by M. K. Wren
“Uh…Mr. Flagg? I—I want to talk to you.”
“Yes, I thought you would, Linc. Where are you?”
“Down in the lobby.”
“Come on up to my room. Four-ten.”
He hung up and turned to Jesse, who was hurriedly emptying her ashtray, her hands shaking.
“Well, I guess I better get to my listenin’ post. Conan, is it…is it really Linc?”
“Yes. It’s Linc.” He ushered her into the next room as a grinding creak in the elevator shaft announced its ascent. “Jesse, remember, don’t come into my room for any reason unless I call for help.”
She nodded distractedly, pausing only long enough before closing the door to whisper, “Good luck.”
*
“Come in, Linc.”
Conan had rinsed out Jesse’s glass, and as Linc cautiously opened the door, he uncapped the Jack Daniels bottle and added a shot to his own glass.
“Can I offer you a drink? You’d better shut the door.”
Linc did so with some reluctance, as if he didn’t want to cut off his retreat. Still, when he came into the room he managed an air of cocky confidence.
“I’ll have a couple of fingers, since you’re pourin’.” Then his confidence slipped, to be replaced by something cold and unfeigned. “You figger you need that?”
“What? The gun?” Conan shrugged and handed him a glass. “I don’t know. Have a seat.”
He probably would have preferred to remain standing, but finally went to the armchair, while Conan moved his chair aside and sat on the windowsill where the gun and binoculars were only an arm’s reach away. The traffic was sporadic, each car heralding its presence with a muted rumble. He purposely displayed more interest in the view than in Linc, but was acutely aware of his every move.
Linc was new at this game and uncomfortable with it, and well he might be; he didn’t fully understand either the rules or the object of it. Yet he seemed determined to play it out, sitting tensely at the edge of his chair, downing half his whiskey without seeming to taste it.
“I think you got somethin’ that belongs to me, Flagg.”
“Something like a strongbox? The one Aaron hid in his bedroom?”
He cast a resentful glance at him. “Yes.”
Conan only nodded, watching a pickup pass below; but it was blue. He waited silently as Linc gathered himself.
“I guess you figger you got some kind of reward comin’ for findin’ it All right, but I ain’t hagglin’. I’m gonna make one offer, and that’s it. Ten thousand. Cash.”
Conan seemed to consider the sum, one eyebrow raised.”You’ve accumulated about four thousand in your Boise account. Your cut, I assume, after…expenses. Where do you intend to get the rest of it?”
“Where the money comes from ain’t your problem.”
“No, and I suppose your wholesaler in Winnemucca would consider an advance advisable under the circumstances.”
“You tryin’ to pump me? Forget it. You wanta make a deal or not?”
Conan paused to light a cigarette so that he could take a close look at the dark station wagon passing below.
“Linc, I admire your moxie, but you’re in a sellers’ market Yes, I want to make a deal. I’m just not impressed with your offer.”
He slammed his glass down. “I said I ain’t hagglin’! Ten thousand’s all I can get, so take it or leave it!”
“I’ll leave it.” He blew out a stream of smoke, his eyes cold, his tone sharp. “Good God, Linc, whose idea was that? Not yours, I hope. Only a penny-ante blackmailer would assume my motive is blackmail. I didn’t set up this meeting to squeeze a few dollars out of you—and I did set it up, right down the line. Just keep that in mind.”
Linc, confronted with something totally unexpected, was reduced to suspicious uncertainty.
“Then, what…what d’you want from me?”
“Two things, and probably you’d prefer to deal in cash. I want the truth, and I want you to set yourself free.”
He paled, and for a moment seemed afraid, but not of Conan. The word “free,” perhaps. Then he picked up his glass and emptied it in one swallow.
“What’re you talkin’ about?”
“Well, let’s start with the first part of the bargain. The truth. Tell me about Chari Drinkwater’s death.”
“Charl? What the hell does she have to do with this?”
“She has everything to do with it; you know that.”
