Seasons of Death

by M. K. Wren

  A little farther up the slope, Conan came to a wrought-iron fenced plot that was better tended than the others; the weeds were cut back, and all the markers were intact and upright. The plot was dominated by a white marble obelisk on the front of which was carved an open book—that motif again—held by a disembodied hand, with an exquisitely sculpted rose rising from behind it. At the top of the monument was the name, “Starbuck.” Seven Starbucks lay buried here, from Asa himself, to Thomas and ten-year-old Howard. Beneath the latter two markers, coffee-can vases held the dried husks of real flowers.

  The sun burned hot through breaks in the clouds, and again the air had that typical prestorm oppressiveness. Conan walked on to the top of the cemetery where a Douglas fir offered an inviting span of shade. He sat down on the ground with his back against one of the stone fence posts, and lit a cigarette. The view was dominated by the huge, dromedary hump of War Eagle Mountain. Even at its summit, there were tailings diminished by distance into flecks of white. A good part of Silver City was also visible to him: the Idaho Hotel; the church; the schoolhouse, where Lettie Burbage might well be looking out from her observation post toward the cemetery with her keen, birdlike eyes; the Starbuck house, where Delia and Clare were probably busy making strawberry jam for the winter to come; Dex Adler’s house—and Conan wondered what Adler was doing at this moment.

  He closed his eyes to listen to the sounds of bird cries, grasshoppers whirring from one sagebrush to the next, the surf sigh of wind in the fir boughs; the small subtleties that gave texture to the quiet. Homo sapiens was such an incredibly noisy animal; it seemed to fear silence as it feared darkness and had devoted much of its inventive energies to banishing both. Conan wondered why, when Homo sapiens was part and product of the largely silent natural world.

  Perhaps because it was endowed with such pitifully inadequate ears. Conan opened his eyes and realized he was no longer alone in the cemetery, yet he had heard nothing to warn him of the arrival of another person here.

  He started to rise, then stopped and smiled faintly.

  Mrs. Bonnet, her camera and equipment case slung over one shoulder, was coming through the gate at the far end of the cemetery. As he watched, she walked purposefully toward the center of the cemetery, toward the one new grave. She didn’t have to search for it, and that meant this wasn’t her first visit here. She went directly to the grave where Leland Langtry was buried.

  Apparently she didn’t see Conan sitting motionless in the shadows of the fir. He moved slowly to put his cigarette out, still watching her. When she reached Lee’s grave, she removed her sunglasses and stood gazing down at it. Finally, Conan rose and walked toward her. He had crossed half the distance between them before she became aware of him. She put on her sunglasses and walked away toward the gate. Conan quickened his pace. “Mrs. Bonnet…”

  But she didn’t pause or look around. He called out again. “Amanda!”

  That stopped her. She seemed briefly transfixed, then she whirled around to face him. She didn’t speak, however, only waiting silently until he stopped two paces from her, and even though she had to look up at him, he had the distinct feeling he was being looked down upon. There was a defiant lift in her half smile, but he saw nothing except his own reflection in her sunglasses.

  The next move, apparently, was his. He took off his own glasses and put them in his shirt pocket, smiled amiably, and asked, “What does the word ‘hitch’ mean to you, Amanda?”

  The lines of age around her eyes were briefly apparent. She said icily, “I understand you’re a licensed private investigator, Mr. Flagg. Does that give you license to invade other people’s privacy or to steal? And my name is Mimi Bonnet. Mrs. Mimi Bonnet.”

  “Forgive me, Mrs. Bonnet. As for invasion of privacy and theft, I’m afraid you’re not in a morally defensible position to complain about that. Perhaps Reub is, but you aren’t.”

  “Reub?” She laughed harshly. “How does he defend his morals?”

  Conan hesitated, well aware that she was probing with that question; she wanted to know how much Reub had told him. He considered running a bluff, but decided against it; there was too much he didn’t know.

  Finally, he said, “I have no idea how Reub defends his morals. We aren’t on friendly terms.”

  “Oh? Well, Reub’s rather hard to get on friendly terms with—or maybe you’ve noticed that?”

  Again, a cold laugh, then she asked impatiently, “What is it you want, Mr. Flagg?”

  “First, I want to know about ‘hitch’.”

  “And second?”

