The Death at Yew Corner

by Forrest, Richard;

  If that bastard backed too far and brushed the hood of the Corvette, he’d break his face.

  The truck continued backing and he leaned on the horn until it stopped. He slammed from the car as the driver left the truck cab. Falconer stood on the pavement near the rear of the truck and tried to place the familiar-looking truck driver. The large sunglasses obscured most of the driver’s face, but still …

  “Move your fucking truck!”

  The man in the sunglasses smiled before he jumped back in the cab. “Sure.”

  The voice was familiar. Something moved over his head. He looked up.

  The rear of the dump truck, angled directly over his head, opened. He tried to throw himself to the side, but fifteen tons of dirt and rock caught him across the back and buried him.

  5

  Lyon Wentworth rode in terror. His body was rigid as his hands pushed against the cruiser’s dashboard. His legs were braced stiffly in the well. “You’re exceeding the speed limit,” he said hoarsely.

  Rocco drove with tantalizing nonchalance. One bullish elbow protruded out the window while his other hand lightly held the steering wheel. “The state boys respect a badge.”

  As if in acknowledgment, a state police car passed in the far lane. Its horn signal of recognition faded quickly as the two cars accelerated past each other. Lyon tried to ignore the speedometer that hovered near eighty and to concentrate on the recent meeting with Jason Smelts. The union leader’s conviction that Marty Rustman was responsible for Maginacolda’s murder didn’t fit his own theory that Fabian Bunting’s death was due to her having seen Rustman’s kidnapping. If Rustman were dead, who killed Maginacolda? Kim was now acting head of the union, and it was impossible to believe that their friend was responsible for some strange internecine war between the opposing unions.

  “Pat is convinced that the robbery of the cash at Kim’s union was an inside job,” Rocco said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Whoever broke in there knew exactly where the money was kept.”

  Lyon tried to fit that in with the other known facts of the case. In a sense, everything that had happened seemed to be a series of unrelated events, but he had the feeling that somewhere there was an interrelating factor, and that all that happened was, in fact, interconnected. A conflict between two unions, a good guy disappears and a bad one is murdered …

  Rocco turned off Route 98 onto the secondary road that led toward Murphysville. Lyon saw a parked dump truck ahead. Its rear compartment was tilted upward and tons of dirt had spewed over the road. Parked behind the truck was an empty Corvette. Several sawhorses had been pulled off to the side of the road.

  Rocco slowed down to swerve around the sports car and truck and then jockeyed back into the right lane. Fifty yards down the road past the two parked vehicles he jammed on the brakes. The police car fishtailed for a dozen yards as Rocco spun the wheel into a bootlegger’s turn and drove back to the truck.

  “What’s up?” Lyon yelled over the screech of protesting tires.

  “That’s the stolen dump truck I’ve been looking for.” Rocco slammed on the brakes again and slid from the driver’s seat in a quick fluid motion. He crouched with pulled service revolver as he walked carefully toward the two vehicles.

  Lyon waited until his friend had warily circled the truck and convertible before he left the car. Rocco holstered his gun and climbed into the cab.

  Lyon walked around the truck and stood before the massive pile of dirt that had spilled across a complete lane of the road. He looked up into the empty bin of the truck, and then at the Corvette parked a few feet away. The sports car driver’s door was open and the keys were still in the ignition.

  He could understand teen-agers stealing a truck on a lark, and perhaps even inadvertently or purposefully dumping its load onto the pavement, but what about the sports car with its keys still in the ignition? The barriers that were now pushed off to the side might account for the sports car stopping. Its driver might have stepped out to investigate. Perhaps he stood by the rear of the dump truck and then …

  Lyon rushed around the truck and wrenched a shovel from brackets by the side of the cab. He began to shovel at the large mound of dirt. Soil and rocks flew to either side as he frantically tried to clear the large pile.

  Rocco climbed down from the cab and stood watching. “Just what in hell are you doing?”

