The Death in the Willows

by Forrest, Richard;

  He washed his hands for a long time without looking up, and then went back into the office.

  The dramatis personae had changed. A different group turned to face him in silent tableau. In the far corner, as unobtrusive as possible, a prim policewoman sat with fingers poised over a stenographic machine. On the small leather divan a large man with a heavily jowled face, tailored business suit, and short hair looked at Lyon with a lopsided grin.

  A man of Lyon’s age behind the desk seemed to have grown from the furniture. His arms extended forward along its empty surface while his head, large and out of proportion to the remainder of his body, was dominated by heavy bushy eyebrows.

  “Wentworth,” the man behind the desk snapped at Lyon in more of a command than a salutation. “I’m Nesbitt. Captain.” He moved one arm in an almost imperceptible wave toward the policewoman in the corner. “Officer Hayes.” His arm resumed its former position. “And as if you couldn’t tell, the other gentleman is Special Agent McAllister from the local field office.”

  McAllister gave a nonchalant wave. “Feel up to a few questions?”

  “I guess so.” He took a seat in a side chair placed directly in the center between the two men.

  “Anything I can get you?”

  “No, thank you. Unless you have some Dry Sack.”

  “No sherry, but we keep the snakebite medicine handy.” He took a bottle of bourbon from the bottom desk drawer, cracked the seal, and poured two stiff fingers in a water tumbler.

  Lyon sank back in the chair after accepting the whiskey. He held the glass with both hands, took a long sip, and felt the liquor traverse his body in a warm snaking motion. He took another sip and found that both men were staring at him, without hostility, but perhaps as individuals observing an interesting specimen. “Why the FBI?”

  “Our mad friend took the bus over a state line and made bomb threats.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Lyon replied. “If that stripe they have in the tunnel is correct, we were still in New York.”

  “A technicality. We think the kid he sent with the ransom demand crossed the line.”

  “Were any bombs found?”

  “None.”

  “Be that as it will,” Nesbitt said, “it seems to us, Wentworth, that the city of New York and sixteen bus passengers owe you a vote of thanks.”

  “It was an accident. What I mean is, I had no choice. Did you say sixteen people?”

  The two law enforcement officers glanced at each other. “You watch the details, don’t you? Sixteen if we don’t count you and do count the driver. We’re grateful. In fact, the mayor and commissioner very well might come down to offer you their personal thanks on behalf of the city. As soon as we sweep up a few minor details.”

  “Wait a minute.” Lyon put the liquor glass down on the desk. “I believe there were eighteen left alive on the bus, including me.”

  “You shot one.”

  “Besides that. Doesn’t one of the passengers wear a beard? He also had on a cap, a jacket of some light material. Medium build, thirtyish?”

  Captain Nesbitt made rapid notes on a small pad. “I’ll check on it.”

  “It could be significant.”

  “By the way—and I’m praying for luck on this one—do you have a permit for your gun?”

  “It wasn’t mine.”

  “It wasn’t yours,” McAllister repeated in a drone. “Whose was it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know,” Nesbitt repeated in a sad sort of way. He looked down at his pad for a few moments. “Okay, from there. What did you do with the gun?”

  “I dropped it on the floor.”

  Nesbitt immediately pressed a button on his phone, picked up the receiver, and talked quietly for a few moments. “Call me back at once.” He hung up. “Okay, let’s start it from the top. Sorry to bother you with all this, considering what you’ve been through, but all the passengers will go through it. We’ll make it as painless as possible.”

  “I can understand.”

  “Your name is Lyon Wentworth. Address?”

  “R.D. Two, Murphysville, Connecticut.” He watched the policewoman’s fingers nimbly flick across the steno machine. He’d have to look into the mechanism of those things sometime.

  “You’re employed, Mr. Wentworth?”

  “I am self-employed.”

  “As what?”

  “I’m a writer.”

  “Oh, really.” McAllister and Nesbitt exchanged looks as if this information had some significance that was lost to Lyon. “Have you written anything I might know?”

