Death on the Mississippi (12 page)

Lyon stepped away from the angry State Police officer. “I understand.”

Bea shook Norbert's hand. “Just this morning I was telling the Commissioner what a fine job you do in this part of the state, Captain.”

“Thank you, Senator.” He clapped Rocco on the back. “We're having a barbecue on Sunday. You and Martha will come, of course?”

“Naturally,” Rocco replied.

As they started to leave the cell block Norbert gestured to a middle cell. Bobby Douglas sat dejectedly on the edge of the bunk with his hands hanging between his knees. “Hey, Douglas. The lab called with their report, that
is
the victim's blood on your knife. You'll be arraigned in the morning.”

Lyon waved the others on and went over to Bobby's cell. He heard Norbert whisper a comment to Bea in the hall. “I don't understand how a nice lady like you lives with a guy like that, Senator. Excuse me, I must tell MacIntire that he's a corporal. That ought to improve his foot.”

Bobby looked up and forced a smile. “That was one hell of a fight in there. I wish I coulda helped you guys.”

“Did you kill her, Bobby?”

“I swear to God, I didn't, Mr. Wentworth. I hadn't seen my knife in days. I don't know how it got blood on it.”

“When was the last time you saw Dalton?”

“When I left the
Mississippi
with you. Right after we docked on the river across from your place.”

“Who would want to kill Katrina?”

“I think she was becoming a pain in the butt to Dalton. If he were around, he'd be on my list, but if not him, maybe his wife, Pan. Maybe she knew something she wasn't supposed to know. I only know I didn't kill her.”

“None of us in here did nuthin',” the voice from the next cell said. “We're like victims of circumstances.”

There was a lot of laughing as Lyon left the cell block.

It was probably because Bea was still treating them as two recalcitrant young boys that made Rocco insist on stopping at Sarge's Place. Renfroe stuffed his dirty bar rag under the counter as they entered.

“What the hell happened, Captain? I ain't seen you beat up so bad since the time you and me took on the cops in Phenix City outside of Benning.”

“They tell me I gave a class in unarmed combat. Set us up, Sarge.”

Bea followed them in after parking the car. She was halfway to the table when Sarge caught up to her. His large ham-hand came down in an arcing sweep that caught her flat across the rear and staggered her forward a few feet.

“How are you, babe? I ain't seen you in a while, Senator.”

“I think there's probably a reason for that, Sarge,” Bea answered.

Renfroe gave her a bear hug. “You can put your shoes under my bunk anytime, honey.”

“You don't go to bed, Sarge, you pass out. How about a pink lady.”

“You don't drink those things,” Lyon said as she sat down.

“I like to make Sarge's life difficult.”

“Bobby tells me he didn't kill Katrina,” Lyon said.

“Bull diddle!” Rocco said. “He was jumping her, he knew that Dalton had money on the boat, the knife is his, he was at the resort, and he's got priors. Norbie and the state's attorney will have him begging for murder two in a couple of days.”

“What about Dalton as the killer?” Bea suggested.

“He's dead,” Lyon said positively.

“Like he was dead in that coffin in our living room. Come on, Went,” Bea said. “He found out his mistress was two-timing him and so he got rid of her and her lover.”

“Where's the
Mississippi
?” Rocco asked. “A joke is one thing; an impossibility another.”

“He sank it in the ocean,” Bea said with finality.

“How did he get it out there past the bridges, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Coast Guard?”

“I'm working on that,” Bea said.

“I think he was killed, either for the cash he had on the boat or for other reasons.” Lyon began to tick suspects off his fingers. “There's the Rhode Island contingent that weren't pleased with him. Randy Dice blames all his problems on Dalton, and Sam Idelweise certainly isn't happy.”

“Don't forget Miss Conviviality,” Bea said. “There are things about her that I'm only beginning to suspect.”

Sarge served Lyon's sherry, Rocco's vodka, and a third drink of strange coloration. Bea shook her head.

“You know, one day one of us is going to get a phone call from Rio and there's going to be a strange laugh and guess who?”

