Dead Matter

by M. K. Wren

  As the highway widened to three lanes, Marian shot out into the center lane —oblivious to the tanker truck barreling along in the same lane behind her —and floorboarded the Buick past one car after another. Conan could only stare, paralyzed, as the highway narrowed again, and Marian managed to whip around one last camper, horn blaring a warning to the hapless driver of the car in the oncoming lane.

  When Conan got his breath again, he asked, “Didn ’t Savanna go with Gould on his trips to New York? ”

  “Sometimes. Quite a lot before they were married. He liked to show her off. Short man ’s syndrome. He always picked beautiful women who were taller than he was, either as lovers or wives. Like Erin Chelsey. She was a model. Six feet tall. His second wife. ”

  “How many wives has he had? ”

  Marian hesitated, then said indifferently, “Well, three, I think. Who knows? ”

  “Did Dana want to be number four —or who knows? ”

  “Maybe. If that ’s what it took to get Ravin and Odyssey. ”

  “Why did she come to Holliday Beach last night? To harness Gould and Odyssey? ”

  “Why else? ”

  “It just seemed bad timing, ” Conan said, bracing himself as Marian squealed around another turn too fast. “I mean, since the Laskys are here. I didn ’t notice any great affection between them. ”

  Marian loosed her big laugh. “There ’s a lot of history behind that. When Byron first met Justine, she was editor-in-chief at CCG. ”

  “Yes, you told me about that. She was fired, wasn ’t she? ”

  “Right. And guess who took her job. ”

  “Dana Semenov? ”

  “None other. Dana wasn ’t exactly gracious about it, either, which was her mistake. She managed to antagonize Ravin ’s agent. But an agent doesn ’t have the last word. If Ravin wanted to switch to Nystrom, he could, so Dana was going after him and bypassing Byron. And I ’m damned sure she didn ’t know Byron and Justine were here when she dropped in last night. ”

  “What happens to Dana now? I mean, it ’s too late to bring Gould into Nystrom ’s stable, and it ’s possible Odyssey has been destroyed. ”

  “Well, it looks bad for one Yaffie. The word on Publishers Row is it ’s been a long time since she brought in a winner, and in this business —any business, I suppose —when you get near the top of the ladder, you don ’t just step down a rung or so. You fall. All the way to the bottom. ”

  “And this young, ambitious female wouldn ’t take the fall well? ”

  “I think she ’d rather die. ” Marian turned to study him, curiosity glinting in her eyes. “Speaking of suspects, what about me? ”

  Conan nodded, managing a nonchalant air when he said, “This next curve is known among the locals as the widow-maker. ” Marian laughed at that, but she did slow down enough to make it through the long, flat curve without taking to the air. Conan said, “All right, what about you, Marian? What would your motive be? ”

  “Mm. Well, I don ’t know. I got along fine with Ravin, mainly because he didn ’t consider me either desirable or a threat. Nor was he a threat to me. I am not, thanks to Jacob, in need of money. Or this job. I love it, but I ’m due to retire in two years, and what I ’m looking forward to is time to spend with Jacob at the farm —he ’ll be retiring then, too —or visiting my grandchildren or getting serious about my roses. ”

  “So much for motive. At least, for any you ’re willing to divulge. ” Conan considered asking her about the ring, but decided to hold that in reserve. “What about means? You heard Gould recounting his epic encounter with Cady at the bookshop. ”

  “Ad nauseam. And I saw it on TV. ”

  “Then you might ’ve known where to find Cady ’s chain saw. ”

  “I knew it was at your bookshop. ”

  Conan left the means at that, omitting any reference to the bullet wound. “Which brings us to opportunity. What did you do after you left Gould ’s house about nine-thirty Saturday night? ”

  “You sound like one of those cop shows. Well, I drove back to the Surf House and spent the evening in the lounge. They have a combo that plays the old Forties songs, and I stayed till closing time. That ’s two-thirty, isn ’t it? And when I got to my suite, I called Jacob and woke him up to tell him how much I miss him. Five-thirty in the morning in New York, but nostalgia does that to me. We talked about half an hour, and I assume that ’s registered in somebody ’s computer. ”