“I’m gettin’ outa here….” He rose and stumbled to the door, but Conan didn’t move, nor raise his voice.
“And what will your good friend and boozing buddy Gil Potts say when you come home empty-handed?”
He froze in his tracks, then slowly turned, staring at Conan uncertainly for some time before he said coldly, “It don’t make much differ’nee, does it? Looks like I’m goin’ home empty-handed anyhow.”
“Not necessarily. I’m willing to deal, but on my own terms.” He leaned forward to pour more whiskey into Linc’s glass, watching him as he moved like a sleepwalker back to his chair, seemingly drawn by the whiskey, but downing it slowly this time, never once looking up from his glass.
“I found the key Sunday, Linc, in Gil’s trailer. A clipping: the Clarion’s account of Chari’s death. The key, and yet I passed it off without a second thought. Gil knew the Drinkwaters and you; her loved ones. It didn’t seem odd that he’d keep that clipping. Then last night it finally came through to me. At the time of her death, Gil was living in Burns, and it hadn’t been six months since he moved here from Winnemucca. He didn’t know the Drinkwaters or you. Not then. So, why would he clip out an obituary for a girl he’d probably never heard of? Why, unless he knew something not about her, but about the subject of that article—her death?”
He didn’t expect an answer to that, but hoped for a comment, or at least some recognizable reaction. But there was none. Linc didn’t even seem to hear him.
Conan went on, “The night she died, Chari came to town for a basketball game and parked in the school lot, which happens to be directly across the highway from the gas station where Gil was working. He saw something; something connected with her death and with you. You’re the one he’s blackmailing. Those five-thousand-dollar checks to cash—that money went to Gil, didn’t it? And how else would he coerce you into taking part in the rustling? You may be a hellraiser, but that kind of carefully premeditated larceny would never occur to you.” Linc made no response, his whole attention apparently concentrated on his whiskey.
“What did he see, Linc?” Still no answer. “Damn it, I know both Alvin and Aaron had their backs up about you and Chari; reason enough to avoid being seen together. But enough for Gil to blackmail you into partnership in almost every major crime in the book? There’s more to it. There must be. What is it he’s holding over your head?”
Again he waited for a reply, but despaired of getting one. Linc sat staring into his glass, but he wasn’t seeing it; he wasn’t seeing anything except some remembered image that struck him numb with agony. Yet when he finally spoke, his voice was strangely flat.
“She was my Juliet…beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear…and I killed her. I killed Chari.”
CHAPTER 24
Once that terrible confession was made, the rest of the story followed with little prompting. Linc seemed in a trance state, under an irrational compulsion to have it out.
Jesse had been right in thinking that Linc and Chari began seeing each other again after he returned from college, but it was a secret thing because of family opposition. In fact, they had only a few clandestine meetings, and Chari was so maddeningly cool that at first he thought she was playing games with him. But it was only because she was so uncertain about him; about the two of them and their future.
The diabetes? Yes, he knew about that, but she didn’t seem to take it seriously, and in answer to his questions, only laughed and made jokes about being on the needle; an insulin junkie. He knew so little about the disease,
he didn’t realize she was being dangerously casual.
The night of her death. Yes, he met her in the parking lot. She made an appearance at the game, then slipped out. He was waiting in his car. They stood outside for a while; yes, under the lights. A warm night. He suggested a drive and stopped at the gas station first for something to drink, parking to the side in the shadows.
She asked for Fresca. No sugar. He understood that much about the disease. The soft-drink machine was inside the station, and while he was there, out of Chari’s line of sight, he took out a hip flask and laced both bottles with at least three shots of vodka.
A kid trick. A stupid kid trick, but she was being so damned cold and skittish, acting like a cheap teaser, and he wasn’t too sober to begin with. That’s all he ever learned at college. Boozing. So, he poured in the vodka, making jokes with the station attendant about its relaxing efFects. Gil Potts. He didn’t know his name then.
