Death in the Secret Garden

by Forrest, Richard;

  Lyles Stanton, the town’s First Selectman, had expropriated Rocco’s desk. He immediately clasped his drumming fingers together as he looked expectantly at the chief.

  Lyles, an allstate insurance agent, had run unsuccessfully for elective office five times before his surprise win. He had always laughed at his past defeats, and chortled that he didn’t care, name recognition was the secret of insurance sales. A snow-filled winter, which caught the town short of sand and plows, had swamped the incumbents and saw Lyles elected. He seemed to prefer the precise answers found in underwriting manuals, because he always looked bewildered when faced with official town decisions.

  Standing to the side of the First Selectman was Captain Norbert of the state police. The shortish captain, whose barrel chest strained against a heavily starched white shirt, stood at a rigid parade rest.

  ‘Hey there, Chief,’ Lyles boomed in his best insurance agent greeting. ‘Come on in and take a load off.’

  Rocco ignored the invitation and turned angrily toward the state police officer. ‘What in the hell are you doing here, Norby?’

  ‘The First Selectman will explain,’ Norbert said without modifying his stiff stance.

  ‘What in the hell does that mean, Lyles?’ Rocco demanded.

  ‘I must explain that this decision was based on thorough discussions with the state attorney general, the state police, and the other selectman.’

  ‘What decision?’ Rocco demanded in a voice far too loud for the small office.

  ‘You’ve been dumped from the serial murder case, Herbert,’ Norbert said.

  ‘Bull crap!’

  ‘You’re way out of your league, traffic jockey,’ Norbert answered.

  Lyles attempted to soothe the breach with conciliatory mews. ‘It has been suggested that since we now have three killings, our facilities would be stretched far beyond our small-town capabilities. The state police can afford to send in a team of trained investigators. I have also discussed this with our police board and they agree.’

  ‘No way can you shut me out!’

  ‘We can and we have,’ Norbert retorted. ‘You got space in here for a couple of my men?’

  ‘Take the whole damn office! Your first order of business will be the exhumation of Congressman Bill Tallman.’

  Norbert blanched. ‘The governor’s husband?’

  ‘You got it.’ Rocco ripped the badge from his shirt and plunked it on the desk. ‘I quit.’

  ‘You’re going to put my sister on welfare,’ the state police officer said.

  ‘How in the hell my wife came from the same gene pool as you is a greater miracle than the immaculate conception,’ Rocco said as he strode from the office.

  They were halfway down the hall when Jamie Martin caught up with them. ‘Spook is back, Chief. He’s in his tree house with firepower.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Spook’s armed and dangerous,’ the young patrolman said excitedly.

  ‘That was a rhetorical what, Jamie,’ Rocco said. ‘Take it from the top and tell me exactly what happened.’

  ‘I was waiting out by his tree like you ordered. He snuck up on me, Chief. He came around behind me and pressed a gun against my neck. He snatched my service weapon from my holster and climbed into his tree house. I radioed Captain Norbert, who sent two guys to guard the tree until the SWAT team arrives.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ Rocco said.

  ‘They’ll kill him,’ Lyon said.

  The First Selectman followed by Captain Norbert rushed down the hall. ‘We’d like you to reconsider, Chief Herbert.’

  ‘Done,’ Rocco said as he snatched the badge from the Selectman’s hand and sprinted for his cruiser.

  Rocco stood sheltered behind a tree ten yards from the tree house. He cautiously leaned out from its protection and cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Corporal Williams, report down here at once!’ No answer. ‘Front and center, soldier.’ He snapped back behind the protective trunk.

  A few yards away, Lyon had taken the added precaution of stretching prone behind his tree. ‘Where did he get a weapon?’ he yelled over to Rocco.

  ‘He was in the bank when Wiff’s gun disappeared.’ Rocco leaned out from behind the tree and called again. ‘You hear me, soldier?’

  ‘Yeah,’ was the faint answer. ‘Martin says I killed Ashley and you’re going to fry me.’

  ‘Did you?’ No answer. ‘Did you waste the redheaded woman?’ Rocco yelled.

  ‘I don’t know. They stuffed me so full of pills up at the VA that I been stoned for days. I don’t know what’s been happening.’

