The Conan Flagg Mysteries: Bundle #3

by M. K. Wren

  Conan swirled his brandy, watching the liquid patterns of reflections in it. “If you didn’t think the diary was authentic, why did you bother to discuss compromises?”

  “Don’t play so innocent, Conan. We just didn’t want it to go to court. Isaac Wines wouldn’t want it to go to court. There’ve been enough delays on this project already.”

  “But you thought he’d accept a compromise with ECon?”

  Nina sighed, her mouth tightening. “Well, I wasn’t looking forward to trying to talk him into it.”

  “But now that’s one thing you don’t have to worry about.”

  “Obviously. And I can do without the knife-turning.”

  He smiled at that. “Did Corey agree to a compromise?”

  “On her terms. The spit and the south shore of the bay were to be left out of the development. Gabe said he’d agree to sell the spit to ECon, and I said I’d talk to Isaac about redesigning Baysea. She seemed satisfied with that, so she left. And that’s it. End of story.”

  Conan tasted his brandy, and when he looked up at Nina, he made it clear that he expected something more. It was a long silence, but finally she said offhandedly, “I mean, that’s all that was said about the spit or the sale. That’s when Corey started complaining about feeling sick.”

  Conan managed to mask his shock with a nod and a faint smile, as if that were exactly what he’d been expecting.

  “What did she say?”

  “Well, I…can’t remember exactly, but she decided to leave then.” Nina watched him closely, undoubtedly seeking in his reactions clues to what Jonas had told him.

  Conan tossed in a ringer with, “She didn’t go back to the bathroom?”

  Nina apparently decided she should agree with that. “Yes, I guess she did. Maybe her stomach was upset.”

  Conan took a sip of brandy. He wanted desperately to pursue the subject of Corey’s sudden illness, but he was in uncharted territory now, and if Nina realized that, she could lie at will. Now she was confined to backing up what she guessed Jonas had said, and she could only assume he would stay with the truth as far as possible.

  “Nina, who was with Corey when she left the house?”

  A split-second pause, then, “No one. She was alone.”

  “What time was it when she left?”

  “I don’t know for sure. About ten, I suppose.”

  “When did you leave?”

  “Well, we all left within—oh, I guess half an hour.”

  “When did you learn that Corey’s body had been found?” He had worded that carefully, and it made her hesitate.

  “When Gabe called me. That must’ve been about three-thirty in the morning.”

  Conan took a last puff on his cigarette before he put it out. “What’s at stake here for you—beyond the commission?”

  Her first reaction to that was not what he expected: she stiffened, something akin to dread flickering in her eyes. But a moment later, she uncrossed her legs and leaned forward to rub her calf, smiling coolly. “Oh, I guess…well, I’ve worked so damned hard on this Baysea project, and there’s not much call for aging beauty queens who can’t act.” Then, still leaning forward so that her robe opened on a promising curve of breast, “Conan, I’m sorry you and I ended up on opposite sides of Baysea. I mean, I understand your reasons, but I have my own. I hope—well, maybe when it’s all over…”

  She was a better actor than she admitted, Conan decided, well aware that this beauty queen was aging very nicely. He finished his brandy and put the glass on the end table. “I’m glad you do understand my reasons, Nina. I’m trying to understand yours.” He rose and started for the door. She didn’t leave the couch, and when he reached the door and looked back, she was calmly lighting another cigarette.

  She asked, “Are you satisfied now?”

  “No. Not yet, Nina.”

  On the short walk to the car, Conan went through several stages of anger, most of it directed at Jonas, but when he got into the car, he was tautly calm. Jonas, however, had apparently reached the end of his patience.

  “Damn it, Conan, I’ve about had it! You didn’t buy me with that damn check. Probably a con anyway. If my old man finds out I spent the whole damn day with you—”

  “Shut up, Jonas,” Conan said curtly, turning in his seat to face him. “The check was not a con, but there were terms—remember? You broke one by trying to call Moses. You’ve broken another by lying to me, even if it was a lie of omission.”

  Jonas put on a pained expression, then decided that wouldn’t work. He asked warily, “What did Nina tell you?”

  Conan didn’t answer that. “Tell me about Corey’s unexpected illness.”

