by M. K. Wren
Conan laughed as he reached for his cigarettes and lit one. “The mild-mannered bookshop proprietor who goes into a phone booth and emerges as a mild-mannered private eye? Lise, do you need a PI?”
“No. I just thought…” She frowned, then, “I guess what I was hoping for is a friendly outsider for this weekend.”
“I suppose I fit that bill. Why do you need a friendly outsider?”
“To keep us on our good behavior. Conan, this family is close to disintegration. We need a time when we’re all on our good behavior. If we can get through this weekend without falling apart, maybe that will lay a foundation for the future. If we can’t hold together now, well, when I think about that…yes, I’m afraid.”
Conan studied her downcast face, and he realized for the first time that there was a new element in the paintings that filled the room: a stark bleakness underlying the rich color. He said, “Tell me about it.”
“I’m not sure where to begin. With Mom’s death, I suppose. She was the real center of this family, but I don’t think any of us realized that, not even Dad. I guess he’s too used to taking top billing just by sheer force of will, and Mom always let him think he was the star. Maybe in her mind he was. Oh…” Lise’s shoulders slumped as her eyes flickered closed. “It was so hard, the dying. She had cancer, and it had already metastasized by the time it was diagnosed. It had never occurred to her to have any sort of regular physical. You only go to doctors when you’re sick.”
Conan sipped at his coffee. “Typical, Lise, of her generation and Eastern Oregon. Any rural culture, I suppose.”
“Well, Mark finally talked her—and Dad, too—into getting a check-up and making Will Stewart their primary physician. Mark and Will have been friends since college, and Dad and Mom both liked him. He found the tumor. Of course, he’s a GP, so he sent her to the oncologists. You’ve met Will, haven’t you?”
“Yes, at your last gallery opening in Portland.”
“Anyway, when Mom died, it hit Lucas hardest. Well, maybe not. Dad’s so good at keeping a stopper on his emotions, it was hard to tell. Lucas never stoppered his feelings.”
Her smile at that was fond and forgiving. Conan had met Lucas Jackson King both here at the lodge and at gallery openings, and he was aware of the soul-deep rapport between brother and sister. They were fraternal twins, and no doubt even if they didn’t share as many genes as identical twins, there was a kinship that ordinary siblings couldn’t share established in nine months together in the close embrace of the womb.
Conan asked, “Is Lucas coming today?”
Her breath caught. “No. Not today, not ever. Soon after Mom died, he moved his architectural firm to Los Angeles. Doing very well, he tells me. By phone. He never writes. In fact, he’s taken to life in the California fast lane like a sunflower to the sun. He’s branched out into contracting. He always had the artistic talent and a head for business.”
“Is that why he opted for California’s fast lane? Because of his head for business?”
“No. LJK Unlimited was grossing a million a year here. He said he went to L.A. looking for greener pastures, but I knew better. He wanted to get away from Dad. Even before Mom died, Lucas and Dad were going at it. Lucas kept saying Dad wasn’t doing enough for her. He even accused Dad of wanting her out of the way. Well, that was insane. When she died, it broke Dad’s heart. I think Lucas just wanted someone to blame for the pain, and for him, Dad was the obvious scapegoat.”
Conan took time for a puff on his cigarette before asking, “Why?”
“Oh, because they never really got along. The trouble was, Lucas was always Mom’s favorite. She tried not to show it, but it was obvious. When we were kids, I was a little jealous of him, and I know Al was a lot jealous. Al was ten years older and used to being the alpha. The sibling rivalry was vicious sometimes. Al and Lucas were always fighting about one thing or another.” Then she laughed. “But Lucas was smart—even sneaky on occasion—and he always had Mom on his side. Of course, by the time Lucas was eight, Al was off to college.”
“How did Mark fit into the hierarchy?”
“Right in the middle. The essential middle child. Al kept him in his place, and he couldn’t compete for Mom’s affection with Lucas. Damn, I wonder if all siblings go at each other so hard. And I was low person on the totem pole as far as all three boys were concerned. But if there was any sort of outside threat to their little sister, they closed ranks so fast, nobody could get past them. When I was a teenager, I didn’t much appreciate that. They seemed to think every boy I dated was a threat. Conan, do you have brothers or sisters?”
