Nothing's Certain but Death

by M. K. Wren

  Brian stared in bewilderment at Conan, the table, then at Steve, who leaned down to examine the corner from a distance of six inches.

  “Well, it’s possible. Maybe the lab can pick up a blood stain; a human blood stain.” He straightened, eyes set in a tight squint. “Mr. Tally, how often is this table cleaned?”

  “Every night.”

  “I suppose Hancock does that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know when? I mean, does he have a routine? Would this come before or after mopping the floor, say?”

  “If he sticks to the routine I laid out for him, it comes sort of in between. The table is soaked with chlorine bleach for at least an hour, then scrubbed with a brush, so he starts the soaking early while he takes care of the garbage and the floor, then he goes back for the scrubbing.”

  Steve winced. “Chlorine bleach?”

  “Well, it’s about the best disinfectant there is.”

  “I wonder what it’ll do for chemical analysis. Well, we can try it.” He delved into various pockets until he came up with a jackknife and an evidence bag. “Mind if I carve out a piece?”

  Brian’s jaw dropped. “Carve out—do you know what a table like this costs?” Then he seemed to hear himself and found it bitterly amusing. “Well, it doesn’t look like replacing it will be my problem, so carve away.”

  “I only need a few shavings; I don’t think you’ll have to replace it.” He leaned down to procure his shavings. “You know, Conan, if you’re right about this—”

  “It means Nye never left this building Monday night.”

  Brian shook his head as if to clear it.

  “It means what?”

  “We know when the scuff marks were made,” Conan explained. “Jastrow discovered them at about twelve-fifteen, and Hancock insisted they weren’t there when he mopped, which was only a short time before. If Nye made them while slipping on the wet floor and colliding with this corner, then it had to be before Jastrow found them, and after Nye was last seen alive, which was about five minutes after twelve. And he must have been put in the freezer immediately after he knocked himself unconscious, or Jastrow would’ve found him with the scuff marks. He didn’t get up and walk out on his own after taking a blow like that—nor clean up his own blood.”

  Steve sealed and marked the bag. “So, Lorna and Luke were telling the truth. Nye wasn’t at home when they knocked. Damn; makes you wonder. I’d have sworn they were lying through their teeth. But don’t pin too much hope on the lab turning up traces of human blood on this, Conan; not when it’s been soaked with bleach.” While he looked for a pocket for the bag, he asked Brian, “Is Mrs. Randall around today?”

  “She’s down in her office. Why?”

  “She was the one who said Nye left the restaurant at five after twelve.”

  “No,” Conan demurred, “she said she saw him walk to the door while she was on her way to the ladies’ room. Once in there she wouldn’t see him if he came back in. Or he might have gone out and entered the kitchen through the back door.”

  “Hancock.” Steve’s mouth pulled tight. “Well, I hope we pick him up before he gets out of the country. I have a few questions to ask him.” Then he turned, frowning into the pantry. In the confusion of noise, Tilda’s voice was almost lost, but it was Steve’s name she was calling.

  “Mr. Travers, there is…someone out here to see you.”

  Her face was pale and tautly expressionless, and Conan could all but read the name of that “someone.” Earl Kleber.

  Steve hunched his shoulders and pushed his way through the pantry, while Brian took up the knife and began hacking at the meat. There was no finesse in it now, and Conan was on the verge of stopping him before a finger fell under that scimitar blade.

  But within a minute, Steve reappeared, his face as eloquently expressionless as Tilda’s had been; Earl Kleber was only a pace behind him. A busboy pirouetted to keep his laden tray balanced while avoiding a collision, but neither of them seemed to notice him. Brian stared at the folded document in Steve’s hand, then looked up past him to Kleber, and the meeting of their eyes was a silent explosion.

  Steve stopped a pace from the table and said in level, clipped tones, “Brian Tally, I have a warrant for your arrest on the charge of murder in the first degree. You have the right to remain silent, the right to…”

  Conan didn’t hear the rest of the litany; he was watching Brian, reading in the deathly stillness of his face a man on the fine edge, every muscle strained to immobility.

