Death on the Mississippi (16 page)

“You mean the night you almost bought it?”

“That's right.”

“I was downstairs in my workshop.”

“Both times?” Lyon asked.

“Recently, I've been down there every night. When I get upset I work with wood, and with Dalton's goings-on I was climbing the walls so bad I had to work down there. It's more effective than booze. Come on, I'll show you.”

Without waiting for Lyon's answer, Sam opened the cellar door and threw the light switch before disappearing down the stairs. Lyon followed.

The wood smell was apparent halfway down the steps. It was a good odor of aged wood, sawdust, and the faint residue of machine oil. The cellar was crowded with machinery: several types of power saws, a wood lathe, and two workbenches with a myriad of tools attached neatly above them. It was an orderly and functional place administered by a man who obviously loved tools and the materials they shaped.

Sam stopped by a small pile of wood on a bench and picked up a single two-foot section. He ran his fingers gingerly along its grain. “Look at this piece. It's what I'm going to work with next.” He held it toward Lyon. “Isn't it great?”

The wood was extremely fragrant. “What is it?” Lyon asked.

“Sandalwood. I've never worked with it before, but it's been used in Asian cabinetwork for generations. I'm really looking forward to shaping it.”

Lyon rubbed his fingers along the smooth grain of the wood. “By the way, did you see Katrina the morning she was killed?”

Sam picked up a hammer from the workbench and slammed it onto a hook in a pegboard. “If I had, I would have said so! You know, Wentworth, I gave the cops all that information.” He glared at Lyon a moment and then some of the anger seemed to dissipate. “No, I did not see Katrina that day. I was making all those damn phone calls to the marinas trying to locate the houseboat. I never went to the cottages or near the water that morning.”

“Then you and Dice were both in the office that morning?”

“Yes, except that Randy was gone part of the time. He said he had a meeting with some money guy he knew and was going to try and negotiate something.”

“Then you were alone part of the time and Randy was gone part of the time?” Lyon said.

“So? Jesus! Why in the hell would I want to knock off Kat Loops? And what difference do these questions make anyhow? I understand they got quite a case against Bobby Douglas.”

“Maybe,” Lyon said. “I'm still convinced that the two men on the houseboat weren't in on it alone. Someone had to tip them off to the fact that there was a great deal of money on the boat.”

“It's over, Wentworth. Let it drop.” He went to the far end of the room and stopped before a smaller workbench where a dropcloth was spread over several objects. “I'd like you to see what I've been working on. Turn your back until I set them up.”

Lyon turned, sure that he would be able to make the appropriate remarks concerning the craftsmanship of the display. All the other finished pieces that he could see were of excellent quality.

“Look at my beauties,” Sam said.

Lyon looked down at the small display spread neatly over the bench. Sam had turned a light so that its beam fell squarely on the models. “My God.”

“I decided to work in miniature,” Sam said. “Some of the devices are just too large for storage, so I work on a one-to-ten scale in exact replica. But every single device is fully functional.”

“I can believe it,” Lyon said in amazement. The display consisted of intricate miniatures of every item in the most complete medieval torture chamber, along with scale models of death machines of several states and a few foreign countries. The fatal devices consisted of a guillotine, electric chair, and an exact duplicate of the San Quentin gas chamber, along with a full working model of a hangman's scaffold. The inquisitor's tools were the rack, iron maiden, and other devices that Lyon couldn't identify.

“Let me show you how they work,” Sam said with pride. “My favorite is the guillotine.” Before Lyon could reply he whisked a Barbie doll out from under the bench and forced the toy into a kneeling position with her head resting over the tiny wicker basket and her neck properly aligned for the execution. Drawn upward by a thin wire, the blade of the machine slowly rose.

Lyon's hand flicked forward as his fingers pinched the guillotine blade against its supports. “I get the idea. I know the thing works and don't need a full demonstration.”

“Aren't these things great?” Sam asked with obvious pride.

“I'd say it's a very unusual collection.”

“You want to hear the snap of the trap door when I hang one?”

