Death at King Arthur's Court

by Forrest, Richard;

‘It was a natural mistake. I picked her up in a dimly lit bar where she wasn’t legally supposed to be.’

  ‘You should have known she was underage by the Barbie doll she was carrying.’

  ‘She lied to me.’

  In an unspoken agreement, Lyon moved clockwise and Bea counterclockwise around the perimeter of the room. They had selected their objectives without words. Lyon would disarm Ernest while Bea went for Garth’s pistol. The two antagonists seemed unaware of the Wentworths’ movement.

  ‘You two are being very childish,’ Bea said.

  ‘Stay out of the line of fire,’ Ernest replied. ‘Tinkerbell is going to Never Never Land.’

  ‘Good God, Ernest! Can’t you be more original than that?’ Garth snorted.

  ‘I’ll polish my eulogy for you.’

  When they were in position a few feet on either side of the two men with the weapons, Lyon nodded at Bea, who acknowledged the signal.

  They stepped toward their targets. Bea grabbed Garth’s wrist with both hands and pushed his arm toward the ceiling. Lyon deflected the stock of Ernest’s rifle toward the floor as he wrenched it from the other man’s grasp.

  Lyon slung the rifle over his shoulder and went to help Bea take the pistol from Garth. It occurred to him that possibly they had allowed themselves to be disarmed as a solution to the impasse.

  ‘I am astonished at you two,’ Bea said. ‘Is that pistol registered, Garth?’

  ‘It’s a war souvenir.’

  ‘It still has to be licensed. Both of you are guilty of assault, but of course you know that. You are also guilty of weapons charges. If you were arrested on either charge it would end the question of who chairs what very quickly.’

  ‘You both knew about the charges against each other,’ Lyon said. ‘How come? Which one of you has Morgan’s stolen file?’

  They shook their heads in denial.

  ‘Morgan was at Xanadu for dinner around the first of the year,’ Garth said. ‘He began to laugh about Ernest’s claim to be the great white hunter, since his eyesight was so bad. He chortled and said a man who couldn’t spot an underage girl was going to have difficulty in the bush. That’s when he told us about the Darlene incident.’

  Ernest looked stunned. ‘My sister and I had him over for dinner last winter. When he started to talk about the Biloxi incident, I thought it was too much wine …’

  ‘Too much sadism,’ Bea said. ‘It all sounds pretty calculated to me.’

  ‘If he wasn’t already dead …’ Garth started to say.

  ‘We could do it together,’ Ernest finished.

  Lyon and Bea looked at each other with a glance that wondered if perhaps there was more truth to Ernest’s facetious remark than intended. It might be possible that these arch enemies were far more cooperative than previously believed.

  Rina Dickensen’s Exercise Place was an isolated brick building located on Route 154 near its intersection with Hilltop Road. Lyon pulled into the wide parking lot and parked behind Rina’s van. He sipped the last of lukewarm coffee in its Styrofoam container. It was nearly ten a.m. and the health club’s answering service had told him that Rina would have free time after her nine o’clock class.

  Rina and Skee had refurbished the building, which had a varied history before their occupancy. It had originally been a movie theater with an adjacent ice-cream parlor. For two decades it had been a popular dating place for the young, but had closed after the mall opened a multiplex cinema with six movie screens. A dinner theater replaced the movie theatre. Poor talent and worse food quickly forced bankruptcy. The next owners, who seemed to have murky Providence mob connections, opened a topless nightclub with overly ambitious barmaids. It took Rocco’s constant patrols and Bea’s intervention with the state liquor commission nearly nine months to hound them out of existence. The building had been vacant for nearly two years until leased by Rina and remodeled into her Exercise Place, with an adjoining health-food store.

  Lyon wondered if there was a parable of our times in the building’s history.

  The Exercise Place layout channeled customers through the health food in order to reach the workout rooms and gym area in the rear.

  Lyon walked down an aisle surrounded by shelves of beta carotene and antioxidants. Massive exercise equipment loomed at the rear of the store. Every item seemed to critique his sedentary lifestyle. Their diet at Nutmeg Hill had a high protein concentration, with liberal servings of breads, pastas and sauces. His work at the computer screen kept him nearly motionless for hours. This combination probably foretold massive health problems lurking around some distant corner. Well, at least I don’t smoke, he thought.

