by M. K. Wren
Her eyes narrowed. “The feud? That’s right, you used to do some sleuthing on the side. He did talk about hiring an investigator. I guess he should’ve called you sooner. He might still be…”
“Please, Laura,” he said gently, “don’t start that.”
She managed a brief smile and nodded.
“Might-have-beens are dangerous. So is self-pity.”
There was something subtly out of character in her tone, but he couldn’t pinpoint it, and he reminded himself that he’d never known her well, nor had he talked to her face to face for five years. Since the wedding.
“Laura, do you feel up to telling me what happened? Ross wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“Yes. I can tell you what I know, anyway. I’m all right, Conan. Really I am. Besides, maybe you can…” She didn’t finish that speculation, instead reciting coolly, “At this point, all we’re sure of is that the dam on Alvin Drinkwater’s Spring Creek reservoir was blown up.”
“Yes, I saw it.” And recognized it as a disaster, but not a tragedy. Then, at her questioning look, he explained, “When we were flying in. How was George involved in that?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know why he was there, but he was found—his body was half buried in the debris. He was probably killed by a blow to the head. The left parietal bone was fractured.” The terminology made him pause, and reminded him that she was a registered nurse. Perhaps that explained in part her objective calm. “Fractured by what?”
“A rock, apparently. That’s what Sheriff Tate says.”
“Flying debris from the explosion?”
She shrugged, staring down at the floor.
“I suppose so.”
“All right, Laura. Do you know when it happened?”
“Probably about eleven last night. Some of the Drinkwater hands told Tate they heard an explosion then. But the reservoir is quite a distance from the ranch house, and they just passed it off as a sonic boom. There’s an Air Force base in Boise, and I guess they consider this uninhabited country; they keep making practice runs over us.”
“How did George get out to the reservoir?”
“On horseback. His horse wandered back to the barn. I saw her there this morning, still saddled. That’s when I first realized something was wrong.”
“Not till this morning?”
She nodded mechanically. “Yes. Early. A little after five. Last night George said he wanted to work in the office to get ahead on the books, since he was going…there’s a Cattlemen’s convention. Oh, Lord, I’ll have to call someone—”
“Sheriff Tate can take care of the notifications.”
“Yes, of course. Anyway, I went out to the house—we moved into the foreman’s house a year ago; Gil Potts has no family and doesn’t need the room.” She frowned, seeming to find it difficult to keep track of her narrative. “I read for a while, then went to bed. It didn’t occur to me to worry about George. I slept right through until five, then I realized he hadn’t even been to bed. I was on my way to see if he’d fallen asleep in the office, when I saw his horse, and of course he wasn’t in the office. It was locked. I sounded a general alarm, and Aaron and the boys and the buckaroos rode out to look for him.”
“Could they trail his horse?”
“I didn’t go along, but I doubt it; it’s been pretty dry lately. They didn’t find him, anyway.”
“Who did?”
“A couple of Drinkwater hands. They were just out riding fence. Spring Creek crosses the property line, and the fence was cut there.”
He raised an eyebrow. “The reservoir’s a long way from the fence line. On horseback, at least.”
“Yes, but all that water had come down the creek, so they rode up to investigate. All that water. Conan, that was Alvin’s main reservoir for his winter pastures. I just can’t believe…” She swallowed hard.
“You can’t believe George would blow up the dam? Is that the way it’s being interpreted?”
“Oh, Tate has to consider that possibility, since it’s rather obvious. Naturally, Aaron won’t accept it.”
“I find it a little hard to swallow, myself. Who called Tate?”
“Alvin. The two men who found—one of them rode to the ranch house to tell Alvin. He called Tate, then went out to the reservoir. Aaron and the Running S crew arrived on the scene about the same time as Tate and his deputies. I guess it’s a good thing Tate was on hand, or someone else might’ve been killed.” Her breath came out in a long sigh. “That’s all I know. Tate’s in the living room now, trying to get some answers out of Aaron and the boys. Conan, what are you going to do?”