“I'll take your word for it,” Lyon said. “Sam, do you always use little blond dolls with long legs and hair to their shoulders?”

“Jesus, Wentworth! It's a question of economics. I can buy a fake Barbie for two bucks at a discount house. Those damn Ken dolls would run me ten or twelve bucks apiece. What's the matter with you? Do you think I'm some sort of pervert?”

During the short drive to the Dice home, Bea's conversation seemed to consist mostly of numbers. “Thirty.” No answer. “All right, more than twenty but less than fifty?”

“The writer George Simenon in his autobiography claimed to have made love to a thousand women in his lifetime,” Lyon said and immediately regretted the remark.

Bea blanched, and considered the possibility a moment. “In Simenon's case that's about one woman for each book he wrote. If you operate on that scale, and considering your recent productivity, we don't have a problem.”

“Touché,” Lyon said. Long marriages invariably gave each partner knowledge of the most painful buttons to push.

“We now seem reduced to an even baker's dozen,” she said. “And I don't know why I'm going on like this except that it's like an aching tooth. It's there, it hurts, and still you can't help sloshing your tongue around to see how bad it can really get.”

The Dices lived in a new Murphysville subdivision called Herkimer Heights. The location had once been the town dump. Years of use had finally filled the area to capacity. The town fathers had bulldozed a thin layer of topsoil over the refuse and sold the land to Leon Herkimer, a former used-car salesman. The houses listed for three hundred thousand, but Leon would deal, particularly if the prospective buyers noticed the abundance of sea gulls nostalgically circling the lots.

The Dice driveway and street frontage were filled with an eclectic assortment of vehicles. Brand-new Porsches and BMW's sat next to rusting Fords and dusty pickup trucks. The house's north wall had already cracked as the foundation made its inexorable tip to the side in the flimsy landfill.

A pleasantly warm dusk had settled comfortably over the area. There was light in every window of the Dice home, and guests overflowed onto the rear deck and swimming pool. As Lyon and Bea went up the walk toward the front door, they were deluged with party sounds.

“This is obviously not one of your more sedate memorial services,” Bea said.

The front door was ajar, and they stepped inside to be met by Randy Dice. “Is that you, Dice?” Lyon asked quizzically. The man before them bore little resemblance to the overly worried financial officer at the resort. His usual conservative suit had been shucked and replaced by madras Bermuda shorts, a loud Hawaiian sport shirt, and beaded moccasins. Conversation was drowned by the living room's four-speaker stereo system, which began blaring the Doors' “Light My Fire.”

Dice kept a strong grip on both their arms as he steered them through the crowd toward the bar. “You're my buddy, Wentworth. I mean, you really saved the day, drove the Huns from the streets, held the pass with a loyal band, saved our ass, in other words. He's dead and gone and we are back in business.”

“Finding Dalton's body is hardly something I need be thanked for,” Lyon said.

“The other half has arrived,” Randy said and led them back to the front door. A woman of thirty, carrying a briefcase, stood in the doorway. She watched the swirling party through horn-rimmed glasses with an uncertain gaze. Her abundant jet-black hair was in a French twist, and her somber Givenchy business suit was of modest length. Dice introduced his wife, Maureen, and told them that she was a bond analyst in Hartford.

“Randy and I were at Harvard Business together,” Maureen said.

Bea, standing slightly in back of Maureen, held up two fingers for Lyon to see. They both knew that a record had been established that might never be broken in their lifetime.

“The Dillworths are down from Portland, the MacKenzies from Boston, and a host of others, honeypot. Those people don't come to just any affair.”

“I can see it's going to be a great party,” Maureen said in a small voice.

“I guess Dalton would have appreciated a party as much as a memorial service,” Lyon said.

“Memorial service!” Dice chortled. “This is a celebration that the rat is gone.”

“Which, I take it, is why Pan Turman is not here,” Bea asked.

“Neither Mr. or Mrs. Turman was welcome in my house after a certain incident at the resort,” Maureen Dice said.

