The Pied Piper of Death

by Forrest, Richard;

  Men rushing across the bridge would be forced into a front only four men wide. They would face directly into murderously accurate musket fire that would destroy each rank in precision order.

  The only road approaching the bridge from the far side ran parallel to the creek and then plunged into a funnellike depression in front of the bluffs where the Georgian sharpshooters had waited.

  “What happened to the Connecticut men?” Lyon asked as they walked down a steep path leading off the hill toward the bridge road.

  West laughed. “You know, back in those days the officers were true leaders. It was expected that the colonel of the regiment would provide a personal example to his men and lead the attack from the front. It seems that even though the Thirty-first had only been in the army a month, Colonel Piper volunteered his men for the glory of taking the bridge. General Burnside turned him down the first time because he wanted seasoned troops to make the assault. Piper had a few belts of whiskey and went back to pester the general. He not only volunteered again, but demanded that Connecticut have the honor and glory of carrying the bridge. ‘By God they could do it!’ he told Burnside. Fact is they might have captured it, considering the cost they paid in lives. Might have, if they had had an officer to lead them properly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that by the time the regiment marched down to the bridge, Colonel Piper and his second-in-command had had a few more belts of whatever it was they were drinking. Piper was so drunk that he fell off his damn horse before he reached the bridge. He slept through the whole damn battle under a tree beyond that ridge over there.”

  “His men attacked without their colonel?”

  “Without most of their officers. It was said they marched right well for new soldiers as they went onto the bridge. Four abreast they were, marching to drummers and fifes right into the damn muskets of the Georgians. The Southern boys held their fire until they were halfway across and then they said it was a turkey shoot. A horrible bloody carnage.”

  “Four hundred and sixty-seven casualties?”

  “The Thirty-first only had six hundred men present for duty that day. Not many survived.”

  “But Caleb Piper did.”

  “They say he had one hell of a hangover. A headache so bad he got a wound medal for it.”

  “If the story of his drinking was known, why wasn’t he court-martialed?”

  “If you remember your history, the North desperately needed a victory at that time. Lincoln wanted to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which would be politically effective only if the rest of the world felt that the North would ultimately defeat the South. Antietam was the North’s first victory in the war. Those circumstances made it impossible to have court-martials over drunken colonels who fell off their horses while their regiments marched off to slaughter. That’s why Piper was given a medal and sent to the rear for the rest of the war.”

  “He killed them, didn’t he?”

  “Yep. He killed them more than the Georgians with their muskets on the bluff did. They said that most of the men panicked when the Southerners opened fire. Some soldiers tried to turn back and some didn’t; the bridge became a mass of milling confused men, which made them even more vulnerable. They were too green to have been volunteered for the mission in the first place. Without a leader and firm direction they were needlessly slaughtered. He murdered them the same as if he’d pointed a musket at each one and shot a minié ball into their heads.”

  “Yes, a minié ball.”

  “You know,” West mused, “the real hero of that battle was Major Swan, their adjutant. He wasn’t even supposed to be in the fight, but when he saw what was happening he ran out on the bridge and tried to rally the men. It was too late by that time and he was mortally wounded. He lived for a few days. Clara Barton kept him alive just long enough for his wife and teenage boy to get here for a last good-bye. They say he spent the last few minutes of his life talking with his young son. The boy never would say exactly what his dad’s last words were, but I think I know. I had worked here for twenty years and never saw it until 1975 when they closed the Burnside Bridge for a year’s renovation.”

  “Saw what?” Lyon asked.

  “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  They walked up to the bridge but instead of proceeding along the roadbed, Rusty led him down by the side of the vaulted structure. They stooped and went underneath the front portion of the first arch. At the creek’s edge underneath the bridge the retired ranger pointed up at the curve of the vault. “Looka that,” Rusty said.

  “I can’t make it out,” Lyon said.