He looked at her blankly, taken off guard.
“I don’t know.”
“Laura?”
They both turned toward the living room door. The young man standing there seemed made all of supple, tough brown leather. The Western-style shirt and Levis clung to his lean body as if they’d been tailored; a practical consideration, Conan knew, for someone to whom riding was a living, not a pleasure. His hair was nearly black, slipping down over his forehead to shadow eyes of an unusually bright blue. George had had the same intensely blue eyes, although his hair had been a tawny, sun-bleached brown.
Abraham Lincoln McFall. Conan recognized him easily enough. He would be about twenty-two now.
But Linc didn’t seem to recognize him. The blue eyes reflected both suspicion and a curiously defensive attitude. It was Laura who evoked the latter; Conan didn’t realize that until she spoke and Linc’s attention shifted to her.
“It’s all right, Linc,” she said, answering a question he hadn’t voiced. “You remember Conan Flagg, don’t you?”
Linc admitted the memory, but almost reluctantly, asking warily, “What brings you out here?”
“An SOS of sorts, and I liked the circumstances of my last visit better. I…just heard about George.” Linc’s unresponsive stare discouraged any expression of condolence, and Conan turned uncomfortably to Laura. “I should talk to Sheriff Tate.”
She nodded and led the way to the living room doors.
“Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
Conan remembered the stone fireplace on the wall opposite the door; the entire room had an air of familiarity the memories from his one visit here didn’t explain. It was very much like the living room of the old house at the Ten-Mile; a totally masculine room whose furnishings were chosen solely for their function, and if among the overstuffed, mail-order styles there were a few fine old pieces left by previous generations, it was only because they had proved themselves in terms of utility.
It was a room without books. The shelves on either side of the window on the right wall were occupied with trophies, symbols of prowess in riding, cattle breeding, or shooting. On the left wall in a glass-fronted case by the office door was a rack of hunting guns of various makes and calibers. All the walls were hung with animal heads, glass eyes staring out in a morbid facsimile of life. It was also a room without paintings. The wall over the mantel, which might have held a portrait of an ancestor, was occupied by the head of an elk with a magnificent spread of antlers.
Between the glass-eyed hunting trophies and the curious human occupants of the room, Conan felt as if he’d suddenly stepped onto a stage. Or mounted a scaffold.
The two men sitting on the couch to his right were both strangers. The older of them wore a tie and conservative business suit, which with his thin-soled shoes marked him as a town dweller. The other wore dusty boots and Levis and a curled-brim Stetson.
Conan found himself giving this man a second look, and wondering why. One of the buckaroos, or, more likely, the foreman. A weather-worn face caged in prominent bones, sage gray eyes set in a squint made permanent by years under the sun.
The man in the chair to the right of the fireplace was uniformed, complete with star, Stetson, and revolver. He’d done his share of riding at one time or another; his hands showed it, but with the arrival of middle age, he was putting on weight, most of
it accumulating in the area just above his low-slung belt. This would be Sheriff Joe Tate.
Conan looked for Deputy Harley Ross and found him in the corner to his left, leaning against a high counter. No. A bar. A new addition, and an unexpected one.
The young man slumped in the chair near the bar could only be Ted. Theodore Roosevelt McFall. He was fourteen when Conan had last seen him, still a boy, but he was a grown man now, with big, sun-browned, capable hands and shoulders that strained the seams of his shirt. Conan wasn’t prepared for his resemblance to George. The same tawny hair, strong cheekbones and jawline, and intense blue eyes. He wondered if Ted had the same slow, wry smile.
He wondered, too, if he’d been purposely avoiding, or delaying, recognizing Aaron McFall.
The elder McFall sat in an armchair to the left of the fireplace, and the genetic source of his three sons’ blue eyes was obvious; Aaron’s burned incandescent from under white brows. Unlike the sheriff, he hadn’t gone to paunch with age. He might be a little thicker in the torso, but his posture and general physical condition were at odds with his hair, still thick, but white as snow—or ice.
