Nothing's Certain but Death

by M. K. Wren

  “Drugs. Morphine, amphetamines, and barbiturates. No cash; Morey banks every evening when he closes.”

  “Okay, what else did Hancock say?”

  “Well, he started smiling then. I guess the other guy got the message. He ended up saying the sooner he was out of jail the better. That was all; he hung up. And he never once used a name. I was hoping for that, too.”

  Steve nodded. “A good report, Sergeant. Thanks.” He glanced inquiringly at Kleber and Conan, then, “That’s all for now. Let us know if you think of anything else.”

  “Yes, sir. I will.”

  He rose and turned to his chief, who absently waved him away.

  “Thanks, Billy. You can get back to those windows now.” Todd departed, and the door closed on a dissatisfied silence, which Kleber finally broke.

  “Well, that didn’t tell us a hell of a lot.”

  Steve cast him a veiled glance, then pulled himself to his feet.

  “I’m going to find myself some lunch before something else happens. Conan, you got anything better to do?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  “Come on, then. Chief? Care to join us?”

  That was adroitly managed, Conan thought; Kleber wasn’t likely to accept an invitation that included Conan Flagg. “Uh, no, thanks. I’ve got some things to tend to here.”

  *

  Conan drove this time, although his mental state made him as wearing on the transmission as Steve had been. He turned south at the highway, mumbling about a restaurant specializing in clam chowder down on Holliday Bay, then without transition announced, “Johnny’s a dead man, Steve, if we don’t find him soon. You know that.”

  “I do?”

  “I doubt he has the restraint to limit his extortion to the money for his bail, and you know the odds on blackmailing a killer and living to brag about it.”

  “Uh-huh, so that’s who he called—Eliot Nye’s killer.”

  Conan replied caustically, “No, he called one of his confederates in that pharmacy robbery, any one of whom would only have to snap his fingers to come up with the ready cash to put up the bond and a retainer for Herb Latimer.”

  “Mm. Well, that might be a little hard for Johnny’s type of confederate.”

  “Herb wouldn’t let Johnny’s type in his waiting room, but he accepted Johnny’s benefactor as a client.”

  “Okay, you have a point—unless Johnny was tied into some sort of organization, and I’m not talking about the local lodges.”

  Conan gunned the Jaguar past a billboard of a camper. “Around here, you should be talking about the local lodges, but if Johnny was an organization man, he wouldn’t have to remind his benefactor that he had something on him; benefactor would be well aware of it. Anyway, he wasn’t talking to a confederate—of any type.”

  “How do you figure that? And why are we stopping here?”

  They weren’t stopping, only slowing to a crawl as they passed the Van Roon real estate office.

  “I just wanted to see if it was still closed,” Conan explained. He checked the rearview mirrors and re-entered the southbound lane. “And it is. Conny’s not at home, either; at least no one answered the phone. Johnny told us—or rather, Billy—that he wasn’t talking to a confederate. ‘I was there the other night. You didn’t see me, but I saw you.’ A confederate would know he was there.”

  Steve nodded numbly. “Right. Damn fool. He will get himself dead, Conan, but I don’t know what we can do about it. We’ve got every cop in the state looking for him.”

  “It may be too late already.”

  He gave the bookshop the usual survey, but it didn’t register. He was looking ahead to the junction of Laurel Road and remembering an address he’d just seen in a phone book.

  He made a right turn, swearing when his encasted left hand slipped on the steering wheel while his right was occupied with the gear shift, but he succeeded in avoiding a collision with a jack pine.

  Steve, suddenly upright, braced a hand against the dashboard and demanded, “What’s this? A shortcut?”

  “A detour. Claude Jastrow lives up here somewhere. I noticed the address when I was looking up his phone number a while ago. It can’t be more than four or five blocks from Beryl’s house, and it struck me as odd that she didn’t say anything about it Tuesday; we had to pass his house to get to hers.” He geared down and searched for numbers on the houses. “Of course, with her maybe it isn’t so odd. She doesn’t socialize with the help.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s odd—no, never mind. I know you have a good reason for checking out the help’s housing facilities. Or for calling them.” Then he frowned. “And Van Roon. Okay. Did Jastrow answer when you called, and when was that?”

