Read The Wizard of Death for Free Online

attempting to negotiate it on the bike.
    On the leading edge of the hill the cowpath forked to the right and left. Which way would he have gone? The left fork was closer, but after the jump at the top of the hill it seemed unlikely that he could have negotiated the sharp turn to the left so quickly—it had to be to the right. He kicked the motorcycle alive and started slowly toward the right fork.
    After a quarter of a mile the path widened and turned steeply toward a road several hundred yards farther on. He slowed and stopped at the edge of the pavement. It was a narrow, winding country road. Yesterday’s rider could have turned either way. From the map examination he and Rocco had made, and also from the balloon observation, he knew that to the right the road wound through the country past a few working farms and ended at the Shady Heights subdivision. To the left, it continued through the hills for three miles until it connected with Route 90, which ran along the river. Route 90 interconnected with the Interstate and would be an obvious escape route.
    He kicked the motorcycle starter and moved slowly to the left. After the murder and the abortive chase, Rocco had radioed instructions to his small force and to the state police. They would have established road blocks, or at least check points, near the Interstate connection. Any cyclist would have been stopped. Unless the killer had done exactly what he had done—used a truck to transport the trail bike.
    He slowed the motorcycle to a near stall and began to examine the dirt shoulder at the edge of the road. Within fifty yards he found what he was looking for. A vehicle had been pulled off onto the shoulder. He stopped the bike and got off to kneel by the side of the road next to a small oil spot. The single track of the bike was clearly visible as it approached the dual tracks of the other vehicle. He recalled that the day before yesterday it had rained: the tracks must have been made in the last forty-eight hours. The cycle tracks ended a few feet before the other vehicle tracks. The killer had obviously loaded the trail bike onto a small truck or van parked on the shoulder.
    The supposition would be verified when Rocco’s men made molds of the tire marks and compared them to the ones found in back of the church. It also gave them one more fact to work with—an additional fact that might allow them to make another conjecture toward another fact.
    He was in a hurry to get back to town. He started the motorcycle and decided to avoid the difficult trail through the meadow by going down the road to Route 90 and back that way to Rocco’s office. The escape route was verified, and there was also an additional lead among the things he had heard today.
    With its operator lost in thought, the motorcycle failed to negotiate the sharp right turn, crashed through a thin wooden retaining fence and shot off into space. Lyon found himself separating from the mottled red cycle as they both dropped into the waters of an abandoned quarry.
    â€œThose wet clothes are going to mark the bench,” Rocco Herbert said as Lyon scowled.
    It had been a two-mile walk to Sarge’s Bar and Grill, off Route 90. He had ordered a double sherry and called Rocco from the pay phone. Now, as the chief sat across from him in the scarred wooden booth and nursed a beer, Lyon heard himself squish loudly as he shifted position.
    â€œThat quarry’s dangerous,” he said. “Kids could get killed out there.”
    â€œTo my recollection you’re the only one who ever ran a motorcycle into it. Who in hell do you think you are—Evel Knievel?”
    â€œI was thinking.”
    â€œOh, Jesus, typical. You know, of course, that we’ll never get your plaything out of there.”
    â€œWell, it wasn’t much of a machine anyway.”
    â€œI’ve sent two men out to make a cast of those tracks you found, although I don’t see how it’s going to