by M. K. Wren
“I know Tuttle didn’t have this neat little bundle when he arrived. I suppose this is the final installment on his fee. For services rendered.”
“Why would anybody plan on sending twenty-thousand dollars—in cash—through the mail? Sounds a little risky to me.”
“Not necessarily. Actually, for all the horror stories you hear, the USPS loses very few pieces of mail. The odds are high that any particular piece will get through, and the mail has one advantage: It doesn’t leave a paper trail like the private delivery services do. But why wasn’t this envelope mailed? It was probably supposed to be waiting for Tuttle in Portland when he finished his job here.”
“Sounds like somebody meant to double-cross him:”
“Yes, it does.” Conan slipped the bills into his pillowcase sling between his arm and the cloth and handed the envelope to Will. “You’d better put this in your case along with—”
But before Will could take the envelope, Conan’s fingers tightened on it, and he stared at the block-lettered message with a tingling sensation at the back of his neck.
“Conan? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Only that a lightbulb just went on.”
“What kind of lightbulb?”
“He’s dead.”
“Tuttle? Yes, I know, Conan, but—”
“Not Tuttle. The message, Will.”
“Oh. Maybe it was to tell him his mission was accomplished.”
Conan read the message again, eyes down to obsidian slits, and shook his head. “Why would the lodge accomplice have to tell Tuttle he had accomplished his mission? The money itself would tell him that.”
“Right. Besides, Tiff blabbed it when she told him why everybody was acting like they were at a funeral. So what about this lightbulb?”
“Tuttle didn’t need to be told that his intended target was dead, but he did need to be told that the mastermind was dead, so he’d know he had to deal in future with the lodge accomplice.”
“The mastermind?” Will leaned back, folding his arms. “You mean Al or Lucas. You still think—”
“I know Tuttle was waiting for someone at the bridge—someone who never arrived—and it couldn’t be anyone here in the lodge.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t shed any light on your lightbulb.”
“How did the accomplice know the mastermind was dead?” When Will only shrugged at that rhetorical question, Conan added, “Because the accomplice killed the mastermind.”
“What?”
Conan turned to the fire, watching the flowing patterns of flames. “Neither Al nor Lucas would risk taking the detonator on a camping trip. It could be too easily discovered in such intimate surroundings. So he had to trust someone else to trigger the explosion. Tuttle? I doubt it. He wasn’t a man to inspire trust, and probably the only reason he waited at the bridge so patiently was that he wouldn’t get his final installment until he drove his employer to safety. Only then would the mastermind tell him where to pick up his money in Portland.”
“But that envelope never reached Portland.”
“No, and I doubt it was the mastermind who planned to bilk Tuttle out of his final installment. Tuttle wouldn’t let him live to start a new life in that case. But the question that has haunted me since Tuttle’s arrival is why he waited so long at the bridge that he got trapped by the blizzard. The explosion occurred at eight o’clock. Lucas or Al could’ve left the camp at, say, seven-thirty. We’d all retired to our tents by seven, and I know at least two of us were asleep at seven-thirty. If he could average twelve minutes per mile—and that isn’t asking too much of a man in good physical condition, which both Al and Lucas were—he could’ve reached the bridge by eight-thirty. It didn’t start snowing until eight, and even if the blizzard was well under way by eight-thirty, he and Tuttle could’ve driven out then with four-wheel drive. Why did Tuttle wait at least an hour longer?”
Will stared at Conan. “You think…what? That Tuttle wasn’t expecting Al or Lucas to show up till an hour later?”
“I have no way of knowing what the original schedule was—and obviously it didn’t include the blizzard—but I think whoever was entrusted with the detonator changed that schedule.”
“And set off the explosion early.”
“Yes.”
“Damn.”
Conan nodded. “Dishonor among thieves—an extraordinarily ruthless and coldblooded dishonor.”
Will looked intently at Conan. “Do you know who it is—this accomplice?”
