The Pied Piper of Death

by Forrest, Richard;

  Lyon stood directly in front of the obelisk and looked out over the grave wedges that comprised the Piper Pie. Bea was by his side, her hair gently ruffled by a warm breeze that danced past from downriver. While Lyon seemed transfixed by the neat rows of headstones, she turned to look at the tall monument with a puzzled frown.

  “Who, beside an Egyptian pharaoh, would erect a gigantic phallus to dominate his future grandchildren?” she asked.

  “That miniature Washington Monument was built by the original colonel. If I’m reading things correctly, Markham Swan’s genealogical notes tell us that part of the answer to his murder is written on those tombstones,” Lyon said.

  “I can’t see how they’ll tell us anything. They don’t even have any fancy inscriptions that would make for interesting grave rubbings.”

  “Markham had faults, but he was thorough.”

  A flash of sunlight glinted off car chrome from down the narrow lane leading past the cemetery. Murphysville Cruiser Number One sped past the cemetery, then skidded to a stop and backed recklessly to the entrance. The driver shifted into forward and drove through the narrow wrought-iron gates flanked by a pair of stoic stone lions.

  “Yonder comes he who shakes the ground,” Bea said. Rocco Herbert heaved himself from the police car, shaded his eyes from the sun, and glowered in their direction.

  “I wonder why he’s cross?” Lyon asked.

  Bea sighed. “I sometimes think that Rocco is angry at the world half the time.”

  Halfway to the monument, Rocco waggled an accusatory finger at them. “I have no time to fool with this stuff,” he said loud enough for “this stuff” to echo from the hills.

  “We can understand,” Lyon said, “since the weight of the nation’s crime-fighting efforts rests upon your shoulders.”

  “Worse than that. I’m facing a wages strike with the school crossing guards. Pandy Jerome has got them organized and they’re demanding time and a half for rain duty and double time when it snows.”

  “You’ve got to learn to compromise,” Bea suggested. “Give them triple time for snow, with no extra money for rain. Then cancel school on snow days.”

  Rocco stopped abruptly. “Hey, you know, that’s not a bad idea. You politicians really know how to screw people in a compromise. Okay, why are we graveyard hopping?” He glanced briefly at the uniform rows of tombstones. “Poor rubbings area. This place will never attract the garden club crowd.”

  “I’m going to show you the reason why Markham Swan was killed,” Lyon said.

  “In translation, that means you’re going to point out the tombstone he was screwing behind when he was caught in the act by an irate husband?” Rocco said.

  “That’s not quite what I had in mind, but this isn’t twenty questions. Let me give you the guided tour.” Lyon glanced at the first page of a sheaf of folded notes that he took from his back pocket. He walked slowly down the center row of the Pie and then made a right-angle turn to walk along the first row of stones. “Caleb Piper and his second wife are buried in the mausoleum behind the obelisk.”

  “After her swan dive off the parapet into the river, the first wife’s body was never found,” Bea added.

  “Okay,” Rocco said as he held both hands before his body in a gesture of supplication. “I know how you two think. All I have to say is that my caseload is chock full. I have the school crossing guards to fight with, Norby to fend off, and lots of other stuff hanging fire. I do not need an ancient crime suddenly appearing as an open case. I’ll listen to any significant information you have as long as it pertains to something that happened in this century. No. Make that this decade.”

  “Be patient, and hear me out,” Lyon said. They followed him as he moved slowly down the first row of tombstones, which was now swathed in shadows from the tall needle monument. Again, as he often did in the proximity of the long dead, Lyon seemed to sense their presence. He stopped before the middle stone in the first wedge of the Pie and ran the palm of his hand across the rough stone in a gesture that was nearly a caress. “This is where Standard Piper, the patriarch’s first born, is buried.” Lyon read from the words and letters etched in the stone: “BORN 1855–DIED 1873.” He looked down at his notes. “Caleb’s firstborn was cut down in his eighteenth year. Records of the time indicate that he accidentally shot himself in the head with a minié ball while hunting wild turkey in a nearby wood-lot.”