  “Do you understand your rights?” Steve asked in conclusion.

  “No!”

  That wasn’t a response to the question, but to Kleber’s movement; he had pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

  Brian dropped the knife, tossed it away from him, and his right hand closed into a fist. Kleber let out a hoarse shout as that pile driver came at him; there were shrieks from the pantry, a resounding crash as a tray hit the floor. But Conan had the arm behind the fist and used its momentum to twist it under and behind Brian’s back.

  “Brian! Damn it, you want him to put a bullet in your guts?”

  Kleber had his gun out ready to do just that, but Conan doubted that threat was what made Brian sag against him in sudden submission.

  As the tension ebbed in sighs of relief, Steve said irritably, “Earl, put that thing away. You’ll blow a hole in somebody’s steak.” He looked at Brian, who stood rubbing his shoulder, his gaze fixed blindly on the floor.

  “Mr. Tally, do you understand your rights?”

  He only nodded mutely, understanding nothing.

  Steve said to Kleber, “You can put the cuffs away, too.” Then he took Brian’s arm and led him, numbly docile, to the side entrance. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

  Chapter 14

  At seven o’clock Conan was driving south on 101 through a dense, fine rain that seemed to swallow the light of his headlights and make the reflections of billboards, shops, and streetlights seem wan and forlorn.

  The last three hours he regarded as not only painful—Brian had suffered his incarceration with such hopeless stoicism—but a total waste of time, most of it spent in the outer room of the police station waiting for Marcus Fitch to arrive from Portland.

  Still, he could look back with some satisfaction on the initial meeting of Fitch and Kleber.

  Marcus Fitch arrived in his silver Continental Mark IV dressed like a model for Gentlemen’s Quarterly, his bearing as commanding as a Benin prince. Kleber’s back went stiff from the outset, but Fitch was ghetto-bred and immune to intimidation, and he had the psychological advantage of nearly a foot in height. Within ten minutes Kleber was calling him “sir,” which Conan decided spoke well of both of them.

  He gave the bookshop a perfunctory glance in passing; it looked particularly bleak in the sodden darkness with only the night lights glimmering in its windows. His immediate destination was Tilda Capek’s apartment. She was expecting him; they had talked briefly at the station an hour earlier. That was after she had spent herself futilely against the stone wall of Kleber’s refusal to let her see Brian, a blanket exclusion that included Conan. She’d been close to weeping when she departed, although she didn’t concede Kleber one tear.

  Conan found her apartment—after an abortive detour up the wrong dead end—on a wooded hill overlooking Holliday Bay. The view was undoubtedly magnificent on a clear day, but tonight the Bay was only a distant, misty circle of lights around a deeper darkness.

  She came to the door in a breath of Je Reviens and a full-length skirt of umber velvet with a satin blouse the color of her champagne hair. But she only had on one earring, a big gold loop to go with the chains at her neck.

  “Oh, Conan, I’m so glad to see you.” She had recovered her composure since her encounter with Kleber. At least outwardly. The other earring was in her hand; she hurriedly put it on as she stepped away from the door. “I’m on duty soon at the restaurant, but there’s no hurry. Business will be s
low tonight. Did you ever get to see Brian?”

  “No, but Marc Fitch did, and that’s more important.”

  “Fitch? Oh—the lawyer you told me about. Thank goodness for that. But let me fix you a drink.” She went to the kitchen, an alcove separated from the living room by a low counter. “Bourbon, isn’t it—on the rocks?”

  “You have a bartender’s memory. Yes, thank you.”

  He looked around the living room while he waited. No doubt the apartment was rented furnished, but there were a few personal touches: a stitchery wall-hanging in yellows and oranges, pots of ferns and fuschias, bright colored pillows on the couch.

