The Death in the Willows (4 page)

McAllister gave a nonchalant wave. “Feel up to a few questions?”

“I guess so.” He took a seat in a side chair placed directly in the center between the two men.

“Anything I can get you?”

“No, thank you. Unless you have some Dry Sack.”

“No sherry, but we keep the snakebite medicine handy.” He took a bottle of bourbon from the bottom desk drawer, cracked the seal, and poured two stiff fingers in a water tumbler.

Lyon sank back in the chair after accepting the whiskey. He held the glass with both hands, took a long sip, and felt the liquor traverse his body in a warm snaking motion. He took another sip and found that both men were staring at him, without hostility, but perhaps as individuals observing an interesting specimen. “Why the FBI?”

“Our mad friend took the bus over a state line and made bomb threats.”

“No, I don't think so,” Lyon replied. “If that stripe they have in the tunnel is correct, we were still in New York.”

“A technicality. We think the kid he sent with the ransom demand crossed the line.”

“Were any bombs found?”

“None.”

“Be that as it will,” Nesbitt said, “it seems to us, Wentworth, that the city of New York and sixteen bus passengers owe you a vote of thanks.”

“It was an accident. What I mean is, I had no choice. Did you say sixteen people?”

The two law enforcement officers glanced at each other. “You watch the details, don't you? Sixteen if we don't count you and do count the driver. We're grateful. In fact, the mayor and commissioner very well might come down to offer you their personal thanks on behalf of the city. As soon as we sweep up a few minor details.”

“Wait a minute.” Lyon put the liquor glass down on the desk. “I believe there were eighteen left alive on the bus, including me.”

“You shot one.”

“Besides that. Doesn't one of the passengers wear a beard? He also had on a cap, a jacket of some light material. Medium build, thirtyish?”

Captain Nesbitt made rapid notes on a small pad. “I'll check on it.”

“It could be significant.”

“By the way—and I'm praying for luck on this one—do you have a permit for your gun?”

“It wasn't mine.”

“It wasn't yours,” McAllister repeated in a drone. “Whose was it?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know,” Nesbitt repeated in a sad sort of way. He looked down at his pad for a few moments. “Okay, from there. What did you do with the gun?”

“I dropped it on the floor.”

Nesbitt immediately pressed a button on his phone, picked up the receiver, and talked quietly for a few moments. “Call me back at once.” He hung up. “Okay, let's start it from the top. Sorry to bother you with all this, considering what you've been through, but all the passengers will go through it. We'll make it as painless as possible.”

“I can understand.”

“Your name is Lyon Wentworth. Address?”

“R.D. Two, Murphysville, Connecticut.” He watched the policewoman's fingers nimbly flick across the steno machine. He'd have to look into the mechanism of those things sometime.

“You're employed, Mr. Wentworth?”

“I am self-employed.”

“As what?”

“I'm a writer.”

“Oh, really.” McAllister and Nesbitt exchanged looks as if this information had some significance that was lost to Lyon. “Have you written anything I might know?”

“Not unless you have children.”

“Matter of fact, I do.”

“Well, my book
The Cat in the Capitol
did quite well. Then there was
Nancy Goes to Mount Vernon
, and the Wobbly series has had a rather modest success.”

McAllister leaned forward with both hands on his knees.
“Nancy Goes to Mount Vernon?”

“Not my usual thing, but they wanted something like that for the Bicentennial.”

Nesbitt glanced at the stenographer again before looking back to Lyon. “Wife's name?”

“Secretary Beatrice Wentworth.”

Nesbitt shrugged. “We don't need her occupation.” He paused and then asked Lyon quietly, “Secretary of what?”

“The state of Connecticut.”

“Oh, my God!” McAllister slouched back in the couch.

“Am I to understand that your wife is Secretary of State?”

“Secretary of the State … for Connecticut.”

“Yes, of course. Sorry.” Nesbitt thought a moment and then looked at McAllister. “Why didn't we call in sick this morning?”

