Death on the Mississippi (25 page)

“Do you have a guard on Dalton?” Lyon asked.

Bea took his hand and squeezed. “It's not necessary.”

“Didn't make it. Too bad,” Lyon said. “Saved my life once. I ever tell you that?”

“Once or twice,” Bea said.

“You know, Lyon,” Rocco began, “it's about time we cleared that little matter up. With Dalton gone, I am released from my oath and can tell you the truth. There wasn't really a firefight that night at our perimeter. Dalton planted those army fire crackers they use for training in front of your position. When he set them off, it sounded exactly like a mortar attack. Then he pretended to come to your rescue, but it was all a put-up job, a trick, one of his pranks. You know how he was.”

The drugs they had administered were making Lyon inordinately sleepy. “Thanks, Rocco, and I'll pretend that I believe that.” His eyes closed. “But how was Dalton going to make the helicopter disappear?” He was very sleepy, but he would think about it, and maybe the Wobblies would know.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries

O
NE

They were going to be killed!

When Lyon Wentworth accepted the invitation to Bridgeway house to discuss a murder, he hadn't realized that it was to be his own.

He gripped the steering wheel tightly in both hands as the small car tilted at a 45-degree angle. He unclenched one fist to pound on the windshield. The press of the crowd forced a contorted face forward until a nose splayed grotesquely against the glass.

At the gravitational point of no return the Saturn coupe teetered precariously and then flipped back on four wheels to shimmer on its suspension system.

A placard was shoved across the hood. Its streaked letters, scrawled in a red substance chosen to resemble blood, read,
PIED PIPER OF DEATH
!

Unseen hands jounced the car to the rhythm of the crowd's metronome chant. “Pitch Piper Out! Pitch Piper Out!”

A single voice rose above the others. “Terminate Tommy mines!”

Bea Wentworth looked at her husband with concern. “Do you know what's going on?”

“They're protesting.”

She grimaced. “Somehow, I gathered that. Why?” The chant's cadence shifted as a fist pounded the car roof. Overhead thumps multiplied as more hands joined the roof chorus until a cacophony of sound reverberated through the small passenger compartment.

An egg splattered against the rear windshield.

“Child murderers!” came from a deep bass voice that rose above the others.

Bea was puzzled. “What in the world are abortion protesters doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“Wrong cause. This is the anti-land-mine contingent.”

Bea nodded. “Okay, I've got it.” She involuntarily recoiled as a spaghetti squash splattered against the front windshield directly in front of her.

At dusk they had driven up the winding road from the ferry dock that led to the high hill above the Connecticut River where the Piper mansion, Bridgeway, perched. It had been a pleasant drive on a warm summer evening until they rounded the last bend and approached the heavy wrought-iron gates that guarded the mansion's entrance. The protestors had been sitting on loose stone walls on both sides of the narrow lane talking quietly among themselves. The car headlights had acted as a catalyst for action. Protesters from both sides of the lane had immediately blocked further forward movement. In seconds the Saturn had been surrounded by a shouting crowd.

Lyon scanned angry faces. They were a mixed group composed largely of the zealous young sprinkled with an older contingent marching on yet another crusade in a long line of social concerns. The veteran protesters had prospered through the years and were separated from the neophytes by variations in clothing styles. The youngest wore wash-faded blue jeans with obligatory torn knees topped by Grateful Dead T-shirts. The older group wore L.L. Bean slacks and silk-screened T-shirts with sincere slogans. These messages were usually concerned with mammalian animals. They protested the death of little seals, fur-bearing beasts, dolphins, and leg traps for rodents. The destruction caused by Piper Corporation land mines evidently hadn't reached the commercial market yet, and the protesters had to use homemade signs to express their anger.

The group's leader appeared to be a rangy graduate student with long stringy hair that fell loosely over the shoulders of his worn army field jacket. He had taken obvious care to pull his hair back in such a way as to reveal a single gold earring. He stood on a wide tree stump by the side of the road where he directed the attack on the car while simultaneously haranguing the crowd.

“For as little as three dollars a weapon they make these instruments of death,” the protest leader shouted. “And thirty percent of the victims are women and children.” His hoarse voice cracked.

“You tell them, Chuck!” someone yelled.

“They planted ten million mines in Angola and it takes one hundred dollars to clear a single mine,” the leader tried to shout.

“They won't move,” Lyon said. “I can't go forward or back.”

“You know,” Bea said. “I didn't want to accept this invitation tonight. Peyton says he wants to talk about the future of his factory. I think that's his excuse for some sort of political game, and Peyton Piper is hardly one of my supporters.”

“My reason for coming is even weaker,” Lyon said. “Markham Swan's phone call was off the wall. I shouldn't have paid any attention.”

“Maybe he's the one who started this little demonstration,” she said with a small wave toward the angry crowd outside the windows. “Markham Swan is always trying to manipulate people. I wouldn't put anything past him, particularly if women are involved.”

“His message seemed restricted to the Piper family. He talked about a murder, not destruction in the Third World. According to Swan, Bridgeway is to be the scene for a killing. He claims that someone in the Piper family is going to be murdered.”

“Are you sure he didn't mean ours?” Bea asked.

“Oops!” Lyon said as the car was tilted on its side again. They were jolted again when the chassis slammed back to its normal position.

“All right! That's it!” Bea yelled.

Lyon knew the significance of his wife's tone and immediately grabbed for Bea's arm. He was an instant too late. His fingers brushed helplessly against the back of her blouse as she catapulted out the door.

