Death at King Arthur's Court

by Forrest, Richard;

  ‘Don’t touch a damn thing,’ Captain Norbert said.

  ‘I thought the lab work had been completed?’ Bea asked.

  ‘It has, but I don’t want some smartass defense attorney discovering that we let civilians search the murder scene. He’d be certain to create inanities to confuse some retard jury.’

  Bea rolled her eyes at Lyon.

  ‘Can I turn on the RV’s interior lights?’ Lyon asked.

  ‘No,’ Norbert answered. ‘I’ll do it.’ He reached inside and threw a switch. ‘The bodies are falling like ten pins in Murphysville and I have a politico checking on a stale murder scene.’

  ‘Morgan’s death is the first piece of the puzzle,’ Lyon said. ‘If we can find out how the killer got into the locked van, it might give us a lead to who he is. It would be a start toward finding our way out of the whole maze.’

  ‘The killer’s already in custody.’

  Captain Norbert made Bea once again consider the political reality of fascism. The partial infrastructure for a full fascist dictatorship was already in place.

  Lyon stepped inside the recreational vehicle. Blood-spattered walls attested to the furious carnage that had occurred here. During the mini-second that the heart continued beating, the blood spout must have been immense.

  As he walked slowly down the center aisle, he noted that the vehicle was still an impregnable fortress. The armor plates that Morgan had lowered over the windows had not been removed. The front of the vehicle containing the driver’s area was still untouched. The heavy windshield glass, similar to that used on armored trucks, was still secure. The doors in the driver’s compartment had been welded shut.

  There was only one entrance to the RV and that had been closed and securely locked on the night of the murder. And yet, someone had found a way to enter and kill Morgan. The murderer had left with the RV still locked.

  Lyon was convinced that he was the only person who knew the combination of the door. Bea’s intuitive guess pinpointed where his scribbled number reminder was kept, but no one else would have that knowledge. It seemed unlikely that Clay had accidentally discovered the numbers and immediately recognized the unlabeled symbols for what they were.

  Did Morgan let someone in voluntarily?

  On several occasions on the night of Morgan’s murder, Lyon had seen various individuals attempt to get inside the RV. Morgan had turned everyone away, including his lover from Boston.

  ‘God, it’s hot in here,’ Bea said.

  ‘The deceased put in one hell of a giant air conditioner because of the armor,’ Norbert said. He pointed to the large unit’s vent in the center of the ceiling. ‘But you guys can swelter or leave, because we’re not turning it on.’

  Lyon ran his hands over the ceiling and around the air-conditioning vent. His fingers moved over the vent louvers. Bea watched his actions with interest and seemed to sense his thought process.

  ‘Don’t mess with things, OK?’ Captain Norbert said.

  ‘I believe this unit is merely set down into the roof and is not bolted to the frame,’ Lyon said.

  ‘We are not idiots here, Wentworth,’ Norbert said. ‘That fact was noted. We examined the roof from the outside and found no scratches or tool marks. We checked with the manufacturer. That unit would require at least four or five very strong guys to lift. If a tow truck or other such winch device were used to move the unit, it would cause drag marks across the roof. No way was that unit taken out of that ceiling without leaving some sort of marks on the roof.’

  Lyon stopped his examination. ‘In that case, there’s no way to get in here except through the door.’

  ‘None that I can see,’ Bea responded. ‘And yet we know the door was locked.’

  ‘Will you two stop underestimating the professionalism of my command?’

  ‘Your men weren’t able to find any means of access, either through the frame or under the chassis?’ Lyon asked the state police officer.

  ‘No. There are no removable panels, traps, or anything of that nature. The deceased obviously knew the killer and admitted him of his own volition.’

  ‘I thought you were convinced that Winston Crawford was the killer?’ Lyon asked.

  ‘He talked his way in then,’ Captain Norbert said with a flush. ‘Hell, who knows? Maybe Morgan was worried about the publicity damaging the university’s reputation.’

  ‘That night he didn’t seem inclined to let anyone inside,’ Lyon countered. ‘Much less an anarchist sworn to kill him.’

