Nothing's Certain but Death

by M. K. Wren

  He went to the bookshop where within an hour he succeeded in putting Meg into an offended pout, filing a stack of rental returns on the wrong shelves, losing forever two unpaid invoices, alienating a book salesman and three old customers, and reducing Miss Dobie to long, disconsolate sighs.

  Finally, she suggested, “Why don’t you take a walk? On the beach, maybe.”

  “Because there are no phones on the beach.”

  At noon she suggested, “Go get some lunch. It’ll help.”

  He couldn’t fathom what it would help and he wasn’t hungry, but if she wanted to go next door to the Chowder House, he’d be happy to tend the cash register for her.

  She stared at him, contemplating the potential damage to orderly business procedure and customer relations, then sighed, again, threw up her hands, and walked out.

  The phone rang while Mrs. Hollis was concluding a purchase, examining the bill she took from her purse carefully before offering it in a fragile, age-freckled hand. Conan juggled her change and the receiver, cursing the cast under his breath.

  “Steve?”

  “Holy mud, Conan, have you been sitting on that phone all this time?”

  “Mr. Flagg…”

  He looked at Mrs. Hollis, who was frowning over her change, but a look was all she got from him.

  “What’s happened, Steve?”

  “Something broke. We just got the word from Sheriff Gould up in Tillamook County. The state patrol has a body.”

  “Mr. Flagg, you gave me too much—”

  “A body? Hancock?”

  “Probably. Description fits, anyway. It was dumped in the ocean twenty miles south of Tillamook on 101. Gould has divers there, but the body’s at the bottom of a two-hundred-foot cliff. They haven’t got it up yet. I’m driving up with Earl to have a look. But, Conan, if you—”

  He didn’t wait for the cautionary admonition that doubtless followed, but hung up with a short, “Thanks, Steve.”

  Nor did he wait to see why Mrs. Hollis was thumping her cane so impatiently.

  “Mr. Flagg, you gave me too much change. Mr. Flagg? Oh, for pity’s sake!”

  He was gone, leaving the door—and the cash register wide open.

  *

  Half an hour later he was urging the XK-E around a curve at something more than a safe speed. He was on the inside of the curve with a bank of basalt on his right, a spare lane of highway and a stone balustrade on his left. Beyond that was a brooding expanse of sky. He could see the horizon of sea, but the surf was two hundred feet below the road.

  At the next curve a patrolman held up a sign ordering him to slow down. He did, but when he rounded the curve, ignored the next patrolman’s waving command to drive on.

  The stone barrier bulged seaward to accommodate a graveled area where cars could pull off the narrow, harrowing road. The space was crowded with an ambulance, a winch truck, two state patrol cars, a car from the Tillamook County sheriff’s office, and another from the Holliday Beach police department, but there was enough room left for the Jaguar.

  Conan strode to the back of the ambulance. The winch truck and the men in wet suits had finished their work; a stretcher heavy with a blanketed burden was being loaded into it.

  “Wait! Let me see him.” He reached for the blanket, and the two deputies carrying the stretcher, perhaps intimidated by his tone, paused.

  He turned the blanket back from the face.

  The straggling hair, dark because it was wet, made hideous streaks across it like blood. Yet there was no actual blood. The sea had washed the skin clean, given it the pebbled, purpled aspect of some invertebrate creature of its own, given the unblinking eyes the nacre of shattered shells. An alien zoomorph, this visage; it seemed to have three eyes.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Flagg?”

  Kleber. Conan covered the face, flushed in death, and looked around into Kleber’s face, flushed in anger.

  He didn’t give Conan a chance to answer his question.

  “I put up with you nosing around in the Nye case, but I’ll be damned if I can see what right you got in this one!”

  “This is still the Nye case,” he said curtly, noting that Steve was occupied with the only civilian present, a middle-aged man who seemed to have mixed feelings about the whole affair.

  “What do you mean, the Nye case?” Kleber demanded. “Some dopehead gets himself dumped in the ocean, and you figure that’s got something to do with—”

  “Yes!” Conan flared. “Johnny Hancock may have been a dopehead, but don’t tell me it’s just coincidence that he happened to be in the kitchen at the Surf House when Nye was murdered, and now he just happens to be dead!”

