A Child's Garden of Death

by Forrest, Richard;

  He started with the back bedroom. A triangular-shaped object rested by the bed, and he wiped his hands across the covering growth. A peaked roof, a little window, a door, a doll house. He turned away from the tiny room with revulsion.

  They opened the cabinets in the kitchen area. Food cans, still retaining their shape, but the contents unrecognizable, filled one cabinet. A set of dishes in another, and another set, oddly enough, in the final cabinet. Rusted silverware in two drawers, a gas stove with three eyes, stove ring missing from one eye.

  Above the rear settee-bed was a bookcase filled with rotting books. Swimming upward, Lyon ran his hands along their spines. The books crumpled and disintegrated before him and pieces of pulp floated before his eyes. At the end of the shelf he found a large volume bound in calfskin and gently removed it. The print was unreadable and fell from his touch, but he could make out one word of the title on the spine, “Das …”

  The police diver grasped Lyon’s shoulder and gestured to their air gauges. Only a few minutes left. They swam through the trailer and together, at the bottom of the clothes cabinet, dragged out a large tool-box. The police diver pried the lip open with his crowbar and they looked into the rusted contents. The tools were alien to Lyon, rusted metal in odd shapes and forms. He picked up one small piece, a gauge of some sort, but its readings were rusted through, and he let it fall back into the box.

  Gesturing to the police diver to continue the search, he let himself float free. His back came to rest against the trailer roof, giving him a draftsman’s view of the trailer as he bobbed gently. There must be a pattern, an indication of life style in the things he had just seen that would fit together to, form a living picture of the people who had lived here. There was not the slightest doubt that this was the house trailer of the three victims found on the ridge. The room of a little girl, the remains of artifacts and clothing belonging to a man and woman; obviously three people lived here. A man, wife and child. Now, what else … Lyon Wentworth had a great deal of thinking to do.

  Why was Rocco Herbert standing waist deep in lake water with all his clothes on? Why was Rocco holding him by the back while other troopers carried him to shore?

  They laid Lyon on the bank and began to strip off the diving equipment and wetsuit. Large hands wrapped him in a blanket. A few feet away, near a pine, the police diver bent over and retched.

  Captain Norbert was yelling at Chief Herbert, which somehow, Lyon thought, seemed to be the natural order of things.

  “If he had died my ass would be in a sling, damn it!” the captain said.

  “He didn’t die, Captain,” Rocco’s quiet voice returned. “The guy’s got a charmed life.”

  “No more. No more dives except to attach the cables. We’re hauling the whole mess up.”

  “All right, for Christ’s sake.” Rocco left the captain and bent over Lyon with a plastic cup. “Brandy. Good for what ails you.”

  Lyon drank greedily, feeling the warmth spread to his feet. “That is good. What happened?”

  “You bastard,” the big man’s quiet voice said. “You are now officially a menace on land, sea and air. Not only did you almost drown, but that young trooper almost bought it bringing you out. What in God’s name were you doing down there?”

  “Doing? Why, thinking.”

  “Thinking. Jesus Christ! If the kid hadn’t been an expert diver, you’d be thinking for eternity. Your tanks were out.”

  By early afternoon the equipment was assembled along the edge of the lake. Lyon and Rocco had gone off to a nearby diner for a large breakfast and home for a change of clothes. They returned in time to see the last traces of activity before the hoist began the raising of the vehicles.

  The automobile came up first, water and mud streaming through the windows and doorway as it swiveled across the water and was set down gently on a flatbed truck.

  “If that’s not a thirty-eight Ford, I’ll eat it,” Lyon’s savior exclaimed in glee as he rushed to examine the car. He turned back to Rocco in amazement. “Hey, Chief. There’s no engine in this thing.”

  “And I’ll bet no body serial numbers either,” Rocco said.

  “I didn’t think he’d leave the marker plates on,” Lyon said.

  “Scratch that one off.”

  In short order the roof of the trailer broke through the surface of the lake. Captain Norbert gave a quick, triumphant glance over his shoulder toward Rocco and Lyon, and directed his gaze forward in time to see the trailer break neatly in two.

