“I’m not wired, Dalton.”
“Guess not, but to be on the safe side talk directly toward the sea in case those jokers have parabolic mikes somewhere around here. You know, Willey is a whore, but he’s a brilliant whore.”
“Was this business with him a part of the original plan or your fallback position?”
Dalton laughed. “I’m not answering that one even hypothetically, but you have to admit that it does seem to be falling into place nicely.”
“If they ever find Brumby he may not verify your story.”
“If they find him. He has plenty of money, and I’m sure he’s out of the country by now.”
“In a certain sense, I imagine that he is,” Lyon said.
Dalton looked at Lyon with a wide smile. There was a trace of arrogant superiority in the look. “Why don’t you tell me how you think it all happened?”
Lyon realized that to Dalton, recognition of his cleverness was a narcotic. It was the same attitude he exhibited after the climax of an elaborate prank—others must know, others must see the results and know the instigator. It was arrogant, but it was motivated by a need stronger than the good advice his attorney offered. It was a weakness that might be used to Lyon’s advantage.
“I am convinced that you fully intended for me to eventually discover the houseboat and see you hanging in the stateroom,” Lyon said. “I think that you counted on my identification of your body prior to the fire. Brumby and Stockton were to take me somewhere, but certainly not kill me. When they decided to go into business for themselves, you had to change plans since you thought they had killed your eyewitness. That required the finger amputation. You knew the fire would bring activity, and they had to find something definite to identify the body as yours. One finger, a minor price to pay for a positive identification of the body. You killed Katrina Loops and hung it on Bobby because she knew too much.”
Dalton shook his head. “Do you think anyone operating in such a complicated scenario would risk coming to the resort to off some bimbo? Her killing was sloppy, Lyon. Unnecessary and sloppy.”
“Then Pandora killed Katrina. You could afford that risk, and she was probably more than willing.”
“You know Pan, hard to drop old habits: coffee, tea, or off your mistress, sir.”
“Brumby would be the weak link, and so he had to be eliminated also.”
“If what you say were true, that would be the logical next step,” Dalton said.
“Willey can continue his legal maneuvering for a long time, and perhaps keep you from being formally charged with anything, but I doubt that the people in Rhode Island would consider your legal and civil rights in their collection efforts.”
“Well, hypothetically, if I had done all that you say, the next thing I’d do would be to pay off the loan sharks and get them off my back.”
“Exactly,” Lyon said. “When I convinced Pan that we knew you were alive, you already had a strong fallback position, or was it always your intention to return?”
“It’s always good to be back among friends, Lyon.”
“There is one fault in your otherwise flawless structure, Dalton.”
“Oh, really? I would have thought anyone clever enough to plan something so complicated would have considered every eventuality.”
“Brumby’s body is somewhere,” Lyon said. “When we find it, and establish the time of death as the night of the houseboat fire, everything else falls apart. No kidnapping would have been possible if there were no one to have held you prisoner. Three men were on that island, and if two died on the same night …”
“I’d be in deep shit, wouldn’t I?” Dalton said. The tight grin now seemed false. “You know, Lyon, as you were talking just now, I remembered something that happened on that old cabin cruiser where I was held prisoner. I do believe I heard Brumby on deck fooling with the anchor, and then a loud splash. We were still moving, so I don’t know where he went in the drink, but if he did, tied to the anchor, well, there wouldn’t be much left of him when he was found, if he were found. Beats me how they could establish a time of death within weeks, much less days.”
“There’s an interesting parasitical worm that lives out in that water. Its life cycle is well known and completely documented by marine biologists.”
“What in the hell are you talking about, Wentworth?”
“Oh, this is just a little forensic pathology lore, Dalton. It seems that this parasite enters a dead host in larvae form, and while continuing to live in the host, grows into its various life-cycle forms. Once the host is discovered and the worm removed, it’s possible to determine within days how long they have remained together. In our case, an examination of Brumby’s remains and the worms it contains will tell us exactly how long the body was immersed.”
“That’s insane.”
“A useful tool, nonetheless.”
“They never found Jimmy Hoffa, Judge Crater, or Martin Bormann.”
“You counted on me finding the houseboat. Don’t you think I’m capable of finding the body?”
“There’s a hell of a lot of water out there,” Dalton said.
“And I know you quite well,” Lyon retorted.
His supercilious facade dropped as Dalton closed his hand painfully over Lyon’s arm. “Listen, you effete son of a bitch, you screw me on this and I’ll kill you.”
“I believe you,” Lyon said.
16
Bea was frantic.
She stood on the patio of Nutmeg Hill looking through the telescope. She had tried kitchen chores during the early morning, but her nerves made her clumsy and ineffective, so she had come outside to wait. A small boat on the river moved slowly toward the bank below the house. She adjusted the focus until the boat operator’s head was clearly defined in the lens.
It was Bobby Douglas, and she sighed in relief. He was a day late, but at least he was back. He moored at the bank and began to make his way up the steep hill toward the house. Their homestead had survived another threat.
Lyon sat morosely at his desk in the study and looked out the window. Rocco and Captain Norbert sat in the leather chairs behind him sorting impatiently through their files on the Turman case.