  “A shovel, Rocco.… See if there’s another one on the truck. Help me! I think there’s someone under here.”

  The assistant medical examiner kneeling by the body looked up at Rocco with a frown that changed into deep bewilderment. “Well?” Rocco asked.

  “Nothing’s final until a complete examination, but I would say death by suffocation.” The doctor looked back down at the dirt-covered body and then stood. “Odd, isn’t it, Chief? Two in a row like this.”

  Police cars, an ambulance, and a tow truck cluttered the narrow road. Uniformed officers began to make order out of chaos. Shortly the parked vehicles would be removed, a highway crew would begin removal of the dirt, and the tree-shaded road would return to normal. A second man dead of suffocation. Lyon knew there was a connection with the other murders.

  The phone was ringing when Bea entered the side door. She put the cardboard box filled with seedling tomato plants down on the kitchen counter and reached for the phone.

  “Beatrice?”

  “Is that you, Collie?”

  “As ever, darling. I thought you might like to know that the governor called and wanted to know what my intentions are for the convention.”

  “I knew she’d be interested in who you were backing for the U.S. Senate.”

  “No, dear. She was interested in the state senate. Your old seat which I now occupy.”

  Bea felt her palms turn clammy. It shouldn’t be important. She had no right to expect any such gift. “And?” She tried to appear nonchalant. When she had vacated her senate seat to run for secretary of the state, she had hoped that Collie would step aside if she ever wanted to run again.

  “I suppose you’re interested in running, Bea?”

  Bea had tried to tell herself that she wasn’t interested. She had tried to convince herself that the house and Lyon needed her exclusive presence, but she didn’t believe it. She wanted her old seat back. She wanted it back very much. “Well, Collie. You’ve had it for two terms and at one point you said you weren’t interested in staying in the state house.”

  “I’ve been under severe pressure, Bea. And I do hope you understand. Certain people are insistent that I run again. If you insist on trying, I will have to fight you.”

  Bea concluded the conversation as quickly and politely as she could and then slumped on a kitchen stool. It hurt. My God, it hurt. She had hoped that Collie would step aside gracefully and assure her of the nomination without a floor fight. Now there would be a battle. She would have to fight tooth and claw for what she wanted.

  The day turned darker.

  It was nearly an hour later when she realized that the sound of typing coming from Lyon’s study was clattering at the fastest clip she had ever heard. At least that was one positive item in her life.

  She slipped from the stool and left the kitchen for the study. An unfamiliar feminine figure was hunched over the typewriter. The woman at the machine seemed to be in her late thirties. There was an aura of the displaced about her, as if her features were slightly off-center. Her long hair hung down behind her in an incongruous braid.

  Bea automatically adjusted her hearing aid and cleared her throat. The typing ceased immediately and the woman whirled on the swivel chair and pushed back against the desk as if frightened.

  A hundred political rallies and ten thousand handshakes forced Bea’s smile as she extended her hand and stepped forward. “I’m Bea Wentworth.”

  “Mandy Summers. Mr. Wentworth hired me to retype his book.” The woman clasped her hands tightly as if afraid of physical contact.

  “He seems to have chos
en well. From what I heard, you are very fast.”

  “They taught me to type as part of my rehabilitation. I’m supposed to tell any employer immediately that I’m on parole.”

  “Oh?” Bea was startled by the remark.

  “I’m a murderess.”

  Bea caught herself before the automatic “that’s nice” was articulated. For an inexplicable and inappropriate reason she wanted to reply that she was a Capricorn. She took a closer look at the self-professed murderess. The features were somewhat familiar, but she couldn’t place them. She met many people during her political campaigns, but had never developed the Jim Farley ability of never forgetting a face or name.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Mandy Summers continued in a small voice.

  “No, of course not,” Bea replied and somehow felt that reply was also inadequate. She heard the front door open as Lyon and Kim entered.