Randy Dice finished his drink and his already-flushed face turned a deeper hue of red. “We made the mistake of accepting an invitation to spend a night at the resort. The next morning at breakfast they made all sorts of sly remarks about convertible debentures, friendly takeovers, and leveraged buy-outs.”

“I don't understand,” Bea said.

Maureen blushed. “Well, convertible debentures are my … and friendly takeovers and buy-outs are when Randy and I … make love.”

“They had a damn microphone planted in our mattress,” Randy said. “A little joke they evidently pulled many times.”

“Eureka,” Bea said. “And so goes Elizabeth Taylor.”

“She trifled with me,” Lyon said.

“You have to get ready for the party,” Dice told his wife as he led her away.

“I don't know a soul at this party,” Bea said. “I can't understand it. I know most of the voters in my district at least by sight. Let's see if we can meet some of them.”

Maureen Dice made her second appearance a few minutes later. She exited from the bedroom with a loud “Ta Dum!,” which caused a small circle of admirers to gather appreciatively around her with Lyon and Bea on the periphery of the group. Maureen had changed radically. Her long raven hair now hung in an abundant shower down her back, and she wore a skimpy halter and very tight short-shorts. She held her hands up in the air and did a bump-and-grind routine.

Randy Dice stood directly behind them. “Now you see what I would have lost if the job went under. She would never stay with me if I went belly up.”

“People often surprise you in their reaction to adversity,” Bea said.

“Maureen knows as well as I that it's survival of the fittest. That's economic determinism pure and simple. Do the other guy before he does you. You only get screwed if you don't understand those rules,” Dice said.

“It seems to me that your financial salvation was due more to a quirk of fate, rather than any Machiavellian moves on your part,” Lyon said.

“We make our own opportunities,” Dice replied.

“Where were you the night Dalton disappeared?” Lyon asked.

Dice squinted at him with what might have been a smile. “You saw me talk to him on the boat that afternoon, and it was obvious to everyone that I had to talk to one of our banks. It was a long dinner meeting, and I stayed over at a Hartford motel.”

“Which one?”

“I don't remember. It might have been one in the suburbs, I don't recall.”

“The name and location would be on your credit card receipt.”

“I paid cash.” He put one arm on Lyon's shoulder and another around Bea in a move that was both alcoholic camaraderie and an effective change of subject. “It never would have occurred to me to invite you two to one of our parties if Dalton hadn't told me that you really liked to swing. Enjoy.” He moved off into the crowd.

“Dalton's still haunting us,” Lyon said.

“They've begun skinny-dipping in the pool,” Bea said. “I fear the witching hour approaches and we'll soon be asked to participate in the fun and games.”

Lyon nodded, and they moved in unspoken unison toward the front door.

They were halfway down the drive when they heard the slap of bare feet on the grass behind them. They turned to see Maureen rushing toward them. She plucked at Bea's sleeve. “Please don't go. Everything's just starting.”

“We're not prudes,” Bea said. “But we're just not into swinging.”

“You don't have to participate.” There was a girlish imploring in her nearly desperate request.

“I'm afraid voyeurism isn't our bag either,” Lyon said.

“I didn't mean that, I thought maybe we could just talk.” She turned to look back at the house where several lights had already been extinguished. “I don't know what I meant, except that I'm not into it either. Randy thinks that I am because I pretend. I come home, change my clothes, and put on an act with all the appropriate words and noises. When it comes time to do it, I hide in the linen closet. Everyone thinks that I select someone special, but I don't. I hide.”

Bea took the other woman's hand. “Why do you pretend?”

“Because that's what he wants. I'm really so plain and dull, and he could have lots of other women. Thanks for coming, anyway.” She began to walk slowly back to the house as another light went out.

12

Lyon sat lengthwise on their parapet above the Connecticut River with his knees drawn up to his chin. He faced toward the Sound as a mild breeze marched upriver carrying the smell of the night sea. There seemed to be a metallic taste in his mouth, and he felt a sheen of depression. The Dice party and the earlier tour of Sam's pain-evoking machines merged into differing groups of unpleasant pictures.