The Wizard of Death

by Forrest, Richard;

  There was an immediate juxtaposition of fragmentary pictures from earlier in the day. Rocco, at the political rally on the green taking two small tow-headed children across the street, their fingers entwined in his. Rocco, kneeling, the Magnum sputtering calculated shots at spaced intervals toward the church steeple.

  “I thought you’d be interested in what I’ve turned up so far.”

  “Come on, Rocco. Don’t bait me like that. Bea and I knew Llewyn well. He was a friend more than a political ally of Bea’s. We’re as interested in your catching his killer as anyone in the state, but don’t try to grapple me into this. It’s headline stuff. You can get all the help you need.”

  “We did pretty well together the last time.”

  “I had a personal reason to work on the little girl’s killing.”

  Rocco didn’t answer. He poured himself another drink, sat back in the chair and twirled his glass. “Perhaps as an old friend you’d be interested in my shop talk.”

  “You’re as obvious as a rattlesnake. What about Captain Norbert?”

  “I’m only using the state police for lab work.”

  “Oh, great. An ego trip.” Seeing Rocco wince, Lyon regretted the remark. As Murphysville’s chief of police, Rocco commanded a force that sometimes totaled twelve men and was often sensitive about the mundane nature of his work.

  “No, Lyon. Not an ego trip.”

  “I’m sorry, and I am interested in your work, but in this instance there are other considerations. Bea is understandably very upset. It was pretty damn traumatic for her to be so close to the killing. I just can’t have myself involved in something so painful for her.… Hell, it’s not my job or my duty as a citizen.”

  “Didn’t say it was.”

  “You’re a big boy now.” That he was, Lyon thought. At six feet eight and 270 pounds, Rocco Herbert was the largest police officer in the state. “You’re also a bright man who will do all anyone can.”

  “We found the weapon in the church. A thirty-thirty, two shots fired.”

  “Shell casings?”

  “Two.”

  “I want to compliment you on your fast reaction at the green. Immediately picking out where the shots came from and returning fire must have disconcerted the sniper.”

  Rocco nodded noncommittally. “The lab checked out the rifle and established it as the murder weapon to the exclusion of all other rifles.”

  “Any prints?”

  “No.”

  “Damn it all, Rocco. You’re trying to involve me. Seriously, I have a wife who is upset, and a book to finish for a contract deadline.”

  “Because of his helmet, my description of the bike rider is no damn good. Of course we’ve made plaster casts of the tire marks. By the way, he got into the church through …”

  Lyon swiveled his chair and began to type: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of …”

  Rocco continued, raising his voice over the typing. “Back door of the church was unlocked and the sexton was out on the green listening to the speeches.”

  Exasperated, Lyon turned to face Rocco. “I will talk about old army times, you can give me the latest gossip from around town, we will commiserate together over the state of the world, but no murder details.”

  “The selectmen are going to be mad as hell over your wrecking the squad car.”

  “Me wreck it! We were chasing the bastard.”

  “You were driving. An unauthorized driver at that. You never could drive well, Lyon.”

  “It wouldn’t fit between the rocks.”

  “Shouldn’t have tried,” Rocco said and smiled.

  “Isn’t it time for you to go home?”

  “I need another belt,” Rocco said as he poured another drink.

  “You’re really hitting the stuff tonight.”

  The two men were quiet until Rocco eased himself from the leather chair and crossed to the fireplace. He put his glass on the mantel and ran his hand along the rough fieldstone for a moment before beginning to pace the room. “There’s something …” His voice trailed off.

  “I absolutely refuse to ask what,” Lyon said and found himself discomfited by the obvious agitation in his friend. “It’s not all incumbent on you, Rocco. As I said, the state has a host of back-up facilities to help you. No one in the world expects you to tackle the case with your small force.”

  “I have to tell you.” The brittle words died away in the quiet room.

  “Something I really should know?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Rocco said softly.

  “You had better get it over with.”

  “It’s in the car. I’ll be right back.”