Bea shouldered her way through protesters, ducked under a sign swung at her head, and climbed up on the hood of the car. “Now hear this!” she screamed over the din of angry voices.

Lyon shoved his car door open, knocking over a dark-haired girl. He pushed through the crowd and wrenched a sign from an intense adolescent who was preparing to slam it against the back of Bea's knees. The young protester seemed startled, but yielded the weapon with a shrug.

The long-haired leader, who still occupied the tree stump, pointed an accusatory finger at Bea. “Piper guests drink blood. We know your kind!”

“Your anger is misdirected,” Bea's projected voice carried over the group.

“Sure, that's why we're collecting fireflies out here,” the adolescent who had yielded his sign to Lyon shot back.

“You want the mines defused?” Bea immediately responded.

The group's agreement with her statement quieted some of the antagonistic mumbling. “You know it!” someone shouted as a mutual response for the group.

“You want Tommy production terminated and a fund created for mine removal?” Her clear voice carried over the lane.

A dissenting male voice replied. “Who is this crazy broad?”

“Shut up!” a woman demanded.

“Let her speak!” another added.

Their leader, standing on the stump, realized he was losing control and struggled to reestablish dominance. “And who the hell are you?”

“I'm State Senator Bea Wentworth. The Piper factory in the valley, his house beyond that gate, and all of you are now in my district. If you have a grievance, I'm here to listen and act on your behalf.”

“Tommy land mines have maimed thousands of innocents,” a voice said. “Each day in the Third World women and children peacefully working in the fields are blown to pieces.”

Lyon glanced up at the placard nailed to his captured sign post.
PIPER PICKS PICKLED SHIT
, it announced in large red letters. He allowed himself a tight smile upon the realization that for the last couple of minutes he had been unconsciously waving the sign in support of the protest.

A hand curled over his shoulder and caused him to turn toward its owner. “Glad you're with us, Lyon.” He knew the speaker vaguely from years ago when they had both been on the faculty of Middleburg University. Although they had been in different departments and he couldn't remember the man's name, Lyon identified him by association with Chemistry and Lacrosse.

Lyon Wentworth was an inch over six feet, with a lanky build. His most prominent feature was a forelock of blondish brown hair that occasionally jutted over his forehead. He constantly brushed it back with an unconscious gesture that seemed to increase his often bemused look. He wore boat shoes, casual slacks, and a white sport shirt.

“I bought your last book for my six-year-old daughter,” Chemistry-Lacrosse said. “She liked the ending where the Wobbly monsters boiled the wicked witch in oil.”

“Glad she liked it,” Lyon answered.

“I suppose writing children's books pays better than teaching?” Chemistry-Lacrosse asked.

“Sometimes.” Lyon smiled at his lie. If he'd stayed in teaching he'd be a tenured full professor by now, and that yearly salary was more than equal to royalties from several Wobbly Revenge books.

Bea spread her feet farther apart for better balance on the car hood. She turned a slow semicircle in order for her remarks to be heard clearly on both sides of the lane. She extended her arms and hands in a gesture requesting silence. The protesters' catcalls sputtered to silence as they slowly obeyed her request.

Lyon had often had the opportunity to observe his wife's unique attention-gathering quality. By the strength of her personality and the force of her courage, Bea was slowly gathering the reins of control. The dynamism of her presence was gradually establishing her dominance and shifting the crowd's allegiance.

Bea was neither large nor strikingly beautiful. She was slightly under medium height, with a full figure. If the moderate-length hair that bracketed her face made a gaminelike first impression, this fey quality was belied by the darting intelligence and intensity displayed in her eyes.

Lyon had always felt that a good deal of his wife's sexuality arose from her energy and infectious zest for living. This élan was often displayed through her positive support for those things she admired, and her combative stance over those she opposed.

“Hear me out!” Bea said. “Then I'll listen to you.” She had them. The group was so silent that the ordinary night sounds of the surrounding meadows could be heard. “I have been asked here to a meeting,” she said. “Mr. Piper has requested that I meet with him concerning the future of the Piper Corporation. Not only will I listen to what he has to say, I will tell him how you feel.”

“Tommy land mines are the rotten drool of an evil giant!” a voice screamed, at the edge of hysteria.

“They sow death where food should grow,” another added.

Shouts of agreement drowned further additions to the litany of protest.

Lyon mentally reviewed his knowledge of the Terrible Tommy land mines as manufactured by the Piper Corporation. The company had been formed 150 years ago by a Piper who emigrated from an obscure town in a small Germanic province. The first known Piper had little money, but carried a comprehensive knowledge of gunpowder manufacture. Great-grandfather Piper had been convinced that the world was violent and therefore in need of his brand of destruction. His timing was exquisitely perfect. The seeds of the Piper Corporation had been planted and nurtured in time to truly blossom during the American Civil War.

The factory had prospered during that internal conflict, and had multiplied again and again with each subsequent war. The Pipers occupied their own explosive niche, which consisted of land and sea mines, assorted booby traps, and other deadly devices of a remote-controlled or self-detonating character.

Piper's primary product during the twentieth century was the Terrible Tommy land mine. R and D had been minimal on this product ever since it had been developed from a Spengmine 44 German prototype manufactured during World War II. This particular explosive device was buried in a shallow grave with a disguised tripwire. When activated, the tripwire ignited the first propellant charge, which blew the device waist high into the air. At the prescribed height, an anchor wire triggered the main charge, which spewed hundreds of small steel balls in a wide, deadly swath. For men of average height, the swirling balls tended to strike waist high, causing massive abdominal and spinal injuries. For those of shorter stature, the missiles were invariably fatal.