The Conan Flagg Mysteries: Bundle #3

by M. K. Wren

  At the burst of static and garbled music and voices, Conan leaned close to Will and whispered, “Make sure you’re in my room with your patient before anyone else gets upstairs.”

  Will nodded, but didn’t reply. Mark had found a clear station.

  “…second front should reach the Blue and Wallowa Mountains in Eastern Oregon by midmorning. An additional twelve inches of snow has been reported in the Cascades at Timberline and fourteen inches at Sisters and Mount Bachelor, and all Cascade passes have been closed again. But according to an Oregon Department of Transportation spokesperson, snowplows will be dispatched again this morning, and the passes should be open by ten o’clock. In sports news, Portland Trail Blazers’ coach P. J. Carlesimo said in an interview yesterday that there is no truth to the rumor that the Blazers plan to trade Clyde Drexler—”

  Mark turned off the radio with a short laugh. “Trade Clyde the Glide? That’s nuts.” Then he looked around, apparently realizing that his levity was inappropriate, and said soberly, “Well, it sounds like maybe tomorrow there’s a chance we’ll get out of here.”

  No one seemed to have the energy to show any enthusiasm at that prospect. With resigned sighs, they began moving toward the atrium. Will hurried for the stairs, saying, perhaps too loudly, “I’d better check on my patient.”

  Kim said, “And I’d better check the generator.”

  Lise volunteered to take care of that, and Kim turned to Conan. “I guess you’ll have to sleep in Tuttle—Clemens’s room tonight. I’ll change the bed. Loanh? Do you mind helping me?”

  While the living room emptied, Conan remained on the hearth ledge, with Heather at his feet nervously watching the exodus. In the silence of the cavelike room, he lit a cigarette, closing his eyes as he inhaled, and considered the tangled webs woven in this family. He wondered if it would endure as a family now, with the heart of it destroyed. Perhaps the survivors would drift apart slowly like the remnants of a stellar explosion.

  A few minutes later, he looked up as Lise returned and sat down beside him. “We’ll probably lose our lights in about half an hour,” she said. “I didn’t add any more gas to the generator. The tank is nearly empty, but there’s only a gallon or so left in the last jerrican. If we don’t get rescued tomorrow, the gas might last a couple of hours.”

  Conan frowned. He had hoped the generator would be on-line to provide immediate and ample light when he and Will sprang their trap—if they did. But under the circumstances, they would have to make do with flashlights. He asked, “How’s the wood supply?”

  “Well, we may have to start burning the furniture.” She mustered a smile, but it faded quickly as she asked, “How are you feeling?”

  “I was lucky, Lise. Nothing vital was hit.” And he didn’t want to focus on the constant ache occupying his shoulder, nor on the vaguer discomfort in his feet and hands.

  “Conan, you’re probably wondering why I didn’t tell you about Loanh’s family before.”

  “No. It was something your mother told you in confidence, and you had no reason to think it was connected with the murders.” Then lowering his voice, he added, “I stayed to tell you that Clemens is dead. Will and I are keeping him ‘alive’ in the hope that the killer will try to make sure he’s dead. If so, we’ll be waiting.”

  She sighed wearily. “For God’s sake, be careful, both of you.”

  He rose, took a last puff on his cigarette before he threw it into the dying fire. “A few more hours, Lise. One way or another, it will be over in a few hours.”

  Chapter 26

  The generator ran out of gas, and its constant thrum died at two-thirty A.M., leaving a silence in which the dirgelike chimes of the clock downstairs were audible in Conan’s bedroom despite the closed door. He heard each quarter hour marked, culminating in the tolling of the hours. Three o’clock. Four. And now, five o’clock.

  He sat in the straight chair—Will had invoked his physicianly prerogative to insist that Conan use the chair—which had been placed just outside the bathroom door, facing the bedroom. The bedside table was only a few feet to his left, the interior wall close enough on his right for him to touch it with his elbow. If he stretched his legs, his feet would touch Will, who, armed with a flashlight and Lise’s .38, sat against the wall, where he would be behind the door when it opened, out of sight of whoever entered.

  If the door ever opened.

  And if the killer didn’t opt again for the window.