Cumulus clouds were materializing in the sky now, casting shadows on the flanks of the mountain. “I had a younger brother. He died when I was thirteen. The same time my mother died.”
Lise was silent for a moment, her gray eyes shadowed, reflecting her own grief. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a bad winter. So Lucas departed for greener pastures after your mother died?”
“Yes, although he came up from L.A. occasionally for family gatherings, like Christmas and the Fourth of July. When he and Dad ended up in the same room, they were like two tomcats circling, but it wasn’t till Dad remarried that the hissing and clawing really started.”
Conan frowned after a memory. Something he’d read in a newspaper about A. C. King’s second wife. The marriage itself hadn’t been publicized. He asked, “When was that?”
“The marriage? Three years ago. Two years after Mom died.” Lise rose and stretched, then turned to look out at the mountain. “Kimberly Kaiser. She was head of the wood products division’s accounting department at Ace Timber. Before that, she worked for Al’s construction company. Well, it was still King and Ryder then. When Jerry Ryder had to retire, Al bought out his share of the partnership. Now it’s just King Construction Company.”
Conan waited, then had to ask, “What’s she like?”
“Kim?” Lise turned to face him, hands pushing into the pockets of her Levi’s. “She’s my age. Thirty-six. Very attractive. Good bones.”
“The usual May-December romance?”
Lise thought about that, then, “No, I don’t think so. Kim’s…hard to read, maybe, but I think she’s made Dad happy.”
“But not Lucas?”
“Oh, God, no. He thinks she’s a gold-digging bimbo. Anyway, it was a quiet wedding, just the family and a few friends, but Lucas didn’t show up till the reception.” Lise seemed to be looking back into memory, finding something there that frightened her. “He unloaded everything, all the resentment, all the grief. And Dad fired back at him. They went at it at the top of their lungs, and finally Dad hit him. Floored him, literally. That’s when Lucas said Dad would never see him again, and of course Dad said that was fine with him, and he could consider himself disinherited. Or words to that effect.”
“Disinherited?” Conan blew out a contemplative stream of smoke. “Did A. C. go through with that?”
“No, but he would have if it weren’t for Kim. Dad never was good at forgiving. It was Kim who convinced him he should hold off, and maybe Lucas would come around. Dad told me that. Later, I told Lucas that Kim had saved his slice of the estate, but he wasn’t impressed. He’s not very good at forgiving, either. Is your coffee cold?”
“It’s fine. How did the rest of the family react to A. C.’s bride?”
“Well, no one seemed overjoyed.” She leaned down to pick up her mug, tasted the coffee, and grimaced. “I’ll make a new pot.” She took his mug and crossed to the kitchen, and as she filled the coffeemaker’s reservoir, added, “But Lucas was the only one who challenged it, although I think Al was just as upset. That’s odd, too.” She paused to count spoonfuls of coffee into the filter basket. “He seemed more broken up about Dad’s remarrying than he did about Mom’s death.”
Conan didn’t verbalize the possibility that Al King was concerned about his slice of the estate, which might have been diminished by the marriage. That uncharitable thought
arose from Conan’s initial impression of Al: a man who fancied himself a stud and valued power, but whose only real source of power was his father; a Vietnam veteran who emerged from that emotional crucible unscathed and convinced that it had been a just war. But he had served in the Air Force and seen nothing of the ground war. Besides, Al was, like his father, a staunch Republican who accepted the party’s tenets as articles of faith.
But that assessment, Conan reminded himself, had been made years ago, and it didn’t account for what had always seemed an anomaly in Al King’s life: he had married a Vietnamese woman.
A. C. had earned the nickname Ace as a flyer in the Pacific theatre in World War II, and perhaps that was where he acquired his distaste for people of Asian ancestry. Not that he was any more tolerant of blacks, Hispanics, or anyone who didn’t fit the WASP mold. Al’s choice of a non-WASP wife must have been a major revolt against his father.
Lise laughed softly. “You never did care much for Al, did you?”
Conan looked around at her, then shrugged. “No. At least, I always found him hard to understand.”
