Death Through the Looking Glass

by Forrest, Richard;

  “Five hundred yards to the east. You took a compass reading that was wrong.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You had to. Current couldn’t have carried the plane that far.”

  “What about Tom’s wife?”

  “I called her last night, as I said I would. She told me he’d been staying at the lake cottage for the past several days.”

  “That doesn’t explain the cut phone wires.”

  “That doesn’t explain anything.”

  4

  Because of an overlapping quirk in Murphysville’s zoning maps, Sarge’s Bar and Grill was located in a residential area, off a secondary highway. Master Sergeant Renfroe, U.S.A. (Ret.), had been Rocco’s “First” during the Korean War and had opted to retire under the protection of his former commanding officer. As Lyon and Rocco entered the dimly lit bar, they found Sarge snoring loudly on a stool behind the bar, with his head buried in his arms, which were folded across the damp wood.

  “No more freebies, Willie,” Rocco said to the bar’s lone customer, who was helping himself to a dusty bottle of Chivas Regal.

  “I was gonna settle up, Chief. I really was.”

  “Uh huh,” Rocco said as he propelled the customer out the door, stuck the Closed sign in the window, and locked the door. “Sarge is drinking the profits again. Lyon, why don’t you make us a roast beef on rye?”

  While Lyon went into the small kitchen beside the bar, Rocco pulled the sleeping proprietor erect and let the limp body fall across his shoulders. Easily hefting the unconscious Sarge, he went through a side door and upstairs to the living quarters. By the time he had returned, Lyon had sliced meat, made two sandwiches, and drawn a draft beer for Rocco and a Dry Sack for himself.

  “Let me see those pictures again,” Lyon said through a mouthful of roast beef.

  Rocco handed him the large manila envelope containing the photographs of the dead man and the contents of the purse. “You’re on to something?”

  Lyon spread the pictures on the table and sipped his sherry. “There’s something wrong with these pictures, but I can’t get a handle on it.”

  Three State Police cruisers squealed to a stop in front of the bar, and within moments there was a heavy pounding that rattled the windows. “Christ,” Rocco said as he started for the door, “the Lone Ranger is here with his posse.”

  As the door was unlocked, two trooper corporals stepped inside and peered suspiciously around the interior. They were followed by Captain Norbert, who gave a perfunctory wave to Rocco and strode the length of the bar. “You act like it’s a raid, Norbie,” Rocco said.

  “Hell of a place for a meeting. You just close the place down? Shoulda closed it down a long time ago.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Rocco replied.

  “Where’s the suspect?”

  “Lyon’s in the booth over there, but he isn’t a suspect.”

  “Jesus! Not him again.”

  “Good to see you again, Captain,” Lyon said as he finished a dill pickle.

  “All right, Wentworth, what’s this crap about a phone call from the deceased?”

  “He called me. I’m positive of it.”

  “As positive as you were about the location of the downed plane? Which just happened to be half a mile in error.”

  Lyon didn’t answer. “The sun was in his eyes,” Rocco replied for him.

  “And booze in his stomach.”

  “Wait a minute, Norby. I don’t want you browbeating him.”

  “In the first place, Wentworth, why would the deceased have called you?”

  “He told me he felt his life was in danger.”

  “Why you?”

  “I suppose because we went to school together and because he’s handled a few legal matters for me and also knew that I’d been involved in the Llewyn murder case.”

  Captain Norbert cocked a finger at a trooper corporal, who immediately whipped a small pad and pencil from his pocket and stood poised. “What do you know about the deceased?”

  Lyon thought a moment. “Old family, Yale law school, and a partner with Saxon, Giles and Hoppelwite in Hartford.”

  “Don’t know them. Must not handle criminal cases.”

  “Hardly. Corporate law, large real-estate transactions, things of that nature.”

  “What about his wife?”

  “Karen Giles? She’s from Washington, a few years younger than Tom, and a very attractive woman. I’ve met her only a few times, at social functions.”