  Rocco left, and in a few minutes Lyon heard the slam of a car trunk. Fear slipped into the room. His study had always been a refuge, a place away from the world, a sanctuary which had now become filled with apprehension. He knew his friend well enough to discern that he was concerned, and that the concern dealt with Lyon.

  Rocco returned carrying a large case and a portable movie screen. Wordlessly he set up the screen and positioned the projector.

  “If it’s pornographic I don’t want to see it,” Lyon said with an attempted laugh. “Unless she’s terrific.”

  “Uh-huh,” Rocco replied as he bent to plug in the movie projector.

  “If it’s a film monument to that great day you tagged fourteen cars for speeding on Route Sixty-six, I’m already bored.”

  Rocco reached over and snapped off the desk lamp and turned on the projector. “Debbie Williams took the film this afternoon at the green.”

  “She’s only sixteen.”

  “I know, and the camera is one of those Kodak deals that sell for thirty or forty dollars. The state lab rushed a print for me.”

  They fell silent as Rocco adjusted the focus. As the film started, Lyon noticed that the camera wavered and frames blurred and sometimes slipped out of focus. He conjectured that the camera was a recent acquisition of the young girl’s and that perhaps the filming of the activities on the green was her cinematic baptism.

  “She got it yesterday on her birthday,” Rocco said. “The camera, I mean.”

  “Figures,” Lyon replied.

  The camera panned to a beautiful, belligerent black face. “Hey, that’s Kimberly Ward,” Lyon said with delight. Kim lived in the apartment over the Wentworth garage with her teenage daughter. She was Bea’s administrative assistant, secretary and factotum for the Wentworths—when she wasn’t organizing protest marches. The camera moved from Kim’s face to the placard she was carrying. It paused there for a moment, and they could read the sign:

  “WELFARE LAWS ARE UNFAIR”

  “I get it,” Lyon said. “You’re arresting Kim for unlawful protest without a permit.”

  “No. Just watch.”

  Spasmodic camera shots showed the green filling with people, the speakers arriving, and part of the speech given by the congressman. At one point the camera tilted in a skewed angle, swerved away from the speaker’s platform and slid along the green, showing Amsten House and the Congregational Church. Rocco stopped the projector. He reversed the machine for a moment and then started it forward. The shots of the house and church slid past. Rocco again stopped the machine and isolated the church.

  “We were able to blow this frame up,” he said. “The astronomy department at the university isolated it and used a computer method developed for some of those space fly-bys. Look at the definition on the blowup.” He switched on the light and propped up a fifteen-by-fourteen picture of the church.

  “I can see him in there!” Lyon said. In the dark recess behind the belfry window, partway up the steeple, the definite image of a man holding a rifle could be discerned. “Too many shadows. You’ll never get an ID on that.”

  “I know, but I thought you might like to see it.”

  “Hey, no kidding, Rocco. I’m not being coy. I really don’t want to get involved.”

  “That’s not why I brought this stuff here. Ke
ep watching.” He turned off the light and again started the projector. Bea was at the speaker’s podium making her introductory remarks for Randolph Llewyn. Even though Lyon knew what was coming, the muscles in his stomach tightened and he could feel the perspiration forming in the palms of his hands.

  As the introduction drew to a close, he could follow the movement of Bea’s lips. “The camera’s close in.”

  “First row,” Rocco mumbled.

  Lyon knew what Bea was saying: “A fine lawyer, dedicated family man, I give you the next governor of this state, Randolph Llewyn.”

  He saw his wife turn quickly and reach for Llewyn. Llewyn stood and was immediately flung backward by the impact of the bullet.

  The camera pointed to the sky, and then went dark. After the shots Debbie had probably flung herself to the ground as many others had.

  “I’m going to run the last few feet again,” Rocco said. “In slow motion.”

  Again Lyon watched the film and saw Bea finish her remarks, turn quickly from the podium and reach toward Llewyn. Llewyn died again and the film was finished.