  ‘I don’t believe in the tooth fairy or locked-room murders,’ Norbert said. ‘There’s a simple explanation for the killer’s means of entry. He came through the door. What could be more logical? And if I remember correctly, Wentworth, you had the combination to the door and were half swacked that night. You also ended up with the murder weapon. If Crawford didn’t do it, we’re back to square one. And guess who’s numero uno on that square? You, Wentworth. Are we through in here now? I’m hot as hell.’

  Bea Wentworth turned the pickup’s air conditioner on high as they drove toward Proman’s Salvage Yard on the Murphysville Turnpike. ‘That didn’t accomplish much,’ she said. ‘We’re no further along than we were. Maybe Norbert is right. The anarchist did it.’

  The van stopped at the curb a block from the police services building. The driver looked with astonishment at the four parking places directly in front of the building. A telephone repair truck and a red convertible occupied two of those spots. The other two were vacant. Senator Wentworth’s compact car was not to be seen.

  It was obvious that there had been no explosion here. The bomb had not gone off. But that was impossible. The material was of the finest quality and had been field tested in a remote Maine location. The detonation device was of simple design with more than adequate power from the car’s own electrical system.

  There was absolutely no way that bomb would not go off once that starter engine turned over. It had to blow, unless … and there was only one possible explanation—unless it had been discovered. The insertion of the device must have been observed by someone knowledgeable enough to realize what was happening. That risk was always a possibility, although quite remote.

  If that were the case and the device was properly disarmed and recovered, bomb experts would be working on the origin of the parts at this very moment. Forensics laboratory people would lift fingerprints from the material.

  No care had been taken to avoid prints on the explosive packages. Why bother to take such precautions when they were going to blow into a thousand fragments?

  If they did not have names already, they might shortly.

  The two people responsible must pay.

  Lyon drove the pickup into Proman’s Salvage Yard. He stopped in front of a peeling house trailer set on concrete blocks, which acted as the office. There was a surrealistic aura to the devastated automobiles that surrounded them in varying degrees of destruction. On the right were dozens of high stacks containing crushed machines, each barely two feet in width. On their left was a vast graveyard of wrecked automobiles that stretched for acres. Interspersed throughout the yard were piles of parts divided into hub caps, doors, hoses, and inexplicably, baby car seats.

  Ralston Proman’s greying hair was clipped in a short crew-cut. He wore an American Legion overseas hat and a silk-screened tee shirt which read ‘Remember Korea’. He slouched over to the pickup’s window and leaned on the sill. ‘Give you fifty bucks for this heap and not a penny more. Only that generous cuz you were able to drive it in here.’ His jaw drooped as he looked past Lyon. ‘Senator Wentworth! I didn’t expect to see you being driven around in a mess like this.’

  Bea waved a greeting and beamed her best political smile. ‘Good morning, Ralston. I was afraid I’d miss you because it’s lunch hour.’

  ‘They’re painting the Legion today, Senator, otherwise I’d be belly up to the bar talking old war times with my buddies.’

  ‘It would seem that they impounded my car, Ralsto
n,’ Bea said.

  Proman stepped backward as if struck in the chest by a massive blow. ‘Must be a mistake, Senator Wentworth. Why, if the guys down at the Legion knew that, we’d ‘a put a human shield around your vehicle.’

  ‘Thank you, Ralston,’ Bea said with another ingratiating smile, ‘but I don’t think human shields will be necessary today. Let me just pay the fee and drive away. I do have many errands,’ she said hopefully.

  ‘Hot damn!’ Proman said. ‘I shoulda’ known. The vehicle with the Legislator marker plate. I’ll get it for you, Senator. The keys were still in the ignition when they towed her in here. Be right back.’ He sprinted around the corner of the office as fast as aging legs and incipient cirrhosis allowed.

  ‘Why do I have a feeling that this state is going to gain a very large Korean War Memorial?’ Bea said.

  Lyon started to answer as a massive explosion spewed wreckage high in the air. They ducked as close to the engine firewall as they could huddle as metal began to fall in a hail of scrap around the battered pickup.

  Fifteen

  Bea Wentworth’s legs were rigid as they shoved against the pickup’s floorwell. Her fingers pressed against the dashboard, which pushed her shoulders deep into the seat cushions. She stared blankly ahead as small jaw muscles pulsated in an uneven rhythm.