  Bea found them in the former game room that now housed her files and a Ping-Pong table covered with books and news clippings. One wall was covered with a large map. Lyon stood before the map in deep thought.

  “There’s a murderess in our study, Lyon.”

  “Yes, of course.” He drew a circle on the map.

  Bea turned to Kim. “Do you know anything about this?”

  “I’m just here to stick pins in maps,” Kim said. “He says we’ll talk when Rocco gets here.”

  “I mean about our typist. LYON!”

  “Hi, dear.” He turned away from the map. “I hired a typist to redo the manuscript. It will give me time to devote to the case.” He used a compass to draw a larger circle on the map.

  “She says she’s a murderess.”

  “That’s right. She is.”

  “Killed her husband,” Kim said.

  “With a knife,” Lyon added.

  “A knife?” Bea said.

  “Butcher knife, wasn’t it, Kim?”

  “I think so. They found him in the kitchen.”

  “We’re helping to rehabilitate her.”

  The sound of Rocco’s cruiser in the driveway was unmistakable. In seconds the large police officer was in the room waving a Teletype flimsy. “We’ve got an ID on him.”

  “Rocco, do you know anything about Mrs. Summers who is now in our study?”

  “Hi, Bea. She was released from the Niantic Women’s Prison last week.”

  “Should I lock up the knives?”

  “Come on, Bea. You know better than that. The recidivism rate for that type of crime is almost nil.”

  Lyon took the flimsy from Rocco. “Six prior arrests.”

  “Right. All for assault. Almost all of them involved union activities.”

  “Mrs. Summers had six arrests before …”

  “I think we’re on different wavelengths,” Kim said.

  “WILL SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT AND WHY?”

  “Falconer,” Rocco said.

  “And who is Falconer?”

  “The one who was killed by the dump truck,” Kim said.

  “That explains everything. I’ve got a murderess in my study and a man called Falconer was run over by a dump truck.”

  “Smothered, actually,” Lyon said.

  “It fell on him?”

  “About fifteen tons of good topsoil did.”

  “The way it breaks out,” Rocco said, “Curt Falconer was on his way to the Murphysville Convalescent Home to take Maginacolda’s place. Someone got to him on the road where we found him.”

  “And he had a record for assault,” Lyon said pensively. “That’s interesting.” He sat back in a canvas captain’s chair, stretched out his legs, and began to stare at the ceiling.

  Kim took Bea by the arm and led her to the cracked leather couch in the corner. “Rocco and Lyon found him. The body, I mean. They were driving back from Hartford …”

  As Kim brought Bea up to date, Rocco examined the map tacked on the wall. It was a large U.S. geodetic survey map of the Murphysville area. He tried to make sense out of the lines Lyon had drawn.

  “Have you talked to anyone at the nursing home? Did they expect Falconer?”

  “They did. And we phoned the union. Smelts is the one who ordered Falconer out here.”

  “Suffocating a man under a load of dirt is a strange way to kill someone.”

  “No more so than burying him in concrete.”

  “I think I have a scenario,” Lyon said.

  “Try us.”

  “We have every reason to believe that the union run by Jason Smelts is a sweetheart deal. They make beneficial contracts with management.”

  “I’ll vouch for that,” Kim said vehemently.

  “The union was attacked by Marty Rustman. Smelts fought back but lost. Then Marty disappears.”

  “Which at this point has just about broken the strike,” Kim added.

  “We know that nearly simultaneously with his disappearance, Dr. Bunting was placed in the tub and killed.”

  “Because she saw something.”

  “What did she see? We know she was in the sun-room with a pair of opera glasses. Immediately below the sun-room is a walled courtyard where a van was parked. Let us assume that Rustman was forcibly put into the van and driven off.”

  “Which was seen by Bunting.”

  “Yes, but she in turn was also seen by one of the abductors.”

  “Abductors?” Kim snorted. “No one’s been abducted since the nineteenth century.”

  “Snatched,” Rocco said.

