Death at King Arthur's Court

by Forrest, Richard;

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  Death at King Arthur’s Court

  A Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mystery

  Richard Forrest

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  To the next generation—Cassie, Mia, Atticus, Eliza,

  Alex, Kate, Sasha, Max, Caitlin, Freia, Jane,

  Jack, Sebastian, Dylan, and Gabrielle.

  One

  The sword swept through the air and bit into a tree trunk inches from Lyon Wentworth’s head.

  A five-inch wood chip spun away as it was carved from the pine. The sword twisted free and was slowly raised for another thrust. The blade shifted for a vertical blow with enough force to nearly cut him in half.

  He threw himself to the side and stumbled backward over a moss-covered boulder. The sword’s downward arc followed his fall. Metal and rock clashed with a clang that echoed through the misty woods.

  He lurched to his feet to stumble forward. His breath came in rasping gulps. He ran in a weaving pattern toward the edge of the high promontory a hundred feet above the Connecticut River. He was confused. His vision was faulty, and his legs were leaden and unresponsive. His pursuer moved slowly but persistently forward. It was impossible not to glance back. The approaching figure was an unfamiliar dark hulk in the shadowy woods, but the raised broadsword glinted a refracted moonlight off its blade in diamond-shaped shards of reflection. The medieval weapon made small loops in a nearly ritualistic preparation for the killing thrust. Its next devastating blow would destroy any living thing in its path.

  Lyon tripped across an ankle-high root near his right foot. He plunged face forward into the ground. His forehead struck a rock and dozens of black dots swarmed across his vision. His body was drained. His vision clouded as he raised his arms in a futile attempt to ward off the impending sword thrust.

  His adversary closed the distance between them. They were now close enough that their feet were nearly touching.

  An inappropriate thought surfaced. Historically, men led to the killing block tipped their executioner with gold to assure that the first blow was true and fatal.

  The sword glinted in the moonlight as it slowly descended. He tensed in anticipation of the blow. The point sliced through the remains of his shirt.

  The light was still too diffuse for him to make out the features of the dark figure looming above him. The only clear object was the broadsword, which sparkled in the dim light that seeped through the leaf cover.

  ‘Why?’ The word burst forth in an unfamiliar hoarse voice. He could hear the deep breathing of the figure above him, but there was no reply. He tensed again, waiting for the blow.

  The apparition disappeared into the darkness as quickly as it had appeared. Lyon grasped a tree limb as he struggled to his feet. He swayed as he tried to focus his eyes. He was dizzy, and disoriented.

  He took two steps and pitched forward into the darkness.

  Police Chief Rocco Herbert slowed the police cruiser as he turned into the long drive that led to Nutmeg Hill. He unconsciously eased the handgun holstered at his hip an inch or two up and down to confirm that it was seated properly.

  Bea Wentworth’s early-morning long-distance phone call to his home had been worrisome. There was more than a hint of concern in her voice, an unusual condition for the usually unflappable state senator.

  ‘They told me the phones were out of order, Rocco,’ she had said. ‘What bothers me is that I have a second line going into the house for my political calls, and for two phone lines to go out simultaneously doesn’t make sense. If it weren’t for the fact that Morgan is parked in our drive, I’d think the main line to the street was down. You know, Morgan’s been getting those weird threats recently?’

  ‘I’ve heard about them. He refused the guard the Middleburg Police offered to put at his house. You want me to check it out, Bea?’ he had asked.

  ‘I’d feel better. Would you mind terribly driving out to Nutmeg Hill on your way to work this morning to make sure everything is all right?’

  His first thought had been to dispatch a patrol unit, but a glance at the bedside clock told him that he had time to make the trip himself. He could have coffee with his friend Lyon, and still get to the police station in time for his scheduled meeting with the town’s first selectman. ‘Sure. I’ll be glad to. I’ll leave as soon as I’m dressed. You want I should call you in Washington?’ He picked up the tiny pen attached to the note pad on the night table next to the bed.