  ‘Did you do Boots and the Styles woman?’ Rocco yelled.

  ‘I don’t remember, Captain. Maybe I did … Probably I did.’

  ‘You wanted to show them a good time. They turned you down so you killed them. Right?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s probably the way it went,’ was the faint reply from the tree.

  ‘Do you believe that?’ Lyon asked Rocco. ‘You’re the one who said that Spook’s been on substances so long that he couldn’t make it.’

  ‘He didn’t have to consummate anything. Maybe he just thought about it and said something to the victims. You can imagine how they would react. They either laughed or were horrified. Either way might have been enough to drive him over the edge.’

  ‘Move it! Move it! Move it!’

  Lyon recognized the authoritative commands of Captain Norbert coming from the road behind them. The SWAT team had arrived.

  Men in full battle gear began to infiltrate through the tree line. They wore camouflage fatigues, helmets, flak jackets, and carried enough armament for the Tet Offensive. Their orchestrated movements were performed with little sound except for an occasional metallic clink. They assumed protected positions and aimed automatic rifles toward the tree house.

  Captain Norbert’s bantam figure sank to one knee behind the tree between Rocco and Lyon. He raised a bullhorn to his mouth. ‘You in the tree house. Come down at once! That is a state police order.’

  ‘No Cong takes me alive!’ was the answer.

  Lyon cringed. ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘You are under arrest! Throw down your weapon and climb down immediately,’ Norbert commanded.

  ‘Rot in hell!’ Spook yelled back.

  ‘Give him one,’ Norbert said to the SWAT member kneeling next to him holding an M-79 grenade launcher.

  ‘HE or gas?’ was the reply.

  ‘You fire any high explosives and I’ll pound your ass,’ Rocco promised.

  ‘The situation is out of your hands, Herbert,’ Norbert said. ‘The perp has defied an official police order. I have him on resisting.’

  ‘Get the hell out of my backyard,’ Rocco answered.

  ‘Blow the sucker out of his tree,’ Norbert commanded the officer with the grenade launcher.

  It took two strides for Rocco to cross to the other tree and pull his weapon from its holster. ‘You launch anything at that man and you will pay for it, so help me God.’

  ‘What do I do, Captain?’ the officer asked in a tone that indicated he fully believed Rocco was capable of blowing his head off.

  ‘Do nothing,’ Rocco said as he walked away from the protection of the trees and began to climb the ladder to the house.

  ‘Get away from there, damn it!’ Norbert yelled after him.

  ‘I’m bringing him down.’

  It was hardly a minute before two weapons were thrown through the trapdoor. While everyone else’s attention was drawn to the trapdoor, Lyon picked up the police service revolver and stuffed it inside his shirt. He handed the plastic machine gun to Captain Norbert. ‘I think they sell these play guns at the discount stores for a buck ninety-eight,’ Lyon said.

  ‘We were told he had a machine gun,’ Norbert said defensively. ‘We were prepared for a machine gun.’

  Rocco and Spook climbed down from the tree house.

  ‘You’re standing for drinks at Sarge’s place again, right, Captain?’ Spook said as he was t
hrown to the ground and handcuffed by the state police.

  ‘Let that man go!’ Rocco ordered. Two troopers ignored the command and hustled Spook toward a cruiser.

  Rocco and Norbert verbally resumed their continual jurisdictional battle. Lyon walked back to the road where Jamie Martin was manning the police barricade that closed off the street. The young officer gave Lyon a two-fingered salute.

  ‘This yours?’ Lyon said as he handed the officer his weapon.

  Jamie blushed. Both men were aware of the shame felt by a disarmed officer. ‘Thanks,’ he said in a near whisper.

  ‘You knew Ashley Towers professionally?’ Lyon asked.

  Jamie’s red hue deepened. ‘I never busted her, no, sir.’

  ‘I mean in other ways.’

  ‘You and the chief talked to the escort service, huh?’

  ‘We did,’ Lyon said. ‘A J. Martin appears on her list of clients.’

  ‘I’m engaged to a great girl, Mr. Wentworth.’