  It hung from the guy wires for a suspended moment, each half gaping downward as silt, furniture and myriad other material slid into the lake. Then the remainder of the frame crumpled, and in seconds the trailer was in pieces, the debris falling into the water to sink almost immediately.

  Captain Norbert turned back to them. “We’ll dredge the whole lake if we have to; we’ll get every piece … eventually.”

  The office of the Murphysville police chief was next to the two detaining cells, just over the first selectman’s office and in front of the library. Lyon and Rocco sat in straight wooden chairs, their feet on the radiator, finishing the brandy and silently contemplating the erection of a hamburger palace across the street that violated the Village Green.

  The phone rang and Rocco picked it up impatiently. He listened. “Yes, Mrs. Henderson, but I’ve been out to your place three times this week already. The court says he can’t come out there except on the children’s visiting days.… I know, yes.… Well, if you let him in the bed, it’s up to you to get him out of the bed.” He hung up with a bang. “She’ll call the first selectman about that and I’ll have to go out there.”

  “Lock them both up.”

  “I would, except they’d screw in the detaining cell and embarrass the drunks.”

  Rocco flipped the now empty brandy bottle into the trash can. “Couldn’t you do the dredging yourself, or with town maintenance people?” Lyon asked.

  “Not enough men or equipment for it. Norbert has the upper hand. It’ll take him days to get all that stuff from the bottom and sort through it, but he’ll do it; he’s very thorough. If only I could have gone down there myself, or if you could have made another dive or two instead of … thinking.”

  Lyon’s feet came off the radiator with a bang as the front legs of the chair hit the floor. He crossed to Rocco’s desk, scratched around for a pad and pencil and made a few notes.

  “Let’s see what we have. Probabilities, that’s all. One. Three people inhabited the trailer; two adults, man and woman, and a child. It was probably owned by our victims. No license plates on trailer or car.”

  “I’d be greatly surprised if any serial numbers whatsoever are found.”

  “I think you’re right,” Lyon said. “Let’s see what else. They were Jewish, of course.”

  Rocco’s chair came down with a thud as he turned to Lyon excitedly. “How come?”

  “Two sets of dishes. Two what seemed to be complete and separate sets. I suppose you can keep a kosher trailer as well as home.”

  “Jesus H. Christ, go on.”

  “Part of a book title, the only part I could read, Das.”

  “Das is goot.”

  “Exactly. German.”

  Rocco began to pace the small room. “Anything else? Anything we can put a handle on?”

  “The tool-box. It was corroded as hell and didn’t seem to have the usual things like hammers and screw drivers. I got a close look at one gauge but couldn’t make it out because of its condition.”

  “What did it look like?”

  Lyon made a pencil sketch of the implement he had held in his hand for a few moments under water. Rocco took the drawing and turned it in several directions. “I can’t make it out,” Lyon said.

  “It’s a micrometer,” Rocco said.

  “A micrometer. Yes, a machinist’s tool. A tool and diemaker’s box.”

  “It’s a possible.”

  “A probable.”

  Lyon put his feet on th
e desk and closed his eyes. “Now what do we have? A family of three are murdered; no one files a missing persons report. Probably because there are no relatives in this country. We have to work on the assumption that because of the teeth and the book title, at least the father was of European origin. They were Jewish, kept a kosher home, and the father was either a machinist or tool and diemaker. Since they died during the war, he probably worked at one of the plants or machine shops in the Greater Hartford area.”

  “They could have been from out of state,” Rocco said. “Passing through as tourists … on their way to and from anywhere.”

  “Unlikely. During World War II there was gas rationing, little pleasure driving, and a housing shortage. A time when people would be glad to have a trailer to live in.”

  “Do you know how many machinists and tool and diemakers there are in Connecticut, and of Jewish descent, and how many there are or might have been in thirty years?”

  “Hardly a lead,” Lyon replied. “Yet, let’s assume that at least the man emigrated here from Germany. Because of his age, let’s assume that he left Germany sometime after the Nurbenberg Laws.”

