A Child's Garden of Death

by Forrest, Richard;

“YOU AREN’T GOING TO RUIN ANOTHER SUNDAY BY GOING UP IN THAT THING?” she asked with arms akimbo as Lyon carried equipment from the barn.

  “Only a short flight,” he replied, almost dropping the propane burner.

  “The last time you said that, I had to pick you up on the Boston Commons.”

  “I couldn’t help it—the wind shifted.”

  “Finish your book so we can remodel the kitchen.”

  “I will, I will,” he puffed as he dollied the bag through the barn’s double doors and over to the pulley rig Rocco had helped him design and build. “Will you follow me?” he asked her.

  “I had better,” she replied. “If I hadn’t that time you blew over the Sound, you’d probably have landed in the Azores.”

  “Good. How about giving me a hand?”

  With Bea’s help and the aid of Rocco’s two-by-four network and pulley system, Lyon was able to position the balloon bag and light the propane burner. Slowly the bag began to fill with hot air, its creased folds starting to bend outward and take shape.

  They stood back from the filling balloon, occasionally darting up to unfold some material so it would fill properly. Bea put her arms around him and spoke in a tone lower than he’d heard in weeks.

  “You know,” she said, “I wish you wouldn’t go up in that thing. It scares me to death.”

  “I didn’t know it was possible to frighten the indomitable Beatrice Wentworth.”

  “Things that go off the ground are frightening. I’d rather take on eight members of the opposition and two primary fights than fly from here across the river in that thing.”

  “Then you won’t fly with me in my drifting machine?”

  “Never. I’ll follow in the pick-up and retrieve you from the idiotic places where you persist in landing.”

  The bag had filled to its outermost circumference, the large painted Wobbly head on the bag’s side taking shape as the seams straightened. The Wobbly on the balloon looked more gruesome than the dolls in the study, and Lyon recalled the rather startled glances he’d often gotten from low-flying private planes.

  “With luck,” he told Bea, “I’ll be flying due east and will come down in the Portland fairgrounds. I want to take some pictures of an area near there.”

  “The grave site?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your big friend gets paid for that sort of thing.”

  Lyon shrugged as she kissed him on the cheek. “All right.”

  “Do what you will,” his wife said.

  The upright balloon was straining against its retaining and mooring ropes, and Lyon adjusted the propane burner and released some excess hot air through the envelope. The small, light gondola danced three feet in the air as he carefully loaded a CB radio, camera, and wide-angle lens into the compartment of the basket.

  “Well, I’m off to see the Wizard,” he said and stepped into the basket. “Cast off, crew.”

  Bea waved and scurried around the two-by-four framework, casting off lines as the balloon began gently to rise into the sky. At fifty feet the long mooring line was still held firmly by Bea on the ground, and part of the line’s end, as a back-up, was attached to a powerful winch, a safety precaution he’d never had to utilize. With fine weather, like today, Lyon felt secure in the hot air balloon. The only possibility of danger was the lack of a strong mooring crew to help guide his descent in case of an immediate problem with the integrity of the envelope bag.

  The lift proceeded normally and gently as the propane burner chugged and heated the air that rose through the open appendix. Lyon began to make preliminary flight checks.

  As an orthodox balloonist, he still retained the wicker basket, little different from the one used in the first ascent made by Pilatre de Rozier in 1783. Looking straight upward, he noted that the nylon net surrounding the envelope was secure and taut and that the fastenings of the suspension lines to the basket ring just over his head were of proper tension. He gently grasped the valve line and, looking upward through the envelope, gave a gentle tug and watched to see that the valve at the apex of the envelope slid partially open. With the minute escape of air the balloon dipped slightly, and he closed the escape valve. The propane burner under the the sleeve of the bottom appendix burned at the proper rate, although he increased the heat slightly to improve the ascent.

