The Wizard of Death (19 page)

“There's no way for him to get out without going past my men. Even without a make on him, his name is on his badge, and they've been instructed to detain anyone without a badge, or anyone with the wrong badge.”

“Your men are the only ones in the building who don't wear badges.” He began to walk toward the steps. “I'm afraid we're not going to like what we find.”

Captain Norbert caught up to Lyon as he reached the first step, grabbed his arm and swung him around. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means you should cinch your search into small places in the building, places just large enough to hold a dead man.”

“Who's dead?”

“One of your men. And I'd take a count of the cruisers.”

Rocco looked stunned. “He's killed a trooper,” He said in a low voice. “Killed him and taken his uniform.”

“I would expect so,” Lyon said. “We should have foreseen it. I'd have the men look in air ducts, cabinets—places like that.”

Captain Norbert frowned at Lyon a moment, then signaled to a corporal holding a radio. He began giving commands.

It took fifteen minutes to locate the body, stuffed up a pipe shaft in the basement boiler room. The trooper was dressed only in underwear. His neck had been broken.

Captain Norbert turned away from the body, making guttural sounds in the back of his throat. “That bastard, that rotten son of a bitch. He won't get far.”

“Not in a police cruiser, he won't,” Rocco said, after word came that one was missing.

In the treasurer's office Pat Pasquale sat on the edge of a desk, while Wilkie Dawkins angrily rolled his wheelchair back and forth.

“I need to be back on the floor of the convention—do you understand that? Do you read me?”

“You're not going back, Dawkins,” Rocco said from the doorway. “I'm charging you with accessory to murder, conspiracy to murder and attempted murder two counts. Pasquale's got you on the same for murder and extortion. It's a long list of charges.”

“You are out of your mind! How could I murder anyone?” He pounded the arms of the chair with both fists. “Can't you see, damn it all? I'm a cripple. I can't even walk.”

“Accessory and conspiracy to murder don't require pulling the trigger.”

Wilkie tried to rise from his chair. “I didn't kill anyone.”

“Danny Nemo did.”

“I don't even know about that. Danny is only my employee.”

“Exactly,” Lyon added.

“I think there are some federal charges around somewhere,” Rocco said. “Violation of civil rights.”

“You big bastard!” Dawkins ran his chair forward with muscular thrusts of his powerful shoulders. Rocco sidestepped, and the chair smashed into the wall.

Rocco gripped Wilkie's shoulders with both hands. “Let me tell you something, mister. There's a dead trooper in the cellar of this building. I'll lay you ten thousand to one we'll find Nemo in a trooper's uniform. He was in a little bit of a hurry this time.”

Wilkie fought for composure, backed his chair, and slowly took a cigar from his vest pocket. “What do you have on Danny?”

“Two witnesses identify him as the extortionist of Ted Mackay, and a trail back from that to a dead motorcyclist and to hiring the murderer of Llewyn.”

Dawkins carefully lit his cigar and blew a smoke ring. “And how is that supposed to tie into me?”

“Money drawn from your bank account by a draft signed by you. Money we have traced back to you,” Lyon said.

Wilkie sat back and silently comtemplated them for a moment. “And just why would I do that?”

“Power. You've controlled Ted Mackay for quite some time through financing his campaigns. But you knew Ted, and you knew that the ties weren't strong enough, and that with all your money you couldn't buy Ted the nomination with Llewyn and Bea in the way. You ordered them killed and had Ted told about it. He could vacillate—he might turn on Rainbow—so you insured the operation by the extortion pictures and the payoff money.

“With Llewyn and Bea out of the way, Ted might be elected; and you would control him two ways, your money and his fear of Rainbow. When we began to move closer to Rainbow, he killed Junior Haney, Fizz, and the room clerk to cover himself.”

“This is ridiculous,” Dawkins said. “This Rainbow must be a member of some nut group. Everything else is only your conjecture—all the evidence is tied to Danny.”