  Kleber spat out, “So, you figure Johnny witnessed that murder? Trouble with that, Flagg, is the only person who’d have any reason to shut him up is already behind bars. The man Nye pointed the finger at himself!”

  The initials. Those damned incomprehensible letters.

  “If you’ll just for once look at the other evidence—”

  “All right, you two, just cool down.” Steve had ambled up beside them. “You can fight this out later—in private.”

  Kleber mumbled something about Sheriff Gould and stalked away, while Conan went to the stone balustrade and let the chill wind beat against his face. At the foot of the cliff, the surf simmered around the rocks in patterns of white on azure green as exquisite as a flower jasper.

  Steve joined him in contemplation of the view and said, as if he were answering a question, “He was found on a fluke. Ben Selzer—he lives in Cloverdale—” He glanced over his shoulder at the one civilian, who was answering questions for Gould and Kleber. “He had a flat tire and managed to limp in here where he could get off the highway. Then he thought he heard some sea lions barking and looked over the edge here. Hancock’s body was caught down there in the rocks.”

  Conan nodded and looked around the graveled area.

  “No hope for tire tracks, I suppose.”

  “Not now, anyway. Gould thought he had a simple case of drowning till his divers got down to the body. I called Dan Reuben to do an autopsy, but the cause of death is clear enough: a bullet between the eyes. Small caliber, probably, and close range; looked like tattooing around the wound. But there was no exit wound.”

  Conan’s eyes narrowed. “Well, that’s a piece of luck. Reuben can recover the bullet.”

  “Sure. Then all we have to do is find the Saturday night special it came from. Can’t be more than a thousand of them in Taft County alone.”

  “Well, you might start with the one Conny Van Roon keeps in his desk.”

  “We’ll check it as soon as Dan gets the bullet out. Does anybody else on your list own a small-caliber gun?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll try to find out.”

  “I’ll check gun registrations—for what that’s worth. Any suggestions about who I should check, other than Van Roon?”

  Conan felt Steve’s intensely inquiring gaze, but didn’t try to meet it.

  “Claude Jastrow and Beryl Randall.”

  “She’s still on your list?”

  “Yes, I guess so. I still can’t tie her in with a motive against Brian.”

  Steve snorted. “But she collects Victoriana.”

  “Good Victoriana, but apparently that runs in the family. Steve, she was in a crucial position at a crucial time Monday night. She’s the last person who admits seeing Nye alive, and there’s a period of at least ten minutes unaccounted for when she was supposedly in the ladies’ room.”

  “But she was seen leaving the ladies’ room, and Van Roon was in a crucial place at a crucial time, too. And what about Jastrow? Nobody’s sure exactly when he left the bar, and he was in the kitchen to chew Hancock out about those scuff marks just minutes after they were made—according to your theory.”

  “And that chewing out may have been simply an audacious smoke screen?” Conan frowned, then answered his own question. “Well, it has Claude’s style ab
out it.”

  “Mm. Well, I’ll leave the style to you. My money’s still on Van Roon.” He gave Conan a tight smile. “Earl got a call from the FBI about him today.”

  Conan shifted his field of focus abruptly from the surf to Steve’s face.

  “Why was the FBI asking about Conny?”

  “Well, they’re running a routine surveillance on some guys who happen to be visiting in Portland—from Las Vegas. Two of them are just hired on for their muscle content: Sonny Fisk and Otto Curtin. The big boy is Lucien Gysing. They call him Lucy, he’s such a sweetheart. The FBI says he’s with the syndicate collection division.”

  Conan smiled grimly. “So, that’s where Conny comes in.”

  “Probably. Anyway, Lucy and friends had a late lunch with Conny at the Fernwood Inn just outside Portland yesterday about three o’clock. The FBI got Conny’s name from his car license. The conference lasted an hour, and he came out of it alive.”