“Oh, I think you understand him. Actually I don’t especially like him, but families are irrational entities. He’s my brother. In spite of everything, I care about him, and I’d probably kill for him under the right circumstances.” She smiled wryly. “Maybe it’s instinctive. I’m driven to protect my genes in my siblings. Isn’t that the latest theory? But, you know, I’ve never understood family murders. History is full of them. The newspapers are full of them. Yet it seems to me it would mean going against hard-wired instinct. It shouldn’t be possible.”
Conan stubbed out his cigarette. “Maybe not for a properly wired brain, but—”
Whatever he might have had to say about the wiring of brains was cut off by an explosion of barking as Heather leapt from the floor pillow and raced to the door.
Lise said, “That must be Art.”
But the man who appeared at the screen was not Art Rasmussen. Lise stared at him, then ran to the door with an exultant shout.
“Lucas!”
Chapter 3
Lise flung the screen door open and herself into Lucas’s arms, while Heather drowned their joyful greetings with increasingly ferocious barking. But when Lucas knelt to talk to the sheltie, he had her enthusiastically wagging her tail in a matter of seconds.
Conan waited by his chair, noting the uncanny resemblance between these fraternal twins. Lucas Jackson King even had his sister’s grace, although his was the grace of an athlete, not a dancer. Tennis, perhaps. Whatever his sport, it kept him in the sun, and his tan made his gray eyes startling by contrast. He wore a casual linen suit, cut wide at the shoulders, over a brown turtleneck that was probably silk. His sun-streaked hair was long enough to fall forward across his forehead until he pushed it back, but cut close at the back and sides.
He was saying, “Well, you probably won’t believe this, Lise, and I’m damned sure Dad won’t, but I came to make my peace.” Lise stared at him as he gave her his trademark crooked grin, then turned and offered Conan his hand. “Conan! How the hell are you?”
“Fine, Lucas. You look well.” Then feeling himself the third that made a crowd here, he added, “Lise, I’d better go unload my luggage—”
“Hey, don’t leave on my account,” Lucas cut in. “You’re staying for the weekend?” When Conan nodded, Lucas laughed. “Don’t tell me you’ve come for the ascent of King’s Mountain?”
“Well, that seems to be highlight of the weekend.”
Lucas laughed again, shaking his head. “Weird, isn’t it? Grown men playing king of the mountain on a foothill.”
Lise took his arm and intoned with weighted irony, “Lucas, it isn’t the height of the mountain, it’s the excuse for male bonding.” She included Conan in her wry smile. “I followed Dad and the boys once. I was eight years old, and I couldn’t understand why Mom and I were never allowed on the hike. I thought there must be deep, dark secrets revealed at the top of King’s Mountain.”
“I remember that.” Lucas hugged her affectionately. “We didn’t even know you were around till it got dark.”
“Of course not. I hid in the trees all day with only a package of Oreo cookies to sustain me. When you guys got to the top of the mountain, I was convinced I was going to see some mysterious ceremonies, but you just sat up there and ate lunch, which was one of the major disappointments of my childhood. Then when you came back to the campsite on Loblolly Creek, well, I was sure I’d see the arcane rituals then. Ha! All you did was incinerate wieners, while I was sitting in the dark freezing.”
Lucas put in, “Oh, Conan, you should’ve seen her when she finally came out of the woods. Shivering, scared silly, eyes as big as saucers.”
“I was not scared!” Lise objected, then laughed.
“Well, there’s a lot of strange sounds out in the woods in a pitch-black night. I kept hearing bears. Of course, I don’t know whether I was more scared of those invisible bears or of Dad when he found out I’d followed you.”
Lucas nodded, his laughter fading to an introspective smile. “But Dad didn’t get mad at you, did he?”
“No.” She sighed. “He just took me on his lap and wrapped his jacket around me and held me till I stopped shivering. You know, that’s the only time I remember Dad holding me like that. Usually it’s just a quick hug. Even when Mom died…”
She stopped, looking at her brother with searching eyes, and Lucas said, “There were no arcane secrets revealed on those hikes, Lise, but there was…well, call it male bonding. I have a lot of good memories from King’s Mountain.”
“Is that why you came back now?”
“Yes. It seemed like a good time to try to make my peace with Dad.” Then he turned on his quick laughter again. “Conan, I don’t know whether Lise told you, but I’ve been, well, you might say away.”