“No. All I’ve seen is the tracks of the beast, and they’re deep and bloody.” He heard the distant tolling of the grandfather clock and looked at his watch. One o’clock. “We’ve kept those people waiting downstairs long enough.” He rose, finding it necessary to pause a few seconds until the dizziness passed, then crossed to the door, looking back at Tuttle. “Will, maybe we need a little less light on the subject.”
Will nodded and went to the bedside table to turn on the small lamp there, then on his way out into the hall flipped off the ceiling light.
“You want the door left open?”
“Yes, Will. I want everyone who comes up the stairs to have a clear view of your patient.”
Chapter 25
Heather watched Conan and Will approach with the same intent gaze as did the human occupants of the room, a combination of fear and doubt and profound bafflement. Lise was again sitting on the floor by Heather’s bed, and Will took a stand on her right with his back to the fire, hands in his pockets, while Conan sat down on the hearth ledge on her left. He looked around at the rapt faces, and he didn’t doubt that when these people first gathered here, there had been a great deal of speculation and argument, but now a silence had fallen, webbed in the white noise of the generator’s hum.
Even Tiff was silent, sitting in her usual chair, her shaking hands engaged with her crochet needle, but Conan doubted that the last rows of this creation would hold together. Her staring eyes seemed blanched. She wasn’t wearing her bright green contact lenses. A glass of Scotch stood ready on the end table. Mark slumped on the right arm of her chair, clutching a glass whose contents were no doubt similar, although there was so little left, Conan couldn’t be sure.
Kim occupied the other armchair, wearing a wool plaid robe that had probably been A. C.’s. She sat with her legs crossed, apparently at ease, but she was smoking with quick, impatient puffs that betrayed her anxiety. Near her, Demara lounged with one arm along the back of the couch, her long legs stretched out before her, ankles crossed. Her maroon suede boots made an incongruous combination with the black satin robe, yet she made it seem oddly glamorous. Her hooded eyes moved languidly from Conan to Will.
At the other end of the couch, Loanh huddled in a nearly fetal position, wrapped in the bright afghan, her dark hair shadowing her face. She regarded Conan with spent resignation, as if she had remembered, finally, how to deal with daily terror.
It was Lise who asked, “Conan, what happened to your arm?”
“I was hit by one of the bullets flying around my room when Tuttle came in via the window. Apparently he didn’t know I had a gun. He was hit, too.”
Like a bottle uncorked, Tiff came to frothing life. “I was right! Oh, I knew it, I knew we should never have let that man into this house. I knew what he was. I mean, you could see it in his eyes, a drug-crazed madman come to kill us all, one by one, but thank God, he started with the one person here who just happened to have a gun! And I’m glad you killed him, Conan. I’m glad!”
Mark put his arm around her shoulders. “Oh, Tiff, you don’t really mean that.”
“Yes, I do mean it! I’m glad because he deserved to die!”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Conan said, “but I didn’t kill him.”
Kim demanded, “Then he’s still alive?” Her cigarette was trembling between her fingers, and as Conan replied she hurriedly stubbed it out in the ashtray on the table beside her.
“Yes, he’s still alive,” Conan said. �
�Barely. Will can tell you more about that.”
Will sat down on the hearth ledge, running a hand through his hair, and Conan held his breath, wondering if this honest physician could carry off his role.
“Like Conan said, he’s just barely alive,” Will began, then went on with more confidence, “He took a bullet in the lung. What he needs is a fully-equipped ICU. There’s not much I can do for him.”
Conan allowed himself a sigh of relief before Demara leaned forward to ask, “Did he say anything?”
And Mark added, “He must’ve had some reason to want to kill Conan.”
“He’s crazy!” Tiff insisted. “That’s his only reason.”
Will shook his head. “No, he didn’t say anything. He never regained consciousness.”
Loanh asked in little more than a whisper, “Will he live?”
“Like I said, he should be in an ICU.” Will glanced fleetingly at Conan, then added, “He’s young, of course, and in good physical condition, but unless we can get him to a hospital soon…well, I just don’t know. I really don’t expect him to last the night.”
Tiff reached for her glass and muttered, “I still say he was trying to kill all of us, and I always had, you know, a sort of sixth sense. I mean, a way of seeing into people.”