  “Three o’clock.” Conan considered that, then nodded. “He left home at eight in the morning, so he had plenty of time to make a detour to Tillamook and reach Portland for the meeting. He could’ve met Hancock in Tillamook and shot him in his own car. Maybe he parked his car in an alley where it wouldn’t be noticed, and a small-caliber gun doesn’t make much noise. Then he hid the body on the floor of the car, drove Hancock’s van to the bus depot, found the little old lady patsy, walked back to his car, drove south until he came to a good dumping spot—like this—then went his merry way.”

  “To Portland to report everything under control. He might not even tell Lucy and friends about Hancock. After all, he took care of that little problem. What’s the matter? You don’t like that theory?”

  Conan turned to watch an approaching squall drag its gray veils over the sea.

  “It fits the facts, Steve, but Jastrow could’ve played the same scene, deleting the trip to Portland and the three evil crones from Nevada, of course. What I don’t like about the theory is the risk involved for the killer in staging the murder in Tillamook.”

  “But he had to get Hancock’s van and suitcase to the depot. If he didn’t stage the murder close by, what did he do for transportation after he left the van there?”

  “Well, here’s another scenario for you: maybe the killer met Johnny somewhere else—for instance, in Holliday Beach—then rode with him in his van this far, probably keeping him at gunpoint, killed him here and pushed the body over the cliff, then drove the van on to Tillamook.”

  “And walked home again?”

  “No. Took a bus.”

  That called up a sigh of resignation.

  “Well, I guess I’ll go on up to Tillamook and see if I can pry out anything more at the bus depot.” He grimaced testily at the sky; the wind was tossing raindrops at them. “One thing I found out already: between noon and five yesterday, eight scheduled buses went out of that depot headed every direction but west. You want to come with me?”

  “No, I’ll leave the prying to you.” Conan noted, but didn’t feel it necessary to comment on the fact that Steve hadn’t mentioned the one piece of evidence that seemed to negate all their prying, the piece of evidence Kleber never let him forget. The initials.

  That omission, Conan knew, wasn’t simply an act of friendly consideration; Steve just didn’t like to close any doors until he was sure what was behind them.

  A minor traffic jam was taking shape as the official cars moved out. Conan waited until the scream of sirens faded as the ambulance departed—and that was gratuitous; there was no hurry getting that victim to town—then started for his own car.

  “I’m going back to Holliday Beach, Steve.”

  “What for?”

  “Well, I live there, for one thing.”

  “Sure. Well, good luck.”

  “At what? Living?”

  “At whatever you’ve got in mind.”

  Conan took a last look back at the stone wall.

  “I wish I had something in mind.”

  Chapter 21

  Because it was at the north end of town and he passed within two blocks of it on his way, Conan stopped first at the police station. When he told Brian about Hancock’s death, the news seemed to have as much personal impact as an earthquake in the Arctic Ocean, but that wasn’t callousness; it simply didn’t register. Vestiges of the stoic front were still evident, but badly eroded. Conan didn’t stay long. Brian didn’t need company; he couldn’t cope with it.

  Because it was only a few blocks farther south, Conan’s next stop was F. Conrad Van Roon’s office. The sign on the door proclaimed it open for business, but no lights were on, and the sign was probably only an oversight. Van Roon was present, but not necessarily accounted for.

  He slumped with his elbows on his desk, past putting his bottle away, and it was almost past offering him solace; there was only a scant inch of whiskey in it. Conan walked over to the desk, wondering why alcoholics so often bought their ruin in pint bottles; fifths would at least be more economical.

  “Hello, Conny.”

  Van Roon looked up, mouth sagging, one eyelid drooping lower than the other. The gun lay on a yellowing pile of paper near his right hand.

  “Who…who’re you?” Then he blinked laboriously. “Oh. Wha’d’you want?”

  Conan found a pencil, hooked it through the trigger guard, and picked up the gun. A Bauer .25-caliber automatic. It looked like a toy, but there was ominous potential in the weight of it. He sniffed at the barrel.

  “Been doing a little target practice, Conny?”

  Van Roon pushed himself upright. “Gimme that! It’s mine!’

