“I’m sorry it had to come to that.”
“No wonder you want to be town clerk.”
“We’ll have a philosophical argument over morality after our fat friend comes across.” Rocco began to hum again as the car’s acceleration increased.
They had Bull Martin strapped in a dunking stool along the banks of the Farmington River. His mouth was open in a scream, but Lyon could not hear any sound.
“I’ve broken his fingers, let me at his toes!” Rocco cried. Eight vultures circled slowly overhead.
“Dunk him for confession,” a host of hidden voices cried, and Lyon swung the stool with its strapped prisoner over and down into the water. Large air bubbles broke the surface, and as they rose into the air and burst, Bull’s voice surrounded them.
“I jumped her and she loved it,” Bull said.
“Confess,” the voices cried. “Confess and it will be time to let you up.”
“I confess that I jumped her,” the voice from the bubbles whined.
“Let me at his toes,” Rocco said and jumped up and down in an impatient strut.
“He’ll die,” Lyon heard himself cry. “He’ll drown and then we’ll never know.”
“Swine should die,” the voices said as the vultures were joined by hawks.
A bell began to ring and Lyon raised the dunking stool. The fat man sat complacently in the stool, hands untied, a cigar held in one pudgy fist, a highball in the other. “Tell her to flash it,” the fat man said as the bell rang again.
“WHO IS IT?” Bea said, and Lyon wondered where she was. “Oh, my God!”
Lyon was awake. He turned in bed to see his wife sitting up, the phone held away from her stricken face like some obscene object. “My God,” she said again. “Yes … yes … I’m so sorry.” She slowly hung up as Lyon sat upright.
“What is it?” he asked.
“That was Martha Herbert. Rocco’s in Hartford Hospital. They think he’s dying.”
It was 3 A.M. before Lyon got to the hospital. He turned quickly into the emergency parking lot and hurried into the waiting room where he was directed to the fifth floor. Lyon hated hospitals. The prevailing antiseptic order, the sterility of color and the usual haughty manner of hospital personnel filled him with a sense of foreboding anxiety and death. Martha Herbert sat in the small waiting room on the fifth floor near the nurses’ station and elevator. Her brother, Captain Norbert of the State Police, paced nearby.
“My God, Martha! What happened—how is he?” Lyon asked.
The gaunt face looked up at him. “They say he can die, Lyon. They say he might not live the night.” Her brother put his hand on her shoulder.
“He’s been out of surgery over an hour; perhaps we can find out something,” the State Police officer said. “You stay here, Martha.” Taking Lyon’s arm firmly, he led him down the hall toward Rocco’s room, where they talked in hushed whispers.
“My God, won’t someone tell me what happened?” Lyon asked.
“Hit and run. He stopped to aid a stalled car on Sommers Road and was walking back to the cruiser to radio for a wrecker when some jerk in a large car ran him down. He’d have bled to death in minutes if the guy he’d stopped to help hadn’t managed to fumble with the cruiser’s radio and get a call off.”
“How bad is he?”
“He was thrown over thirty feet and has a fracture with internal hemorrhaging. If he weren’t such a big hunk it would have killed him.”
“What are his chances?”
“Ten to one against him unless he makes it through the night.…”
The room door opened with a bang as it thudded against the wall. The large man stood holding the door knob for support, the hospital gown barely past his groin. Lyon and Captain Norbert turned to see Rocco Herbert supporting his weight on one leg, his bruised, bandaged face contorted in pain.
“Oh, Jesus,” Lyon said.
The IV needle with a portion of tubing was still attached to his arm; a protruding nose hose dangled across his face, his features a caricature of the man Lyon had been with that afternoon.
In the hallway behind them a nurse gasped, her voice a squeak. “Chief, get back into bed … the doctor …” She fled back to the nursing station and fumbled with a telephone. They could hear her frantic voice yelling into the phone. “Fifth floor, station one … stat … stat …”
“They tried to kill me, Lyon.” The voice was barely intelligible. He held the door with both hands in order to support his weight.
