Death on the Mississippi

by Forrest, Richard;

  Lieutenant Commander Allcott pushed past the doctor. “Are they going to live?” The doctor nodded. “Then I can call the commandant in Washington and tell him that we’ve got two for the price of one.” He glared at Rocco. “You know, Chief, we had two experienced divers standing next to you. They were suited up and trained to make that jump. You almost botched our pickup to the point where we could have lost both of you.”

  “How in the hell was I to know that the water would be that cold?” Rocco said.

  “Had you been drinking, Chief Herbert?”

  “He’s been seeing snakes recently,” Lyon said.

  Allcott shook his head. “I got a call to make,” he said as he left.

  “I found Dalton and the houseboat,” Lyon said.

  “Captain Norbert’s been waiting in the hallway,” Bea said. “Let me get him.”

  Captain Norbert, in full uniform and flanked by two State Police corporals, took up all the space along one wall of the narrow hospital room. “I told you to disappear, Wentworth. I warned you that we needed for you to disappear in society. So now you start lighting fires.”

  “Knock it off, Norbert,” Rocco warned.

  “If you weren’t a victim of something I’d be working on charges now.”

  “What fire?” Lyon asked.

  “There was an explosion and fire out on Red Deer Island.”

  Lyon sat up in bed. “Did you find Dalton’s body?”

  “We found what was left of somebody hanging on the wall of what was the master stateroom. Some perverted perp had done a knife job on him, but the ME thinks the hanging is what killed him. We’re still sifting through the wreckage, but we’ll have a positive ID soon.”

  “Okay, Lyon, tell us what happened out there,” Rocco said.

  Lyon took a moment to orient his still slightly confused thoughts. He attempted to put them in a logical order that would include everything of importance. He started by telling them about his initial suspicions concerning the island, and recounted all the subsequent events.

  “Who were those slime?” Rocco asked when he was finished.

  “They called themselves Brumby and Stockton when they came out to our house that day. I suspect that Dalton hired them for that particular prank and kept them on to help convert the houseboat. They were either told or discovered that there was a great deal of cash hidden on the boat, and then tortured Dalton to find out where he had hidden it.”

  “And then did a number on you when you walked in on them, and finally set the fire to cover their tracks,” Rocco said.

  “We bust those guys and we get the money and the killers,” Norbert said.

  “But who killed Katrina?” Bea asked.

  “That case is closed,” Norbert said. “I’ve got an airtight against Douglas. He’s dead meat.”

  “As you can tell, Norbie likes to keep an open and objective mind about the suspects and evidence in a case,” Rocco said to Lyon and Bea.

  “If you weren’t in a hospital bed, I’d beat your dumb brains out,” Norbert growled.

  Rocco swung his feet to the floor and pushed off the bed. “I’m not in bed anymore, liver lips.”

  Norbert held his hand, palm open, to the side, and a flanking State Police corporal immediately slapped the handle of a billy club into the captain’s grasp. Bea immediately stepped between the two men. “I am a lady, and Rocco is not properly dressed for mortal combat.”

  Rocco looked down at the short johny gown that was obviously not designed for a man of his height and girth. He plopped back in bed and pulled a sheet up to his neck.

  “Anything else happen of note while I was being murdered?” Lyon asked.

  “Our houseguest has gone into emotional orbit and keeps fifty thousand dollars under her mattress,” Bea said.

  “That’s a little heavy for a bread and butter gift,” Lyon said.

  “How about it was Dalton’s money, which she forgot to put with the rest hidden on the houseboat, and maybe she was holding out on her partners, Messers. Brumby and Stockton.”

  “That’s an interesting possibility,” Rocco said.

  Norbert growled. “You people don’t do police work, you hold seances. I got to go.” He tramped from the room followed by his uniformed entourage.

  Bea looked thoughtful. “The only problem with Pan as a suspect is that she says she knew where the money was hidden. Why would Brumby and Stockton torture Dalton and take the houseboat apart if they were in it with Pan?”

