Death Through the Looking Glass Read Free

business acquaintance at first, now becoming a friend; and Robin. The Wentworths had welcomed Lyon’s illustrator’s daughter when she had arrived for her visit, as if she were a partial and temporary replacement for the daughter they had lost so long ago.
    His thoughts of Robin were unsettling. He had the vague fear that her lingering looks and mild flirtations had taken on a different character than that of surrogate daughter. He smiled; the thoughts of the long-limbed young girl were a sure sign of his approaching middle age.
    Lyon leaned on the edge of the gondola to watch the slowly passing panorama. Over the water, to the east, the sun balanced on the horizon and cast red streaks across the sound. Looking due south he could see Orient Point, Long Island; below him were passing the cottages along the shore of Lantern City.
    He flipped on the CB radio. “Rocco, I can bring her down at the Lantern City football field in half an hour.”
    â€œI’ll be there.”
    â€œThank you.” He flipped off the radio and placed it back on its mountings and let himself become immersed in the feeling of freedom as he merged with the sky.
    The distant pitched whine of a low-flying aircraft destroyed the mood, and he turned to glare toward the offending buzz as occupants of a sailboat might at a power launch. The plane approached from the east, directly out of the sun, and he could catch only fleeting glimpses of it as it banked.
    There was only one person in the state who flew such a garishly painted Piper. Tom Giles, long-ago classmate and Hartford attorney, had often passed the Wobbly II in his early-morning flights. Occasionally, when they came across each other at parties given by mutual friends, they would argue the respective merits of their craft.
    Tom had come to the party after all. As Lyon watched, the small plane changed to a southeasterly heading. He thought it amusing that Tom still found it necessary to satisfy some inner need by flamboyant displays of his flying, as if adult life had never been quite fulfilling, never so successful as the triumphs of his younger years.
    Those early weeks at Greenfield Preparatory had been painful for Lyon. The first day had begun badly. Warned by an alumnus that white bucks were “in,” Lyon had arrived for the first day’s classes wearing a pair of his father’s white medical shoes. The situation had deteriorated from there, and he quickly discovered that his status as a “Townie” was somewhere between a Typhoid Mary and a Russian spy, and on some days he wasn’t quite sure of the exact order.
    They caught him in the third week. He had rounded a corner in the locker room and inadvertently stumbled on several of his classmates smoking. In his naïveté he had undoubtedly looked shocked at this abuse of the rules. Four of them had jumped him.
    â€œThey’ve gone,” were the first words Tom Giles had spoken to him. “Get up off the floor.”
    Lyon looked up, brushed away the residue of a bloody nose, and saw Tom sitting on the radiator, with one knee pulled up under his chin. “I’ll cream them,” Lyon had mumbled in youthful bravado.
    â€œYou and what army? Come on, man, you’ve got to get with it. Townies have a choice. You can run home from class every day, become the class clown, or be a jock.”
    â€œI’m lousy at basketball.”
    â€œFootball?” Tom looked reflectively at Lyon as he got to his feet. He appraised Lyon’s recently acquired six feet of height and his slight build. “Forget football. How about baseball?”
    â€œNever played.”
    â€œOh, Jesus. Come on, Went. You’ve got to do something. Everybody does something.”
    â€œI have a great butterfly collection.”
    Giles closed his eyes. “Sorry I asked. You mention butterflies to anybody else at Greenfield and they’ll break your back and flush you.”
    â€œI’ve never