  ‘You can’t,’ she had replied. ‘I’m on the road right now, on my way back to Connecticut. I’d just feel better knowing you were checking things out.’

  He pulled the cruiser to a stop immediately behind the RV parked near the home’s front door. He eased from the car with his right hand resting lightly on the butt of his handgun.

  The house was quiet. Bea had evidently driven her small sedan to Washington, and the only other vehicle besides the modified Winnebago in the drive was Lyon’s ancient pickup truck, parked by the barn.

  He walked slowly around the RV. Lyon Wentworth had told him how Warren Morgan, a professor at nearby Middleburg University, had changed the configurations of the vehicle until it hardly resembled the standard model. The front doors had been strengthened with interior braces and welded shut. All of the windows had been replaced with the special safety glass utilized on armored cars. Steel plates that could be lowered had been mounted over the living compartment windows. A steel shield had been welded under the chassis for added protection. The final result: a vehicle with all the protection of an army tank and the interior comforts of a hedonist’s house trailer.

  The only means of access into the vehicle was a single rear door which he pounded on with his fist. Near the door was a lock combination panel. ‘Hey, Morgan! You in there? Anyone in there? Open up! Police!’

  No answer.

  He repeated the process several times before he shook his head and walked slowly toward the house.

  Nutmeg Hill was located on a saucer-shaped promontory that rose a hundred feet above a sharp bend in the Connecticut River. The house was at the apex of this rise and was reached by a winding drive that twisted up from a secondary highway. High stands of pine marched along formal lanes on either side of the lawn. The structural lines of the house were dominated by a widow’s walk that ran the length of the gambrel roof. Leaded glass windows reflected the early sun as it brimmed the hills to the east.

  The Wentworths had purchased the property a number of years before. It had originally been constructed in the early nineteenth century by a successful sea captain. After the Civil War, the original family’s fortunes faltered. The house began a slow process of decay until a last surviving spinster moved south and boarded the windows and doors. Vandals and weather hastened further deterioration. Lyon and Bea had discovered the building accidentally while on a walking trip. They had fallen in love with its secluded location and panoramic perch. They finally arranged a purchase through the estate of the deceased spinster. It had taken them years of painstaking labor to refurbish the house.

  Rocco noticed that the front door was slightly ajar. As he slow approached it, a wind eddied up from the river and blew the door fully open.

  ‘Hey, Lyon!’ Rocco yelled. ‘You in there?’

  No answer.

  He drew the revolver and braced his right wrist with his left hand as he stepped carefully through the doorway.

  Police Chief Rocco Herbert was a large man with a craggy face. He was too big to be a professional football linebacker, although a guard or tackle’s position might have been suitable. His six foot s
ix frame carried closer to 300 than 200 pounds. His massive bulk did not slow his reflexes and he could move with a surprising alacrity if the situation warranted.

  He went methodically through each of the twelve rooms. They were all unoccupied. The master bedroom was undisturbed, the king-size bed still neatly made. In the adjoining bathroom, he ran his fingers lightly over the surface of the stall shower wall and sink bowl. They were both dry and obviously had not been used since the day before.

  His search was complete except for the widow’s walk on the roof. He stood by the narrow door that led to the steps up the walk. In all his years of visits to Nutmeg Hill, he had never been on the widow’s walk. He shrugged. What the hell, there’s always a first time, he thought as he proceeded up the stairs with the service revolver tightly clutched in his hand.

  The roof was deserted except for a solitary crow that immediately took flight at his approach. He stood by one of the chimneys and looked out over the side lawns, then toward the tree lines on either side of the house, and finally down toward the river. He saw a small motorboat proceeding downstream and a coastal tanker making its way upstream toward the tank farms near Hartford. In the opposite direction he could see a church spire on the Murphysville town green. The single-story police services building two blocks from the green was obscured by intervening trees, but he knew its exact location by instinct, just as he knew all the dimensions of his domain.