  “To make it look good,” Rocco suggested.

  “There’s still Dice and Sam Idelweise,” Lyon said as he swung his feet to the floor. “Let’s go visit that island.”

  A towheaded resident stuck his head in the door. “I think you should leave now, Mrs. Wentworth. These men need rest.”

  Bea sighed. “Thank you, Doctor, but I think they have decided to go island hopping.”

  “They can’t leave,” the doctor said. “They have possible hypothermia, lung congestion, and they’re both covered in bruises.”

  “The state cops did it to us,” Rocco said as he pulled on damp pants.

  The resident sank back against the wall. “The State Police beat the shit out of you and then dumped you in the Sound?”

  “Those guys play hardball,” Rocco said. “Watch yourself on I-ninety-five.”

  What remained of Red Deer Island looked like a small Pacific atoll that the Marines and Japs had fought over during World War II. Little foliage remained on what few trees were left, and the houseboat had been reduced to a skeleton of charred timbers that held no resemblance to the past grandeur of the craft.

  The young police officer piloting the Boston Whaler ran it up on the small beach as far as he could. Rocco and Lyon gingerly stepped over the gunnels and limped in unison toward the remains of the Mississippi. “How did a fire do all that?” Lyon asked.

  “It was a hell of a lot more than a fire,” Rocco replied. “There were a couple of explosions that were too powerful to be accounted for by propane or fuel tanks going up. The fire marshal’s office thinks there was plastique involved.”

  “Oh, that’s interesting.” Lyon stepped gingerly through the rubble. He looked down at the ground as if searching.

  “Norbie’s men and the lab guys have been going over the ground with sieves.”

  “Why?” Lyon asked.

  “You know that lab work is extensive in any crime like this.”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean why did they go to the trouble of blowing the thing up?”

  “These guys aren’t exactly brain surgeons, you know. They spent a couple of days tearing the boat apart, and knew they’d left prints and god only knows what else all over the place. Ten to one they have priors, so they took the lazy way out and torched the whole damn floating castle.”

  “You two get over here,” Norbert said with a beckoning gesture.

  They stepped gingerly through the wreckage as they made their way to where officers were carefully sifting through debris that had been part of the master stateroom. “Whatcha got?” Rocco asked.

  “Show them.”

  They stood in a small circle around a kneeling technician. A plastic sheet had been spread over the mutilated decking, and centered on it was a small metal box approximately eight inches by four. It had evidently been wrapped in heavy paper that, although charred, had been carefully removed and placed to the side.

  “There’s writing on the paper,” the technician said. “I can’t make it out, but we’ll be able to raise it in the lab. I’d guess from the configurations that it’s an address.”

  “Cut the lectures and find out what’s in the box,” Norbert demanded.

  “We might get latents from the exterior,” the tech said in pique.

  “We might get a letter of reprimand in our personnel file if we don’t do what the captain orders,” Norbert said.

  “I’m doing it, okay?” He bent over the small box with a pair of tweezers and gently raised the lid. “Beautiful, j
ust beautiful,” he said.

  Lyon bent over the tech’s shoulder and peered into the box. Resting on a bed of cotton gauze was an unburned human finger. It wore a wide gold wedding band. “Can you get prints from it?”

  “Can I get prints? Wow, can I get prints,” the tech said as he slipped the box and finger into an acetate evidence bag. “This baby is perfect.”

  “Dalton was an army officer, so we know his prints will be on file,” Lyon said.

  Rocco and Lyon walked to the end of the island and sat on a fallen log. A brisk wind ruffled their hair, and white-caps danced in the distance. The island was still a barren place, as if its soul had been wrenched away. Confused birds circled overhead and occasionally alighted on charred branches.

  “Just before those guys dumped me overboard they made a joking reference to taking a walk on Narragansett Bay,” Lyon said.

  Rocco looked at him sharply. “That’s interesting. Seems that I remember your friend in Cranston, Rhode Island, as having a past interest in that type of aquatic sport.”