  Conan sat numbed with cold and immobility in his parka, right sleeve on, left draped over his aching, stiffening shoulder, his right hand in his pocket clasping the bitterly cold grip of the Ruger, his feet turning to painful, icy lumps in his boots. And the conviction had taken firm root in his mind that this ambush was not working.

  Of course, he expected the killer to wait until everyone in the lodge was well asleep. But not this long. It would be dawn soon. He wasn’t sure exactly how soon, and when he thought about it, he realized that at this latitude and this season, dawn wouldn’t come earlier than six-thirty.

  Still, this ambush had been carelessly designed. There hadn’t been time enough to work out the details. Or perhaps he simply hadn’t been thinking clearly.

  When Conan had come upstairs a few minutes after two, Tiff, Mark, Demara, and Loanh had been standing in the doorway of his bedroom like strangers at a car wreck. As Conan approached, Loanh told him the bed in Clemens’s room was made, then hurried to her room and closed the door. Conan went into his room, noting that Will was taking his patient’s blood pressure. A nice touch, Conan thought, that rather surprised him. He went into the bathroom for his shaving kit and another dose of ibuprofen, and when he emerged, Demara had departed, but Mark and Tiff were still watching. Will put the blood-pressure cuff in his medical case and tucked Clemens’s arm under the covers, then frowned toward the door. “What is it, Mark?”

  Mark shrugged uneasily, like a voyeur caught in the act, and Tiff chirped, “Oh, we just wondered, you know, if there was anything we could do, I mean, I thought maybe—”

  “There’s nothing you can do for him,” Will said grimly, glancing at his patient. “Just go to bed, Tiff, and try to get some rest. Mark, you can make sure there’s a fire in Clemens’s room for Conan.”

  “Oh. Well, sure, I can take care of that.” Mark glanced at Tiff, then the two of them disappeared from the doorway in opposite directions.

  Will blew out a sigh and muttered, “I never thought I’d be taking a corpse’s blood pressure.”

  “You were very convincing about it,” Conan said, moving close to him, keeping his voice down to a murmur. “Will, we can’t leave our bait unguarded for a moment. As soon as I get to Clemens’s room, I’ll go through the motions of settling down, then I’ll wait half an hour. If the coast is clear, I’ll come back here. Then you can go to your room—making sure anyone who’s listening hears your door close. No,” he added, “before you go to your room, make a trip down the hall ostensibly to check on me. Talk to yourself a little.”

  Will nodded. “Then I go back to my room and act like I’m going to bed, then after a while sneak in here, right? How’s the shoulder?”

  Conan gave that a brief laugh. “Never better.”

  “Sure. Damn it, you’re the one who should be in this bed.”

  “Not considering what’s occupying it now.” Conan looked down at Clemens’s face in the oblique light of the table lamp. From a distance, he might seem unconscious, but from here, a yard away, there was no mistaking the terrible repose on those slack features.

  Conan reached into his sling and removed the stack of bills. “Here’s something to add to the collection in your case, Will.”

  Will took the money with a sigh, and Conan left him. In the hall he noted that the master bedroom door was closed, as was the door into Tiff and Mark’s room.

  Lines of light glinted under both of them. Loanh’s door was also closed, and as he approached, the light under it went out. Demara’s door was open, casting
a wedge of light into the hall, but when he glanced into the room as he passed, he didn’t see her.

  In the small room at the end of the hall that Sam Clemens had so recently occupied, Mark was leaning over the wood stove. He clanked the stove door shut and straightened, brushing his hands together. “That should last a while, Conan.”

  “Thanks, Mark. The heat feels good.”

  “Yeah. A few days like this makes a person think about moving to Phoenix. You, uh, need any help?”

  “Will said he’d come check on me later. He can get me tucked in.”

  “Right.” Mark seemed relieved that nothing more was expected of him and hurried to the door. But there he paused. “You figure Clemens will live long enough to tell anybody what really happened?”

  Conan said wearily, “I don’t know.”

  Mark nodded, and when he departed, Conan moved around in the bedroom and bath, making the expected sounds, then switched off the ceiling light and crossed to the window. His breath came out in a sigh of relief. Perhaps the National Weather Service had it right this time, and the second front had passed. Clouded moonlight lay soft on the flawless snow, and no fresh snow was falling.

