Death on the Mississippi

by Forrest, Richard;

The three-story-high room had wide, curving stairs at each end that led to a balcony that ran along three of its sides. A number of doors entered off the balcony, and Lyon assumed that these led to bedrooms and other suites. The chamber music group played in an alcove located to one side of a massive fireplace that occupied nearly a whole wall on the room’s outer side. Uniformed waiters, including their diminutive chauffeur from the golf cart, circulated unobtrusively with canapes and flutes of champagne.

  There were two dozen other guests in the room. Several political figures acknowledged Bea, while Lyon recognized department heads and nationally known scholars from Middleburg University and two other prestigious schools. He assumed that most of the other well-dressed men and women who carried themselves with such assurance were members of the state business community, which consisted primarily of insurance companies and defense contractors. The aggregate influence present in the room added up to a large percentage of the state power structure.

  A portion of the party spilled through several French doors leading onto a patio much like the one at their home, Nutmeg Hill. Although their house was far smaller and more modest than Bridgeway, its similar location on a high promontory across the river sustained the remote kinship Lyon felt for Peyton Piper. In their youth they had been college classmates. Their interests and philosophies were now so divergent that no vestige of a relationship would have remained except for this vague alumni connection threaded together by their mutual homes facing each other high above the river.

  The Wentworths had taken their first sip of champagne when Peyton Piper waved from across the room. He immediately began to make his way toward them. He slipped through the crowd, leaving a practiced wake of arm squeezes, busses, and hand clasps. It was an orchestrated movement of social tacking that Lyon had to admire.

  Bea watched Peyton Piper’s progress with a politician’s eye. “He moves through crowds better than a lot of presidential candidates I’ve met,” she whispered to Lyon.

  “He could do that when we were in college, but like good wine he improves with age. I’ve always had the feeling that Peyton started to hone those social moves in kindergarten.”

  “No,” Bea answered. “Men like Peyton go directly from nursery school to prep. They don’t do all that other stuff like the rest of us mortals. You know, he’d be a damn attractive man if he weren’t politically right of Genghis Khan, in addition to manufacturing explosives and being so beautifully unctuous. I bet he plays great tennis and bridge?”

  “Of course.”

  Peyton had finally reached their side. He kissed Bea while simultaneously grasping Lyon’s arm at the elbow. “God, it’s good to see some real people here tonight,” he said for their benefit.

  “As if the rest are all clones,” Bea thought to herself as she caught the faintest aroma of his after-shave lotion. She didn’t ordinarily care for scents of that nature, but whatever he was wearing smelled terrific. She wondered where he got the stuff.

  Peyton was Lyon’s age and height although slightly heavier. With his even tan and compact body kept trim by social sport exercise and exquisite tailoring, he exuded an aura of fitness and well-being. His physical appearance was only a backdrop to his complete social assurance. Lyon had always felt that smug confidence was best represented by royalty or by those who came from old New England money. They were educated at certain prep schools that fed them directly into certain Ivy League colleges. They were not only accepted by but automatically assimilated into old-boy networks. It could be an intimidating facade, as shown by the nervousness that overcame Richard Nixon in his confrontations with Jack Kennedy.

  While a caterer spoke confidentially with Peyton Piper for a moment, Lyon leaned over to whisper in Bea’s ear. “Musk of Tahitian virgins.”

  She looked puzzled. “What?”

  “The after-shave lotion.”

  “How did you know I wondered?”

  “I saw your little nostrils quiver.”

  Bea sighed. “How can a man who can’t change a faucet washer notice subtle things like that?”

  “Because I don’t sleep with kitchen faucets.”

  Peyton turned his full attention back to them. “As I said, so glad you two could come. It’s always good to see you, Lyon, and later on I want to have a little tête-à-tête with Bea and Congressman Candlin.”

  “We were met by a crowd outside the estate who were definitely not happy campers,” Bea said.

  Peyton Piper laughed. “They’re wimps compared to the protesters Bridgeway attracted during the Vietnam war, when we manufactured napalm. That’s when we really had a parade of loonies climbing the walls. Now they’re criticizing the Tommy land mine. You know, I think if I manufactured rosary beads and crucifixes they’d call me anti-Semitic.”

