Death on the Mississippi Page 5

  “He just better be busted up by baseball bats,” she said. “If I find him in the saddle with some bimbo, he’s dead meat.”

  The Haddam’s Neck bridge was of ancient steel-girder construction that seemed to form a confusing maze of beams above the roadbed. At the direction of the operator, perched in a control shack high in the superstructure, the entire center section could be swiveled in order to allow large boats to pass through.

  They parked the car near the entrance to the bridge and walked out over the water. The river below shimmered in the thinning darkness as clouds of predawn haze began to rise from its surface. In both directions, the only visible craft was a single fishing boat moving slowly downstream with upright naked rods swaying gently in metal brackets near the stern. They reached the center of the bridge where a metal ladder led up to the small booth nestled high among the girders.

  Pan craned her neck to look up the vertical ladder. “I can’t go up there,” she said. “Would you mind going alone?”

  Lyon did mind, but without answering, he gripped the cool metal rungs of the ladder and began to climb. In recent years his fear of heights had increased geometrically with his age. For reasons he could not understand, a flight in his hot-air balloon did not bother him, but climbing a ladder slick with river mist scared the hell out of him. He did not look down.

  His head topped the window glass of the control room and he looked inside to see the operator bent over a desk. A discreet knock would require releasing one frantic grip from the ladder. He considered the problem a moment, and then banged his forehead against the glass.

  The bridge operator looked up at Lyon with a startled glance and then vehemently shook his head. “You can’t come in! Authorized personnel only, so beat it before I call the cops … unless you got a cigarette?”

  “Always carry a couple extra packs,” Lyon lied. The door was thrust back against the wall and two hands helped Lyon into the small room. “Have you opened the bridge tonight?”

  “I open the bridge, I close the bridge, and in between I read a lot of books and try not to think about cigarettes. Where are they, for God’s sake?!”

  “I’m looking for a large houseboat called the Mississippi,” Lyon said.

  “Don’t usually have to move the bridge for houseboats, they’re too low in the water. Hope you got some real cigarettes, no filters, no low nicotine. I need a real lung grabber.”

  Lyon began to pat his pockets in a fruitless search for the photographs and nonexistent cigarettes. “This boat has a high superstructure and mast. I’ll show you a picture when I find them.”

  The operator pointed to the open door. “I don’t look at nothing without a burning coffin nail in my hand. Get your pictures and there’s a cigarette machine in the restaurant vestibule at the far end of the bridge.”

  Lyon closed his eyes as he stepped outside.

  The second operator was located on the railroad bridge near the mouth of the Connecticut River. Somehow, Lyon’s appearance at the control-room window seemed quite natural to him, and he waved a friendly greeting while simultaneously shoving his pint of rye into a desk drawer.

  He bent over the desk where Lyon spread the Mississippi photographs and squinted at them. Still not satisfied with his focus, he covered one eye with the flat of his hand. “Nope. I’d remember that baby. Only things I opened for tonight were a coastal tanker and a large motor sailboat.”

  Lyon reluctantly gathered the photographs. “Thanks anyway.”

  “Wait a minute!” The operator flipped back a page in the bridge log. “Here are two entries for a large houseboat.”

  “Where?” Lyon eagerly bent over the book.

  “She went out yesterday morning and came back later in the day.”

  “We know about that trip,” Lyon said, for it was obviously their round-trip excursion to the resort the day before. “Thanks anyway. I’d be appreciative if you told me of another way to get down from here.”

  “Sure.” Lyon smiled. He wasn’t ready for another bout with the ladder. “You can jump,” the operator said with a laugh.

  “We’ve bracketed the Mississippi,” Lyon told Pan when he was back in the car. “We know she didn’t go up- or downstream past the bridges.”

  She looked doubtful. “Dalton once told me that he could buy anyone if the price was right. How much do bridge operators go for?”

