by M. K. Wren
As Conan and Demara crossed the lawn to the deck at the west end of the lodge, she studied him with a dubious smile and asked, “Are you really a PI?”
“Well, I carry a license to that effect, but fortunately I don’t have to depend on it for a living.”
“Your bookshop must be a gold mine, then. That is your Jag in the garage, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.” Conan didn’t comment on what kind of gold mine the crotchety old Holliday Beach Book Shop had proved to be. It was his pride and joy, as well as a source of figurative and literal headaches, but it had never produced enough gold to even pay for the upkeep of the XK-E.
They had reached the south end of the deck. Lucas and Lise were already at the far corner, Lucas apparently surveying the deck’s construction with an expert eye.
Demara smiled up at the sun that pounded the cedar planking. “This is terrific! Warmest spot I’ve been for days.” She went to one of the two lounge chairs, asked, “Think anybody’ll mind?” as she disposed her lithe body like an odalisque on one of the chairs, and obviously didn’t expect any objections.
Conan certainly had none. He walked on down the deck, passing the kitchen’s bay window and the four French doors into the living room, all of them open. He noted that A. C. had retained the outdoor fireplace and grill and incorporated it into the west side of the deck. Near the fireplace a picnic table stood draped with a checkered tablecloth for the evening’s cookout. He also noted as he reached the corner of the building that A. C.’s come-and-get-it bell was still there: a bronze bell, perhaps a foot in diameter, that had once rung-in the students at a one-room schoolhouse near Pendleton.
Lise and Lucas were leaning on the deck railing near the atrium when Conan caught up with them. The blue pickup was gone, which meant the Rasmussens had departed, Doris to meet her fate in a Portland dentist’s chair. A. C. hadn’t arrived yet.
As Conan approached, Lucas asked, “Where’s Demara?”
“She’s enjoying the sun on one of the lounge chairs.”
“Complaining about the cold, I suppose. I told her to wear something warmer, but when you live in Southern California it’s hard to understand there’s a happy medium between bikinis and ski pants.”
That was spoken in a tone of bemused tolerance that made Lise smile but didn’t dispel the anxiety shadowing her eyes. Conan understood it. If Lucas was as infatuated with Demara Wilder as he seemed to be, that might create an insurmountable obstacle between him and his father.
Heather, who had been lying at Lise’s feet, clambered upright, ears on full alert, but she didn’t bark, only whined impatiently. Lise looked down the road and said with a resigned sigh, “Here they come.”
A black car emerged from the alders at the curve of the road. Lucas resolutely took his stand a few feet from the front door at the top of the two steps that led down to the asphalt, while Lise moved to Conan’s side, shaking her head. “I told him I’d talk to Dad first to sort of cushion the shock, but…well, Lucas always was stubborn.”
The car was, not surprisingly, a shining new Cadillac DeVille. A. C. King could easily afford a Rolls-Royce, but it was against his principles to buy any car that wasn’t made in the U.S.A. No doubt the downsizing of American cars had put a crimp in his vehicular style, but the DeVille still made a suitable entrance, humming sedately across the asphalt. The tinted windows hid its occupants.
When the Cadillac stopped in front of the atrium, and the passenger door opened, Conan watched curiously as Kimberly Kaiser King got out. Attractive, Lise had said. Good bones. That was manifestly true. She wore sunglasses but no hat, and her hair was white-wine blonde, cut in a short, casual style. She looked every inch the country gentlewoman, with her beige cords and sweater, her leather-piped blazer of beige and pale blue plaid, and her Ferragamo flats. She surveyed the deck, focused on Lucas King.
But he didn’t seem to see her. He waited, immobile, as his father got out of the car, slammed the door, and glared at him with his hands resting in fists on top of the car.
There was about Albert Charles King an elemental quality, like a slab of granite, its surface weathered to tan, but underneath, ice gray and impervious. His face was webbed with creases, emphasized by the squint that hid his eyes, set deep under bristling brows. His gray hair still had a reddish cast, but it had receded until only a wispy veil covered the top of his head. Yet there was no slump in his wide shoulders, no stoop in his uncompromising posture. And nothing of the country gentleman about him. He wore Levi’s, leather work boots, and a red plaid shirt, and his freckled hands were those of an old timber faller rather than a manicured CEO.
