by M. K. Wren
Angie said, “Ten-thirty. I’ll meet you at the station. Okay?” A short silence, then: “Conan?”
“Mm? Yes, I’ll be there. By the way, I called Marc Fitch. He will take Cady as a client. He’ll be here this afternoon about three o’clock.”
“Oh, Conan! Oh, that’s terrific! Oh, you’re wonderful!”
Savanna heard that. The decibel level was so high, she couldn’t avoid hearing it, and she did a nice mime impression of Angie in a state of enthusiasm. Conan said, “Angie, I’ll see you at the station,” and hung up before she could hear his laughter.
Savanna said, “I gather that was little Angela.”
“Yes,” Conan replied as he put out his cigarette. “My client’s wife.”
The reminder was intentional, but Savanna didn’t seem ready to accept it. With a feathery touch, she traced the scar that angled from his right clavicle to the eighth rib on his left side, where it ended in an inch-long cicatrix. “How did you ever get so scarred up, Conan?”
“From walking in dark alleys.” He leaned toward her, bemused still and again by the perfection of her face. But when he kissed her, his lips were closed, and he put a cast of finality in it.
She looked at him and at length nodded. “I was right about you.”
“About what about me?”
“I can trust you.” She turned toward the windows. “Well, like they say, this is the first day of the rest of my life. I suppose I should check in to the Surf House. They ought to have a vacancy this time of day.”
Conan didn’t offer his house for another night. Last night he had sensed fear and loneliness beneath the veneer of indifference to her husband’s death. And she’d had something to prove. But if she hadn’t proved it now, she never would.
She left the bed, combing through her hair with her fingers as she walked to the bath. “By the way, is there a dining room in this hotel? Somewhere a girl could get some breakfast?”
“Yes, ma’am. Downstairs.” He rose, found his robe on the floor at the end of the bed. “Scrambled eggs all right? The chef at this hotel is rather limited in his repertoire.”
She laughed. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”
*
The kitchen alcove was an angled goldfish bowl of glass, and Conan had offered to lower the shades, but Savanna didn’t seem concerned about being recognized by the tourists who paraded across the access to the beach, although she chose the chair on the north side of the table that put her back to the parade. She had downed two eggs and an English muffin and now was lavishing a second muffin with Mrs. Early’s wild blackberry jam. Conan sat across the table from her with a mug of coffee and a cigarette, tolerating her silence until at length she finished the muffin, then turned to look out at the bank of fog on the horizon.
She said, “I guess I’ll have to do something about arranging the funeral. I think…maybe I’ll call my mother.”
Conan nodded. “It’ll be easier for your parents if they hear about Gould’s death from you—before it becomes the lead story on the evening news. Sheriff Wills scheduled a press conference this morning.”
There was an equivocal intensity in her eyes at that. “I knew it wouldn’t last. You know, the privacy. Or maybe just…”
“A time when you could still deny it?”
“Maybe. Those damn reporters. ‘How does it feel to find out your husband had his throat…’” She closed her eyes, breath caught, then sighed. “But it’ll be over and forgotten by next year. That’s what Daddy always used to say.”
“Did your parents know you were considering a divorce?”
“No. I suppose that’ll be out, too. Daddy hated Ravin from the moment they met. That was in Atlanta before the wedding. It was a big production, and Mama loved it. She loved Ravin, too. She thought he was charming. Most women thought that when they first met him.”
Conan took a long drag on his cigarette. “Did you?”
“Oh, Conan, I was like a high school girl over Ravin.” Her laugh was laced with bitterness. “And the first year I knew him, when we were just living together, it was lovely. I never should’ve married him, though. That was when things started to go bad.”
Conan rose and went to the coffeepot to refill his mug. “Yet you stayed with him, through mostly thin, it seems.”
“Very thin.” The reply was almost curt, and Conan felt as if a door had slammed shut between them. He didn’t try to open it.
He tested his coffee. “Damn!” he muttered, but not because the coffee was too hot. He was looking out the windows over the sink into the beach access, and he recognized the battered old Plymouth that pulled up in front of the house, recognized the elderly woman who got out of the passenger side, then with a wave to her husband, headed for Conan’s front door. He said, “Mrs. Early.”