  “I’ve considered that,” Lyon said. “I don’t think either of the operators were lying to me, but I have a way to double-check. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has a channel dredger near Haddam that operates twenty-four hours a day. I’ll also check with the Coast Guard at Lynde Point on the Sound. It will only take a couple of phone calls to verify what we’ve learned. Even Dalton couldn’t have reached all of them.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she said dubiously.

  “The boat has to be moored somewhere between the two bridges, in a cove, at a marina, or in open water. It’s one of those choices.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, but I have a very bad feeling about this.”

  Bea’s legs flicked through the opening of her bathrobe as she strode angrily across the kitchen and thunked down two coffee mugs on the breakfast table. “And where is Miss Conviviality now?”

  “In our guest room. She’s pretty well zonked out, but she made me promise to wake her as soon as the plane arrives.”

  Bea’s sugar spoon missed her mug by several inches. Powdery grains scattered across the table. “The what?”

  “I’ve rented a float plane for the morning. I thought that would be the best way to explore the coves and marinas along this stretch of river.”

  “And your seaplane will taxi to a landing at the foot of our promontory where you and Miss ‘C’ will be waiting hand in hand.” She sipped coffee. “Do you ever intend to finish your book?”

  “It hasn’t been going too well lately,” Lyon said and was surprised to see his two Wobblies standing in the doorway and beckoning frantically for him to return to the study.

  “You know he’s pulling another prank and you’re going to feel like a horse’s ass falling for three in a row. Does Pan realize how much this plane ride is going to cost her?”

  “A hundred an hour plus miscellaneous fees.”

  “For some people it’s easy come, easy go.”

  “Well, actually she’s a little short at the moment,” Lyon said. “I know that Dalton will repay me when it’s over.”

  Bea looked stricken. “We’re paying for chartered airplanes?”

  “Dalton’s good for it.”

  “Sure, like he was good about paying for the bullet holes in our kitchen wall.”

  “I’ve been thinking about those holes,” Lyon said. “Since Rocco fired a tight shot pattern in a downward trajectory, we could cut a larger hole around the little holes and make a door for a cat.”

  “I might remind you that we don’t have a cat.”

  “They’re easy to come by.”

  “And that the last cat we had ate twelve hundred birds.” A seaplane banked over the house and turned downwind for a river landing. “Your transportation is here, Wentworth,” Bea said. “Have a nice day in Oz.”

  Gary Dorset inched the float plane to the base of the promontory below Nutmeg Hill and tossed a line over a dead branch that protruded from the water. He climbed down to the right pontoon wearing a scuffed, leather flying jacket with a large American flag sewn on the back. He waved at Lyon and Pan as they picked their way down the winding path.

  “Fine morning for a sortie, hey, Terry?” the pilot called.

  “Righto,” Lyon yelled back.

  “I’m not so sure I want to fly with him,” Pan whispered. “I think he’s flaky.”

  “He’s just a little eccentric,” Lyon whispered back. “In the morning he likes to play Flying Tiger. In the afternoon he puts on a business suit and flies canceled checks to the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston.”

  Dorset leaned forward to take Pandora’s han
d and help her board the plane. “Don’t get your feet wet, Dragon Lady.” He turned to help Lyon. “If I know you, this must have something to do with murder. Who’s been knocked off?”

  “Would you believe a missing houseboat? We think it’s lost somewhere between the two bridges. Pan, show him the photographs of the boat.”

  Dorset climbed into the cockpit and let the plane drift into the current as he examined the pictures. “A cake walk,” he said. “We shall find the missing sampan and call the mission a success.” He handed back the pictures and flipped switches. “It’s not as if we have to fly the Yangtze with Zeroes diving out of the sun.”

  He started the engine and they turned into the current to begin the takeoff run. “I’ll take the downstream railway bridge as a starting point,” Dorset continued. “You watch the right side, the lady the left, and I’ll fly midstream. Clear!”

  Lyon almost yelled, “Tallyho,” but suppressed the impulse.

