Seasons of Death

by M. K. Wren

  He replied gruffly, “I know why you’re here.”

  “Yes, everyone in Silver seems to. I’d like to talk to you sometime.”

  “What about?”

  Conan saw Clare’s smile fading, her gaze turn fixedly on the flowers in her hand. He said, “About…the murder, Mr. Sickle. The murder Tom Starbuck was accused of.”

  “Why talk to me? I never had nothin’ to do with that.”

  “But you were in Silver at the time. I thought—”

  “I got nothin’ to say about it!” And with that he stalked away around the front of the house, his left foot turning in at the ankle to give him an obvious limp.

  Clare called a belated, “Reub? Don’t…oh, dear.”

  “I’m sorry, Clare,” Conan began, “I didn’t mean—”

  “Why did you do that?” She looked at him accusingly, her hands in fists, the flowers trembling. “Why do you have to…oh, I don’t like this! I don’t like this! Raking over the coals of the past. It’s all for nothing!” She turned and started for the kitchen, then abruptly spun about, the tendons in her neck taut as she declared, “It’s all a stupid mistake! They say that—that skeleton is Lee. How do they know that? How? I know Lee! He’ll be back. When he gets tired of that Amanda Count! It’s her fault, all of it! Her fault—that red-haired bitch!”

  That word on Clare’s lips was stunning, and Conan stood silent as she turned and pushed past Delia, who had come to the kitchen door,. The flowers were left scattered on the planked floor of the porch.

  Conan picked them up and handed them to Delia as he went into the kitchen. “Well, I seem to be off to a bad start today. I hope I have better luck with the sheriff.”

  Delia mustered a smile and took the flowers. “Better get these in water. I’m sorry about…well, don’t take what Clare says to heart.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Good. I’ll fix your eggs now. What’s this about the sheriff?”

  Conan found his mug and poured himself more coffee. “I think it’s high time I had a talk with him. I’m driving down to Murphy after breakfast.”

  *

  Delia walked with him to his car, and when they reached the crab apples, Conan looked back toward Adler’s house and wasn’t surprised to see him standing, vigilant, on his porch.

  Delia eyed the high, tenuous clouds moving in from the west. “Yes, it’s going to rain. That’ll cool it down a bit.”

  Conan nodded, thinking that if it rained he’d have to get the top up on the car. He reached down to open the door, then stumbled back with a hoarse shout.

  It was a sound whose terror he’d learned in childhood: the shivering, penetrating rattle that once heard, imprinted itself in the depths of memory as the music of nightmares.

  Rattlesnake.

  He felt choked and nauseated, incapable of answering Delia’s questions. He only managed, when she leaned forward to look into the car, a warning “Watch out, Delia!”

  “It can’t be…” The dread rattling never stopped. She jerked back with a whispered, “Good Lord!” then ran toward the house, shouting to Conan, “Don’t let it get away!”

  He didn’t ask how she expected him to prevent that if the snake chose to depart. He mustered the courage to take a step forward and look over the car door. The rattler coiled in thick, shifting loops on the driver’s seat, its lethally beautiful head raised, mouth gaping, topaz eyes fixed and certain, it seemed, on him.

  “All right, get ready.” Delia returned, armed with a long-handled shovel. “When I give the word, you open the door.”

  Conan stared at her, then, remembering to close his mouth, nodded and poised himself with a hand near the door.

  “Now!”

  He jerked the door open, and Delia thrust the shovel in; the rattle buzzed frantically, and the fanged head whipped forward. She swept the snake out onto the ground where it fell lashing and writhing, but she didn’t give it a chance to coil again. The shovel arced over her head and came down with a crunching thud. Twice more it smashed down, and finally the rattling stopped, the beast lay broken and silent, imbued now with a sad, savage innocence.

  Delia leaned on the shovel, her breath coming fast, and Conan managed an uncertain laugh. “Delia, I thought you said there were no rattlers in Silver.”

  “Never were before.” She turned at the sound of pounding footsteps. Dexter Adler was running toward them.

  “Delia, what happened? What’s going on…?” Adler came to a halt a few paces away, staring at the snake. “Oh, my God! Delia, you…you didn’t have to kill that thing?”

