by M. K. Wren
That unleashed a barrage of bitter charges and counter charges between Nina, France, and Moses, with the others joining in the shouting match until Conan took out his gun and fired a shot into the ceiling. France screamed as she ducked into the dubious protection of Moses’ embrace, then quiet was restored, and the banging of the unmoored gutter could be heard providing an arrhythmic percussion for the broad chords of wind and sea.
Conan put the gun back in his pocket and continued, “The question at this point is, who mixed Corey’s last drink? France, you told me you began mixing it. Is that true?”
“Yes, but I didn’t—”
“Moses, did you see France begin mixing a black russian?”
Moses glanced warily at Lyn; the rifle was lowered, but Moses didn’t seem inclined to test Lyn’s reflexes. “I…yes, she started it, but she didn’t finish—”
“Did she go into the utility room?”
“No!”
“Nina? You were in the kitchen at that point. Did you see either France or Moses go into the utility room?”
Nina replied acidly, “Yes! I saw her go into—”
That threatened a new onslaught of argument, but Conan managed to quell it with another question. “Nina, when France went into the utility room, did she have the glass with her?”
“I don’t…no.”
“She brought the Black Leaf Forty bottle out to the counter?” Now Nina turned cautious. “I don’t know. I left the kitchen then.”
France lunged at her, long nails reaching for her face, shrilling, “You bitch! You didn’t leave—we left then!”
Moses restrained her in an unaffectionate bear hug. “That’s the truth!” he shouted, then, “France, damn it, be still!”
When she subsided, Nina was prepared to launch a verbal counterattack, but Conan cut in, “It’s quite possible that any one of you three—or all of you in conspiracy—might have put the Black Leaf Forty in Corey’s drink, but first I want to clear up another matter. I’m afraid, Nina, that of the four versions of the events of Friday night I heard, three of them agreed that you left the kitchen last. Since one of those versions was France’s, I’ll discount it. That still leaves two to one. Leo? I didn’t hear from you.”
Moskin was staring at Nina; he didn’t seem to realize he was being addressed at first. “What?”
“Which of the three left the kitchen last?”
“Nina.” He said it with no hint of emotion.
“Was she carrying anything?”
France put in, “Yes, she was—”
“Be quiet,” Conan snapped. “Leo?”
He pulled in a deep breath, his gaze still fixed on Nina. “She was carrying two glasses. Two black russians. She put one on the table in front of where Corey had been sitting, then she handed the other glass to France. Said something like, ‘Have another drink—not that you need it.’”
Nina could restrain herself no longer. “All right! Maybe I did bring the drinks in, but France mixed them—”
“No, I didn’t!” France insisted. “I only started to mix one—”
“So what? If you put poison in one of them, I didn’t know it!”
Conan gave that a curt laugh. “Good point, Nina. I understand that when Corey returned from the bathroom, you all had a friendly discussion about possible compromises and that sort of thing. Does anyone take exception to that?” Six heads moved back and forth almost in unison. “And I understand that during that discussion you all drank from your respective glasses; you even had a toast to your agreement. Jonas, during this peaceful interlude, did France consume any of her cocktail?”
Jonas looked up, uncomfortable at suddenly becoming the center of attention. “Sure she did. I remember thinking—sorry, France—that she should’ve stopped a couple of drinks back.”
Conan turned to Moskin. “Leo, do you agree? I mean, that France consumed part of her drink. I’m not interested in her state of sobriety.”
“Yes, she consumed it, all right.”
“Gabe?”
Sitting his chair like an elderly Solomon, Gabe pronounced, “‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’ Yes, she drank it. Spirits are the very blood of Satan, but she was never one to turn her lips aside.”