“I think not,” Lyon said.

“I have to go to work,” Bea said. “Lyon will not make any airplane or balloon trips. He will not pass ‘go.' He will go home and write great literature, and he will give me half his drink, because I can't take Sarge's latest potion.”

No airplane or balloon trips, Lyon thought to himself as he walked out to their barn at Nutmeg Hill. She hadn't mentioned anything about boats. He was convinced that his theory concerning the location of the
Mississippi
was the only remaining possibility. However, it was so outlandish that he was embarrassed to bring it to the police's or his wife's attention until he had verified it.

It took nearly an hour of hard work in the barn to move balloon equipment, lawn tools, and cartons of unknown contents that blocked access to the fourteen-foot runabout. It had been three years since the boat had been used, and in the interim a family of some sort of rodentia had obviously utilized it as a rat-staging area. It took another hour to clean the boat, mount it on its trailer, and attach the outboard to the rear transom. The engine had to be oiled and the carburetor adjusted until it ran without ragged bursts of exhaust.

He searched through the balloon gondola for other equipment and attached a flat, waist life belt with a small CO
₂
cartridge for inflation, under his sport shirt. A hunting vest with its numerous pockets and pouches was useful for holding other items. He clipped a flashlight to a ring on the vest, while a compass and map went into another pocket. A Swiss Army knife, a camera with flash attachment, and a candy bar filled the game pouch at the rear of the vest. He put a short crowbar into the boat along with a pair of binoculars.

He had everything he needed except for the ignition keys to the station wagon that was to pull the runabout to the mouth of the river. He hurried back to the kitchen where their duplicate keys hung on a board. There was a neatly printed note where they should have been: “Did I neglect to mention car trips?”

“You look mad as a hornet,” Pan said from the kitchen doorway.

“I need to go somewhere in the wagon and can't find the car keys and my divorce is going to be expensive.” It was even worse—he could see the Wobblies standing in his study doorway beckoning to him.

“I saw you hook up the boat to the station wagon. Can I go with you?”

“I'd rather go alone, if I
were
going.”

“Why don't you hot-wire it?”

“I don't know how.”

“I'll show you. When you grow up in a small Southern town like I did, you learn that boys are only interested in two things, and the second is cars.”

He drove the secondary highway that ran most nearly parallel to the river until he reached its mouth near the railroad bridge. He parked the station wagon at a state boat-launching area almost directly underneath the bridge and uncoupled the trailer. Holding tightly to the trailer's tongue, he backed it down the ramp until the boat floated free. He pulled the start rope on the outboard until the engine kicked into life. He threw the motor in gear, gave a hard right to the rudder, and sailed under the railroad bridge and out past the point into the Sound.

It took over an hour for the small outboard to reach a position that was five hundred yards off Red Deer Island. He put the motor in neutral and let the boat drift as he lifted the binoculars and swept the terrain of the small islet.

It was exactly as he remembered it. It appeared today the same way it had when he sailed here with his father those many years ago. It hadn't changed in fifty years, not since the last occupants of the house boarded the windows and left forever after donating the property to the Audubon Society as a bird sanctuary.

It was the same, and that was the flaw, as he knew that the remains of the house had been demolished during a hurricane a year ago. He focused the glasses on the structure.

The dwelling had been constructed at the edge of what was once a broad beach, but which over the years had eroded into a narrow strip of sand. The structure was covered in vines and brush. The front veranda had crumpled years ago, until only a few posts and rotting boards remained. Planks and sheets of plywood had been nailed across the doors and windows. Because of the way the house was built in relation to the water, only the front and part of one side were visible from any off-island location. Dense foliage obscured the other side and rear.

He let the motorboat drift closer to shore. When the distance had halved, he could see where some of the foliage growing over the building was beginning to brown. It was dying. He felt he was close to the solution of the boat's disappearance. When he knew what had happened to Dalton, perhaps the murder of Katrina would be explained.