  “The phone call could have been a phony.”

  “I don’t think it was, but there’s always that possibility. But why?”

  “Do you know Carol Dodgson?” the captain snapped.

  “The woman in the plane?”

  “Yes.”

  “I had never heard of her until this morning.”

  “She obviously killed him,” Rocco said, “and either she herself was killed and her body washed away, or she somehow managed to get out of the plane. She killed Giles at the lake house, where we found the blood, and then took the body to the plane.”

  “What does Giles’s wife say about the Dodgson girl?” Lyon asked.

  “Never heard of her either. And we can’t find her at the ID address. Let’s go over the story again, Wentworth. From the beginning.”

  Lyon recounted the previous day’s activities—the balloon ride, the unsuccessful search for the plane, and the night phone call from Giles … if it really had been Giles. When he had finished, Norbert tapped his fingers nervously on the edge of the booth.

  “You know what I think, Wentworth? I think you’re a nut.”

  Rocco’s face hardened. “God damn it! Knock it off, and I don’t intend to tell you again!”

  “You stay out of this case too, Chief. This matter is under State Police jurisdiction.”

  “If he was killed at the lake house, it’s my case.”

  As the voices of the two police officers rose in argument, Lyon quietly stood, tucked the envelope of photographs under his arm, and made for the side door.

  “There’s no proof of where he was killed. And until there is, this is state business.”

  “Cram the state!” were the last words Lyon heard Rocco say as he slipped out the door and began to walk briskly toward his car.

  “OH, MY GOD! HE’S LOOKING AT EVIDENTIAL PHOTOGRAPHS WITH A MAGNIFYING GLASS AGAIN!”

  Lyon looked at Bea sheepishly and dropped the magnifying glass. The photographs from Rocco’s envelope were spread across a card table he had set up in his study. “You ought to have seen me with aerial photographs of gun emplacements.”

  “No, Lyon. A thousand times, no.” She gathered up the pictures and flipped them into a wastebasket. “You are not working on any murder case. You are not helping your friend out; you are not going to examine snapshots of dead people.”

  “Tom Giles was a friend and classmate of mine.”

  “Bull diddle! You’ve told me a thousand times that Tom was a snob and practically wore a WASP armband.”

  “Nobody’s perfect.”

  She took an envelope from her pocketbook and slapped it on the table. “One-way ticket to Asheville, North Carolina, on tomorrow’s flight. Tourist class.”

  “Robin and I haven’t finished going over the new book for possible illustrations.”

  “Plane leaves at seven. That gives you all day tomorrow.”

  “You’ll tell her?”

  “Oh, no. You tell her. Explain that we’re coming down with the plague, or that you’ve contracted a social disease. Anything.”

  “That I’m working on a murder investigation.”

  “Wentworth, that sounds like coercion and extortion.”

  “Rocco needs help, and, like it or not, I’m apparently some sort of witness. Although I’m not exactly sure what kind.”

  “What about the new book?”

  “I’ll work on it tomorrow with Robin, and then spend a day or so with Rocco.”

  “Only a
day or so? Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  She shook her head as she walked slowly to the wastebasket and retrieved the photographs. She spread them back across the table. “And you’ll tell Robin?”

  “Yes. There’s something about this picture of the woman’s bag that bothers me.”

  Bea took the photograph and looked at it intently. “Carol Dodgson—is she the one who killed Giles?”

  “We don’t know. It just seems odd that she’d commit a crime that was obviously well planned, and then leave her bag in the plane, with her driver’s license and Social Security card in it.”

  “Can’t the police find her?”

  “No one at that address has ever heard of her.”

  “She could have panicked when the plane went under water.”

  “Possibly. There’s something else, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “There’s no mirror.”

  “What?”

  “Look. Here’s a woman who supposedly uses lipstick, eye shadow and mascara. Fine, but there’s no compact or pocket mirror. Highly unlikely.”