  It was difficult to read the letters and words, until Rusty took a small penlight from his pocket and pointed it at the words. “When Washington said you were interested in the bridge I thought you might like to see this. Not many have.”

  Lyon read the words. “WE SWEAR AL … something … TO THE COVENANT OF THE BRIDGE.”

  “I think that word beginning with AL is ‘allegiance,’” the ranger said.

  “The letters are in brown.”

  “I figure it was written in blood from the creek that same day. We know that when Major Swan was hit he fell into the water about here. It’s only a guess, mind you, but I think that Swan wrote those words and passed on their meaning to his son.”

  “The Covenant of the Bridge,” Lyon repeated. “We swear allegiance to the Covenant of the Bridge. What in the hell does it mean?”

  Rusty shrugged. “Who knows? It was a long time ago. I conjecture that the survivors of the Thirty-first Rifles formed a memorial group of some sort. Sort of an early American Legion deal that probably turned into a drinking club.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the sort of thing a dying man would pass on to his teenage son,” Lyon said.

  “You got me, Mr. Wentworth. Some things get lost in time. Funny, you’re the second guy I’ve told this story to this month. Usually it comes out only once a year.”

  It took a moment for the ranger’s final remark to register. “You’ve told this to someone else? Recently?”

  “Yep. Just a couple of weeks ago. Fella was in a rush, but still said he was interested in the Connecticut Rifles. I swear, he turned white as a sheet when I mentioned Major Swan.”

  “Do you remember the man’s name?” Lyon asked slowly.

  “Nope. We see a thousand people a day in here sometimes.”

  “Then you have no idea who he was?”

  “Well, you could check the visitor’s registry, but that’s none too accurate. Couple a times a year we get General Burnside signing in, and according to the book, General Lee pays us a visit or two a year.”

  “Do you have any idea of what this man looked like?” Lyon pressed.

  “No. Except he had a funny accent.”

  Lyon’s disappointment was obvious. “From a foreign country?”

  “Oh, no. American. But real funny. Let me try and place it …”

  “Deep South, Cajun, or Geechie?”

  “Opposite direction. I’ll tell you. He sounded like a voice I heard when I was a little kid and used to listen to those Fireside Talks given by FDR. Yep, that’s it. The guy talked like that. Like FDR. Real friendly guy too. Say, I’ve often wondered what happened after the war to that son-of-a-bitch, Piper?”

  “He lived a long life and became very wealthy,” Lyon said.

  “You mean the people from his hometown didn’t shoot the bastard?”

  “No. Someone did far worse than that.”

  FIFTEEN

  The Wentworths left the Piper mausoleum together and stood looking out over the Piper Pie with its rows of orderly tombstones. Bea sat on the cannon barrel and brushed rock dust from the knees of her slacks. Their work inside the crypt was complete. Now they had to wait for their audience.

  “There are probably thousands of possible suspects for the murders of Piper heirs,” she said. “And that only includes direct descendants from the battle on the bridge.”

 
; “The attempt on Paula’s life indicates that the assassin knows day-to-day family moments.”

  “And you’re convinced that a relative of someone who was a casualty of that Civil War battle on the bridge is behind all this?” Bea asked.

  “Got to be,” Lyon answered. “How else can you explain that strange museum in the Underground Railroad station? It’s a shrine to a regiment’s casualties.”

  “And so death by minié ball has been carried down to modern times?”

  “Exactly,” Lyon said. “We know that Caleb Piper recruited his Civil War regiment in the Murphysville–Middleburg area. All six hundred men who marched out on that bridge came from here.”

  “And someone swore a vengeance that has carried down through the generations? Like who?”

  “We could start with the recently murdered man, Markham Swan. And, of course Roger Candlin, whose forefathers were lurking around.”

  “The Candlins would have a dual motive since another colonel destroyed them financially. I have a narrow soul; pardon me while I try not to gloat if the congressman is involved.”

  Lyon continued. “Then there’s Paula’s boyfriend, Chuck Fraxer, and of course Rabbit.”