  Rocco nodded. “Those things still happen around here. God, I hate Fall and the start of hunting season in Murphysville. The usual casualty count is one dead deer and at least two wounded hunters. I think they clean their weapons with ninety proof vodka.”

  “Accidents do happen,” Lyon said as he proceeded to the next row of stones. He read from the second monument: “CHRISTIAN PIPER. BORN 1879–DIED 1897.” Again a referral to his notes. “Christian was born to Standard’s younger brother. He was cut down in his eighteenth year while playing cards on a riverboat going from Hartford to New York City in 1897. It seems there was a dispute over an inside straight poker hand. The man who fired the shot was never located.”

  “Poker can be a violent game,” Rocco agreed.

  “Okay, we proceed,” Lyon said.

  “You know, lover,” Bea said, “I love genealogy as well as any other New Englander, but as far as the Piper family is concerned I am not overwhelmed with interest.”

  “Oh, but it gets more interesting.” Lyon hurried his pace as he entered the next row. “Over there lies Thomas Piper, who was shot accidentally in his eighteenth year by the police when they raided a speakeasy in 1920. Rebecca Piper, Peyton’s great-aunt, has a tombstone, but there really isn’t any body buried there. Rebecca disappeared right after her eighteenth birthday.”

  Bea had proceeded ahead of Lyon and had showed little interest until now. She stopped. “Wait a minute. Did they all die in their eighteenth year?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Lyon answered.

  Rocco had begun to look interested, but now he shrugged off his speculation with a grunt. “It’s all coincidental. The nineteenth century was a violent time in this country. It’s also not unheard of for young women to run off and never be heard from again.”

  “In the olden days they were sold into white slavery or something,” Bea said.

  “If your scenario is correct, Rocco,” Lyon said. “Rebecca Piper ran off with the circus right after she delivered her child, Lance, Peyton’s uncle.”

  “What happened to Lance?” Bea asked.

  Again Lyon referred to the notes he had made from Swan’s computer information. “Lance lived a little bit longer than his eighteenth year, but was killed in his nineteenth. I think the reason for the delay was that the killer had difficulty in finding him since Lance was in the army during the Korean war.”

  Rocco’s manner had shifted into the nonjudgmental pitch of the police interrogation. “How did he die?”

  Bea answered. “He was killed in combat during the Korean War, right?”

  “Wrong,” Lyon answered. “Lance was killed at Fort Dix, New Jersey after a live ammunition exercise. The Army thought it was one of his own men who shot him in the back.”

  Bea put it together. “So since the middle of the eighteenth century, the firstborn of each Piper generation has died under mysterious circumstances.”

  “It’s always the oldest child and always in their eighteenth year,” Lyon said.

  “With the exception of the Korean War guy,” Bea added. “But that might have been an accidental omission.”

  “If what you say is true, then Paula is next,” Rocco said.

  “She’s just turned eighteen,” Lyon said. “Markham Swan was trying to warn her the night he was killed. Swan said the answer was in the Piper Pie. He was partly right, some of the answer is here,” Lyon said with a sweeping gesture across the graves.

  “What now?” Rocco asked.

  Lyon sensed that the surrounding dead were speaking to him in urgent voices just beyond the realm of understandin
g. Those interred on this hill high above the river had lain restlessly for a hundred years. It was up to him to give them peace. “There’s a set of identical circumstances in these deaths that is beyond coincidence. I think as we continue to search we’re going to find more strange facts.”

  “God, Lyon!” Rocco said. “Some of those crimes are over a hundred years old. If they are crimes.”

  “Let’s start with the latest. Bea, can you check into the Defense Department’s records and see what the investigation showed about Second Lieutenant Lance Piper’s death?”

  “I’ll have to ply government friends with favors to get fast results,” she replied.

  “Please ply. And Rocco, somewhere they will still have records on Rebecca Piper’s disappearance. It’s possible that some archives may have information on the killing of Thomas Piper in that 1920 speakeasy raid.”

  “I’ll see what I can dig up,” the large police officer said. “Although I’m still not sure why we’re bothering.”

  “I have a gut feeling,” Lyon said, “that when we find out what’s been happening, we may have a hint as to who killed Markham and why.”