  “So what does that prove? A missing item. That’s what’s been bothering me. Too many missing pieces.”

  “The phone call could have been a recording; the mirror could have been broken that day and not replaced.”

  “Too much.”

  Bea looked at the picture again. “I have an idea. Something I can do tomorrow. You’re going to work on the book, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I can trace Miss Dodgson.”

  Halfway to Hartford the next morning, Bea Wentworth decided she was crazy. She had left them together at the breakfast table. As she had leaned over to kiss Lyon good-bye and slap the plane ticket into his palm, the young girl, oblivious to her presence, had stared at Bea’s husband over the rim of her coffee cup.

  She was crazy. No sane woman would go to work and leave her husband alone in a secluded house with a lovely and infatuated young girl.

  She could take the next highway exit, drive back to Nutmeg Hill, leave the car at the end of the drive, and sneak through the woods to … No, that was demeaning, and besides, she trusted Lyon implicitly.… At least she thought she did.

  She pulled the car into the reserved parking place in front of the baroque state capitol and walked briskly to her first-floor office. She smiled and waved at the two secretaries in her anteroom and entered her office.

  When she thought of her years in the legislature, fighting against government spending in all areas except social services, she felt a pang of guilt over the opulence of the room. On assuming the position, she had denied herself the customary privilege of redecorating the office. She had stuck with her stand until informed that the unused monies would be utilized for the lieutenant governor’s pet project, two slate pool tables in the basement, a sanctuary for male legislators.

  The large office had deep powder-blue rugs, damask draperies, and a scowling Kimberly perched on the settee.

  “I’m quitting,” the black woman said without preamble.

  “You said that last week, and I haven’t had my coffee yet.”

  “Doesn’t it strike you as paradoxical that, as a revolutionary, I’m spending eight hours a day registering corporations for the state?”

  Bea looked at her unhappy friend, whom she had appointed deputy secretary as her first official act. “There’s a juicy voting irregularity in Waterburg.”

  “There are always irregularities in Waterburg.”

  “You want to go back to organizing the welfare mothers?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “Don’t you think you can accomplish more by working within the system?”

  “That’s what you told me last week.”

  “Before you leave, we have a problem to solve.” Bea pulled a sheet of notes from her pocket and spread it on the desk. Kim moved to a side chair and bent over the paper.

  “Who’s Carol Dodgson?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out,” Bea answered.

  “Aren’t you awfully hot in that thing?” Lyon asked.

  Robin looked up from her sketch pad and felt the neck of the granny dress with one hand. “I could put the bikini back on,” she said with a demure smile.

  “That’s all right,” he replied and leaned over the sketch pad. He heard the airline ticket crinkle in his back pocket and reminded himself that he must tell her, perhaps after lunch. The drawing had begun to take shape, and Danny Dolphin’s home had become a viable entity. “I like it.”

  “It’s not as good as Dad can do, but I think it captures the flavor of the book. It’s a wonderful book, Lyon. It will make every child in America think twice before eating another tuna-fish sandwich.”

  “Well, now, in Chapter Six, Danny is caught in the tuna nets and …” As he continued outlining the book, he felt the pressure of her knee against the side of his leg. He must tell her about the ticket.

  “All one hundred and sixty-nine towns?” Kim asked incredulously.

  “Every one,” Bea replied.

  “Suppose this Dodgson woman never voted?”

  “Then she never voted. We’ll also find out if she was born in Connecticut; went to high school or college here; ever had a telephone, electrical services or a credit rating.”

  Kim whistled. “That’s some job.”

  “You’ve got sixty people.”

  “If the commission on government efficiency catches us doing this, we’re all sunk.”

  “That’s what you wanted anyway, isn’t it?”

  Kim smiled and went to the office door. “All one hundred and sixty-nine towns?”

  “And the utilities, and the credit bureaus, and the school systems.” When Kim left, Bea reached for the phone and dialed the number of the regional Social Security office.