  Movement by the edge of the pines to the north attracted his attention.

  Lyon Wentworth, hunched and bloody, stumbled toward the house. In one hand he clutched the hilt of a long sword that he dragged across the grass.

  ‘Lyon!’ Rocco bellowed.

  Lyon looked toward the house in a bewildered manner and continued his stumbling forward movement.

  Rocco took the stairs two at a time and reached the front door as Lyon lurched through the entryway.

  The broadsword clattered to the floor and Lyon leaned against the wall. His breath came in short gasps. It took a few minutes before he registered Rocco’s presence. A half smile of recognition and relief crossed his face. ‘My God, Rocco,’ he said in a choked voice. ‘Something happened to me out there last night and I’m not sure what.’ He stumbled forward and grasped the stair banister with both hands.

  Rocco noticed that the touch left bloody prints on the burnished wood. His friend’s torn shirt was covered in blood, with streaks down the length of his khaki pants and across his face.

  Rocco overcame his initial surprise and moved quickly to help his friend. He placed his hands on Lyon’s shoulders and gently forced him down until he sat on the steps. ‘Easy now. Do you know where you’re hurt?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m concerned about shock.’ He strode down the hall into the living room, where he grasped the edge of a heavy window drape and yanked it from its runners. Bundling the material, he reached through the swinging door into the kitchen and snicked the phone from its wall mount.

  ‘Damn,’ he said into the dead phone as he recalled that the lines were out. Rocco hurried back to Lyon and began to wrap him in the drape. ‘I’ll get the first-aid kit from the car and radio for an ambulance. Hold on, old buddy, and we’ll pull you through.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m hurt, Rocco. This isn’t my blood.’

  ‘You look like a fugitive from a fire fight. Are you sure you’re all right? What in the hell happened?’

  ‘I’m OK, just dazed,’ Lyon insisted as he unwound himself from the drape and stumbled up the stairs toward the master bedroom.

  Rocco followed as his friend stripped off his bloody clothes and dropped them in the center of the bedroom floor. Lyon stepped into the shower and turned the water on full force.

  Police Chief Rocco Herbert stared down at the pile of bloody clothing heaped on the floor. He grimaced as he pulled out a mechanical pencil from his breast pocket. He inserted the point under the edge of the torn clothing and gingerly lifted the sport shirt and khaki pants into the acetate evidence bag he always carried folded in a rear pocket.

  ‘You know, I could send this stuff to the state forensic lab for testing.’ There was no answer from the man in the shower. ‘Do you have any cuts? Perhaps a nosebleed that would account for the blood?’ Still no answer. He sealed the evidence bag and continued staring at it. ‘Can you hear me in there, Lyon? This could be damn important.’

  The water was abruptly shut off. Lyon came out of the bathroom wearing a terry-cloth robe and toweling his hair. The shower seemed to have refreshed him to the point where his manner had begun a return to normalcy.

  ‘There’s not a cut on me except for a bruise on my forehead,’ Lyon said. ‘That isn’t my blood on the clothes.’ He threw the towel toward a hamper in the corner of the bathroom. It missed and draped over the sink, where it hung loosely toward the floor.

  ‘Then whose blood is it?’

  Lyon Wentworth lowered himself on to a straight chair near the mirrored clothes closet, where he dressed in khaki pants and a sports shirt similar to the bloody clothes in the bag at Rocco’s feet. The two men in the bedroom of the house on the promontory high above the Connecticut River were a study in contrast. Lyon was a tall slender man with a shock of sandy brown hair that often fell in an unruly forelock. A children’s book writer, he was well known for the Wobblies, a pair of benign monsters who specialized in adventure and rescue. His fey grin, usually accompanied by a somewhat bemused look, often made him appear distracted.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ Rocco snapped.

  ‘I think I’ve pieced together what happened to me last night,’ Lyon said.

  ‘Where did you get that gigantic pig sticker you dragged across the lawn?’ Rocco pressed.

