The Pied Piper of Death

by Forrest, Richard;

  “I believe that your great-aunt, Rebecca, is also in that grave. I would think that you would want to find out how she disappeared.”

  “Admittedly the Pipers have a vivid family history, but this is nonsense!”

  “The guy’s hardly ever wrong,” Rocco said in Lyon’s defense.

  “The man is not logical,” Peyton said. He shook his fork again. “You know, Wentworth, you were the one who convinced me to hire Markham Swan in the first place. That bastard made a play for every woman at Bridgeway, and got himself killed for his efforts. All my troubles began when that Romeo slithered through our front gate.”

  “Oh, let them dig up the graves,” Katherine Piper said after another sip of orange juice. It was obvious that she was taking great delight in her husband’s discomfort. “I think it would be rather fun. We might make a charming social event out of it. Perhaps we’ll invite some of your good friends from the Thumpers. What do you call an exhumation? Would it be an ‘opening’ or ‘a coming out party’?”

  Peyton’s look across the table made it apparent who he wished as the additional occupant of the crypt. “Will you keep your comments out of this discussion?”

  She ignored him. “Tell me, Chief Herbert, how would Peyton’s cooperation help you?”

  “The Piper Pie is a private gravesite,” Rocco said. “The town ordinances are rather vague on how to handle the opening of an enclosed above-ground grave for the purposes of a cursory examination. We might not actually have to go inside the coffin itself, so in that sense it would not be a true exhumation. We might simplify matters by calling the investigation a preventative maintenance check on the physical integrity of the mausoleum. Under those circumstances, a simple verbal request by Peyton to me will be adequate.”

  “But we’d still be able to determine whether my theory is correct,” Lyon added.

  “That seems perfectly reasonable to me,” Katherine Piper said. “Don’t you agree, Peyton?”

  “It’s not your family crypt,” her husband said petulantly.

  “No, but all of this is tied into the murder of Swan and the danger that Paula may be in.”

  “You don’t give a damn about Paula.”

  “I do, more than you realize. Oh, we may go on with each other, but it’s an odd kind of sparring relationship that we have. You might be surprised at how concerned I am for her.”

  The discussion concerning his daughter seemed to remind Peyton that he was unsure of her whereabouts. He flipped a small phone from a mounting attached to the underside of the table and punched in a series of numbers. “Where’s Paula?” he demanded over the phone. “What do you mean you don’t know? That’s why I pay you clowns.”

  “We have her,” Lyon said.

  “Forget it,” Peyton snapped into the phone before he jammed it back in its place. “Explain that, Wentworth.”

  “Bea is making arrangements for her temporary safety,” Lyon said. “She’ll fill you in when everything is complete.”

  Piper looked taken back, as if unused to another’s assumption of authority. “When you two go into people’s business you go all the way, don’t you?” He seemed on the verge of protesting further but then stopped. “Well, at least she’s not with that professional student.”

  “We will probably have assault charges against two of your men over an incident they had with Chuck Fraxer, Mr. Piper,” Rocco said. “There may also be a conspiracy charge against you.”

  “Fraxer’s a liar. I am certain my men were not implicated in any events he concocts.”

  “Lyon and Bea saw the results.”

  “I am so pleased I have a new eyes and ears,” Peyton said sarcastically. Piper social instincts immediately returned as he turned his full charm on Rocco. “Didn’t your mother and father work for the company, Herbert?”

  “Yes, sir, they did. My father retired from the Piper Corporation and lived on his pension until the day he died.” He neglected to add that his father was a shop steward who constantly battled management and was eternally bitter over work rules and safety regulations.

  “Then your family has obligations to the Piper Corporation?”

  “My father paid his debt to the company, Mr. Piper. I owe nothing. I may develop a slight obligation in your case if we have your cooperation. That obligation might mitigate certain charges.”

  Peyton Piper considered Rocco’s last remarks. “A little extortion, huh?”

  “Call it what you will,” Rocco answered.