“I was just thinking that Wentworth might be right,” McAllister said as he stood. “That bus was on the New York side of the line and …”

“Sit down,” Nesbitt ordered. “The kid carried the demands across the line.”

“Technical point.”

“Start from the top, Wentworth. The whole day.”

“I left Murphysville at six this morning and caught the seven
A.M.
bus from Middleburg. I arrived in the city at nine-thirty, had breakfast, and went to my publisher's office.”

“Where's that?”

“On Madison Avenue. We had a conference, lunch, and then I walked to the bus terminal. I was a little early, so I stopped in a small bar to have a drink.”

“How many of what?”

“One of what I'm not sure.”

“You remember the exact number of people on the bus, but not what you had to drink? Then?”

“They announced the bus at Gate Twenty-nine. I boarded last, I believe.”

“Where did you sit?”

“In the rear.” Lyon continued recounting the events that even in this short time span had taken on an aura of unreality. They let him proceed without further interruption. “… and I was there, by the body, when the police came in. And that's it.”

They looked at him skeptically. The stenographer stopped the dance of her fingers and kept her head down over the small machine.

“This man gave you—the man in the seat behind you—gave you the gun?”

“That's correct.”

“Why did he do that? Why didn't he use it himself?”

“How would I know?” A note of peevishness crept into his voice, and he realized he was tired, very tired. The emotionalism of the last hour had drained him, and he wanted nothing more than sleep.

“Do people often give you guns to hold, sir?” the FBI agent asked in a low voice.

“I'm not sure I care for that remark.” Lyon faced the agent who had folded his arms across his chest.

“About the gun,” Nesbitt said. “After you fired, you dropped it on the floor.”

“That's right.”

“Do you know what kind it was?”

“Big. A forty-four Magnum, I'd say.”

“You could hardly put a gun of that size in an ordinary pocket. I'll be right back.” Nesbitt left the room and McAllister leaned toward Lyon.

“You know, Wentworth, you can level with us. We'll see that you're protected. What I'm trying to say is, after what you did, no one is going to prosecute you on a gun-carrying charge. You're from out of state, probably unaware of New York law. Or how about your wife fixing it so you have a back-dated permit?”

“It wasn't my gun.”

Nesbitt returned and slammed the door. He moved in jerky motions as a muscle in the side of his face twitched. “They can't find the goddamn weapon. They've lost the goddamn piece!”

“That's impossible.”

“We have the hijacker's gun, but no Magnum.”

“It could have been kicked under the seat.”

He glared at Lyon. “We searched the bus.”

“I told you, I dropped it on the floor. I didn't want any part of it.”

Nesbitt beckoned. “I want you to identify some items.”

They returned to the squad room where the other passengers were being interviewed at desks lined in neat, ordered rows. A long table under the windows was covered with a multitude of tagged items. There were shopping bags, suitcases, newspapers, and an assortment of hand-carried luggage that had rested on the rack inside the bus or been found on seats or the floor. Lyon walked the length of the table until stopping near the far end where he picked up his briefcase and showed it to Captain Nesbitt. “This is mine.”

“May we open it?”

“Why?” He found himself on the verge of belligerency.

“Routine.”

“Go ahead. I have nothing to hide.”

Nesbitt handed the case to an aide who took it to a desk where he methodically searched and made an inventory of the contents. Lyon continued scanning the assortment spread on the table and gingerly picked up an automatic pistol encased in an acetate bag. “This looks like the weapon the hijacker was carrying, but I couldn't swear to it.”

“We think it is.”

Two items next to the gun interested him: a poplin jacket and a small flight bag. “The man who gave me the gun—I think he was wearing a jacket like this. Now that I think about it, I believe he was sitting next to me in the bar and had a bag like this near the stool.”

