Death in the Secret Garden

by Forrest, Richard;

  ‘I understand. I won’t say a word. I just want to get out of here.’

  ‘Then leave. Quickly!’ Bea said.

  ‘I haven’t been paid.’

  ‘Paid!’ Bea snorted. ‘He didn’t finish.’

  For a moment Ashley seemed poised to object, but then thought better of it. ‘OK, I’m going,’ she answered as she gathered her purse and hurried from the room.

  ‘We dress him and move the body to the sofa in the sitting room,’ Bea said. ‘Then you call 911 and tell them that he might be having a coronary. We will say that Bill felt ill while driving his car and pulled in here to rest. You gave him a room and when you checked back you found him like this.’

  Maresca nodded. ‘Do you think we can pull this off?’

  ‘I hope so, Mike. I’m doing this for Margaret, not for this roué. She’s a great governor and doesn’t deserve this.’

  Lyon was very uneasy. This was not an unusual condition when he rode with Rocco in the police cruiser. His friend seemed to prefer Formula One speeds combined with a nonchalant attitude toward the mechanics of driving. He casually draped one elbow out the side window, while two fingers of his other hand lightly caressed the steering wheel. The speedometer began to inch up as they passed the town green with its historic homes. Rocco pressed for more speed when they turned down Route 40, which contained the shopping mall and the ubiquitous strip of fast food emporiums that were endemic to every American town. Once clear of congestion the speedometer inched toward eighty as they sped toward Eddy’s Motors with dome light flashing and siren wailing.

  The radio sputtered. Rocco flipped the mouthpiece off its stanchion and donned small headphones to hear properly. ‘Car One. Herbert,’ he announced laconically. He listened for a moment and then, ‘Patch him through … Yes, Lars,’ he said to the medical examiner. ‘What do you have for me?… Thanks. Over and out.’

  ‘What was that about?’ Lyon yelled over the sound of the siren’s screech as he pressed both feet against the floor in a vain attempt to restrain forward momentum.

  ‘Our joyful ME says the deceased did have recent sex,’ Rocco shouted. ‘She was shot in the periumbilical area with an entrance wound of 1.5 by 1.5 centimeters. There was massive hemorrhaging, with large blood clots found in the abdominal cavity. There were extensive perforations of the small intestine. The bullet was lodged near the lower abdominal aorta. The projectile was a single round from a small-caliber weapon. The bullet has been preserved for a ballistics test when we have something to compare it to. She was also two months pregnant.’

  ‘We had best get to Eddy’s fast,’ Lyon said.

  Although Rocco had been born and raised in Murphysville and Lyon in nearby Middleburg, they had not met until they served together in a war zone. Lyon was an infantry battalion’s intelligence officer, while Rocco was a ranger and leader of the recon platoon that acted as the unit’s eyes and ears. They had established a working relationship then that still continued. Rocco, as the man of action, took to the field to obtain the raw data for Lyon’s evaluation. Rocco’s intelligent harvesting of information combined with Lyon’s unique perceptions created a team whose total exceeded the sum of its parts.

  Their army cooperation had naturally evolved into civilian crime investigation. A full working relationship and friendship had blossomed after Lyon and Bea moved to the house on the green with their young daughter. An irrevocable bond had been forged after the hit-and-run accident. Rocco had spent dozens of sleepless nights until his state-wide check of body shops had revealed the guilty driver.

  Lyon and Bea had walked away from the house on the green on the day of the accident and had never returned. The bond with Rocco and the memory of their daughter had kept them in Murphysville. It was shortly thereafter that they had immersed themselves in the restoration of Nutmeg Hill.

  At Eddy’s Motors the double shotgun blast had discouraged the owner’s latest hot prospect. The sight of the sprawled car salesman propped against the Chevy utility made the prospective customer’s gas-eating, oil-chugging truck, with its wooden stake bed, look almost attractive. He passed the speeding police car as he churned away from the lot.

  Lister Anderson’s wrath was not satisfied by Eddy’s mortal wound. He proceeded to destroy as many pickups and used cars as his remaining time allowed. His method was certain and efficient. He swung the .12 gauge by its barrel to smash the front windshield of each vehicle, and then proceeded to blow out the tires with the weapon. Lister had managed to dispatch most of the inventory when Rocco’s cruiser screeched to a stop by the trailer office. The large police chief catapulted from the car and held up both hands palms forward in a gesture of command.