Yet the last five years had exacted more of a toll than would be expected, incising the lines in his face, sinking his eyes deeper into their sockets. Perhaps it was only the last year, or the last few hours.
“I know you,” he said sharply. “You’re Henry Flagg’s boy. What the hell’re you doin’ here?”
CHAPTER 5
At that abrupt greeting, Laura stiffened as if she’d been slapped.
“He’s here because George asked him to come.”
That was something Conan would have preferred to reveal himself, in his own time, but the damage was done.
Aaron said curtly, “George never said a damn thing to me about him.”
Laura sighed as she went to the chair Ted vacated and silently offered her.
“Thanks, Ted. Aaron, he didn’t say anything about it to me, either. Oh—I’ve neglected the introductions. Dr. Walter Maxwell…” This was the elderly man in the business suit; then the man at the other end of the couch, “Gil Potts, our foreman. And Sheriff Joe Tate. Conan Flagg, an old friend of George’s and mine.” Then she looked up at Ted, standing by her chair, and added, “You met Ted, of course, Conan, but that was a few years ago.”
As the small ceremonies of shaking hands and exchanging guarded amenities were observed, Conan noted that Linc was standing near the door, arms folded, watching everyone’s every move, particularly his.
When the courtesies were concluded, Joe Tate resettled his hat on his head and himself in his chair and squinted up at Conan.
“You say George asked you to come, Mr. Flagg? Mebbe you can clear up a little question of a phone call we been wonderin’ about. You call him yesterday evenin’?”
Conan found both that deduction and his cool, thoughtful tone impressive.
“Yes, I called him. It was about six.”
“Tallies. Jest a friendly call?”
“No. A business call.”
“I s’pose George had some dealin’s with the Ten-Mile.”
Conan hesitated, not because he was reluctant to explain George’s call to Tate; he simply objected to doing so in such public surroundings. But there was an alternative to verbal explanation. He took George’s letter from his breast pocket and handed it to Tate.
“I think this will answer your questions, Sheriff.”
“Well, I’m obliged, Mr. Flagg.”
“That from George?” Aaron demanded. “What’s it about?”
“Can’t say yet.” Tate donned bifocals and read the letter, frowning all the while, then took time to put his glasses back into his shirt pocket before turning a speculative eye on Conan.
“This what you and George talked about on the phone?”
But Aaron cut in impatiently, “Hand it here, Joe.”
Tate went up a few notches in Conan’s estimation when, with a questioning look, he left it to Conan to decide whether that sharp command should be obeyed, and when Conan reached for the letter, returned it to him without hesitation.
“Thank you, Sheriff. Yes, this is what we talked about.”
Aaron shot to the edge of his chair.
“Jest a gawdamned minute! That letter come from George, didn’t it? He was my son, and if it’s got anythin’ to do—”
“Aaron, please,” Dr. Maxwell put in, quietly insistent. “If you don’t simmer down, you’ll work yourself up to another heart attack.”
That possibility didn’t seem to concern Aaron, but it distracted him enough for Tate to resume his low-key interrogation.
“Well, Mr. Flagg, an honest-to-God private detective is somethin’ we don’t often run into in these parts.”
Conan restrained any overt expression of annoyance at that oblique but revealing query as he opened his wallet to his private investigator’s license.
“Honest enough,” he quipped as he handed it to Tate. “But if you want a character reference, try Steve Travers. He’s chief of detectives for the Salem division of the state police.”
“I’ve had some dealin’s with Travers. He come from around Pendleton, too, didn’t he?” Then he frowned. “This address says Holliday Beach. I thought you was from the Ten-Mile.”
“I am, but Holliday Beach is my home now.”
Tate mulled that over, appraising him with a skeptical squint as he returned the billfold.
“What do you intend to do now, Mr. Flagg? I mean, now that George is…” He didn’t finish that, glancing uncomfortably at Laura, but she was intent on Conan, waiting for his answer.
