Death on the Mississippi

by Forrest, Richard;

  Lyon dove over the stern transom.

  The cigarette boat’s size and momentum carried it directly across the smaller boat without slowing its speed. The splintering crunch of the collision sprayed pieces of debris and Lyon instinctively ducked underwater. When he surfaced, there was no trace remaining of his boat. A hundred yards away, the cigarette boat was again making another turn.

  Its operator had reduced speed and seemed to be correcting his trajectory to aim directly at him. If he was not killed by the knife-edged prow of the boat, the powerful inboard engines would suck him toward their blades and cut him to pieces.

  He began to swim with the knowledge that the oncoming boat could easily compensate for his slow movements and kill him.

  The pressure on his right ankle was firm and unrelenting. He tried to kick free, but the grip on his foot tightened. His forward momentum was lost as his body was pulled deeper into the water until he was standing upright. He flailed his arms to keep afloat. The speedboat would momentarily be upon him.

  Lyon took a last deep breath as the pull on his lower body was more than his arms could counteract. His head slipped underwater as he was dragged down.

  Bobby Douglas was killing him.

  His theories were incorrect. His carefully constructed scenario of the crimes was wrong. Bobby and Dalton were still partners. Dalton, on the surface in the powerful boat, was attacking him in one way, while his cohort below was lethal in another.

  His breath was gone. In seconds he would involuntarily gasp and drowning would be almost immediate.

  Bobby’s face was parallel to his. The diver’s hands cupped his head as he brought his masked face closer to Lyon’s. One hand slowly removed the mouthpiece. Air bubbles escaped into the water and churned toward the surface as Bobby pushed the mouthpiece into Lyon’s mouth.

  Lyon took a deep breath. Cool oxygen filled his lungs and the panic began to subside. He pushed the mouthpiece back to Bobby.

  The dark hull on the surface above them continued making circles over their location. They could feel the rush of agitated water from the boat’s powerful engines as they shared the oxygen from the tank on Bobby’s back.

  They continued their strange, limbolike submerged floating as they shared oxygen and waited.

  17

  They broke to the surface together. Both men gasped and drew great gulps of air into their lungs. Bobby shucked off the harness of the empty oxygen tank while Lyon kicked off his shoes. They tred water momentarily to orient themselves in the rising swells. “Over that way.” Lyon pointed toward a blinking red aircraft warning light on the distant water tower.

  “I found him down there,” Bobby said. “I don’t know if it’s the guy you’re looking for, but there’s a man on the bottom whose feet are wired to cement blocks.”

  “Good work,” Lyon said. “Now, let’s go home.” They began to swim toward the shore in long, easy strokes that conserved as much energy as possible. Bobby, protected from the cool water by the wetsuit and swimming more efficiently because of the flippers, tended to pull ahead. He would slow and wait for Lyon to pull abreast before continuing.

  “It’ll be easier if you use the flippers. I’ve played enough tennis to be able to swim forever,” Bobby said before the top of his head exploded.

  Bobby Douglas slipped underwater surrounded by a widening pool of red. Another burst from the automatic rifle tripped across the surface spewing small geysers that passed inches away from Lyon.

  A thickening surface mist had kept them from seeing the silent motorboat as it drifted nearby. Dalton stood in the stern with the assault rifle as he jammed a fresh magazine into the weapon. The boat began to drift closer as Lyon tred water. Dalton worked a live round into the chamber and waited for the distance to close even further. “Find it, Lyon?” he called.

  “He’s down there.”

  Dalton’s laugh was the same as it had always been. “Too bad.” He slowly brought the assault rifle to his shoulder and took careful aim.

  The Coast Guard cutter that curved out of the mist had the familiar vertical red stripe near its bow, and a crewman on the forward deck manned a .50-caliber machine gun. “We are going to board you,” an official voice announced over the cutter’s loud-speaker system.

  As Dalton automatically turned to look at the cutter, Lyon dove. His hands clutched for water as he pulled himself deeper and deeper underwater. The Klasnikov clattered above him. Bullets churned the water by his side but passed harmlessly.

