The Death at Yew Corner

by Forrest, Richard;

  “Yes, he is,” Lyon replied and remembered the pain-saddened look on Rocco’s face as he shoved the man out the door.

  The front door of Jason Smelts’s union headquarters was locked, and Lyon nearly turned away in disappointment until he heard voices inside. He banged on the door and someone unlocked it. When he stepped inside, the man turned and called toward the rear of the building, “Here’s another one.”

  “Smelts is recruiting a goddamn army.”

  Lyon followed the man who had opened the door into Smelts’s office where five men sat with open cans of beer. It was difficult to tell if they were celebrating, commiserating, or merely avoiding a return home. They eyed Lyon speculatively. There was a similarity among the men in the room. Each of them seemed to have a thick neck with broad shoulders and large arms. Although they were boisterous, there was a stony cast to their faces and their eyes were cool.

  “What they call you?”

  “Wentworth, Lyon.”

  “Which local you taking over?”

  “How would he know? He ain’t been elected yet.”

  Laughter.

  “I want to see Jason Smelts.”

  A large man sitting astride Smelts’s desk signaled to a man across the room and a beer can flipped toward him. He opened it and drank in long draughts and continued a story he had begun before Lyon arrived. “So, anyway, the kid gets up at the organizational meeting and says some shit like, ‘I move the previous question.’ Smelts was fit to be tied and gave me the sign. I walked over to the kid and cold-cocked him. He slid down under his seat and kept on going till he was flat on the floor.”

  Laughter. More beer cans were flipped around the room.

  “You know, Wendworse, you don’t seem mean enough for this kinda work?”

  “Wentworth.”

  “You ever go to some bastard’s house and offer to break his knees with a baseball bat if he didn’t cooperate?”

  Lyon realized that not only had he not used such persuasion, but the prospect had never occurred to him. As he looked from one face to another in the room, he decided that an ingenuous manner was not in his present best interests. “I have my methods,” he replied quietly.

  A head in the far corner nodded. “I had a guy like him with me out in Youngstown once. Those quiet types can fool you.”

  Other heads nodded and looked toward Lyon with a respect that one professional holds for another.

  “Where’s Smelts?” Lyon asked.

  “Has a date over at the Clock and Chime on Third Street. Said he’d be back after he jumped her.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “I wouldn’t bother Jason when he’s with a broad.”

  Lyon walked toward the door. “He’ll talk to me.”

  “See what I mean about those quiet kind,” a voice from behind him said as he left the union headquarters.

  The Clock and Chime was a lounge only a few blocks away and was one of those remote bars found in every city that are inhabited by a classless sort of clientele. The customers are well dressed, always in possession of money, and wander in and out at odd hours that do not correspond to the usual off-hours of the gainfully employed.

  Lyon entered the dim interior and took a seat on a stool halfway down the bar. Three men on his left were playing liar’s poker with dollar bills. It was a game whose rules he only vaguely understood. A bartender in a red-striped apron with white shirt sleeves puffed to the elbows and held by elastic garters served Lyon a house sherry. He tasted it and tried not to grimace.

  The bar mirror was an ancient affair of clouded glass with train stickers of long-forgotten railways pasted along its edge. Lyon saw the reflected image of Jason Smelts in a booth in the far corner of the lounge. The union leader was huddled close to a very young woman. The girl had a pouty prettiness, but she seemed too young for the lounge. Then he remembered that the drinking age in Connecticut had been lowered to eighteen, the probable age of the girl.

  Jason Smelts leered and seemed to envelop the girl. His arm was around her shoulder and he looked at her with a lust that was so apparent it filled that corner of the lounge.

  Lyon ordered another sherry and slid off the stool. As he approached the booth, Jason Smelts squinted in annoyance. Lyon pulled a chair from another table and sat down.

  “Wentworth,” Smelts said with obvious distaste.

  “I thought we should talk about Marty.”

  “See me tomorrow in the office.”

  “Who is this creep?” were the first jarring words from the girl.

  “A cop from Murphysville.”

  “Oh.” Her pout increased. “I’m eighteen.”

  “Rustman’s alive,” Lyon said.

  Dissembling is a learned response. With age and experience the facial mask can harden and become nearly impregnable. It was obvious that Smelts had built up such a façade over the years, but Lyon’s remark shocked and penetrated his attempt to appear nonchalant. He rocked back in his seat as if he’d been hit. The response lasted only a moment before his hand snaked out to lift the glass. He took a casual sip. “So? I told you Marty was the bad guy.”

  “There’s more to it than that.”

  “How?”

  “I’d like you to consider a hypothetical situation.”

  “A what?”

  “A possible version of what might have happened.”

  “You trying to lay something on me?”

  “Do you want to hear?”

  “I got nothing better to do.” He looked over at the young woman. “Make it snappy.”

  “Let us suppose that Marty Rustman was taken from the convalescent home by Maginacolda and Curt Falconer. The two men who were subsequently killed.”

  “What are you driving at?”

  “Let us say that the van that took Marty away stopped and picked up a third man.”

  “I don’t like games, Wentworth.” He looked down at a large jeweled watch just below his French cuffs. “You got ten seconds to finish and then amscray.”