  “Oh, my God,” Lyon said, and knew why Rocco had wanted him to see the film.

  “Yes,” Rocco replied.

  “Run it in slow motion again.”

  For the third time they watched Randolph Llewyn’s last filmed moments. Lyon felt his fingers cramp as he clutched the chair arms.

  Catapulting from the desk chair, he flung open the study door and staggered to the downstairs lavatory, where he vomited repeatedly into the toilet bowl. When the peristaltic motions subsided, he washed his face in very cold water, toweled himself and walked slowly back to the study.

  Rocco had poured another drink.

  “Do you think it’s conclusive?” Lyon asked.

  “I’m afraid so. I’ve had blowups made of the last few frames.”

  “I’d like to see them,” Lyon said as he moved his manuscript and typewriter from the desk.

  Rocco adjusted the lamp and spread the film blowups across the desk. He arranged them in frame sequence, starting at the top right-hand corner of the desk. They showed Bea’s last remark, her turn, Llewyn’s standing and then falling under the shot, and the second shot’s point of impact.

  “What’s the elapsed time from this frame to this frame?” Lyon asked, pointing.

  “Half a second.”

  “Exact distance from the steeple window to the platform?”

  “Two hundred and nineteen yards.”

  “Scope on the rifle?”

  “Yes, with windage adjusted. He knew what he was doing.”

  “Trigger squeeze would take—?”

  “Part of a second.”

  Both men looked again at the movie blowups. The first shot hit Llewyn, and as he fell, Bea bent toward him. The second shot, as the pictures clearly indicated, entered a sign immediately to the rear of where Bea had been standing.

  “It would have hit her neck or lower face,” Lyon said in a low voice.

  “I know,” Rocco said and put a hand on Lyon’s shoulder. “He was using a soft-nosed bullet, hollow point; it flattens on impact. One for each of them.”

  “He could have been a nut who didn’t care.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “No, too much care and preparation.” Lyon reached into the bottom desk drawer and took out a rolled geodetic map and a pair of dividers. “All right, let’s see where the bastard was going.” He unrolled the map and weighted the edges with books. He bent over the map and began to draw intersecting lines leading away from the Congregational Church and cemetery.

  Both men turned with a start as the study door banged open. Bea stood in the hallway, the bright light behind her outlining her figure through the nearly transparent nightgown.

  “OH, MY GOD!” she said. “HE’S DRAWING CIRCLES ON MAPS AGAIN!”

  2

  “ALL RIGHT, YOU GUYS, WRAP IT UP!” Bea yelled.

  “I was going to suggest the same to you, dear,” Lyon said as he pointedly looked at her clearly outlined figure while Rocco diplomatically averted his eyes.

  “Oh.” Bea scuttled from the room. They heard her rummaging through the downstairs hall closet.

  “I don’t want her to know,” Lyon whispered.

  “Then get Bea the hell away from here for a while. Send her on a cruise, to Europe.”

  “She’d never go. The legislature’s in special session, and the nominating convention’s in a few days.”

  Bea came back wearing Lyon’s rumpled London Fog raincoat over her nightgown. She plunked down defiantly in a chair and glared at them. “Come on, you guys. No circles on maps, no lists of suspects. YOU PROMISED ME, LYON.”

  “Do you want me to get your hearing aid, dear?”

  “I’m not staying long enough for it; and besides, you can hear me and I don’t need to hear you.”

  “It’s settled, Beatrice,” Lyon said in a low voice. “I will give Rocco any help I can in this matter.”

  “WHAT?”

  “We’re working on it together. It’s settled.”

  “You’re stubborn as hell, Wentworth. Don’t you remember the last time you two worked on a case together? You were almost killed and ended up in a hospital. I can sum this all up in one word. ONE WORD.”

  “That’s all right, dear. I can imagine.”

  “And as far as you’re concerned, Chief Herbert, I’m calling your wife and telling her that the two of you are screwing nubile girls in Lyon’s study.”