“I’m obligated to George, alive or dead. If I can, I’ll meet that obligation.”
“Obligation!” Aaron repeated contemptuously. “Damn it, we got trouble enough already, so you can jest take your obligation and chuck it! George is dead, and he don’t need you no more, and we sure as hell don’t.”
“Aaron!” Laura came to her feet, white and trembling. “Conan was a friend of George’s, and he’s here at his invitation. He’s also my friend, and I won’t have a friend of mine treated that way.”
Aaron seemed vaguely confused at that charged protest, but it served to cool his antagonism, at least temporarily. His pride precluded a direct apology to Conan, but not a lamely placating gesture.
“I said we got enough trouble, but it ain’t of your makin’. You’re welcome to stay on here if you want.”
Conan managed to keep a straight face. “Thank you.”
“But if this here obligation has anything to do with George bein’ murdered”—he sent Tate an accusing glance—“I wanta know about it.”
“Oh, Aaron…” Laura sank back into her chair with a disspirited sigh.
“Well, I got a right to know,” he insisted. “He was my son. Now, what was that letter about?”
“I don’t recognize your right to know,” Conan said tightly, “simply because George was your son. I will discuss it with you because it concerns the ranch, but only in private.”
“In private!” The color began moving up into his face. “Listen, Flagg, this ain’t one of your fancy corporation ranches. This here’s a family business. Always has been and always will be. I got no secrets from the family.” He seemed to realize the room was a little crowded then, and added, “Joe and Harley Ross got a right to know ’cause they’re the law. As for Walt…” This with a glance at Dr. Maxwell. “Well, he’s jest about one of the family.”
Conan said nothing, only sending a questioning look at the foreman, Gil Potts, who met it with a level confidence soon explained by Aaron’s response.
“Gil’s one of the family, too.”
Conan shrugged at that. “You run your business your way, I’ll run mine my way. I’ll discuss it with you in private.”
“Discuss it in perdition, then, for all I care!”
“Oh, Conan, you may as well tell him now,” Laura put in dully. “He’ll spread it all over the county anyway, if he wants to.”<
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Aaron said reproachfully, “Now, Laura, you got no call to say that.”
“Don’t I? Conan, please. I can’t…there’s been too much to deal with at once.”
He studied her taut, pallid face, and recognizing the futility of further resistance and the price it was exacting from her, he surrendered the letter to Aaron, putting an ironic emphasis on the last word as he said, “I’ll at least ask that this be kept in the family.”
Aaron ignored that and for some time frowned over the letter, his intentness revealing not only his emotional state, but a myopia he refused to recognize by wearing glasses.
“‘…or somebody will end up dead.’” He read the words numbly, as if they didn’t make sense, then roused himself and looked up at Conan, his suspicion apparently unallayed.
“So, George hired you to play private detective.”
Conan’s temper was getting short.
“I don’t play private detective.”
“Whatever you call it, then. He says here he wants you to help him ‘get to the bottom of this.’ The trouble between me and Alvin? Is that what he meant?”
“Obviously. Now this ‘trouble’ includes his death.”
Aaron snorted derisively and tossed the letter onto the table by his chair.
“How much was George aimin’ to pay you for gettin’ to the bottom?” Then, perhaps recognizing a danger signal in Conan’s eyes, he went on defensively, “Well, it don’t take no detective to figger out what’s plain as day.”
Conan went to the table and retrieved the letter.
“Apparently George didn’t agree.”
“And look what come of that. If he’d listened to me—” He paused, the muscles of his jaw swelling. “Anyhow, it don’t take no detective to figger out who killed him.”
This shaft was aimed at Tate, who was occupied with unwrapping and lighting a formidable cigar, a task he finished before he responded.
“So, you got it all figgered out, Aaron?”
“Damn right, and so’ve you, so how come you’re sittin’ here jawin’ while that sonofabitch gets off free as a bird?”
Tate emitted a leisurely puff of smoke.
“You mean Alvin?”