He strode to the deck steps, and it occurred to Conan that Lucas had chosen the place to take his stand for the subtle advantage of looking down at his father. But A. C. didn’t concede the advantage. He mounted to the deck, forcing Lucas to back up. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Lucas met his burning gaze unflinchingly. “Dad, I’ve come to make my peace with you, to tell you…to tell you I’m sorry.”
Conan heard Lise’s quick intake of breath as A. C. dismissed that with a snorting laugh. “I told you, you can’t expect any help from me. The answer’s the same. On the phone or in person.”
Lucas looked puzzled, then produced his crooked smile. “That little problem has been taken care of, Dad. Before we left L.A., I got the bid to design and contract a thirty-million-dollar office complex.”
Conan frowned at that exchange. Had Lucas phoned his father in hope of financial assistance? If so, he must have been truly desperate.
A. C. offered a grudging, “Well, I’m glad to hear it.”
“Dad, I was out of my mind,” Lucas said, thrusting his hands in his pockets. “I mean, when Mom was sick and…afterward. I just didn’t know how to handle it. I loved Mom so damn much—”
“You think I didn’t?”
“No, I don’t think that,” Lucas replied steadily. “Maybe I did then, because you…well, you didn’t show it. But I understand now—”
“I didn’t show it? You mean I didn’t go around blubbering like a woman—”
“I mean because I didn’t understand then. I do now, Dad. And another thing I understand: Mom wouldn’t have minded your marrying again. She’d never have wanted you to be alone forever.”
That assertion silenced the retort A. C. had ready, and Kim came up beside him, taking his arm while Lucas went on: “Dad, I said things to you I’ll regret the rest of my life. I can’t take them back. All I can do is apologize.” He turned to Kim, gave her a wistful smile. “I can’t take back what I said to you, either, Kim, but I wish I could. If you can make Dad happy, I know that’s what Mom would have wanted.”
Conan had a clear view of Kim King’s face, but the sunglasses masked her reaction. She started to speak, but A. C. cut her off with “Damn you, Lucas, you can’t just waltz in here and—”
“A. C., just hush.” Kim spoke in a matter-of-fact tone that reminded Conan of Carla King. “Your son has offered me a gracious apology, and I intend to accept it. I understand what grief can do. Lucas, thank you. I know it didn’t come easy.”
A. C. seemed, atypically, unsure of himself, but finally he cleared his throat and muttered, “Well, Lucas, I’m…glad you could make it for the reunion.”
He offered his son no handshake, certainly no embrace, but perhaps that grudging welcome was of equal significance. Lise sighed gustily, and Heather, who had remained silent at her side, ran to A. C., as if she had just been freed from a leash.
The sheltie’s exuberance broke the tension, and A. C. knelt to give her a rough rubbing, then embraced Lise with a brief hug, asking, “How’s my girl?” For Conan, he had a vigorous handshake and a welcome. And an introduction to his new wife.
Kim took off her sunglasses, revealing eyes as blue as the mountain sky. As Conan made the expected responses, he was thinking that those eyes could be mesmerizing. For him, they were warmly polite, but behind that he saw a glittering amuse
ment mixed with curiosity and a quality he couldn’t define until the word audacity came to mind.
She said, “I’m delighted you could come, Conan.”
It was at that almost jovial moment that A. C.’s gaze fixed on some point beyond Conan’s head with an expression that shaded in a split second from surprise to contempt to suspicion. “Who the hell is that?”
That was Demara Wilder, walking toward them at a leisurely pace, as sensuous as a stalking leopard. Lucas watched her with a smile bordering on the fatuous, while Kim glanced from Lucas to A. C., who asked irritably, “She come with you, Lucas? Well, she’s a looker—for a nigger.”
Lucas’s head whipped around, his gray eyes fiercely cold, while Lise leaned close to her father and whispered, “Dad, I swear, if you use that word again, I’ll never forgive you.”
A. C. seemed puzzled. “Well, hell, Lise, that’s what she is.”
“Dad, for God’s sake!”
