Death on the Mississippi

by Forrest, Richard;

  “You don’t have to participate.” There was a girlish imploring in her nearly desperate request.

  “I’m afraid voyeurism isn’t our bag either,” Lyon said.

  “I didn’t mean that, I thought maybe we could just talk.” She turned to look back at the house where several lights had already been extinguished. “I don’t know what I meant, except that I’m not into it either. Randy thinks that I am because I pretend. I come home, change my clothes, and put on an act with all the appropriate words and noises. When it comes time to do it, I hide in the linen closet. Everyone thinks that I select someone special, but I don’t. I hide.”

  Bea took the other woman’s hand. “Why do you pretend?”

  “Because that’s what he wants. I’m really so plain and dull, and he could have lots of other women. Thanks for coming, anyway.” She began to walk slowly back to the house as another light went out.

  12

  Lyon sat lengthwise on their parapet above the Connecticut River with his knees drawn up to his chin. He faced toward the Sound as a mild breeze marched upriver carrying the smell of the night sea. There seemed to be a metallic taste in his mouth, and he felt a sheen of depression. The Dice party and the earlier tour of Sam’s pain-evoking machines merged into differing groups of unpleasant pictures.

  He tried to reconcile Sam’s miniature torture chamber within the parameters of normal social behavior. Adult men often collected toy soldiers or built model warships. Was that worse than duplicating the Inquisition’s implements? He answered his own question: there was a certain misplaced grandeur in ancient battles; but it was difficult to find any vestige of glory in the dank dungeons of medieval castles.

  The daytime Randolph Dice often seemed a caricature. His swinging nights were an aberration that would eventually destroy his wife.

  “I found it under the mattress,” Bea said as she slipped the small transmitter into his hand. “What are you so pensive about?”

  “I’m thinking rotten thoughts about people I talked to tonight.”

  She sat on the wall next to him and hugged her shoulders in the slight chill. She wore a short nightgown that barely covered her upper thighs. “Your trouble is that you are an incorrigible romantic and I’m freezing my bottom off out here.”

  “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that people you know don’t construct torture instruments or hold sex orgies.”

  “You have forgotten that someone we know has been doing very bad things to other people we knew. A man and woman are dead, and the man died in great pain.”

  “What connection do you make?” Lyon asked.

  “I see one couple’s very expensive lifestyle, another man who is fascinated with pain, and a widow who is off the wall. Then, all of a sudden we find that these three have a great deal to gain financially if Dalton is dead.”

  “Do you think they operated individually or in concert?” Lyon asked.

  “I just can’t see that group working together in some murderous cabal,” Bea said. “But I can imagine any one of them using Brumby and Stockton. My buns are numb, Went.”

  He crossed the patio and snicked her sweater from the back of a chair in the living room. He draped it carefully over her shoulders. “I thought modern women got their own clothing.”

  “Not when they are utilizing their vast deductive powers to solve a crime so that their husbands can go back to work and make money to pay last winter’s oil bill.”

  “We shouldn’t forget my friend in Cranston, Rhode Island,” Lyon said. “Before those two goons dumped me in the drink, they made a remark about taking a walk on Narragansett Bay. That’s a body of water that Carillo staked out in the past, and I find the remark highly coincidental.”

  “We’ll pass on that possibility for tonight,” Bea said. She slipped off the wall and let the sweater fall as she stretched. Lyon noticed that the cool air had done some interesting things to her top half, and the stretching motion had hiked the gown over her hips to make her bottom half also quite interesting. “Coming to bed?” she said in a low voice.

  “I’ll be right up,” he said as he watched her bend over to pick up the fallen sweater.

  She smiled. “I think you have the right to more than equal Simenon, even if it is with the same person. Hurry.”

  He went into the kitchen and dialed Rocco. “I want us to go up to Rhode Island tomorrow,” Lyon said without preamble.

  “I’m game,” Martha Herbert answered. “Are we going to the motel before we tour the Newport mansions?”

  “That can only be Wentworth,” Rocco’s voice boomed over his wife’s as he took the phone.