No, Chari didn’t seem to notice any difference in the taste, and it was relaxing. She admitted she still loved him. Enough to marry him, whatever her father thought.
They went to the Sunset Motel. It wasn’t the first time; only the first since his return. Not that Chari made a habit of that sort of thing. She wasn’t that kind of girl.
“She loved me. God help her, she loved me…
It seemed the narrative might stop then, but the compulsion to confession was unrelenting, even though the words had to be forced out, one by one.
All their differences and fears seemed resolved that night; everything true and free. Afterward, he dozed in innocent relaxation and thought she was only asleep, too, until he realized it was late, and he’d have to take her back to the game. She might be ready to confront her father with her intent to marry him, but a rendezvous ending at the Sunset Motel must remain secret; she’d been adamant about that.
But she wasn’t just asleep. She was unconscious. He guessed it must be the diabetes, and because he knew so little about it, he was terrified. He tried desperately to rouse her, even slapping her face, but she didn’t respond.
Doc Maxwell. That was his first thought. Doc could be trusted to say nothing about their being together.
Linc dressed her as best he could, then carried her out to his car and drove to Doc’s office. Only a few blocks from the motel. But he wasn’t there. Delivering a baby somewhere; he learned that later.
There was only one alternative. The hospital. Yet he was still inhibited by her insistence on secrecy. If he took her to the hospital himself, Alvin would hear about it sooner or later. A trivial concern, but only in retrospect.
Thus, the anonymous phone call to the hospital, and Chari left in the booth while he hid his car around the corner and waited. The ambulance arrived within ten minutes. He was shaking with relief when it took her away. Then, sure she was safe, he drove back to the ranch and went to sleep to dreams of golden optimism, like any man so deeply in love he’d reached the brink of marriage.
He didn’t know Chari was dead, that she died a few minutes after reaching the hospital. Dr. Maxwell called Laura the next day; it was she who told him. He asked her about diabetes, and how and why it could kill. She gave him a lengthy dissertation, but only two facts stayed in his memory. Diabetes in adolescence could be severe and extremely difficult to control, and that was the case with Chari.
The second fact was that alcohol had the same effect on insulin balance as sugar.
And Linc knew then that he might as well have poured cyanide into Chari’s Fresca; it would have been no less lethal to her than the vodka.
He ended the confession as he began it, his voice still flat and stripped of life, hard, brown hands locked on his glass. His eyes were fixed still on that remembered image, blue and depthless as the desert sky, and as empty.
“I killed her. I killed Chari.”
Conan turned away; that grief was intolerable. Past hope, past cure, past help! Yet it was two years old now. What had it been when it was fresh? When Gil Potts began capitalizing on it, began blackmailing Linc?
It defied comprehension that one man could prey so callously on another’s agony. Gil Potts at the gas station, laughing with Linc over the relaxing effects of liquor. Conan could picture that, and Potts reading the newspaper account of Chari’s death, cutting it out, probably still laughing. Cutting it out for future reference.
It wasn’t enough that Linc had unknowingly laced her drink with what was for her a deadly poison. His misfortune was compounded because he’d done it in the presence of a man with enough medical training to know what those few ounces of alcohol would do to a diabetic; who came to the same conclusion Linc did—that he killed her—and made Linc the goose that would lay golden eggs for him forever.
Conan looked down into the street. Even during Linc’s recital, he had responded to every passing car; it became almost reflexive. But he was jarred to alertness when he saw the black pickup with the white lettering on the door.
He reached for the binoculars and hurriedly focused on the door, recognized the Running S brand, then shifted to the license plate. ATL580. His eyes narrowed to slits as the pickup turned into the alley behind the hotel.
Then he put the binoculars on the table and studied Linc, still wrapt in his irremediable grief.
“Linc, I’m…sorry.”
He was roused by that and turned to stare at him.
“Sorry? Sure. Tell me about sorry.” Then he tossed down the last of his whiskey. “All right, that’s the truth. Now, what about your part of the deal?”