Nesbitt glanced at the tags on the jacket and bag. “They were found on the floor of the last seat.” He looked thoughtful. “It's possible that the guy in the last seat took these off, put on something he had in the bag, and left—after picking up the gun.”

“It could have been a sport coat.” Lyon had a fleeting recall picture of a man in a sport jacket and beard standing in the tunnel as the police cruiser slowly rolled past. “As we were leaving the tunnel, I saw a man in a jacket, wearing a gold badge, who might have been the man behind me.”

“A cop?”

“He had a badge hanging from his pocket.”

“Let's go back to my office.”

They resumed their places in the office, although Nesbitt, for reasons of his own, had dismissed the stenographer. The captain sat behind his desk and drummed his fingers. “Are you sure it was the same guy?”

“No, but it could have been.”

“A cop … a gold badge … but why not use the gun himself, why give it to you?”

“I don't know, Captain. All I can tell you is what happened.”

“That was an interstate bus,” McAllister said. “Do your men usually carry their weapons when they cross state lines?”

“Not unless they're on official business. That's why I'm very interested in the guy—if he is a cop.”

“I can only tell you what I saw. The man who sat behind me and gave me the gun is possibly the man I later saw in the tunnel with a badge.”

“And you'd know him?”

“I don't think identification of that sort can ever be absolute.”

“As you can imagine, the situation interests us.”

“Right now I want to get out of here and go home.”

“I'd like you to look at some photographs, Mr. Wentworth.”

“Now?”

“We know you've been through an ordeal. Could you come back in the morning? The bus company is providing facilities for everyone involved.”

“Yes, of course.” Lyon wondered if they'd be quite so considerate if it weren't for his wife's position.

“Missing gun or not,” Nesbitt said as he crossed the room and extended his hand, “we still thank you.”

The detective called Harry took Lyon in an unmarked car to an East Side hotel where the Nutmeg Transportation Company had rented a floor. As they left the elevator on the sixth floor, they found themselves in a large foyer where a bar had been set up and a uniformed bartender mixed drinks.

The other passengers had arrived a few minutes before and had drinks in hand as they talked in a loud chatter. As the elevator door closed behind Harry and Lyon, the room grew silent while everyone turned toward them.

Lyon gave a small wave and then whispered to Harry. “Do you know where my room is?”

“Sure.” He led Lyon midway down the hall to an open door. When the detective entered, he checke the window to make sure it was locked and looked into the bathroom and single closet. “You're in with a guy named Collins.”

Lyon glanced at a new valise aligned neatly on the luggage rack at the head of one of the twin beds, and then over to the far bed where his briefcase had been thrown. He watched Harry continue his minute search of the room. “Are you worried or something?”

“The city of New York wants that nothing happens to you.”

“That's reassuring.”

“Should be. There'll be two of us on the floor all night.”

“Fine.”

The detective left and Lyon sank onto the bed. His life had been changed, and he wondered if the afternoon's events could ever be set aside. A lethargy consumed him, and he wanted to lie on the bed, close his eyes, and fall into an oblivious sleep.

He must call Bea.

The prospect of any well-meaning friend calling his wife and informing her of the day's events horrified him. Or she might turn on the news.… He must get to her first.

He reached for the bedside phone and asked the operator for his Connecticut number.

The phone rang … rang … and rang.

3

Bea Wentworth had never become accustomed to hate. The strength of voters' feelings often seemed to transcend ordinary political differences. Not only did they disapprove of her positions, they often acted as if she were personally endeavoring to overthrow the Republic single-handedly. The loyalty of her supporters nurtured her career and allowed her usually to succeed in November, but she sometimes felt that her supporters did not have the fervor of her enemies—or at least that's the way it seemed.

The Murphysville High School auditorium was only one-third filled, but this did not discourage the zeal of the moderator. At least she thought it was zeal. The batteries on her hearing aid were weak, and sound had begun to drift toward the inaudible range. She reached for the tiny device in her ear, twisted the volume to its loudest position, and once again the words were discernible.