  “Not unless you have children.”

  “Matter of fact, I do.”

  “Well, my book The Cat in the Capitol did quite well. Then there was Nancy Goes to Mount Vernon, and the Wobbly series has had a rather modest success.”

  McAllister leaned forward with both hands on his knees. “Nancy Goes to Mount Vernon?”

  “Not my usual thing, but they wanted something like that for the Bicentennial.”

  Nesbitt glanced at the stenographer again before looking back to Lyon. “Wife’s name?”

  “Secretary Beatrice Wentworth.”

  Nesbitt shrugged. “We don’t need her occupation.” He paused and then asked Lyon quietly, “Secretary of what?”

  “The state of Connecticut.”

  “Oh, my God!” McAllister slouched back in the couch.

  “Am I to understand that your wife is Secretary of State?”

  “Secretary of the State … for Connecticut.”

  “Yes, of course. Sorry.” Nesbitt thought a moment and then looked at McAllister. “Why didn’t we call in sick this morning?”

  “I was just thinking that Wentworth might be right,” McAllister said as he stood. “That bus was on the New York side of the line and …”

  “Sit down,” Nesbitt ordered. “The kid carried the demands across the line.”

  “Technical point.”

  “Start from the top, Wentworth. The whole day.”

  “I left Murphysville at six this morning and caught the seven A.M. bus from Middleburg. I arrived in the city at nine-thirty, had breakfast, and went to my publisher’s office.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “On Madison Avenue. We had a conference, lunch, and then I walked to the bus terminal. I was a little early, so I stopped in a small bar to have a drink.”

  “How many of what?”

  “One of what I’m not sure.”

  “You remember the exact number of people on the bus, but not what you had to drink? Then?”

  “They announced the bus at Gate Twenty-nine. I boarded last, I believe.”

  “Where did you sit?”

  “In the rear.” Lyon continued recounting the events that even in this short time span had taken on an aura of unreality. They let him proceed without further interruption. “… and I was there, by the body, when the police came in. And that’s it.”

  They looked at him skeptically. The stenographer stopped the dance of her fingers and kept her head down over the small machine.

  “This man gave you—the man in the seat behind you—gave you the gun?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Why did he do that? Why didn’t he use it himself?”

  “How would I know?” A note of peevishness crept into his voice, and he realized he was tired, very tired. The emotionalism of the last hour had drained him, and he wanted nothing more than sleep.

  “Do people often give you guns to hold, sir?” the FBI agent asked in a low voice.

  “I’m not sure I care for that remark.” Lyon faced the agent who had folded his arms across his chest.

  “About the gun,” Nesbitt said. “After you fired, you dropped it on the floor.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you know what kind it was?”

  “Big. A forty-four Magnum, I’d say.”

  “You could hardly put a gun of that size in an ordinary pocket.
I’ll be right back.” Nesbitt left the room and McAllister leaned toward Lyon.

  “You know, Wentworth, you can level with us. We’ll see that you’re protected. What I’m trying to say is, after what you did, no one is going to prosecute you on a gun-carrying charge. You’re from out of state, probably unaware of New York law. Or how about your wife fixing it so you have a back-dated permit?”

  “It wasn’t my gun.”

  Nesbitt returned and slammed the door. He moved in jerky motions as a muscle in the side of his face twitched. “They can’t find the goddamn weapon. They’ve lost the goddamn piece!”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “We have the hijacker’s gun, but no Magnum.”

  “It could have been kicked under the seat.”

  He glared at Lyon. “We searched the bus.”

  “I told you, I dropped it on the floor. I didn’t want any part of it.”

  Nesbitt beckoned. “I want you to identify some items.”

  They returned to the squad room where the other passengers were being interviewed at desks lined in neat, ordered rows. A long table under the windows was covered with a multitude of tagged items. There were shopping bags, suitcases, newspapers, and an assortment of hand-carried luggage that had rested on the rack inside the bus or been found on seats or the floor. Lyon walked the length of the table until stopping near the far end where he picked up his briefcase and showed it to Captain Nesbitt. “This is mine.”