  “Well, it wasn’t the first one I killed, Dex. Had the things all over the place down on my folks’ farm.” She glanced anxiously toward the house. “Better get it buried before Clare sees it. That would put her in a state.”

  Adler reached for the shovel. “I’ll take care of it.” He glared at Conan. “You had to kill the damn thing, Delia, and that was taking an awful chance. If I’d known—”

  “Dex, if I’d waited till you got here, it’d still be rattling. Now, if you want to finish it, fine. I’d appreciate it.” And clearly she would also appreciate no further discussion of the matter.

  Adler started to say something, then thought better of it, scooped up the dead snake, and carried it across the road in search of softer ground. Conan said to Delia, “Thanks for being so fast with a shovel.”

  She shrugged that off. “I guess this is one for the books: the first rattler sighted in Silver. Must be the heat brought it out.”

  Conan didn’t challenge that aloud, but as he drove away, he was giving that historic first serious thought. Perhaps the heat did have some bearing on the snake’s appearance in Silver, but it seemed too coincidental that it decided to take shelter in his car. For one thing, it would be virtually impossible for the snake to climb up the smooth sides of the car and into the seat. On the other hand, the car made a good temporary cage if it were placed there purposely.

  Someone, other than Clare, objected to Conan’s raking over the coals of the past. It was a scare tactic, probably, and not designed to be fatal. Rattlenake bites were inevitably painful and debilitating, but with the antivenom serums available now, seldom fatal.

  He had to admit the success of the ploy in scaring him, but he didn’t even fleetingly consider leaving Silver City or the case. Not now. Rather, he took hope from the ploy. Someone was afraid he might discover something, and that meant there was something to discover. Was it the same someone who had frightened Clare? And what had that someone hoped to find in Clare’s room or at her grove?

  Perhaps he had learned something about the someone: it was a person with the daring to handle a live rattlesnake, as well as the opportunity and skill to find and capture it.

  Chapter 6

  Conan discovered that he had been in error about Murphy. The entire town was not on the west side of the highway: there was an asphalted landing strip on the east side. Murphy was well along in years, its few houses and numerous mobile homes tucked among stately elms and locust trees. He made a tour of the town, which took only a few minutes since he didn’t leave his car to look inside the old building—once a school or church—marked “Library,” or the modern structure housing the county historical museum, or even the deserted railroad depot, which bore the enigmatic sign, “Stella’s.” There was only one business, a combination café, tavern, and Conoco station called the Wagon Wheel.

  Conan wondered how Murphy held onto the county seat. The majority of the county’s residents lived and worked in the towns of Homedale and Marsing in the extreme northwest corner. Perhaps it was simply a matter of location. Murphy was as central as any town in this sprawling county.

  But however its presence here was explained, the Owyhee County Courthouse was a proud little building, its meticulously tended grounds bordered by a chain link fence and shaded by venerable trees. It was typical of public architecture of the thirties, spare and trim, with buff brick walls and white marble carved in flat pseudoc
lassical designs decorating the entrance.

  Conan parked by the fence and walked to the gate where a lone parking meter stood. No doubt there was a story behind that. The gate squeaked as he opened and closed it, a comfortable sound in the rural quiet, which was unbroken except for the occasional shrieking rumble of a truck on the highway. A wind had come up from the southwest, moving the leaves of the trees lazily. He passed through a glass door into an interior that was unexpectedly modern in decor, found a directory, then walked down a hall carpeted in moss green toward the back of the building. On the walls hung the earnest efforts of local artists.

  In the sheriff’s offices, the dispatcher seemed to be the only receptionist, and he was occupied with a radio conversation concerning missing cattle near Bruneau Canyon. Conan waited at the high counter until, the dialogue concluded, the dispatcher turned, smiled pleasantly, and asked his needs and name. The name apparently rang a bell, and Conan was ushered into an office behind a door marked “County Sheriff,” and in smaller letters under that, “Andrew Newbolt.” Unlike Delia Starbuck, Andrew Newbolt did not fit Conan’s preconception. He seemed at first glance hardly old enough to have graduated from college, although a closer look revealed him to be in his middle thirties. There was an ingenuousness about his freckled, bony face and unruly red hair, but his blue eyes were cool and quick, and when he rose from behind his desk to shake hands with Conan, he moved with the lean proficiency of a cat.

