn; they won’t miss us.”

  “Later. I’ve got to get my face repaired and go back out there and fix that bastard.”

  “Work against him at the state convention. Back Ed Maddaloni; he’s a good man.”

  “Maddaloni, yes. YES.” The glint returned to her eyes and she hastily brushed the remaining tears from her face. “That pompous, ignorant ass has already alienated half the people here. Let’s see what I can do about the other half.” With a flounce and a twitch of her rear she strode from the room, and Lyon had a picture of her adjusting her lance as she galloped onward to meet the black knight.

  Lyon made drinks for Helen and Rocco and a double for himself. He went in search of the Chief.

  He found Rocco Herbert at the desk in the study making aimless doodles on a yellow legal pad. He put the drink firmly in the Chief’s hand.

  “You didn’t tell me you were going to have a Goddamn political convention here,” Rocco said without turning.

  “I didn’t know, but should have guessed. This time of year they slither under the doorway.”

  “Sontilly of the Hartford Courant is here. If he spots me he’ll think I’m bucking for first selectman.”

  “I won’t allow that. I’ll tell him that the Murphysville chief of police is in my study getting stinking drunk.”

  “Very funny. You know, old buddy, it’s against FAA regulations to land balloons on golf courses.”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “One of the players who you almost landed on top of is mayor down there and made a complaint to headquarters. I squelched it this time. You know, it’s getting so I have to practically have a unit watching over you to keep you out of trouble. Another incident or two and you’ll be barred from highway and airway.”

  “Thanks.” Lyon picked up the large blow-ups Rocco had brought with him from the police photographers. The largest, taken from the balloon almost directly overhead, he pinned to the edge of the mantel, the edge of the photo held firmly by the feet of the Wobblies. He sat in the leather chair next to Rocco and looked at the picture.

  “You’ve got a good camera,” Rocco finally said. “Excellent clarity and detail.”

  They pulled on their drinks and kept looking at the aerial photograph. “You know,” Lyon said, “it is too far up the hill to make sense.”

  “Almost on the leading edge of the ridge,” Rocco replied. “Oh, man, if we were still in Korea, I’d say it would be a good spot for a company defense perimeter.”

  “Yes, wouldn’t it,” Lyon said. He took the photograph from the mantel and spread it out on the desk. Getting map dividers from his balloon navigation kit, he calculated a scale from a section of the stone wall along the road that he carefully estimated at fifty feet. Using the dividers carefully, he made calculations on the edge of the photograph.

  “What do you think you have?” Rocco asked impatiently.

  Lyon tapped the pencil against his teeth and stood back from the photograph. “The grave site is 375 yards from the road, but of course that doesn’t include the incline of the hill. For someone to cart three bodies through all that brush all that distance.… Now, look at the other side of the hill … right over the ridge, less than fifty yards from the grave.”

  Rocco squinted at the photograph, and Lyon handed him a magnifying glass. “There’s a cut through there, along the edge of the ridge; it runs down through the hill on the other side of the lake.”

  “Right. It’s an old logging road. I’ll lay you ten to one that thirty years ago it was passable by auto.”

  “Old maps would verify that.”

  “Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense, with three bodies, to drive a car up that way, move them a few yards and then dig the grave? Far less chance of being seen, and far more practical.”

  “Yes,” Rocco said.

  “Then what would he or she do?”

  “Get the hell out of there.”

  “Three bodies, probably killed within minutes of each other, carried in a car or pick-up truck, near a lake …”

  “Jesus H. Christ! The lake!”

  “Drag the lake, Rocco. Let’s drag that damn lake now.”

  “The secret is not to have the grappling men grapple the scuba divers,” Rocco said as they stood at the edge of the lake watching the dim figures at work.

  “I’ve got a hangover,” Lyon said.

  The Chief’s big hand slammed into Lyon’s back, almost knocking him off the bank into the lake. “There’s coffee in the thermos over there. Hell, you ought to be glad I didn’t take you up on starting this last night when we were both half squiffed.”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  Lyon poured a cup of steaming black coffee from the thermos and scorched his throat as he gulped part of it. Going back to the edge of the bank, he saw Rocco bent over a large geodetic survey map. He had divided the lake into a grid system of numbered sections approximately five square yards each. Two men in each rowboat worked the edges and shallows of the lake with grappling hooks, calling back to Rocco as they finished each section. In the deeper parts divers periodically disappeared as they worked their sections.

  The early day was hazy, and wraithlike tendrils of fog rose from the lake’s surface. The men working the far edge of the lake were only spasmodically visible as their rowboats appeared and disappeared in lake fog.