  “Just a few minutes ago at the station, and no, Jastrow didn’t answer, nor was he at the Surf House. Let’s see…it should be the next one on the left.”

  It was a well-designed house making good use of the pine surrounding it and unusual for this neighborhood in its newness; the cedar shingles retained some of their raw, unweathered yellow. The door was open on an empty garage, and the shades were down on all the windows.

  Steve said, “Nobody home. Might as well put out a sign.” Conan shifted into first and continued down the road. “Well, he could be out buying groceries, or picking rocks on the beach, or having a beer at the Last Resort, or—you name it.”

  “Sure. Or keeping an appointment with Johnny Hancock. But I don’t have any legally reasonable reason to put out an APB on Jastrow—now where are we going? I thought you said this chowder place is down on the Bay.”

  “It is.” He had reached Front Street, but turned north instead of south. “Beryl’s house is a few blocks up here.”

  “Well, I damn sure don’t have a good reason to put out an APB on her.”

  Conan laughed, noting that Beryl’s Mercedes was in the carport in front of her deceptively modest little bungalow.

  “Steve, the lady called in sick this morning, and since she has some sort of heart condition, I thought someone should check on her. I’ll just knock on her door and see if she’s all right.”

  Steve only hunched down in the seat with an afflicted sigh, arms folded.

  When Conan reached Beryl’s door, he knocked a little hesitantly, thinking that if he wasn’t feeling well, he wouldn’t welcome even a well-meaning inquiry.

  There was no response. He tried again, then stood undecided, frowning at the door, then at her car, and finally returned to his car, thinking that on the other hand, if he was lying alone in the grip of a heart attack, he’d welcome any inquiry.

  “Hello there, Mr. Flagg.”

  He looked up and saw an elderly man tending his rock garden at the house across the street. A bookshop customer. After a moment the name came to mind, and he walked over to meet him.

  “How are you, Mr. Barnstad?”

  “Fine, real fine. Pretty day, isn’t it? You looking for Mrs. Randall?”

  “Yes. They told me at the restaurant she was ill, and I thought I should look in on her.”

  Barnstad nodded. “Guess she has a little trouble with the old ticker, but I don’t think you need to worry. I saw her early this morning when she came out for her paper. Said she was feeling a little tired and thought she better rest up before she ran into a real problem. Takes good care of herself. But then a person has to when they’re all alone.” He concluded with a sigh that reminded Conan that Barnstad had become a widower only a year ago.

  “Yes, I guess so. Well, she’s probably all right now if she was up and about this morning.”

  “She might be taking a nap now. Tell you what, I’ll check on her in an hour or so.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Barnstad.” He retreated to the car a little hastily, and a little guiltily, knowing Barnstad would enjoy exchanging small talk with him. With anyone.

  Steve waited until after Conan turned the car in Beryl’s driveway, then commented, “Well, we’re headed south. Does that mean lunch is the next stop, or do you hav
e more good deeds lined up?”

  “That’s my next good deed, Steve. Lunch.”

  Chapter 18

  While Steve went through two bowls of clam chowder and one of blackberry cobbler, Conan managed half a bowl of each and repeatedly reminded himself to enjoy the view of Holliday Bay, a spangle of reflected blue sky and white cloud with miniature peninsulas of docks jutting from its banks. Most of the fishing boats were out to sea on this fine day, but he did get to watch one late-departing vessel thread the needle of the narrow channel beneath the parabola of the Coast Highway bridge.

  Finally, a little after two o’clock, Steve, happily replete, insisted on paying the check, then used a pay phone to call the police station. The results of that put a damper on his good spirits. Hancock was still among the missing.

  Again Conan drove, and when he backed out of the parking space, made a U-turn, and headed south, Steve objected, “What happened to your genuine Indian pathfinder instincts? You’re going the wrong way.”