  “Why couldn’t it be someone whose family wasn’t a member of the regiment? Someone completely unknown to us.”

  “Anything is possible,” Lyon answered. “But we have to assume that the originator of the vendetta had one hell of a motive. One strong enough to be carried down through time.”

  “We agree that no one-hundred-thirty-year-old guys are running around doing bad things. It has to be a contemporary person in each generation. Which means that you’re asking me to believe that the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of an original victim still carry enough hate to continue killing Pipers.” Bea pressed her point. “It could be that certain Piper kids have lots of bad luck. Which means that we’ve gone to a hell of a lot of effort for nothing and here comes part of our audience.”

  Rocco parked his police cruiser by the gate and walked across the cemetery toward the pie as Lyon went to meet him.

  Lyon’s hand, cupped over the large police chief’s shoulder, directed his reluctant charge toward the mausoleum. Rocco shook his head violently while Lyon talked earnestly. They stopped in front of Bea. She nodded and gave her knees a final brush before pushing off the cannon. “It’s open,” she said referring to the side passageway into the crypt.

  “Where’s Rabbit?” Lyon asked.

  “Frieda’s tracking him down and he’ll be along. What about Peyton? He’s the important one,” Bea answered.

  “I got him on the car phone,” Rocco answered. “He’s on his way from the factory.” Rocco’s brow furrowed. “This is the last time I drag that man anywhere. He’s talking heavy-duty legal stuff with harassment charges and court orders. And I can’t really blame him.”

  “Even if he killed Swan?” Lyon answered.

  “Can you prove that?” Rocco retorted.

  “Not yet, but that’s the reason for this meeting.”

  “You’re operating on instinct again?”

  “I have information. Recently a man at Antietam battlefield talked to the same ranger I spoke with. This person was extremely interested in the battle for the bridge and the colonel’s regiment. This very sociable individual spoke with an unusual New England accent.”

  “People from Maine speak with a distinct accent and some of them are even sociable,” Rocco said.

  “This person discovered, as I did, that a Major Swan was mortally wounded at that Bridge. He lived long enough for his young son to arrive. I think he made the boy take a vow of revenge, something called the Covenant of the Bridge.”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions there,” Bea said.

  “True, but a logical jump. We know that Peyton, searching for a new factory location, was in the South recently. I believe we can place him at that battlefield.”

  “It’s a national park, for God’s sake,” Rocco said.

  “Hear me out,” Lyon continued. “Either because of Swan’s research or his own knowledge, Peyton knows there is a possibility that his only child, Paula, will be murdered. He has no idea who might do it until he accidentally finds out about the death of Major Swan at the bridge. He now suspects that Swan has more than a sexual interest in Paula. He has no hard evidence, nor does he have any legal recourse since Swan hasn’t actually done anything at that point. This puts Peyton in one hell of a quandary. He knows that Swans may have been killing Pipers for generations, but he can’t do a damn thing about it.”

  “You’re making our little neighborhood munitions maker almost noble,” Bea said.

  “Except he let Loyce Swan take the fall for his murder.”

  “None of this beats the evidence Norby has against Swan’s wife,” Roco said. “Your conjectures weighed against the evidence about her motives just aren’t going to spring her.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Lyon said, “I’m hoping that what we have to show will have enough surprise to force some incriminating admissions from him. And here comes our man now.”

  They watched Peyton drive his Mercedes down the lane and turn into the cemetery. He parked behind the police cruiser and walked toward them with a chopping stride that radiated anger.

  “He looks like a munitions maker who has just learned of universal disarmament,” Bea said.

  “Can we get this charade over with quickly?” Peyton said irritably while still twenty feet away. “I would have thought you’d have more sense, Beatrice.”

  “It won’t take a moment. This way,” Bea said as she ducked to enter the building through the narrow side entrance. They followed single file. She crossed to Caleb’s vault, where she hoisted herself to the rim and dropped inside.