“I’m not getting any cooperation from the feds or the state,” Norbert complained. “I even had the major make a personal call to the Attorney General, and I still can’t get a warrant on the bastard.”
“I don’t think they want to tangle with Willey Lynch if they can avoid it,” Rocco said.
“Bunch of goddamn pussy cats,” Norbert said as he slammed his briefcase shut and snapped the locks.
Bobby was still climbing the hill and did not respond to Bea’s wave. She climbed atop the parapet and windmilled both arms. He saw her frantic movements and waved back. “Where were you last night?” she yelled.
“Over at Orient Point,” he called back.
“That’s across the Sound on Long Island. You’re not supposed to leave the state.”
“I got a lady friend over there,” Bobby said through cupped hands as he approached the cusp of the promontory.
“You violated the terms of your bail for sex?” Bea called down to him.
“Lady, I been in jail.”
Lyon, all too aware of the two senior police officers right behind him, moaned as his head sank down on the word processor.
“Tell them damn seagulls screeching out there to be quiet,” Rocco said.
“I didn’t hear a damn word about any seagull going out of state,” Norbert said.
“Brumby’s body is somewhere in the Sound,” Lyon said as he swiveled his chair to face them. “If we find it and can establish the time of death within forty-eight hours, we’ve got Dalton. His statement does not allow for any alternative except that Brumby had to live days past the fire on the island.”
“We don’t know for sure that he dumped the body in the water,” Norbert said.
“He probably did,” Rocco said. “He only had a small skiff, and why bother to
bring it ashore for burial when he had miles of water to deep-six it in?”
“Sure,” Norbert said. “Miles of water which includes the whole of Long Island Sound, part of the Atlantic Ocean, and dozens of inlets, rivers, and harbors. We’ll never find that body unless it breaks loose and becomes a floater. I’m getting out of here to go do something useful, like setting speed traps.” He clumped from the room and slammed out the front door.
“Could they tell what started the fire on the island?” Lyon asked.
“Thermite and a timer.”
“What type of clock?”
“An ordinary kitchen windup timer. Which means that the setting could have been anything from a few minutes to a maximum of an hour.”
“That’s interesting information,” Lyon said.
“You think on it,” Rocco said, “while I go home and see if I can talk my way out of the doghouse.” He left the house, and Lyon heard the police cruiser’s usual high acceleration down the drive.
“The prodigal has returned,” Bea said as she came into the study arm in arm with Bobby Douglas. “Now can we chain him in the cellar until his trial, or perhaps wall him up in the breakfast nook?”
“Hell, Mrs. Wentworth, I wasn’t tempted to take off more than five or six times. I could have made it to Kennedy Airport before you guys knew I was gone.”
Bea sank into a leather chair. “Please, don’t joke like that.”
“Did you get the chart and depths?” Lyon asked.
“Sure did.” Bobby pulled a nautical chart from his back pocket and spread it across the floor. Lyon took a protractor and magic marker from the desk and knelt on the floor at the edge of the map.
“What did you learn?” Lyon asked.
Bobby took the magic marker from Lyon and drew a wide circle around Red Deer Island. “The water right around the island is very shallow. Beyond the shoals, you get into lobster territory. There are lobster pots all over the damn place about here.” He brushed a hand across a large swatch of water.
“Lobsters don’t live at great depths, and the pots rest on the bottom,” Lyon said. “So everything in that circle you drew is shallow water.”
“There really aren’t many deep depths until beyond the continental shelf, but there are some areas where the bottom drops off fast.”
“The explosive’s timer had a maximum setting of one hour,” Lyon said. “Dalton would probably have killed Brumby and put the weighted body in the dinghy before he set the timer. He had less than an hour to reach an area away from any lobster pots that had sufficient depth for the safe disposal of the body.”
“How do you calculate less than an hour?” Bea asked.
“Within an hour he not only had to dump the body overboard, but he had to reach land and get out of sight.”
“A-ha,” Bea said, “because once the explosion and fire started, the whole area would be crawling with police and Coast Guard boats.”
“Exactly,” Lyon said. “He knew his time was limited, and he couldn’t run the risk of having another boat pass him while the body was still aboard, much less being stopped for questioning. We have two basic factors to consider: the maximum distance he could travel to deep water and still make landfall within an hour; and where are those areas of deep water.”
“How deep is deep water?” Bobby asked.
“Over fifty feet,” Lyon answered. “In anything less the body would run the risk of fishing-line snags or divers. Would Dalton have charts on the houseboat showing water depth?”
“Sure,” Bobby said. “All that he’d need would be a chart, a compass to take a bearing from the island, and a good eye for distance.” He looked at the chart on the floor and began to measure distances. “There’s still a lot of water.”
“Not so much,” Lyon said. “Remember the time limitation and the low speed of that little boat.”
Their calculations precluded any heading directly seaward or toward Long Island, and their plots were in tangent lines toward the shoreline. It quickly became obvious that any movement in those directions reduced the availability of deep water.