  “Morning, Mr. Flagg. Delia said you might be stoppin’ by one of these days. Have a chair.”

  Conan sat down and lit a cigarette, while Newbolt pushed an ashtray over to him, then began deftly rolling a cigarette for himself. Conan said, “If Delia’s paved the way, I guess I won’t have to explain why I’m here.”

  But he did have to go through an oblique interrogation in the guise of small talk designed to reveal his qualifications and intentions. Conan volunteered his investigator’s license, touched casually on his training in G-2, on other cases he’d been involved with, and dropped a few names, such as Steve Travers, Chief of Detectives for the Salem Division of the Oregon State Police.

  The latter was well chosen. Newbolt nodded. “I heard about Travers. Come from Pendleton, didn’t he?”

  “A ranch near Pendleton, yes. We grew up on neighboring ranches.”

  “Delia says you had something to do with the Ten-Mile.”

  “I still do. When my father died I incorporated the ranch. I’m majority stockholder.” Then to forestall Newbolt’s next question, he added, “I decided there were other people far better qualified to run the ranch than I. Business isn’t my forte.”

  “So, you went into private investigating?”

  “Among other things.”

  Newbolt didn’t pursue that, apparently taking the hint in Conan’s flat tone. “Well, Mr. Flagg, I don’t envy you one bit on this Langtry thing. Maybe you’ll have better luck on it than I did. Far as I’m concerned—and the county—the case is closed.”

  Conan took a slow drag on his cigarette. “Have you any objections to Delia reopening it—unofficially?”

  “Nope. That don’t mean I think it’s a good idea or that anything’ll come of it, but I like Delia. Known her since I was a kid. I knew Tom, too.”

  “Well enough to judge whether he was capable of murder?”

  Newbolt’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not in the judgin’ end of things.” Then he rose and went to a file cabinet, and after a brief search, returned with three folders. “The big one’s the file on the murder. The others date back to nineteen-forty: the robbery report and the missing persons reports on Langtry and Amanda Count.”

  Conan opened the last one first, but it contained only a history of the fruitless search for Amanda Count and the known facts of her life: date and place of birth, names and addresses of relatives and friends, occupation, last known address, physical description. Height, 5 feet, 3 inches; weight, 107 pounds; eyes, brown; hair, red; age, twenty years. There was a photograph, probably a high school graduation picture, and Amanda had definitely been, in Delia’s words, “a pretty little thing.” There was something haunting in her dark eyes, extraordinarily beautiful eyes, that offered no quarter to the world, and expected none; something haunting in her defiantly confident smile, in her very youth. She would be sixty years old now. If she were still alive.

  Conan said irritably, “Damn, she’s the key to this thing. What happened to her?”

  Newbolt laughed at that clearly rhetorical question. “I’d give a lot to know that myself, but there was no way I could look for her properly after Langtry’s body showed up. I’ve got four deputies and a county big as New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island put together to tend to. Only about six thousand people, but just gettin’ around in it takes time.”

  “And I doubt any other law enforcement agencies were interested in looking for Amanda after forty years. What do you know about her—I mean, other than what’s in this file?” Newbolt stretched out, tipping his chair back. “All her folks are dead or gone now, except a sister. Doris Lea. Accordin’ to her, they had a rough time growin’ up. Dirt poor, and their father was a bum and a drunk. Got his kicks beatin’ up on his wife and kids. There was five kids altogether. Doris was the oldest, and Amanda was next by a year. Anyhow, Amanda had looks and brains, and she didn’t plan on livin’ poor and hard the rest of her life.”

  “That’s from the sister?”

  “Nearly everything I got is from the sister. She was the only one in the family Amanda gave a damn about, or gave a damn about Amanda. So she says, anyhow.”

  “Could the sister tell you how Amanda really felt about Lee Langtry?”