Lyon and Norbert grasped him by the arms and half-carried the large man back to bed.
“They tried to kill me,” the bruised face growled. “It swerved … I never saw it coming. It swerved toward me at the last moment … intentional.” They managed to wrestle him into bed as arms flailed across their shoulders. Down the hall they heard running feet. “No way … the bastards won’t kill me …” The voice broke into a gurgle as the chest heaved.
A resident and an intern followed by three nurses rushed into the room. Lyon and Captain Norbert were unceremoniously pushed aside as the doctors bent over the stricken Rocco.
“It’s impossible, patently impossible,” the resident said. “He should have been out for hours.”
“The bastards won’t get me …” Rocco’s voice trailed off as a hypodermic injection took effect.
At ten in the morning the senior orthopedic surgeon and an internist came to the small fifth-floor waiting area. “He’s going to make it,” the surgeon said. “God only knows how, except that he’s the toughest man I’ve ever seen.”
Martha Herbert cried noiselessly into her hands as Captain Norbert sank into a chair. Lyon stood numbly, hearing; but still seeing the contorted face of his friend in the doorway.
On the drive home Lyon Wentworth was followed. Perhaps if he’d been trained or hadn’t been so weary from the experience at the hospital he would have noticed it earlier. In fact, it wasn’t until he took a turn over Piper’s Brook Road, neglecting to notice the detour sign, and came to a barricade in front of the washed-out bridge that he realized that another car was on the road behind him. His little car turned easily in the cramped space, and he sped up as he headed back to the main junction.
He passed the car midway down the small country lane, and as he passed, the figure in the seat turned away.
Six
Two Shirley Temples, two little girls and a Sonja Henie sat on the flat rock having a tea party. The Shirley Temples were almost identical, although one wore a white dress with red polka dots, the other a sailor suit. Sonja Henie, her skates glinting in the sun, seemed not at all awed by the company, and sat most regally while the other little girls arranged the curve of her feet in order that the sharp little skates did not cut into the tea cake. The little girl with dark hair solemnly poured.
From a nearby rock Lyon Wentworth shook his head and the scene began to fade. The child with the dark eyes turned to him, questions in her eyes, as the illusion disappeared.
Lyon stood at the edge of the excavation. No vestige remained of the crowded scene of a week before. The woods were quiet, the country lane below empty of automobiles except for his, parked along the stone wall.
The bottom of the grave, hidden from sunlight, was dark, and he wondered what they had done with the remains of the little girl.
He had been at a loss since Rocco’s accident. The State Police had picked up Bull Martin, questioned him as long as they could, and released him for lack of evidence. The exasperating point was—there really wasn’t any evidence. A fist fight thirty years ago, a car parked by the washed-out bridge … nothing, not even of circumstantial nature. Lyon had driven back to the “Bull Pen” only to be told by the barmaid that Bull had taken off for a trip to the “dogs” in Florida.
Nothing, yet he couldn’t work on the book, couldn’t concentrate, and even ballooning held no appeal. He’d driven back to the “Bull Pen” a third time, only to be told again that Bull would be gone for an indefinite period.
He walked around the edge of the grave, knowing full well that between Rocco’s men and the State Police, the area had been combed and searched for hundreds of yards in every direction. There had been little hope that useful evidence would be discovered, but the task had been performed diligently.
An internal dark fluttering made him uneasy. Something was wrong, a subliminal apprehension impossible to articulate. He had always believed that a problem, any problem, could be solved if enough time were spent in attempting to locate a solution. He walked slowly toward the top of the ridge, finding that a large cleft in a formation of glacial boulders made an almost natural path from the grave site.
At the top of the ridge he could turn in one direction and see his car near the stone wall, and in the other the small lake nestling in the valley. He started down the opposite side toward the lake.
A day, more likely an evening, thirty years ago. They wouldn’t have been killed here. They must have been killed in the trailer park and then brought here; but done in such a manner that no sound, no hint of what transpired alerted surrounding trailers.