  Music overwhelmed him the instant he pushed through the double doors into the club’s reception area. Speakers mounted on either side of the observation window that overlooked the aerobic exercise area blared a loud rendition of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. The crescendo accompanied by cannon fire meant that Moscow had been captured, but the Russians were counterattacking. He stood at the window watching a dozen bodies attempting to sync with the rather bizarre exercise music. Rina, in a tight black leotard, led the exercises from a low platform.

  The women’s violent thrashing increased as the music swelled to a climax. Clenched hands and strained faces indicated maximum exertion. Rina’s face was impassive as she reached out to exhort the others to increased effort. The pace of their movements increased as the music reached its final notes.

  Many of the participants sank to the floor in exhaustion when the music faded, while others bent over to grasp their knees and gasp for breath. Rina left the platform and immediately went through a door at the rear.

  The women slowly recovered and began to file silently through the reception area toward the dressing rooms. Some glared at him with suspicion, while others seemed disinterested to the point of disorientation.

  On the far side of the workout room was a hallway which led to the rear area that had swallowed Rina. He walked down the hall to a door marked office. He heard a shower running as he knocked.

  ‘Come in, Lyon,’ she called through closed doors. ‘It’s open.’

  He stepped into a combination living-office space. In one corner a simple table with graceful lines and fluted legs acted as a desk. A computer and fax machine were nearby. A living-room section composed of a couch and easy chairs grouped around a lobster-pot coffee table occupied the center of the room. The far corner contained a kitchen partitioned by a bar counter flanked with tall-backed stools. The walls contained photographs, awards and mixed memorabilia in an eclectic mixture of sporting events, rock groups, and photographs of soaring eagles.

  ‘How did you know it was me?’ he called over the running shower.

  ‘Saw you watching the session,’ she said as the door to the shower room swung back against the wall. Rina stepped out of the shower on to a thick shag rug and reached for a large terry-cloth towel.

  Lyon was not surprised at the sight of her body, but he was disturbed at the extent of his own arousal. He would have thought that after last night’s session in the mountain laurel that his urges would be under better control. There was a fascinating attraction in her lithe body movements. She dried herself in slow circular sweeps that were so lingering as to be erotic. He was astonished at the animal sensuality she exuded.

  She turned to face him with a feral look of seduction that somehow combined with animal innocence. He felt that he was in a situation where he must either respond to her seduction or ignore it with an act of complacent normality.

  ‘Your students didn’t seem to be having much fun,’ he said after opting for normalcy.

  ‘They’re not supposed to enjoy. My classes aren’t designed to tuck in tummies and make them more agile bed partners. My method teaches political awareness and emphasizes feminine power.’

  ‘I never thought of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia as a women’s cause.’

  She stiffened. The towel fluttered forgotten to the floor. ‘As a man, you’d
prefer Ravel’s Bolero? Or possibly a brassy striptease theme? Overture has testosterone! Got that, Wentworth? My women get power hormones!’

  ‘An interesting concept,’ Lyon agreed. He wondered why his present life seemed so involved with a man fascinated with cojones and a female sexual acrobat intrigued with male hormones. ‘Actually, I’m married to an active feminist,’ he said casually as a bridge to end this avenue of conversation.

  ‘You don’t really think that? You don’t really think Bea is a feminist? How can you possibly believe that she helps the cause?’

  ‘Her political record speaks for itself.’

  ‘It certainly does!’ Her anger was so apparent that Lyon had the momentary feeling he had released some mythological beast. ‘In the black community an Uncle Tom is despicable. Among the sisterhood, your wife, the infamous Senator Wentworth, is an Aunt Beatrice. She is a sycophant who throws sops to women by introducing a few inconsequential bills dictated by the male-dominated power elite.’

  ‘Wait a minute, Rina. Her work on maternity leave and child-care centers has gotten national attention.’