  “No doubt. All right, Marian, let ’s get back to the missing manuscripts. Who would benefit from possessing or destroying them? ”

  “Not me, and I know Byron and Justine would never destroy them, and I don ’t see how they ’d benefit from possessing them. ”

  “Of course, spite or revenge is a possibility. ”

  “Then maybe you should ask Savanna about that. ”

  He sent Marian a sharp look. “Disposing of the manuscripts would be costly spite or revenge for her —assuming she is Gould ’s heir. ”

  “What if she ’s not? And what if she knows she ’s not? ” Marian tempered that with a smile, then, “As for Dana, I doubt she ’d destroy the manuscripts —hope springs eternal —and it wouldn ’t benefit her to steal them. She ’d still have to negotiate with Ravin ’s heir, and if that ’s Savanna, well, there ’s a lot of history there, too. Dana wouldn ’t have a snowball ’s chance in hell getting Savanna to sign a contract. ”

  “Uh, Marian, that car is signaling for a right turn. ”

  “Mm? Damn! ” She hit the brakes, and Conan felt the shoulder strap snap tight across his chest. How Marian escaped the collision that seemed inevitable, Conan would never know. When he opened his eyes, she was speeding blithely along to catch up with another camper. “Don ’t you have any other suspects? ” she asked.

  Conan reached into his shirt pocket for his cigarettes, forgetting to ask Marian if she minded before he lighted one. He inhaled and waited for his nerves to cease quivering before he managed a reply to her question. “Gould was a stranger in Holliday Beach. Who knew him well enough to have a motive to kill him or steal the manuscripts? ”

  “I have no idea, but Ravin was born here, after all. ”

  “But he was twelve years old when…”

  Conan stopped, hearing yet again that sardonic singsong: Doctor, lawyer, po-lice chief…

  They were past the crest of the Coast Range, and the curves and dips were smoothing out. “Marian, there ’s a restaurant called Emmy ’s Kitchen about a mile ahead. I’d like a cup of coffee and something to take the place of the breakfast I missed. ” And with any luck, he could convince her that he should drive the rest of the way. After all, she didn ’t know the Portland area as well as he did, and she ’d have to do the navigating from Justine ’s notes.

  And if she still objected?

  He took another calming puff on his cigarette and wondered how long it would take him to hitchhike back to Holliday Beach.

  Chapter 10

  Marian Rosenthal made a better navigator than a driver, and to Conan ’s relief, she had acquiesced to the former role without argument. Guided by Justine Lasky ’s notes, Marian directed them to the suburb of Valley West without incident or even one wrong turn.

  Valley West sprawled rawly across low hills, and Conan found it inordinately annoying. These constructions, with their nouveau eclectic architecture, occupied some of the richest farmland in the world. Year by year, acre by acre, the huge Willamette Valley —the promised land at the end of the Oregon Trail —was being inundated by ticky-tack like an alien fungus. Doubtless the residents of Valley West didn ’t see their community in that light. They were probably proud of its obsessively neat parkways and mousse-smooth streets, its small airport, its golf course cunningly dubbed St. Andrews West, its ostentatious homes surrounded by perfect lawns and spindly trees planted to replace the bulldozed native trees. Marian directed him past the stucco and glass and neon shopping mall with its multiplex cinema, told him to turn in to a street two blocks be
yond, and there a sign announced that they had found THE EYRIE: CONDOMINIUMS FOR THE UPWARD BOUND.

  Conan glared at the clusters of three-story, bastardized New England saltboxes sided in aluminum in precious pastels. He checked his watch. Two-fifteen. In the summer traffic, the trip had taken three hours, when two and a quarter should have sufficed. But then, he reminded himself, the three hours included the half-hour stop for lunch.

  As he turned in to a paved circle fronting a lavender salt-box cluster, which another sign proclaimed to be Peregrine Court, he saw the yellow Ferrari among the foreshortened Cadillacs and silver BMWs. There was a parking place next to the Ferrari, and Conan drove into it.