  Lyon felt the vibrations of the speedboat’s powerful engines as the dark shape above him began to move rapidly away.

  His head popped out of the water and he found himself framed in a circle of light from the cutter’s searchlight. Two frogmen plunged from the deck. They landed with a splash in the penumbra of the light. One sailor stroked toward Lyon, the other toward Bobby Douglas, who floated ten yards to the right.

  The diver encircled Lyon’s body below the shoulders with the flotation device and then looked at his face. “Jeez! I know you. I pulled you out of the water a couple of days ago.”

  Lyon nodded. “Thanks again.”

  “It’s a drill,” the diver yelled over to his companion. “This guy’s a plant ’cause I pulled him out a couple of days ago. It’s only a drill.”

  “Drill, hell, you dork,” the other frogman yelled. “My guy’s head is missing.”

  Lyon was winched up to the deck of the cutter where Rocco Herbert waited. “The captain says no one is dumb enough to fall in twice in a row. I told him he didn’t know you.”

  Lyon pointed to the body that was slowly being pulled aboard. “Dalton killed him.”

  “Was that Douglas?”

  “Yes. Can we please go get Dalton?”

  When the frogmen were aboard, the cutter began to move in the direction of the motorboat, which was barely visible in the distance. “He’s going for the resort,” Rocco yelled over the loud throb of the ship’s engines. “He’s a lot faster than we are, but Norbie’s already out there with a bunch of his guys.”

  They watched silently as two crewmen carefully placed Bobby’s body in a rubber body bag and zippered it shut. After the corpse was stowed below, Rocco and Lyon worked their way to the bow. The cutter heeled at a jaunty angle as it ran at full speed, but it was still unable to close the distance between them and the rapidly moving cigarette boat. Rocco raised his binoculars as they rounded the point for the final approach to the resort. Dalton was still far ahead and on a direct heading for the resort’s small beach. Rocco handed the glasses to Lyon with a single comment. “Look.”

  Pan was running down the walk from her cottage. She waved her arms frantically at the approaching boat. Her mouth was open in what to them was a silent scream. Troopers poured from the main building at the top of the walk and began to rush in a skirmisher’s line toward the beach.

  Dalton veered his boat until it ran parallel to the resort beach a few yards from shore. They heard the distant chug of his automatic weapon, and Pan’s forward momentum froze as she crumpled over the seawall in a rag-doll flail of limbs.

  “Even Willey Lynch won’t get him out of that one,” Rocco said as Dalton’s boat swerved around the point toward open water.

  The sailor at the mounted .50-caliber machine gun behind them rearmed his weapon. He swiveled it in the direction of Dalton. “I can waste that sucker!” he yelled.

  Rocco pushed the weapon barrel aside. “The bastard’s not getting away. We’ll get him.”

  The cutter changed the direction of its pursuit as its dual searchlights crisscrossed each other in an attempt to frame the speedboat in their beams. “Where in the hell is he going?” the sailor behind them yelled.

  “Toward the mouth of the Connecticut River,” Rocco said. “He knows we can bracket him in the open sea, his only chance is to land and run for it.”

  “Doesn’t Middleburg have a police boat?” Lyon asked.

  “Sure does,” Rocco said.

  “Why don’t
you radio ahead and have them start on their way downstream?”

  “Damn good idea.” Rocco hurried to the bridge. He was back in minutes. “The Middleburg boat is on its way, and the state police helicopter also. We’re going to corner the bastard.”

  They were nearly to Murphysville when they saw the lights of the Middleburg boat as it made its way downriver. The police helicopter made its first pass over the escaping boat and the distance between the three vessels began to narrow as Dalton was forced to throttle back.

  An icy knot began to form in Lyon’s stomach. He had a vast sense of impending doom as he calculated Dalton’s next probable move. He could only hope that Bea, out of a sense of immense curiosity, was either on the patio or at one of the windows so that she could see what was transpiring on the river and take actions to protect herself.

  Dalton turned his boat directly toward the shore below Nutmeg Hill promontory and ran it aground. He began to make his way up the steep hill toward the house and Bea.