  Captain Norbert walked past the log where they sat and stood with his feet at the edge of the water. He looked out over the Sound toward the distant tip of Long Island. “This place wouldn’t make a bad spot for a summer place. I’d bulldoze off the crap that’s left and throw up an A-frame. ’Course, you’d need a satellite dish for the old TV.”

  “It’s a bird sanctuary, Norbie,” Rocco said.

  “So, let the birds stay as long as they don’t do-do over the barbecue. This place will be all right once we find all the body parts.”

  “Where was Katrina killed?” Lyon asked.

  Norbert shrugged as if to dispel his dreams of summer grandeur and his mental flagstoning of the island. “You mean the Loops decedent? The ME says odds are she was knocked off where we found her and not more than a couple of hours before. It fits our time frame for Douglas.”

  “Was she prone when she was stabbed?” Lyon asked.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “The force required and the angle of penetration would differ according to her position,” Lyon said.

  “The Medical Examiner said that the blade went in at a straight angle. The killer was either straddling her or kneeling next to her. The perp may or may not have used two hands to make the thrust.”

  “It would only take one hand if the guy had power,” Rocco said.

  “You ever see the arms on Douglas?” Norbert said.

  “I found another piece,” a searching trooper yelled.

  “It’s mine, mine, mine,” MacIntire yelled out.

  “Your men are sick, Norbie,” Lyon said.

  “If you had to search for body parts for two days you’d indulge in a little black humor too,” Rocco said in the men’s defense.

  Bea had the household bills separated into neat piles on the breakfast-room table. She chewed on the tip of a ballpoint pen as she contemplated the open checkbook.

  Lyon poured them each coffee as he thought about the force necessary to drive a slim-bladed knife through a person’s sternum.

  “Do you know what it costs to heat this barn?” Bea asked.

  “I would have thought there would have been bruises on her chest,” Lyon mused.

  “We are not on the same wave length, in fact, we aren’t even in the same solar system. You inhabit a parallel universe, Wentworth. Do you know that?”

  “An ordinary person would have made the thrust more to the right, rather than directly into the myocardial sac,” Lyon said.

  “That proves it.” Bea snicked the phone from its wall bracket before the second ring. “Hello … Yes, Governor, Senator Dodd was very cooperative … the Commandant of the Coast Guard also.… They were not using a Coast Guard helicopter as a swimming platform. They were not drunk and I will not remove my day-care amendment from the bill.” She hung up.

  “It almost makes you believe in anarchism,” Lyon said as the phone rang again. “I’ll handle him. Hello.” He listened intently for a few moments and then slowly hung up.

  “You really told him off, Went.”

  “It was Rocco. The prints on the finger were Dalton’s. They have traced the ring on the severed finger to Dalton. The lab reconstructed the writing on the paper wrapping on the finger box and found that it was to Pan’s address at the resort. Dalton is dead. What I saw has been verified.”

  Bea closed the checkbook. “Those bastards were going to send Dalton’s severed finger with his wedding band to Pan?”

  “Evidently. He was obviously their prisoner from the beginning. When they had the money and found out from him that Pan had the missing fifty thousand, they probably intended to extort it from her until I interrupted things.”

  The front door slammed. “Is that you, Pan?” Bea called.

  She was answered by feet running up the stairs and the resounding slam of the guest-room door. The thick walls of the old house were insufficient to muffle the sound of crashing drawers and slamming doors.

  “She’s broken up over Dalton,” Lyon said. “Why don’t you go to her?”

  “We aren’t on the best of terms since my shakedown of her room. You had better offer the tea and sympathy.”

  The clatter in the guest room continued as Lyon mounted the stairs and knocked on the door. He knocked a second time without response and finally called out, “Pan, it’s Lyon.”

  The door snapped open. Her tense face was framed angrily in the opening. “What the hell do you want? Make it snappy. I got to blow this place.”

  “We’re both sorry about Dalton. Is there anything we can do?”