  “Well, Doris said it was nothin’ less than true love for Amanda, even if he was old enough to be her father. Maybe that’s what she was lookin’ for. I guess her old man had a nickname: ‘No-count’ Count.”

  “There’s no doubt in Doris’s mind that Amanda planned to run away with Lee?”

  Newbolt shook his head, puffing out a pungent cloud of smoke. “No, not in Doris’s mind.”

  “Did she have any ideas about what happened to Amanda after the murder?”

  “Well, she thinks Amanda was alive right afterward. Told me she had a post card from her. Came a few days after Amanda and Langtry disappeared, postmarked Reno, Nevada.”

  Conan leaned forward at that, but nothing in Newbolt’s attitude suggested he should take hope from it.

  “Sheriff, what did Amanda say in the card?”

  “Just that she was all right, and Doris wasn’t to worry about her, but they’d probably never see each other again. The trouble with that card, though, is Doris didn’t show it to anybody back when she got it. Figured Amanda was in trouble, what with the robbery and all, and Doris didn’t want to point the police in her direction. After that…well, she lost the damn thing. All we got is her word for it, and the poor old gal is in a nursing home in Boise now and not too clear in the head. So, maybe there really was a post card, and maybe there wasn’t. No way to be sure.”

  Conan sagged back in his chair. “Lee’s car was found in Reno, wasn’t it?”

  “Right. Locked and empty. No luggage, no nothing.”

  “Fingerprints? Any indication of foul play?”

  “If the Reno police checked for that, they didn’t keep any record of it.”

  Conan frowned, wondering—yet again—why he’d been so foolish as to take a case this old. Curiosity and Delia Starbuck. And what kept him on it? Curiosity and a rattlesnake. He opened the file on the murder, finding that most of the information only added detail to what he already knew from Delia. “There was no doubt about the identification of the body, Sheriff?”

  “No way. First, we had dental records. Langtry’s dentist—fella from Homedale—is still around and kept good records. Besides—” His chair squealed as he tipped forward to reach across the desk. “—take a look at the pictures. You can see there was still something left of the clothes and—that next picture, his wallet.”r />
  The wallet had been opened to show a faded, water-spotted driver’s license. Conan nodded. “Was there any money in the wallet?”

  “Yes. Wasn’t in very good shape; hard to count. There was at least a couple hundred bucks, though.”

  Conan raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment on that as he leafed through the photographs of the body as it had been found in the mine adit. In the harsh strobe light, it seemed alien and unnatural in its rocky tomb. The knife stood stark against the rotting fragments of clothing.

  He asked, “There was no question about the cause of death?”

  Newbolt laughed curtly. “Well, he could’ve been poisoned, too, but it’d have to be damn fast-acting to get him before that knife. No cranial trauma or unhealed breaks in the bones except where the knife went in. Scraped the ribs and cracked one. Whoever used it wasn’t kiddin’ around.”

  “‘Whoever’?” Conan gave Newbolt a slanted smile.

  He reciprocated the smile as he stubbed out his cigarette.

  “‘Whoever’ had to be a big, strong man—or a damned Amazon. Somebody like Tom Starbuck. He stood about six foot.”

  “Touché,” Conan replied, turning to a list of personal effects. “Was there anything missing from the body?”

  “Well, a couple of items—maybe. His wedding ring and a gold pocket watch. Clare gave him the watch on their first wedding anniversary. She said he had both of ’em with him when he left the house the night he was murdered. Of course, Clare gets a bit…confused. Anyhow, they weren’t on the body.” Then he shrugged, linking his hands behind his neck. “Pack rats could’ve got ’em. They like shiny things like that, and there was rats around. Some of the bones had tooth marks.”

  Conan studied the pictures of the body. “Pack rats might explain the missing watch, but not the ring. Look at his left hand. The fingers are curled under against the ground. There’s no way a pack rat could get a ring off his finger without altering the position of those bones.”

  Newbolt reached for the photograph and frowned at it, but he didn’t seem particularly concerned about Conan’s observation. “Well, Mr. Flagg, I’ll grant you that. Who knows, maybe Tom took the ring and watch after he killed Langtry.”