by M. K. Wren
Conan didn’t like the feel of the long silence that followed. At length, he heard a sigh, and Lyn said, “Okay, Conan. So, what’ve you got so far?”
At that, Conan had to laugh. “You expect fast results. Well, Roddy couldn’t tell me much, except Corey’s car was in perfect working order, and he did not find the diary.”
“Of course not! Gabe has it!”
“That’s a possibility. Anyway, Chief Kleber will have access to the ME’s report. I won’t. But Earl might at least discuss it with me, so I’m going down to talk to him about noon, and I’ll call you afterward. Now, will you please just stay put?”
Lyn managed a recognizable laugh. “Don’t worry about me. All I want is justice. I don’t care how I get it.”
That statement did nothing to soothe Conan’s nerves. He took a long drag on his cigarette and decided not to pursue the subject of justice for the moment.
“Lyn, tell Di we’ll have to wait until the DA releases the body before any arrangements can be made.”
“Okay. And I’ll tell her you’re, uh, on the case.”
“For what that’s worth.”
“It’ll mean a lot to her, Conan. Thanks.”
In the kitchen, Conan found Mrs. Early hovering over a skillet crackling with bacon. She said in an uncompromising tone, “Set down. I’ll have your breakfast ready in a jiffy, and before you say no, jest remember, you gotta feed the body to keep the spirit goin’.”
Conan’s first inclination had in fact been to decline food, but he was seduced by the heady odor of bacon and coffee, discovering to his surprise that he was hungry.
“Mrs. Early, you’re a rare gem.” He went to the side counter where the coffee steamed invitingly, filled a cup, then sat down at the table in the window alcove. Mrs. Early had laid a place for him replete with clean ashtray. He looked out at the beach dotted with holiday beachcombers, all feeling no pain, he thought enviously. The clouds were dispersing, exposing patches of blue sky and dappling the ocean with aquamarine.
Mrs. Early presented him with a plate as inviting as any restaurant chef could offer: mushroom omelet and crisp bacon served with toasted English muffins and her own jelly—wild trailing blackberry, a gift from summer, and worth its weight, she had informed him, in gold. He didn’t doubt that.
“Chester is an incredibly lucky man,” Conan said as he unfurled his napkin, “to have you cooking for him every day. Won’t you have a muffin with me? At least a cup of coffee.” Conan had an ulterior motive in that invitation, but Mrs. Early didn’t need much encouragement.
“Well…maybe jest a cup of coffee. And half a muffin.” She brought a plate, knife, and cup and settled across the table from him. “Trouble with cookin’ for Chester is Dr. Heideger’s got him on one of them no-salt, no-cloresterall diets. Takes all the fun out of cookin’!”
Mrs. Early did not mention Corey Benbow’s death while Conan was eating, although it obviously required some restraint on her part. However, she was far from silent—Mrs. Early was incapable of that—but her conversation, a virtual monologue, concerned such subjects as the weather, the influx of holiday people, and more on the unfortunate Chester’s restrictive diet. Finally, Conan rose to take his empty plate to the sink, poured fresh coffee for both of them, and sat down to light a cigarette.
Only then did he broach the subject of Corey’s death. While Mrs. Early listened avidly, he told her what had happened, without including anything she couldn’t have heard on the local radio station, then he gradually maneuvered the conversation to peripheral subjects, arriving finally at the desired destination. “You know, Mrs. Early, I’ve always had a hard time understanding Gabe Benbow.”
She had her plump elbows on the table, her coffee cup encircled in both hands. “Ain’t nothin’ hard to understand about ol’ Gabe. He jest believes in openin’ the door real fast when opportunity knocks. Besides, he’s got a funny idea about what a good Christian’s supposed to be.”
Conan laughed. “I’ve noticed.”
“Mm. Not too many people around here Gabe can call a real friend. I remember when he first come to Holliday Beach. That was about 1932. Lots of people headed for the coast when the Depression hit. Wasn’t too cold in the winter, and you could eat off the beach or out of the woods. When Gabe first come here with his wife, Grace—nice woman, she was; can’t imagine how she ever got hooked up with him—they was so poor, they didn’t have a pot to pee in, but Gabe got in with the county courthouse bunch, and it wasn’t more ’n ten years before he was right in the thick of politics and that sort of thing and a long ways from poor.”