  “Are you kidding? Cut the crap! There’s going to be dancing in the streets when the world learns that Dalton the prankster has really gone to that great joke-land-in-the-sky. He didn’t have many friends, or did I say that before?”

  “I owed him something, and I’ll never forget that.”

  “Well, you found him, and that makes it even. I gave him a shot at marriage and he blew it. So, I’m even. He left me a third of the partnership insurance, and now I’m in bed with those two dingbats, Sam and Randy. I’m going to help them finish the resort job, and then I’m taking my third of the profits and blowing the country.”

  “You’re a partner?”

  “I always was on paper. Dalton said it was for tax reasons.”

  “Why did he leave?”

  She continued picking up heaps of clothing from the floor and stuffing them haphazardly into a suitcase. “The disappearing boat trick came in handy when the IRS got too close, and the man who phoned in the night started getting serious.”

  “And you end up with fifty thousand in mad money and a third of the business?” Lyon said.

  She tried to close the suitcase, but protruding items kept the locking clasps inches apart. She plunked down on it with her full weight and forced it closed. “Your sneaky wife has a big mouth.”

  “We’ve tried to help you through a difficult period in your life.”

  “I’m finished with my difficult period and now I’m going.” She hefted the bag and struggled toward the door.

  “Let me help you with that,” Lyon said.

  “Thanks, but no thanks.” She pulled the suitcase along the carpet and thumped it down the stairs.

  Bea stood at the foot of the stairs and looked up with concern. “Are you all right, Pan?”

  The suitcase slid off the last step and Pan dragged it toward the front door, but paused to look at them. “I’m just glad to get away from you nosy people.”

  “What’s going on with her?” Bea asked. “I apologized for going through her things.”

  “Methinks she doth protest too much,” Lyon said as he brushed past Pan to stand before the front door and face her with a slightly bemused smile. “I have a few questions that concern Katrina, money, and the fact that you were the only person in the world who knew I was going out in the boat that day.”

  “I’m not going to answer any of your dumb questions,” Pan said
. “You people must get your kicks this way.”

  “If you prefer, I’ll let Rocco do the asking.”

  Pan faced Bea in a manner that excluded Lyon. “I knew he’d try something when I tried to leave. He’s been hitting on me since the night I arrived at this dump.”

  “I don’t believe that, Pan,” Bea said levelly.

  “I finally let him. I just got tired of all the hassle, you know. I guess I also felt I owed him something, and so I let him do it a couple of times. Now he’s pissed because I told him it’s over.”

  “I don’t believe that either, Pan,” Bea said quietly.

  “Oh, you don’t? You probably think that you’re the greatest lay in the world. Well, Miss Great Screw, he begged for someone younger who wasn’t over the hill.”

  Bea laughed. “Oh, honey child. I’ve been gone after by real experts. You can’t reach me that way.”

  “You still don’t believe that I made it with your husband?”

  “No, I don’t. I’d stake my life on it.”

  Pan bent closer to Bea as if to whisper conspiratorially, but the words were more than loud enough. “I can prove it. He’s the only man I ever had, and I’ve had a lot, who yells ‘eureka’ when he makes it.”

  A stunned Bea took two involuntary steps backward. Her mouth gaped open.

  “Gotcha,” Pan said as she dragged her bag through the door and across the drive to her car.

  11

  They stood at opposite ends of the large country kitchen as the car careened down the drive, noisily spewing gravel. Tears brimmed in her eyes. Her hands hung loosely at her sides, and she tilted slightly forward, her head lowered against her chest.

  “I know I’m being dumb,” she said in a voice he could barely hear. “This sort of thing sometimes happens when you’ve been married a long time. I know it’s not the end of the world, but why does it hurt so much?”

  “It didn’t happen.” He stepped toward her, but she scurried out of his way and kept the center chopping block between them. She folded her arms across her breasts as if to ward off his touch.

  “Don’t ever try to con a politician, Wentworth,” she said. “We’re experts in that area.” Her voice had changed to a sharp cutting tone.