by M. K. Wren
“I, uh, yes, I think so. What do you need them for?”
Conan pointed to the mug by his bed. “The toddy. The one you didn’t prescribe.”
Will looked at the mug suspiciously. “You said Tiff brought it to you? Maybe she just took it on herself to fix it for you.”
Lise put in, “But she said Demara gave it to her.”
“And Demara denied it,” Conan noted, shrugging. “There’s no way to get at the truth of that now. Will, I don’t know what’s in that toddy. Maybe just the usual ingredients, but if we ever get out of this white hole, I’d like to have it analyzed.”
Will nodded, then strode out of the room, and in the silence he left behind, Heather sat down at Lise’s feet, pressed her forehead against her knee in search of reassurance.
Conan said, “I owe that lovely lady my life—again.”
Lise smiled as she reached down to pet the sheltie, and Conan found himself again amazed at her calm, knowing it was deceptive. The hand with which she stroked Heather trembled.
When Will returned with his case, he was wearing another sweater and a heavy robe. “Looks like everybody’s gone back to bed. Okay, Conan, I assume you want the contents in the speci—”
“Don’t touch the mug. Use the napkin.”
“Oh. Fingerprints. Right.” He carefully poured the liquid into a specimen bottle, handling the mug with the napkin. Just as Tiff had.
Lise said, “You might find my fingerprints on it or Kim’s or Loanh’s. We all helped take things out of the dishwasher tonight.”
Will asked, “You want the mug in the plastic bag?”
“Yes. Initial and date both of them and lock them in your case.”
“Okay. Damn!” Will began rummaging through his case, tossing bandages, stethoscope, and other paraphernalia out on the bed.
Conan asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Something’s missing. I have to maintain records of the drugs I use for the DEA, and I always keep everything in its place so I can see at a glance if anything’s missing. It was just a bottle of Nitrostat tablets, but I haven’t—”
“Nitrostat?” Conan felt a lurching sensation of vertigo as he asked, “What is it, nitroglycerine?”
“Yes. Sublingual tabs. Oh, no. Conan, you don’t think…”
“That the toddy was laced with nitroglycerine? Yes, I think it’s possible.” And an overdose of nitroglycerine could be as deadly as cyanide, that much he knew. “Will, what if I simply turned up dead next time you checked on me? I mean, if the mug was missing, and you knew nothing about it. Wouldn’t you think that maybe the hypothermia was worse than you realized, that maybe it triggered some latent defect in my nervous system and resulted in fibrillation?”
Will frowned as he put the bottle and mug in the case and snapped it shut, gave the combination lock a turn, then came over to the fireplace. “I suppose I might’ve chalked it up to heart failure, if I didn’t have any reason to think it might be anything else.”
“Maybe that’s why my shadow visitor dropped in—not to do the deed, but simply to retrieve the mug. The evidence.”
“Oh, dear God…” Lise moaned the words, eyes squeezed shut.
Will knelt beside her, his hands, which could be so sure and strong, hovering about her timidly. “Lise…?”
She took a deep breath and faced Conan, so intent on him that she entirely ignored Will, who rose and turned to the fire, displaying fleetingly that look of hurt defeat.
She said, “Conan, if anything had happened to you…”
Will sighed, and Conan asked, more brusquely than he intended, “Who had access to your medical case this evening, Will?”
“Who didn’t have access to it? Everybody was in and out of this room while it was in here—open on the bed. Except Lise and Mark.”
“But who would know to pick Nitrostat?” That garnered blank looks, and Conan mentally filed that with the other unanswered questions waiting in the back of his mind. “Anyway, I think both of you realize that I haven’t been entirely truthful about the rock slide. The truth is that it was not an accident. It was triggered by an explosion produced by dynamite or some other explosive.”
Conan could have anticipated their reactions. Will aghast, frustrated, enraged. Lise frightened, ambushed by new grief, then finally, like Will, enraged. The rage was cold and channeled, and Conan was relieved. She could use it to keep the fear and grief at bay.