Conan nodded. “I understand you’ve set up shop in Los Angeles.”
“Yes, but before I left Oregon, I said some things to Dad I shouldn’t have. Never was good at holding things in, as Lise can tell you.”
She said softly, “Oh, Lucas, I’m so glad you came back. If you can make your peace with Dad, maybe there’s hope for Mark, too.”
Lucas embraced his sister without questioning that. Nor did Conan question it, although Lise hadn’t mentioned any dissension between Mark and A. C. But this wasn’t the time to ask her about it.
Then Lucas looked at Lise, his hands resting on her shoulders, his smile secretive, almost childlike. “Lise, I’m a changed man. You’ll see. And now I have someone I want you to meet.”
“Is she the cause of this miraculous change?”
Lucas didn’t ask how Lise knew this someone was a she. “Yes, she’s the cause.” Then he went to the door and out onto the porch.
Lise glanced at Conan with a smile that sent color to her cheeks. But a moment later the smile vanished. Lucas had returned with his someone, and Conan was absently aware that he, like Lise, was staring. He was looking at one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.
Lucas said, “This is Demara Wilder,” then grinned, obviously enjoying the silence this woman created.
Conan wondered if Lucas assumed the silence was one of consternation because Demara Wilder was black. If so, he misjudged his audience. That she was black was relevant only because her beauty was a product of her racial heritage. She was at least six feet tall, with long, lithe muscles forming subtle, sustained curves displayed to advantage in a short skirt and halter of deep, cool red, with a voluminous black shirt of a filmy cotton draped around her shoulders. Her skin had the flawless texture of satin; her magnificent eyes gleamed night black under curved lids, and her hair was straight and short, combed forward in a cap that emphasized the fine shape of her head.
Lise blurted, “Have you ever modeled?”
Demara glanced at Lucas, laughed, and replied in a voice as satiny as her skin, “That’s how I’ve made my living since I was five.”
Lucas said, “I think Lise has a different kind of modeling in mind.” Then to Lise, “If you ever read fashion magazines, you’d recognize Demara’s face from Vogue, Bazaar, Vanity Fair…et cetera.”
Demara shrugged. “Oh, Lucas, it’s been a while since my face has been in any of those magazines.”
“Their loss. Demara, this is my sister Lise.” Lise offered her hand and a smile, then Lucas turned to Conan. “And this is Conan Flagg, bookshop owner and private investigator.”
As Conan exchanged greetings with Demara, he wondered why Lucas had chosen to introduce him in that way.
Demara didn’t comment, but looked around the studio with an air of indifferent curiosity. “Lucas says you’re a really good artist, Lise.”
Conan bristled at what seemed to be faint praise, but Lise apparently didn’t notice it. She was studying Lucas with a distracted frown, and Conan guessed she was thinking past the aesthetic beauty of Lucas’s someone and wondering what kind of reception Demara would get from A. C. King, who had never bothered to expunge from his vocabulary such words as spic, hymie, wetback, Jap, and nigger.
Lucas went to Lise and took both her hands. “Don’t worry. He’ll come around, Lise. He finally accepted Loanh, didn’t he?”
“Only after she presented him with a male grandchild—who looks more like Al than Loanh.”
“Lucky Charles,” Lucas returned acidly. Then he made a show of checking his watch. “Well, it’s twelve-thirty. If the traditional schedule still holds, Dad should be arriving soon. Demara…” He looked at her, his gray eyes warming. “Brace yourself.”
But she only laughed. “Lucas, I can take care of myself.”
Conan didn’t doubt that.
Chapter 4
Lise and Lucas, deep in private conversation, walked ahead on the path to the lodge with Heather trailing them. Demara seemed content with Conan as an escort. He asked the stock questions, and she replied with stock answers. Yes, this was her first trip to Oregawn, as she pronounced it, but she’d heard they had year-round skiing here. No, she wasn’t doing much modeling lately. When her career hit the twenty-year mark, she didn’t mind easing up. She still did occasional assignments. She didn’t mention any particular publications. Yes, she and Lucas had known each other a long time. Nearly a year. They met at a party at a friend’s house in Malibu.