The Conan Flagg Mysteries: Bundle #3

by M. K. Wren

  But Conan didn’t seek out its high points, and he would gladly have avoided Portland and its tangle of morning rush-hour traffic altogether if there were any other way of reaching the King lodge from Holliday Beach. He hadn’t been at all enthusiastic at the prospect of leaving home just when the Weather Service was predicting an ocean storm, or of leaving the Holliday Beach Book Shop, which he considered his albatross and raison d’être, now that most of the tourists had departed and left it in blessed, if musty, tranquillity.

  At least he could avoid the worst of Portland’s traffic by resorting to its freeways. Thus the black Jaguar XK-E purred along in the center lane on Highway 205, the top down on this clear, warm October morning. The car and Conan Flagg presented a dashing image that attracted curious glances: a rare car designed for speed and power; a lean, dark man in his forties, his windblown hair straight and black, the exotic cast to his features affirming his Nez Percé ancestry.

  But those observations would be made from vehicles as they rushed past the XK-E, which was traveling at a less than dashing five miles per hour under the freeway speed limit. Conan had not acquired this car for its speed or power—he would have been perfectly happy with four cylinders—but for its beauty.

  At length he left the freeway and, finally, the last of the fecund suburbs and drove east on a two-lane highway into the foothills of the Cascades, relishing the gold and scarlet of vine maples against deep green conifers. Even if he had undertaken this journey reluctantly, he found himself enjoying it; the landscapes of the Northwest were always a sensory feast.

  Mount Hood hid behind near hills, occasionally emerging as he rounded a curve or came over a crest, and at every appearance, it loomed larger, more surprising. It seemed, in this dry season before the winter snows, like a chunk of the Moon dropped here to erode and settle into the Earth, its glaciers and snowfields pale as lunar maria.

  This solitary, spectacular mountain was one of the pearls in the strand ornamenting the Cascade Mountains from British Columbia south through Washington to southern Oregon. Like its sister peaks, it was born of the fires in the bowels of the Earth, and although its primordial cone had been eroded by the implacable chisels of glaciers, Conan always felt the savage life dormant within it. Only a few years ago, one of its sisters to the north had wakened. And exploded.

  As he skirted Mount Hood’s flanks, it seemed to move from east to northeast and finally to north by the time he passed the villages of Rhododendron, Zigzag, and Government Camp, whose sole purpose seemed to be supplying and feeding skiers en route to the three ski resorts on the mountain. A few miles after he passed the junction to Timberline Lodge, he slowed so he wouldn’t miss the small bridge over King’s Creek. For a quarter of a mile after the bridge, the highway was paralleled on the right by a pole fence. He looked for the gate and the inconspicuous sign that read simply KING.

  The gate was open. He signaled for a right turn, swearing at the log truck that hissed and roared like an impatient dragon on his back bumper. He turned onto a gravel road, while the truck rumbled on.

  Log truck drivers, Conan thought bitterly, assumed they owned all the roads, highways as well as the thousands of miles of logging roads these trucks used to haul out the timber—roads built at taxpayers’ expense. Most of the Cascades were National Forest land, although a stranger flying over in an airplane might find that hard to believe after observing the checkerboard of clear-cuts and the lace of logging roads. That stranger might reasonably assume that all the land below belonged to timber companies.

  The property Conan had entered did in fact belong to a timber company: Ace Timber and Wood Products, Incorporated. This was one of the few small enclaves of private land within the boundaries of Mount Hood National Forest. Conan drove up a gravel road flanked by more pole fences and thickets of alders, with their pale, speckled trunks. The road climbed out of the trees as it curved left, and there, backed to a slope green with fir and hemlock, stood A. C. King’s lodge.