  He checked the material visually around the appendix opening, making sure there were no rips or tears. He knew of one case several years ago of a fellow balloonist, intrigued with his farewells to the ground crew, who didn’t notice that the bottom of the appendix opening was blocked, and as the balloon rose the hot air inside expanded the bag until the balloon was torn apart with an explosion that caused an immediate crash.

  He leaned over the basket and waved all clear to Bea on the ground. As she released the mooring rope he quickly reeled it into the basket. The balloon ascent increased rapidly with the mooring line drag removed.

  The ripping panel was securely in place; the emergency lines, painted a bright red, were moored securely in the basket. He’d never had to use the ripping panel, usually taking care to make his ascents in clear, calm weather. In an emergency requiring rapid descent, the ripping lines could be pulled, which caused an immediate tearing away of large portions of the gas envelope, which in turn released large quantities of hot air and provided a dangerous rate of descent.

  The few balloon instruments were on the right of the basket: a compass, altimeter, the variometer to record vertical movement, along with a recording barometer and a small citizens’ band radio fastened tightly to the instrument panel.

  At fifteen hundred feet he adjusted the burner level to maintain present altitude with little variance and for hopeful horizontal flight at that level.

  “CAN YOU HEAR ME UP THERE?”

  Beatrice’s voice through the CB radio startled him in the silence. He threw the toggle switch on the small set. “Just fine,” he said. “The winds are north-northeast. I’ll meet you somewhere on the other side of the river near Portland.”

  “All right!”

  He really would have to talk to her about having her hearing checked. Glancing over the side of the basket, he could see her below, still in the barnyard looking upward, shading her eyes. She returned his wave and started across the yard to the pick-up truck.

  This was the part that made it all worthwhile. There was little to do now except maintain a check on the burner, the rate of ascent or level flight kept steady by minute adjustments between burner and escape valve. One further check on the condition of the envelope … and then silence except for the hiss of the burner … and a feeling of oneness with the sky.

  Lyon’s ballooning had started accidentally. In order to break his depression after the death of their daughter, Bea had pressed him to take up an outside activity. Finally, in desperation, and in order to stop her constant insistence, he had selected the most far-out activity he could imagine, taken his first lessons, and soon found himself caught up in the hobby. Now, and for the past two years, he made a flight every Sunday afternoon—weather permitting.

  The balloon moved slowly over the Connecticut River. Directly below, a small coastal tanker turned toward a nearby tank farm mooring. To his right, New Haven, the Gothic tops of Yale in apposition to the newer office buildings. To the left, the city of Hartford. Below, the Connecticut River wound its way toward the Sound, visible as a large expanse immediately to his front.

  He turned to see the northwest portion of the state fading into the foothills of the Berkshire mountains. Below the slowly drifting balloon now were the Connecticut Valley tobacco fields, portions of them covered by the tenting under which the tobacco could grow in high humidity.

  The meteorologist at the airport had, for once, been correct. The winds at this altitude were gentle and in the optimum direction to carry him over the site.

  Odd dental work on the adult male. What had they meant by that? The pathology people must have noticed something, an odd configuration in the drill
ing or bridgework. Something unusual they couldn’t place. Dental identification would probably be impossible. Dental work done in the late thirties or early forties would probably be impossible to trace as the dentists would be either dead or retired. He knew that Rocco and the State Police would make the attempts, but any information from that source seemed highly unlikely.

  Lyon switched on the five-watt CB radio. The voice transmitting on the open channel was definitely not Bea’s.

  “Truck Stop Two, Truck Stop Two, this is Red Ball.”

  “Yeah, Red Ball.”

  “Tell Millie I’ve got a layover, and we’ll swing tonight.”

  “Gotcha’, Red Ball.”

  My God, Lyon thought. Now, even the radio frequencies. Someday they’d discover the air, and the sky would be filled with hundreds of ballooning families, each with a transistor radio and beer cans. He tried to get Bea. “Prometheus. Can you hear me?”

  “Gotcha’, Prometheus,” Bea answered. “What do you allow?”