  She flounced from the room and slammed the door. With a worried look Rocco sank back in the chair. “Do you really think she’ll call my wife?”

  Lyon shook his head. “No, but she will fume for a day or two.”

  “You know, you’re going to have to tell her some story. I’ve got men guarding the house.”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “Okay.” The chief seemed to dismiss that portion of their discussion and leaned forward. “Here’s all we have. One rifle firmly established as the murder weapon, and of course we’re running a check on it, but I wouldn’t count on anything from that source.”

  “And the tire marks, you say, are ordinary?”

  “Yes. Unless we have the original motorcycle to compare them with, there’s no way to trace it.”

  “Any evidence in the church?”

  “Nothing. No prints, and no one saw him.”

  “You’re sure it’s a him?”

  “Hell, we can’t even establish that. You and I were the only ones who saw the killer, and I can’t even establish sex. You know what my question is?”

  “Why Beatrice? I don’t know. I really don’t. Certainly nothing in our personal life. Of course she has a great many political enemies, and there are large segments of the opposition that would be pleased as hell to have her shut up, but killing her … I can’t believe that.”

  “I don’t buy any maniacal nut theory.”

  “Me either. Rifle with scope, right angle of fire, planned escape route—hardly anything haphazard about it.”

  “It’s got to be politically motivated. There’s no other answer,” Rocco said.

  Scenes of angry people flashed before Lyon’s eyes. Committee meetings, political meetings, forums—filled over the years with anger directed toward his wife. She took strong positions and had either staunch supporters or spiteful enemies. No individual stood out with clarity, no pictures of a potential killer. “I just don’t know,” he finally said.

  “You could help by drawing up a list.”

  “I’ll try. If we’d been getting threatening letters or phone calls … nothing like that has happened.”

  Rocco stood. “Why don’t you think on it? Maybe one of us will come up with something.” Lyon, staring out the window into the darkness, didn’t answer. “Take this.” Rocco pulled a .32 automatic from his jacket pocket and handed it butt first to Lyon. “Come down to my office in the morning and we’ll fix you up with a permit.”

  Lyon too
k the gun gingerly. “I don’t want it.”

  “I’d rather you did. You know how to use it.”

  “Of course, but still—”

  “Keep it. See you in the morning.”

  The police chief lumbered from the room, and Lyon heard him quietly close the outside door. He sat looking at the weapon in his hand.

  The phone’s ring cut through his groggy sleep. He stretched uncomfortably in the leather chair and massaged a crick in his neck. He wondered what the phone company would do if he blew up the local transmission lines. He reached for the receiver.

  “Thornburton here. Do you know what else Robin wants to do?”

  “I haven’t seen her in a couple of years, Stacey. The last time she was here, I think she wanted to be an astronaut.”

  “Be a sculptor! She wants to build big damn statues like the Russkies do. You know the kind, men beating plowshares into rifles, that sort of thing.”

  “I’m not quite sure it goes that way.”

  “Next, she’ll turn pinko.”

  “You’re a fine artist, Stacey. One of the best illustrators in the business. She’s trying to follow in your—”

  “Don’t say it, Wentworth. Get yourself another boy. I’m sending the outline back. My next project is going to be a portfolio of posthumous Medal of Honor winners in action.”

  “Stacey, you never got within twenty miles of the front.”

  “That’s below the belt, Wentworth. Really, below the belt.”

  The phone clicked dead. He turned to see Bea examining the photographs spread across the desk. “Bea.”

  “If you’d finish the book and send him a final copy to work on, we’d all be better off,” she said without turning from her inspection of the pictures Rocco had left.

  “Bea.”

  “I was lonely upstairs alone,” she said in a soft voice, without turning. “I came down to get you.”

  “I must have fallen asleep.”

  She turned to face him. Her eyes were wide, her face chalky as she went to him and took the .32 from his fingers. “Falling asleep with a gun is dangerous. You could shoot your toe off or some other dumb thing.”