Death in the Secret Garden (17 page)

Lyon stood near the tool shed holding hedge clippers as he watched two grazing sheep. He had rented them from Randy MacDougal who lived down the road and raised them professionally. Randy had delivered the animals that morning along with a few simple instructions for their summer care. The only problem might be that Nutmeg Hill could be a three-sheep spread.

He still felt a dull sheen of depression concerning Mead MacIntire's suicide. Rocco seemed even more depressed. The chief was now venting his displeasure by ticketing cars with a vengeance. An astonished Jamie Martin was suspended.

The placidly grazing sheep paid no attention to the girl's scream. She screamed again with a sound that echoed from the river bluffs.

Lyon watched her emerge from the state forest. At first he thought she was nude, and then realized that what clothing she did wear was in tatters. She wore sneakers, a ripped blouse that barely clung to one shoulder, and panties. Blood was smeared across her lower face and a long red welt streaked across the right cheek.

She ran toward him. ‘Help me!' she cried.

Skee Rumford emerged from the woods at the moment Lori Wappinger threw herself into Lyon's arms. She buried her head on his shoulder and trembled. Lyon dropped the hedge clippers and held her.

‘Let the bitch go,' Skee demanded as he stopped ten feet away.

‘Don't let him touch me,' she cried into Lyon's shoulder.

‘She's my girl,' Skee said defensively. ‘I got rights.'

‘He's sick,' Lori said. ‘He attacked me. Don't let him near me.'

‘She trying to say that I tried to rape her? If that isn't something.' Skee banged his thigh with a loud slap and laughed. ‘We're going together. I've boffed her maybe a dozen times already. How can I rape her?'

‘You had best leave,' Lyon ordered.

‘Like hell. No bitch turns Skee Rumford down.' He grabbed Lori's arm and pulled her away from Lyon. ‘Give me two minutes, bitch, and you'll be begging me not to stop.'

‘I'm telling you to lay off!' Lyon said as he slammed Skee's shoulder hard enough to knock him off balance. Lori fell to her hands and knees.

‘You got a black belt in judo or something else I don't know about?' Skee asked.

‘No. But I am telling you to stay away from her. Now, get off my property!'

‘Well, la ti da,' Skee said as he aimed a roundhouse right at Lyon's face.

The blow snapped Lyon's head back. He stumbled, fell to one hand and nearly went down the rest of the way. When he straightened, Skee was on him with a flurry of pummeling fists to the abdomen and kidneys. They went into a clinch.

Skee's knees buckled as he slid out of Lyon's grasp on to his knees. Lyon stepped aside as Skee fell face down on the newly grazed grass.

‘Asshole,' Lori said. She still gripped the hedge clippers by the blades. The tool's handles were what had felled her former boyfriend.

Lyon felt Skee's pulse. ‘Well, you didn't kill him.'

‘Too bad,' Lori said as she dropped the clippers.

Lyon took her hand. ‘Come up to the house and I'll find you something to put on.'

He located jeans and a blouse in Bea's closet. It would have been difficult to carry the chunky Skee out to the drive, so to the sheep's dull-eyed amazement, Lyon drove the Saturn on to the lawn. He tied the young lover's hands behind his back and levered him into the rear seat. With Lori at his side he drove back across the lawn and down the drive to the highway.

‘Are we going to the police?' she asked in a little girl's voice.

‘You want to bring charges, don't you?'

‘I don't know. Like he said, we've been together before, you know.'

‘That still doesn't give him the right to physically harm you.'

‘We would have done it today except he had this sick idea about making love where Boots died. He wanted to spread our blanket on the exact spot where she was killed. When I wouldn't, he went kinda crazy.' She turned to Lyon with concern. ‘I don't want the police, Mr. Wentworth. My old man will kill me if he finds out that Skee and I been doing it. I mean, my pop still thinks I'm like the Virgin Mary or something. Once he caught me making out with a guy on the couch, and we weren't even doing it, and he nearly killed the kid.'

Lyon sighed over another version of Lister Anderson, Boots' father who had gunned down the car dealer. ‘I'm afraid we have to speak with Chief Herbert about this, Lori. If you don't want to bring charges, that's up to you. The chief has to know about Skee's violence and his knowledge about where Boots died. You knew that they were serious lovers too?'