  “Two of the men involved in the kidnapping are dead.”

  Smelts raised a finger and a waiter immediately refilled his glass. “I never been to college, but I see where you’re going. Rustman, or somebody else, is going to take care of that third guy. If that was the way it happened, which it isn’t.”

  The girl plucked at Smelts’s sleeve. “We got to get goin’, Jasie. I get home after midnight and my dad beats the living daylight out of me.”

  Smelts ignored her.

  “I think you have it, Mr. Smelts. The third man is in danger. Do you know who he is?”

  “You got to be kidding? If I knew something like that, I’d be involved in conspiracy to whatever happened to Rustman.”

  “The man’s life depends on it.”

  “Anybody that could snatch Rustman, if he was snatched, can take care of himself.”

  “Falconer carried a gun and fifteen tons of dirt killed him.”

  “Careless.”

  “I don’t know how to impress upon you the importance of finding that third man.”

  The girl plucked at Smelts’s sleeve again. “Come on, Jason. I’ll show you a good time.”

  Jason looked annoyed and pulled a money clip from his pocket and flipped a bill at her. “Beat it.”

  The girl glared. “You want me to go?”

  “Jesus! They don’t even understand English nowadays. Beat it, and on the way out tell Morrie I want a phone—fast.”

  The girl slouched from the booth and talked briefly to the bartender as she left the lounge. A phone was delivered and jacked into the floor near the booth. Smelts began to dial. “The cops think Marty’s alive?”

  “That he could be.”

  Smelts held the phone over his ear and Lyon could hear the ring. He held a hand over the receiver. “Out, Wentworth! Now!”

  Lyon left the booth and returned to the bar. He could see the mirror image of Smelts on the phone. “Morrie.”

  “Yes, sir.”
r />   “Smelts wants me on an extension.”

  “There’s one plugged in over there.”

  “Thanks.” Lyon went to the booth with the phone and turned sideways on the seat to hide his actions from the bartender’s view and quickly unscrewed the receiver plate before lifting the phone.

  “I wouldn’t have called if it weren’t important, Mrs. Truman.”

  Lyon was surprised at the obsequious tone in Smelts’s voice.

  “The phone could be tapped. You know your instructions.”

  “Yes, ma’am. But something has come up.”

  “For your sake, Jason, it had better be important.”

  “The cops think Rustman is alive.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “It can happen. People get careless.”

  “You know I don’t want to hear details like that.”

  “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t bother you except that maybe he’s coming after me.”

  “Nonsense.” The feminine voice was devoid of feeling. She spoke with a flat and emotionless tone tinged with annoyance.

  “He’s already gotten Mike and Curt.”

  “You’re an idiot, Smelts.”

  “I want to get out of town for a while. Maybe go to Florida for a couple of months.”

  “You leave here and you’ll regret it. I promise you that.”

  “You don’t know what he’s done.”

  “Good-bye, Jason.” The connection was broken.

  Lyon waited until Smelts hung up before replacing his receiver. He looked over the edge of the booth to see Smelts in the far corner of the lounge. The union leader had his head in his hands.

  7

  “He kept hurting me, Mrs. Wentworth. I mean, he really beat on me. It got so bad that sometimes I couldn’t leave the house because my face was all black and blue.” Mandy Summers’ eyes glistened as she leaned over the breakfast-nook table.

  “Yes, I know, dear. You mentioned it yesterday morning.”

  “And then he’d threaten to kill me. He had those hunting guns all over the house and he’d point them at me and say he was going to shoot me. It got so that I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t do anything.”

  Bea could only nod, as she’d run out of responses. At the first telling of the story she had felt deep compassion, on the second empathy. At the third recounting she had tried to look for social significance, but subsequent repetitions had drained her of response and dulled her sensitivity. She wondered at Mandy Summers’ continued need for daily catharsis.

  “And then I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t stand to have him hurt me again. He’d been drinking and the knife was on the kitchen counter, so I …”

  It was raining again with an intermittent drizzle that turned green things greener. A heavy mist rose from the river below. There was a change in Mandy’s voice that forced Bea’s thoughts back to the kitchen.

  “Mr. Wentworth said I should ask if there’s something I don’t understand in the manuscript.”

  “Try nine-one-one.”

  “Huh?”

  “He’s at the police station.”

  “Oh.”

  Gustav Tanner was one of those people who react to a threatening situation with anger. His body communicated hostility by a pronounced forward thrust of the chin and a rigidity of his shoulders.

  Rocco reacted to the aggression with pronounced mildness communicated with a Buddha-like expression. Lyon stood at the window looking at the rain while Tanner sat directly in front of the desk.

  “I resent your implications! I came here voluntarily in a spirit of cooperation and now you pounce on me with these questions.”

  “We are concerned about the death of three people,” Rocco replied in his quietest manner. “I am sure you and your superiors are also.”

  “Of course” was the snapped reply.

  “I’d like to know your relationship to the deceased.”

  “She was a patient in the home I manage.”

  “Rustman?”

  “Adversary.”

  “Explain.”

