The Wizard of Death by Richard; Forrest Page A

got rough.”
    â€œSo, what happened?”
    â€œI don’t know. Nothing. Junior went to the place like he was told. I sat at the bar so I could have a look at the booth where he was to meet this guy. I carried a sock full o’ bird shot, case Junior gave the high sign. This guy came in, sat with Junior twenty minutes, maybe half an hour.”
    â€œWhat did he look like?” Lyon asked.
    â€œAn ordinary working guy. Tan pants, wind-breaker.”
    â€œHeight, weight, color of hair?”
    â€œBuilt like most guys, you know. Maybe thirty-five, brown hair—just a guy.”
    â€œThen what happened?”
    â€œWhen he left, I tailed him, like Junior asked. He went to a fleabag hotel about six, seven blocks away and went up to a second-floor room in the front. I saw him in the window when he turned the light on. I go back to the bar where Junior is swattin’ down brandy, like he was loaded, which he was. He slips me fifty and says he made his deal and to forget everything I saw.”
    â€œAnd you did?”
    â€œHell, yes. Like Junior was a fellow Kraut, right?”
    â€œYes, he was,” Lyon said softly.

7
    The early-morning sun was beginning to burn off the tendrils of fog rising from the river. The sun’s rays rose over the hills and pierced the windshield of the small car. Lyon pulled down the sun visor and pinched the bridge of his nose to exorcise the massive headache. There is nothing worse than a beer hangover, he thought as he turned up the drive to Nutmeg Hill.
    A young patrolman was leaning against a pine tree playing mumblety-peg in a patch of dirt. Lyon slowed the car to a halt. The officer looked up and smiled.
    â€œHi, Mr. Wentworth.”
    â€œHello, Jamie. Everything quiet?”
    â€œYes, sir.” Oh, Lord. The family homestead protected by an adolescent with six weeks’ experience.
    â€œWant some coffee?”
    â€œMrs. Wentworth gave me some a few minutes ago. She’s in the back working in the garden.”
    Bea Wentworth, wearing shorts and a floppy shirt, was kneeling in the garden below the back patio. She carefully placed a plant in a small hole, watered it, pushed dirt around delicate stems and began to trim back leaves.
    The sun, midway above the horizon, slanted through the oak tree to the side and speckled light across the side of her face, giving her a diffused, gentle appearance. Lyon felt that his wife was a woman of many seasons, a multifaceted person whose appearance and personality could change in the various life guises she chose. Now, kneeling on the warm earth and holding a small plant made her look as if she had been nurtured and had bloomed in the warming early day. At other times, like that day on the green when she introduced Llewyn, her outward appearance was forceful and charismatic.
    And yet, the day on the green had shattered into a thousand shards when a rifle cracked from the church, and she had missed death by inches. On another day, in their own kitchen, a similar weapon had been fired from across the river.
    He experienced a surge of feeling that made him want to reach toward her in an unseen grasp. He wanted to kneel in the dirt by her side and hold her. He knew his wife was independent, at times prepared to battle the world if necessary; and yet now he saw and loved another quality.
    He bent over and kissed the back of her neck.
    â€œOH, MY GOD!” Bea leaped to her feet with the trowel extended in a parrying position. When she saw who it was, her body sagged. “You scared the living daylights out of me.”
    â€œYou looked so cute, I wanted to kiss you. Except now your knees are dirty, and what are you doing?”
    â€œPropagating weeds.”
    â€œI thought weeds were capable of propagating themselves.”
    â€œKNOCK IT OFF, WENTWORTH. WHERE IN HELL WERE YOU LAST NIGHT?”
    â€œWould you believe I was getting drunk with a motorcycle gang?”
    â€œFrom you—yes. I am now