  “What are they?”

  “The Nazis passed them in September 1935; in essence they declared all Jews non-persons. The war started in 1938. That’s only a three-year period. We also think he was either a machinist or tool and diemaker, or perhaps an engineer.”

  Rocco looked depressed, his jubilation of moments ago now completely dissipated. “There would be thousands of German mechanics who came over here during that period.”

  “Unfortunately for them, not as many as you’d think. What we’re interested in are the permanent resident cards of those who came to Connecticut.”

  “Damn it all, Lyon, you’re still too complicated. It’s an impossible job to track down.”

  “Wait a minute. Think about the pathologist’s report. The adult male was around five foot three, age between 30 and 35. Now what are we looking for?”

  Rocco beamed. “Emigrated here between 1935 and 1938 from Germany, to Connecticut, with a probable occupation.”

  “Adult male, age between 20 and 26 during those years, height and build we have, state of destination we have, occupation is narrowed.”

  “And until he gained citizenship, if he did, he’d have to register once a year.”

  “Can you do it?” Lyon asked.

  “You’re Goddamn right I can do it! With this kind of data I can run it through Washington as an official request. I’ll have it in days.”

  “You had better make it faster than that,” Lyon said. “Once your brother-in-law gets through that mud he won’t be far behind us.”

  “THAT’S THE MOST RIDICULOUS SUPPOSITION I’VE HEARD SINCE THEY WANTED TO NOMINATE MY FRIEND BIG DADDY FOR GOVERNOR. IT’S ALL CONJECTURE.”

  “Will you adjust your hearing aid?”

  “What?”

  “Turn it up.”

  “Oh, all right.” Bea reached for her ear only to look blank. “I’m not wearing it.”

  “Lower your voice; you’re disturbing the other diners.”

  She looked rather sheepishly around the room and then back to Lyon. “It is ridiculous, you know. You hardly have a fact to go on.”

  “I prefer to think of it as a probability. We’ll know soon. Rocco thinks we’ll have the first reports from Immigration tomorrow.”

  The restaurant was an old train terminal. Outside, a dining car on the unused track acted as cocktail lounge. The high roof and windows gave a more spacious aura to the room than it warranted. The waiter set the escargots before them, and Lyon sipped on his martini, Bea on her Manhattan.

  “Even if you find out who they are, what then?” Bea asked.

  “As Rocco said, you can’t begin to find a murderer unless you at least know who the victims are.”

  “Aren’t most mass killings, killings of whole families, done by madmen?” Bea asked.

  He smiled across the table at her. “And madwomen, or, if you prefer, madperson.”

  “Touché. But isn’t that usually the case?”

  “Unfortunately, at least from my readings; but isn’t anyone who knocks people off nuts? Slightly less nuts when they go to the extreme care our murderer went to … buried bodies, hidden cars and trailers, engines removed … there’s a macabre rationale to that.” They grasped the snail shells with tongs and gently extricated the meat with small forks. “This is great garlic sauce,” Lyon said.

  “Never could eat snails,” the voice behind them said.

  They turned to see Senator Marcuse, state minority leader, beaming through his carefully cultivated moustache. Well-tailored, even in early spring his face deeply tanned and healthy. A man who many spoke of as a possible future state chairman, but unfortunately not a potential candidate for the national scene because of a facial tic that proved unfortunate on any television appearance.

  “I heard … saw you from across the room and just thought I’d say hello.”

  “You know my husband, Lyon, I believe,” Bea said.

  They shook hands, and Lyon winced slightly at the heavy grip of the minority leader.

  “Yes, we’ve met,” Lyon replied.

  “Sorry I couldn’t make the party Saturday, but I had a speech.” The politician’s cheek twitched, and Lyon wondered what that meant. “Oh, just one thing, Beatrice. Murphysville is in your district, isn’t it?”

  Lyon and Beatrice knew as well as the minority leader did that not only was it in Beatrice’s district, but they lived in Murphysville. “Yes, it is,” Bea replied, leaning forward in an attempt to hear every word.