  Piper calculated his options in the few seconds before he replied. “Okay, you have a deal. We make a quick visit to the family cemetery and you drop all charges against my men.” He called out. “Rabbit, get in here!”

  “There’s a call bell under the carpet by your foot, Peyton,” Katherine said.

  “I know that!”

  Rabbit stuck his head around the swinging pantry door. “Did Bwana Master call?”

  “You always seem to know everything around here. How do we get into that mausoleum up at the Pie?”

  They matched Peyton’s angry rapid stride as they walked down to the Pie from the main house. The butler had disappeared for his “tool kit” and now swiveled the electric cart to a stop in front of the obelisk. Rabbit may have been the last to arrive at the graves, but he did announce himself with a certain flourish.

  “Ta da!” Rabbit said as he slid from the cart and posed with an exaggerated rotating hip motion to display the wide tool belt cinched low on his waist. His legs were not long enough to accommodate the length of some tools, so a long wrench and sledge handle dragged the ground.

  “Knock it off, you clown, and get at it!” Peyton said with irritation.

  “You certainly can turn any event into a no-fun deal,” Rabbit said as he handed each of them a large flashlight from the backseat of the cart. He approached the grillwork covering the mausoleum door with tiny steps.

  Peyton Piper broke the ritual again. “For God’s sake, Rabbit! Let’s not make a gigantic production out of this.”

  Rabbit glared. As if in retaliation for the interruption he slowly produced a wide key from his back pocket. With the same exaggerated small steps he approached the massive padlock securing the grill to the stone by means of a heavy hasp. He daintily dropped spatters of 3-In-One oil into the lock’s keyhole before inserting the key.

  It wouldn’t turn.

  “Use the damn pliers from your belt,” Peyton snapped.

  Rabbit appeared to ignore his employer, but did withdraw the pliers and grasp the key. He used both hands to clamp the handles and strained to tighten his grip, but the key would not turn.

  Rocco reached over Rabbit’s shoulders to grip the lock in one hand, the pliers in the other. He turned the key a full revolution until he sheepishly pulled the broken key stem from the lock.

  Rabbit laughed. “You busted it.”

  Peyton slammed his fist against the grill. “This is ridiculous! I don’t intend to stand around all night paying farcical homage to my long-gone relatives. Go in through the side door.”

  Rocco turned to Peyton. “I don’t see any side door,” he said softly.

  “Mr. Welch knows what I mean,” the factory owner responded.

  “There’s a hidden entrance on the side that opens by turning one of the protruding rocks,” Lyon said.

  Rabbit replaced his tools in the belt. “Why, so it does, sir.”

  “Don’t pull that obsequious crap with me, you runt.”

  “Careful, Mr. Employer. You are infringing on my rights as a little person. I may have to go to the labor board.”

  “Oh, Jesus! Not again. You’ve already beaten that dead horse to death. Can we get this over with?”

  “The side door,” Lyon said.

  Rabbit stepped around the corner of the structure and turned the rock. Before the passage was fully open he stepped inside the crypt. The others turned on their lights in preparation for following him.

  “I think I’ll wait outside,” Katherine said. “If y
ou’ve seen one exhumation you’ve seen them all.”

  Rocco ducked to follow Rabbit through the small entrance. Peyton immediately went after Rocco, while Lyon gave Katherine a wistful smile before he entered. The interior of the stone room appeared to be the same as on their last visit. Their footprints had scuffed the thin layer of dust and sediment on the floor, but otherwise the interior was unchanged.

  Lyon played his light beam around the vault and admired the workmanship of the concrete crypt that held the colonel’s casket. The frieze worked into the stone sides told a definite story. In the first panel a heroic man in uniform waved a bare sword overhead as he rode a prancing stallion. In the background was a seemingly infinite line of smartly marching infantry wearing Civil War forage caps and carrying long muskets at right shoulder arms.

  The next panel was dominated by the representation of a vaulted stone bridge. The officer’s sword was now horizontal as it pointed toward the bridge. The man on the horse used his free hand to wave his campaign hat aloft. The troops formed a neat line behind him.