Conan listened and puffed at his cigarette while she chronicled Gabe and Grace’s early years in Holliday Beach. Finally he forced her to skip a few years with, “Jonas came back Thanksgiving Day, you know.” She did know, of course. In detail. Conan primed the pump with a show of ignorance. “What’s this I hear about Jonas embezzling some money before he left Holliday Beach?”
“He embezzled it from the county! ’Bout twenty thousand altogether. Nearly lost Gabe the next election. Y’see, Jonas was always Gabe’s fair-haired boy up till then, and Gabe got him the job bookkeeping in the assessor’s office. Jonas was married and had a son. That was Mark—”
“Yes, I know. Corey’s husband.”
“Right. Jonas was a heller ’fore he got married, but he settled down real good, ’cept for one thing. He did like the cards. And one-armed bandits and that sort of thing, and they never was legal in the state, but there was always plenty of ’em around here, if you knew where to look.”
Like the local fraternal lodge, Conan added, but only to himself, since he knew Chester was a member, and gambling machines were still to be found within its hallowed, benevolent halls.
Mrs. Early continued blithely, “I guess Jonas got into debt way over his head and started ‘borrowing’ from the county. He got caught, and Gabe got mad. Said Jonas could jest go to jail, he wasn’t gonna lift a finger to help him. So, that’s when Jonas up and disappeared. Heard he’s been all over the world since then.”
Conan nodded. “And Moses was the older brother who stayed home, while the prodigal lived it up in exotic lands.”
“Well, Moses did all right for himself, stayin’ home. He managed to stay home from the war, too, while Jonas got shipped off. I mean, World War Two. Somethin’ about his eyes. Moses had bad eyes since he was a kid. Gabe sent him off to Oregon State, and that’s where he met Frances.” Mrs. Early took time for a swallow of coffee and an expressive sniff.
“Talk about your power behind the throne! France Benbow decided she was gonna be queen around here, so, by golly, she had to make Moses king. Hadn’t been for her, I figure Moses’d be happy tendin’ to his insurance business—Gabe set him up in that—and never would’ve got into real estate. And believe you me, she’s right there lookin’ over his shoulder ever’ move he makes. Smart woman; leastwise, when it comes to business. They done real well, you notice. Fancy house in that new development—what do they call it?”
“Sanderling Point,” Conan supplied, which Mrs. Early accepted without a break in the pace of her discourse.
“Big cars and diamonds, trips to foreign countries. So, Moses done all right bein’ the brother that stayed home. Cold fish, that Moses. Never can figure out what’s goin’ on in his head. I used to clean for them. France, well she was downright picky, but I never minded that. Moses, though—well, one time he got it in his head I stole some diamond cuff links of his. Me!” She pressed a hand to her bosom, pink face turning even pinker at the memory. “Why, you know I been doin’ some of the best houses ’round here, and I never even thought about takin’ anything that didn’t belong to me! That Moses—he’s got what you call a one-track mind. Nothin’ puts him off a scent once he’s on it. Well, turned out he found the cuff links. Mislaid ’em himself. But never a word of apology to me. So, I jest told France she’d have to find somebody else to do her cleanin’. I didn’t want nothin’ more to do with that household.”
Conan shook his head in commiseration, then ventured casually, “Real estate isn’t the best thing to have your money tied up in right now—not with interest rates so high and the economy taking so long to ‘bottom out.’”
Mrs. Early nodded sage agreement as she took another swallow of coffee. “Lots of people ’round here been learnin’ that the hard way—includin’ Moses. But he’s jest like a cat; always lands on his feet. Way I heard it, he’s put all his eggs in one basket. That’s not so smart, usually, but that basket jest happens to be in the south part of the tract where that new development’s goin’ in down on Sitka Bay.”
Conan took a last puff on his cigarette and stubbed it out. “Yes, I heard he’s contracted for a lot of property south of the bay. I didn’t think he’d be foolish enough to put all his…eggs into it.”