It was hard to imagine Bull Martin involved with Mrs. Meyerson … but then perhaps it hadn’t been voluntary on her part … more likely than not, from the little he knew of Bull. A fight, a struggle … a large man striking at Meyerson in a rage, and then blows over and over again raining down on the remainder of the small family. A senseless killing by a senseless man. If that were so, then future clues would be more difficult to find.
He had reached the edge of the lake. Green translucent water held no secrets anymore. Across the small lake the surface rippled slightly from a spring breeze. On the far shore a hill rose steeply toward a granite ridge similar to the one he had just walked across. The lake nestled quietly in a protected valley, the only direct access a small logging road that ran through a cleft alongside the rushing stream that ran from the lake, past the remains of the grist mill and along the hill to the side.
A school of small fish swam from the bank and eddied in a circle. Lyon smiled and knelt to reach into the water.
The second thunk quickly followed the first as the water rippled three feet to his front. The noise of the shots reverberated and echoed from the hill across the lake.
Lyon stood up angrily. The shots had come from behind him. If he hadn’t bent forward at that exact moment to reach into the water, the trajectory of the bullet would have carried the shots directly into the back of his head.
Damn reckless people. He strode forward. “Hey!” he yelled. “Look out what you’re doing!”
The third shot ripped through the thin fabric of his light shirt and passed through the skin of his forearm. The velocity of impact spun him in a half circle, knocking him to the ground.
My God, they must be using an elephant gun! he thought. He held his hand over the hole in his arm. Luckily, the bullet had missed artery and bone and passed cleanly through the flesh of his forearm. His first thought was that the sniper was probably at the top of the ridge; secondly he thanked God that the bullet had missed bone. A high-powered projectile striking bone could reverberate through his body, paralyze the heart valves, and cause death.
A bullet ricocheted off the rock immediately to his front, and he belly-whopped behind the protecting granite.
His arm was bleeding profusely and he ripped the shirt sleeve open to the shoulder. The wound was clean and for the moment wasn’t dangerous. Using his free hand and his teeth, he tied his handkerchief over the wound as tightly as he could. It staunched most of the bleeding, and he huddled closer to the rock.
As with most nonviolent men, disbelief filled Lyon. Initially, it hadn’t occurred to him that the shots were intentional; he supposed that they had to be a stray round from a hunter, but in the spring? Or then, perhaps some kids out for some plinking—with a thirty-caliber weapon? The repeated shots, and then the wound with the final ricocheting round off the protective rock, clinched the possibility.…
They were trying to kill him.
Lyon glanced back at the water to estimate where the rounds had hit the water when he bent over. Turning, he saw the spot where he had stood when the bullet had hit him … a few feet to the side of his present position. He estimated the trajectory of the rounds as on a descending incline; the shots must have come from up the ridge. The sniper lay in a concealed position somewhere along the ridge line, in a straight line perhaps two hundred yards away.
His quick movement in bending over the water had saved him. He recalled that he’d stood on the bank in upright position for a minute or two, then with an abrupt movement bent downward. The prone assassin had a scope, had taken careful aim … and miraculously missed because of Lyon’s bending forward.
His quick movement had been sufficient to disconcert the rifleman momentarily so that the third shot, the one that had caught him in the arm, had been a foot to the side; the difference between a flesh wound in the arm and instant death.
The only way out of the small valley was up to the logging road, past the grist mill and down to the highway … several hundred yards, a quarter of a mile at least … most of it across open space. The other alternative would be to go back over the ridge to his own car, if he could ever get that far.
Lyon tried to recall the amount of traffic on the country lane that ran past the stone wall where his car was parked. He had been at the grave site for what he calculated as half an hour, and during that period he could not recall one car passing on the road below. No help of any sort from that source. A shot fired on this side of the ridge would echo among the hills. Anyone passing would hear distant rifle fire from an unknown direction, not a particularly unusual incident, not alarming enough in itself to provoke anyone to notify the police.
They were going to kill him.
The sniper would wait patiently on the ridge, biding his time and counting on Lyon’s impatience. He would assume that Lyon would stand, run, make some movement away from the protecting boulders.
