The Death in the Willows by Richard; Forrest Read Free Book Online Page A

years.”
    â€œAnd you aren’t a retired army officer.”
    â€œYou’re either very perceptive or make wild guesses.”
    â€œYou hadn’t heard of a two-oh-one file.”
    â€œThat revealed me. What is it?”
    â€œA service records jacket.”
    â€œNo. I haven’t been in the army. Let’s say I was involved in a war of a different sort.” He went to the bathroom door. “I know you must be very tired. Good night.”
    â€œGood night, Mr. Collins.”
    Sometime during the night a nightmarish dream of a hundred men with revolvers walking bus aisles jolted Lyon awake. He lay on his side staring across the darkened room. Collins sat hunched in a chair by the window. A flashing neon sign from below intermittently illuminated the lower portion of his face. Lyon watched the sad man in silence for a few moments until waves of sleep again released him.
    Police Chief Rocco Herbert didn’t hate the state police; he merely liked to avoid them as much as possible. Ordinarily he considered any intrusion into Murphysville matters a violation of his domain, but this morning he had no alternative. The governor had insisted that Bea Wentworth be chauffeured to New York in her official car driven by a state trooper.
    He did luxuriate in the width of the rear seat and found he was nearly able to extend his legs their full length. Bea was huddled in the corner staring out the window. “He’s all right.”
    She turned and smiled. “I know. Do you know this is the second time I’ve seen you in your full dress uniform?”
    Rocco reddened. “When was the first?”
    â€œAt the Bicentennial parade a couple of years ago.” She laughed. “And what in the world are those things on your shoulders?”
    Rocco turned a deeper hue of embarrassment. “Stars.”
    â€œGeneral’s stars?”
    â€œAs chief I’m entitled to wear them.”
    â€œRocco Herbert! A twelve-man force and you wear stars?”
    â€œThey were Martha’s idea. Damn it all, Bea! It won’t hurt to impress those jokers in the city.”
    She gave his shoulder a pat. “I only hope they don’t need to be impressed.”
    The Department of Internal Affairs had provided Lyon with photographs of all men authorized to wear a gold shield in the city of New York. After examining the fiftieth or sixtieth picture, he found they were all beginning to merge into one image, and he wondered if he’d even be able to identify himself. Nevertheless, he kept doggedly at it, looking for the man who had occupied the seat behind him.
    They had sequestered him in a small, glass-partitioned cubicle off the main squad room. Captain Nesbitt, McAllister of the FBI, and two men from Internal Affairs were clustered in a small knot near the elevators and occasionally glanced in his direction. He turned the last page of photographs and closed the heavy binder. The man on the bus could have been there, but even a tentative identification was impossible. He left the cubicle and walked toward the officers.
    â€œYou buy that cockamamie story of someone slipping him the piece?”
    â€œHell, no!”
    â€œDoes the Pope say mass?”
    They laughed.
    â€œWe’ve got to take a position on this,” Nesbitt said. “The goddamn mayor is coming down here and the commissioner wants the official line to be lily white.”
    â€œWhich means we believe he found the gun?”
    â€œYou better believe it!” Another officer left the elevator and crossed to them. “There’s a mile long Connecticut State car downstairs with a trooper driver and a guy in dress blues that’s seven feet tall and must be in charge of every cop in New England.”
    â€œWe officially believe it,” Nesbitt concluded.
    They sat in a row along the divan in Nesbitt’s office. Rocco seemed uncomfortable in his tight dress uniform, and Bea held her husband’s hand