  Jonas went pale, and Conan could almost see the wheels turn behind the sunglasses. How much would Nina tell Conan Flagg? Nothing really damaging. Jonas managed a shrug. “It wasn’t anything serious. I forgot about it.”

  “Did you? But your memory is returning, isn’t it?”

  “No, by God! You got the story from Nina, and that’s all you’re going to get! I’m finished spilling my guts for nothing!” And with that, he began fumbling at the door to get out.

  Conan sighed and started the motor. “Relax, Jonas. I’ll take you back to the Blue Heron.”

  Conan drove down Douglas Street two blocks to the highway, then turned left. During the four-mile drive to the Blue Heron, Jonas maintained a stony silence, and Conan didn’t impinge on it until they reached the Inn. He parked beside Gabe’s Continental, then turned to Jonas.

  “I know I’ve treated you shabbily, and I hope it doesn’t jeopardize your legacy from Gabe. But Corey did not die accidentally. I’m not through with this thing, and I won’t back off out of consideration for you. I can’t.”

  Jonas nodded as he opened the door and got out. “You want your check back?”

  Conan shook his head. “Think about it. Maybe you’ll decide to tell me the whole story and the whole truth.”

  “Maybe. Well, it was an interesting ride.” He shut the door and started for Gabe’s car, but when Conan turned onto the highway, he saw Jonas pass the car and go to the restaurant’s front door and, no doubt, directly to the bar.

  Only when Conan drove into the garage at his house did he realize that Jonas had walked off with a fifty-dollar pair of sunglasses.

  *

  Conan spent the evening at his desk in the library filling the pages of a legal pad with notes while the day’s events were still fresh in his mind. When he came to Nina’s admission—invention?—about Corey’s illness, he absently penned an exclamation point in the margin, then, frowning, he reached for the phone.

  He had intended to call Diane Monteil under any circumstances, and most of their conversation concerned the children. They were doing well, at least during the day. Last night had been a different matter, and Diane planned to sleep in their room tonight. She was fine. Subject closed. Her lawyer and ex-husband had called to assure her that she needn’t worry about Gabe’s custody suit, but she was not as confident. She knew Gabe Benbow, and she knew something about Taft County politics.

  But she quickly closed that subject, too, by asking, “Have you heard from Lyn?”

  “No. Of course, I was away from home and a phone most of the day.” Then Conan hesitated, regretting the necessity of bringing up more reminders of Corey. “Di, was Corey feeling all right when she left the house Friday night?”

  “You mean physically? Yes, of course. Why?”

  “Just something I need to check out. Did she have a tendency to stomach problems, especially under stress?”

  Diane managed a brief laugh. “Corey? No, she was healthy as a horse. She…used to say that. I’ve seen her under a lot of stress at one time or another, and the only problem she ever had was an occasional headache. I mean just a plain headache, nothing like a migraine.”

  Conan reached for his cigarettes with his free hand and shook one out of the pack. “Would there be any other explanation for a sudden illness?”

>   “If you’re trying to ask tactfully if menstrual cramps were a possibility, the answer is no. Not last Friday. Did someone say she was sick?”

  “Yes, but it’s entirely unsubstantiated. Di, you’d better try to get some sleep. Give Kit and Melissa my love.”

  “I will, Conan. Thanks for calling. Thanks for…for everything else.”

  When Conan hung up, he sat motionless for some time. At length, he lighted the cigarette and turned his attention again to his notes.

  The last time I saw darlin’ Corey

  She had a wine glass in her hand;

  She was drinkin’ that cold pizen liquor

  With a low-down sorry man.

  Damn that song!

  And yet…

  Chapter 11

  At eight o’clock Monday morning, the sun hadn’t yet topped the hills east of Holliday Beach, but Conan was already dressed and breakfasted. From the kitchen alcove, he watched the breakers, delicately tinted with dawn colors, while he smoked a cigarette with his third cup of coffee.

  At exactly 8:01, he checked his watch and reached for the phone on the kitchen table. The call went to the county courthouse in Westport.

  A chill, feminine voice announced, “Deputy Medical Examiner’s office.”

  “Is Dr. Feingold in?”

  She didn’t answer the question. “Whom shall I say is calling?”