  Lyon reddened. “Tell Martha that I’m sorry I was so abrupt.”

  “She says she lusts for you too. Now, what’s this about Rhode Island?”

  There was a desolate look to the narrow house with the pink flamingo in the front yard. Rocco punched the front door chime for the third time, and again they heard the first bars of “Ave Maria” echo through the interior. “Maybe our friend decided to take a hasty trip to Salerno.”

  Lyon took a turn at the door and pushed the chime again. He heard shuffling footsteps on the other side. A latch bolt clicked, and the door opened the few inches the night chain allowed. In the dim light beyond the narrow aperture he saw a slight figure in a long bathrobe wearing what seemed to be a terry-cloth towel wrapped around its head.

  “Go away.” He recognized the frightened voice.

  “Take the chain off, Maria,” Lyon ordered.

  The door closed, the night chain clinked against the inside panel, and reopened as Maria, holding the towel over her face as if imitating a Moslem, retreated before them. “I have a bad case of poison ivy,” she mumbled. “You better not get near me.”

  Lyon stepped to her and gently pulled the towel from her head.

  “Good God!” Rocco said. “Someone beat the hell out of her.”

  Maria’s face was swollen into a mottled, dark-blue mask. Her movements were studied, as if the slightest twitch caused tendrils of pain. Her hair, once combed into a neat sheen that fell down her back, was stringy and disheveled. Rocco went to her. His large hands gently touched her face as he viewed the damage with a professional eye. “Who did this to you, girl?”

  She retreated until the banister stopped her motion. “I fell down the stairs.”

  “How many times?” Rocco asked.

  “Your grandfather did this,” Lyon said.

  She turned her head toward the wall without answering.

  “Where is he?” Rocco asked more harshly than he had intended.

  She cringed from the large police officer and stumbled on the stairs. As she fell, she grasped the banister with both hands. “Please don’t hit me,” she said in a whimper.

  Rocco knelt next to the young girl and put his arms around her. It was a natural gesture that Lyon had seen his friend make countless times before as he soothed the hurt of Remley, his own daughter. Maria seemed to inchoately sense this, and she buried her head in the chief’s shoulder as small tremors racked her shoulders.

  “Where is your Poobah now?” Lyon asked.

  The tremors continued a few moments longer before she gave a muffled answer. “At the restaurant where he goes everyday.”

  “And where is that?” Lyon asked softly.

  Antonio’s was located in a seedy section of Providence that had once housed streets of Italian emigrants. The Portuguese had replaced the Italians and in turn had been supplanted by Puerto Ricans. The restaurant had retained its identity regardless of the neighborhood’s change in ethnicity. Hardly a dozen tables with checked tablecloths with candles stuck in empty Chianti bottles occupied the narrow interior. An old brass cash register sat on a plain table near the rear double doors that led to the kitchen. The room was devoid of customers as they entered.

  A small bell above the door tinkled as it opened, and shortly a white-haired waiter with rheumy eyes and three days’ stubble pushed through the rear doors. “We
ain’t open yet.”

  “Get Carillo,” Rocco said.

  “Who wants him?”

  “God! Now, move it,” Rocco said.

  The waiter’s mouth moved silently a few times as if in preparation for a proper retort, but after another glance at Rocco he shrugged and went back into the kitchen. A heavier and younger face with flat eyes peered out the door’s window port.

  “I think the dwarf Grumpy is preparing to have words with us,” Lyon said as they sat at a nearby table.

  Grumpy erupted through the doors and lumbered toward them. He was dressed in a rumpled seersucker suit with a dress shirt that was spattered with tomato sauce. His narrow eyes were pushed into even smaller dimensions by the rise of fleshy cheekbones. In two strides he was at the table, and in a quick and abrupt movement whose speed was surprising for his size, had jerked Lyon up and over the table. Hamlike hands passed over Lyon’s body in an efficient weapons search. He let Lyon sag back in the chair and started around the table toward Rocco.

  Rocco raised his palm a few inches off the table. “Don’t do it, friend.”