  ‘Drop the weapon, Lister,’ Rocco ordered.

  ‘Mostly out of shells, Chief.’ Anderson let the shotgun fall to the ground. ‘About got them all, anyway.’

  ‘That you did, Lister,’ Rocco said as he handcuffed his prisoner’s hands behind his back. ‘That you surely did.’

  Lyon ran over to the sprawled body of Eddy Rashish. The salesman had somehow managed to temporarily survive the double blast and struggled to sit up. It was obvious from the massive trauma that his time was limited.

  Lyon propped the dying man’s head on his lap. ‘The ambulance will be here soon, Eddy.’

  Eyes blinked open. ‘Don’t let him get away. Don’t let him go.’

  ‘Rocco’s got him cuffed in the back of the cruiser,’ Lyon answered.

  ‘I mean my live fish. If you have to, tell him sixty a week for two and a half years. Just close the deal.’

  Eddy Rashish died uttering incomprehensible things about deal percentages and forging odometer readings.

  Bea Wentworth cut the skin off two large chicken breasts and seasoned them in preparation for grilling. Lyon worked at the chopping block reducing vegetables into salad-size portions.

  ‘I thought about it today,’ Bea said. She knew it was not necessary to identify the event further. Lyon would know her meaning even if they hadn’t talked about it in months.

  Lyon stopped with his cleaver poised in mid-air. ‘So did I. It came back to me while I was riding in Rocco’s cruiser.’

  ‘I was at the Millrace Inn about to have lunch with Helena Rabnor when it hit me. We had other excitement at the inn, which I’ll tell you about next.’

  ‘We’ve been married too long. That accounts for this mental similarity.’

  ‘Do you believe it’s that?’

  ‘Not completely,’ Lyon said. ‘I think it’s the same time of year combined with today’s weather and light …’ He mistakenly brought the cleaver down on a large tomato with a blow that splattered it across the room. ‘Any thoughts on it?’ he asked as he wiped juice and pulp from the cabinets.

  ‘I have concern over my biological clock.’

  ‘It’s been ten years,’ Lyon said. He returned to the chopping block to scrape carrots. ‘I applied to Big Buddy today.’

  She turned toward him in amazement. For her husband to volunteer to be a mentor to a young child was an astonishing step of recovery, considering the massive pain they both felt. ‘Can you handle it?’

  ‘I think so. It’s a first step. They have a few kids on the waiting list in the Murphysville area. They’ll assign me to a child as soon as they check me out. They’re pretty careful about backgrounds nowadays. I’ve asked Rocco to vouch for me. If I’m properly vetted they match me with a single parent’s young boy.’

  ‘Not a girl?’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to work that way. Basically, they want an adult male to do things with the kid. We’re supposed to go places and do masculine activities. It comes down to mentor stuff while we act as a male role model.’ The phone rang and Lyon snicked it off its kitchen-wall stanchion. ‘Wentworth here.’

  ‘I told them the truth about you,’ Rocco said without preamble. ‘I’m talking about the query I received from the Big Buddy organization. I vouched that you are a fine upstanding citizen at least fifty percent of the time.
I did have to point out that in the fall, when the Canadian geese make their flyover, you are apt to leap from your parapet in an attempt to join them in flight.’

  ‘Thanks, old buddy.’

  ‘I have two male holding cells in my little lockup,’ Rocco said. ‘We have Spook in one and Lister Anderson in the other. Lister has been born again and is trying to bring Spook to Jesus. Spook is trying to recruit Lister for the First Cav’s motor pool.’

  After dinner they made espresso coffee in the machine that Rocco and his wife had given them last Christmas. As they sat on the patio and watched the sun brim the horizon, Bea told Lyon about the discovery of the congressman’s body at the inn. She described how the governor’s husband had been found dead in the inn’s Clara Barton suite with his red-haired friend.

  ‘I suppose that, strictly speaking, what Mike Maresca and I did was illegal,’ Bea concluded. ‘But damn it all, Lyon. Margaret doesn’t need to be hurt any further by that guy.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Lyon said. ‘But I hope that’s the end of it.’ He wondered how the governor could have remained ignorant of her husband’s peccadillos all these years. For at least the last half decade it had been well known on both sides of the aisle that Bill Tallman considered it perpetually open season on all women.

