The Wizard of Death Read Free

deft strokes, he quickly finished the ink drawing and gave it to Lyon.
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œI’ve got something on the Llewyn killing,” Rocco Herbert’s voice said without preamble.
    â€œI’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.”
    Before the receiver hit the cradle he heard Rocco say that he was calling from the squad car and would be at Nutmeg Hill in five minutes.
    Lyon sighed and poured himself a glass of sherry.
    Rocco Herbert eased his large frame into the leather chair in the corner of the study and drank his vodka neat. The single light from the desk lamp gave a diffused illumination to the room, and it made Lyon recall nights in Korea. Then, Rocco Herbert had been a Ranger captain. After intelligence-gathering missions he would come to Lyon’s tent at division headquarters, and with a Coleman lantern swinging from the center pole, the two men would talk softly and drink whatever was available. As an intelligence officer, Lyon had existed on the information the large Ranger officer provided, and the relationship had grown and ripened when they discovered their mutual origins in Connecticut.
    There was an immediate juxtaposition of fragmentary pictures from earlier in the day. Rocco, at the political rally on the green taking two small tow-headed children across the street, their fingers entwined in his. Rocco, kneeling, the Magnum sputtering calculated shots at spaced intervals toward the church steeple.
    â€œI thought you’d be interested in what I’ve turned up so far.”
    â€œCome on, Rocco. Don’t bait me like that. Bea and I knew Llewyn well. He was a friend more than a political ally of Bea’s. We’re as interested in your catching his killer as anyone in the state, but don’t try to grapple me into this. It’s headline stuff. You can get all the help you need.”
    â€œWe did pretty well together the last time.”
    â€œI had a personal reason to work on the little girl’s killing.”
    Rocco didn’t answer. He poured himself another drink, sat back in the chair and twirled his glass. “Perhaps as an old friend you’d be interested in my shop talk.”
    â€œYou’re as obvious as a rattlesnake. What about Captain Norbert?”
    â€œI’m only using the state police for lab work.”
    â€œOh, great. An ego trip.” Seeing Rocco wince, Lyon regretted the remark. As Murphysville’s chief of police, Rocco commanded a force