  “Savanna seems to be home, ” he said. “At least, the Ferrari ’s here. I didn ’t notice the California plates last night. Where in California? ”

  “San Francisco, ” Marian replied as she stowed Justine ’s notes in her purse. “Ravin had a town house in San Francisco, a beach house in Honolulu, and an apartment in Manhattan, but he always called this place home. Strange, when he hardly ever stayed here. ”

  “Shelly said he liked to think of himself as a native son of Oregon. Marian, doesn ’t it seem odd to you that a man who could afford so many upscale residences and a woman of Savanna ’s fame and temperament would live without even a servant in sight, much less the sort of entourage you ’d expect? ”

  “It may be odd, but that ’s the way Ravin liked it. Don ’t worry, they didn ’t have to fend for themselves around the house. It ’s just that Ravin wouldn ’t put up with any full-time servants. He hired people to come in and do whatever work was necessary, then get out from underfoot. And he never put up with an entourage of any sort. He said he couldn ’t work in a crowd. ”

  “How did Savanna feel about that kind of isolation? ”

  “I don ’t suppose she liked it. I’m damn sure she wasn ’t used to it. Savanna needs people around her. Well…” Marian took a deep breath as she opened the car door. “I’m not looking forward to this. ”

  Conan nodded, wondering what Savanna Barany ’s reaction to her husband ’s death would be. Not the usual grieving widow ’s, he was sure.

  A sidewalk bordered in potted yellow mums led them to a small lobby. There, flanked by Audubon reproductions, an elevator waited. Conan punched the button for the third floor. They emerged into a skylighted corridor and found the door marked 3C, where he pressed the doorbell, and finally a bolt snapped back, and the door opened.

  And he was reminded that Savanna Barany had once been billed as the sexiest woman in the world. A tabloid columnist had coined the phrase after Savanna ’s spectacular Broadway debut in Blitz. She had been compared to Garbo, Dietrich, and Monroe, and in her presence, it was impossible to attribute her legendary allure simply to hype.

  She wore no makeup and very little in the way of clothing: a pink spandex unitard, leather jazz shoes, and calf-high leg warmers. Her hair was twisted into a knot at the crown of her head, but wisps escaped to lie damp on her forehead and neck. She was breathing hard, and Conan was aware of the subtle scent of her flushed skin. She had obviously been exercising, and no doubt it was a daily drill and a hard one. He had seen her dance. She didn ’t seem disconcerted at being discovered in the scant attire appropriate to that drill. Conan had met this attitude before in performers. They regarded their bodies with concerned detachment, as a sculptor might a fine set of chisels whose shape and efficacy were to be admired, whose edges were to be kept razor-sharp.

  She gave him a welcoming smile. “Conan! This is a surprise. Marian? What are you doing here? ”

  Marian said, “This isn ’t a casual visit, Savanna. I’ve got to talk to you about something. ”

  Her purposeful tone erased Savanna ’s smile. “Come on in. “ She led them down a hallway past two closed doors, from one of which came the beat of music with a heavy percussion line, and on to the living room. A white brick fireplace, whose fake logs were dusted with wispy ashes, was flanked by windows that rose from the floor to culminate in spoked arches. The walls were white, the furniture glass, chrome, and pale blue leather. A bookshelf displayed Ravin Gould ’s ten titles in their American and a variety of foreign editions.

  Savanna picked up an orange towel from the back of the couch, and the towel, her bright pink suit, her copper hair, seemed accents chosen to complement the decor. She said, “I’m sorry I can ’t offer you coffee. I don ’t drink it myself, so I forget to keep any on hand here. ” Then with a wave toward a glass-fronted chest in one corner, “But Ravin always keeps the bar fully stocked, if you ’d like something. ”

  Marian shook her head as she sat at the edge of an armchair, and Conan remained standing, his back to the fireplace. Savanna seated herself on the arm of the couch, watching them curiously. “I suppose Ravin sent you. What did he tell you? That I stole the Ferrari? ”

  Marian replied, “No, he didn ’t…send us. Nobody did. I expect the police will be around later, but I didn ’t think you should hear this from a stranger. Savanna, Ravin was killed last night. ”

  “He was what? ” Savanna seemed ready to laugh at the sheer incredibility of those words. Then she shook her head. “Killed? Ravin? ”

  Marian nodded. “Yes. ”

  Savanna ’s gaze was fixed on Marian ’s face, and apparently she found the verification she sought in it. She rose and crossed to one of the windows, stood looking out, motionless, molded in light, like an exquisite Tiffany figurine in subtly tinted frosted glass.