  ‘You’d really like to consider having another child, wouldn’t you?’ Bea asked.

  ‘For the first time in years, I’m able to consider the possibility of considering,’ Lyon replied. ‘It’s up to you, of course.’ He looked across the patio table to see tears in his usually pragmatic wife’s eyes. He was instantly remorseful. He never wanted to hurt her.

  ‘God only knows I want a child,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know that I am strong enough to go through another loss like that.’

  ‘As I said, we are only considering the possibility of considering it.’

  Bea nodded and wondered if this was to be a day marked by two postponed problems.

  At ten in the morning, Sarge Renfroe was usually his own best customer. The rules set by Rocco Herbert forbade his personal consumption of hard liquor before the sun was over the yardarm. Sarge understood, as legions of senior enlisted men before him had, that officers’ rules were meant to be discreetly disregarded. ‘Sun’s over the yardarm somewhere in the world,’ he mumbled aloud as he brought the first shot of the day toward his eager mouth.

  The second drink of bar whiskey was loaded and ready to fire when a large hand clamped down on Sarge’s wrist. The heavy shot glass clanked to the floor and rolled under the footrail. ‘Come on, Captain,’ he pleaded with Rocco. ‘I’m really hung this morning.’

  ‘Winston Churchill once said that often the most important accomplishments are done by men who don’t feel well in the morning.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you have any coffee?’ Lyon asked.

  Sarge shuddered while he pulled two steaming mugs of inky coffee from the machine at the rear of the bar. He slid them across the scarred bar and plunked a sugar bowl and small cream container by each mug. He sulked on a stool hidden behind the sports page.

  ‘He is not a happy sergeant,’ Rocco said.

  ‘Listen,’ Lyon said. ‘After I drink half this coffee I go back to work. I have a deadline on this book and you aren’t helping. Your case is wrapped up. Spook didn’t kill anyone. Eddy killed the girl and Lister killed Eddy. You have an eye witness to Lister’s shotgunning, and all you need is a little back and fill to tie Eddy to Boots’ murder. A nice double solution.’

  Rocco arched an eyebrow too high for it to be a natural movement. ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘Is that a rhetorical question?’

  ‘I have a gut feeling about this case,’ Rocco said.

  ‘That it’s not over yet?’

  ‘We’re a small town,’ Rocco said. ‘A ripple in the water expands to the town line. Man gets girl preg, man kills girl. Man is killed by irate father. Everything over and all back to normal? Maybe. Or maybe we need to know what caused that first ripple.’ Rocco drummed his fingers on the bar before calling out, ‘Sarge!’

  The owner gave a start as the newspaper fell from his fingers. ‘Huh?’

  ‘What in the hell was Lister Anderson doing in here yesterday? In my holding cell last night he spouted bible talk to Spook for ten hours straight.’

  ‘I think Spook is a Buddhist or something,’ Renfroe responded.

  ‘What’s a bible thumper like Lister doing in a dump like this?’

  ‘Lister Anderson has been coming to this establishment every other day for the past two years. He comes in at noon with the other mechanics from the Chevy agency. The other guys have a beer and a burger. Lister has a Coke with his. He keeps his mouth shut about the religious stuff or he wouldn’t be welcome here.’ Sarge rocked back on his heels so pleased with himself that he poured a shot of bar whiskey and drained it in one fluid motion. ‘Right, Cap?’

  ‘Right, Sarge,’ Rocco answered, ignoring the latest liquor transgression. ‘You know we have to go see Mrs. Anderson,’ he said to Lyon.

  ‘We?’ Lyon said. ‘Why do you need me for a closed case? We’ve already decided, older man gets involved with younger woman. She gets a bun in the oven. They argue. She wants marriage or money for abortion. He wants out. More argument. He shoots her. Bible-thumping father decides on divine retribution. Daddy with shotgun blows away philandering used-car salesman. How much more typical can you get, Rocco?’

  ‘Eddy Rashish would sell his grandmother for twenty dollars a week payable every Friday for two years. But I don’t think he would shoot his lover in the lower abdomen.’