  The helmeted and goggled scuba divers rose to the surface occasional
ly to gesture a hand signal to Rocco which he marked down on his map.

  “How long is it going to take?” Lyon asked.

  Rocco shrugged cheerfully. “Who knows? An hour, maybe days.”

  Lyon groaned.

  “You’re the one who said drag the lake,” Rocco said.

  Lyon huddled into his coat, thankful that he’d had the foresight to bring the sheepskin jacket. Early spring mornings, particularly just after dawn, could be cold as hell. He sat down on the ground and leaned back against a tree, pulling his jacket collar high up around his face.

  Rocco Herbert awakened him by kicking his insteps roughly. He blinked his eyes open and looked up at the Chief looming over him. “What is it?”

  “We’ve found something about thirty yards down the way.”

  Lyon scrambled to his feet and followed the large strides of Herbert. The rowboats, about twenty yards apart, were gathered in a semi-circle off shore.

  “The grapplers hit something, and I just put the divers down. We’ll know in a couple of minutes if we have anything.”

  They stared into the opaque waters, the morning still except for occasional frog croaks and the thunk of an oar in a boat. Two helmeted scuba divers broke surface simultaneously, and one raised his hand with upturned thumb. They waded awkwardly to shore and were aided up the bank by Lyon and Rocco. With triumphant faces, they stood with dripping wetsuits and removed their mouthpieces and cowls.

  “We found it, Chief. A 1938 Ford coupe.”

  “Good work, men,” Rocco beamed.

  “No, sir,” the other diver said. “It’s a 1938 Plymouth coupe.”

  “Ford,” the first diver replied angrily.

  “Damn it all,” the second diver said. “I know an antique Plymouth when I see it.”

  “Ford.”

  “It had a hood ornament in the shape of a boat with a ring around it. I could tell that even with the rust.”

  “That’s a Ford.”

  “You’re out of your cotton pickin’ mind,” the second diver said and threw his helmet at the other’s webbed feet.

  “Knock it off!” Rocco bellowed.

  “Yes, sir!” He snapped to attention.

  “Would both you officers agree that there is a car down there, a coupe of pre-World War II vintage?”

  “That’s right, Chief.”

  “Well, then, that’s just fine,” Rocco continued softly. “Did we see anything else down there that we all might agree on?”

  “Yes, sir. There’s something else down there. Near the car, but deeper, like it went into a hole. It’s longer than a car and half buried, like a wagon or some other type of vehicle.”

  “A caravan,” Lyon said.

  “No, sir,” the diver said seriously. “There’s no caravan, there’s only one of them.”

  “I mean house trailer,” Lyon replied. “A caravan is a house trailer.”

  “Yes, sir,” the divers said together. “That’s what it is, a house trailer.”

  Three

  The cruiser siren missed a beat as the car hit a large hole in the logging road and skidded toward the shoulder, regained its forward momentum and screeched to a halt a few yards from Rocco and Lyon.

  “Ten to one here comes the Goddamn Lone Ranger,” Rocco said.

  Two of the cruiser doors slammed shut simultaneously as Captain Norbert strode purposefully toward them. “We found it, Captain,” the young diver said.

  “Good work, men.” Captain Norbert turned to Rocco and Lyon. “I told them to radio when anything significant turned up. What do we have?”

  “A car and trailer,” the second diver said.

  “Good. Now we’ll have some good hard physical evidence to work with. Chief, I imagine you are entertaining a move to request formal State Police assistance in the continuance of the investigation.”

  “Nope.”

  “Now come on, Rocco.”

  “Lay off, Norbert. Thanks for the help, but we’ll handle the case.”

  “I can have derricks here in two hours; in three we’ll have those vehicles on shore ready for the lab boys.”

  “In three you’ll have a bunch of wet wreckage,” Lyon said. “That stuff has been down there thirty years. The frames will have rusted through; the wood must be filled with rot; the whole damn mess will fall apart.”

  “We’ll photo in the water and reconstruct on the land,” the captain responded firmly.

  “It will be a mess,” Rocco agreed. “What next?”

  “Let’s go take a look,” Lyon said.

  “Dive?”

  “That’s the best way,” Lyon replied.

  “You know how?”

  “Read a book once.” Lyon turned to a scuba diver. “Let me borrow your stuff.” The young State Police diver looked imploringly at Captain Norbert.

  “His equipment is State Police property,” Norbert said, and pushed the diver slightly in back of him.

  “Oh, no, sir,” the diver said. “I bought everything myself. I’ve got over a grand sunk in this stuff. The very best money can buy.”