  It was, Conan had to admit, an impressive edifice, an homage to Cascadian architecture, its materials—stone and wood—drawn from its setting. The long, two-story building was aligned broadside to the north for the view of Mount Hood, and at its midpoint an octagonal structure rose through both stories, its angled roof capped with a weather vane in the shape of a Douglas fir. The family called this structure the atrium, and it served not only as an entrance, but as a visual anchor for the two wings. On the east, the first floor was taken up with a four-car garage; and on the west, the living room with its big windows overlooking a deck. The latter was a new addition since Conan’s last visit six years ago. It began at the atrium, ran along the front of the living room, then widened and continued around the west wall. The shake roof was steep-pitched to slough off winter snow, the slopes punctuated by six gables, three above the living room, three above the garage, and no less than eight stone chimneys, one for every bedroom. Each bedroom was also furnished with a private bath, and Conan smiled, remembering Lise King’s commentary: “All the comforts of a good hotel.”

  If there was some bitterness in that, it was because this lodge had originally been built as a retreat for the family, but as A. C.’s fortune grew it had become primarily a deductible business expense frequently occupied by businessmen, domestic and foreign, and by politicians. Albert Charles King was in a position to enrich any politician’s war chest, and thus he could count many of them as friends.

  But this weekend the lodge would again be a family retreat. Tomorrow, Saturday, October twenty-fifth, was A. C.’s birthday, a milestone he refused to celebrate except as the occasion for this reunion. For thirty-four years the King family had come to the lodge on the last weekend in October, and its male members—A. C. and his sons, Al, Mark, and Lucas—made the annual hike up King’s Mountain, a minor peak chosen as the goal of that traditional trek simply because it was the highest point on A. C.’s domain.

  Conan stopped in front of the atrium, noting that the garage doors were open, but it was empty. This didn’t surprise him. He had purposely arrived two hours before one o’clock, when the rest of the family was due. Lise was already here. She spent six months of every year here in the inspirational presence of Mount Hood.

  And Lise King, A. C.’s only daughter, was the reason Conan was here. The invitation from A. C. wasn’t enough to draw him. He received a similar invitation every year. It was an inherited courtesy. A. C. and Conan’s father, Henry Flagg, had been boyhood friends, growing up on ranches near Pendleton. Their friendship had survived A. C.’s departure from Eastern Oregon and even, in a sense, survived Henry Flagg’s death, since A. C. continued to proffer Henry’s son invitations to these family gatherings. Conan usually found reasons to decline, but this year A. C.’s invitation had been seconded by a note from Lise. The first part had been uncharacteristically chatty, which in itself sounded an alarm. Lise King didn’t chat.

  Then there was the final paragraph: “You’ll find a great deal changed since Mom’s death. Things fall apart—the center cannot hold. Well, our center is gone. Oh, Conan, please come.” The please had been underlined. Twice.

  Things fall apart…

  Lise was asking for help.

  Conan saw her red Toyota minivan parked next to a blue pickup on the edge of the wide, asphalt turnaround. He frowned at the pickup, then realized it probably belonged to the couple from Zigzag who took care of the lodge. He couldn’t remember their names.

  Rasmussen. It came to him as he got out of his car and heard the chunk of an ax from beyond the northeast corner of the garage where Conan knew there was a woodshed with a door opening on the north into the outside work area, and another opening into the garage. A balding man with his shirt sleeves rolled up came around the corner, ax in hand, and walked toward him. Art Rasmussen. Art and Doris. Doris was no doubt busy in the kitchen.

  Art offered a smile. “You’re Conan Flagg, right?” Then before Conan could answer, “Lise said you’d be early. She’s up to the studio.”r />
  Conan nodded. “Where should I park my car?”

  “Might as well put it in the garage. Well, I gotta get back to work. I’m almost done splittin’ the wood. I’ll have two cords stacked for you folks before we go.” With that assurance, he walked back the way he had come.

  Conan parked the XK-E at the east end of the garage, which was clearly Art’s domain, the plywood walls whitewashed, the concrete floor painted battleship gray. The east wall was divided by the open door into the woodshed from whence Conan heard Art whistling as he stacked his freshly split wood. On the left side of the door, gardening tools hung in an orderly collage; on the right was a worktable with tiers of tiny drawers at the back under a collage of carpentry tools.