She shrugged. “Friend of mine is married to—well, he’s on the board of the Westport Bank. That’s where Moses does most of his bankin’ business, jest like Gabe. And she told me her husband told her that Moses has near stripped himself for cash to put into—what’s it called?”
Again Conan provided the name. “Baysea Properties.”
“That’s it. But Moses’ll come out of that smellin’ like a rose. The whole thing was hangin’ on Gabe sellin’ the Shearwater Spit—” She stopped, eyeing Conan suspiciously. “But you know about that! You and that conservation bunch was tryin’ to stop Gabe from sellin’ the spit.”
“Yes, and you can see how far we got with it. So, Gabe’s going to get his four million from Baysea, and it looks like Moses will probably do nearly as well.”
“Oh, he’ll do jest fine. Course, all his propitty’s on contract, but he’ll still make more ’n a few dollars on it.”
But if the Baysea sale didn’t go through, Conan mused, the contracts would still be due, and Moses—and his ambitious helpmeet, France—would find themselves with a very empty basket.
Conan rose to refill their coffee cups, and when he returned to his chair observed, “Unfortunately, Baysea Properties seems to be inevitable. The only hurdle left is approval by the County Planning Commission, and with Leo Moskin heading that, I can’t see the development being turned down.”
Mrs. Early gave a cackling laugh. “Not hardly! Leo and Gabe’ve been scratchin’ each other’s backs since the thirties, and Leo never turned down anything like this Baysea deal ’cept once that I know about. That was maybe ten years ago. Portland company, and they got on their high horse and wouldn’t pass Leo any money under the table. And they never got to build even a chicken coop in Taft County after that. Course, since Leo got divorced, he’s needed anything he can get over or under the table.”
“Really? I didn’t even know Leo had been married,” Conan lied without a qualm, again priming the pump. He knew very little about that ill-fated union, and Mrs. Early was always happy to fill any informational gaps.
“Leo got himself married, all right! That was back in…oh, must’ve been about 1957. He was gettin’ into middle age then, and Nora Carr was still in her twenties. He met her in Hawayah, I think, and Lordy, was she ever a looker. Ol’ Leo always did have an eye for pretty women, but he never let any woman catch him. I mean, get him to the altar. Don’t know how Nora managed it. Well, she stuck with him for ten years, and you have to give her credit. I don’t figure Leo was any jewel to live with. One thing, though, he did keep on raking in the money, and maybe Nora figured he was ripe finally. So, she sued for divorce. You had to have grounds back then, but that wasn’t hard. Leo never did give up chasin’ after women, so Nora didn’t have any trouble provin’ adultery.” Mrs. Early leaned back, chuckling to herself. “And I guess when it come to how much alimony Leo had to pay, the judge let him have it right between the eyes. Somethin’ like a thousand dollars a month with some sort of arrangement for inflation. No tellin’ how much it is by now. The judge was a woman, by the way.”
Conan laughed appreciatively. “I’m sure that taught Leo a lesson or two. Where does all his money come from? Not all under the table, surely.”
“Well, I don’t know for sure, but I guess he went into real estate, too. He was always sort of a gambler at heart. Maybe he went into the stock market.”
Neither of which could be termed dependable investments at this point in the nation’s economic history. Conan looked out at the beach, watching a father and child launching a kite into the wind. “What happened to Nora? Did she go back to Hawaii?”
“Well, she probably does a lot of visitin’ over there, but she don’t let Leo too far out of her sight. She moved to Portland. Got herself a fancy condominium up on Vista Avenue, so I hear. Never married again, and why should she, when all she has to do is wait for the mail to bring Leo’s alimony check ever’ month.”
“How old is Leo? Must be around seventy. I’m surprised he hasn’t retired by now.”
“He’s gotta keep up them alimony checks somehow. But I guess he might have a hard time keepin’ his job after the election next year.”
“You mean he’s finally getting some real opposition?”