  He turned the sound on his set down. “Bea, would you stop at the nearest phone booth and try and get Rocco? Tell him to run a full metal assay on the fillings and bridgework of the adult male victim. There’s a metal and dental supply outfit in Hartford that can do it if the state people can’t.”

  “Gotcha’, Prometheus. Stay away from rocks. Out.”

  His enjoyment of the flight was shattered. The intrusion of unbidden thoughts hampered any free-blown reverie. Well, to the business at hand, which was, after all, to look at the site.

  The balloon drift carried it over the juncture where the country road and the Interstate highway joined. The grave site would be five miles to the east. Lyon readied camera and equipment and leaned over the basket to watch the passing ground. He reached up and released hot air through the escape valve until his height dropped and leveled at an even thousand feet. The traprock ridges were now only a few hundred feet below.

  The balloon crossed the stone wall at the bottom of the hill and continued perpendicular to the rough-cut road with the bulldozer still parked where it had last stopped. A police officer guarding the site leaned against the bulldozer and looked up at the passing balloon. He waved and Lyon waved back.

  On the opposite side of the hill the ridge dropped in steep incline past a logging road, down to a lake. He estimated the lake to be about 100 acres in size. He continued taking photographs as the balloon gently slid past the grave. Picture-taking complete, Lyon held onto the suspension ropes and leaned over the edge of the basket as the site disappeared from view. Something was still not right, but what?

  He was eager to have the pictures developed, and now that the purpose of the flight was accomplished it was time to descend. The winds were wrong for a landing in the Portland fairgrounds, which meant he must be on the lookout for some available spot of sufficient size so as to not incur the danger of the balloon being washed against a tree line during the landing.

  A half mile ahead he saw an excellent landing spot directly in his path. It had several hundred yards of open space, which was more than enough to afford a landing with the needed mooring protection. He glanced at his compass and map to further pinpoint the location. “Bea,” he called over the CB set.

  “Yes, Prometheus?”

  “Good descent pattern for a mooring at the Portland Golf Club.”

  “OH, GOD, LYON. NOT ANOTHER GOLF COURSE. YOU KNOW HOW THEY GET.”

  “It’s that or the river.”

  Quickly calculating the average height of the golf course from his geodetic map, and keeping a careful eye on his altimeter, he turned off the propane burner and pulled the release cord for the escape of hot air. The balloon cleared the tree line at fifty feet and began to slowly settle onto the fairway of the fourteenth green. A foursome at the green turned to watch with curiosity.

  Lyon tossed the mooring line overboard, but the foursome seemed immobile and made no attempt to grasp and secure the end. The balloon, still twenty-five feet above ground, was quickly covering the distance across the fairway toward a line of transmission cables. Lyon pulled the ripping panel. Great quantities of air escaped in a rush and the balloon sank inward as it settled rapidly to the ground.

  The basket hit a sand trap with a jolt, and Lyon tumbled out as quickly as he could to fasten the mooring line, as a safety precaution, to the nearest tree. The balloon bag settled to the ground, the large Wobbly face turning inward as it enveloped the basket.

  “Hey, you!” a voice from behind him said.

  Lyon turned to see a heavy-set man waving a number five iron at him. “Yes?”

  “Would you move that Goddamn thing so I can play through?”

  Purple fog surrounded the house on the Green, and he knew that wasn’t right, for the house was white with black shutters. He beat at the fog as it swirled behind and around him, but it wouldn’t leave and he started toward the door as people yelled behind him.

  He was outside again, feet straddling the front wheel as he firmly held the handlebars and she climbed onto the black seat. “Don’t worry, Daddy. I can do it,” she said, and he turned and went into the house on the Green.

  Lyon awoke with a start, perspiration beading his forehead. Sleep gone, the images of the nightmare dissipated slowly. He wished he smoked so he could have a cigarette.

  The day she died he had walked from the house on the Green and never returned. On the following morning he resigned his teaching position at the College. The first book had been for her, and it had helped, and the pain had become at least bearable. Finally, they had found Nutmeg Hill and renovated it, and yet even today Lyon avoided the Green whenever he could.