  “Take him out!” Rocco roared at the sailor at the mounted machine gun.

  “He’s behind rocks, I can’t get a clear shot!”

  Bea sat in the breakfast nook with half a cup of cold coffee in front of her and a yellow legal pad. Several crumpled sheets of paper were on the floor by her side. She had listed all the state senators on the page for the seventh time and had neatly placed her yea and nay tallies by each name. No matter how she calculated, her day-care amendment could pass, but there were not enough votes to override the Governor’s veto. She took a sip of coffee and grimaced at its taste. She walked into the kitchen and poured fresh coffee from the electric percolator.

  She saw out the double windows over the sink that there was activity on the river. A launch was moving from a Coast Guard cutter in the main channel toward the shore below the house. She smiled. That’s good service, she thought. They were delivering the three men right to the doorstep, so to speak. She would write a very nice note to the commandant.

  The kitchen door behind her opened and she turned with a smile. “Home is the hunter, home …” Dalton Turman stood in the door pointing an automatic rifle directly at her.

  “Hi, honey,” he said. “How would you like a vacation?”

  She knew instantly that Lyon had discovered what he was looking for, that Dalton knew it, and that the men landing at the base of the hill were after him. Her smile didn’t fade. “Stop pointing that damn thing at me, Dalton. You’re getting so that you aren’t funny anymore.”

  He pushed her aside to look out the window. “Don’t play cute, Bea. You know why Lyon was out on the Sound today.”

  “Did he find the body?”

  “He said he did. They were at the right location.”

  “Lyon’s very good at putting things like that together,” she said.

  He turned away from the window. “Yes, isn’t he.”

  “It won’t take them long to get up the hill, Dalton. The car keys are on the pegboard in the corner. The car’s in the drive and I filled the tank with gas earlier today.”

  “I really appreciate your cooperation and concern, Beatrice,” Dalton said. “But what we have here now is what’s called your basic hostage situation. You know that Rocco must have talked to his men by radio. I wouldn’t get past the drive.”

  “Oh, come on now, Dalton. You know these things never work out. No one ever gets away and Rocco wouldn’t let you past the city limits if you had a busload of hostages.”

  Dalton pressed the barrel of his weapon against her forehead. “I am not some idiot holed up in a bank who takes two clerks hostage and tries to escape on a Greyhound. I have some variations that will blow your mind.”

  The phone startled both of them. “It’s probably the hostage negotiators,” Bea said. “This is where you demand a seven-forty-seven and a million in cash.” The phone rang again.

  “A small helicopter will do. Answer it.”

  Bea carefully pushed the gun barrel away from her forehead, but Dalton kept it pointed at her midriff. She picked up the receiver. “Yes?” She listened a moment and then covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “It’s the Governor,” she said to Dalton.

  “I’ve got to hand it to Lyon, he goes to the top in no time at all. Tell the Governor I want a helicopter in ten minutes or I blow your head off.”

  Bea nodded and began to speak slowly and clearly into the phone. “Please listen carefully. I am a hostage … No! Not to my liberal beliefs. I am a hostage hostage. There is a man in my kitchen holding a Klasnikov to my head … No, I am not making an ethnic joke … There is a man holding a machine gun in my kitchen … I don’t care what I said about gun control last session! Will you listen to me, you idiot? I am about to be killed!”

  “Now Rocco and Lyon are on the line too,” Bea said to Dalton.

  He snatched the phone from her hand and shoved her into the corner. “This isn’t party-line time! Listen out there! You have,” he looked at his watch, “eight minutes for the bird to be on the field in back of the house … You want a what, Wentworth? … An exchange? I take you in place of Bea? Fine, come on in. Make sure you come in the back way and walk in the yard spot so I can see you clearly. And strip … You heard me. Come in here in your underwear. Make it snappy!”

  He started to slam the receiver back into its stanchion, but Bea took it from his hand. “I know you’re recording this, so tell fearless leader that you’ll release the transcript at my funeral if he doesn’t approve my child-care amendment. Got that? Promise? … And for God’s sake don’t let Lyon come in here.”