  ‘Of course!’ The phrase was delivered in a shout. ‘Because she is doing their bidding! We are oppressed! We do not need to have our real needs hidden by such subterfuge. She gives us a few minor laws while our bodies scream for real nourishment.’

  ‘Why am I defending my wife’s politics to a naked lady?’ Lyon said aloud in a wondering tone.

  ‘Because for once you are confronted with a real woman. An Aunt Beatrice wears cute little nighties to bed. An Aunt Beatrice lies coyly on the pillows making a childlike smile as she attempts to entice a man.’

  ‘Recently she’s been interested in flower beds, but that’s something I’m not getting into. Rina, I am not going to argue my wife with you. Now, where’s Skee?’

  The tension immediately left her body as if she had suddenly become completely disinterested in the argument. Her enigmatic smile returned. ‘I give the aerobic classes and Skee handles the gym. We’ll find him there as soon as we finish.’ She walked toward him with a pronounced sway of her hips. She placed the towel in his hands and turned. ‘Do my back.’

  Lyon fought the temptation. ‘I only do one woman’s back,’ he said.

  Rina laughed. Her hands gently touched both sides of his face and then moved down to his fingers, which she placed on her hips. She pressed closer. He found that it was impossible to move without entangling himself even further in her embrace.

  She stepped abruptly away. ‘I know you are good friends with Garth. Perhaps you are gay?’

  ‘I am adequately heterosexual, although I am not going to prove the point right now.’

  ‘Most men find me very interesting when it comes to intimate encounters.’

  ‘Skee is just down the hall in the gym.’

  ‘He wouldn’t dare come in here unannounced. Take off your clothes.’

  ‘Damn it all, Rina! Will you stop it?’

  She smiled and again narrowed the distance between them. ‘Your resolve has about run down, right?’

  ‘Wrong. I love my wife.’

  ‘Who said that sex had anything to do with marriage?’

  ‘Why are you playing this game, Rina? You’ve got a younger partner who is probably strong enough to break me in half.’

  ‘And a stupid male. Skee is useful, but without will or resolve, which makes his conquest trivial.’ The enigmatic smile that haunted Lyon returned when she cocked her head. ‘You are physically afraid of Skee. Yes, of course. That’s the reason for your hesitation.’

  All things considered, Lyon felt that exhibiting a wide streak of cowardice to this neurotically seductive woman would be the best possible alternative. ‘You are right,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t intend to become the strangled hypotenuse in a messy love triangle.’

  ‘Skee always does exactly as I tell him. If I say that you and I are lovers, he will merely shrug and turn away.’

  ‘I’m not anxious to test that sort of loyalty,’ Lyon said. ‘But I would like to ask you both about the night of Morgan’s murder.’

  ‘There’s nothing to ask. After we left your place, we returned here and made love. That couch converts, and we slept here. It went on all night, Lyon. The man was an insatiable stallion until he met me.’

  ‘Then he’s bound to remember the night, isn’t he?’

  ‘Why don’t we go ask him?’ Rina said as she petulantly slipped into a robe and sandals.

  The gym door was locked. ‘It’s never locked,’ Rina said as she pounded on the door. ‘Open the damn door, Skee!’

  ‘He might have gone out,’ Lyon said.

  ‘Not without telling me, he wouldn’t. I’ll get the master key.’ She ran to her office and hurried back carrying a large key ring. She rumbled through eight or nine keys until she located the one that opened the gym’s door.

  It was dark inside the room until Rina flicked several buttons on the panel switch near the door. Three fluorescent lights positioned over the floor-length mirrors on the far wall flickered on. The hulking shadows of exercise machines cast bar patterns across the aisle that led down the center of the room.

  Lyon saw Skee prone on a bench press in front of the mirrors. His hands were curled over a barbell holding two hundred pounds of weight. If Lyon hadn’t known the room had been dark until seconds ago, he would assume that Skee had momentarily paused before attempting the heavy lift.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ Rina said as they started toward Skee. She began to run. ‘Something is very wrong!’ She reached the bench ahead of Lyon and knelt next to her lover before she screamed.