  On the top shelf of a modular bookcase he found two framed photographs, one of an elderly couple—her parents, he guessed from the close resemblance between the woman and Tilda—the other a studio portrait of a child of four or five, and again family resemblance suggested identity. This must be the daughter Beryl had mentioned.

  When Tilda came out of the kitchen, he asked her.

  “Is this your daughter?”

  She stopped short and looked toward the photograph.

  “Yes. Bettina. I…called her Tina.”

  “She favors you, to her good fortune. How old is she now?”

  That polite inquiry evoked a shocked stare before she turned and put the glasses she was carrying on the coffee table.

  “Tina isn’t…she died. That was the last picture ever taken of her.”

  Conan felt his cheeks go hot, and it was anger as well as embarrassment. That was a coldly feline lie Beryl told him when she said Tilda had left her daughter with her parents. But perhaps Beryl believed it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said lamely.

  “You couldn’t know, and I’m past the grieving, really. That was five years ago. Won’t you sit down? This is a good man’s chair, so Brian tells me.”

  Conan went to the big armchair at the end of the coffee table while she handed him one of the glasses and sat down on the couch with the other. He offered her a cigarette, which she declined, but she rose to bring an ashtray within his reach while he lit one for himself.

  “Tilda, do you know anything about the IRS case against Brian?”

  At that, her gray eyes turned frigid as a winter sky.

  “No, not the accounting part of it. I only know what it’s done to Brian. And I know he never purposely cheated the government of a cent. My God, the money he gives to the government—federal taxes, state taxes, property taxes, licenses, permits, state accident insurance for the employees, and their Social Security. I have never understood why anyone should be forced to pay someone else’s taxes, yet he pays half of every employee’s Social Security. And what he pays directly to the government doesn’t include what it costs him to pay it. The number of forms that must be filled out simply to keep one employee on the payroll is incredible. A business can’t survive without a bookkeeper, and think what they cost.” Then she sighed and raised her glass, which Conan suspected contained nothing stronger than ginger ale. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to begin a speech.”

  He laughed. “I could give you a speech or two on that myself. What about Beryl? I mean, as a bookkeeper?”

  She smiled equivocally and paused to choose her words.

  “As a bookkeeper she is excellent, and I’m sure she’s been more than worth her salary to Brian, and actually, I don’t think it’s so high. She’s never been demanding of him in that way.”

  “He’s entirely satisfied with her work, then?”

  “Yes, and he should be. When it comes to her books, Beryl is a perfectionist. I’ve known her to spend a full day tracking down a ten-cent error, and she never lets a single dollar out of her office without a proper receipt or invoice. Even Brian can’t take change from the registers for cigarettes. And that’s as it should be, as it must be.”

  That defense was almost passionate, and Conan couldn’t avoid the comparison with Beryl’s damning words of faint praise for Tilda. “…a lovely young woman, of course, but…”

  Yet Tilda didn’t like Beryl personally any more than Beryl liked her; that was there to be read between the lines.

  He asked, “Is Beryl as honest as she is conscientious?”

  “Yes, I’m sure she is. Why?”

  He frowned as he tapped the ash from his cigarette.

  “Oh, I was just wondering why Eliot Nye, who was equally conscientious from all reports, seemed so sure he had a fifty-thousand-dollar case against Brian.”

  “But was he so sure? You heard what he said Monday night.”

  “Yes, and I’m convinced he wasn’t so sure of his case then, but I was thinking of the first audit.”

  “As I understand, it wasn’t so much a question of juggling books, but that the IRS thought Brian should have shown more profit.”

  “Yes, that’s what both Brian and Beryl told me.”

  “If Nye found an error in his first audit, I think it must have been his own. Oh, if only he had lived!” Her mouth compressed brutally. “I think if I knew who killed Nye, I would kill them for what they’ve done to Brian. Now everything is even worse than before for him.”

  Conan stared down into his glass glumly.

  “I know, Tilda. But let’s get back to Beryl. What do you know about her past or her life outside the restaurant?”

  “Only what’s said in the kitchen; just gossip.”