‘That jerk's not serious about anything but sex,' Lori said as the subject of their discussion awoke on the back seat with a groan.

Rocco gave Skee two aspirin and a cup of water. The young man greedily sucked the pills down. ‘Like to hurt women, do you?' Rocco asked.

‘Only when they're so damn dumb.'

‘Ever shoot them in the belly?'

‘What're you asking me, Chief?'

‘About murder, Skee. Premeditated murder of three women you knew.'

Most of whom he'd been intimate with, Lyon thought, although he excepted the church secretary.

That afternoon Lyon realized it was Big Buddy time again. The event seemed to arrive with remarkable regularity. Part of him wanted the Buddy routine to be scheduled as often as a leap-year Christmas. He approached the ‘getting through' to Edward Dirk with the same anticipation he felt for extensive root canal work.

When he braked in front of the Dirks' modest home, curtains fluttered in a window. He knew that the Big Buddy office had called Rebba about her participation in the outings, and he wondered how effective their suggestion had been.

The front door burst open. Edward, wearing a small backpack, ran toward the car. He was alone, which meant that the Big Buddy suggestions to Rebba had worked.

‘Can we see the eagles again, Mr. Wentworth?'

‘Sure. We know the area where they nest, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find them.'

‘Great!' With enthusiasm Edward climbed into the car and voluntarily buckled up. Lyon made a U-turn to head back toward the state forest. The boy maintained a continuous monologue about his teachers, all of whom seemed dedicated to tormenting Edward Dirk. A generous allowance for the sometimes natural paranoia of boy student against teachers made the kid almost likable. But then, Lyon supposed that if you lived during the Middle Ages you even came to terms with the plague.

Edward struggled out of his pack and put it by his feet. ‘Got a snack in there?' Lyon asked.

‘Sort of. Sure hope we see an eagle today.'

Lyon smiled as he turned on to the county highway that led to the state forest. Wanting to see eagles was the first positive attitude this kid had expressed. They reached the entrance and turned down the rutted dirt road that led into the forest.

Edward shivered. ‘Sure is spooky. If the birds weren't here, I wouldn't want to come.'

Lyon glanced at the rigid boy who sat with his arms pressed stiffly against the dashboard. ‘There's nothing in here but harmless animals. There could be a few copperheads, but I'll show you how to avoid them.'

‘I'm not afraid of no snakes.'

‘Something else then?'

‘Scary things like ghosts.'

‘There are no ghosts,' Lyon said, although he knew of at least one who inhabited his own mind.

‘Yes, there are.'

Lyon parked the car and they walked through the woods to the cliff above the river. ‘There's the nest,' Lyon whispered as he pointed.

The deep roots of the huge oak tree were imbedded in the river bank far below. In the upper reaches of the tree, nearly at their eye level only thirty feet away, was the stove-sized eagle nest. They had an excellent view of the nest when they lay prone at the edge of the cliff.

‘For years pesticides and PCBs from industrial plants polluted the river,' Lyon whispered. ‘This meant that the fish who swam in that water were contaminated. When the eagles ate the fish they ingested that junk into their systems. The birds couldn't survive the toxic material and they died off. As they cleaned up the river the eagles could live here again and they have returned. Look!'

A large bird circled above them in silent flight. It held a wiggling fish in its beak. When the eagle was satisfied that their presence posed no threat, it swooped down to the nest with the recently caught fish.

‘To bring live fish back to the nest means there must be a new baby eagle here,' Lyon continued with excitement. ‘If there's an eaglet in there it could be the first one born here since they returned.'

Lyon raised the binoculars without noticing the boy's actions. Edward opened his backpack and removed a pellet pistol. He turned the knob at the rear of the barrel to full velocity.

‘Bye, bye, birdie,' Edward whispered as he steadied the gas cylinder pistol in a two-handed grip. He took aim as the large bird exited the nest.

‘Have a look,' Lyon said as he turned to offer the use of the binoculars. He watched in horror as the boy's finger tightened against the pellet gun's trigger. He slammed the binoculars against the gun barrel at the moment of discharge.