“Then it was murder,” she said huskily. “Who, Conan? Who in God’s name would…” She made fists of her hands, tangibly holding on to her self-control. “Demara!”
That took Conan off guard. “What makes you say that?”
Lise’s rage waned, and she shrugged. “Maybe because she’s the only outsider here, and I’d rather not believe it’s one of the family. Well, I guess you don’t consider Will and me suspects, or you wouldn’t be telling us all this.”
“True. Will isn’t a suspect because if he wanted to dispose of an inconvenient witness, he had ample opportunity tonight while he was treating me.”
“What?” Will scowled as if he’d received a mordant insult.
“Oh, Will, I was at your mercy. You gave me an injection and told me it was Demerol, but I had to take that on faith. It could’ve been cyanide, for all I knew. The point is, I wouldn’t be alive if you wanted me dead. As for you, Lise, well, I admit I found it difficult to take you seriously as a suspect, but Heather absolved you.”
“Heather? Because I was willing to leave her with you?”
“No. Because she barked at the intruder at the door. She wouldn’t have barked at you. Unlike Sherlock Holmes, my clue was provided by the dog that did bark in the night.”
Lise smiled, but it didn’t last. “Then if Will and I aren’t suspects, what can we do as your faithful Watsons?”
“First, say nothing about this to anyone. I might find it necessary to tell them the truth eventually, but not yet. Other than that…” He laughed bitterly. “I’ll have to try to play Sherlock, which may prove difficult with no access to information from any source outside the lodge. So I’ll start with you. I need to know where everyone was at around eight o’clock. That’s when the explosion occurred, and it could have been detonated by a radio signal from here in the lodge.”
Lise flinched, then nodded. “Around eight? I’m not sure I can remember exactly—”
“Start before eight. Whenever you remember noticing the time.”
“Well, I remember it was seven-thirty when Kim and Loanh and I left the kitchen. The clock struck the half hour then. I’ve always loved the Westminster chimes, so I tend to notice them.”
“Where were you then, Will?”
“I think Mark and I were standing in front of the fireplace talking. Yes, and Tiff was in her usual chair by the fire tending to her knitting.”
Lise raised an eyebrow. “Crocheting, Will. She told me that thing she’s working on is a wall hanging. ‘Essence of Wildness,’ she calls it. Yesterday she was out collecting cones and seed heads for it.”
“Whatever. Wasn’t Demara on the couch reading a magazine?”
“Yes, I think so. And it was about then that Kim suggested the pinochle game. That’s when I went outside with Heather, wasn’t it?”
“Right.”
She turned to face Conan. “And that’s when I first realized a storm was coming up. We’d been talking in the kitchen, and with the dishwasher running, I didn’t hear the wind. But when I went outside…” She paused. “It was beginning to snow, and there was something about the wind that was frightening.”
Conan nodded. “What was happening inside, Will?”
“Kim and I set up the card table. When Lise came in, she said something about the storm, but we had no idea how bad it was going to get, so we started playing. That was about a quarter till eight.”
“Who was playing?”
“Lise and I and Mark and Kim. Tiff opted to stick to her knitting—crocheting—and her Scotch rocks. Where was Loanh, Lise?
”
“She’d brought a book downstairs earlier, and she said something about reading for a while, but I think she went up to get a sweater about then. Wait. Yes, Demara went upstairs for a sweater first. She’d been lounging around in a silk blouse, as if this was California.”
Conan asked, “When did either of them come back downstairs?”
“Not until after the power went out,” Lise replied. “That was about five till eight. The come-and-get-it bell started ringing in the wind, and Mark turned on the radio, the portable Dad keeps…kept on the mantel, but he couldn’t get anything except static and country western music we could barely hear on one station. He said maybe they’d have some news in five minutes on the hour. And that’s when the power went out. Things got a little confused after that.”
Conan leaned forward. “Just go through it step by step.”
Will began, “Well, Kim said she was going to the pantry. That’s where they keep extra flashlights and candles and the kerosene lamps. Mark volunteered to go outside and check the power lines into the house to make sure there weren’t any live wires on the ground. And Lise and I went out to the garage to get the generator going.”
