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The Wizard of Death

A Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mystery

MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media

Gerbils and gophers ... Yes, The Gopher on the Green might work.

A political rally had replaced long-ago musters of militia on the town green as Lyon Wentworth sat on a warm car fender and wondered if The Gopher on the Green would be a workable title for his next children's book. He let his mind wander and paid scant attention to the speaker's platform near the Civil War monument.

He frowned as a red balloon began a rapid ascent toward the clear July sky.

He pushed himself off the fender and took three steps to reach its trailing string before realizing it was too late. It was at treetop level when its three-year-old owner discovered her loss. A small cry of anguish merged into the drone from the platform.

He knelt on one knee beside the small girl, and together they watched the helium-filled balloon disappear over the church steeple.

"It's gone where happy balloons go," he said.

"Where?"

"To Emerald City to stay with the Wizard of Oz, of course."

"Oh." She looked at him with wide brown eyes until a tentative smile emerged. She looked up for the last time at the departed balloon, waved, and ran across the grass toward her mother.

Lyon turned to look beyond the rows of people sitting on blankets and folding chairs before the temporary platform to see that his wife was now speaking from the podium.

Bea Wentworth, her figure trim and well proportioned, spoke with an energy that seemed to possess her slight body. Occasionally, as if to emphasize a point, her hand would ruffle the edge of her closely cropped hair.

"... a fine lawyer, a dedicated family man, the next nominee of our party and the next governor of our state, Randolph Llewyn!"

As she concluded, her voice rose and reverberated from the several amplifiers placed around the Murphysville Town Green. Bea turned quickly from the podium as the angular man seated at her side rose and shook hands.

Randolph Llewyn raised both arms over his head in acknowledgment of the rising applause — and fell dead as a rifle cracked twice.

A gasp issued from the crowd. At the corner of the green Lyon instinctively crouched by a car fender. On the speaker's platform the frozen tableau began to react in short, jerky motions. Bea knelt next to the fallen candidate, while the others flung themselves behind the scant protection of folding chairs. Rocco Herbert, the town's chief of police, was on one knee in front of the platform, his left hand steadying the right as he aimed a Magnum revolver.

The large police officer spaced carefully aimed shots at two-second intervals. The thunder of the powerful handgun was picked up by the stage microphone and echoed across the confused green.

Lyon visually followed the chief's 60-degree angle of aim and saw wood splintering around the edges of a small belfry window two-thirds of the way up the church steeple.

Two more and the gun would be empty.

Lyon sprinted toward the nearby squad car and fumbled over the visor for the ignition keys he knew the chief kept there. He had the car moving as Rocco Herbert loped across the grass toward him. Reaching across the seat, Lyon opened the far car door and Rocco flung himself inside. The car accelerated as the chief spilled spent shells over his lap and frantically began to reload the weapon.

"Back of the goddamned church!" Rocco yelled.

Lyon careened the car across the lawn of Amsten House (built 1732) next to the Congregational Church, jumped the curb of the church drive and skidded into the parking lot. Thirty yards away a trail bike, its marker plate obscured by mud, was weaving back and forth between the ancient gravestones of the colonial cemetery at the rear of the church.

"The lane!" Rocco yelled.

"What lane?"

"To the right, damn it!"

Lyon swerved the wheel, throwing the car into a skidding turn inches from the cemetery's wrought-iron fence, and turned toward the right, where a small lane ran along the sides of the graves. The motorcyclist had to weave around the headstones, which allowed the car to close the gap. The two vehicles were almost parallel when the trail bike took a tangent toward an open iron gate and sped through onto the rear meadow.

A barbed-wire fence blocked the end of the lane, and Lyon took his foot off the accelerator and frantically braked the rocking car. Rocco's size 14-D shoe knocked Lyon's foot off the brake and then slammed down on the gas. The car jumped ahead and smashed through the fence. A twanging piece of wire snapped through the open window and tore a small gash along Lyon's arm as Rocco leaned out the other window and tried to aim the revolver as the car jounced over the pasture.

As they raced along the incline of the meadow, a few cud-chewing cows looked at the two speeding vehicles with complete uninterest. Small scrub pines snapped against the car as it labored along the path of the trail bike. The angle of the hill increased; glacial boulders strewn over the path before them narrowed possible clearance for the car.

Rocco fired a wild shot from the swaying vehicle and then yelled at Lyon, "The boulders ahead, we'll never —"

The car attempted passage between two large rock formations; metal tore, and strange grinding noises came from the undercarriage as Lyon tried to brake to a halt. The car stopped with a jolt that threw both men against the dashboard.

"— make it," Rocco said tiredly as he held a handkerchief against his bleeding nose. Both men were quiet as the whine of the trail bike retreated into the distance.

"I'd like to see about my wife," Lyon said as Rocco reached for the radio transmitter and began to give curt instructions.