  “If you get a chance Monday, I wonder if you’d talk to the chief of police down there. The State Police commissioner called me this morning about some flap over those three bodies they discovered. You know how it is—the local constabulary isn’t in any position to handle an investigation of that magnitude. Have them officially request state intervention.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Bea replied.

  With a wave the minority leader left the table. They watched him weave his way around the intervening tables, stopping twice to speak briefly to other diners before rejoining his wife. They sat quietly and Lyon ordered another martini for himself. Beatrice twirled the cherry in her half-empty drink.

  “Thanks for the support,” he said.

  “I just said I’d see what I could do. There’s no real problem until the Governor calls me in, and I won’t get that for a while.”

  “How in the hell do you suppose he found out we were going to eat here tonight?”

  “Darling, you’re supposed to know those things. You tell me.”

  The Chateaubriand arrived on the serving wagon and they watched as the captain began to carve it with a flourish.

  Kimberly stood with her back against the refrigerator door, her brown arms folded defiantly beneath her large breasts, her Afro high above the belligerent eyes defying Lyon.

  “The Man doesn’t get food from this chick,” she said.

  “Damn it all, Kim. All we want is a chicken sandwich and a bottle of beer.”

  “Then you go into the fields, wring the neck of a chicken, pluck and cook him. No Fascist pigs are eating here.”

  “He is not a Fascist pig. Now cut it out.”

  “Let him go to the diner on the highway and eat free like the other pigs do,” she yelled.

  “God damn it, Kim! Rocco is my oldest friend.”

  “That’s your problem, bourgeois pig.”

  “Look at it this way. Join us for lunch, overhear the oppressive tactics we’re plotting, and then you can report back to your leader.”

  She contemplated this for a moment and then her eyes twinkled. “You manipulate and exploit me.”

  “Absolutely,” Lyon said.

  “You pay me slave wages, hold me in bondage and take advantage of me.”

  “Of course we do. But damn it, we’re hungry.”

  She moved away and opened the refrigerato
r door. “You’ll get yours one day,” she said, taking a chicken from the refrigerator. She put the cooked chicken on the cutting-board and brought the cleaver down across the breastbone with a guillotine-like whack. Lyon returned to the study to rejoin Rocco Herbert.

  Kimberly had come to Nutmeg Hill a year ago as leader of a militant group of welfare mothers. They had picketed, Kimberly with a bull-horn that spewed forth revolutionary slogans and demands that Beatrice, chairman of the welfare legislation committee, resign. Beatrice and Lyon had placed a card table in the driveway circle, loading it with heaping platters of roast beef sandwiches and coffee. For an hour the women continued their march, ignoring the waiting couple, and Kimberly’s voice had grown hoarse as she raised her tirade against the “oppressors.”

  With a shrug, Beatrice had gone over to the large black woman to talk in a low voice. Perhaps the futility of the isolated protest march was the final weighing factor, since the nearest neighbor was a half mile away and no television or radio people were in attendance. While Bea and Kim argued, the rest of the women joined Lyon for lunch.

  As a brisk autumn wind chilled them, protestors and Wentworths had gone into the house, where Kimberly and Beatrice spent the remainder of the afternoon in loud and acrimonious argument.

  The welfare mothers had left in a minibus at four, and at five Lyon served cocktails to the still-talking Bea and Kim. As the evening progressed each woman made concessions to the other, and a strange bond was created between the two women, an unusual relationship between one born of patrician New England stock and the vibrant young black woman from the ghetto.

  Kimberly had stayed the night and on the following day moved her possessions and daughter into the garage apartment near the house. At first she started as an unpaid assistant to Bea’s committee, and that expanded to an interim state appointment when the legislature was in session. Now her position was inviolate as aide to Bea, research assistant to Lyon, overseer of the house, and in the ensuing year an invaluable help, and she finally agreed to accept a salary.

  They lost Kim for several days a year as she disappeared to distant cities to organize protests, or to speak at meetings; and now her little daughter was entering the seventh grade and losing interest in Lyon’s brand of monster as she became increasingly aware of real-life boys.