  ‘I heard that, Jamie. The Dockery girl, right?’

  ‘We’re getting married in October.’

  ‘That’s great, Jamie, but it doesn’t answer my question.’

  ‘Jeannie is a very normal and passionate person, but she won’t … She really feels strong about …’

  ‘Full love-making before marriage,’ Lyon finished the young officer’s thought. He was a little surprised that there were still young women who felt like that.

  Jamie seemed relieved that Lyon had stated the problem. ‘Yes, sir. And I get really frustrated, you know. One day I had this overtime check. It was like found money. I knew Ashley worked escort, and so I called for her. Just that once, Mr. Wentworth. Honest to God.’

  Lyon was about to turn into the drive at Nutmeg Hill when a familiar dark Pontiac passed him. Mead MacIntire sat stiffly at the wheel. Lyon followed the other car.

  Mead turned up the dirt access road that led into the state forest. He parked his car at the small parking area near the head of the overgrown trail that followed the ridge line. He left the car to face Lyon with a quizzical look.

  The Episcopal priest was not wearing his traditional dark suit with clerical collar. In its place he wore khakis with a red down vest. Binoculars and a camera with a long lens were hung from his neck. He stood stiffly by the side of his car as Lyon approached.

  ‘Are you following me?’ Mead asked while his beatific smile animated his face.

  ‘Mind if I walk a way with you?’

  ‘I never knew you were into bird-watching, Lyon. I thought hot-air ballooning was your avocation.’

  ‘Ordinarily it is, but I am interested in the return of the eagles.’

  ‘Yes. Is that not magnificent? It is truly God’s gift that the species has been returned to us.’ He stared off into space for a few moments. ‘I heard about Ashley,’ Mead said. ‘I suppose that is why you are here. I expect that Chief Herbert has an interest in me.’

  ‘You and several others,’ Lyon said. ‘We went to the Middleburg Escort Service and found that an M. MacIntire was one of Ashley’s clients.’

  ‘I did not realize that the Devil’s disciples kept such accurate records of sin. Can we go on the cliff path? There’s a certain spot where I like to sit for my observations.’

  ‘Of course.’

  They walked in single file along the vague path that followed the ridge line. Lyon knew that this interval allowed Mead time to order his thoughts and construct some casual circumstances for his meetings with Ashley. However, the slumped shoulders and plodding pace of the man in front of him seemed to indicate a profound disturbance rather than someone plotting an explanation.

  Mead stopped before a clump of rocks that formed a haphazard stairway to the top of a large glacial boulder. The minister climbed to the summit and then sat down at the top of the rock. He sighed and hugged his knees as he looked out over the river valley. ‘After my undergraduate days, before I went into the seminary, I was in the Peace Corps.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘The experience was deeply moving and significant for me. I awakened to the problems of the undeveloped world and its peoples. I vowed to do what I could to relieve suffering. I didn’t feel comfortable with hard science and so health services were not an option for me. I chose the ministry as my vehicle. I truly intended to work in some foreign mission in a third-world country. I learned fluent Spanish so I could serve in South America. I was going to be a worker priest. Not that we have that in the Episcopal Church, but if it were necessary, I was prepared to embark on a personal mission.’

  Lyon considered the striking contrast between South American poverty and the comfortable manse of Saint James Church. ‘Murphysville is a long way from the Andes,’ he finally said.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it? The flesh is weak. I married Joan and she wanted children. She pointed out to me, in a very logical manner, that it would be difficult and immoral to raise our children in a South American slum.’

  ‘So you chose here?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mead looked out over the distant Seven Sisters hills. ‘It would seem that I am very weak.’

  ‘Ashley?’ Lyon said softly to steer the conversation back to its intended subject. He suspected that the minister had his own reasons and agenda for what had just been said.

  ‘Miss Towers’ mother is one of my most faithful parishioners. She came to me one day, very disturbed and agitated, over something Ashley had said. It would seem that Miss Towers told her mother that she had a job as an emergency pharmacist.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘That was the girl’s cover story to family and friends to account for her late hours. Her mother was uncertain about the truthfulness of this and asked if I had ever heard of such a thing. I said that I hadn’t, but that I thought that with the right educational credentials it might be possible. To be on the safe side I checked with the state licensing bureaus. Of course, I had to tell her mother that Ashley wasn’t listed with the state.’