“You don't think Danny is going to hang alone? He'll be caught, Wilkie, I promise you that. And when he is, he'll implicate you, just as we can implicate you through the money.”

As they watched, a flicker of emotion crossed Dawkins's face as he rapidly weighed possibilities. He crushed his cigar out in an ashtray. “Gentlemen, please. You're building a whole massive conspiracy around me. And it's just not true. I was the financier—that and only that. I gave my money away. Oh, you'll go further back in the bank records, I'm sure of that, and you'll find other large cash withdrawals.”

“In what total amount?” Lyon asked.

“Around a hundred and twenty thousand,” Dawkins responded. “Now, I do admit that the money was given to a political organization. And it is true that you might fault me for backing an extremist group, but it was my money, taxes were paid on it, and the money was given in good faith for the ideals they stand for.”

“You're a real patriot,” Rocco said.

“I like to think so,” Wilkie responded. “If this group involved itself in extremist activities such as political murder, then I had poor judgment. But I assure you I had no direct connection with those radicals.”

“Only with Rainbow?”

“Rainbow being Danny Nemo, yes. But it was my impression that Danny was only a courier between me and the group. I had no idea he was actually involved in the things you tell me.”

“What did you expect this group to do with a hundred thousand dollars?”

“Any organization is an expensive thing to operate. Money for literature, a staff, all sorts of expenses.”

“And you have an accounting of those things?”

“Not yet, but I would expect one eventually.”

“And the ideology?”

“It's not a question of ideology; it's a matter of power. With power all is possible, and ideologies can be formed to meet the need of the moment. It's really quite immaterial to me whether we go right or left. I'll take a stance when the time is appropriate.”

“Where is this group located?” Rocco snapped.

Wilkie laughed. “Let us say that we are extensively organized throughout New England. And this is only the beginning.”

“Then the group will be disturbed when they find you under arrest?”

“I don't really think it will come to that, Mr. Wentworth. But to answer directly, yes. I expect there will be massive demonstrations, pressure upon the media, the cry of frame.”

The door opened and Captain Norbert stuck his head in the room. “Mackay's withdrawn; it's Mattaloni on the second ballot.”

Dawkins rose in the wheelchair, his arms supporting his weight. “No! That's not the strategy, that's not what I told him.”

“I think all this has been a little much even for Ted,” Lyon said.

“I won't allow it!” Dawkins's face was flushed as he sank back in the chair.

Lyon wondered whether the man was mad, naïve, Machiavellian or just evil. Perhaps madness encompassed all of it. “It's over, Dawkins.”

“A setback, a temporary setback. It's happened to all who sweep for power.”

Lyon leaned forward to look into the opaque eyes of the man in the wheelchair. “There isn't any group, Wilkie. There is not now, nor has there ever been. You have a conspiracy that is not a conspiracy. Danny Nemo was your general, soldier and nemesis.”

“Danny was my gofer, my legs, a messenger. The group may have used him as an instrument, but that's all.”

“All your contacts with this group were by letter or phone?”

“Of course. Individual cells, no contact, the secret of political success.”

“And did anyone ever phone when Danny was present in the room?”

“Well, no. But that's coincidental.”

“Is it going to be coincidental when we obtain a court order and locate his safe-deposit box?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“When we open Danny's safe-deposit box we're going to find close to a hundred thousand dollars of your money. Your seed money for a group that doesn't exist.”

“Wait a minute,” Rocco said. “You're telling us that all of this was a scheme to bilk Dawkins?”

“Yes. The inversion of a relationship. Danny Nemo preyed on the weakness that he knew so well. It was only meant to be two killings, Bea and Llewyn. The rest would be fire bombs, messages, threats … until the other killings became a necessity to cover the identity of Rainbow.”

“Then there isn't any group?”

“There never has been. It was all Danny's creation exclusively for Wilkie.”

Wilkie's eyes met Lyon's. “I hardly think I was so naïve as to have been duped through all this, Wentworth. It's not possible that I hired a male companion to act as my legs and he conned me, flim-flammed me, created a whole edifice of which nothing exists.”