Lyon Wentworth stood in the bedroom doorway with two thimbles of slightly warmed Dry Sack sherry. The small figure curled in a ball on the large bed with a sheet pulled tight at the neck seemed childlike, a person bundling away from the monsters of life.

He put the sherry on the night table and sat on the edge of the bed and gently caressed her head. Bea snuffled and pressed her nose deeper into the pillow. We're all so basically vulnerable, Lyon thought. He knew his wife had a legion of male and female admirers throughout the state. State Senator Beatrice Wentworth, a feisty member of the legislature who strode through the Victorian halls of the state capitol intent on jousting with her myriad foes ... attack when necessary and fear not. At times she had joined battle with governors and congressmen and recently had decimated a presidential cabinet member on a local interview show ... now she lay curled in the fetal position.

He bent over and kissed the nape of her neck. He wanted to lie next to her and fold her in his arms, but the secret warning bell formed over years of marriage told him that he should wait.

Bea gave a deep moan, turned over and abruptly sat up. Tears crossed her cheeks.

"GOD DAMN IT, WENTWORTH! WHY DO THEY ALWAYS KILL THE GOOD GUYS?"

He held her against his shoulder. "I don't know," he whispered.

She wiped her eyes with the edge of the sheet and bolted from the bed. Her small fists came down with a thud on the dresser top. "IT'S GOT TO STOP!"

Lyon picked up the minute hearing aid from the night table, flipped it on and inserted it in her ear. He handed her the sherry, which she drained in one gulp. "It's probably a nut; political assassins usually are."

"He was a good man, Lyon. A fine legislator, an honest man who could have done a hell of a lot for this state. Maybe more, he would have eventually gone on ... I don't know how far he might have gone, and all of it would have been good."

"Would you like me to have the doctor give you a sedative?"

"I don't want a pill. I'm too mad for a sedative!"

"There's nothing you can do about it, Bea."

"Like hell there isn't!"

He saw in her eyes that tears had been replaced by an angry glint. "What do you have in mind?" Lyon asked softly.

"Guns, damn it!"

"It's hardly your style to take to the streets."

"Not that. I'm going to see that they're taken away from the idiots."

"That doesn't sound like Bea Wentworth, champion of civil liberties."

"Free speech isn't the right for any idiot to carry a lethal weapon. Anyone able to stumble into a sporting-goods store can buy almost any type of rifle he wants."

"Some people hunt."

"Rifles aren't legal to hunt with in this state — only shotguns. He fired from the church steeple, didn't he?"

"Yes. We found him in back of the church where we chased him."

"That's what? — maybe two hundred yards from the speaker's platform."

"More or less."

"Well, he sure as hell couldn't have done it with a shotgun."

"Try to get some sleep, Bea. There's nothing we can do about it tonight."

Her voice dropped and her eyes clouded. "When I got home after it happened, I found blood on my clothes. Part of Randy Llewyn's brains were on my blouse ... the life force of a good man was — was ..." She turned away to stare out the window. "I can do something about it. It's about time this state had some decent gun legislation."

"You're bucking powerful forces. More guns are manufactured in Connecticut than in the rest of the states put together."

"Then it's about time they made yo-yos or teddy bears." She strode to her desk in the corner of the room and snatched up a pen and clipboard. Returning to the bed, she fluffed a pillow, sat up against the headboard and furiously began to make notes. She paused for a moment and looked past Lyon. "If I make a trade-off with my vote against the highway bill with Senator Marcuse, he might back a gun-legislation bill. Jenkins is a Quaker; he'll co-sponsor. But I need Williams on my welfare reform bill ..." She continued staring into space and chewing the end of her pen.

Lyon shrugged and started from the room. "I think I'll see if I can get some work done." He softly closed the door.

"WENTWORTH, GET BACK HERE!"

Lyon opened the door again and stuck his head back into the bedroom. "You screamed, dear?"

"Don't get any ideas."

"What do you mean?"

"You know damn well what I mean. I mean no ideas between you and your friend, big chief. This is Murphysville's first murder in a long time, and it's a job for the state police. If you want to do something, you can help me by writing news articles and other PR stuff advocating gun legislation."

"Thank you for my instructions." Lyon smiled as Bea went back to her notes.

He walked slowly through the darkened house, trying not to think about Randy Llewyn's death.

Lyon Wentworth was a tall man who usually wore tennis sneakers without socks, denim pants and light sport shirts. His deep-cut facial lines often gave him a faraway and troubled look, but when he pushed back a forelock of blond-browning hair and smiled, he transformed that look to a fey expression of warmth.

In his study he slid into the chair before the desk. The lamp cast a glow on the unfinished manuscript to the right of the typewriter. He leafed through the pages. The book, The Wobblies Strike Again, was only a third completed, and so far the Wobblies hadn't struck very far. The Wobblies were benign monsters, and the children's book series concerning them had been his most successful, so successful that a national toy maker had created Wobbly dolls, two of which reposed on the study's mantel. He tried to make his pleasant monsters encompass all childhood fears and reduce them to manageable proportions.