  ‘Did you tell Ashley?’

  ‘I confronted her with my information.’

  ‘And?’

  Mead MacIntire pursed his lips a moment before answering. ‘She directed me to perform an unnatural sexual act upon myself. Then she yelled at the top of her voice that she was the most requested escort in the state. That outbreak was followed by a threat that if I didn’t leave her house she would scream rape.’

  The pieces were beginning to fall into place. Lyon felt the pressure of a tight abdominal knot as the possibilities evolved. The name on the client list documented what he was now going to be told. ‘You phoned the escort service and requested her,’ he said to ease the man’s obvious pain.

  ‘Yes. We met at the Dew Drop Inn Motel. After she stopped laughing she made me pay in advance. You do understand that it was my mission to discuss her salvation and offer redemption. I had the best of intentions, but I was so weak.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘That she would show me some tricks that would blow my mind. She touched me and … I lay with her in the biblical sense.’

  ‘And then she had to be punished in order to be saved,’ Lyon said softly.

  ‘She was punished, wasn’t she?’

  ‘As was your church secretary and the wanton young woman from the supermarket.’

  ‘They were all punished.’ He faced Lyon. ‘It was truly divine retribution.’

  ‘You were God’s agent.’

  ‘I might have helped them if I hadn’t been so weak.’ Mead MacIntire stood to face the river.

  Lyon sensed the minister’s intended actions and immediately moved behind him. When Mead lunged toward the edge of the rock, Lyon grabbed the rear of the down vest. ‘Stop!’

  ‘Let me go!’

  ‘No!’ Lyon spun Mead in a half circle. The minister’s forward momentum carried him across Lyon’s hip and over the far edge of the rock where he fell into a pile of brush.

  Lyon scrambled down the rock face in the hope that Mead was n
ot badly injured.

  ‘Let me die!’ Mead MacIntire sobbed into the ground.

  Eleven

  Canon Mead MacIntire huddled by the Saturn’s door, closed his eyes, and pressed his head against the window. Slight tremors racked his body.

  Lyon drove out of the access road and turned right at the highway. He gave a concerned glance toward the anguished clergyman. After a moment’s hesitation, he reached across the quietly sobbing minister and snapped down the door lock.

  Mead’s eyes opened. ‘I want to die.’

  ‘You don’t really mean that,’ Lyon said automatically, knowing full well that his passenger did mean it. He unconsciously accelerated toward Murphysville.

  ‘I have violated my religious and marital vows. I have disgraced God, the Church, and my family.’

  ‘You have counseled enough people to know that we all make mistakes.’ Lyon mentally cringed at the inadequacy of his response.

  ‘I knew the weakness of the flesh for I had charted the paths of temptation. What I did not know was far more dangerous. I speak of that which makes us all so vulnerable.’

  ‘What is that?’ Lyon asked automatically.

  ‘How enjoyable are the sinful ways of the flesh.’ Mead clenched his eyes to block motel-room images. ‘I had never before experienced such pleasures or reached the heights of ecstasy she revealed to me. She was a true sorceress. A handmaiden of the Devil. She was a temptress of exquisite ability.’

  ‘If sins weren’t pleasurable they’d be easy to avoid,’ Lyon said.

  ‘My weakness was not just of the moment. I returned to her. I went back the following week, and the week after that. I took money from our children’s college savings and paid her fee. And worse, I would have returned again. Once she forced me to wear my clerical collar. Another time she had me bring my vestments. She made me wear my chasuble and girdle. She laughed at me before she lifted the garments to perform unspeakable things on my body.’

  Lyon shook his head in acknowledgement of Mead’s confession and the realization that whores also had fantasies. He had a vague impression that a vestment’s color varied according to the appropriate ecclesiastical occasion. He wondered what was applicable for motel-room sex. He would not ask, just as he would stifle his curiosity concerning what unspeakable things Ashley performed. He and Bea had agreed long ago that as long as you did things by mutual consent and without physical harm, that most anything was allowable in the marital bed.