France retorted, “Gabe, I don’t need a sermon on the evils of—”
“None of us do,” Conan interposed, “but in this case, France, be grateful for your predilection for the ‘wine that maketh glad the heart of man.’ Or woman. Nina insists it was you who laced Corey’s drink with nicotine sulphate, and that she was not aware of it. That’s possible except for one thing: Nina mixed another drink for you. Why? Well, it wasn’t out of the goodness of your heart, was it, Nina?” He didn’t expect, nor did he get an answer to that. “Perhaps you enjoyed playing to France’s weakness. At any rate, you came back from the kitchen with two drinks. How was France to know which was the poisoned drink? Jonas, was there any difference in the glasses?”
“No, they’re all part of the same set. Just like…like that one on the tray.”
“Yet France accepted one of those two cocktails and blithely drank it, knowing she had a fifty-fifty chance of dying as a result? I find that hard to believe. Nina, you were the only one who knew which of the glasses to put at Corey’s place. You were the only one who knew that one of the drinks was poisoned.”
Nina pressed back into the cushions, eyes shifting warily from one conspirator to another, but she had no time for a rebuttal. Gabe, his face nearly purple, surged out of his chair. “You goddamned, stupid fool! We could’ve worked out of this somehow! Now look what you’ve done! You messed up the whole damn—”
“You bastard!”
“Lyn!” Conan shouted the name, because Lyn again had the rifle raised, but not to fire—rather to crack Gabe’s skull with the stock. Gabe cowered, hands coming up to protect his head, and Lyn, face wrenched with grief-fed rage, seemed to teeter like a boulder on the edge of a cliff.
Then he took a step backward, all expression leaving his face as he lowered the rifle. He said curtly, “Sit down, Gabe, and shut up.” And Gabe did, staring resentfully up at him.
Conan read the silent apology in Lyn’s eyes and nodded, then reached down for the Black Leaf 40 bottle.
“I find it difficult to believe that none of you recognized the truth earlier; recognized the killer among you. But none of you really cared, did you? You saw no evil, heard no evil, and certainly spoke no evil—not to any representative of the law. You’re all guilty. Even in the eyes of the law, an accessory is as guilty as the actual killer. As for the eyes of God—well, perhaps you should ask your resident expert in godliness about that. Neither Lyn nor I care how you work that out in your own minds. As I said, we’re here for one reason: we want justice.” He opened the bottle and poured the inch of dark liquid remaining in it into the glass on the tray. He heard a gasp from several members of the party, but nothing more.
Conan picked up the glass, speaking quietly so that they had to strain to hear him against the incessant roar of the storm. “Corey Benbow was a vital, loving human being. She left behind an orphaned child who must learn grief before he’s old enough to comprehend it. She left behind friends and people who loved her; people who can never fill the vacuum her death created in their lives. Corey was thirty-two years old. She was robbed of all the years that should have been left to her to live and love and dream. Why?” He looked around at the faces caught in the candlelight, finding fear more evident in them than regret. Except Lyn. He stood slumped under the weight of his grief, eyes closed.
Conan continued, “Corey Benbow died for greed. Nothing more. Her only crime was her concern for the world in which her son must grow up. Her only failing was naïvete. It didn’t occur to her when she came here alone with the diary that anyone would be willing to sacrifice a human life—her life—for greed. All of you are accessories to her murder, but only one of you poured the poison into her drink. So, consider again the metaphor of the scales. On one side, the diar
y. I will give it up willingly for justice.” He picked up the diary and held it in his left hand, balancing the glass in his right hand. “On the other side of the scales is a murderer.”
He turned then and thrust the glass toward Nina.
“Your cocktail, Nina—for justice.”
She jerked back, trembling, staring at the glass. “You—you’re out of your mind! I’m not going to drink that—for God’s sake, did you think I would?”
Conan didn’t answer, and no one else so much as moved; they waited in frozen silence, and when Nina managed a harsh, uncertain laugh, no one seemed to recognize any humor in the situation.
“What is this? Some sort of weird joke? You—none of you expect me to drink that! You lousy bastards! You’re crazy—all of you! You’re sick!”
Still, none of them moved; they only stared at her, and perhaps she realized then that not one of them would try to stop her if she did choose to drink the contents of the glass.