  “May we open it?”

  “Why?” He found himself on the verge of belligerency.

  “Routine.”

  “Go ahead. I have nothing to hide.”

  Nesbitt handed the case to an aide who took it to a desk where he methodically searched and made an inventory of the contents. Lyon continued scanning the assortment spread on the table and gingerly picked up an automatic pistol encased in an acetate bag. “This looks like the weapon the hijacker was carrying, but I couldn’t swear to it.”

  “We think it is.”

  Two items next to the gun interested him: a poplin jacket and a small flight bag. “The man who gave me the gun—I think he was wearing a jacket like this. Now that I think about it, I believe he was sitting next to me in the bar and had a bag like this near the stool.”

  Nesbitt glanced at the tags on the jacket and bag. “They were found on the floor of the last seat.” He looked thoughtful. “It’s possible that the guy in the last seat took these off, put on something he had in the bag, and left—after picking up the gun.”

  “It could have been a sport coat.” Lyon had a fleeting recall picture of a man in a sport jacket and beard standing in the tunnel as the police cruiser slowly rolled past. “As we were leaving the tunnel, I saw a man in a jacket, wearing a gold badge, who might have been the man behind me.”

  “A cop?”

  “He had a badge hanging from his pocket.”

  “Let’s go back to my office.”

  They resumed their places in the office, although Nesbitt, for reasons of his own, had dismissed the stenographer. The captain sat behind his desk and drummed his fingers. “Are you sure it was the same guy?”

  “No, but it could have been.”

  “A cop … a gold badge … but why not use the gun himself, why give it to you?”

  “I don’t know, Captain. All I can tell you is what happened.”

  “That was an interstate bus,” McAllister said. “Do your men usually carry their weapons when they cross state lines?”

  “Not unless they’re on official business. That’s why I’m very interested in the guy—if he is a cop.”

  “I can only tell you what I saw. The man who sat behind me and gave me the gun is possibly the man I later saw in the tunnel with a badge.”

  “And you’d know him?”

  “I don’t think identification of that sort can ever be absolute.”

  “As you can imagine, the situation interests us.”

  “Right now I want to get out of here and go home.”

  “I’d like you to look at some photographs, Mr. Wentworth.”

  “Now?”

  “We know you’ve been through an ordeal. Could you come back in the morning? The bus company is providing facilities for everyone involved.”

  “Yes, of course.” Lyon wondered if they’d be quite so considerate if it weren’t for his wife’s position.

  “Missing gun or not,” Nesbitt said as he crossed the room and extended his hand, “we still thank you.”

  The detective called Harry took Lyon in an unmarked car to an East Side hotel where the Nutmeg Transportation Company had rented a floor. As they left the elevator on the sixth floor, they found themselves in a large foyer where a bar had been set up and a uniformed bartender mixed drinks.

  The other passengers had arrived a few minutes before and had drinks in hand as they talked in a loud chatter. As the elevator door closed behind Harry and Lyon, the room grew silent while everyone turned toward them.

  Lyon gave a small wave and then whispered to Harry. “Do you know where my room is?”

  “Sure.” He led Lyon midway down the hall to an open door. When the detective entered, he checke the window to make sure it was locked and looked into the bathroom and single closet. “You’re in with a guy named Collins.”

  Lyon glanced at a new valise aligned neatly on the luggage rack at the head of one of the twin beds, and then over to the far bed where his briefcase had been thrown. He watched Harry continue his minute search of the room. “Are you worried or something?”

  “The city of New York wants that nothing happens to you.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “Should be. There’ll be two of us on the floor all night.”

  “Fine.”

  The detective left and Lyon sank onto the bed. His life had been changed, and he wondered if the afternoon’s events could ever be set aside. A lethargy consumed him, and he wanted to lie on the bed, close his eyes, and fall into an oblivious sleep.