  In the center of the long south wall, a black-and-red, 10,000-watt emergency generator squatted. A wire ran up the wall behind it, then west along the ceiling, finally disappearing into a breaker box next to the door on the west wall. The generator was a reminder that warm, clear days like this could, in these mountains, give way to bitter cold, and the heat and light supplied by power lines could fail.

  Conan patted his shirt pocket to be sure he had his cigarettes and started to. leave the garage, but Art emerged from the woodshed door and stopped him with, “Say, Mr. Flagg, if you’re goin’ up to see Lise, wonder if you’d remind her Doris and me have to leave for Portland in a little while.” He grimaced. “Doris has to see the dentist.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll tell Lise.”

  “And tell her I checked the generator and filled the gas cans. They’re out here in the woodshed. Twenty-five gallons, altogether.”

  Art ducked back into the woodshed, but, before Conan had taken more than two steps, ducked out again. “Oh, and tell her Doris said she’ll have the cold lunch fixed to lay out for the folks when they get here, and ever’thing’s ready for the cookout this evenin’.”

  “We’ll all be grateful for that.”

  “Right.” Again Art disappeared into the woodshed, this time, apparently, for good.

  As Conan left the garage, he paused to savor the view of Mount Hood. Its peak was seven miles away, as the eagle flew, yet in the lens of the clear air, it seemed closer. Not a cloud shadowed its vast slopes or softened the white glare of its snowfields. There was, he thought, the same awesome presence about this mountain that he felt in looking at the Pacific Ocean from his windows at home. Each view had inherent in it an element of risk.

  He continued across the asphalt to the west end of the lodge then veered left across a lawn of mowed native grass and into a copse of alders, their leaves gone brown and dull, where a path led him up an easy slope.

  The sun-loving alders were soon replaced by fir and spruce and a cool, moist silence. He knew where the path led, but when he saw a building through the trees to his left, he stopped. This wasn’t the same building he remembered. The old studio had been little more than a log cabin. This new one was larger, its lines spare and clean, the north wall fronted with floor-to-ceiling windows.

  He found the entrance on the south side, and the moment his feet hit the plank porch, an insistent barking erupted behind the door. This, too, was a new addition.

  The door was open, the screen vibrating with the new addition’s lunging sorties. The source of this brave and noisy show looked like a miniature collie, not even two feet tall at the shoulder. A Shetland sheepdog. He knew the breed because the owner of a ranch adjacent to the Ten-Mile had imported five of them when he decided to run sheep. The sheep business had not prospered, but various members of the Travers family had ended up with fine pets.

  “Heather, it’s okay! Come on in, Conan.”

  He came, extending the back of his hand for Heather to sniff—or bite, for all he knew. Lise King was standing at a drafting table, which was tilted at a slight angle, a white enamel palette on a smaller table to her right, with the north light and Mount Hood to her left.

  Lise had once told him that as a child she had studied dance, but she had grown too tall too soon and had found another means of expression that consumed her. To Conan’s eye, there was still a ghost of the dancer about her, even in worn Levi’s, paint-smeared sweatshirt, and Birkenstocks. Her long hair was chocolate brown, tied at the nape of her neck with a blue scarf to keep it out of her way. Her face was plain and strong. Her mother’s face, Conan realized as he saw her now in profile. Carla King had had the same candid profile, and the same gray eyes the color of a scrub jay’s wing.

  At the moment, Lise’s gray eyes were focused with ferocious concentration on a three-inch-wide hake brush as she swept it across the painting on the table. Her focus didn’t waver when she offered the vague assurance, “I’ll be through in a minute.”

  Conan knelt to see if he could come to terms with Heather, relieved to find the sheltie willing to accept him in exchange for a good back rub. He worked his fingers through her thick, mahogany-hued coat, while she turned her long nose heavenward with an expression that could only be interpreted as bliss. At length she seemed satisfied and curled up under Lise’s table.

  He rose and looked around, finding himself in a large, cluttered room where living and working were inextricably mixed. A state-of-the-art woodstove crouched cold and ready in the center, while the east end was occupied with a bed and rudimentary kitchen. The remaining space was crowded with bookcases, paper cabinets, storage closets, and shelves filled with an undusted jumble of drawing pads, bouquets of brushes, tiny tubes of paint, dried leaves, rocks, seed heads, and an occasional animal skull.