If Demara heard this sotto voce exchange, she gave no indication, only taking Lucas’s hand as he drew her close. He said, “This is a friend of mine. Demara Wilder. She was one of the models for a brochure LJK put out last year. Demara, this is my stepmother, Kim, and my father.”
There was a prickly silence, then Kim smiled and said, “I’m glad to meet you, Demara.”
Demara acknowledged that with a simple, “Thanks, Kim,” then looked at A. C. with a challenging gaze that even he seemed to find intimidating, especially since she was tall enough to stand eye to eye with him. But he was spared the necessity of meeting her challenge by Heather’s announcement of another arrival.
He turned away, squinted out at the road. “Somebody’s coming.”
Lise in particular seemed to welcome the distraction, but Conan was watching Demara, and what he read in her hooded eyes and flared nostrils was akin to disgust.
A. C. folded his sinewy arms and said, “Looks like Al and Luanne.”
Al’s wife’s name was Loanh, but A. C. always called her Luanne, apparently finding her Vietnamese name too subtle for his tongue.
The approaching car was also a Cadillac, an inevitable choice for Albert Charles King, Junior, but Al’s was a white convertible. It was also, Conan noted, at least five years old. Al drove with more verve than his father, wheeling past the small crowd gathered on the deck and on into the garage. Within seconds, he came striding toward the deck, shouting over his shoulder, “Just leave it. We’ll get it later.”
Al had clearly recognized his brother. He approached at full steam with no hint of pleasurable anticipation in the set of his jaw, and Conan realized how much a clone of his father Al was becoming as he aged. They had the same slablike physique, although Al obviously spent more time in a gym; his blue polo shirt showed off brawny arms and hinted at a muscular torso. His hair was sandy blond, as A. C.’s had been in his youth, but Al sported a mustache. He also sported aviator’s sunglasses, and no doubt felt he presented a macho image.
Conan sighed, wondering why uncharitable thoughts came so easily with Al King.
Possibly because the peace—or perhaps it should be characterized as a cease-fire—established between Lucas and A. C. was a fragile thing, and it didn’t seem likely that Al would regret seeing it broken. His opening gambit was a caustic, “Jesus, Lucas, I was hoping you’d keep one promise in your life when you said you’d never come back.”
Lucas only laughed at that. “Great to see you, too, Al.”
Perhaps Conan’s role as friendly outsider finally had some effect. A. C. glanced at him before he said, “Al, we’re all here for a nice weekend together, so just settle. Where’s Lu—oh, there she is. Well, Luanne, you’re looking pretty as ever.”
Loanh King had trailed Al at a circumspect distance, and now she quickened her pace and called up a smile. “Thank you, A. C.”
Loanh was, indeed, pretty as ever, showing little sign of aging in the last six years, although she must be at least forty now. Her blue-black hair, caught in a sleek swirl at the crown of her head, betrayed no hint of gray. She was scarcely over five feet tall with hands like a jade figurine. The same delicacy shaped her face, sloe-eyed and high-cheeked. She was dressed for a weekend in the country in twill slacks and a beige cableknit sweater, but the ensemble didn’t become her. Silk and pearls would be more appropriate.
And clear eyes, Conan thought, would be more typical. She had been crying.
Al glared at Lucas, but he apparently decided to settle. Or perhaps he was simply distracted by Demara Wilder. One eyebrow shot up above his sunglasses as he asked bluntly, “Who’s this?”
Lucas replied coolly, “This is a friend of mine. Demara, this is Al, my older brother. And, Al, you can just keep your hands to yourself.”
“Don’t worry, little brother, I never had a taste for dark m—”
“Well, I don’t know why we’re all standing around outside,” Kim cut in briskly. “Come on, A. C., let’s get our things upstairs. Lise, would you show Lucas and Demara to their room? They can have the one next to Conan’s. Al, you and Loanh will be in the east room, as usual….”
With that, Kim effectively got everyone moving and—what was no doubt more critical at the moment—separated.