If Lyon stayed in his present position, the rifleman would eventually begin to work his way down the slope. He would walk slowly, rifle at the ready, always keeping a clear field of fire between himself and Lyon’s position.
He had been fired upon those few times he’d been at the front lines during the Korean War. How different. An impersonal automatic weapons burst, a stray artillery round … the difference between impersonal war and the hunted being stalked. The situation was quite clear. The sniper had full protection, no doubt aware that Lyon had no weapon, that the location was so remote as to virtually guarantee a time element necessary for the leisurely stalking.
It was 5 P.M. Three hours to full darkness. An impossible wait.
Lyon could imagine the sniper at the top of the ridge shifting his weight to a more comfortable position, glancing toward the tree tops to check windage, positioning the rifle and scope so as to have a clear sight picture of the protecting boulder. He would be prepared for a quick shift to the right or left, assuming that Lyon might stand quickly and run for nearby cover or back toward the road. He would consider the possibility that Lyon might crawl, hoping that a low profile would offer some protection at the sacrifice of speed.
Lyon estimated that it was twelve or fourteen feet to his right until several large pines offered any appreciable cover. In the intervening distance only two small bushes provided the smallest hindrance to a clear field of fire. To his left was a small ring of stones where some long-ago hunter had built a camp fire, and beyond that a string of pines another fifteen or twenty feet away.
How long did it take a man to run a mere twenty feet? Less than ten yards, less than a first down, the length of an ordinary room. Three seconds … two …
Probabilities and timing clicked within Lyon. Assumption, the placement of the initial two shots that hit the water over his head would mean that the sniper was using a rifle with mounted scope. Assumption, he would most probably consider that Lyon would make a break to Lyon’s left, his right, which would be towa
rd the mill and the exit road.
The panic welled up and he had an inordinate desire to urinate. He recalled an automobile accident of ten years before. The car out of control on an icy hill, the swerving and then the moment of unmistakable knowledge that heavy damage if not serious injury would be the outcome. At that time he had the same feeling: Not to me … this can’t be happening to me.
He had survived then; he wondered if he would now.
He fought panic and tried to concentrate on the possibilities, his only chance for survival. He couldn’t stay where he was. In time the sniper would move slowly down the hill, past the logging road toward the rocks where Lyon lay. Then … at point blank range … a shot … into the lake with his body.
A dash to other protective cover would be suicidal under the present circumstances. A good marksman could probably get off two shots, perhaps three … and he recalled Lee Harvey Oswald, not a particularly well-trained marksman, with a poor rifle, and the devastation he had wrought.
The only chance to reach side cover would be a dash to his right, away from the exit road and therefore the least expected. Secondly, if the sniper was in the process of working his way down the hill, a further time element, small as it was, would require the raising of the weapon and a snap shot. His use of a telescopic sight would be an aid to Lyon in this instance. An excellent device for distant and calculated aim, but a distorting influence for a man working his way down a ridge line and having to raise his weapon for a quick shot.
Did he have a telescopic sight? Probably. He’d have to make that assumption. When would he start down the hill toward Lyon? Or had he already started?
He glanced at his watch. Four minutes after five. He wouldn’t be on his way down the hill yet. When would he come? Propelling himself with his elbows, he inched toward the left and with his face inches from the ground looked around the edge of the rock, and then quickly drew his head back behind cover.
The bullet furrowed a path in the dirt where his face had been moments before. That settled that. His attacker was still at the ridge line in a position of readiness. Was he an impatient man? Lyon would have to assume that he was, would have to assume that he was not a professional killer, but a man who knew a little about guns, perhaps hunted deer in season, and who was now intent on, if not obsessed with, killing Lyon Wentworth. How long would an impatient man wait? His only chance lay in making a quick dash to the side while the man was working his way down the hill, when the rifle was not at the ready and trained at the rock formation. Lyon pictured the downward slope of the hill, the ridge top, the probable spot among the boulders where the assassin waited.
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