  “How come no one put this all together before?” Bea asked.

  “There were decades between each incident,” Lyon answered. “Each death occurred under different circumstances. Only in broad retrospect do we see the similarity of family placement and age. Even with that, the pattern didn’t jump out at anyone until Markham Swan began to lay it all out for his book. I’ll be at the Hartford Courant newspaper morgue,” Lyon said.

  “I’ll be in Hartford too,” Rocco added, “checking in the dormant records of the Hartford police. I’ll drive you up there, Lyon. You’ll make better time with me since I always travel with my siren on and the bubble lights going.”

  “I always suspected you did that,” Bea said.

  Since Connecticut is a state with virtually no county government, Rocco knew that very old police records, if they still existed, would be in the dormant records department of the Hartford Police. A sergeant with an abundant mane of pure white hair in reception at the Morgan Street headquarters laughed when he asked directions.

  “Dormant Records! Jesus, Chief, no one goes down there except when we’re hazing new recruits.”

  “Pretend I’m young and direct me.”

  “Take the elevator to the basement,” he chortled. “I don’t mean down to the firing range and locker room. I’m talking subbasement here. If you can get past the rats and the water level is low, you might find him. If you are lucky, the Beast is either home drunk or has retired.”

  “The who?”

  “Lieutenant ‘Beast’ Langstrom is in charge of Dormant Records. That is, if he’s still alive or hasn’t been forcibly retired.”

  “Oh, that guy,” Rocco said with a nod of recognition. “Wasn’t there some incident about his exposing himself during a Saint Paddy parade and taking a piss against the reviewing stand?”

  “He still claims he thought he was in the rear of the stand. But that’s only cop lore shit, Chief,” the desk sergeant said. “I for one don’t even know if the Beast really exists. But somebody is down there.”

  “Thanks,” Rocco said as he rang for the elevator.

  As the sergeant had predicted, Dormant Records was located in the lowest reaches of the building. The peeling sign near the elevator door pointed past the boiler room. A dusty entrance sign announced, RECORDS. The general level of housekeeping proved that any files stored here were truly dormant. A musty smell seemed to rise from the damp cement floors. Ancient wooden file cabinets lined the walls, their yellowing, handwritten labels often unreadable. Naked light bulbs strung half a dozen feet too far apart were the only illumination.

  “Anybody home!” Rocco yelled in a voice that echoed down the corridors.

  “Who wants to know?” a gravelly voice answered.

  “Chief Rocco Herbert, who hates goddamn games!” he yelled back. He attempted to follow the source of a thump-cracking noise.

  “Office is closed till Tuesday,” the voice said between cracks.

  Rocco slipped sideways past a high row of files that partially blocked a corner. He entered a small room dominated by a cluttered rolltop desk. File boxes reached to the ceiling like temple support columns. A lone police officer tilted precariously forward on a wide desk chair. The room’s single occupant was an obese lieutenant in an unpressed uniform with a wildly askew tie stained by blotches of unknown substances. He was intently cracking walnuts with the butt of a .45 automatic.

  The butt of the .45 pulverized a walnut into dozens of inedible pieces. He frowned. “See what you made me do. I told you we were closed, Herbert. Now, beat it!”

  “I need information, Beast. Nineteen-twenty speakeasy killing in Hartford. Man by the name of Thomas Piper got blown away.”

  Another crunch shattered a walnut into the proper bite-size fragments. Lieutenant Langstrom delicately picked at the pieces. “They never let you forget, do they?”

  “You mean what happened at the Saint Paddy’s Day Parade?” Rocco commiserated.

  Langstrom glared. “You out to lunch, Herbert? I’m talking about the liberal press. They must be after us again about friendly fire casualties. The boys accidentally kill a civilian or two and they never let you forget it. What is it this time?”

  “I’m here about a case that goes back a lot of years.”

  Langstrom raised an arched eyebrow. “You sure you’re a sworn officer? Or are you a constable?”

  “Will you knock it off, Beast? I’m not a civilian. I got a new case piggybacking on an old one. Okay? I need information.”

  “On the nineteen-twenty Park Street police raid?”