Savanna only shrugged, and a moment later the front doorbell rang. Conan went out into the hall to open the door, and Mrs. Early, her aureole of white hair crushed under a scarf, bustled in.
“Well, hello, Mr. Flagg. Heard you was home, so I figgered I better come around for my reg’lar Monday stint. Say, did you hear ’bout that writer feller? Ravin Gould? It was on the radio this mornin’.”
“Yes, Mrs. Early, I know, but—”
“And a sheriff’s deppity stopped by to talk to me yesterday. Took my fingerprints.”
“Your fingerprints?”
Conan didn’t get an answer to that. Savanna came out into the hall, and Mrs. Early’s mouth fell open on an unaccustomed silence until at length she breathed, “Miz Barany!”
“How are you, Mrs. Early?”
“You’ve met, then?” Conan asked irritably.
“Of course,” Savanna replied. “Mrs. Early has been cooking and cleaning for us since we arrived in Holliday Beach.”
“Oh, Miz Barany, I was so sorry to hear ’bout your husband.” Mrs. Early remembered to put on a sympathetic expression with her condolences, but the effect was skewed by the suspicious glances she sent from Conan to Savanna and back again.
Savanna said soberly, “Thank you, Mrs. Early.” Then with a quick breath, as if bracing herself, “I’d better get my things. This is going to be a long day.” She turned and started for the living room and the stairs, leaving Mrs. Early with her mouth again open.
Conan asked, “Would you like a cup of coffee, Mrs. Early?”
“Mm? Oh. Don’t mind if I do.”
He returned to the kitchen, poured her a mug of coffee while she settled in a chair at the table and lighted a Camel, holding it curled in her hand. “Well, I wouldn’tve said nothing ’bout Mr. Gould if I’d known Miz Barany was here. Nice lady, seems like. Not stuck up a-tall.”
Conan sat down across from her. “I suppose the sheriff wanted your fingerprints for elimination.”
“That’s what Deppity Jones said. You know, I never had my fingerprints took before. S’pose they’ll keep ’em on file somewhere?”
Conan smiled. “Well, in case they do, you’ll have to wear gloves if you ever resort to burglary.”
“Why, Mr. Flagg!” She gave that a laugh, then sobered as she added, “I heard Chief Kleber has Cady MacGill in jail. You just never know about people. They say he used his chain saw on poor Mr. Gould, and he was such a nice man.” Apparently Ravin Gould’s attraction to women had no age limit.
“Did you hear that on the radio, Mrs. Early? About the chain saw?”
“More’r less.” She emitted a puff of smoke. “Giff Wills just said Mr. Gould’d been murdered, and a chain saw belongin’ to Cady was there next to the body. Is it true, Mr. Flagg? Did Cady slice up poor Mr. Gould like so much cordwood?”
Conan flinched. “No.”
“Well, somethin’ strange went on down there Saturday night.”
Conan didn’t comment on that. He heard footsteps in the hallway and rose as Savanna came to the door, suitcase in hand. She said, “I’d better be going. Goodbye, Mrs. Early.”
“Bye, Miz Barany. Sure sorry ’bout Mr. Gould.”
; Conan took Savanna’s suitcase and accompanied her to the Ferrari. Her dark glasses went on as soon as she left the house, but Conan noticed a couple on their way to the beach staring curiously at her. She got into the car and lowered the window.
He asked, “Will you be all right, Savanna?”
“Oh, I’m a tough little broad, you know.” She laughed and reached for his hand. “But if…well, I hope this isn’t goodbye forever.”
“No. Not forever.” And he added to himself, I never asked for forever.
*
At 9:45 the Holliday Beach Book Shop was open, and Hi Hitchcock—the proverbial jack-of-all-trades and quick at none—was repairing the north door at his usual leisurely pace.
The shop was crowded even for August. Conan retreated to his office, and while Meg made herself comfortable on his lap, he stared at the mail accumulated on his desk, but he was thinking about Marian Rosenthal, whose daughter had not only been married to Ravin Gould, but had died perhaps as a result of his negligence. Why had Marian come to Holliday Beach? On business? To discuss with Gould publicity for a book he hadn’t finished and that Harkness hadn’t contracted for? Conan reached for the telephone and dialed directory assistance, asked for New York City, and eventually got the number for the Harkness editorial offices. It was the lunch hour in New York, but he assumed someone would be tending the telephones.