  He shrugged. “I want to know what happened at the Lang-Star office the night Lee Langtry was murdered.”

  Her chin came up and there was a tremor of tension in her mouth, but she got that under control as she asked, “And third—or fourth? Come on, Mr. Flagg, let’s get down to it.”

  “To what?”

  “To the price. Isn’t that what this is all about? You’ve got something that by rights is mine, something you stole from me. But I’m not in a position to argue about that. The point is you’ve got it now, and, yes, I’m willing to pay for it. So, how much do you want?”

  The bitterness of experience was in every word, and although Conan might under other circumstances have felt highly insulted, he didn’t now. He said levelly, “You’re making an error, Mrs. Bonnet. I have nothing for sale. All I want is the truth—nothing more—and I’m offering nothing in exchange.”

  She seemed to consider that, head tilted slightly, then she turned and walked to the low wall of stone surrounding one of the plots. She slipped the camera and case off her shoulder and seated herself on the wall, removed her sunglasses, then looked up at Conan. “Have you got a cigarette?”

  He sat down beside her and provided the cigarette, then lit it for her, thinking as he studied her face, unmasked finally, of the photograph in the missing persons file. Amanda Count, ambitious child of poverty and abuse, her only birthright her beauty, still lived behind that face, but only in the large, deep-set brown eyes. The contours of her face hadn’t been altered so much with age—she was still a vital and attractive woman—but something had happened within her, and the results were as effective as plastic surgery. She might have dispensed with the blond wig to avoid recognition in Silver City. All she needed was the dark glasses to hide the eyes of Amanda Count.

  She turned her head to blow out a stream of smoke, lips curved in a cool smile. “So, Mr. Flagg, you’re after the truth, like Diogenes with his lamp.”

  Conan lit a cigarette for himself. “I think all Diogenes was looking for was an honest man.”

  “Well, they’re both hard to find. I still can’t quite believe there isn’t something in this for you.”

  “Of course there is. A fee. I was hired to do a job. There’s also a matter of self-esteem.”

  She laughed at that. “Maybe you’re that honest man. All right, if all you’re after is the truth, you can have it. At least, the part of it I know.”

  “And there’s nothing in it for you?”

  “What would there be? Maybe I’m just tired of hiding.”

  He accepted that with a grain or two of salt. “Why did you come out of hiding now? Why are you here?”

  She looked toward the town. “Curiosity, I suppose. I read an item in the Times about—well, you saw it. Forty years, and I’d almost forgotten…no, I didn’t forget; I couldn’t forget. But I’d made quite a success as Mrs. Mimi Bonnet. Dwight—my husband—already had a good business built up when I met him, and together we turned it into a big business, and since he died it’s only gotten bigger. Anyway, it’s been enough to keep me busy, to keep me from thinking about Lee and Silver City. Then I saw that article in the paper and…” She closed her eyes briefly. “It all seemed to come back on me. That’s when I decided to come to Silver, to get it out of my system.”

  Conan nodded. It was probably true, as far as it went. “And to get the note out of Reub’s box?”

  She called up
a laugh. “Yes. That note didn’t matter so much as long as no one knew Lee had been murdered, but when the body was found—well, I didn’t feel easy about leaving it in Reub’s hands. I mean, it placed me at the scene of the crime, and the way it was worded it could be interpreted as a brush-off. Lee had a reputation for disposing of his…women without much notice that way when he got tired of them. It gave me a motive for murder, if a jury wanted to interpret it that way, and I don’t have much faith in an Owyhee County jury giving me the benefit of any doubt.”

  “But where does Reub come into this? How did he happen to have that note?”

  She muttered sourly, “That dotty old bastard.” Then with a sigh she leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “All right, I’ll tell you what happened the night Lee was murdered. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”

  “I want to know who murdered Lee.”

  “Well, I can’t tell you that.”

  He studied her doubtfully. “Can’t or won’t? Never mind, I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me.”

  “A practical man, as well as honest. Look, it was all over by the time I got there. To the office, I mean. I was supposed to meet Lee there at nine o’clock that night, packed and ready to go. We were going to start a new life; new names, new us. It was…all very exciting.”

  “And this new life was to be financed with the Lang-Star payroll?”