  “You know the case?”

  “A witness said we blew the guy away. The deceased was some rich young kid who was drinking pure grain they passed off as booze. They tried to say that we blew him away with a goddamn minié ball yet.”

  “A what?” Rocco asked in astonishment.

  “A Civil War piece fired the shot that killed the kid. It was found on the floor. They said one of our guys had it as a throw down. Get that, Chief. Like one of our guys is carrying a Civil War piece around as a throw down. God, they were as bad then as they are now. Some things never improve.”

  “How come you remember a case that old?”

  “I got nothing else to do down here. I read all the good ones.”

  “Jesus, Beast! That was seventy-five years ago.”

  “I keep up with the interesting ones that show possibility for the mags. I used to make a few bucks selling true crime stories to the pulps that went in for crime and gore. You know the kind. Mags like True Private Eye and Crime and Punishment. They always had a bimbo on the cover with a torn blouse and her skirt up to her waist. Some guy’s menacing her with what might be a pistol. The gore was on the inside pages. You got paid according to how much blood you generated. Decaps paid the best. I sold them one piece about the Windsor Locks Decapitator. This guy put his victim’s head inside the ratchet of the canal lock and when he turned …”

  “The speakeasy case, Langstrom. Tell me what else you remember.” Rocco demanded.

  “You paying?”

  “Hell, no! I’m a cop like you.”

  The Beast smiled, and Rocco wondered how a man could have teeth like that and still eat walnuts.

  Langstrom leaned back in his swivel chair and belched. He laced his arms behind his neck as Rocco sat on a nearby box of records. “Well?” Rocco pressed.

  “It was a high-class speak over on Park Street. You can imagine how it was. Volsted Act or not, our guys didn’t touch those places as long as they paid their dues. Well, one day the Feds had a bug up them sent by parties unknown. Our guys had to put on some sort of show, so evidently the force set up a quick in and out deal to satisfy the Bible thumpers. Our people burst in with a couple of the Feds along. There’s a little yelling and one shot. This Piper kid falls dead. No one’s even got a weapon drawn. A
civilian finds this old gun behind the bar. The kid was shot in the back. There was no way to smuggle that cannon into the place and yet we got blamed. The cover-up went down because the kid came from some rich family.”

  The Beast belched again and Rocco was not surprised to see him rip a beer bottle cap off with his teeth. He drank most of the bottle in a series of continuous gulps. “About a decade after the speakeasy shooting, something happened to another member of that same family,” Rocco said.

  The Beast tossed the empty bottle over his shoulder. It silently disappeared into a void in the distance. “Yep. You’re talking about the one who disappeared. Don’t remember her first name, but it happened around the same time as the Lindbergh baby snatch. The bad guys were really into kidnapping about that time.”

  “Her name was Rebecca.”

  “Sounds right. I sold that one to the old Bound and Gagged sheet. That kept me in beers and nuts for a month or two. Seems there was this rich young girl over in the central area of the state somewhere …”

  “Near Murphysville,” Rocco suggested.

  “Yep. Some backwater place like that. Well, this kid just up and disappeared. Never could find a trace of her.”

  “Then it was a kidnapping?”

  The Beast pounded another walnut. “No ransom note or the like. State police finally dropped it. They figured she ran off with some no-account lover.”

  “Do you remember any other details?”

  “Weren’t none. That’s why I couldn’t do more with the story and had to lay it off on Bound and Gagged. The girl was last seen one afternoon walking in the family cemetery. Good color in that, the mag said. But they had to make up an ending. You can guess what they came up with.”

  “Sold into white slavery,” Rocco said.

  “You musta read some of those old copies. Sold into white slavery by the yellow hordes, as I recall. Anyway, truth is that some servant of the family saw her walking in the cemetery and then nothing. It was the same family as the kid in the speak. Vipers was their name, or something like that.”

  “Piper.”

  “Sounds like it. I almost had a feeling there was a family curse on those people. I tried to sell that idea to Bound and Gagged, but by that time they were in the process of going belly up. Those good old bloody mags are gone now. People nowadays have no imagination and want to get their blood and violence on film.”