  Annoyed, Conan replied, “Dr. Daniel Reuben.” He had the temerity to use the state’s chief medical examiner’s name only because he knew him well enough to call him a friend.

  It worked. “Oh, yes, Dr. Reuben. One moment, please.”

  The voice that came on after that moment was pleasant enough, but gave no clue to its owner’s age. “Dan?”

  “No, Dr. Feingold, I’m afraid I used Dan Reuben’s name in vain. I’m Conan Flagg, and I must talk to you. Today.”

  There was a pendant silence, then, to Conan’s relief, a laugh. “Flagg? Yes, Dan told me about you. Said I should look you up, but I’ve been so damned stacked up with work—in fact, I just dropped by the office to check a couple of reports. I’ve got a job up in Tillamook this morning.”

  “Can I meet you somewhere on the way? You’ll be going through Holliday Beach.”

  “Well, 1 suppose…what’s this about, Mr. Flagg?”

  “Corella Benbow. You did an examination Saturday—”

  “Oh, yes. Right. Car accident. What’s the problem?”

  Conan hesitated, then, “It’s rather complicated, Doctor. Can I buy you lunch on your way back from Tillamook?”

  “Well, I…okay. For Dan Reuben’s sake. I’ll probably be hitting Holliday Beach around noon.”

  “Good. How about the Surf House?”

  “Fine. About noon, then. Maybe a little later.”

  With a relieved sigh, Conan hung up, then poured a fresh cup of coffee and went to the library. When he opened the drapes, the sun was just striking the breakers. He smiled as he surveyed the beach, empty of people now that the holiday was over, but the smile faded when the memory of kites on the wind came between him and this Monday vista.

  He went to his desk and set up the phone answering machine for recording, then punched the number for the Duncan Investigation Service in San Francisco. Charlie Duncan was on the line almost as soon as Conan had identified himself.

  “Damn, Conan, it’s only eight-fifteen—in the morning.”

  “You said you’d have those reports for me early Monday morning. I didn’t want to keep you waiting.”

  “Sure. Well, if you figured on catching me empty-handed, too bad. I’ve got the files right here on my desk. You want a verbal report now?”

  “Yes. I’m recording this. Any problem with that?”

  “Never has been. Okay.” A rustling of papers, then, “First, Jonas Benbow. I put Carl Berg on him.”

  “Good. I hope Carl enjoyed his trip to Phoenix.”

  Duncan laughed. “Enjoy? He wasn’t enjoying; he was working. Damn hard and fast. I hope you appreciate that.”

  “Oh, I do, Charlie. So, what did he get?”

  “Let’s see, Jonas Benbow has lived in Phoenix for nearly six years. He’s also worked for the same company, Southwestern Investment Company. It’s a big real estate corporation: ten offices in Arizona, Nevada, and California.”

  Conan came upright in his chair. “Real estate?”

  “Right. That surprise you?”

  “Yes. But it makes sense. Go on.”

  “Well, Jonas is an accountant in the main office, makes about twenty-five thousand a year. Doesn’t own a car; rents a small apartment five blocks from the SIC office. Landlady says he’s quiet, keeps regular hours, usually pays the rent on time. She was a little worried about him, though. Seems he didn’t pay his rent for November, and he left town about a week ago. She also said Jonas was keeping company with a ‘nice, respectable lady’ who works at SIC. Marie Clement.”

  “Beautiful. I assume Carl made her acquaintance.”

  “Carl’s my specialist in nice, respectable ladies. He told her he was Jonas’s long-lost nephew or something. Anyway, he found out that on November twenty-second, the boss called Jonas into his office. Very unusual, according to Marie. Mr. Belasco doesn’t—”

  “Wait a minute!” Conan smiled, remembering Jonas’s unexplained phone call at the Blue Heron. “That’s Jonas’s employer—Belasco?”

  “Yes. Harvey Belasco. Very big man in Phoenix, and according to Marie, he runs a tight ship.”

  “Why did he want to talk to Jonas?”

  “Marie said Jonas told her he had a family emergency, and Belasco called him in to break the news to him. Carl thought that was a little weird. From what you said, nobody in his family even knew where he was.”