“What was Tiff doing?”
Will looked at Lise, then shrugged. “As far as I know, she stayed in that chair the whole time.”
Lise agreed. “When Will and I got back to the living room, she was just sitting there looking terrified and babbling about premonitions.”
“How long did it take you and Will to get the generator going?”
“From the time the power went out? Maybe fifteen minutes. It’s been so long since Dad showed me how to use the thing, I had to check the instruction book.”
“So it was about ten minutes after eight when you returned to the living room?”
“Probably.”
“What about Mark? When did he come back inside?”
Will answered, “Right after Lise and I left the garage. He came in the front door at the same time Loanh and Demara came downstairs.”
Lise added, “He said the power outage must be somewhere up the line, since the wires into the lodge were fine. He checked the outside thermometer, too. It was already close to zero.”
“Everybody gathered in the living room then,” Will said, taking up the narrative, “trying to figure out what to do about A. C. and the rest of you guys. Demara was in a panic. She wanted to drive out for help—in that Mercedes, for God’s sake. Well, by then the wind was blowing a gale, and the snow was coming thick and heavy. Anybody’d be nuts to try driving without chains or four-wheel drive, and even if we could’ve reached the ranger station, what could they do? There was no way anybody could get to the camp. Besides, we figured when the weather turned bad, A. C. would’ve broken camp and headed for home.”
That created an aching silence, and Conan let it stand. He considered this schedule and realized that, except for Lise and Will, at eight o’clock, everyone in the lodge was alone with access to windows or doors—and in Mark’s case, he was outside.
At length, Conan said, “Tomorrow I’ll see if I can gather more information. And try to stay alive, with your help—and Heather’s.”
Lise looked down at Heather. “She’s yours for the duration.”
Will said, “I’ll bunk in here at night so you can get some sleep.”
“I’m afraid that would be a little obvious. Heather is obvious enough. Of course, my shadow visitor already knows that I know what really happened at Loblolly Creek. But none of the others know, and I won’t burden them with the truth until I have to. There’s something you can do for me now, Will. My keys are on the chest there. Would you get something out of my car for me?” He waited until Will had the keys in hand. “It’s in the glove box. That small, silver key opens it.”
“What is it I’m looking for?”
“A gun.”
Lise took a quick breath, but didn’t speak. Will nodded and headed for the door. “Good idea,” he said.
When the door closed behind Will, Conan studied Lise a moment, then said, “I’m afraid I’ll find it necessary to ask a lot of questions that you’ll consider impertinent, if not irrelevant.”
“Like what?”
“Like why Mark needed to make peace with A. C.”
Her pale eyes widened. “Mark? Conan, you can’t think—” She stopped herself, then, “Okay, it may not be impertinent, but I hope to God it is irrelevant. Do you remember Karen? Mark’s oldest girl?”
“Vaguely.”
“Well, she was only nine when you last saw her. She’s fifteen now and looks twenty, and she’s trying to be a Madonna clone. Of course, it’s a wonder all three of those girls aren’t hopelessly spoiled. Tiff liked the idea of motherhood, but she just wasn’t willing or able to accept the responsibilities or the dirty diapers and now puberty in the age of hard drugs. Demara was right about the flower-child look. That’s exactly what Tiff always wanted to be, a flower child.”
“Is Mark better at dealing with puberty in the age of hard drugs?”
Lise shook her head ruefully. “Poor Mark, he hasn’t the foggiest idea what’s going on. He dotes on those girls. His pretty little angels. That’s what he calls them. The only intelligent thing he ever did for them was to hire Elizabeth Camp as a nanny. That woman was a saint. Of course, Karen called her a fascist. Elizabeth retired two years ago, and Mark enrolled the girls at St. Anne’s.”
“That’s a Catholic school, isn’t it?”
“Yes, which might seem an odd choice for such staunch Episcopalians, but it’s also a girls’ school. I don’t think that crimped Karen’s style much, though. Conan, she was into coke, and she wasn’t above shoplifting or stealing from Tiff and Mark to support her habit—and impress the gang she was running with.”