  “Just another detour, Steve, and I know you miss Earl, so I’ll get you back to the station as soon as possible.”

  Beyond the bridge, 101 shook off the last of the ticky-tack monuments of highway culture and cut through a thick stand of spruce and fir, but Conan didn’t push the speedometer above forty; it would be a short drive.

  “At least you could tell me where I’m going,” Steve said peevishly.

  “There.” He pointed to a road sign. “Shag Point state wayside.”

  “Oh. Of course. Why didn’t you say so before? We could’ve brought our chowder down here and had a picnic.” Then he frowned as Conan geared down for a right turn. “Is this the wayside where Beryl’s car was found?”

  “The very one, and we have it all to ourselves except for the gulls.” He idled halfway around the loop, past the picnic tables and restroom building to the parking area on the west side. A flock of gulls rose in screaming complaint from their resting place on the asphalt. “We should’ve brought some bread for them.”

  Steve folded then unfolded his length to get out of the car. “I’ll feed those damned birds when they learn some manners. Last time I offered a bunch of them a free meal, I didn’t like what I got in return.”

  Conan smiled at that. “You have to stand to windward.” He started across the ragged lawn toward the bare rocks at the point, and Steve fell into step with him.

  “Conan, what are you looking for? You know something about Beryl Randall I should?”

  “No, and I’m not assuming she’s responsible for the fact that her car was found here the morning after the murder. I’m not even assuming that it had anything to do with the murder. I’m just—”

  “—curious. Okay. Well, it’s as good a place as any to be curious. Damn—look at that wave!”

  A breaker hit the rocks at the point with a resounding thump and threw up a wall of white that disintegrated into a splatter of rain blackening the basalt. The wind carried a fine spray, and Conan smiled as he felt its chill against his cheeks. The sea liked to remind its audience that its reach exceeded their grasp of its power.

  This rock-buttressed point of land lunged out past the breakers to engage its adversary where the heavy swells began to feel the drag of the sloping shelf fifty feet beneath the surface, and the encounters of sea and rock were almost always spectacular. At the forefront of the rock bastion, the patient, ravening water had cut a transverse channel, and the meeting of wave and counterwave within the confines of that chasm was terrifyingly beautiful.

  Yet Conan stopped before he drew close enough to see the channel. He stopped because a chain link fence barred his way, and this was why he seldom came to Shag Point any more.

  A few years ago, before the fence, two people had been swept to their deaths in the chasm, imparting the harsh lesson of the terror in the beauty. The state in response to the terror put up the fence, enclosing the seaward periphery of the park, putting the terror out of reach, but with it the beauty.

  Conan could, and had, climbed over the fence in defiance of it, but its very existence rankled with him. He didn’t object to being protected from dangers that could not be anticipated and the risks assessed before they were encountered, but that wasn’t the case here, and he considered this fence as unreasonable as a barricade closing off an interstate highway. People died on highways, too.

  He turned north as the ocean exploded a new wall of white into ephemeral existence. Steve walked beside him silently, while Conan studied the occasional scraps of litter caught at the bottom of the fence. He followed it for a while, then left it and crossed a short distance to another chain link fence, but this one he didn’t take exception to, and it had been here for twenty years.

  It enclosed a square ten feet on a side, and he didn’t object to it because it offered protection from a danger which could not be anticipated. The rock was rough and irregular, like a field of huge, fused boulders, and within this enclosure, the fissures served to camouflage a gaping hole. It wasn’t bottomless; somewhere within the black fastness of rock below, it found an outlet to the sea.

  Conan leaned against the railing, listening to the faint thumpings and gurglings from its depths, and finally the juxtaposition of wave and current came right and from the hole spewed a geyser of sea water broken in its forced passage through the rock into a cold steam of spray.

  Steve shouted and backed away, like Conan, unexpectedly drenched. These pseudo geysers were called spouting horns, and there were hundreds along the coast, but this was one of the largest. Conan took out a handkerchief to wipe his face and sunglasses, laughing with Steve in startled exuberance more than amusement as they started back toward the car.