A voice that sounded as if it belonged to a young man fresh out of high school, but who may have been an editor, for all Conan knew, answered. “HarknessCronin’n’ComnymayIhelpyou?”
Conan assumed he had the correct number and replied, “I’d like to speak with Marian Rosenthal.”
“Wha’depar’ment?”
“Publicity.”
Conan was then treated to a recording of “Autumn Leaves,” but it was cut off in midchromatic with “Sorryshe’snotavailableonvacation.”
“On vacation?” But the representative of HarknessCronin’n’Comny had hung up. Conan shrugged as he followed suit. On vacation. He stroked Meg’s back and said, “Very interesting, Duchess.”
Then, with a sigh, he began sorting through the mail. The empty window on the office door provided no barrier to the distraction of customers at the counter, where Miss Dobie manned the cash register. Some had rental books jacketed in brown paper to return or check out, but in this summer season, most had purchases, many of which, he noted, were copies of The Diamond Stud.
There were a few locals among the customers. The Daimler sisters, asking when the latest Danielle Steel would be out in paperback. Olaf Svensen, muttering about the short salmon season, which he blamed on “them fool preservationists.” Mrs. Carmody, frail and powdered, her hair the color of pale apricots, dithering over the purchase of a book. She was the owner of the blue ’59 Cadillac parked outside the south door, and Conan frowned, remembering the car he’d seen on Dunlin Beach Road Saturday night.
Mrs. Carmody placed a book on the counter. “It’s for Doc Spenser,” she said to Miss Dobie. “He likes books on Oregon history, and I wondered, do you know if he has this one?”
Miss Dobie studied the book. “If he does, he didn’t get it here.”
“I’ll take it, then. It’s a belated birthday gift. I didn’t find out till too late that his birthday was Saturday. He’s such a dear man.”
Conan tuned out the rest of the conversation, threw more junk mail into the wastepaper basket. When he had reduced the piles on his desk to no more than thirty letters, bills, and invoices that needed immediate attention—which they weren’t likely to get—he checked his watch, saw that it was five minutes after ten, and rose, moving Meg to the desk. She responded with an inscrutable Siamese yowl and refused to stay put, leaving the desk in disarray with her departing leap. Conan followed her out into the shop, where Miss Dobie perched on a stool behind the counter, enjoying a lull in the stream of customers.
She said, “Well…I guess the cat’s out of the bag now.”
He blinked. “Meg?”
“Oh, Mr. Flagg, you know what I mean. Didn’t you hear the news on the radio this morning?”
“Giff Wills’s press conference? No, I didn’t bother to turn it on.”
“Well, you didn’t miss much. I mean, he talked a lot, but he didn’t say much. But, Mr. Flagg, what’s happening? I mean, with Ravin Gould’s murder? Who killed him if Cady didn’t?”
“Miss Dobie, your faith in Cady is touching. So is your faith in me, if you think I have an answer to that.”
“What about Savanna Barany?”
Startled, he asked, “What about her?”
“Well…cherchez la femme. And she certainly is a femme. A femme fatale.” Miss Dobie smiled smugly as she added, “As in Mona Fatale, one might say.”
“One might.” He started for the door, but stopped when he saw a red-white-and-blue striped van outside. KEEN-TV, The Eyes of Portland, were again focused on Holliday Beach, and no doubt this was only the first wave of a flood of reporters.
“Miss Dobie, close the shop. I’m leaving now while I still can.”
She was on her feet, eyes glittering. “Oh, Mr. Flagg, don’t be silly. We’ve already lost one Prime-Time day. Go on, I’ll take care of them.”
“It’s on your head!” And with that, he was out the door, its bells jangling discordantly as he sprinted for his car.
Chapter 14
Conan reached the police station fifteen minutes before the appointed hour of ten-thirty and before Angie MacGill, but not before five representatives of the third estate. They were, however, on their way out, encouraged by a belligerent Sergeant Hight. Inside the station, Conan only had time to exchange greetings with Hight before Kleber’s door was flung open, and Byron Lasky emerged, his tie loose, eyes shadowed with fatigue. He frowned at Conan as if trying to remember who he was.