The door opened, and Will Stewart came in. Lise frowned as he took a semiautomatic out of the pocket of his robe.
Conan said, “Just leave it in the drawer by the bed, Will. Thanks.”
Will put the gun in the drawer out of sight then crossed to the fireplace, and Lise leaned forward, hands spread to the flames. “Will, I was telling Conan about Karen.” Then to Conan, “Will knows about it. He was at the Fourth of July picnic this summer.”
At Conan’s nod, she went on, reluctantly, perhaps, but resolutely. “It was just another family gathering. Another hallowed tradition. It was at Dad’s house in Portland, and all the family was there. Except Lucas. Anyway, Dad happened to go into one of the upstairs bedrooms, and he found Karen doing a line of coke. That’s what he said, and I never saw any reason to doubt him.”
She looked up at Will, who added bleakly, “Karen wasn’t a heavy user, but I’ve seen enough substance abusers to know the signs. Even before that, I tried to warn Mark, but he never believed me.”
Lise went on, “When Dad caught Karen with the coke, his first reaction was to slap her and give her hell. But Karen isn’t easily cowed, and she’s smart in a wily sort of way. She started screaming. That got everybody up to the bedroom in short order, and she claimed Dad had tried to rape her. It was almost funny, really. Whatever his failings as a father, Dad is…was never a molester. I was the only girl child, after all, and if he’d had any tendencies in that direction, I’d have been the target. I wasn’t. Ever. There was never anything to even hint that he was capable of such a thing. But I guess Karen thought the accusation would distract everyone from the coke.”
Conan raised an eyebrow. “Did she expect anyone to believe her?”
“Yes,” Lise answered wearily. “Mark. And she was right. He practically exploded. He believed every word, and no one could talk him out of it, not then, not since. Dad was all for calling the police. He said he wanted the police to give both of them lie detector tests. Well, Karen’s had a few run-ins with cops, and I don’t think she was anxious for another. She almost backed down, but Mark didn’t. It was Kim who came up with a compromise. If Tiff and Mark sent Karen to a drug rehab center, Dad would pay for it. And if she stuck with th
e treatment and behaved herself, Dad wouldn’t call in the police. So Karen’s getting rehabilitated, and the rest of us are trying to go on like nothing happened. Even Mark. He never believed in rocking the boat, anyway, and he’s done no rocking since, although he wasn’t exactly friendly to Dad. He just…I don’t know. It’s as if he’s just been marking time.”
Conan asked absently, thinking of the words A. C. had spoken on King’s Mountain, “Just waiting?”
“Yes.”
Conan turned to Will. “Tell me about Mark’s broken ankle.”
Will began working at the fire, avoiding Conan’s eye. “What’s to tell?” A silence held until he finished stoking the fire, then he straightened and frowned down at Conan. “Damn it, you look like hell, and it’s nearly three. Come on, I’m putting you back in bed.”
Lise rose. “He’s right, Conan. You need some rest. We all do.”
Conan didn’t dispute that. It was true, and he knew that both of them had answered all the questions they were going to for now. He submitted to being put to bed, thanked Lise again when she got Heather settled beside him.
When at length Will and Lise departed, Conan lay in his cocoon of blankets, and again, despite his weariness, despite the security afforded by his erstwhile guard dog, his mind refused him sleep. He was intensely aware of every ache and pain, of the seeping cold as the fire burned down, and always of the sounds of the storm battering the old building, even of the moment when the loosened eaves trough ripped away, and its dull thudding was silenced.
He considered the fragile strands his mind cast out, enmeshing in a web of suspicion all the prisoners of the storm—except for Lise and Will.
Al and Lucas. Rather, Al or Lucas, since one of them was certainly dead. Mark and Tiff. Even Demara, whom he had come to think of as a secret member of the family, although he had no evidence that she and Lucas were married.
At this point, he had no evidence that any of them were guilty of murder, and by the same token, no evidence that any of them were innocent, at least of conspiring to murder.