  “You know, I’ve been here maybe ten times,” Steve said, “and stood over that thing with Jamie waiting for something to happen, and this is the first time it ever did.”

  “Next time bring Jamie during the winter at high tide.”

  “I’ll call ahead for a schedule.”

  When they reached the car, Conan ignored it and walked on across the drive toward the picnic area.

  Steve asked hopelessly, “Where are you going now?”

  “Oh, I just want to poke around a little.”

  He poked around in every garbage can in the park, finding most of them empty; the park had few visitors this time of year. He also poked into the trash containers in the restrooms, both of them, then went to the stone-walled picnic shelter, looked in the four garbage cans there and into the cooking fireplaces at each end. The first hadn’t had a fire in it since it was last cleaned, but the second was a different story. He turned back the grate, then picked up a charred stick that someone else had used to stir a fire.

  The ashes were piled a foot deep in gossamer leaves.

  “Steve, look at this. Paper.”

  He was looking and agreed with that determination, but still asked dubiously, “So?”

  Conan prodded cautiously, but was rewarded with nothing but flurries of ash snow.

  “So someone burned a lot of paper in here, and it wasn’t very long ago or this would be a sodden mulch.”

  “Papers. You’re thinking of the Surf House records?”

  “Well, yes. I guess so.”

  “Don’t give me that I guess. Okay, you’ve got a pile of paper ashes, but bookkeeping records aren’t kept in loose bunches; they’re kept in ledger books, things with hardboard covers and metal binders and rings. Things that won’t burn.”

  Conan nodded, probing still deeper.

  “I know, and there’s nothing of that description here.”

  “And in any of the trash cans you’ve been poking in?”

  He sent up a choking cloud of ashes with a final sweeping probe, then rose and wiped his hands with his handkerchief.

  “No, Steve, nothing here nor in the trash cans, but I can’t poke around in the most obvious disposal receptacle.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The spouting horn.”

  “Yes, I guess you do h
ave a problem there.” He frowned out at the receptacle in question, and it obligingly spouted. “Conan, what makes you think these ashes came from burning the records? I mean, how often do the park service people clean these places in the winter? Once a week?”

  “More like once a month, probably. Come on, it’s nearly three. I have to get back to the station.”

  “You have to—” He spluttered a moment, then caught up with him. “Don’t tell me you’re getting lonesome for Earl.”

  “No. For Marc Fitch. Look, I know those ashes don’t mean a damn thing. Maybe some hitchhiker was just getting out of the rain and warming up with a newspaper. I guess I just don’t like the coincidence of Beryl’s car ending up here, but I’m well aware that coincidences do occur.” He took his keys from his pants pocket. “Here—you drive.”

  “Sure. Who says cops are never around when you need them? We even play chauffeur for absent-minded—”

  “This just may be your last chance to drive a twelve-thousand-dollar car, friend, so shut up and enjoy it.”

  Steve laughed and started the motor with a gratuitous roar, but by the time he turned onto the highway, he was frowning.

  “Okay, Conan, so how do you explain Beryl’s car ending up at Shag Point?”

  “I don’t. Maybe it was stolen; some kids out for a little good, clean fun.”

  “Then the car conked out on them, so they pushed it off the highway into the park where it probably wouldn’t be found before they got home?”

  “No, it didn’t conk out on them. I talked to Rafe Driskoll—he’s the mechanic who worked on the car—and he said it ran beautifully once it started. It just didn’t always choose to start. But if it started for the thief or thieves—and obviously it did—then it was stopped at the wayside purposely. It stayed here because it didn’t choose to restart. Of course, there are reasons for car thieves to stop there. It’s a local lovers’ lane, for one thing, and off the highway, which makes it attractive to someone trying to avoid the highway patrol, and it has nice clean restrooms sheltered from the wind and rain.”

  Steve was approaching the Holliday Bay bridge, but he didn’t seem to notice the speed limit signs. “Okay, but if that car wasn’t just stolen by some fun-loving kids, you think it was used to transport pilfered goods? Like the Surf House records?”