‘Hey! I almost got the sucker,' Edward said.

Lyon wrenched the pistol from the boy's hand. He grasped it by the barrel and twirled it overhead before he let go. They watched it arc over the river and gradually fall toward the water. If it caused any ripples they were too far away to be seen.

‘Good riddance,' Lyon said. He glared at the boy. ‘I'm astonished at you. You were going to shoot the mother bird.'

‘You threw my gun away. It cost me forty bucks.'

‘You were about to kill an eagle.'

‘It's only a bird.'

‘It's a precious life. An endangered species.'

‘I wanted it for my cemetery.'

‘Did you really believe that I would drive you home with a dead eagle in my car?'

‘My cemetery's not at home. It's right over there.' He pointed to their right.

Lyon gave the boy a puzzled look. ‘You have things buried out here?'

‘Sure. Lots of birds. A couple of cats. A puppy. Things that have died.'

‘Show me,' Lyon said as he reached for Edward's hand.

The boy allowed his hand to be grasped. ‘My mom's going to be real mad about you throwing away my pellet gun.'

‘Have you killed other birds with it?' Lyon asked as he let the boy lead him through the woods.

‘Sure. Lots of them. Robins, blue jays, stuff like that.'

‘And you bury them out here?'

‘Yeah. I collect them during the week and wait till Saturday to come out here. I put them in a box on my bike rack.'

‘Does your mother know about your pet funeral business?'

‘She wouldn't care. She mostly lets me do what I want. We're there.'

They had arrived at a small clearing midway between Boots Anderson's killing ground and Nutmeg Hill. There was a circle of stones in the center of the cove with a few charred logs indicating past fires. The spot also contained other evidence of occupancy: a few beer cans, a forgotten tent peg, and several wrappings of indeterminate origin. There wasn't any evidence of an animal cemetery.

‘I don't see your graves,' Lyon said.

‘Over here!' Edward said excitedly. He led Lyon around a fallen tree that was covered with moss and mushroom growth. Beyond the deadfall was a shallow strip of land a yard wide and ten long. A neat row of crosses, constructed out of tree branches and string, was spaced at even intervals. ‘This is my secret place and you are the first person to see it.'

‘Your secret garden of death,' Lyon said.

‘Yeah,' Edward agreed with awe.

‘This is very interesting,' Lyon said as he counted thirty-two crosses. He wondered if the police forensic team had discovered the garden, but realized that its banality wouldn't have caused attention. ‘Edward, if you come out here every Saturday, how come you claim to be so frightened of these woods?'

‘Because of the man in the pointy hat.'

‘What man is that?'

‘Don't know his name. He was just scary, that's all.'

‘Oh?' Lyon said quietly and non-judgementally. ‘Exactly what did he do that frightened you?'

‘After he shot that lady he laughed when she tried to crawl across the ground. I was afraid he might see where I was hiding and shoot me, too.'

Holding the boy's arm firmly, Lyon led him back to the car. ‘Then you were out here when Boots Anderson was killed?'

‘Don't know her name.'

‘You weren't in school that day?'

‘I played hooky. My mom made me go see Uncle Duncan on Saturday so I had to do the cat burial during the week before he stunk up the place. You won't tell her, will you?'

‘I won't tell her about the hooky part,' Lyon said. ‘Let me get this right. You were in the woods and saw the man who shot the girl? You saw her crawl across the ground?'

‘You won't tell anybody because we're buddies, right?'

‘We're buddies all right. Do you think you could identify the man who shot the woman?'

‘He had funny clothes on and was scary. I'm afraid he will come and kill me.'

Everything seemed to almost fit. The boy's fear of the woods now made sense. The funny clothing might be clerical vestments, which would mean that Mead's suicide did have a coherent logic. They reached the car.

‘Let's go talk to Chief Herbert and tell him what you saw. He will probably want to show you some pictures to see if you can identify the scary man.'

Edward violently shook his head. ‘No.'

‘Chief Herbert is a policeman. He won't let the scary man get you.'

‘Cops suck.'

‘Damn it all, Edward!'

‘I didn't see anything.'