  Flying at near stall speed, they made round trips from one bridge to another and back again without seeing anything that faintly resembled the Mississippi. On the third leg, Dorset flew over every estuary and inlet large enough to admit the large houseboat. The results were negative.

  One marina, located near the town of Wessex, looked promising. It had metal tracks leading up from the water into a large shed that was large enough to enclose the Mississippi.

  Dorset flew across the river opposite the large marina shed, banked sharply, and approached the building at a height that was only a few feet above the water. When they were less than a hundred yards from the facility, Lyon saw through its open doors that it contained a twelve-meter sailboat with an unstepped mast. The craft’s sleek configurations were far different than the Mississippi’s square lines.

  The seaplane seemed destined to fly directly into the building, until at the last possible moment, Dorset jerked back on the stick and threw the plane into a shuddering climb that cleared the building by inches.

  “She isn’t on the river,” the pilot yelled over the roar of the engine as the plane fought for altitude. “The houseboat sure isn’t here unless …”

  “Unless what?” Pan asked.

  “Unless it’s under the water,” Dorset replied as he threw the plane into a steep banking turn.

  The two men glared at each other across the small office as if they represented the Cattlemen’s Association and the Sheepherders’ Benevolent Society. Captain Norbert, commander of the local State Police barracks, had a natural antipathy toward local law-enforcement officers. In the case of Rocco Herbert, the feeling was exacerbated by the fact that the two men were brothers-in-law.

  Lyon slouched in a chair by Rocco’s desk with tented fingers as he waited for the mutual antagonism to subside.

  “Run that DD twenty-three—forty-one by me again, Herbert,” Norbert said. “Tell me once more why you discharged a three-fifty-seven Magnum in a civilian dwelling.”

  “Tell him about the snakes, Lyon,” Rocco said.

  “What snakes?” Lyon answered ingenuously.

  “I’ve told you before, Rocco,” Norbert said. “You’ve got to lay off the damn vodka! This is the last time I’ll cover for you. Now, what in the hell have you done about the missing-person report?”

  Rocco shrugged. “Not much.”

  “So I gather. I didn’t see any search efforts when I came in here. I don’t see any maps on walls. I don’t see any banks of telephones. In fact, I don’t see anything going on around here! You locals are all right as school-crossing guards, but when something important comes along you need the professionals.”

  “Do you know who’s missing, Norbie?” Rocco asked.

  “I sure in hell do! He’s one of the most prominent developers in the state. As a matter of fact, the wife and I are thinking seriously of buying one of his time-sharing units.” He leaned forward with a prurient glint. “The broad who gave us the sales pitch must have been seven feet tall and built like a brick slammer.”

  “Let me get out the crayons,” Rocco said. “Do you remember a call five years ago when we went out to the Willow house on the turnpike to investigate a mass murder?”

  “Jesus, do I! We found body parts all over the goddamn place. And I’ve never seen so much gore. Corporal Hennegan, who was tough enough to face down Mad Dog Majeski, was so traumatized that we had to hospitalize him.”

  “And what was the outcome of that carnage?”

  “The Medical Examiner told us later that the body parts were from sides of beef, and the other junk was sheep entrails. A lot of good that did for the guys who had already barfed. I know you got the bastard who set us up, and I like to think that the other cons in max security did a number on him.”

  “You tell him,” Rocco said. “I’ve been avoiding it for years.”

  “It was plea-bargained down to mischievous mischief and he got off with accelerated rehabilitation,” Lyon said.

  “No hard time?”

  “Not day one,” Rocco said. “And that’s Dalton Turman, the prominent builder and our missing person. That’s the guy you want command centers and overtime for.”

  Norbert stood, enraged. “Why wasn’t I told?”

  “He could be dead,” Lyon said.

  “So? You’ve already got his coffin,” Rocco replied.

  “I saw a guy on TV make a seven-forty-seven airplane disappear,” Norbert said.

  “Houdini made an elephant disappear off a New York City stage,” Rocco added.