  It had taken Rocco Herbert three weeks to find the driver of the car. Someone at City Hall had told Lyon that the big police officer had contacted every body shop in the state, working eighteen hours a day until he found the hit-and-run driver.

  “ANSWER THE PHONE, PLEASE.” Bea’s voice dragged him back and he sleepily reached for the bedside phone.

  “The cat chewed Remley’s Wobbly, and she wants to know if you could get her another one.”

  “Oh, God, Rocco. It’s two o’clock in the morning.”

  “She made me promise to call you.”

  “She shouldn’t be up so late.”

  “She went to bed at seven, but I wanted to get the chemist’s report on the metal assay before I called you. I had them work through and call me as soon as it was done.”

  “I would have thought a crime that had waited thirty years to be discovered could wait until morning to be solved.”

  “I took it down verbatim, just as they gave it to me.”

  “Go ahead,” Lyon said.

  “O.K. I just hope you know what they’re talking about. Here it is. The specimen submitted weighed point seven one four six grams. X-ray and spectograph tests were performed and correlated with the other tests indicated below with a resulting correlation to prove accuracy. A Gooch silver run showed a percentage of silver and …”

  “Never mind all that,” Lyon said. “Is there any palladium content?”

  “Palladium? No, none. What does that mean?”

  “It probably means that our adult male victim was either European or else someone who liked to get his dental work done in the old country.”

  “Where in hell did you pick that up?”

  “Three years ago when I had my front teeth capped, nothing to read except my dentist’s library. We’ve been using palladium in dental work since the early thirties; European dentistry didn’t start until after the war.”

  “That might help.” The Chief’s voice was interested and contemplative. “Maybe Immigration can help us, although I’m not quite sure how.”

  “Let’s think about it. See you tomorrow.”

  Lyon hung up and rolled over in bed. After ten minutes he realized that the attempt was useless. Sleep was gone, and he went downstairs to the study to see what machinations he might invent for his precocious cat.

  “You’re not go
ing to cut my balls off!”

  The prospective gubernatorial candidate stood by the fireplace shaking his finger vehemently at Beatrice.

  “I am not recommending that,” she replied. “I don’t advocate cutting, chopping, or in any way amputating any part of man’s anatomy. I just say our platform should include encouragement for vasectomy clinics and information centers.”

  “I’ve had twelve children and might have twelve more.” The ice clinked in the candidate’s glass and sloshed liquor over onto the hearth.

  “You didn’t have them. YOUR WIFE DID.” Beatrice had lost control of her voice again and the candidate looked startled.

  “Some call that genocide of the blacks,” the black attorney in the corner of the room said and looked startled to be in agreement, for the first time, with the candidate.

  “I’M GOING TO GIVE YOU A LESSON IN MALE PLUMBING,” Beatrice told the candidate in her usual tone.

  “Don’t you yell at me, Senator.”

  Lyon Wentworth slipped out the french doors onto the patio as his wife, followed by a phalanx of other women, stalked the candidate.

  The other party noises subsided, the various conversational islands giving differential preference to the dialogue by the fireplace between Bea and her opponent. Lyon shut the patio door behind him, cutting off all but the slightest murmur of the argument. He swished the ice in his drink and drained half the glass.

  At the edge of the patio a small parapet ran the length of the rear of the house, and he stood, one foot on the edge, looking off toward the river.

  “You’re a quiet one,” the voice behind him said.

  He turned to see Martha Herbert. “Hi. Not really, it’s just that I’m afraid that the politicians have taken over. Where’s the Chief?”

  “Sulking and hiding. He saw all the politicians in there, turned white as a sheet and made a triple drink and then disappeared. He never knows when he could do himself some good. Go see him, Lyon. He should be in there socializing with those people.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Lyon said, knowing that he would talk to Rocco, but that he certainly would not force the large man into the maelstrom now prevailing in the living room.