  Grumpy did not pause as his hands reached for Rocco’s jacket collar. The police chief’s chair pitched backward as in a single fluid movement he rose, stepped to the side, and jerked the man’s hand forward and upward behind his back. Increasing the pressure on the arm to force Grumpy to hunch forward, Rocco spun him forward and careened him back through the kitchen door. Rocco returned to his seat at the satisfying sound of clattering pots and pans.

  Angie Carillo had a frozen smile on his face as he pushed through the doors and walked over to the table. “Ah, Mr. Wentworth. You honor me with a return visit. Perhaps you have heard of Antonio’s? He is preparing one of his magnificent specialties for today: pasta with shrimp and pears stuffed with gorgonzola cheese.”

  “Did you obtain two men called Brumby and Stockton for Dalton Turman?” Lyon asked without preamble.

  “Men are not serfs, Mr. Wentworth. They work for those who pay. There are some who are employed by my enterprises for a time, move on, and then return as the need arises.”

  “He’s being cute,” Rocco said in a dead voice. “You want that I should redecorate this place?”

  “We have help in the kitchen who would prevent that,” Carillo said.

  “You got more than five back there?” Rocco asked as he flipped open his jacket wide enough for the shoulder holster containing the .357 Magnum to be visible.

  “Chief Herbert is often difficult to control,” Lyon said as he picked up on his role. “I’ll ask you once more about Brumby and Stockton.”

  Carillo’s hands splayed out in an expressive shrug. “We had some slow times recently, and Mr. Turman needed some help with one of his famous pranks. I believe it had something to do with a hearse and coffin. I provided two men for that task and some other minor chores Mr. Turman had in mind.”

  “Such as helping him disappear?” Lyon said.

  “It would seem as if that is how it turned out,” Carillo said.

  “They tried to kill me,” Lyon said.

  “They were obviously inefficient.”

  “We believe they killed Dalton for the money he had hidden on the houseboat. I should also point out that some of that money could have been yours.”

  Carillo’s fingers fluttered. “Every business sustains losses?”

  “We want to find those men,” Lyon said.

  “That should not be difficult since they are both gamblers. Such men have no choice when they carry money. They go to Vegas or Atlantic City. That is where they will be. Perhaps you will try the chicken with couscous? It is very good here.”

  “You don’t seem very concerned over your loss?”

  “Such matters are taken care of one way or the other,” Carillo said.

  “We’re interested in what you mean by ‘other,’” Rocco said.

  Carillo stood up. “Since you are not tempted by our good food, there is nothing more to say.”

  “Your men killed Dalton, tried to kill Lyon, and all of a sudden you don’t give a damn about money or the guys who did it,” Rocco said. “I don’t believe you, Carillo. You stink.”

  Carillo smiled. It was not an ordinary smile, but one that somehow managed to convey a great sense of menace and hostility. “You dishonor me, Chief Herbert. If we both did not understand the rules so clearly, you would not return home tonight.”

  “I saw what you did to your granddaughter,” Rocco said in a voice that had dropped to a whisper.

  “That is a family matter that does not concern you.”

  “Perhaps she doesn’t think your money is as clean as you thought,” Lyon said.

  “It has nothing to do with money. It is a question of family honor, which she shamed. When I came in the door I saw them on the living room couch. They will be married as soon as the boy leaves the hospital.”

  “I’m arresting you,” Rocco said.

  Carillo waved a deprecating hand. “You have no power in Rhode Island. And if you did, you have nothing that my lawyers could not destroy.”

  “I am making a citizen’s arrest for child abuse,” Rocco said. “The evidence is in your home.”

  Carillo laughed. “I did what had to be done. The way it has always been done. You dumb cop! I’ve had experts try and get me—local cops, state cops, FBI, Senate committees, the Attorney General tried RICO, extortion, murder. Ha! You and your kiddie stuff. Get out of my restaurant!”

  Rocco’s hand closed over Carillo’s wrist and squeezed until the man winced. “Come,” Rocco said softly without threat.