  “One of the snatchers sees Bunting watching them, and he goes inside to kill her because she might have recognized him.”

  “It would also have to be someone who was familiar with the interior of the home,” Bea said.

  “Probably Maginacolda. He would have access to the home without difficulty.”

  “It’s hard to imagine that the old lady has a team of cohorts who are running around sticking people in concrete for revenge.”

  “No, not Bunting’s friends.” Lyon turned toward the map. “If Rustman was in the van that the strikers saw leave the home, it would have turned to the right, away from the main part of town. The area to the west is mostly state park.”

  “A good place to dump a body.”

  “Now, follow me. The van drives to this area.” Lyon’s hand made a sweep over the map.

  “There are thousands of acres of woods there.”

  “That’s going to make it difficult to find, but let me continue. As nearly as we can determine, the strikers saw the van leave the nursing home about the time Dr. Bunting was killed.”

  “Which means at least two people were involved.”

  “They had to lure Marty Rustman into the courtyard and knock him out. There must have been at least two men involved.”

  “I think three,” Lyon said. “Look at it this way. Rustman was probably knocked out, tied, and gagged. He might have awakened and been able to thrash around in the back of the van. That would increase their risk of detection—unless, the driver of the van stopped somewhere to pick up another accomplice.”

  “Logical enough.”

  “A third man got into the van and they took Rustman to a secluded spot in the state forest where they tried to kill him.”

  “Tried?”

  “It’s possible they didn’t succeed. That somehow Rustman survived.”

  “Buried alive,” Bea said.

  “Shot and put in a shallow grave.”

  Rocco looked dubious. “Shot but not killed. He manages to extricate himself from the grave and returns to get rid of the men who tried to kill him.”

  “I think we can safely assume that Maginacolda was involved, and since he needed help, Curt Falconer would be a logical choice.”

  “This could be tied to the theft of the union money,” Kim said. “Marty knew where it was, of course. If he needed working capital, but didn’t want anyone to know he was alive …”

  Rocco’s fist slammed against the map. “This is all wild conjecture. I can’t run an
investigation based on a man returning from the grave to knock people off.”

  “Doesn’t the method of death in the last two killings tell you something?”

  “That dump truck could have been an accident. A couple of kids could have stolen the truck, dumped it accidentally, and then run away.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “No.”

  “For a man who had been buried alive, it would be a fitting way to get revenge.”

  “If your theory of the third man is correct, someone is still alive and walking around waiting for a murder to happen.”

  “I know,” Lyon said. “There’s a third man out there somewhere and Rustman could be trying to kill him—to suffocate him.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “I’d like Kim to keep an eye on the union office. It’s a natural place for Rustman to return to for sleep. Is any food there?”

  “Cold cuts, soda, beer, things like that.”

  “Will you keep an eye on the office, Kim?”

  “Right.”

  “I think Bea ought to go back and see Rustman’s wife. He’s liable to make contact with her or the children.”

  “Do you have any assignments for the local police authorities, sir?”

  “Sarcastic, Rocco?”

  “Dubious. But okay, what do we do?”

  “Search for the grave.”

  Some men are tweedy no matter what the fabric of their clothing. It is a quality of pose and attitude, a nuance of thoughtfulness before a reply, a hesitation of speech often punctuated with a pipe. Ronald Thornton of the State Department of Environmental Protection was such a man.

  Lyon felt at ease with this type. He had participated in many departmental conferences during his teaching career, and those meetings were always well attended by such individuals. Bea’s call to the commissioner had arranged the appointment, and Lyon had wandered the dim halls of the old State Office Building for half an hour before being directed to the correct office.

  “I understand you’re interested in SCORP, Mr. Wentworth.”

  “Is that a bird?”

  There was a thoughtful pause as Lyon’s remark was processed within some inner workings of Thornton’s mind. The eventual chuckle was muted and quickly silenced. “SCORP, that’s the State of Connecticut Outdoor Recreation Plan—my baby.”