  Finally he went to the bed, turned back the covers, and stretched out to wait, tracking the time by the glowing numbers on his watch. The drone of the generator ceased only minutes after he lay down, and the grandfather clock chimed the half hour.

  He forced himself to wait a full thirty minutes, even though he heard no sounds in the lodge. Then he rose, found the flashlight in the bedside table and left it in the bathroom, switched on so that its beam showed under the closed door. Anyone looking into this room would see the rumpled, empty bed and might assume Conan was in the bathroom.

  Then he felt his way down the dark hall to his bedroom, where Will had the kerosene lamp lit. They communicated sparingly in whispers until Will blew out the light and departed. When he returned, after making his pretenses at checking Conan in Clemens’s room and retiring to his own room, there had been no communication at all. They had maintained perfect silence for over two hours.

  The lodge had been perfectly silent during that frigid span of time, except for the periodic striking of the grandfather clock.

  Conan methodically flexed and relaxed his muscles, from head to toe, even the muscles in his left shoulder, finding a perverse comfort in the brief intensification of the pain that throbbed against his shoulder blade. It meant he was still capable of sensation, and he was beginning to wonder if when the time came to move he would be able to do so.

  On the other hand, he had great faith in adrenaline.

  The fire had burned out, but there was still some light perceptible to his dark-accustomed eyes: snowlight, sifting through the curtains, falling on the lifeless face of the man in the bed.

  The involuntary flexing of his muscles came with a disturbance of the silence. Muffled creakings that might be footfalls on a cold, oak floor; water running. From Demara’s bathroom. He checked his watch: 5:10. The sounds faded and weren’t repeated. He heard a rustling and a sigh near him: Will Stewart, his doughty Watson for this adventure, willing and brave. And patient.

  At 5:21 Conan heard movements and running water again, and, briefly, a murmur of voices, but this time from Tiff and Mark’s room.

  Again, silence closed in. Conan let his thoughts wander, not surprised that they turned so often to home. Beyond this white hole, far to the west on the edge of the sea, stood a house he called his castle, and the venerable and cranky Holliday Beach Book Shop, which he called his albatross and/or raison d’être. He imagined going to the shop in the morning, finding the steadfast Beatrice Dobie at her post behind the cash register. He would say, “Good morning, Miss Dobie.” And she would reply, “Good morning, Mr. Flagg,” then, noting his pillowcase sling, she would ask, “Did you have a nice weekend?”

  Conan shook his head, closing his eyes tightly and opening them wide. Sleepiness was threatening this second vigil as it had the first.

  5:32. He heard a sound he couldn’t identify. A metallic clang. Distant. He couldn’t guess how distant, but he was sure it wasn’t in the lodge. Some phenomenon of thawing ice perhaps? It wasn’t repeated.

  He couldn’t rid himself of the conviction that this cold, wretched vigil was in vain. But then, he reminded himself, clenching his teeth against a wave of shivering, doubt was almost inevitable in a vigil so long and conducted under such miserable circumstances.

  When the clock chimed its twelve-note, three-quarter-hour reminder, Conan leaned forward slightly, his right hand tightening on the gun in his pocket. Under the sonorous ringing, he had heard something in the hall. Footsteps, perhaps. Will heard it, too, although he didn’t move. Conan could feel his tension as if it were an electric aura emanating from him.

  A faint click. The doorknob turning, the latch bolt disengaging.

  Conan pulled the gun soundlessly from his pocket, holding his breath to listen. The door opened by inches to let in a flashlight beam. A shadowy figure followed the flashlight.

  But it was all wrong. Not tall enough, the hair too long.

  Lise.

  She whispered, “Will? Conan?”

  Will was on his feet in one quick movement, pulling her inside the room and closing the door carefully. He murmured urgently, “Douse the light, Lise.”

  She did, and the three of them felt their way into a close huddle. Conan whispered. “Lise, what is it?”

  “Heather woke me up a few minutes ago, growling, and I thought I heard something in the garage. I took her into the kitchen to keep her quiet, then I went to the garage door and listened. Someone’s in there.”