  Lyon leaned against the outside of the vehicle with his palms resting on the warm roof and his forehead pressed against the top rim of the window’s safety glass.

  Activity swelled in the salvage yard with the arrival of more vehicles. Sirens approached from two directions while the town’s fire alarm blared in the distance.

  The volunteer ambulance had been the last to arrive. Jamie Martin used chopping hand signals to direct two EMTs pushing a gurney toward Bea’s demolished car.

  Lyon waited for the inevitable.

  It took five seconds before the first EMT, Bert Tandrum, Murphysville’s corpulent Allstate Agent, scurried back around the edge of the office. He ran with bulging cheeks and both hands clamped tightly over his mouth. He barely made it behind the compressed car stack before he lost it.

  With the exception of two police officers, those at the scene were volunteers. They were tradesmen from shops near the green, or second and third shift workers donating free time to the community. They were the firemen hosing down smoldering pieces of strewn wreckage. They were the auxiliary police constables directing traffic in front of the salvage yard, and they were the Emergency Medical Technicians.

  The EMTs were trained for a crisis that included cardiac arrests, drownings, or car accidents. They had not expected to view the violent carnage the explosion had wreaked on Ralston Proman.

  ‘Can we leave?’ Bea asked. ‘I don’t know how much more of this I can take.’

  ‘As soon as possible,’ Lyon answered. ‘I thought we should wait until Rocco arrives and we give him some sort of statement.’

  ‘The bomb was meant for me,’ Bea said. ‘It was probably wired to the ignition. My car was towed in here, but it exploded the instant Proman started the engine. If I hadn’t driven you home last night, I would have started the car then.’

  There was no argument with her logic. Lyon had immediately perceived the significance of the sequence after the explosion. He had hoped her ignorance of bombs and detonators might keep her from putting it together.

  Jamie Martin swaggered toward them.

  ‘Oh, Lord,’ Lyon mumbled. ‘Don’t let what I think is happening to this officer actually be happening.’ He was seeing signs that unexpected authority had created its own monster.

  ‘Yo, Wentworth,’ Martin said. ‘I want Senator Wentworth down at the station for her trespassing arrest. Posthaste. Now.’

  ‘Somehow, Jamie, under the circumstances, that request pales into insignificance.’

  The young officer flushed. ‘Is the senator resisting arrest?’

  ‘Later, Jamie,’ Bea said tiredly. ‘Tomorrow OK?’

  ‘You did not seem to hear me,’ the police officer responded in the distinctly separated words of a drill sergeant. ‘Tomorrow is not satisfactory.’

  ‘We are going home,’ Lyon said as he slipped behind the wheel of the pickup and turned the ignition.

  ‘Don’t move that vehicle!’ Jamie said as he stepped in front of the truck. His hand slid toward his holster.

  ‘You touch that weapon and you will regret it for the rest of your life,’ Lyon said. Their eyes locked. ‘Where in the hell is Rocco?’

  The police officer’s fingers slid closer to the holstered revolver and then hesitated. ‘He had to go into Hartford to federal court. We have an emergency call in for him.’

  ‘Listen,’ Lyon said in a gentle voice. ‘You are in charge of this scene, Jamie. For God’s sake forget the trespassing for today and look around you. You have a victim whose family must be notified. Have you called the ME?’ Jamie looked blank. ‘You have a bomb situation here that is far beyond your capabilities. Ask the state for scientific help. They have bomb experts. Cordon this area off. Run the department like Rocco would if he were here. Can you do that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jamie hesitated another moment and then stepped aside. Lyon backed the pickup out of the salvage yard and began the drive to Nutmeg Hill.

  The roiling hate that had been partially defused with the shedding of blood was beginning to rise again. Its focus was narrowly directed toward the meddling couple who had complicated all future plans.

  The conclusion was simple. They must be destroyed. The original intention had been to kill the woman first. Through quirky luck they’d managed to overcome that threat, but at least the bomb had finally detonated. They were already suspicious, which put them on the alert and increased their investigative activities to the point where they might discover the truth.