  ‘Maybe he was a bad shot,’ Lyon countered.

  ‘He might hire a hit man,’ Rocco said. ‘I can see Eddy hiring a guy and paying him off with a bad check. But to make love on a blanket in the woods and then shoot her in the gut … No.’

  ‘Rocco, Eddy was not a very nice person.’

  ‘He wasn’t evil either,’ Rocco said contemplatively. ‘Well, he might lie a little about an odometer, a creaky transmission, finance charges, or about divorcing his wife in the near future in order to seduce a girl, but …’

  ‘OK,’ Lyon said. ‘Another scenario. He takes her to the woods for their usual slap and tickle. When he finds out about the baby he decides to throw a real scare into her. He waves the gun around and it accidently goes off and hits her in the abdomen. There is no way he can explain things so he panics and takes off.’

  ‘What were Eddy’s dying words?’ Rocco asked.

  Lyon watched Sarge surreptitiously down another quick shot. ‘Something about closing deals and odometers were his last words.’

  ‘I rest my case on his priorities,’ Rocco said as he slipped off the bar stool. ‘Let’s get on with conversing with Mrs. Anderson.’

  The front and back yards of the Anderson house looked like a rusted lawn sale. Engine blocks without pistons, old lawnmower motors in varying stages of disassembly and other strange pieces of machinery were scattered across the yard. Clustered around the small garage at the rear of the property were three automobiles of unknown vintage that were in dire need of reconstruction. It was a disaster area that was tolerated by the neighborhood because adjacent properties also contained herds of motor vehicles in various stages of perpetual repair.

  The house was a small ranch with a large picture window in the living room. The window faced the street and overlooked a rusting school bus, which sat on concrete blocks. Rocco looked at Lyon with a shrug when the doorbell wouldn’t respond to his touch. He thumped heavily with a door knocker made from a hood ornament.

  A tall man whose body was dominated by an elongated face opened the door to look at them with somber dark eyes.

  ‘Is Mrs. Anderson home?’ Rocco asked.

  ‘Sister Anderson is in grief and not receiving.’

  ‘Tell her Chief Herbert is here to talk about her husband.’

  ‘I said the sister is not receiving.’

  ‘Who be you?’ Rocco asked.

/>   ‘Pastor of her flock.’

  ‘You will be herding your flock from my lockup if you don’t produce the lady in five seconds,’ Rocco said in a quiet voice.

  Eliza Anderson had a slight body and a face too deeply grief-worn to have been accumulated in one life. Some of the ravages were inherited from past generations, who had fought icy fish lines off the Grand Banks, or scrabbled a living from Maine’s rock-strewn fields. Lister and Eliza had immigrated from the harsh Maine coast to Connecticut where new generations faced hardships of a different type.

  Eliza had already lost her eldest child when his pickup went airborne after striking a bridge abutment on the interstate. Her daughter Boots occupied a slab in the medical examiner’s office. Her husband was in jail. Her last offspring sat sullenly before the television in his ill-fitting meeting-time clothes and glared at them resentfully. Rocco nodded at the teenager. They were acquainted due to several juvenile charges that would probably escalate in the coming year. Rocco knew it was only a matter of months until the kid would be caught and charged as an adult for grand theft auto. It seemed like an irrevocable pattern.

  ‘Pastor was with me through the night,’ Eliza Anderson said. ‘He read from the Book of Job and we prayed. Nothing more can be done.’

  ‘Did you know that Boots was pregnant?’ Rocco asked with an abruptness that startled Lyon.

  ‘She done told me. We decided not to tell her daddy until after the wedding. You saw what happened when he found out on his own.’

  Lyon was puzzled. It was not a secret in this small town that Eddy Rashish was very permanently married.

  ‘Marriage?’ Rocco questioned.

  ‘To Skee Rumford. They’ve been sweet on each other since the eighth grade.’

  ‘Lister killed Eddy Rashish,’ Rocco pressed.

  ‘Lister always did get things mixed up,’ Eliza Anderson replied. ‘Sometimes I think he didn’t listen none, or maybe he didn’t hear none. Anyway, he always got things wrong unless it was a piece of machinery that he could put his hands on.’

  ‘Are you telling us that Eddy wasn’t the daddy?’ Rocco asked.