  She turned cold eyes on him. “It wasn’t as if Lee didn’t have a right to that money. He’d paid his dues over the years, and besides, when he and Tom Starbuck formed the partnership, Lee put up twenty thousand to buy into it. The mill was going to hell, but Tom wouldn’t sell. Taking the payroll was the only way Lee could get out with something to show for his investment and nearly twenty years’ work.”

  Conan only nodded, declining to pursue the ethics of Lee’s timing or his willingness to leave a wife behind when he embarked on that new life. After a moment, Amanda’s anger subsided, and she went on with her story.

  “Well, I was a few minutes late getting to the office. Damn, that was a hard walk, me with two suitcases and five-inch heels.” She smiled ruefully at that. “I still remember those shoes. Black patent, and the prettiest shoes I’d ever had on my feet. Anyway, when I got to the mill, there was a light in the office, and Lee’s car was outside. I put my suitcases in the back seat, then went on in.”

  “The front door was unlocked?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see anyone else?”

  “No. Only…Lee.” Something seemed to freeze behind her eyes. She took a long drag on her cigarette, then threw it down and ground it into the dirt with her heel. “He was on the floor in Tom’s office.”

  Conan waited for her to go on, then finally had to ask, “He was dead?”

  She winced, then nodded. “Yes.”

  “Would you…can you describe the position of the body?”

  She could, after another pause. “He was lying face down with his right arm under him, and the knife…I guess he fell right on it.”

  Which would explain why the knife had been driven into the body so hard it cracked ribs—an explanation that didn’t call for a strong man or an Amazon wielding it. “Did you notice whether he was wearing his wedding ring or a gold pocket watch?”

  She smiled humorlessly at that. “He damn sure wasn’t wearing his wedding ring that night. He never did when he was with me, anyway. The watch—and I know what watch you’re talking about—I don’t know whether he had it on him or not. I didn’t…search the body.”

  Conan found himself reluctant to continue questioning her. Her grief was either genuine or she was an extraordinarily good actress. “What about the office? Any sign of a struggle—anything like that?”

  “Oh, there’d been a struggle, all right. The place was a mess.”

  “Was the safe open?”

  “Yes. And empty. There were a few papers still left in it, but you’re thinking about the money—right? Well, it wasn’t there. Neither was Lee’s briefcase. That’s where he would’ve put the money. I know that because when we were making our plans, he said he intended to leave Silver with ‘a briefcase full of green.’ I didn’t take that money.”

  He smiled. “You’re anticipating me. All right, what about the note and Reub?”

  “The note was on the floor by the desk. I saw my name on it and picked it up, and that’s when Reub walked in. His face—God, it was awful then. You know about his fight with Lee?”

  “Yes, I heard about that.”

  “Meddling old fool, mooning all those years over Clare, but he never had the guts to do anything about it. Anyway, there he was in the door with his rifle pointed right at me. I thought he was going to kill me; I really did. He told me to give him the note, and he read it. Damn, I was surprised he even knew how to read. Then he said it looked like Lee was giving me the old heave-ho. He was the one who put that idea in my head, about that note giving me a motive and placing me at the scene of the crime. Wily bastard. I was so scared, with Lee lying there dead, and Reub waving that rifle in my face. He told me to take Lee’s car and leave town and never come back. If I didn’t leave, or if I ever tried to come back, he said he’d show that note to the sheriff and swear he saw me kill Lee because he was going to dump me. And what the hell did I have to stay in Silver for with Lee dead? I ran for the car and drove out of town so fast, it’s a wonder I didn’t end up in Jordan Creek.”

  Conan took a long drag on his cigarette, eyes slitted. “Then it was Reub who hid the body in the mine adit.”

  She shrugged indifferently. “I guess so. I didn’t have the vaguest idea what happened after I left. It was five years before I even found out that nobody knew Lee’d been murdered.”

  “How did you find out? From your sister?”

  “No. As far as Doris or anybody else in Idaho was concerned, I didn’t exist. I didn’t write home for news. I found out from the library in L.A. It took five years because when I first hit town, I was just a kid from the sticks. I didn’t know libraries had newspaper files. Hell, my folks didn’t even know libraries had books. Anyway, the main L.A. library had a file of Idaho Statesmans—the Boise paper. I found an item in the September twenty-fourth, nineteen-forty issue about the robbery in Silver. The robbery. That was all. No, it said something about the police looking for me—and Lee.”