  “Damn it!” Conan didn’t bother to whisper, and the words were startlingly loud and sharp. He thrust the gun into his belt, shrugged off the parka and the sling, and grabbed his flashlight from the bedside table. When he turned it on, the beam caught Lise and Will staring at him in astonishment, but he was already reaching for the doorknob.

  Lise asked, “For God’s sake, what’s wrong?”

  “She outflanked me again. Come on.”

  Will reached out with one big hand and held the door closed. “Wait a minute! She? She who?”

  “Demara,” Conan replied bitterly. “Who else?”

  Lise reacted with a strangled, wordless cry, and Will muttered, “Sure. Who else?” as he flung open the door.

  Chapter 27

  Lise took the lead down the stairs, impatience making her descent recklessly noisy. She was oblivious to Conan’s sotto voce warnings, and he remembered something she had said—when? Yesterday? Time was so distorted in this white hole, he wasn’t sure.

  If you ever find out who murdered my father and brothers, maybe your problem then will be to stop me from killing the killer

  “Lise!” he whispered. “Wait!”

  But she didn’t seem to hear him. At the foot of the stairs, she reached for the knob of the door into the garage, and Conan caught her arm, jerked her around to face him and the glare of his flashlight, and whispered urgently, “Damn it, Lise, just slow down!”

  Nor did she seem to see him, her pale eyes too occupied with rage and grief. Will said softly, “Lise, take it easy, or you’ll get us all killed.”

  That got through to her. At least she nodded, and Conan felt the muscles in her arm relax. But they tensed again at a sound from inside the garage: a metallic clatter.

  Conan pulled the Ruger out of his belt, thumbed off the safety, then glanced at Will, who stood ready with the .38 in one hand, flashlight in the other. Conan murmured to Lise, “Stay behind us.”

  He opened the door.

  A light vanished at that moment: a flashlight switched off. He was assailed by the reek of gasoline fumes as the beams of his flashlight and Will’s sliced into the cavernous dark, glinting on the rank of cars, on the generator centered on the right-hand wall. The shine on its metallic surfaces was too bright. It had been doused with liquid, and the wall behind it was soaked with wet splashes.
On the concrete floor, a spattered trail stopped a few feet short of the woodshed door on the far wall. There an olive-drab jerrican lay on its side, apparently empty.

  The woodshed door was open, and their flashlights almost in unison fixed on that rectangular space, on Demara Wilder, who stood framed within it, wearing her parka, ski pants, suede boots, and a red knit cap, with a bulky duffel bag slung over one shoulder.

  She had an unlit cigarette in one hand, a lighter in the other.

  Will lowered his gun, recognizing, no doubt, as Conan did, that although either of them might disable or even kill her with a shot at this distance—no more than twenty-five yards—the shot would ignite the spilled gasoline and the fumes that filled the garage.

  Yet clearly ignition was her intention, and Conan knew there was no way to stop her. Her means of escape was the outside door at the north end of the woodshed. Demara stood squinting into their lights and shouted, “Back off, Conan! You’re too late!”

  At the sound of Demara’s voice, Lise lunged between Conan and Will with an anguished cry: “Why? Damn you, why!”

  Will caught Lise, dropping his flashlight in the process, before she could rush into the garage. He locked her in a bear hug, containing her furious struggles stoically. Demara shouted, “Why what?”

  Lise’s struggles ceased abruptly. Her voice breaking with rancor, she yelled, “You bitch, you murdered them, all of them! You murdered Lucas, and he loved you!”

  Demara casually shifted the duffel bag on her shoulder. “The murders were his idea, Lise. Well—except for one. His.”

  And with that, she turned and vanished into the woodshed.

  Conan shouted a warning. Will lurched backward with Lise still enfolded in his arms, and Conan slammed the door. Within seconds—as long, he knew, as it took for Demara to open the outside door of the woodshed, light a cigarette, then toss it into the garage—he felt a thudding explosion, and the floor shook, panes crackled in the windows flanking the front door.

  For a moment, he couldn’t breathe against a paralyzing terror. Yet at the same time, he was surprised that the explosion was so brief, even surprised that the house hadn’t come down around them. But then Lise had said there was only a gallon or so of gasoline left.