Death at King Arthur's Court Read Free Page A

their safe deposit box number, and the other useful numerology of their life. Scrawled in the far right-hand corner was an unlabeled series he had recently written. He remembered the sequence as the RV’s door combination. He glanced at it and hurried back to the drive.
    â€˜Got it,’ he said to Rocco as he punched the numbers into a combination panel to the right of the door. ‘Have it open in a sec.’
    The door swung open and Rocco stepped inside and stopped. His body blocked the entrance. ‘Good God!’ he said in a low voice.
    â€˜What is it?’ Lyon asked, suddenly aware of the alarm in his friend’s voice.
    Rocco stepped back out of the Winnebago and leaned against the side of the vehicle with both hands pressed against the metal. Lyon started inside until Rocco’s hand grasped his shoulder. ‘Don’t,’ the large chief said. ‘You don’t have to. I do.’
    Lyon shook off the restraint and stepped into the RV. Once inside, he saw what Rocco meant. The chief re-entered and stood by his side.
    â€˜He’s been butchered,’ Lyon said.
    â€˜And that sword you dragged across the lawn is what probably did it,’ Rocco said.
    â€˜This is impossible,’ Lyon said in an attempt to deny the undeniable. ‘There was no way for anyone to get inside to do this.’

Two
    Lyon Wentworth sat on a wrought-iron chair on the patio by the parapet at Nutmeg Hill. He looked, without seeing, at the hills bracketing the Connecticut River as it wound its way toward Long Island Sound.
    â€˜This is impossible, you know,’ he repeated to Rocco, who sat nearby on the parapet wall. ‘There was no way anyone could get inside that van to murder Morgan.’
    Rocco looked past his distraught friend, toward the rapidly filling driveway. The accumulation of cars and vans was in response to his radio call to the town dispatcher. Near the drive entrance a second Murphysville cruiser was parked on the grass while its driver directed traffic at the secondary highway below the house. An ambulance passed several state police cruisers, a state forensics lab truck, and the medical examiner’s car before stopping near the RV. Two uniformed attendants exited the ambulance and casually opened the rear doors to pull out a folded gurney. They weren’t in any hurry, since they knew it was a homicide.
    â€˜You’re the ones who always say there’s an explanation for everything,’ Rocco said as another state police cruiser occupied by two corporals and a captain turned up the drive with an impatient honk. ‘Oh, Christ,’ Rocco mumbled. ‘Here comes my brother-in-law the Lone Ranger with his two Tontos.’
    Lyon stood so abruptly that his chair fell backward on the fieldstone with a clatter. ‘There’s got to be a way someone got into that RV and I’m going to find it.’ He started off the patio toward the driveway.
    Rocco took two quick strides. His hand curled over Lyon’s shoulder. ‘Let the pros handle it.’
    Lyon abruptly halted and turned toward Rocco. ‘Is that a suggestion or a command?’
    â€˜A little bit of both. You can’t go in there now. It’s a crime scene.’
    â€˜Am I allowed back in my own house?’
    â€˜There’s a uniform in the doorway who will keep all unauthorized persons from the premises until it’s released.’
    â€˜You’re beginning to sound like an official manual,’ Lyon said.
    â€˜These guys seem to have a pretty good handle on things,’ Rocco replied. ‘They’ll wrap it up as quickly as possible and depart.’
    â€˜What I’m beginning to wonder,’ Lyon said, ‘is whether I’m going to be required to go with them when they leave.’
    â€˜That depends,’ Rocco replied
    Both men watched the medical examiner leave the RV and give the signal to the two ambulance attendants to remove the body. A