  “Yes, I know.” He sat down on the corner of the desk and put the gun down beside him, out of Van Roon’s reach. “They found Johnny Hancock’s body.”

  At first, Van Roon only stared at him, the color draining unevenly from his slack features.

  “Now, waita minute—jus’ waita minute.…” He was sobering up rapidly, the rabbit eyes coming into desperate focus. “Wha’s it to me if they found…found his body?”

  “You don’t seem surprised that he’s dead.”

  “Well…well, sure I’m s’prised.” But he didn’t yet have his eyes under control; they wandered to the gun.

  Conan asked lightly, “Are you celebrating?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Celebrating the successful conclusion of your meeting with Lucy Gysing and friends.”

  At that, he had to seek the remainder of the solace in the bottle. His frail body shuddered with it.

  “I don’ know what you’re talkin’ about.”

  Conan spelled it out for him. “You met with Lucy and his amiable sidekicks to tell him that the Surf House deal is still on. Brian is conveniently out of the way, and that little unforeseen problem—the witness to Nye’s murder—well, you took care of that. Or did you even tell Lucy about it? Probably not. Why worry him with details?”

  Van Roon’s gelatinous face quivered.

  “Get out! Damn you—I tol’ you once! Get out!” He made an abortive lunge toward the gun, but stopped short when Conan let his hand hover over it.

  “Tell me about your trip to Portland, Conny.”

  “It’s none of your business!”

  “It’s Brian’s business, and that makes it mine. You had a phone call Wednesday night from Johnny, didn’t you?”

  “From who? Johnny Hancock? No. He never—”

  “I know you had a call.”

  “Mavis,” he pronounced with indignant disgust. “But it wazh—wasn’t Johnny Hancock! I swear it wasn’t! It was—it was Gysing!”

  “He called you at your home? That seems a little careless. All right, so you left Thursday morning at eight.”

  “Right! Left at eight and went straight to Portland. That’s what the call was about. He told me where I was sh—s’posed to meet him.”

  “And when? What time was your appointment?”

  “It—it was…ten. No. Maybe…eleven.”

  “No,
Conny, that was when you met Johnny, not Gysing.”

  “Johnny?”

  “Remember—Johnny Hancock?”

  “Now, wait.… No, I didn’t—I never saw…”

  “It’s a two-hour drive to Portland, but you didn’t meet Gysing until three o’clock. That means you have five hours to account for.”

  “No. The meet was at eleven! I swear—”

  “Should I believe you or the FBI? They’re interested in people like Gysing when they wander out of Nevada.”

  “The… FBI?” He fumbled for the bottle, and it seemed to come as a profound shock when he found it empty.

  “Yes. The FBI. So, tell me about that five hours.”

  “I…I left early. Couldn’t take Mavis bitching about… And—and anyway, I had things to do in town.” He drew himself up piously. “Business to take care of.”

  “Of course. Potential clients, other real estate dealers to see—that sort of thing?”

  He nodded eagerly. “Yeah. That’s it. Business.”

  “Who did you see? Give me one name, Conny.”

  He floundered with that, staring reproachfully at his empty bottle, then looked up and found Conan.

  “Who I saw’s none of your business!”

  Conan laughed. “Because there wasn’t any business, not with anyone in Portland except Lucy Gysing. Damn, Conny, if you told me you spent the day in a bar working up your nerve to face Gysing, I might believe you.”

  Van Roon went livid. “You got no right to say that! I had business to take care of!”

  Conan rose, shrugging indifferently.

  “By the way, I can testify to the caliber of this gun and to the fact that it was in your possession at this time, and that it’s been fired recently. If it should suddenly disappear, you might as well sign a confession.”

  Van Roon’s mouth moved aimlessly before he could get out any coherent sounds.

  “Wait…listen, what’re you—you can’t…but I didn’t do anything! That gun—I just use it to…” His frenzied gaze jerked erratically around the office. “The rats! I just use it to kill rats!”

  Conan stared at him, pity vying with disgust to choke off anything he might have said. Then he turned abruptly and went to the door.