  Lyon put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her away. Rina buried her head in his shoulder. Lyon saw the dead face reflected in the mirrors that ran the length of the wall. There was no way to avoid the swollen features of the prone bodybuilder stretched out on the bench. His hands were curled over the heavy barbell that lay across his neck. It was apparent that in addition to crushing the windpipe and causing asphyxiation, the weight must have squeezed the carotid arteries and closed the blood supply to the brain.

  It had taken Skee a minute to die. The contorted face guaranteed that it had been a painful time.

  Eleven

  Rina sat stiffly on the seat of an exercise machine. She gazed blankly ahead with the haunted look of a combat-weary soldier’s 1,000-yard stare. Lyon wondered if she were in shock, although her respirations seemed to be within normal limits. He decided she was well enough to leave for a few minutes and hurried from the gym to the phone in her office-apartment. He dialed 911 and requested a police and medical examiner response before returning to the gym.

  ‘The police and emergency units will be here shortly,’ he told her.

  One shoulder shifted slightly in a nearly imperceptible acknowledgment. He watched her for a few moments before he began a search of the area. The exercise room was square and windowless with a single entrance. He threw additional light switches on the panel by the door until a series of florescent ceiling fixtures flickered on and bathed the room in a harsh, bright light. On the right of the center aisle were rows of skeletal exercise machines. Stationary bikes lined the left. The floor-to-ceiling mirrors on the far wall did not relieve the room’s harsh black and white texture. The exit door did not have an interior lock or handles and was opened by a push plate. It could only be locked from the outside.

  Rina muttered something indistinguishable. ‘What did you say?’ Lyon asked.

  Words finally burst from her in a staccato delivery. ‘I want it out of here. I want that body out of my place!’

  ‘That will be taken care of as soon as the assistant medical examiner makes a preliminary examination.’

  ‘I do not like dead things. I don’t want it here.’

  ‘How did the gym door get locked?’ he asked.

  ‘Skee was trying to power-lift too much weight. He couldn’t handle it. He wasn’t able to get the barbell back on the stand. When he lost his grip it f
ell and crushed his neck.’

  Lyon wondered how Skee managed to get into the hall and lock himself in the gym. Her vacant stare had returned and he expected little positive response from any further questions.

  Outside the building, a patrol car’s screeching halt coincided with the sounds of its dying siren. A door slammed and running footsteps pounded through the health-food store. Patrolman Jamie Martin arrived at the gym carrying the car’s shotgun in one hand and an emergency first-aid kit in the other. Lyon considered that these opposing preparations were confused but admirable.

  ‘Where’s the victim?’ the young patrolman asked with an edge of apprehension.

  Lyon nodded toward the rear of the room as he continued his examination of the door. The argument over the corpse began almost immediately.

  ‘Don’t touch the victim!’ Jamie yelled.

  ‘Get it out of here. I want it gone!’ was Rina’s harsh reply.

  ‘Stop touching the deceased! This is a police crime scene.’

  Lyon suspected the cause of the argument without returning to the exercise room to confront the situation directly. He would just as soon not get involved any further with Rina. He had hoped that Jamie Martin might be able to handle the situation. He wasn’t optimistic. Dealing with Rina seemed to require an oblique mental approach rather than rational diplomacy.

  A soft shuffling sound followed by yelps from Jamie signaled that the problem had reached a critical mass. Lyon returned to the gym to find Rina dragging the corpse along the floor by its wrist. The exertion had caused her to lose the belt of her robe so that the garment flapped open exposing her remarkable gymnast figure.

  Jamie Martin was torn. He knew that duty required that he subdue the woman and take control of the deceased, but such action required that he touch her, a course of action that simultaneously fascinated and repelled him.

  Rina continued dragging her dead lover toward the hall.

  ‘What in hell’s going on here!’ Captain Norbert bellowed as two state police trooper corporals rushed down the gym aisle. As the police reinforcements wrestled with Rina in an attempt to handcuff her to one of the exercise machines, they succeeded in knocking her robe completely off her shoulders. ‘I asked what in the hell is going on? Good Christ almighty, it’s Wentworth! We find another stiff and who is here but Wentworth again. You are around more dead bodies than a funeral director.’