  “We had a perfectly satisfactory relationship with another union in the homes until Rustman stirred things up. He agitated the employees until they became dissatisfied and called for an election.”

  “Which he won.”

  “Yes. Which was important to me not only in Murphysville, but in the other homes I manage.”

  “Which meant that once Rustman won here he would go after the other homes?”

  “Obviously. It should have been apparent that Rustman was labor and I am management. We were natural enemies, but that doesn’t mean that I’d do anything physical to him.”

  “I didn’t say you did.”

  “That’s what you’ve been implying.”

  “He’s missing.”

  “So?”

  “What about Maginacolda?”

  “What about him?”

  “He was labor also.”

  “We had a good working relationship.”

  “Curt Falconer?”

  “I never met the gentleman. I understand he was connected to Mike’s union, but I didn’t know him personally.”

  “Barbara Rustman?”

  A deep flush spread up Tanner’s neck. He sat shock-still for a few moments and then got up from his chair. “Have you been spying on me? Have you been watching my movements? If you have, I think it’s a violation of my civil rights.”

  “Call your attorney.”

  “I will!” He snatched up the phone from Rocco’s desk and held it contemplatively in his hand a moment before slowly replacing the receiver in the cradle. “It isn’t convenient for me to call my lawyer at this time.”

  “Then answer the question,” Rocco said offhandedly.

  “It’s none of your damn business!”

  “I think it is.”

  “Wait a minute! Are you trying to build some sort of case against me because of Rustman’s disappearance and Barbara?”

  “It’s an interesting thought, Mr. Tanner.”

  “You got it wrong! You’ve got the whole thing turned upside down. I’m the last person in the world that wants to make waves at this time. I’m involved in a very delicate business maneuver and the last thing I want is any trouble in the home, much less murder.”

  “Why don’t you explain that?”

  “It’s an extremely confidential matter.”

  “I am used to keeping confidences, and I am sure you have the word of Mr. Wentworth.”

  “Of course,” Lyon replied.

  Tanner sat back in his chair and seemed to calm down. “All right. Not a word beyond this room.”

  “Unless it is important to the case.”

  “It isn’t, but it is a personal matter that will prove to you that I have nothing to gain from what’s been happening.”

  “Go on.”

  “I manage a group of convalescent homes for the Shopton Corporation. This company is a miniconglomerate in this state. It owns not only the homes, but a series of other businesses.”

  “Yes.”

  “I am a C.P.A., a trained administrator, a good one, if I do say so myself. I am completely qualified to manage the corporation. Now, at the present time, a large block of the stock is held by one individual. The remaining shares are widely dispersed throughout the state. I have worked for a year to obtain proxies on those dispersed shares. I expect, in the very near future, to make a move. In fact, I expect to do so at the next annual meeting, which is in one month’s time.”

  “How does that fit?”

  “I certainly do not want people dying of unnatural causes in establishments that I manage. I fully expect to be elected president of the corporation.”

  “This large block of stock that you are fighting to gain control over, who is it held by?” Lyon asked.

  “That’s not germane to this discussion.”

  “It might be. We could check with the secretary of the state’s office and determine the probable own
er.”

  “It’s held by a woman. A shark.”

  “A Mrs. Truman.”

  “How in hell did you know?”

  “An educated guess.”

  Gustav Tanner started for the door. “I assume we have completed our business?”

  “Of course,” Rocco said blandly.

  “Good morning.” Tanner left slamming the door.

  “Pleasant fellow,” Rocco said.

  “I think he’d transfer his aged mother to the charity ward.”

  The phone rang and Rocco picked it up.

  Lyon looked out the window as pregnant clouds disgorged further torrents in a sudden burst. Rain fell rapidly and bounced off the parking-lot macadam.

  Rocco slammed down the phone. “Damn!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “The dispatcher just took a call from Henderson’s. Possible burglary.”

  “The funeral home?”

  “Goddamn kids took a coffin. I’ll see you later.”

  Rocco stalked from the office. Lyon turned back to look out the window and saw Rocco run through the rain to his cruiser, slam inside, and screech away from the police station.

  A funeral home seemed an unlikely place for a burglary. It was unlikely there would be any loose cash around or many items of value that would be hockable. A missing coffin probably meant kids as Rocco suggested. Perhaps something to do with a fraternity hazing.

  College was in recess. The summer session hadn’t begun yet. Lyon bolted for the door. He ran down the short hall to the rear door and toward his parked pickup.

  The initial onslaught of heavy rain had subsided into a heavy drizzle that seemed to have every intention of continuing for hours. Bea Wentworth walked bareheaded in the rain and thought that no matter how beneficial the rain was for her garden, it wasn’t helping her depression. She had just finished chastising herself for her insensitivity toward the troubled woman now typing in Lyon’s study. Mandy Summers’ past problem so overshadowed her own temporary malaise that she felt pangs of guilt for not being able to offer the woman more of herself.

  She stood on the patio and viewed the charred Japanese honeysuckle with satisfaction. At least one thing had worked. She watched the slowly moving river below the parapet for a moment, then walked aimlessly toward the stand of pine trees beyond the house.