  “Why are they protesting since we aren’t at war with anyone this week?”

  Peyton Piper smiled. “We don’t really know the shelf life of a Terrible Tommy land mine once it’s buried. Of course, it’s a passive weapon, but it might be lethal for as long as a century.”

  Lyon wondered if the industrialist’s smile was due to irony or pride.

  Bea looked incredulous. “Do you mean to say that those things are buried all over the Third World and last practically forever?”

  “A Tommy has never been buried in American soil,” Peyton said proudly.

  “That’s because they were developed after our Civil War,” Lyon added and received a sharp look from Peyton. “In some parts of the world they’re planted in more acres than rice or maize.”

  Peyton put his arm on Lyon’s shoulder and flashed his most winning smile at the couple. “You know, Beatrice, even at college Lyon was always argumentative. Probably why he didn’t get invited into the Thumpers lunch club. If my old man, the colonel, was still around he would have called you anti-class.”

  “Oh, God, Peyton,” Lyon said. “You’ll be calling the protesters serfs before the evening is out.”

  Their host’s eyes widened in mock horror. “You mean they aren’t my vassals? Did someone release the serfs without telling me?”

  Peyton flashed another winning smile after this great jest. Bea wondered if perhaps the humor was the actual camouflage and a part of this man actually believed in his divine rights.

  “I promised I’d talk with you about those mines,” Bea said.

  “You could never imagine the corporate battles we had over the Tommy, Beatrice. Let me tell you a little story. When I was first elected to the board of directors, the colonel still ran this company with an iron fist. At that time the Terrible Tommy was set to detonate at three feet. Army ordnance people felt that men couldn’t hunch lower than that unless they were flat in the dirt. Well, I went to the mat for a four-foot explosive height in order to protect the children who might wander on the field. The colonel, my own father, opposed me, but I won that battle, kids. And to this day the Terrible Tommy detonates at four feet.”

  “It only maims taller children,” Bea said.

  Peyton shook his head. “No wonder you two are married. You think alike. Isn’t that Congressman Candlin in the doorway? Excuse me. I’ll go net him for our little chat.”

  Peyton began working the crowd back toward the room’s entrance, where the tall congressman stood cataloging the party participants with mild interest.

  “It’s been a long time, Lyon.” The woman’s voice was low and intense.

  Lyon was startled at the change in Katherine Piper during the two years since he had last seen her. Peyton’s wife was a thin woman who now wore heavy base makeup to disguise a chalk-white complexion and dark hollows around her eyes. Her other attempts to restore a past haunting beauty had succeeded only in making her appear slightly grotesque. Her carefully articulated movements and speech were the deliberate actions of the near inebriated.

  “Katherine, I would like you to meet my wife, Bea.”

  The woman took Bea’s hand with a limp grip that conveyed limited interest. “Yes, I have heard of you, Bern
ice.”

  “Bea.”

  “Of course, Lee. I hear you’re one of those superactive women who manages a career, puts down men, and still bakes cakes.”

  Lyon could sense his wife’s antennae quivering. “Only on Mondays and Wednesdays,” Bea answered. “On the other days I sell my body.”

  “Really, is there much of a market for it?” Katherine Piper said as the diminutive butler served her a tall glass containing what appeared to be orange juice.

  “Ixnay,” the butler said to her. “Ocknay offnay.”

  “Keep your place, you little troll,” Katherine Piper replied in a stage whisper.

  Lyon stepped into the breach. “Did you know that Katherine was in grad school at our university when Peyton and I were undergraduates?”

  “I noticed that my husband trotted out his ‘going to the mat with the colonel’ anecdote. That little fable is designed to prove that he’s not as bloodthirsty as his annual report would lead you to believe. Actually, his father was quite a man.”

  “Granddaddy was a malicious warlord.” A young woman with glowing blond hair that fell past her shoulders appeared at their side. Her hand gripped Lyon’s. “Remember me, Mr. Wentworth? Paula Piper.”