  “Tony!” Carillo managed to yell before Rocco shoved him through the front door.

  Grumpy ejected through the kitchen doors and was halfway through the room before he hesitated and stopped. Carillo gave a snort and stopped struggling against Rocco’s grip.

  Bea Wentworth felt grouchy. This was an unusual state of mind for her. The usual cures, a shower, good coffee, and the Sunday crossword puzzle did not help. Their Sunday mornings were usually a placid time, lazily occupied with coffee and buns eaten while they sorted through the bulky New York Times. The day’s woes had multiplied: the puzzle’s topic had been puns and anagrams, her nemesis, they had inadvertently run out of coffee beans and were relegated to instant, and the buns were somehow stale. The combination was too much for good cheer, and had led to her present state of grouchiness.

  Lyon wasn’t helping matters any. When he sensed her foul mood, he had insisted on preparing his “special omelet.” His preoccupation caused him to stand at the butcher’s block chopping one onion into finer and smaller pieces as he stared off into space.

  “That’s not dicing,” she said. “You’re manufacturing quarks.”

  “You’re right,” he said and continued cutting the pieces even smaller. “Why isn’t Carillo concerned about his men or the money?”

  “Because they are his men,” she snapped. “They worked for him all along and he has his money with interest.” She scraped the onion from the block and replaced it with a slice of ham.

  Lyon continued chopping without noticing the replacement. “The State Police have put out APBs on Brumby and Stockton, and Rocco has personally talked to the Vegas and Atlantic City police.”

  She took a sip of instant coffee and grimaced. “Then it’s now a police matter and we are out of it. Which leaves me with two questions. Where does this leave Pan, Sam, and Dice?”

  “It’s hard to believe that they’re all part of a conspiracy.”

  “And two, what about Carillo’s granddaughter?” she asked with interest.

  “Carillo was released on five hundred dollars’ bond, but children’s services has stepped in. Rocco says that maybe the FBI or Attorney General can’t get Carillo, but he’s never delt with real troublemakers like social workers.”

  “You guys did all you could.” She stared out the window at the overgrown grass. “Have we decided to turn our lawn into an African savanna?”

  “I
had to avoid certain areas last time I mowed,” Lyon said. “There was a family of rabbits by the pines, and some woodchucks were working near the garden, so I certainly couldn’t mow there.”

  “And deer have probably taken up by the shed,” she said. “It’s animal eviction time. Thumper has to go.” She marched out of the kitchen and across the lawn to the small shed where they kept the sit-down mower and other lawn tools. She was a staunch feminist who believed in complete equality between the sexes. She was more than willing to stand on a bus, or to have men snap doors in her face, but she still maintained two last vestiges of Fifties baggage. Men took out the garbage and did the grass. She was perfectly willing to shingle the roof, replace plumbing, or do wallpaper, but garbage and grass were strictly male domains. It suited her present state of mind to do grass as a self-inflicted punishment for her poor mood.

  She squinted in the bright mid-morning sun, and snapped off the latch on the shed door and stepped into its dark interior. The instant change from bright sun to dim interior radically reduced her vision. A board squeaked under her foot as she reached toward the seat of the mower.

  The figure in the stocking mask catapulted over the mower. Two powerful hands reached for her throat.

  She was shoved harshly back against the wall. The door frame caused a sharp pain in the small of her back. The hands closed over her throat. It was becoming difficult to breathe. She thought she could feel his fetid breath against her face. She was gasping for her life.

  She tried to break the strong grip at her neck. Her fingers rasped against the rough texture of heavy gloves. During an inappropriate minisecond, she recalled that she needed a new pair of gardening gloves herself.

  She tore her right hand away from the killing grip, and scratched it across the wall of the shed by her side. Her fingers closed tightly over the handle of a tool, and she swung the implement in a wide arc that fell across her attacker’s back. She struck again, and then again. The pressure on her neck loosened as her attacker recoiled.

  Bea swung the weapon again. As it passed across the door opening, sunlight glinted from the razor-edge blade of the hand scythe.