  The Wentworths must perish! The next attempt would be simple in execution. The final attack would utilize the most direct and surest way to eliminate them.

  They would be dead before this day was out.

  They did not speak during the ride back to the house. From time to time Lyon looked at his wife as she stared grimly ahead. Her features were taut as she sat stiffly erect.

  ‘This killing has to stop,’ she said in a voice barely audible over the wheezing thump of the pickup’s laboring engine.

  ‘I know,’ Lyon replied.

  ‘If we don’t end it, it won’t stop until we’re dead.’

  Lyon was silent. There was no easy answer. ‘Since the legislature’s not in session, why don’t you go away for a few weeks?’

  ‘Like where?’ she asked without interest.

  ‘I was thinking of that place in Maine we went to a few years ago. You remember, the cottage on Little Diamond Island in Casco Bay? You’d be isolated and safe, with an opportunity to recharge your batteries.’

  She snapped him a sharp look. ‘You know I can’t do that and leave you alone.’

  ‘I’m concerned about your safety. That bomb was planted in your car, not in my truck.’

  ‘It was meant for both of us.’ Her outburst seemed to have drained her. She shifted on the seat until she was turned toward him. ‘I’m not going to live in terror. We’ll go through this together.’

  Lyon turned the pickup into the long drive that led up to the house. He unconsciously slowed as they neared the end of the promontory. Their home, perched on the highest point of the bluff, had darkened windows that bracketed the red front door in a manner that seemed to create a jack-o-lantern face. Once again the total effect had switched their home to a place of menace.

  Bea’s shiver told Lyon that the feeling of unease had been transmitted between them.

  ‘Even our house has changed,’ she said in a quiet voice.

  He parked near the front door and quickly left the truck. He stood in the center of the drive and visually searched the lawns and tree lines in all directions. The driveway down to the highway was empty. The fields on either side of the house contained only a lone brown rabbit momentarily
posture-frozen near the trees. The only movement was in the gentle wave of tall grass as a wind swept up from the river.

  She stood by his side. ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘I’m going to search the house and barn to make sure we’re secure,’ he said. ‘Later, we’ll write a statement for the police, but before that I want to think through all that’s happened. The best place to do that is up in the cloudhopper.’

  She groaned. ‘You have got to be kidding? We’re practically under siege, and you’re going to fly in the sky like a bobbing target in a shooting gallery.’

  ‘I’ll stay nearby and keep an eye on the roads and other approaches to the house.’

  ‘I still think you’re making a target of yourself. We’d be better off in a storm cellar.’

  ‘We don’t have a storm cellar,’ Lyon replied.

  ‘Maybe we both could go to Little Diamond Island?’ He shook his head and she knew that further argument was useless. Lyon could be a very stubborn person. She suspected that he expected some sort of imminent attack, and this was his way of placing himself in jeopardy in order to protect her.

  She followed as he walked briskly through the house, opening and shutting closet doors, looking into each room, and checking the security of window locks and doors. When he was convinced that no monsters lurked within their home, they searched the two outbuildings. They finished in the barn, where Lyon wheeled the balloon cart into the yard. He began to spread the envelope out on the grass preparatory to inflation.

  Bea picked up the parachute harness, which was attached to a ring hung below the balloon’s bottom aperture. She ran her fingers over the webbing and shook her head. ‘If you’re so intent on ballooning, why not fly in something substantial? At least you’d be in a real gondola and not dangling from a belt a thousand feet up. I’ll help you launch the Wobbly II, if you want?’

  ‘No, thanks. I can get the cloudhopper in the air fast and get down quickly if need be.’

  They worked as a well-trained team as they unrolled the envelope and arranged it for inflation. Lyon started the small compressor that blew air into the balloon until it was filled sufficiently for the interior to be heated. When the bag began to billow, he braced the propane burner across his waist. He directed the nozzle through the aperture, adjusted the propane gas flow, and lit it. The flame jet quickly heated the interior air. Slowly the balloon began to rise. It bobbed from side to side as hot air increased its buoyancy. When the bag was erect, he hooked the propane burner to the ring and tied a line to the metal mooring post anchored in cement by the barn.