He wondered if perhaps he hadn't been wrong over the years. Perhaps it wasn't things that go bump in the night or creatures that hovered in the dark that were the inchoate fears of life — possibly it was a strange fate, kismet, or luck that the gods called down upon us. Randy Llewyn, for all his attributes as a man and candidate, had by a stroke of ill luck set off a maniacal element in some crazed mind; if he hadn't, he would be here now, having cocktails and steaks at Nutmeg Hill House with Bea and others.

When the phone rang he glared at it. He had always thought that telephones were the devil's gift to mankind, along with such other devious devices as political campaigns, the internal-combustion engine, and hips on certain women you aren't married to. He reached for the ominous device, held it several inches from his ear, and uttered a tentative "Hello."

"That you, Wentworth? Colonel Thornburton here."

Oh, Jesus. It was Stacey Thornburton, his illustrator. The reversion to his former military title was a sure indication that something was amiss. "Hi, Stacey. How's the weather down there?"

"Passable, Wentworth, barely passable. Something has come up that will affect our relationship. I've got to reorient my priorities, and drawing pictures for kids is out."

"What's the matter? Don't you like the outline for the new book?"

"The outline's fine. It's my kid — Robin. We have a real crisis down here. Robin refuses to go to West Point."

"I'm sorry to hear that, but there are a lot of other good schools around."

"Not with true military tradition, Wentworth. I might accept the Citadel, or, in a pinch, V.M.I., but it would never be the same — those Saturdays on the parade ground, plebe hazing — nothing like it."

"What college does Robin have in mind?"

"Bard or Antioch. You won't believe this, Wentworth, it's hard to imagine, but those schools don't even have ROTC."

"Have you done any work at all on The Wobblies Strike Again?"

"No. That's why I'm on the horn. I'm sending the outline back. I have retired from the artistic world."

"You don't want to do that, Stacey."

"How do you expect me to raise a child with guts when daddy spends all day drawing pictures for children's books?"

"You had a fine military record, Colonel," Lyon replied respectfully, although he knew Stacey Thornburton, Colonel, U.S.A., Retired, had spent twenty years in the Quartermaster Corps.

"Robin forgets all that, Lyon."

"Let Robin make the choice."

"She doesn't know her own mind."

"I don't know about North Carolina, but here in Connecticut there are a lot of girls who don't want to go to West Point."

"Four great years of drill and discipline; she doesn't know what she's missing."

"Sleep on it, Stacey," Lyon said and hung up. Stacey and Lyon had met eight years earlier in a New York publisher's office. Lyon's first book had been purchased; and Stacey's, entitled, Army Brat, had been turned down, although there were many compliments on his fey illustrations. Lyon's editor had suggested that they consider a collaboration.

Lyon and the colonel had adjourned to a nearby cocktail lounge. After an hour's harangue on military tactics in Korea, Lyon had dismissed any possibility of collaborating with the former military officer.

Lyon wasn't sure when it happened, but he thought it fell somewhere between a critique of Monty's tactics at El Alamein and MacArthur's at the Inchon Reservoir when Stacey had begun to sketch on a small pad. With deft strokes, he quickly finished the ink drawing and gave it to Lyon.

"I think your characters, the Wobblies, look like this," Stacey had said in an embarrassed aside.

Lyon had been stunned. With a few lines the colonel had created a drawing that brought the Wobblies to life. Lyon's benign monsters stared from the paper with the exact qualities he had always imagined they possessed. From that point on, there had never been any doubt that they would continue as a team.

For a moment he speculated on his two uniformed friends: one, a retired military officer who approached a near caricature of his breed; and the other, a police chief whose massive appearance seemed to categorize the man. And yet, in each man a deep vein of gentleness, often hidden from the exterior world, was the very essence of his being. In that, there might be hope for us all.

The phone rang again, and he snatched it up in irritation. "Go to sleep, Stacey. I'll call you in the morning."

"I've got something on the Llewyn killing," Rocco Herbert's voice said without preamble.

"I'm not home," Lyon said and stuffed the phone into the bottom desk drawer and covered it with a thesaurus and a dictionary.

He rolled a piece of paper into the typewriter and began to type: "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party" — over and over again as the phone continued its muffled, incessant ringing.

Then he shrugged, opened the drawer, and grabbed the receiver. "Many times no, damn it! I promised Bea I wouldn't get involved. I don't want to get involved. Call your brother-in-law on the state police, call in the F.B.I, for violation of civil rights. Good-bye."

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Excerpted from The Wizard of Death by Richard Forrest. Copyright © 1977 Richard Forrest. Excerpted by permission of MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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