  The third panel showed the heroic officer crossing the bridge followed by his obedient troops; the soldiers achieved their objective as they routed a frightened enemy in the fourth panel.

  Peyton shook his head in admiration. “Who says you can’t take it with you? This old guy took his glory all the way to the River Styx.”

  Rocco Herbert hadn’t been paying the least attention to the artistic side panels, but had been inspecting the underside of the top slab covering the vault. “I think this thing just slides off,” he said.

  Piper agreed. “I don’t see any type of fastening. It probably weighs a ton.”

  “I’m not going to remove it all the way. We just need to swivel it far enough for us to get a good look inside,” Rocco said.

  Rabbit slipped unobtrusively into the far corner.

  “Here goes,” Rocco said as he placed his hands under the edge of the stone. He gave a small grunt as he pushed.

  A deep grinding noise filled the small mausoleum as the slab slowly turned. Lyon and Peyton bent to support Rocco’s efforts. The lid continued to swivel until it formed a cross across the tomb.

  Their lights flicked inside the open crypt. No one spoke for a moment.

  “That’s interesting,” Peyton Piper said as he swept his light back and forth. “Where’d he go?”

  The casket was open and empty.

  Rocco’s beam flickered up and down the vault and around the interior of the empty casket. The casket’s lid had been pried off and neatly propped against the interior wall of the vault. “I’ll be damned.”

  “Grave robbers?” Lyon asked.

  “The Pipers are all too cheap to be buried with anything valuable,” Rabbit said from his corner.

  “I thought you said we were supposed to find another body in here, not lose one,” Piper said accusingly to Lyon.

  “Let’s try the other vault,” Lyon said.

  They swiveled the slab back to re-cover the colonel’s crypt and turned their attention to the second vault. This crypt was shorter than the colonel’s, without elaborate artwork. They were able to slide the slab easily into the cross position.

  Rocco was the first to shine his light into the interior.

  Peyton Piper’s light beam crossed over Rocco’s and jiggled as the industrialist broke into laughter. “I don’t believe what I’m seeing. That son-of-a-bitch. That old roue!”

  Rabbit slipped out of the corner to peer into the open vault. He chuckled. “My granddaddy always said that the colonel liked his whiskey cold and his women hot.”

  “What is he wearing?” Rocco asked. “It looks like a Civil War uniform.”

  “He was probably buried in his full dress uniform,” Peyton said.

  Lyon knelt on the mausoleum floor and leaned into the vault to gently finger the brittle clothing of the second cadaver in the crypt. “Something is wrong here,” he said. “Something is very wrong.”

  “Jesus! That’s naive, Wentworth,” Peyton said. “Of course something is wrong. How the hell did Caleb get from his casket into the vault containing his wife?”

  “And why?” Lyon said nearly to himself. “Because this isn’t his wife.”

  THIRTEEN

  They stood in a silent semicircle around the stone sepulcher and looked down at the macabre pairing. Reflected light created shadowy swatches that gave a somber tone to the tableau.

  The spell shattered when Katherine Piper ducked through the hidden entrance. She pushed between Rocco and Peyton to peer into the coffin.

  “Hey, they’re not as bad-looking as I thought they’d be. You know, Peyton, it’s not very funny to pose them like that.”

  Peyton enunciated each word of his reply carefully, as if that delivery emphasized the gravity of his feeling. “We did not place them in that position. In fact, they are not supposed to be together.”

  “Well, if I didn’t know that they had been dead a long time I’d think that …”

  “We can imagine what you think, Katherine, and we do not care to pursue that line of thought any further.”

  “He’s a hell of a hypocrite,” Rabbit said as he put a hand on Katherine’s forearm. “He’s the one who suggested they might be doing it.”

  “That’s it, Rabbit,” Peyton said. “You are through. You have finally managed to destroy the loyalty it took five generations of your family to build. As of this moment you are unemployed.”

  Katherine squeezed Rabbit’s arm. “Don’t believe a word of it. I’ve just rehired you as my footman or whatever.” She looked back into the crypt, “Why are they mixed up?”