“Oh, my God…” The words ended with a muffled moan as Nina pressed a hand to her mouth.
Conan waited a few seconds more, then he said bitterly, “So much for justice,” and put the glass down on the tray. He slipped the diary into his breast pocket as he started for the door. “Come on, Lyn.”
It was Moskin who lurched to his feet and cried, “Wait! The diary!”
Conan turned and demanded, “Why should I give it to you now? It’s too late, Leo.” He picked up his parka and put it on, while Lyn backed toward the door, the rifle at ready.
That might have been the end of it, if Nina had remained motionless and silent. The emotional charge would have spent itself in a few more seconds.
She moved with no apparent conscious thought, acting under the spur of fear. She tried to kick the glass off the table, but her heel caught on the edge, and she only succeeded in jarring the glass.
That abortive movement was a catalyst.
France shrieked, straining forward to catch the glass, barely getting her feet under her when the couch toppled, unbalanced by Nina’s attempt to escape over the back. Moses and Moskin lunged for her, all three tumbling to the floor, her screams stifled by the weight of their bodies. The coffee table crashed onto its side, candles flying in a shower of flame and wax, and Gabe plunged into the fray with bellowed orders. “Hold on to her! Grab her legs!”
France clambered over the fallen couch, the glass held high, shrilling, “Her nose! Hold her nose so she can’t breathe!”
Nina kicked and scratched and bit in a thrashing frenzy, the gas flames and the lamps on the mantel providing a wan, equivocal light for the heaving struggle. Gabe bawled, “Give me that glass!”
A yelp of pain from Moskin, then, “Drink it, you rotten bitch!”
The roiling bodies thudded against the wall, grunts and cries of pain counterpointed by muffled expletives. Nina’s legs were pinioned under Moskin’s sprawled mass, and Moses clung to her like an ungainly beast of prey, while he twisted her arms behind her back. France held her head with a clawlike hand in her hair, the other hand clamped over her nose, and Gabe was on his knees with the glass, prying at Nina’s clenched teeth with bloody fingers.
“Stop it! For God’s sake—stop it!”
That voice crying in this dark wilderness was Jonas’s. He held on to the back of his father’s chair, again and again repeating his plea, but it went unheard and unheeded.
A raucous chorus of triumphant shouts. Nina, on the edge of unconsciousness, swallowed and coughed; dark liquid ran out of her mouth. The sound of her surrender was a whimpering sob.
That sound seemed to send out pulses of silence. The wind beat at the house, the sea throbbed unremittingly at the nether limits of human hearing, yet for a span of time, silence held all motion in abeyance in this room.
Conan took one of the lamps from the mantel and carried its circle of yellow light with him as he approached the erstwhile battleground. When the light struck them, the panting combatants drew away from Nina. Moskin had to use the wall to help him to his feet; his hand left red prints.
France huddled against the fallen couch, black hair a Medusa tangle, face streaked with mascara and blood from her slashed cheek. And tears. Moses, on his hands and knees, searched for his glasses, found them finally, and tried to fit the bent frames over his ears with shaking hands. One sleeve of his sweater was torn and sagging down his arm; his mouth was smeared with red.
Gabe might have had to literally crawl away, if Jonas hadn’t helped him to his feet and into his chair. His head sagged with every labored breath, as if his neck muscles were too weak to hold it erect.
Conan glanced behind him and saw that Lyn was only a pace away, dark eyes haunted as he surveyed the combatants. Conan handed him the lamp, then knelt beside Nina.
She seemed small and fragile, like a bird that had been flung roughly to the ground. Her breath came hard, each inhalation accompanied by a soft moan; her perfect face was bruised and cut, her golden hair sticky with blood. She stared up at him, one eye nearly swollen shut, her mouth working aimlessly.
He said, “There must have been a moment when Corey realized she’d been poisoned, even though she wasn’t expecting it. One terrible moment when she knew she was dying. You feel it now, don’t you, Nina? Your mouth is numb, you can’t breathe, and you’re waiting for the convulsions to begin.”