  He must call Bea.

  The prospect of any well-meaning friend calling his wife and informing her of the day’s events horrified him. Or she might turn on the news.… He must get to her first.

  He reached for the bedside phone and asked the operator for his Connecticut number.

  The phone rang … rang … and rang.

  3

  Bea Wentworth had never become accustomed to hate. The strength of voters’ feelings often seemed to transcend ordinary political differences. Not only did they disapprove of her positions, they often acted as if she were personally endeavoring to overthrow the Republic single-handedly. The loyalty of her supporters nurtured her career and allowed her usually to succeed in November, but she sometimes felt that her supporters did not have the fervor of her enemies—or at least that’s the way it seemed.

  The Murphysville High School auditorium was only one-third filled, but this did not discourage the zeal of the moderator. At least she thought it was zeal. The batteries on her hearing aid were weak, and sound had begun to drift toward the inaudible range. She reached for the tiny device in her ear, twisted the volume to its loudest position, and once again the words were discernible.

  The moderator nodded toward Bea on his right and then toward her opponent on his left. “And now that we’ve had the formal presentations from our congressional candidates, we move into what I call ‘cross fire,’ which is when they direct questions at each other.”

  Bea smiled with affection as she saw Rocco Herbert at the rear of the auditorium yawn in a losing battle to stay awake. Rocco, Murphysville’s chief of police and Lyon’s best friend, had uncomfortably folded his six-foot-eight frame and 280 pounds into the last seat in the rear row.

  “Our first question, determined by a flip of a coin earlier, goes to Willard Morris.”

  Bea snapped her attention back to the dais. Her opponent nodded in her direction and was about to begin when an aide whispered and slipped him a note. Willard Morris glanced over at B
ea with a smile she could only categorize as malevolent. Still, he was good-looking, and like so many young Turks who now filled the political scene, he seemed cloned from the depths of some public relations firm. The qualifications did not seem to improve over the old machine ward heelers; at least the machine men were known to represent certain vested interests. The new ones disguised their leanings, blew in the wind, and this one was about to blow at her—with both barrels.

  “Madam Secretary”—he made it sound derogatory—“your stand on gun control legislation is well known. In fact, when you were state senator from this district, you introduced the first such bill, even with the knowledge that Connecticut, the arsenal of democracy, has a good many residents employed by gun manufacturers. However, I would like your explanation as to how you reconcile that position with your husband’s possession of a loaded gun in New York City this afternoon?”

  Rocco Herbert snapped awake and stood in the aisle.

  “I’m sorry,” Bea answered. “I don’t understand the question.”

  “I’m referring to your husband shooting a man today.”

  “I’m sure my opponent is mistaken,” Bea said to the moderator.

  “Would you please clarify that, Mr. Morris?”

  Willard Morris waved his note in the air. “It has been announced that Lyon Wentworth of Murphysville, Connecticut, shot a man in the Lincoln Tunnel today.”

  There were murmurs throughout the audience as all eyes turned toward Bea.

  “Unless there’s another Lyon Wentworth around here,” Willard Morris added quickly.

  Bea saw Rocco leave the auditorium. The increasing noise from the audience was lost as the hearing aid lapsed into silence. Her voice unconsciously rose. “YOU KNOW, WILLARD, YOU’VE SAID SOME DUMB THINGS IN THESE DEBATES, BUT THAT’S THE DUMBEST AND LOWEST YET. IF YOU’LL EXCUSE ME.” She rushed for the steps at the side of the stage and ran up the side aisle after Rocco.

  She found him at a pay phone down the corridor near the cafeteria. He hung up as she reached him. “It seems to be true, Bea. God only knows how. Last time I saw Lyon fire a weapon was in Korea when he blew away half our defensive wire.”

  “IT CAN’T BE. He’s incapable of hurting anyone.”

  “Let’s go to the office and get the details.”