  “I’m commandeering it, right now,” Rocco said.

  “Damn it all, Rocco. Get off your high horse,” the captain said.

  “We are in the confines of the incorporated Township of Murphysville. I have reason to believe a felony has been committed and that the scene of that felony is under water. I am taking this young man’s equipment.”

  As the diver peeled off the wetsuit, Rocco and Norbert went over to a small clump of pine trees and began to argue heatedly. Lyon shivered as he removed his pants and shirt and began to pull on the wetsuit over his underwear.

  “You know,” the diver said, “we’re never going to find a suit big enough for the Chief.”

  “I know,” Lyon said. “I’ll go down.”

  “I’ll go with you,” the diver said. “The buddy system is a necessity. I’ll hold the lights for you.”

  “Thank you,” Lyon said as the first diver jockeyed the tanks onto his shoulders and helped him adjust the straps. He donned the helmet cowl and put the mouthpiece uncomfortably into his mouth.

  “You’ve got it in upside down,” the diver said.

  “Oh,” Lyon replied as they helped him to adjust the mechanism. “Thank you.”

  As they walked slowly into the water, the police diver turned to him. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, sir?”

  “Not a bit,” Lyon replied. “But it doesn’t look too hard.”

  “Thank God it’s not deep,” the diver said. As they reached chest-high water, the diver put his hand on Lyon’s shoulder. “Wait one sec, sir. Half a lesson at least.”

  In three minutes he pointed out to Lyon the tank measurement indicator, the proper placement of the mouthpiece, and a few necessary items for a first shallow dive. Turning, Lyon could see Captain Norbert striding toward the shoreline in a manner too purposeful for comfort, and he quickly ducked his head under and kicked off toward deep water.

  The water was illuminated in front of him for several feet, and turning he could see the police diver not far behind, carrying two large lamps. The other diver jiggled the lights and pointed downward. Twelve or fifteen feet below the surface Lyon could see the vague outline of a car and the long, rectangular roof of the trailer. They swam down and grasped the edge of the car window.

  Lyon took one of the lamps from the diver and shone it through the car window. The window on the diver’s side was down and he was able to signal Lyon to come over. Lyon stuck his head through the window with the lamp held before him.

  Small sunfish swam between the spokes of the steering wheel, and a layer of silt rose from the floor past the level of the seats. Plants grew in the floor and sent stalk tendrils upward through the window to catch the filtered surface light.

  If anything was to be found in the car, underneath the layers of silt and mud, it would have to be when it was hoisted to the surface. He backed out of the car and swung the light toward the trailer. Together they circled
the long vehicle.

  It had evidently dropped into a hole several feet lower than the car, and now mud and silt reached above the level of the windows, and although part of the silt, mud and plant life had been brushed away from the roof by the divers, from a short distance away the trailer would have been invisible.

  Lyon put his lamp down on the trailer roof and made a hand signal to the police diver that outlined the shape of a door. The diver nodded understanding, and on the opposite side began to feel around the edge of the trailer, while Lyon started on his side. Trailer doors were almost always on the left hand side of the vehicle, to the rear, which in this case would be away from the sunken automobile.

  Three feet away from the rear of the trailer, his hands deep in mud, Lyon felt the door frame. The police diver joined him and unhooked a small crowbar from his utility belt. Inserting the edge of the crowbar into the top edge of the door, they easily pried the complete door away from the frame. Lake-bottom mud slid into the trailer, but the aperture was large enough to admit them. Holding the top of the trailer, the police diver extended his feet through the doorway and with a slight shove was propelled into the vehicle. Lyon followed more slowly.

  Under the circumstances the trailer’s interior was in remarkable condition. It had landed easily on the soft bottom of the lake, as proven by the fact that the floor hadn’t buckled. Although filled with water, the trailer’s structure was sufficiently tight to keep out most forms of marine life. Trickles of silt lay in corners and around seams and window edges; but for the most part, the trailer outlined in the soft glow of the underwater lamps gave the impression of being almost habitable.

  Lyon wondered about the origin of caravans and house trailers. Of course the Middle European gypsies had had them for more than two hundred years, perhaps the Visigoths before that … he’d have to read material on the subject.

  They moved slowly through the trailer. The door entered into the main living area, with a convertible settee along the rear wall. A table fitted into the wall near the door, and beyond that a stove, cabinets and small bedroom to the front of the trailer. In the diffused light, Lyon could see that a blotchy film inundated everything in the trailer, a combination of algae and rust rising to thin knobs in certain sections, but easily wiped away.