“Yep. Young feller from south county. Can’t think of his name. Then I heard there’s a bunch in Westport want to get Leo recalled. Got a petition goin’ ’round. Used to be, Leo never had to worry ’bout that sort of thing. He’s a big muckymuck in the Westport Bank, and it was the only bank in the county for a long time. That meant there wasn’t too many people didn’t owe the bank money, or didn’t have folks who did. They didn’t sign no petitions—not if they knew what was good for them. But now—well, we got a bunch of Portland branch banks movin’ in and a lot of new people who don’t have any reason not to sign that recall petition. Times’re always changin’.” Then she frowned as she looked up at the clock on the range. “And time’s a-flyin’. I gotta get to work, or I won’t get nothin’ done today.” She began gathering the remaining dishes on the table—including Conan’s cup and ashtray. “Oh, I noticed you still have that rib roast up in the freezer. Better let me cook it up for you. Ain’t gonna get any better with age.”
Conan rose. “I’d appreciate that, Mrs. Early. I guess I’d better get to work, too. At the bookshop, I mean.”
She eyed him curiously. “Where else would you mean?”
Chapter 5
Conan did go to the bookshop, but if he hoped for a quiet place to while away the time—it was highly unlikely Kleber would have any information from the ME before noon—Conan was doomed to disappointment. Miss Beatrice Dobie believed fervently that the customer—whom she recognized as the ultimate source of the bookshop’s solvency—came first, even to the point of peremptorily ordering Conan to tend the cash register while she went upstairs to help a customer locate a particular book.
The press of business had one advantage, however: Miss Dobie didn’t have time to question him, with her usual maddening obliqueness, about Corey’s death.
But there were townspeople among the customers who were not so preoccupied, and Miss Dobie was apparently detained upstairs with more customer queries, leaving Conan trapped behind the front counter for half an hour, while an incipient headache became blinding. Finally, when Mrs. Carmody asked him for the third time when the funeral would take place and where, Conan raised his voice to a penetrating bellow that even aroused Meg and sent her scuttling off the counter.
“Miss Dobie!”
She was at the counter within thirty seconds, and after expertly assessing the situation, she pushed him out from behind the cash register.
“Go home, Mr. Flagg.”
“I can’t. Mrs. Early’s there.”
“Then go to the Surf House and have a drink. Good morning, Mrs. Carmody. What’s that? Well, I don’t think the arrangements have been made yet. Mr. Flagg…”
“I’m leaving.”
And he did. He gunned the XK-E away from the curb, ignoring an oncoming camper-van, but he didn’t drive south to the Surf House, as Miss Dobie suggested—although he gave it serious consideration—but north, turnin
g right off the highway after ten blocks. Another block brought him to the flat-roofed, one-story building that housed the Holliday Beach Police Department. It was only eleven-thirty. Conan sat in the car for a while with his eyes closed, waiting for the headache to abate, then went inside the station. The dispatcher looked up at him curiously.
“Oh hello, Mr. Flagg. The chief thought you’d be around today. Said for you to wait in his office.”
Conan did not like being predictable, but he accepted pigeonholing gratefully in this case. At least Kleber’s message implied that Conan was welcome.
“Thanks, Dave. Where’s the chief?”
“Down at the mortuary talking to Feingold.”
“Who?”
“The new deputy ME. Works out of Westport, you know. First time there’s been an ME this handy.”
Conan cooled his heels in Kleber’s office for half an hour, but he didn’t object. It gave him time to think, to sort through the information available to him. The office was a mundane, businesslike place: brown linoleum floor; metal file cabinets and furniture; dull blue-gray walls; a desk piled with forms and file folders. Murder seemed too bizarre for these surroundings, yet it had been the subject of more than one conversation in this room.
Conan was standing at the window when Kleber’s car turned into the parking area. The chief looked harried and preoccupied. Conan heard him in a brief exchange with the dispatcher, then Kleber strode into his office, carrying a white paper bag, which he emptied on his desk before he spoke. Lunch, apparently; a hamburger and milk shake. He sat down and took a bite out of the hamburger, chewed a while, then looked up at Conan.
“I figured you’d show up here today.”
Conan went to the chair across the desk from him. “Sergeant Roddy told me you have Corey Benbow’s effects. I thought you might be relieved if I took them to Di.”