Death Through the Looking Glass (11 page)

“How about another drink?”

“I'm psychic,” Lyon said and handed his friend a double vodka.

“Does being a great raconteur help in politics?” Rocco gestured with the long fork toward the lieutenant governor.

“About as much as money, which is to say a lot.”

“What about Bea?”

“She's one of the few with causes.”

“Have you come up with any ideas on the Giles killing?”

“I've tried to work on it, but things have been diverting around here today.”

Rocco glanced toward the kitchen door, where Robin, dressed in a misty blue dress cut deep at the neckline, was talking with Damon Snow. “I hope they weren't
too
diverting.”

“Speaking of Miss Diverting, she checked out the airports with Gary Middleton.”

“Oh, God!”

“Can you recheck?”

“I'll put some men on it tomorrow morning. With school closed we have more manpower.”

Lyon felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to face Snow. The toy manufacturer's eyes were slightly out of focus, and he walked and talked with the great care and articulation of the nearly drunk. “I believe your friend the lieutenant governor is dominating the party, and that he is bombastic, and how am I going to make out with the chick?”

Lyon frowned and looked toward Robin. “Make out?”

Damon blinked. “She's a lovely young lady, and I wish to learn her views on many topics.”

The heavy voice of the lieutenant governor boomed over the patio. “Now, I'm not saying who this certain U.S. senator is, but his brother was president.” There was appreciative knowing laughter from the group surrounding him.

Damon Snow stood solemnly erect. “He is now maligning a U.S. senator from an honored family.”

“It's just an anecdote,” Lyon said.

“The Walking Wobblies,” Damon replied with a raised finger.

“What?”

“Wait and see.” Damon hurried toward the house.

“He's getting a snootful,” Rocco said.

“He was the first to arrive and insisted on a double for openers.”

Kim snatched the fork from Rocco's hand and quickly turned the steak. “The rest of us don't like them burned, and when are you going to bust those jokers wandering around town in the white robes?”

“The Blossom people?”

“I don't know what they call themselves,” the black woman replied, “but anybody in white robes is on my list.”

“They're a perfectly harmless religious group.”

“Didn't they buy the old Claxton mansion on Plank Road?” Lyon asked.

“Right. I went out there and checked them over. Bunch of religious nuts, mostly kids, who believe that Doctor Blossom is the reincarnation of John the Baptist or something. They have a school bus, and every morning they truck the kids around the state to panhandle.”

“If they were black you'd have the health inspector and building inspector close the place down,” Kim said, and flipped the steak onto a platter.

Rocco sighed. “If they were black, Kim, we'd have a baseball party.”

“What's that?”

“Twenty-two guys with baseball bats do a number on them.”

“You go …”

They turned in unison at the whirring sound of a tick-tick. Damon was taking three-foot-high Wobbly dolls from a large box. When he threw a small lever in each doll's back, it began a slow march toward the lieutenant governor, who was holding forth at the center of the patio. Damon had also inserted a fork in the paw of each Wobbly. He started the last of the six dolls and stood to watch them proceed toward the unsuspecting politician.

“Sic 'em,” he said, lurched, and grabbed the door to steady himself.

They sat in the study with drinks in their hands and stared soberly at the blackboard filled with Lyon's clumsy printing. “I could sum the whole case up in one word,” Rocco said and pulled at his vodka.

“Exactly,” Lyon responded.

Outside the room, swirling through the study window, the party din rose and fell in tidelike waves. The two men were quiet, each mulling over the death of Giles: Rocco in a pragmatic proceeding manner, from one plateau to another; Lyon through a haze of memories. Now and then an individual voice or laugh would isolate itself temporarily from the party group on the patio, and Lyon seemed to hear Tom Giles from a year before.

“You know, Went, someday I'm going to mount a machine gun on that crate of mine and shoot you out of the sky. You're a menace.”

“I don't buzz people's homes at six on a Sunday morning like some I could name.”

“You couldn't buzz a Christmas tree. And to think I once thought there was hope for you. That's what comes from being friends with a Townie.”