  “What is said?”

  “Oh, that she’s twenty years older than she admits, and she wears a wig.” Tilda laughed as she repeated that. “She does wear a wig, but since she says she’s forty-eight, I don’t believe the other. Ten years, perhaps, but no woman would begrudge another woman that. And I’ve heard that she came of a very wealthy family that lost its wealth somehow, but when she married, it was to a man of wealth.”

  “A distaff Midas touch,” Conan commented dryly. “Have you ever seen her house?”

  “Beryl’s?” That he should ask seemed to surprise her. “No. She doesn’t…socialize with the help.”

  “Who does she socialize with?”

  “I don’t know. She doesn’t discuss her personal life with me.”

  “No, I’m sure she doesn’t. Would you mind discussing part of your personal life with me?”

  She eyed him curiously. “No, not if it’s important to you—to Brian.”

  “It may be. I’d like to know about your relationship with Claude Jastrow, past and present.”

  “Ah. What did Beryl tell you about it?”

  “That you were friends before you came to Holliday Beach.”

  “Friends? Yes, I can imagine how she said that.” Then she dismissed Beryl with an indifferent shrug. “We lived together, Claude and I, for about a year. I moved to San Francisco after”—her eyes strayed to the child’s portrait—“after my divorce, and got a job at Tarantino’s waiting tables. Claude was meat chef there. Actually, we knew each other for a long time before we became close, and I’m afraid his feelings for me were always stronger than mine for him. When he accepted the job here, I was a little relieved. He asked me to come with him, but I refused. I thought he accepted that as the end of it; I mean, of what was between us.”

  “Were you surprised when you were offered a job here?”

  “Yes, and I knew it was Claude who recommended me for it.” She averted her eyes uncomfortably. “But it was a very attractive offer. I would be hostess and dining room manager, and the salary was more than I was making at Tarantino’s even with tips. And…I had had too much of the city. Cities aren’t good places for a woman alone.”

  Her narrative lapsed briefly, but Conan’s movement in lifting his glass to his lips was enough to rouse her to continue.

  “I called Claude before I made my decision. I wanted him to understand that it was the job that attracted me, not him, and I thought he understood. But he didn’t. In that sense it was a mistake to come here, and I considered leaving on his account, but…” Her mouth curved in a wistful smile. “I’d met Brian by then, and I couldn�
�t bring myself to leave him for Claude’s sake, and I’m sorry about that; I didn’t want to hurt Claude. I was always very fond of him.”

  Conan thought that if a woman he loved ever said that about him in that way, his love could only turn sere and die. Yet Jastrow still loved her; he was still passion’s slave. Where did he turn the pain inflicted by that tantalizing fondness?

  Tilda lifted her chin and looked directly at Conan.

  “I never did or said anything to lead him on, but when he decides he wants something, he’ll stop at nothing, and nothing will stop him. You heard him today, telling me I’m making a terrible mistake. It’s my life and I know what’s right for me. He had no claim on me and no—”

  She stopped to get herself under control, and Conan asked, “What terrible mistake did he mean?”

  “He…he meant my marrying Brian.”

  At that, Conan’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I guess congratulations and good wishes are in order.”

  Her responding smile was oddly tenuous.

  “We decided to get married two months ago, but Brian wanted to wait until—well, as he put it, until the IRS is through with him, one way or another. He didn’t want to tell anyone about it yet, and I wouldn’t have told Claude except I thought it might make him realize, finally, that it was all over between us.”

  Conan had to make a conscious effort to keep his voice from betraying the alarm those words triggered in his mind. “When did you tell Claude about your marriage plans?”

  “When?” She frowned after an answer. “These last few days have been so confused. So long. I think…yes, it was Sunday evening. Business was very slow, and between orders he came out into the dining room to talk to me.”

  “Sunday? You mean this last Sunday?”

  “Yes.”

  The day before Eliot Nye’s murder.

  “Conan? Did I do the wrong thing to tell Claude?”