  Lyon took her hand and felt the same firm pressure her father transmitted during his greetings. “Of course, Paula. I haven’t seen you since I don’t know when. But I see that the braces are off.”

  “Other things have come out too,” Katherine Piper said.

  Lyon found it difficult to ignore the taut body of the athletic young woman in a tight green sheath with a plunging neckline. “Yes,” he agreed and felt Bea’s toe press painfully into his ankle.

  “Paula is my step-daughter,” Katherine Piper said. “The unlamented first Mrs. Piper didn’t seem to understand that children should be drowned at birth like unwanted kittens.”

  Bea was taken aback.

  “Mums always joshes when she’s had too much vodka,” Paula said. “That’s why the Garden Club struck Bridgeway from their spring house tour. They didn’t think it was funny when she fell in the goldfish pond and swallowed a small frog.”

  Lyon and Bea exchanged a private glance that signaled their discomfort over the treacherous warfare which had just been exposed between these two women.

  “How would you know what I swallowed, Snookums? You were away at college,” Katherine said with what was meant to be a smile, but which came out as a lopsided grimace. “She’s majoring in sexual conquests,” she announced to Bea and Lyon.

  “Mums already has an advanced degree in wicked step-mothering with a minor in alcoholism,” Paula retaliated.

  “I think that you both have crossed any semblance of a line and that’s unfortunate,” Bea said with the candor that often burst through normal constraints. The two women looked startled.

  “I think you are probably right,” Katherine Piper said after an awkward pause, her voice strikingly different in tone.

  “Whether Katherine and I are polite to each other doesn’t matter,” Paula said. “Markham Swan says I’ll be dead before the month is out and that someday Bridgeway will return to dust.” She abruptly moved away from them and left the room.

  “She’s in that love of death adolescent stage,” Katherine said. “Paula has unbounded admiration for a Valhalla of dead poets presided over by Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.”

  “If she’s overly obsessed by suicidal poets, perhaps she needs professional help—immediately,” Lyon said.

  “Oh, she’s not talking about killing herself,” Katherine Piper said. “This isn’t any adolescent cry for help. She’s referring to her own demise as forecast by that philanderer Swan, who is probably using that ploy to seduce her. Excuse me, I have to find out where that nasty little man has hidden my vodka.” Before they could respond she began weaving a course through the crowd.

  “Speaking of murder warnings, I haven’t noticed Markham Swan in this group, have you?” Lyon asked.

  “He’s always easy to spot,” Bea said. “Just check out clumps of women surrounding a lone man. No. I haven’t seen him.”

  Lyon recalled the cryptic phone call he’d received from Swan earlier in the day. He had been working at the computer on the newest Wobbly book, They Take to the Air, when the call came in on the answering machine.

  “I know you can hear this, Wentworth,” Swan had said when the machine answered the phone. “Drop the damn nursery school story that you’re writing and pick up the phone because I’m talking murder here.”

  Lyon knew that Swan was aware of his phone system and would stay on the line until he answered personally. He reluctantly reached over to the machine and snicked the phone from its cradle. “Yes, Markham?”

  “I know Bea is coming out to Bridgeway tonight to endorse Peyton’s latest rotten scheme, and I’d like you to come.”

  “I wasn’t invited, Markham. I would also like to point out that I do not work for Mr. Piper. You do.”

  “Forget the invite bit. You were a Thumper in college. That gives you the right to visit a fellow Thump at any time.”

  “I am not a Thumper, Markham. As I recall, you blackballed me.”

  “You always were a little bit of a dork, Wentworth. I’ve never figured out if those two years in Nam as an intelligence officer or your buddying up to our gargantuan police chief warped your mind, but something sure did. I know you get your jollies from murder investigations and boy do I have one for you.”

  “I’ve sworn off that stuff,” Lyon said tiredly.

  “You haven’t heard what I’ve got. I’ve turned up something in my work that’s screaming murder to me. The cutest member of the Piper family is going to get whacked.”

  “And the whacker told you in advance?”