  “Damn him! ” She turned, her sensual mouth spoiled and petulant now. “I have the car, so he couldn ’t go out and wreck it. I suppose he ODed on that damn Scotch. Not on coke or any other drug. They weren ’t macho enough. Booze was the only manly drug. ”

  Conan said, “He didn ’t overdose on anything. ” A pause, while he made sure he had her full attention. “He was murdered. ”

  Again her first impulse seemed to be laughter, but the impulse was never realized. She made her way back to the couch, slumped into its cushions as if her knees were giving way.

  “Murdered. ” It wasn ’t a question so much as a testing of the word to see what it sounded like, felt like. Dry-eyed, unblinking, she held the orange towel in cramped fists, and in the distance, the bass notes of the music thudded incessantly like an exhausted heartbeat. At length she looked up at Conan, asked, “What happened? Was it a burglary? ”

  “Not the usual kind of burglary. The only thing missing is the manuscripts for Odyssey. Of course, you ’ll have to check the house —”

  “The manuscripts? They ’re gone? ” She gazed at Conan for a long span of seconds, and this time she did laugh, but there was a hint of hysteria in it. “He said he ’d burn them, but I didn ’t believe him. That ’d be like burning his own child. Except he never had any children. Oh, that bastard! How could he die? How could he —” The words were choked off behind the trembling hand she pressed to her mouth.

  Conan sat down on the couch beside her, and she took his hand, perhaps because it was near, and she needed something to hold on to.

  “I don ’t—I don ’t understand this! ”

  The pressure of her hand on his intensified, but her eyes remained dry. Conan had seen this face streaked with tears for a fictitious grief on a stage where the lights made the tears jewels on her cheeks. But she allowed herself no tears now. She said, “Tell me what happened. I’ve got to know. ”

  Conan glanced at Marian, but she seemed to have nothing more to say. He turned to Savanna. “I don ’t know what happened except your husband was…his throat was cut with a chain saw. Byron Lasky found him this morning at the beach house. ”

  Her hand jerked out of his, and her face drained of color.

  “A chain saw? Oh, my God! But that ’s impossible. It doesn ’t make sense! ”

  Conan waited silently. He couldn ’t deny that, nor could he find any words that would help her make sense of it. Marian rose, moved toward them, asked, “Savanna, can we call somebody? I mean, if you
have friends here in Portland…”

  “Maggie. Maggie Herndon. She and Rich live in Three-A. ” Then she shook her head. “But they ’re gone today. Went hiking on Mount Hood. It ’s okay. I’ll be all right. Conan, was it that logger? ”

  “Well, the police have Cady in custody. ”

  “You know, I could understand about yesterday. I thought he just meant to scare Ravin with that chain saw, and Ravin deserved it. He was sleeping with his wife. She was only one of a long, long string of women. That ’s why last night I reached the end of my string. It was just too much, and I don ’t have to live with —” She stopped, seemed to remember that now there was no question of her living with her husband ’s infidelities. “I called my lawyer in L.A. this morning. Told him to start the wheels turning for a divorce….”

  Conan asked, “What happened last night, Savanna? I mean, after you left the party? ” He wondered if she would take exception to that question from a virtual stranger, but she only shrugged.

  “You mean after Dana broke up the party? That bitch, she couldn ’t have picked a worse time! Dana was one of Ravin ’s lovers, too. Yes, I knew about it. I knew about all his women. He saw to that. And I knew the real reason she showed up last night, and it wasn ’t just to drop in on old friends. Friends! She wanted Odyssey. But Ravin made sure she wouldn ’t have it. Oh, that ’s…funny. ”

  Frowning, Conan asked, “How did your husband make sure she wouldn ’t have it? ”

  “Well, he burned the manuscripts, didn ’t he? I mean, you said —”

  “No, he didn ’t burn them. Apparently someone stole them. ”

  For a moment, she was silenced, then she asked, “But why? ”

  “I understand Odyssey would be worth a great deal to a publisher, even in its unfinished state. ”

  “But nobody can publish it without a contract with Ravin. ”