Nina cried out, an inarticulate sound so full of terror, Conan felt the hackles rising at the back of his neck, and the beating undercurrent of the storm seemed a projection of her fear.
Conan took a deep breath. “Nina, do you really think I’d let you die as a memorial to one of the gentlest people I’ve ever known? No. I only wanted you to understand—to feel—the enormity of your crime. All I put in that drink was food coloring and oil of cloves. That accounts for the odd taste and the sensation of numbness. You’re going to live, Nina. I don’t know what you’ll do, or where you’ll hide—Isaac Wines is not tolerant of failure, and the case on Randy Coburn’s murder is still open—but you’ll live.”
At first, she only stared at him, then her swollen features contorted with rage, and she spat out, “You son of a bitch!”
Conan smiled coldly, then rose and looked around at the incredulous conspirators. “I’ll leave vengeance to the Lord now. I can ask no more in the way of justice. Nina will live, and you have not collectively committed murder. But no one can say you didn’t try. Except for Jonas—the prodigal son you so despised—you have all looked upon this woman to lust after her death, and you have committed murder in your hearts. Gabe, think about that next Sunday as you sit in your accustomed pew at church—and every Sunday afterward.”
Lyn said irreverently, “Amen.” Then he put the lamp on the mantel, haggard features bronzed in its light. “Conan, let’s get out of here.”
Conan nodded and followed Lyn to the door, and it was only then that Gabe, rising shakily, found somewhere within him the audacity to demand, “The diary—you said you’d give it back!”
“I don’t believe it,” Lyn said dully.
Conan laughed. “Gabe, I’m grateful for that. It gives me an opportunity to remind you of something you said to Corey on Thanksgiving Day. Remember? Promises are cheap.”
Gabe strode angrily toward Conan, but Jonas restrained him. “Let it alone, Pa—please.”
Gabe’s forward motion stopped, but his anger didn’t abate. “What’re you going to do with the goddamned thing?”
Conan replied, “Take it to court, Gabe!”
Nina began sobbing. “Why didn’t you just kill me? Why didn’t you…why…why…”
Lyn opened the door, and the rush of wind drowned out her voice. The door jerked out of his hand and crashed against the wall, and the roar of the surf was a primordial sound evincing power of such proportions that the only possible human response to it was heart-pounding fear.
Lyn pushed against the wind onto the deck, parka flapping around him, then shouted, “Conan! Oh, sweet Jesus, look! Just look at it!”
Conan laughed aloud, throwing his head back to the rain, while a new wave front massed for another assault. He turned to call for Gabe, but Gabe was already standing beside him, grimacing into the deluge, sparse hair plastered back, his clothing rippling in the wind.
“Oh, Lord…stop! Stop!”
Jonas came to the door just as Gabe bolted toward the spit, waving his hands frantically, shouting, “Stop! Stop!”
“Pa! What are you…” Jonas fell silent, staring at the spit as another wave rolled over it. He spluttered, “The spit! It—it’s gone!”
Conan shook his head. “It’s still there. This isn’t the first time it’s been flooded. But it’ll be a long time before anyone’s foolish enough to build a house on it. Maybe I won’t have to go to court after all. Jonas, you better go get King Canute before he drowns himself.”
“Oh, damn. Pa!” Jonas leapt off the deck and ran after his father, who was slogging down the sandy slope toward the spit, still railing at the sea.
Conan started for the car. “Come on, Lyn. Let’s go.” But he paused for one last look at the spit as it emerged from the latest onslaught. He smiled and said, “‘The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’”
King of the Mountain
In gratitude to Connie and Clarence, who have graced our lives with courtly solicitude, generous friendship, and laughter.
Chapter 1
Conan Flagg first saw Mount Hood, like an odd cloud on the eastern horizon, when he was halfway between the Pacific coast and Portland. By the time he reached Oregon’s largest city, fifty miles later, the mountain had doubled in size, its serene silhouette visible from any high point in the city.