“Yes, you did seem to see something in him,” Conan said casually, then changed tack. “There’s certainly an aura of mystery about Tuttle. He came here without a shred of identification, and we have nothing but his word for it that his name really is Jerry Tuttle.”
Tiff thrust her empty glass at Mark. “Sweetie, I need a refresher.” He took her glass and limped over to the bar with his own glass, while she went on, “What difference does it make what his name is, I mean, a name doesn’t mean anything, you know, and I saw through him—”
“It’s not his name per se that concerns me,” Conan cut in. “I think he knew at least one of you, and you knew him.”
The sound of Scotch gurgling into glasses was audible in the ensuing silence, and Mark asked, “Anybody else want something?”
Demara turned her eyes upward and muttered, “Jee-sus!” but no one else responded to Mark’s question. Conan waited until Mark made his way back to his perch on the arm of his wife’s chair, then he said, “Lise, may I have that drawing?”
Lise crossed to the card table, took a sheet from the bottom of the pile, and when she returned handed it to Conan. He studied it, feeling a chill dizziness when he realized that since he had last seen this portrait, he had killed its subject. Then he rose and offered it to Tiff.
Her breath came out in a grunt of shock. “Oh, this is awful, I mean, it’s like…like, you know, a death mask!”
“Where’s his beard?” Mark asked, leaning over her shoulder.
Conan ignored that. “Do either of you recognize him?”
Tiff denied it vehemently and verbosely, and Conan took the drawing, passed it to Loanh, who at first seemed loathe to touch it. Finally she took it by one corner and examined it perfunctorily. “No, I do not know who he is—with or without a beard.”
Next Conan offered the drawing to Demara, who barely glanced at it before waving him away. “How the hell should I know who he is?”
Kim irritably took the drawing and seemed ready to dismiss it, then she rested it on her knee and picked up her pack of Marlboros, shook one out and lit it, all the while studying the drawing. Conan waited, watching her perplexed frown give way to surprise.
She said, “Sam Clemens.”
Will made an odd coughing sound, and Conan was hard put to keep a straight face. Apparently the name on the manila envelope hadn’t been an alias and certainly had no literary overtones.
Mark surged to his feet and stood with his soft hands in fists, but Conan was too focused on Kim to more than glance at him.
“Kim, you knew Tuttle as Sam Clemens?”
“I didn’t exactly know him. Not well enough to recognize him with all the fuzz on his face. And he didn’t have long hair back then.”
“Back when?”
“Back when I was working for King and Ryder. So was Clemens. He was another one of Jerry Ryder’s orphans. A high-school dropout, a foul-mouthed, tough kid off the streets who thought he wanted to be a boxer, but found out he didn’t have what it takes. Jerry was such a sucker for a hard-luck story. I don’t know what Clemens’s story was, but Jerry took him under his wing, just like he did…” She concentrated on her cigarette, leaving the sentence unfinished.
“Ryder hired him for construction work?” Conan asked.
“Of course.”
“In what capacity?”
Kim’s mouth twitched into an ironic smile, and she looked directly at Conan as she replied, “He blew things up.”
Tiff loosed a squeal, but Mark said flatly, “Just shut up, Tiff.” She seemed so shocked at that peremptory order coming from him, that she did. He turned away from her, leaning against the mantel, and said huskily, “For God’s sake, Tiff, you should’ve recognized him.”
Uncharacteristically, she had no reply, only sinking deeper into her chair, eyes closed as if she were trying to make herself invisible, while the others looked on with the uncomfortable shock of people witnessing a private disagreement made embarrassingly public.
It was Will who asked, “Mark, what do you mean? Why should Tiff recognize him?”
“Never mind, Will. It doesn’t matter.”
Conan said irritably, “Like hell it doesn’t!”
“Well, I mean…” He looked at his wife, who still seemed to be hoping for invisibility. “Tiff, Chuck Hughes at the club told me about it. Only the name, of course. He thought I should know. I didn’t care, really, because I understood, and…well, I knew it wouldn’t last.”