Conan identified himself and asked, “What’s wrong, Mr. Lasky?”
“I can’t get anybody to understand!” He ran both hands through his thin hair. “Those manuscripts, the best novel Ravin ever wrote, just vanished off the face of the Earth! And where’s that police chief? I’ve been waiting for over an hour.”
Conan glanced into Kleber’s empty office as he offered, “The investigation has just begun, Mr. Lask—”
“And that sheriff, all he can say is maybe they’ll turn up! Turn up, like lost dogs!”
The front door opened, and Lasky spun around, perhaps expecting Kleber, but the new arrivals were Angie and her son. Blonde, blue-eyed, and freckled, Michael had inherited his mother’s coloring and his father’s size, and at eight he was already as tall as the average ten-year-old. He approached Conan with a grin and a loud “Mom says you’re gonna get Dad outa jail.”
Conan glanced irritably at Angie as he reassured Michael. “I’m going to try, Michael. That’s all I can do. How are you, Angie?”
“Better than yesterday,” she said, managing a smile. And she looked better, with her hair combed and curled, her lips colored a pink that matched her summery dress. She turned to Sergeant Hight. “Dave, Dad said I could talk to Cady. Conan, too.”
Sergeant Hight picked up the interoffice phone. “He told me, Angie. I’ll have Charlie bring him to the interrogation room.”
Lasky listened in silence to this exchange, and now he demanded of Conan, “You’re going to talk to MacGill? I was told nobody could talk to him.”
Before Conan could get a word out, Angie said coolly, “I get to talk to Cady because I’m his wife. And Conan is a private investigator, and Cady’s his client.”
Conan sighed, while Lasky blinked at him, repeated, “Private investigator…” He seemed about to ask a question, but changed his mind and hurriedly made his way out the door.
“Who was that?” Angie asked.
“Byron Lasky, Gould’s literary agent,” Conan replied absently.
“Oh. Yes, Ravin talked about—” She looked at her son. “Come on, Michael, let’s go see Dad.”
Conan said, “If you don’t mind waiting a few minute
s, I’d prefer to talk to Cady first. “
“Why?” she demanded. “You think we’re going to cook up some sort of story between us?” When Conan didn’t respond, her righteous indignation gave way to a sigh of resignation. “Okay. Well, Michael, I guess we’ll just have to wait a little longer to see your dad.”
Conan ignored the accusation in that and walked down the hall to the door of the interrogation room, where Officer Charlie Olin was on guard. Charlie was the oldest member of the Holliday Beach police force, a man known for unwavering devotion to his duty, limited as it was to taking care of the jail’s occupants. He opened the door for Conan, then closed it behind him, and Conan heard the snap of the lock.
Like Alice after swallowing the potion, Cady seemed too big for the small room. He wore the same faded plaid shirt, red suspenders, Levi’s frayed at the hem, and scuffed boots in which he’d made his dramatic appearance at the bookshop Saturday, and now he seemed as faded, frayed, and scuffed as his attire, hair curling black and unruly around his face, blue eyes bloodshot, jaw dark with two days’ growth of beard. He was smiling in hopeful anticipation, but the hope seemed to collapse when he recognized Conan.
“Where’s Angel and Mike?”
Conan went to one of the chairs at the bleak metal table. “They’re outside, Cady. I just need to ask you a few questions first.”
Cady eyed Conan suspiciously and went to the chair on the opposite side of the table, swung his leg over it as if he were mounting a horse, and said, “Herb Latimer told me you’re investigating this thing. “
“Yes. You have a new lawyer, by the way. Marcus Fitch. He’s a friend of mine, and he’s also one of the best criminal lawyers in the state. He’s coming down to talk to you this afternoon.”
Cady seemed confused at that. “How much is this best criminal lawyer going to cost me?”
“I have no idea, Cady, and that’s the least of your problems.” Conan lit a cigarette, taking his time about it before he asked, “How did you find out about Angie and Gould?”
Cady glowered from under his eyebrows. “She told me! Saturday morning. Angel and me, well, we was…having a fight.”
