Read Online The Pied Piper of Death by Richard; Forrest - Free Book Online Page B

tremor caused her hands to shake. “If I had killed him it would have been because of all the women he made love to. He was a philanderer who gave the word a bad name. He didn’t just want some women, he wanted all of them. And I still loved him. Which probably proves that I had a problem.”
    â€œIf you didn’t do it, who do you think did?” Lyon asked.
    â€œHand me the phone directory.”
    â€œYou have an address and number?”
    â€œHell, no! I’m going to give you a list of suspects. Any man who is a father, husband, lover, or friend to any woman is a potential suspect. I’ll keep it simple and restrict it to the state of Connecticut since he hasn’t traveled much of late.”
    â€œThat many?”
    â€œAnd then some.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you leave him long ago?”
    She pushed off the bed and walked over to the small window, where she leaned on the sill to look out over the shadowed grounds. Her face was illuminated by the revolving flash of the dome lights from the state police cruisers parked below. Her body shook slightly with quiet cries. Lyon knew that he had these golden minutes, if you could term them that, to find her at her most vulnerable. It was during this time that he might be able to obtain the most valuable information concerning her exact role in the killing. He was aware of the unsavoriness of what he was doing, but rationalized its necessity.
    â€œCan you possibly narrow down a list of suspects?” he asked again.
    â€œLike I said, the numbers are legion.”
    â€œCould it possibly have been someone here on the estate? Someone here at Bridgeway?”
    â€œI think he was making love to Katherine Piper, and maybe the young girl, Paula. Markham did not discriminate because of age, race, religion, or national origin.”
    â€œAnd yet you still stayed with him?”
    She whirled to face him. “Yes. When he got me I was a kid. I was a child of seventeen who’d learned some nasty sexual tricks from my stepfather that I was using to extract my own version of personal revenge.”
    â€œAbused kids often become promiscuous and Markham took advantage of that.”
    Her attitude softened. “It wasn’t as you think. I made an appointment for his office hours and I intended to play my little game with him. It was an inventive little enticement that I had used on several of my more interesting male teachers. Markham almost immediately sensed what I was up to and turned it around in a strange and wondrous way. Instead of my being the seducer, he became the lover. Gently and subtly he took control and I became the beloved. It was the first time that had happened to me and it changed me in ways that were for the good. Bastard that he was, I loved him then and I love him now. In a sense he made an honest woman of me because he taught me how things could be. He loved me, you know. In his own strange way. Unfortunately, he had this compulsive need to spread this talent of his around. I wanted to kill him and I would have died for him. Does that explain anything?”
    â€œYes. I suppose it does. Markham called me early today and asked that I stop out here tonight. He also wrote Paula a short note. Do you know anything about that?”
    Loyce shook her head. “Not really. He did say that he might have you stop in, but that’s all he said. I can imagine what he said to Paula.”
    Lyon felt an object with his foot and looked down at the toe of his shoe, to see that it rested against something protruding from under the bed. He stooped and ran his fingers along the contours of what was obviously a gun. He bent over to pull a short rifle out from under the bed.
    She watched his movements without expression.
    He wrapped his handkerchief around the stock of the weapon and held it up. “What’s this?”
    â€œI don’t know,” she answered. “It looks like one of those guns they have in glass cases