Confession was obviously over for him; back to the business at hand. But he had two years’ practice at self-anesthesia. Conan wasn’t deceived by that sudden shift, but he needed a moment to collect his thoughts and made it by offering more bourbon. Linc refused it
“I had enough, and mebbe I said enough.”
Conan shrugged. “You know your capacity, but you haven’t yet said enough. That’s only part of the truth. The worst part” He paused, leaning back against the windowframe. “Was Chari a country girl?”
Linc turned away, his answer slow in coming.
“No. Not in her heart. I wrote that song for her.”
“Not for Laura?”
“Laura and me was friends. That’s the way she wanted it, and she was the only friend I had after—after…”
Conan believed that, perhaps because it satisfied some baseless and romantic preconception about Laura. She loved George; at least, she loved the man she married.
“Linc, George asked me to come here to find the truth about the feud, and I stayed to find his killer. I’ve done both, and yet I can’t prove anything. That’s why you and I are haggling over a piece of evidence I should turn over to Joe Tate. But those receipts by themselves will only put you in prison; they won’t convict George’s killer.”
Linc frowned in bewilderment. “His killer? What do them receipts have to do with—with George?”
Conan didn’t entirely understand the question, or rather, why he asked it, and with no hint of subterfuge.
“I’m talking about the second part of the bargain. His killer will go free unless you’re willing to undertake it; willing to set yourself free.”
“What d’you mean?” he asked tightly.
“Free of Gil Potts.”
“Free? Free of Gil? I’ll never shake loose of him. He knows. Don’t you understand that? He knows about Chari.” He pressed his fists to his forehead. “Alvin—God, he’d kill me if he knew, and he’d have ever’ right to. Hell, if I had any guts, I’d kill myself. Gil’s got me right where he wants me, and I guess that’s where I’m gonna stay.”
“Even if it means being an accessory to grand theft and murder?” He looked up, startled, and again it seemed genuine.
“Murder? What’re you talkin’ about? Okay, we got the feud started, and the rustlin’. You know about that”
“Part of it. Was it Gil’s idea?”
He nodded slowly. “Ever’thing was Gil’s idea. Damn, it st
arted off so easy. Jest a hunderd here, a hunderd there; seemed cheap enough at first to keep his mouth shut.”
“When did it start?”
“Right after he signed on with us. George hired him. I didn’t even recognize him from the fillin’ station.”
“He didn’t contact you while he was working for Alvin?”
“No. Mebbe he had his finger in a sweet enough pie there to keep him happy till Alvin caught him.”
“I assume a hundred here and there didn’t satisfy him.”
“Not for long, and I never had much money of my own, but Gil was good at thinkin’ up ways to get hold of more.”
“Like the money Ted was accused of stealing?”
Linc didn’t move except to close his eyes wearily.
“Damn, my own brother, and I jest stood there and watched Pa rip him apart. Gil was set to pounce if I even opened my mouth. Y’know, I thought Ted was gonna kill me Saturday night.” He looked around at Conan. “Does he know?”
“I don’t think so.”
“He should’ve killed me. Alvin should kill me.” A bitter laugh, then, “Wouldn’t you think somebody’d put me out of my misery?” Conan didn’t comment on that, his attention attracted to a creaking sound outside the door; someone walking carefully on old floorboards. Linc didn’t seem to hear it, but he hadn’t been listening for it
“When did Gil come up with the idea of the rustling?”
“Right after that business with Ted and the money. That scared him good, even if Ted took the blame for it. So…well, he knew this feller in Winnemucca. Only a few head now and then; Pa’d never miss ’em. Jest like ever’thing else, it started off nice and easy.”
“Did Gil set it up with this friend in Winnemucca?”
“Gil? Hell no. He give me a couple of names, and sent me down to Winnemucca to make the deal. That, and them receipts, and that bank account—I know what they’re for. To keep Gil’s nose clean, and get me in that much deeper.”
“Yet you accepted those terms?”