  Dalton snatched the phone and pulled her around the corner into the protected confines of the hall. “You’re nuts, do you know that?”

  “Sometimes you have to use every available political weapon, and I have a feeling that I may not have many parliamentary alternatives in my future.”

  In the shadows of the tree line, Lyon began removing his clothes. Across the lawn he saw the house, now ominous and dangerous. He arranged his clothes in a neat pile by his feet and took off everything except his jockey shorts. Dalton hadn’t mentioned shoes, but he took them off also.

  “You can’t go,” Rocco said from the shadows at his side. Lyon didn’t answer. “You do remember what he said to you by the seawall? He said he would kill you.”

  “I know,” Lyon said, “and I don’t believe he’s going to let Bea go, but it has to be done.” The spotlight mounted over the back steps cast a swatch of light that carried half-across the yard nearly to the edge of the garden shed. Once past the shed, he would be in clear view of the kitchen door and a side window. It was at that point of no return where the ring of town and State Police with their M-l6s and other weapons would be of no help.

  “I think we could tape a flat automatic pistol to the small of your back,” Rocco said. “That’s the only way you can carry any sort of weapon in there. Or maybe a combat knife? We could hide that under the waistband.”

  “God, Rocco, I’m not a knife fighter, and he’s going to check me as soon as I’m in there. Just make sure the helicopter lands in a few minutes.” Lyon broke away from Rocco’s restraining grip. He stepped out from the tree line and began the walk toward the rim of light near the house.

  His legs felt leaden, his feet chunky, and the longish grass seemed to grasp his toes like restraining tentacles. He had no plan, only fear that he attempted to shove deep into the corner of his mind. He had walked this path twenty thousand times, and now the familiar had turned strange. The shape of trees and the configuration of the house appeared foreign.

  He was only a few feet from the storage shed. Its door had never been properly closed since the dummy incident, and the evening wind caused it to wave back and forth and clunk against the wall with a hollow sound. He thought of the electric hedge clippers. He was probably the only gardener in the state who had recently managed to cut through his own clipper cord while trimming a bush. The useless clippers with their severed electric cord still hung on a nail in the shed.<
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  He stepped into the shed and snaked the cut cord from its hook, coiled it quickly, and stuffed it into the rear of his shorts. Within seconds he was out of the shed and walking in the circle of light near the rear of the house.

  Lyon stepped into the empty kitchen. He had expected to be shot crossing the yard while clearly outlined in the light, but he now realized that Dalton’s firing might have triggered an immediate police assault. He obviously had other plans. They were probably in the hall, hidden from a direct sighting by police sharpshooters. He only had seconds left before he faced the man with the assault rifle. Lyon let the kitchen door noiselessly close behind him and tore the damaged electrical cord from his shorts. He plugged the line into the socket on the kitchen counter where the percolator still operated. Its naked end dangled over the counter rim and fell halfway to the floor.

  He stood in the center of the room and urinated. He felt the warm fluid trickle down his legs, over his bare toes, and form a pool around his feet. “Anybody home?” he called.

  “Don’t move,” Dalton commanded from the hall.

  Bea, with one arm bent behind her back, was shoved into the hallway door in such a manner that her shoulder touched the wall and provided a protected rest for Dalton’s rifle. She tried to smile at Lyon, but her eyes were wide and there was a marked quaver to her voice. “You look ridiculous in those shorts,” she said.

  “You’ve always said that.”

  Only a small portion of Dalton’s face was visible behind Bea, but the gun barrel on her shoulder rotated slightly until it was pointed directly at Lyon. “Raise your arms and turn around,” Dalton ordered.

  Lyon did as directed. “Let her go.”

  Dalton laughed. “You didn’t really think that I would? I need both of you. One on each flank. Good God! You’ve wet yourself. Look at your brave husband, Bea. He just peed in his pants. Now that I think back, he did that in his foxhole in combat when I had to pull him out. Jesus, what a whimp.”

  Lyon sagged forward as his hands clutched at his face. “I can’t stand any more. Please let us go.”