  “So, you realized Reub had disposed of the body?”

  “I didn’t know what had happened, but I damn sure wasn’t coming back to find out. Not then.”

  Conan paused over that, then: “You didn’t go directly to Los Angeles. You drove to Reno, didn’t you?”

  She crossed her arms, rubbing them as if she were cold, then looked up at the sky. “It’s going to rain again. Yes, I drove to Reno. That’s where Lee and I had planned to go first. I didn’t really think about where I was going, actually, and I don’t remember anything about the drive. I just seemed to wake up about dawn, and there I was in Reno.”

  “Why did Lee schedule Reno as your first stop? To get a divorce from Clare?”

  Amanda laughed curtly. “No way. Lee knew Tom would have the police after us because of the money, so there wouldn’t be time for formalities like a divorce. The only reason he picked Reno was that he’d already made arrangements with a man there—his name was Otto Spicer.” Her lips curled in disgust. “Filthy, slimy little man. Anyway, Otto was in the paper business. I told you Lee planned for us to start out with new names. Otto was going to supply us with the papers we needed—birth certificates, driver’s licenses, that sort of thing. Well, when I realized where I was, it came through to me that I’d left a body behind—I didn’t know then that nobody had found it—and an empty safe, so I decided I could use that new identity. We were going to be Mr. and Mrs. Christopher L. Studer, by the way. Christopher Lee and Mimi.” She gestured toward the marker memorializing Chris Studer’s death at the hands of Indians. “That’s where Lee got the name.” Briefly, she found that amusing, then her smile f
aded, the lines in her face emerging harshly. “I went to see Otto. Lee had already paid half his price for the papers; there was only two hundred dollars owing. I had about three hundred with me, so I offered to pay the full two hundred for just one set of papers. But that son of a bitch knew he had me in a corner, damn him. Four hundred, he said. So, I started hitting the pawn shops with my luggage and Lee’s and every piece of jewelry we had. I tried to sell the car, but nobody would touch it; I guess they figured it was too hot. God, I’ve never been through a night and a day like that. It was a taste of pure hell.”

  Conan waited through the silence that followed, reading in her face the gut-turning memories that forty years had only made more mordant. He had no doubt that this emotion, at least, was genuine. Finally, she began fumbling in her camera bag. “I’ve got some cigarettes in here somewhere.”

  He offered another of his, and she nodded her thanks when he lighted it. Then after inhaling deeply, she resumed her story. “I ended up with a few clothes in a paper sack and enough money to buy a bus ticket to Los Angeles, with twenty-seven dollars left over.”

  “Why Los Angeles?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I thought that’s where the action was in those days.” Then with a short laugh, “And maybe I was thinking about Hollywood—you know, getting discovered while sitting in a soda fountain wearing a tight sweater. Well, that idea didn’t last long. Damn, I took any job I could get and lived anywhere I could find a cheap enough bed without too many fleas in it. But I never slept in anything but a single bed. Anyway, I finally landed a job in Dwight’s office. He was a sweet guy and never been married, even if he wasn’t exactly a young man. I figured I could do worse. It took a while, but I got him to the altar finally. Poor Dwight, he died ten years later. Heart attack.”

  “Did you have any children?”

  “Hell, no. I didn’t want any. I liked Dwight, but not enough to tie myself down with a bunch of runny-nosed kids.” She gave Conan a slanted look. “You think that sounds hard, don’t you? Well, I didn’t love Dwight, but I can tell you this: he damn sure got his money’s worth out of me. Yes, I’m hard. I learned hard right here in Owyhee County. I learned it from my father. You know, I never remember seeing him sober; not once. He was the kind of man who liked to knock his wife and kids around at least once a week; the kind of man who raped both his daughters. I was fourteen. That was the first time. Poor Doris was only twelve the first time. And my mother—she taught me about hard, too. She was thirty-seven the last time I saw her, and she looked sixty-seven. All she had was religion, and her God never forgave anybody anything. And I learned hard from the good people of Silver, all those proper, upstanding citizens—the ones who called me a tramp or a whore—and that’s one thing I never was—the ones who turned the only beautiful thing that ever happened to me in my life into something ugly. Lee. Lee Langtry. He was…and then I lost that, too.”