“There’s really only one good spot,” Bobby said as he made a circle around a depth marking on the chart. “It’s got to be in this vicinity. Hell, it’s not even a large area. We can do it ourselves.”
“Do what ourselves?” Bea asked from the doorway.
“We have scuba gear and a depth finder on the rented runabout,” Lyon said. “We can make the dive today.”
“You’re not a trained diver,” Bea said.
“I am,” Bobby said. “It’ll be like hunting rubber ducks in a bathtub.”
“Call the Coast Guard,” she advised. “Let them do it.”
“The Coast Guard would never authorize an underwater search based on our conjectures,” Lyon said. “We’ll make the dive, and if we locate the body, the authorities can take it from there.”
“I can’t believe that you have picked one spot in the thousands of square miles of water out there, and really expect to find a corpse.”
“It makes sense to me, Mrs. Wentworth,” Bobby said.
“I want you to keep this confidential, Bea,” Lyon said. “Not one word to anyone.”
“Will she keep quiet?” Bobby asked later as they scrambled down the steep path to where the boat was moored.
“Of course not,” Lyon replied. “She doesn’t trust me around water more than three feet deep. She’s probably on the phone to Rocco right now.”
Bobby, wearing a wetsuit, stood at the midships control console, while Lyon peered at the depth finder’s flickering display. They slowly circled Red Deer Island to take their compass bearing, and Lyon lined the azimuth up with a water tower a few miles away on the shore. They would have to estimate by dead reckoning the exact distance to the location they had selected, but the depth finder would pinpoint the spot once the bottom dropped off to the greater depth.
Lyon called the depth readings as they slowly headed toward the distant water tower. Eighteen … fifteen … Mark Twain …”
“Huh?” Bobby looked over at him with a puzzled glance.
“That’s twelve feet,” Lyon said as he decided not to offer any detailed explanation of archaic Mississippi riverboat soundings.
“We should be nearly there,” Bobby said.
“I think the bottom is dropping off now,” Lyon answered.
“I’m beginning to wonder, Mr. Wentworth. He might not have been this careful and just dumped the body anywhere.”
“Dalton is always careful. He prides himself in thinking things completely through. He knows that the Sound is getting as crowded as the Long Island Expressway. Scuba divers, fishers, people dropping anchors right and left. I don’t think he’d risk an easy discovery. Hold it!”
Bobby immediately put the engine into neutral and the boat began to slowly drift. “You have it?”
Lyon called off the readings. “Forty feet, sixty-two, seventy, ninety-three. Ninety-two. This is it.”
“Okay.” Bobby threw a sea anchor overboard and began to pull on the air tank straps. Lyon helped him with the equipment. “Hand me the flippers, and I’ll need the belt weights.”
“Now, remember,” Lyon said. “If you find the body, don’t touch it. We’ll mark the location with a buoy.”
“I’m not about to touch it.” He finished donning the equipment, adjusted the face mask, and inserted the mouthpiece. He gave Lyon a thumbs-up signal and tumbled backward off the boat and quickly sank out of sight.
Lyon leaned far out over the side to watch the diver’s progress. He estimated Bobby’s depth to be between twenty to thirty feet when the lamp switched on. The dim glow gave the dark, sinking figure a surrealistic appearance. The light shrank in size and brilliance as the diver’s descent continued, until all that could be seen was a small glow deep in the dark waters of the Sound. He leaned back in the boat. All that he could do now was wait. A small coastal freighter moved slowly across the horizon, and a sailboat running before the wind
was several miles away. The distant shore was a haze as the day darkened. The clouds were taking on an ominous look, and the waves were cresting in whitecaps as the motorboat pitched alarmingly in the rising sea. Spray began to whip his face. A storm was approaching, and he wondered if small-craft warnings had been posted.
Bobby erupted from the water and grasped the gunnel with both hands. He removed the mouthpiece and pushed the mask up on his forehead. “I need another tank, this one is getting low.”
“Look at the sky,” Lyon said as he gestured toward the darkening clouds. “We had better head in.”
“One more dive. I’m into it now, and tomorrow we’d have to start all over again.”
Lyon saw his determination, and he helped him replace the used air tank with a fresh one. Bobby adjusted his equipment and sank back under the water.
A “V” of white foam broke before the prow of the long speedboat careening toward Lyon. It made broad sweeping maneuvers as it tore toward him at full speed. It swept by fifty yards away, and its wake nearly broached his boat. The boat operator’s facial features were indistinct due to his foul-weather gear, but he glanced in Lyon’s direction as he put the craft into a tight turn.
“Damn drunken boaters,” Lyon mumbled aloud as he turned his attention back to the air bubbles breaking to the surface next to the boat. The approaching engine roar registered subliminally at first, but he turned as the sound steadily increased in volume. The powerful speedboat was heading directly toward him.
“Hey!” Lyon yelled. “Watch it!” The other craft was on a direct collision course. He knew the operator saw him, but he not only didn’t change course, he seemed to slightly correct his approach to aim more directly at the middle of Lyon’s boat. It was too late for any course change to matter. They were going to collide.
Death on the Mississippi Page 17
