The Pied Piper of Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

Congressman Candlin in the doorway? Excuse me. I’ll go net him for our little chat.”
    Peyton began working the crowd back toward the room’s entrance, where the tall congressman stood cataloging the party participants with mild interest.
    â€œIt’s been a long time, Lyon.” The woman’s voice was low and intense.
    Lyon was startled at the change in Katherine Piper during the two years since he had last seen her. Peyton’s wife was a thin woman who now wore heavy base makeup to disguise a chalk-white complexion and dark hollows around her eyes. Her other attempts to restore a past haunting beauty had succeeded only in making her appear slightly grotesque. Her carefully articulated movements and speech were the deliberate actions of the near inebriated.
    â€œKatherine, I would like you to meet my wife, Bea.”
    The woman took Bea’s hand with a limp grip that conveyed limited interest. “Yes, I have heard of you, Bernice.”
    â€œBea.”
    â€œOf course, Lee. I hear you’re one of those superactive women who manages a career, puts down men, and still bakes cakes.”
    Lyon could sense his wife’s antennae quivering. “Only on Mondays and Wednesdays,” Bea answered. “On the other days I sell my body.”
    â€œReally, is there much of a market for it?” Katherine Piper said as the diminutive butler served her a tall glass containing what appeared to be orange juice.
    â€œIxnay,” the butler said to her. “Ocknay offnay.”
    â€œKeep your place, you little troll,” Katherine Piper replied in a stage whisper.
    Lyon stepped into the breach. “Did you know that Katherine was in grad school at our university when Peyton and I were undergraduates?”
    â€œI noticed that my husband trotted out his ‘going to the mat with the colonel’ anecdote. That little fable is designed to prove that he’s not as bloodthirsty as his annual report would lead you to believe. Actually, his father was quite a man.”
    â€œGranddaddy was a malicious warlord.” A young woman with glowing blond hair that fell past her shoulders appeared at their side. Her hand gripped Lyon’s. “Remember me, Mr. Wentworth? Paula Piper.”
    Lyon took her hand and felt the same firm pressure her father transmitted during his greetings. “Of course, Paula. I haven’t seen you since I don’t know when. But I see that the braces are off.”
    â€œOther things have come out too,” Katherine Piper said.
    Lyon found it difficult to ignore the taut body of the athletic young woman in a tight green sheath with a plunging neckline. “Yes,” he agreed and felt Bea’s toe press painfully into his ankle.
    â€œPaula is my step-daughter,” Katherine Piper said. “The unlamented first Mrs. Piper didn’t seem to understand that children should be drowned at birth like unwanted kittens.”
    Bea was taken aback.
    â€œMums always joshes when she’s had too much vodka,” Paula said. “That’s why the Garden Club struck Bridgeway from their spring house tour. They didn’t think it was funny when she fell in the goldfish pond and swallowed a small frog.”
    Lyon and Bea exchanged a private glance that signaled their discomfort over the treacherous warfare which had just been exposed between these two women.
    â€œHow would you know what I swallowed, Snookums? You were away at college,” Katherine said with what was meant to be a smile, but which came out as a lopsided grimace. “She’s majoring in sexual conquests,” she announced to Bea and Lyon.
    â€œMums already has an advanced degree in wicked step-mothering with a minor in alcoholism,” Paula retaliated.
    â€œI think that you both have crossed any semblance of a line and that’s unfortunate,” Bea said with the candor that often burst through normal constraints. The two women looked