The runabout beached on the narrow strip of sand, and water lapped gently at the edge of his canvas shoes as he stepped ashore and pulled the boat above the high-water mark. He stood before the heavily shuttered house holding the crowbar.

“Like a damn Q-ship,” he said aloud. Armed ships of war had often been disguised as cumbersome freighters to lure the enemy. It was time to discover if Dalton had audaciously adapted this concept.

He stepped toward a sealed doorway and inserted the crowbar into a seam and began to pry. He had to pull down with his complete weight before screeching nails signaled the separation of the exterior planking from its interior attachment. He stepped quickly backward as the plank ripped free and fell to the ground.

Instead of peering into the dim musty interior of a sealed house, he faced the sleek side of the houseboat. The exterior of the house was a facade, a cleverly constructed front similar to a movie set. The ground to his right that led toward the water was riffled, as if it had been scoured with tree branches after the
Mississippi
had been winched ashore.

He began to pry other sections away from the building's false exterior, and with each additional piece the pattern became more obvious. The
Mississippi
had slipped its moorings from the dock across from Nutmeg Hill and drifted downstream until its engines could be safely started. They—for Dalton would have needed help—would have taken the craft to a dark and deserted cove where the false panels had been attached.

The blunt lines of the houseboat had been camouflaged as the squat coastal tanker reported by the second bridge operator. They had sailed the unseaworthy craft out of the river and the few miles to Red Deer Island. Once it had been winched ashore, the disguise panels had been reversed and reset as they had been designed to be, and the boat became the shuttered house.

The flimsy facade would not hold up indefinitely, but would probably go undetected through a summer or more unless discovered by trespassing boys. Dalton, carrying his hoard of cash, had pulled the ultimate prank.

He reached over the houseboat rail and pulled high enough to inch first one leg, then another, over the side so that he could drop to the deck. There was a dank, sweetish odor in the darkened craft. It was a smell of must and dead things. Lyon involuntarily shivered as he unhooked the flashlight from the vest. He switched it on and swiveled the light over the interior. It was as if the craft's short double life had accelerated its deterioration. Brass was smudged, a film of dust and dirt lay across all flat surfaces, and the deck planks were scarred and marred by cuts and scratches. Several of the large windows in the saloon were broken or cracked.

He climbed over stray pieces of equipment and worked his way to the saloon entrance. He had to push aside brush, cushions, and other debris before he could force open the door and step inside.

His light flicked abruptly from side to side as he absorbed the devastation. The once-sumptuous saloon was a shambles. Knife slashes slit cushions, carpeting had been peeled away from the deck, and large swatches of wood paneling had been torn from the bulkheads. Someone had carried out a frantic search without concern for its trail of destruction.

The smell he had noticed on the outside deck was more pronounced in the saloon. He pushed his way past overturned furniture into the dining room where the odor was nearly overpowering.

Dalton Turman was in the master stateroom, and the source of the smell.

His feet dangled a few inches from the deck as he hung by the neck from a rope hooked over a spike driven into the wall. The remains of his clothing hung in long tatters as a result of long knife strokes whose paths streaked his body in tortuous strokes.

Lyon gagged and ran from the stateroom. He was nearly to the saloon door when two men appeared in the entrance. They both wore stocking masks, and the larger one slammed him against the bulkhead with a massive thrust of his shoulders.

“Kill him,” the smaller man said.

9

Lyon groaned.

“Idiot!” The voice seemed a thousand miles away. “I told you to kill the son of a bitch.”

“Hell, I hit him hard enough. What difference does it make? He's going to drown in a minute and a half.” He frantically groped for coherence, and the voices did seem clearer as the echo effect faded. He forced his eyes open only to look into a black well filled with concentric rings of light that moved toward and past him. He attempted a body orientation in order to establish his physical position. He discovered that his feet were tightly bound at the ankles, and his hands were tied behind his back. He lay facedown on an uneven wooden surface. He could feel vibrations sending slight tremors through his body, and there was a pronounced yaw movement. Cool spray sprinkled the back of his neck.