“Townie? Good God, Tom. I'd almost forgotten the word.” But he hadn't. “I sometimes think you're sorry you ever had to leave Greenfield.”

Tom had stood at the edge of the patio, looked down at the river, and spoken quietly. “I think maybe I am. Funny how those days seem more real to me than the true world. Everything went right then—everything worked; now, everything seems like the White Rabbit, always late for a very important date.” He had turned and the spell was broken. “What the hell? Hey, you know, we don't see each other enough these days. Have to correct that.”

They hadn't, and now Tom was dead and the debt still outstanding. An old debt of pubescent gratitude—perhaps the most important kind. Lyon sighed.

“You've got something.”

“No. I was just wondering how you felt when you beat up Gabriel What's-his-name.”

“Ring in the Civil Liberties Union,” the big man muttered sullenly into his drink.

“I'm grateful that you saved us from a sojourn in the hospital. It's just that you're paradoxical. That morning I saw you directing small kids across the street, and I saw how you looked at them. That doesn't fit in with my trespassing visitor getting the hose treatment in the driveway.”

Rocco shrugged. “I still feel for the kids, but somewhere along the line they become teenagers, hop cars, take drugs, break into the A & P. Maybe that's why I want to get out of this work. It brutalizes you. It can't help it, even in a small town like this. God only knows what it does to you in a large city, where you face the crap every shift.”

A girl's scream carried to them from the patio. Rocco stood up instinctively.

“Take it easy,” Lyon said. “Probably nothing but fun and games.”

“NOT HARDLY,” Bea said from the doorway. “Damon is attacking Robin.”

“What's wrong with him tonight?”

“He's zonked,” Bea said and placed a restraining hand on Lyon. “No knights. Let Rocco handle it.”

Robin stood wild-eyed in the corner of the patio, her bodice ripped down one shoulder, as Damon held to the parapet with both hands and leered at her. “He wanted to see the barn,” Robin said, “and then he …”

“Come on, Damon.” Rocco put an arm around Damon's shoulders and led him firmly toward the house. The party voices, which had stilled for a moment, rose to their former level.

Once inside the kitchen, Damon broke away from Rocco, swiveled across the floor, and fell heavily against the sink. “You didn't have to shove.”

“How about some coffee?”

“Screw the coffee. Gimme a drink.”

Bea silently poured a large mug of black coffee and placed it on the counter next to Damon. “You'll feel better,” she said.

“Another drink and I'll be all right.”

“How much has he had?” Rocco asked in an aside to Lyon.

“He had a snootful an hour ago, and God only knows how much since.”

“A drink!” Damon demanded.

“No,” Bea said firmly. “Coffee and something to eat.”

Damon groaned. “You want to make me sick?”

“I want to make you sober.”

“All right, if that's the way it is.” He pulled himself erect and carefully planted his feet apart. He stared at them with dull eyes, his face slack. “I can take a hint. No booze here. I'll go to a bar.” He peered intently toward the door as if sighting a course, and then began to move laboriously across the room.

Rocco caught his arm. “Give me the keys, Damon.”

“Take your hands off me. I am perfectly capable of driving a car.”

“Nope. The keys.”

Damon shoved Rocco's hands away and backed against the wall. “Try and get them, big boy.”

With resignation, Rocco looked over at Lyon and then stepped resolutely toward Damon, who now held his arms defensively in front of him. As Rocco stepped closer, Damon's fist lashed out. It was caught in Rocco's hand and bent behind his own back.

“Right-hand trouser pocket,” Lyon said.

“Right.” Rocco flipped the keys from the pinned man's pocket to Lyon, who tossed them to Bea, who tossed them inside the refrigerator freezer.

“My lawyers will hear about this in the morning,” Damon said to the wall.

“In the morning you won't remember a thing,” Rocco replied.

“He can sleep on the couch tonight,” Bea said.

“I want to sleep in the barn with your guest,” Damon mumbled as he spied a liquor bottle on the drainboard and lunged for it.