  “Come on,” Lyon said. “I’m worried about him. I think he’s really gone.” Lyon saw the complete lack of compassion on the two police officers’ faces.

  Rocco picked up a file folder. “The request will have to be instituted by family members with complete documentation.”

  “The paperwork will be horrendous,” Norbert said with an unpleasant smile. “If the case ever gets to my office, I’ll put Corporal Murphy right on it.”

  “I didn’t realize he was back from the drunk farm,” Rocco said.

  “Occasionally,” Norbert answered. He stood and flicked dust from his spit-shined shoes. “I should have known. Every time I get involved with Wentworth it means trouble.”

  “Get yourself ready for the Governor’s call,” Lyon said to the State Police captain.

  “What are you talking about?” Norbert snapped.

  “My wife is presently involved in very delicate negotiations with the Governor. Suffice it to say that he would like her cooperation in certain matters. I do believe that you may expect a personal phone call from the Governor, the commissioner, and your immediate supervisor, the major.” Lyon sat back in the chair and retented his fingers knowing that Bea would ask such a favor from the Governor as readily as she’d join the Nazi party.

  “Not the major,” Rocco said. “Even you aren’t that much of a bastard.”

  “Can he do it?” Norbert asked Rocco.

  “I was at their house when the Governor called,” Rocco said. “He was begging Bea, Norbie. Begging. Lyon’s got us by the short hairs, and if you’re lucky, you won’t get a reprimand, and if I’m lucky, maybe he’ll tell you about the snakes.”

  Lyon intently leaned forward. “Now, here’s what I’ve done so far.” He outlined his conversations with the bridge operators, the follow-up phone calls to the Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard station at Lynde Point. He described the airplane flight and the subsequent automobile trips he and Pan had made.

  Rocco spoke first. “I’ll assign cars to search the river-bank in Murphysville.”

  “State cruisers will handle the rest,” Norbert said. “You know, Wentworth, this joker has probably jacked the thing out of the water and hidden it.”

  “There’s only a dozen or so places in this area where something that large could be hauled ashore,” Rocco said.

  “We’ll never find it if someone’s sunk it,” Lyon mumbled.

  “I’ll call Coast Guard Operations in New London,” Norbert said. “They have a cutter equip
ped with sounding gear and scuba divers trained for just such a search.”

  “I’ll coordinate that with Army charts,” Rocco added. “The river is considered navigable in this area, so the Corps of Engineers has to keep the channel open. Their charts will pinpoint every spot deep enough to scuttle the damn thing. We’re going to find the bastard for you, Lyon, but when we do, it’s boom-lowering time.”

  “He’ll never drive on a Connecticut highway, that’s for sure,” Norbert said with satisfaction.

  “I’m going up,” Lyon said.

  Bea snapped a weed from the garden and stared at the offending vegetation with distaste. “If anyone else made that statement, I’d think mood-altering substances. With you, I think balloons.”

  “I need a good panoramic view of the river to give me a clue as to how that boat disappeared.”

  “I suppose it would be useless to suggest that we let the police and Coast Guard handle it?”

  “So far they’ve come up with zilch.”

  She spotted another weed two rows away and lunged for it. “Might I remind you of your last balloon excursion.”

  “I remember that it was a slightly overcast day with a few cumulus and a five-mile-an-hour wind from the north.”

  “I am referring to the incident between your balloon and Air Force One.”

  “I still say I had the right of way. It’s sail over steam, you know.”

  “The Secret Service didn’t quite see it that way.”

  “Those guys have no sense of humor.”

  The Wobbly II was a large hot-air balloon that stretched over eighty feet from the apex of the bag’s envelope to the passenger gondola. Bea’s heels were dug into the dirt and her body nearly horizontal to the ground as she strained to hold the anchor rope that kept the inflated balloon earthbound. Lyon climbed into the wicker basket and reached overhead to pull the propane release lever to give the burner a five-second burst of flame. He signaled his wife and she let go of the anchor rope.