  And propped around the room at opportune spots were drawing boards on which were taped sheets of watercolor paper. Some had already made the magical transformation from flat, white surfaces to paintings; others were in various stages of transition. Lise seldom confined herself to recognizable subject matter, yet it was all recognizable on a deeper level, all born of the mountain and forest.

  Conan crossed to a wicker chair near the stove, and, noting the clean ashtray on top of the stove, lit a cigarette, then settled back to study the extraordinary worlds caught in each rectangle, awed by the bold colors, the sheer courage in them, while the minute Lise had promised lengthened to twenty. But he wasn’t impatient. He knew just enough about watercolor to understand its unforgiving nature. She couldn’t stop until the paint was ready for her to stop. There was no going back with watercolor, no painting over or second thoughts.

  He had finished his cigarette when at length she paused, squinted at the painting before her as she plunged the brush into a jar of water and stirred it with a hollow clanking. Then she shook the water out of the bristles and looked across at Conan, as if she had just remembered he was there.

  “Thanks for coming, Conan.”

  “So far, it’s been my pleasure. By the way, I have messages for you from Art Rasmussen.”

  She put the cover on her palette, laughing. “Yes, I know. He has two cords of wood split, the generator’s in perfect working order, and Doris has enough food prepared to feed an army for a weekend. She’s so embarrassed at having to leave early. Doesn’t seem at all concerned that the reason she’s leaving is to have a root canal.”

  Conan rose and went to one of the paintings propped against the windows. “Is this one for the Cassandra Gallery show?”

  “All of them are. Would you like some coffee?”

  “Yes, thanks.” While she went to the kitchen area, he added, “You can consider this one sold.”

  Lise looked around at the painting. “Yes, that one worked. Okay, but you’ll have to buy it through the gallery. Cass is having a hard enough time without my selling paintings sans commission.”

  “Considering the commissions you pay, I admire your loyalty.”

  She filled two hand-thrown, earth-hued mugs with coffee and handed him one, then kicked a big floor pillow near his chair and sank down onto it, folding her legs under her. “Cass keeps the commissions to forty percent, and when you run a gallery in Oregon, you need that. One of the greatest places i
n the world to paint, and one of the worst to sell paintings.”

  Conan returned to his chair, while Heather joined Lise on the pillow. He said, “Judging by your new surroundings, I’d say the sales are going well.”

  “Oh, Conan, I’d starve if I had to depend on sales. I’m a kept woman, really. When I graduated with an art major, Dad decided I’d need financial assistance. Of course, it helped that I was the lone girl-child. The boys never got a cent once Dad put them through college, unless it was a loan—fully documented and collateralized. But he figured it was okay to subsidize his girl-child, at least till I got married and had a man to take care of me. His words.”

  Conan tasted the coffee, not surprised to find it less than fresh. Lise wasn’t famous for her coffee. “But that hasn’t happened.”

  “And it won’t.” Her tone, which had been light and ironic, turned somber. “I guess he’ll never understand that. To tell the truth, I have mixed feelings about the money, but I take it. In this line of work, you have to keep your priorities straight. Actually my new surroundings are a bequest from Mom. We were all surprised to find out how much she’d set aside and invested—all out of her household allowance. Can you imagine that? A grown woman having to live off an allowance? Kids get allowances. But it didn’t seem to bother her. She understood the rules. And…she loved him.”

  “Carla King was an extraordinary woman.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Lise, do you want to tell me now why you asked me to come here?”

  Her eyes flashed up to meet his, then she shrugged. “I was just seconding Dad’s usual invitation when I wrote to you.”

  “You’ve never done that before. Lise, what’s wrong? What are you afraid of?”

  Chapter 2

  Lise drew Heather into her lap, then gave Conan an oblique smile. “Are all PIs so perceptive? Yes, I know you’re a private investigator even if you don’t advertise it. It’s sort of like having a Clark Kent in our midst.”