  Conan braced the phone on his shoulder while he lighted a cigarette. “I suppose Marie was happy with the story.”

  “Yeah. Well, there was some kind of emergency. Marie says Jonas was ‘terribly upset’ when he left Belasco’s office, and he told her he had to go out of town for a week or so. A little while later, he gave his landlady the same story on his way out. Oh—he promised to settle up on the rent when he got back.”

  “Mm. Is Jonas still employed by Mr. Belasco?”

  “Well, he seems to be. Marie says his desk has been left intact, and nobody’s been hired to replace him. The official word is that he’s on a leave of absence.”

  “Jonas intimated that it had to do with his health.”

  “I’ll get to his health later. Or maybe you’re not interested in the nice job of breaking and entering Carl did at Jonas’s apartment.”

  Conan laughed and tilted his chair back. “I’m interested, Charlie.”

  “It’s a furnished apartment, one bedroom and a kitchenette. Jonas has done a lot of traveling, but he wasn’t much of a souvenir collector except for foreign stamps and currency. And he had a drawer full of menus from restaurants all over the world. Here’s an item you’ll be interested in: he subscribed to the Westport Herald—that’s Westport, Oregon—under the name of J. B. Renbow. I don’t know why he’d use an alias for that.”

  “You’re a city boy, Charlie. Jonas didn’t want any of the folks back home noticing his name on the subscription lists. Any idea how long he’s been a subscriber?”

  “Carl found a bunch of clippings from the Herald about Jonas’s wife and son. The oldest went back eighteen years.”

  Conan frowned sourly. “I suppose those clippings included Kate’s and Mark’s obituaries.”

  “Everything. Graduations, a marriage, a birth, deaths.”

  “Was he interested in any other hometown news?”

  “Let’s see. Just something about Gabriel Benbow—his father?—and some big land development. Baysea Properties. Oh, yes, that ties in with some of the info Sean dug up. Anyway, Carl found some other travel mementos—matchbooks, hotel receipts—all fairly recent, and all from Las Vegas.”

  At that, Conan’s frown shaded into a speculative smile. “Yes, Jonas had
a weakness for Dame Luck.”

  “Well, he hasn’t gotten over it. Most of the receipts were from the Sands, and it happens that I have a friend there: assistant manager for the casino. He remembered Jonas; says he spends a lot of weekends there. Likes blackjack and the slots. He’s run up losses up to ten thou a few times, but my friend says Jonas never leaves town without paying his debts.”

  “Commendable. Did your friend say how good Jonas’s luck is, or how often he ends up ten thou in the hole?”

  “The house hasn’t lost any money on Jonas. That’s all he would tell me.”

  Conan turned his chair to face the windows, but the view was lost on him. “Maybe that’s enough, Charlie. Twenty-seven years ago, Jonas got in over his head as a result of bad luck at cards, so he ‘borrowed’ about twenty thousand dollars from his employer—which happened to be Taft County.”

  “You figure he’s been embezzling from Harvey Belasco?”

  “It’s a possibility. What did Carl get on Belasco?”

  Duncan snorted. “You asked for Benbow—in three days over a holiday weekend. You expecting a two-for-one sale?”

  “No, but I know Carl Berg. Don’t tell me there’s nothing in that file on Belasco.”

  Again, the sound of rustling papers. “Well, SIC is an old family firm; good, solid reputation. Belasco is in his sixties and, according to Marie Clement, tight-fisted. But he pays his employees well; lots of fringe benefits. Conan, if you figure Jonas was dipping into the till, and Belasco found out, how come he’s supposedly still working for SIC?”

  Unconsciously Conan shrugged. “Assuming Belasco did catch Jonas with his hand in the till, what are his options? If he turns Jonas over to the police, it means a trial and a lot of very bad publicity for the old family firm. If he simply fires Jonas, he’s out however much he embezzled. But Jonas knew about Baysea, not only through the Herald, but through the real estate grapevine at SIC. He knew his father was on the verge of banking a few million, so maybe he promised Belasco he’d replace what he stole, and came home to ‘make his peace’ with Gabe.”

  Duncan didn’t seem convinced. “Sure, but Belasco’d be nuts to let Jonas leave town.”