“It's immaterial to me what you believe, Wilkie. I know there isn't any group, and that Danny Nemo acted alone.”

Wilkie swiveled the wheelchair and rolled across the room toward the window. Rocco took a step toward him, but Lyon waved him back.

“There isn't any evidence of a political group,” Wilkie said softly.

“None,” Lyon replied.

“Which means that we're terribly clever or that I've been a fool.” As he looked out the window, his hands gripped the arms of the chair, and when he spoke again his voice was far away. “After I was hit in Vietnam, I lay in a hospital bed for sixteen months; it gave me a lot of time to think, to plan on how not to be powerless ever again.”

“Why don't you book him, Pat?” Rocco asked.

Sergeant Pasquale pushed off the edge of the desk. “Gladly.”

The wheelchair spun in a semicircle until Wilkie faced them with a contorted face. “My group is here! They're all around us. They have to be. You won't get me from this building. Do you understand? I control the convention, this state; and they won't desert me!”

They watched the wheelchair leave the room as Pasquale pushed it into the hall.

“I'm not letting you out of my sight until we catch Nemo,” Rocco said as they drove back to Murphysville. “Norbert will keep a tight guard around Beatrice.”

They drove in silence until the radio began to sputter. Rocco answered the Murphysville dispatcher. “This is control, M-One. Captain Norbert says the car has been recovered and they suspect a ten-o-eight.”

“Ten four.” Rocco said and replaced the transmitter.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that Danny has dumped the police car and has probably stolen another car. I don't see how he'll get through, wearing a trooper's uniform.”

“We found the dead trooper's clothes gone, but Danny's clothes weren't in the auditorium.”

“He took them with him. He'll change.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, we'll cover the banks Monday morning. When he tries to get to his safe-deposit box we'll grab him.”

“Perhaps,” Lyon replied thoughtfully. “Perhaps.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'll tell you later.”

When they arrived at Nutmeg Hill another cruiser was in the drive, and an officer with a shotgun was stationed near the entrance to the house.

“Will you please explain …” Rocco tried to say as Lyon strode toward the barn. “Where are you going?”

“How many men are out here?”

“Half the Murphysville force—six guys.”

“Good, we can get the Wobbly II in the air that much faster.”

“The Wobb … your damn balloon? You're out of your living mind!”

Lyon entered the barn and trundled the hot-air balloon bag into the yard, and then returned for the remainder of the equipment. “Get your men over here. I'll tell them what to do for the launch.”

“You'd be a sitting duck up there. It's hardly time for fun and games, and I'll be damned if my men will be a part of it.”

Lyon grunted as he pulled the balloon bag from the cart and began to spread it over the ground. “He's not around here—yet. The faster I can get airborne, the faster I can come down, and the safer I'll be. If you don't help, I'll do it myself.”

Rocco watched Lyon as he intently aligned the bag in position. He shrugged and signalled to the remainder of the officers around the house. “Next you'll be selling snake oil,” he said.

With the puzzled officers following the directions given them by Lyon, who was using a double blower to help force hot air from the burner into the envelope, the balloon began to rise over Nutmeg Hill.

Lyon leveled off at six hundred feet and made the proper adjustments to the propane burner. He looked over the edge of the gondola at the terrain surrounding his house.

The view was excellent and completely unobstructed. He was directly above the widow's walk, and by turning in either direction he had a panoramic view of the hills, trees and river.

North of the house the land ran flat toward the edge of the promontory, where it dropped off sharply to the river. A difficult approach requiring a boat to the rocks below, and a very steep cliff to climb up to the plateau on which the house sat. He discounted that possibility.

Due south was the drive leading down to the road. There would be traffic and a guard on the road—too dangerous. To the west, the stand of pines surrounded by heavy brush was uninterrupted for nearly a mile.

It would be from the east. Off Route 29 to the old quarry road, park down the hill a quarter of a mile from the house, then through the sparse woods to the barn and then the house beyond.