  “Exactly what in the hell is she doing?” Peyton asked.

  “We’ve found something,” Lyon said. “Just follow her.”

  Peyton looked dubious until Bea stooped over to scuttle forward and quickly disappeared from sight.

  “Where the hell did she go?”

  Rocco’s hand on Peyton’s shoulder was an unmistakable signal. “You’ll find out. Go ahead.”

  In complete silence they made their way through the narrow passageway into the hidden room.

  Once inside the entryway Bea’s outstretched hands forced them to stand in line. The bright flashlights in the exterior room had temporarily destroyed their night vision, so they waited in nearly complete darkness. Lyon and Rocco stood on either side of Peyton to observe his initial reactions.

  Outside, nearly inaudible from their location in the secret room, they could hear the chug of heavy machinery.

  “What in the hell is that?” Rocco asked in the darkness.

  “Sounds like the backhoe,” Peyton answered. “Tomorrow we were to put in some new drainpipes along the lane down from the Pie. I guess they started a day early.”

  “Ready?” Bea asked.

  “Do it,” Lyon answered.

  Bea counted a silent ten before she threw the switch that turned on the three battery lanterns she had carefully positioned on either side of the entrance.

  The floodlike lamps instantly illuminated the room.

  Peyton involuntarily stepped back against the wall as if he had been slammed by a gigantic fist. “I’ll be damned,” he finally said in a hushed voice. His look of surprise changed to astonishment as he gradually absorbed the macabre scene. The combination of filtered natural light through the oblong window slits in the rock face and the powerful lantern beams created a combination that twisted the room’s shadows into strange shapes. The total effect was overwhelming.

  The centerpiece was the long center table with its two costumed hostesses. These silent cadavers, facing each other as if in animated conversation, created a frightening initial tableau.

  Peyton walked along the wall, staying as far from the table as he could until he passed the two petrified bodies that had been transformed into human caricatures. He shuddered and
turned away. It was at this point that he seemed to notice that the mass of material fixed to the walls was not decorative. He stepped closer to examine individual items more carefully.

  “What is this?” Peyton said after his initial inspection. The factory owner seemed to have recovered part of his emotional equilibrium, which reactivated his usual authoritarian attitude. He paced nervously in front of the wall covered with the scraps of Civil War memorabilia. “Is this supposed to be some sort of modern art? A historical collage of some sort?” His look at Lyon was more of an accusation than a question. “Did you perpetrate this desecration, Wentworth?” His hand swept along the wall holding the relics from the decimated regiment until it pointed at the two remains seated at the table.

  “Me?” Lyon glanced at Rocco and Bea standing by the entrance. His look silently asked them for an opinion of whether this was Peyton Piper’s first exposure to the hidden room. He knew his friend and wife well enough to know that Rocco’s slight shoulder movement and Bea’s small shrug were verification of his own feeling. Peyton had not seen this room before. No man other than the most talented actor or sociopathic personality could fake his reaction.

  “Do you know what that material on the wall represents?” Lyon asked Peyton.

  “Haven’t the slightest. All that I can see is that someone has sullied a very valuable historical shrine.”

  “Then you know why this room was built?”

  “I’m not all that dense, Wentworth. You were the one who suggested there was another possible room for the Underground Railroad. This is obviously that room. Those,” he pointed to the two ancient cadavers at the table, “are obviously …”

  “Who?” Rocco asked.

  “One must be the colonel’s wife who’s missing from her grave. The other … I don’t know.”

  “Try Mary, the first wife,” Bea said.

  “Impossible!” Peyton snapped. “Her body was never found.”

  “It never went anywhere,” Rocco said. “The colonel stashed her in his own tomb until she was moved in here by someone else.”

  “Do you know what’s on the walls?” Lyon asked.

  Peyton peered closely at the relics before answering. “It’s old stuff that seems to be related to the men of Caleb’s regiment. In fact, it looks like junk someone might have gathered on a battlefield after the fighting was over.”