  “No. I figured it out.”

  “I thought you were writing a history of the Piper family,” Lyon said.

  “Exactly. And I have come across a piece of pie that tells me that the kid Paula is going to get it—soon.”

  “I can only take so much of Peyton Piper, Markham. And I’m not in that mood today.”

  “How about me? I’m living out here in this fiefdom.”

  “You’re well paid,” Lyon said.

  Swan seemed to sigh, an unusual gesture for the usually self-confident man. “Come on, Wentworth. I think I’m on to something, but I need a reality check with someone I can trust and you best fill that ticket.” There was another long pause. “Please.”

  The please was a first for Markham Swan. It was Lyon’s turn to sigh. “Okay. I’ll drive Bea out there.”

  “Look me up at the cottage at nine,” Markham had said and then the phone buzzed a disconnect.

  Rocco Herbert laid a large hand on Lyon’s shoulder. “I want you to know that I have orders from Daddy Warbucks to execute any protesters swilling his free booze.”

  “I thought you were busy arresting outside agitators?” Lyon asked the police chief.

  “That’s no fun without being able to toss Bea into a lineup.”

  “Question,” Lyon said. “You have a coed daughter on the cusp of leaving teenagehood. Does she often speak of death lurking around the corner?”

  “Only if she tries to sneak off for weekends with her latest boyfriend. Then she knows death lurks in the form of one large, angry police chief.”

  “You aren’t up with the times, Rocco. That’s not the way things are anymore.”

  “I know how they are, Lyon. I just don’t want to know about it when it comes to my own daughter.” He refused a flute of champagne with a small deprecating wave of his hand. “To further answer your question, teenagers do get fixations on death.”

  “So I seem to remember from my teaching days and the countless submissions of morbid poetry. I wonder if Swan is playing up to Paula with this type of thing.”

  “Knowing Swan’s reputation, I wouldn’t doubt it,” Rocco answered.

  “What doesn’t fit is that he called and wanted me out here for some reason.”

>   Rocco held up his hands in mock protest. “Come on, Lyon, when it comes to Swan and women anything goes. Don’t take it seriously.”

  “Protests have been known to get out of hand.”

  Rocco laughed. “Did that group outside look like they were plotting a bloody revolution?”

  “Well, no, but I’m no expert on revolutions.”

  The remarkably short waiter appeared at Rocco’s side. He carried a silver serving tray holding a tall glass of vodka and tonic. “Your drink, Chief,” he said in his bass voice.

  Rocco took the drink and sipped on it with approval. “Thank you, Rabbit. You make a remarkably good vodka and tonic.”

  “I let the tonic bottle’s shadow fall across the vodka, Chief. And I thought we had a deal on the ‘Rabbit’ bit? I prefer to be known as Mr. R. Welch.”

  “Of course, Mister R. I’ll call you anything you want as long as you’re clean.”

  “Chief, I don’t even drive by a filling station if I can avoid it. When our car needs servicing, Frieda does the honors.”

  “Glad to hear it Rab … Mister R.,” Rocco said. “Try not to get fired by Mister Piper again, and if you are, stay away from establishments that maintain long hours and cash registers.”

  “You keep up the condescension crap and I’ll punch you out,” the butler replied.

  “You know I have a bad football knee, Rabbit,” Rocco said and immediately regretted the cruel remark.

  Rabbit glared at them. “Big people always have to take the cheap shots, don’t they? I’m going to go water your vodka.” He turned away and returned to the pantry.

  Lyon cocked an eyebrow at Rocco. “What’s all this about gas stations and cheap shots?”

  “I didn’t mean to come off as a smart ass,” Rocco replied. “But I swear to God, sometimes Rabbit, or Mister R. as he prefers, leads you right to the trough of cheap comebacks and requires you to drink.”

  “And the gas stations?”

  “The Welch Rabbit, as we have come to know him in the police trade, has a weakness for gas stations. Therefore, he and I have formed a team. He holds them up and I bust him. He hasn’t done time yet, but he got a suspended sentence in January and I have somehow been appointed his unofficial support group.