  “Well, that wraps it up,” Lyon said as he put the manuscript away in the desk. “You can go back to your dad and begin work on the preliminary drawings, and we might even beat our deadline for once. In fact”—his voice quickened—“why don’t you go home tonight? I just happen to have a plane ticket in my pocket.”

  “She’s too old for you,” Robin said.

  “Bea’s a year younger than I am.”

  “I love you, Lyon. I think you are the most wonderful person I have ever met. I am prepared to dedicate the rest of my life to making you happy. We can be a team; you’ll write the books and I’ll illustrate them, and we’ll keep everything right in the family. After Danny Dolphin, we can do the next one together.”

  “The Wobblies Win.”

  “Yes, and after that, we can …”

  He put his finger over her lips, and then his hands on her shoulders. He looked directly at her. “Robin, you know how much I care for you. I think you’re a fine person; you have a great deal of talent as an artist, and a whole life ahead of you. But—and this is a very big ‘but’—I love my wife. In fact, if I’d been a little precocious, I’m old enough to be your father.”

  “I don’t think of you as a father, Lyon. I don’t think of you that way at all.”

  “Can you tell me when the number 047-66-1979 was issued, to whom, and so forth?” Bea doodled on the pad at her desk as she waited for the Social Security Administration supervisor to pull the file.

  “That’s a recent issue,” the studious voice related. “That series was issued out of this office and sent to a Carol Dodgson less than a month ago.”

  Bea’s confidence sank. The supposition she’d been working on all day faded away. “I see. Can you give me the address where the card was sent?”

  “A post-office box in Hartford.”

  “I see. But wouldn’t Miss Dodgson have to go by one of your offices to apply for a card?”

  “Not necessarily. It can all be done by mail. There’s a form we send out on request, and it takes about six weeks to process a new number.”

  “Thank you very much.” She severed the connection. It was too apparent.
A form requested by phone and sent to a box number. Well, there were other contacts to be made. She placed a call to the deputy director of the Motor Vehicle Department, a competent older man who had solicited her support for his appointment. He gave her the information almost immediately.

  “That license series comes from a group stolen from the department some months ago. They’ve been turning up all over the country, usually in the hands of paperhangers.”

  “Paperhangers?”

  “Check forgers. Whoever had that license bought it somewhere. There are a dozen sleazy bars in the state where you can purchase IDs like that.”

  “Thanks, Harry. ’Preciate it.”

  “Anytime, Bea. For you, anytime.”

  Her hands went over his. “I want to go to bed with you.”

  “You don’t mean that. There must be a dozen boys in Round Rock who would be …”

  “None.”

  “In fact, speaking of Round Rock, I have a ticket right here.”

  “I want to make love to you.”

  Kim stood in the office doorway with a sheaf of papers clutched in each hand. “She’s not from this state.”

  Bea looked up. “Are you sure?”

  “Your Miss Dodgson never voted, never had a phone, never had electricity, never went to school and wasn’t born here.”

  “Thanks, Kim. Let’s go home.”

  Her hands left his and went around his neck. He should step back, turn, run. He felt a slight trembling in his legs.

  “Will you?” she asked.

  “Robin, please …”

  Her face came closer to his and his arms unconsciously went around her. “Kiss me.”

  He did.

  “Carol Dodgson doesn’t exist,” Bea said excitedly from the doorway, and then her voice died into silence.

  Lyon whirled to face his wife and saw the widening pools of hurt radiating across her face. “Bea, we’re working on the book.”

  “I HOPE THAT WAS THE INTRODUCTION AND NOT THE CONCLUSION!” Bea said, and slammed the door.

  5

  Bea raced the Datsun’s engine and honked the horn impatiently. Lyon leaned against the open car door and stared out over the pines that bracketed the westerly side of the house. He winced as Bea blared the horn in another series of short, staccato blasts.