  “If we knew that we wouldn’t be standing around like dummies,” Peyton said. “The question is how did old Caleb get from there over to here?” he asked as he gestured from one stone vault to the other.

  “I don’t mean that. I mean the woman from another time,” Katherine said.

  “She’s wondering why it’s not Caleb’s wife,” Lyon agreed. “I think the one in women’s clothing is Rebecca.”

  “Damn it, Wentworth! What in the hell are you talking about? Caleb’s first wife disappeared after she jumped off the parapet. He then married Lavinia, who died a year after he did and was buried in here with him. Well, not with him, but in here next to him. She was interred in this vault. That’s the two of them together. Lavinia and Caleb.”

  Katherine Piper laughed.

  “God, is that inappropriate,” her husband said.

  “Look at the clothes,” she said. “Watch an old movie on late night television and pay attention to the women’s styles. Notice the long hemline down to the ankles and the cut of the upper body of the dress. That’s an early nineteen-thirties dress if I ever saw one. Next, look at her hair and notice that it’s still intact enough to show she had a permanent sometime in the past. That’s no nineteenth-century woman.”

  “I’m convinced it’s Rebecca,” Lyon said again as he reached carefully into the crypt with both hands to remove a small locket from the woman’s neck. He gently opened the heart-shaped pendant to reveal two small photographs. He held the open locket toward Peyton.

  “That’s one of my uncle’s baby pictures next to a photograph of my great-uncle,” he said. “That can’t be Rebecca. She disappeared in 1932,” Piper said in a low voice.

  “I think we’ve found her,” Rocco said. It was his turn to bend into the crypt. His massive hands gently held the woman’s skull and slowly turned it until one side was directly under the beam of Lyon’s light. “I don’t believe we’ll need a medical examiner to pronounce the cause on this one,” he said.

  “My God! Look at the size of the hole in the side of her head,” Peyton said as he turned away.

  “The bullet entered the temporal region of the skull. I’d estimate a .58 caliber projectile,” Lyon said. “That was a popular size for muzzle loaders in the Civil War.”

  Rocco gently lay the woman’s head back on its bier before turning to Lyon. “Minié ball?”<
br />
  “I’m sure the medical examiner’s office will find the projectile still within her skull. Those muzzle loaders were large calibers, but they had an extremely low muzzle velocity. They didn’t have nearly as much penetrating power as modern weaponry.”

  They sat quietly in Bridgeway’s library. Unasked, Rabbit made a trip into the wine cellar. He found a bottle of the finest Napoleon brandy in a far corner and returned with the dusty bottle to decant it in the pantry before serving everyone in the library. Katherine Piper went up to her room while Peyton slumped in a captain’s chair at the large center table. Rocco began to pace under the window containing the stained-glass depiction of Colonel Piper’s heroic charge.

  “Cemetery vandalism is despicable,” Peyton mumbled as he took a snifter from Rabbit’s tray and swirled it between his palms.

  “It’s usually teenagers who do that stuff,” Rocco said. “You got any vodka, Mr. R.?”

  The small butler nodded and returned to the pantry by the side of the room.

  Lyon browsed along the rows of exhibits displayed under the high stacks of bound volumes. He bent occasionally to examine an item. “Teenagers who broke through a hidden door or slipped past a locked grill?”

  “We’ve had vandalism before,” Peyton said. “Possibly it’s those antibusiness protesters trying to make some sort of macabre point.”

  “I believe those bodies were moved for a reason other than making a political statement,” Lyon said.

  “Good Christ, Wentworth! Why?” Peyton boomed.

  “Let me get this straight,” Rocco said as he took his memo pad from his breast pocket and began to scrawl notes in his own informal shorthand. “A preliminary examination seems to indicate that the cadaver dressed in the Civil War officer’s uniform was probably Caleb Piper, who died of natural causes.”

  “Correct,” Peyton said. “Unless our poltergeist is into cross-dressing in addition to his other perverted tricks.”