The Death in the Willows by Richard; Forrest Page A

awkwardly down the aisle and then back out.
    The suited fireman pulled off the hood, shook his head at the others, and then turned to retch in the grass.
    Lyon walked to the tanker that had rammed into the bus. The tank had ruptured violently, and flames had moved across the cab and onto the bus. He looked at the present position of the two vehicles, mentally aligned them back to the moment of impact, and backtracked the trajectory of the tanker as it left the service area.
    It didn’t make sense.
    The tanker driver had a clear view of the highway, and yet had to accelerate to the maximum speed his lower range of gears would allow in order to ram the bus at that angle. Unless the driver had a heart attack at the wheel when he was leaving the service area—but in that instance, the tanker would not have run the course it had.
    He climbed the tanker’s step and peered into the still smoldering cab, the metal hot to his touch. The burned body of the driver lay on the floorboards half under the well and over the accelerator.
    He turned from the tanker and walked through the onlookers now being pushed back toward the service area by newly arrived state troopers. The men he wanted to speak to were standing under a high lamp post. They were young, both acne-faced, and wore service station coveralls with their names inscribed over a breast pocket.
    â€œDo you two work at the gas station in the service area?”
    They looked at him blankly a moment. “You a cop, huh?”
    â€œYou work here?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œDid you see it happen?”
    â€œHeard it.”
    â€œWhat about before the explosion?”
    â€œNothing much. I pumped him fifty gallons of diesel and he left.”
    â€œDid he look all right, the driver I mean?”
    â€œSure. Looked like everybody else, but musta’ been crazy as a loon to pull out like that.”
    â€œDid he pull directly onto the highway, or did he stop at all?”
    â€œI didn’t notice.”
    â€œI think he did,” the other attendant said. “He stopped by the post up there and talked to a guy for a couple of minutes. I figured it was his bookie.”
    â€œAnything else?”
    â€œHell, we get lotsa cars backed up in here, can’t stand gawking at every tanker driver that pulls out.”
    A state police captain had arrived and was giving directions through a bullhorn. A large wrecker had jackknifed the bus away from the tanker and was attempting to wedge it over onto the median. Traffic had begun to flow slowly along one lane of traffic.
    â€œI hope they have pictures of the relative positions of the two vehicles before they moved them,” Lyon said to Rocco who stood next to Captain Norbert of the state police.
    â€œOf course we have pictures,” the captain snapped. “This is going to be one hell of a lawsuit.”
    â€œGood. You’re going to need them for more than lawsuits.”
    â€œWentworth! How in hell did you manage to get here?”
    Rocco Herbert glared at his brother-in-law. “Leave him be, Norbie.”
    â€œDo we have pictures? Of course we have pictures. We always take pictures at accidents—even bad ones like this.”
    â€œI’m afraid it’s not an accident, Captain. More like multiple murder.”
    The Wentworth home, Nutmeg Hill, perched on a promontory overlooking the Connecticut River. Over the years, Lyon had cut a small path with switchbacks into the side of the hill that wound its way through the pine forest studding the side of the mountain down to the river. They walked hand in hand, letting the sun brush lightly against their faces as it cut intermittent swathes through the dense foliage.
    At the bottom they stopped near a rock grouping where the river gently lapped. Lyon sat on the ground with his back against a tree trunk, while Bea sat a few feet in front of him on a rock with her bare feet dangling in the water.
    The apposition between the serenity