Lise came to her feet, staring at her brother. “Mark, what are you talking about?”
“Oh, Lise, I know I’m no Robert Redford. I never expected to be able to keep a woman like Tiff tied to me. I was just happy she wanted to be my wife and the mother of my children. If she needed, well, a little fling now and then, I could live with that.” Tiff buried her face in her crocheting with muffled cries that sounded like a kitten mewing.
“You people need a reality check here!” Demara snapped as she rose and stalked to the bar to pour a snifter of brandy. She remained there, watching contemptuously, while Mark leaned over Tiff, gently patting her shoulder, and Tiff’s mewing hit a high note. Will shook his head, and Lise, apparently torn between laughter and tears, sat down again.
Conan sank down on the hearth. His knees had an inconvenient tendency to turn to jelly when he remained standing too long. He asked, “Mark, when did this…little fling take place?”
Mark glared at him. “About four years ago.”
Tiff straightened, putting on an air of beset dignity. “It was after Al fired Sam, and he got a job in the fitness program at our club. I mean, he was really just, well, a maintenance man, you know, for the exercise equipment, oh, Mark, I didn’t want you ever to have to know.”
“Or anyone else, obviously,” Conan said acerbically. “Kim, can you tell me more about Clemens’s proclivity for blowing things up?”
She gave that a curt laugh as she laid the drawing on the end table. “A lot of building sites required some use of explosives, and Jerry Ryder was an expert. He took Clemens on as a sort of apprentice and taught him everything he knew. He told me he thought it was a safe outlet for Clemens’s violent tendencies.”
Conan nodded, thinking that at least one of his theories had been verified: Sam Clemens was the expert accomplice who designed the explosion that triggered the rock slide. The idealistic Jerry Ryder had been in error. He had simply given Sam Clemens a more deadly means to express his violent tendencies. Jerry. Had Clemens chosen the first name of his alias as a backward homage to his mentor?
“Kim, how long did Clemens work for King and Ryder?”
“I don’t really remember. Two or three years, probably. He was still working there when Jerry had t
o retire and Al took over the partnership. That’s when I left K and R. I heard it wasn’t long afterward that Al fired Clemens.”
“Did you hear anything to explain why Al fired him?”
“No, but I can guess. Al never liked Clemens, and he had no sympathy for Jerry’s orphans.”
“You were head of the accounting department at King and Ryder?”
“Yes.”
“Did you handle the payrolls?”
“Of course I did.”
“Then you had access to addresses and Social Security numbers for all employees.”
“So what?” she demanded sharply as she crushed out her half-smoked cigarette.
Conan ignored that and turned to Loanh, who seemed to curl tighter into her fetal position. “Loanh, what did Al say about Clemens? The name is familiar to you, isn’t it?”
“The name, yes, but I never met him. Al talked about him. He called him a troublemaker.”
When she didn’t seem inclined to volunteer more, Conan prompted her with: “Was there any connection between Clemens’s firing and the explosion at the Greenwood Mall?”
“Al always said so. It happened only a week or so after he fired Clemens, and Al was sure Clemens did it in revenge for the firing.”
“But the police didn’t agree?”
“They said they found no evidence of sabotage.”
Kim put in with studied indifference, “Greenwood Mall. Wasn’t Lucas the architect on that project?”
“Yes,” Loanh replied. “That was LJK Design’s first big project.”
Conan waited to see if Kim had more to say on that subject, but she didn’t. He asked Loanh, “Are you sure you never met Clemens? Maybe when you were visiting Al at the office or at a construction site?”
“No!” She sat up on the edge of the couch, the fear in her dark eyes overlain with the bravado of the survivor. “If I did, I cannot remember. And what difference is it whether I knew him or not, whether any of us knew him? You said the rock slide at the camping place was caused by an explosion, so there is your answer. Clemens came here to kill Al. He hated Al enough to destroy all his work at the Greenwood Mall with an explosion, so is it not reasonable that he hated him enough to want to…kill him?” With the last words she seemed to lose her emotional charge, and she curled against the back of the couch again, pulling the afghan around her.