“You'll love the windjammer cruise. Kids your own age, the open sea, the chance to study dolphins firsthand. A marvelous opportunity. The boat leaves from New London this afternoon, and do you want me to help you pack your things?” Bea sat back against the breakfast-nook bench and smiled across the table at Robin.

Lyon stood near the sink and looked out over the distant river below. The morning sun hurt his eyes, and he poured a steaming mug of coffee from the percolator and waited for Robin's reply.

“My dolphin drawings don't look so hot,” Robin said, “but I thought Lyon and I could …”

“Lyon couldn't possibly get away. He's up to his ears in the Giles murder case.”

“I could help,” Robin said hopefully.

“Asking a suspect in the case to help check out a missing airplane isn't much help, dear.”

“Gary seemed to be so nice.”

“Where's our other house guest?” Lyon asked.

Bea motioned toward the living room. “He's locked in.”

Lyon unlocked the door and stepped into the living room. The room was rank with the smell of liquor, stale cigarette smoke, and drunken male. Damon Snow lay on the couch, one arm extended across his eyes, the other outstretched as if reaching for the empty liquor bottle lying on its side in front of the couch.

“You awake?” Lyon asked softly.

“Don't shout. Let me die peacefully.”

“Do you remember last night?”

There was a long pause from the prone man and then the arm was slowly removed from his eyes as he sat up to stare at Lyon. “My God! Can you and Bea ever forgive me? I don't know what got into me.”

“About a quart or so, I'd judge.”

“That girl. The one I went into the barn with and …”

“She's in the kitchen.”

“What will I say to her? And to Bea and Rocco? Oh, Christ! That isn't like me, Lyon.”

“It can happen to anyone, with too much liquor.”

“Rocco's on the phone,” Bea called from the kitchen.

“He probably wants to arrest me,” Damon said and put his hands to his head.

Lyon smiled and picked up the extension phone. “Damon wants to know what charges you have against him,” he said into the receiver.

“Being a damn fool,” Rocco replied. “Norbert just called.”

“A break in the case?”

“Not quite. Esposito's dead.”

9

The door to the house on Braeland Drive was opened by a uniformed officer before Lyon and Rocco were midway up the walk. Lyon glanced down at the empty shoe rack in the vestibule, shrugged, and followed Rocco through the house toward the indoor swimming pool.

The fully clothed body of the fat man lay beside the pool. The police photographer had taken the low table from the
shoin
and stood on it to obtain a full-length picture of the corpse. Captain Norbert, huddled with his corporals, frowned at Lyon as they crossed toward him.

“What's the story?” Rocco asked.

Norbert looked toward one of the corporals, who immediately snapped open a small pad and began to read: “At 0805 a call was received at the barracks from an individual identifying himself as Mr. Koyota, a household employee of the deceased. Mr. Koyota stated that he reported for work at his usual time and discovered the deceased face-down in the pool. Troopers Willcox and Storey arrived on the scene at 0824, made a preliminary examination of the deceased, and placed a call to the medical examiner's office.”

“Where's the doc?”

“Contemplating his navel over behind the diving board,” Norbert replied.

In the far corner, a small man in rumpled seersucker was staring into the pool. “I could have one of these if I were in private practice,” he said as Lyon and Rocco approached.

“What can you tell us, Doc?” Rocco asked.

“I'd estimate a pool like this, with the solarium roof, could cost as much as …”

“About the deceased?”

“Oh, him. A massive cranial blow, with water in the lungs. Exact time of death and cause unknown until the autopsy.”

“Hit on the head and thrown in the water?”

“Possibly. I'll narrow it down in my final report.”

Rocco turned back to Captain Norbert. “How do you see it, Norbie?”

“Two probables. Esposito surprised a burglary in progress, there was a struggle; he was hit on the head and either was thrown or fell into the pool. Second, we all know about Esposito's syndicate connections … for political reasons the powers that be felt he should be removed.”

“A contract?”

“We're not discounting it.”

“There are some valuable works of art here,” Lyon said. “Have they been checked out?”