Chapter 5
The garage was full, a problem Conan didn’t concern himself about except to wonder if Mark and Tiff would get their noses out of joint at having to park outside. He got his duffel bag and parka out of his car and headed for the door on the west wall, passing a blatantly un-American, silver Mercedes convertible, then Al’s white Cadillac convertible, and finally, nearest the door, A. C.’s black DeVille.
The door opened onto the atrium, which was to Conan’s eye an architectural gem—an octagonal space twenty feet across, its oak floor glowing with a waxed patina. He entered on the east face of the octagon. The front door occupied the north face, while the two faces flanking it consisted of windows divided into beveled panes that fragmented the image of Mount Hood. On the west face, a wide archway opened into the living and dining room. The southeast face consisted of a wood-paneled wall that served to show off one of Lise’s watercolors, an atypically realistic rendering of the mountain. On the south face a closet was nearly hidden in the paneling, and the remaining face was open to accommodate the stairway to the second floor. But what always fascinated Conan was the vaulted ceiling with its radiating pattern of massive, ponderosa-pine beams. It was like looking up into the interior of a huge umbrella. Hanging from its apex, thirty feet above the floor, a wrought-iron chandelier, suspended on a chain of hand-forged links, took up the octagonal theme.
There was about this room and the entire lodge an authenticity derived from the fact that almost everything in it was handmade. Unsung hands and minds were evident in every detail, from the carving of native plants on the front door to the framing of the arched doorway, to the wrought-iron light fixtures, doorknobs, and strap hinges. Even most of the furniture was handmade. These artisans had stamped their presence upon this building. It was their immortality.
“Oh, Conan, I didn’t mean to leave you standing in the lobby. Come on, I’ll show you to your room.”
Conan looked up to see Lise on the stairway. He followed her upstairs to the hall that traversed the length of the building at right angles to the stairway, and her characterization of the lodge as a hotel was particularly apt here. The hall was wood paneled, as were all the rooms, the oak floor cushioned with runners of oriental carpeting. Light was provided by amber glass lamps in wrought-iron sconces next to each of the eight bedroom doors.
Lise led him through the door across the hall from the stairway into the same bedroom he had occupied six years ago. She made a show of opening the muslin curtains on the window on the opposite wall, patting the pillows on the bed on the left-hand wall, opening the bathroom door to the left of the bed, then crossing the room to check the wood box next to the small fireplace. Finally she returned to him, said, “I hope everything is satisfactory, sir,” and held out her hand.
C
onan laughed and made an ironic bow as he kissed her hand. “I’ll call room service if I need anything.” Then he sobered. “So far, it looks like there’s hope for an armistice between A. C. and Lucas.”
“So far.” She sighed and pushed a straying strand of hair back from her face. “I’m not sure I believe it yet, but it’s a start.”
“Lise, why should Mark need to make his peace with A. C.?”
“Mark? Well, that’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it later. Right now I’d better get down to the kitchen to help Kim. We’ll have a cookout on the deck for dinner, as usual, but Doris left cold snacks to tide everyone over.”
Conan nodded as he dropped his duffel and parka on the bed. “I assume there’ll be no formal recognition of A. C.’s birthday—as usual?”
“No. I thought he might relent this year, since it’s sort of a special birthday. His seventieth. But I talked to Kim, and she said her advice was to cool it. Stay with the hallowed traditions.”
“Well, it’s his birthday. I’ll be down in a few minutes if I can help.”
“In the kitchen?” She gave a curt laugh. “Conan, that’s woman’s work.” With that, she departed, closing the door behind her.
Conan looked around the room. It seemed more familiar than it should have from his memory of it six years ago, perhaps because it reminded him of his childhood room in the old house at the Ten-Mile Ranch where he grew up. It had the same beamed ceiling angling down to the outside wall, with the window set in a deep dormer. But his room had been smaller, and instead of a handwoven rug with a Haida raven motif, there had been a braided rug his grandmother had made from discarded scraps; instead of a queen-sized bed adorned with a green satin comforter, a narrow bed covered with a Star of Bethlehem quilt; and instead of an adjoining bath, generously furnished, a long trek downstairs to the one bathroom, and that had been considered a luxury after the years in which the Flaggs of two generations had braved dark and stormy—and often frigid—nights to reach the outdoor privy.