  Lyon shook his head in a gesture of confusion. ‘It was evidently left by my attacker. The whole bit had the feel of a nightmare, but it was real enough.’

  ‘Please explain.’

  ‘Since I dragged the sword home, I obviously wasn’t dreaming. I think I may have been drugged with some sort of hallucinogen.’

  ‘Tell me what you remember.’

  As he finished dressing, Lyon described the attack in the dark by the hooded figure with the sword. ‘I thought I was going to be killed,’ he concluded.

  ‘And you have no idea who it was?’

  ‘Its face was obscured by the cowl of the robe.’

  ‘Could it have been Morgan playing another one of his sadistic games?’

  ‘Not tall enough for Morgan,’ Lyon responded.

  It was Rocco’s turn to shake his head. ‘People running around in the middle of the night waving crusader swords? What is this?’

  ‘When I woke up, the sword was sticking upright in the ground not ten feet from where I was,’ Lyon said. ‘It was late and dark. Whoever attacked me thought I was Morgan. They pursued me until they discovered at the last moment that I was not Morgan. That’s when they backed off and left the sword and blood as a sign of some sort. If we have the blood tested, I wager it’s not human blood.’

  ‘Maybe. What about Morgan? Isn’t that his RV in the drive?’

  ‘He sleeps and eats in there,’ Lyon answered. ‘But the way he’s got that thing constructed, he’s safe enough.’

  ‘Is he in there now?’

  ‘As far as I know.’

  ‘He didn’t open the door for me. When I first arrived, I pounded on the door loud enough to wake the … I think we had better have a look.’

  Lyon led the way down the wide stairs to the front door that led into the drive. ‘How about coffee before we wake Morgan up?’

  ‘Come on! I can’t do anything until I see if that guy is all right.’

  ‘I guarantee it,’ Lyon said. ‘He gave me the guided tour the other day and I’d feel safe in that RV during a war.’

  Rocco circled the Winnebago. ‘Well, I hope so, because I can’t get inside it. I think we had better find out if we have a crime scene here. I checked all the rooms and didn’t find a thi
ng. Was anyone else here overnight?’

  ‘No. There were a few people over for drinks and barbecue but everyone left except Morgan. He locked himself in his RV fairly early on. Bea’s away at a conference for women legislators in Washington and will be back sometime later today.’

  ‘I know. She’s concerned about the threats to Morgan and called me at home this morning. She said she’d been trying to get in touch with you for hours, but the phones are out of order.’ Rocco pounded on the side of the RV. ‘Morgan! I kid you not, open the door.’

  Rocco appraised the modified RV again. ‘I estimate that doing what he did to this vehicle would have set me back about two years’ salary.’

  ‘I know the amount of your salary, since it’s in the town’s annual report, so make that about three years’ worth.’

  Rocco began to impatiently pound on the side of the Winnebago. ‘Damn it, Morgan! Open this can of tuna fish or you’re getting a citation. You hear me? It’s going to cost you a fine.’

  ‘Morgan is contrary. He opens up when and if he chooses to,’ Lyon said.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Rocco said with a twinge of anger. ‘Well, I think something’s happened out here. Look at that.’ He pointed to a thin trail of blood across the drive that the sword had left as Lyon dragged it to the house. ‘Something’s damn sure coming down unless you were hunting rodents with that crusader impaler.’

  Lyon shook his head. ‘You’re an alarmist. I’m still convinced that’s animal blood meant for a warning. Morgan’s OK unless someone put a lot of pounds of plastic explosives underneath the RV, which they obviously haven’t. He modified the thing for protection and I think he succeeded.’

  Rocco stalked around the vehicle as he examined it for damage or means of entry. ‘Hell, I don’t know. Maybe they gassed him through the air vents or something.’

  ‘He anticipated that possibility and installed an air-filtration system. It’s built into that air-conditioning unit on the roof.’

  ‘Isn’t there a way to get into this damn thing?’