The Conan Flagg Mysteries: Bundle #3

by M. K. Wren

  Demara left the bar and returned to the couch, warming her snifter in the cup of her hand. “It sounds damned reasonable to me.”

  “Well, at least it explains what that lunatic was after,” Mark said with a gusty sigh. “He was after Al the whole time. Who knows how long he’s been waiting for his chance.”

  Conan listened to these reassuring arguments, saw the nods and signals of relief. Sam Clemens did indeed make a perfect scapegoat.

  “I agree,” Conan said, “that Clemens engineered the explosion. But if he was waiting all these years for a chance to kill Al, he was very casual about it. It’s possible he wasn’t even living in Portland recently.” Conan reached into his pants pocket for Clemens’s key ring and handed it to Will. “What does the design on this medallion mean?”

  Will squinted at it. “That’s the logo for the L.A. Rams.” Then with a wry smile, he added, “The football team, Conan.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of them. This key ring belongs to Sam Clemens, and the interesting connection is Los Angeles.”

  Demara dismissed that with an annoyed, “Oh, hell, anybody anywhere can get Rams souvenirs.”

  “True. But I have other evidence that Clemens wasn’t driven by a compulsion to kill Al in retribution for a job lost four years ago, evidence that he was only a hired hand employed by someone who knew about his expertise in explosives.” Conan reached into the sling and pulled out the bundle of bills, fanned them out for everyone to see. “These are hundred-dollar bills, and I found them in the lining of Clemens’s parka only a short while ago. They were acquired since he came here. I’m sure of that because I searched his clothing carefully within minutes of his arrival. That means one of you gave him this money, probably as the final installment of his fee for a job well done.”

  A pocket of pitch crackled and hissed in the fireplace, and Tiff loosed a startled “Oh!” but nothing distracted anyone’s attention from the bills in Conan’s hand. He closed the fan and returned the bills to his sling, while Mark, Tiff, Loanh, Demara, and Kim all erupted at once with questions and offended disclaimers.

  Conan held up his hand for silence, waited patiently until he got it, then: “Sam Clemens wasn’t the only one who had motive to kill Al—or A. C. Kim, Al was blackmailing you, in a sense, with the threat of telling A. C. about your supposedly defunct affair with him, and A. C.’s response to that knowledge might conceivably have been divorce.” Kim shot forward in her chair, ready with an angry denial, but before she could speak, Conan turned to Loanh. “And Al’s affair with Kim—his obsession with her—provided you the classic motive. Not to mention what his death—and A. C.’s—would do for your financial profile.”

  Unlike Kim, Loanh didn’t attempt a denial. She only stared at him, unblinking. He didn’t relish asking his next question. “Loanh, what about your other motive? The one that drove you to tears Friday night and to the assertion that without family, one might as well be dead.”

  Her gaze flickered, flashed to Lise, then fixed again on Conan’s face, her lips parted for quick, shallow breaths. Still, she didn’t speak.

  Conan asked, “What family did you mean? Not the Kings. They aren’t blood relations. Not your children. They’re both of age and can’t be taken away from you in the usual sense. Loanh, who are the people in that photograph hidden in your purse? It was dated only two years ago and probably taken in Portland. Certainly not in Vietnam. Aren’t they your true family?”

  She began shaking visibly, then with no warning unleashed herself like a coiled spring, a cry of despair trapped behind her clenched teeth as she flung herself at Conan, hands knotted in flailing fists.

  It was Will Stewart who stopped her. Conan was for milliseconds too long mesmerized by her terrible, sudden rage. She struggled in Will’s confining embrace, while Lise leapt to her side, calling her name, softly, pleadingly, and Heather barked in confused panic.

  Conan reached down to restrain Heather, and as abruptly as it began, it was over. Loanh yielded to Lise, sobbing against her shoulder as Lise guided her to the couch and held her like a hurt child.

  Will slumped down beside Conan, and for a span of seconds a shocked silence held. Finally Mark broke it. He had come to his feet, and now he pulled his shoulders back and regarded Conan with a calculating frown. All he needed was a three-piece suit to complete the image of the attorney-at-law considering a hostile witness.

  He asked, “Can you explain how you knew about a photograph that was, by your own admission, hidden in Loanh’s purse?”

  “I searched her room,” Conan replied flatly. “For God’s sake, what did you expect, Mark? Not only did one of you conspire to murder A. C. and two of his sons, but you almost succeeded in killing me in the process, and there have been two more attempts on my life since. Did you expect me not to do everything I could to find out which one of you is a murderer? Yes, I searched Loanh’s room. I searched all your rooms—without benefit of a search warrant—and if I survive to get out of this white hole, you can sue me for invasion of privacy, but right now I have more serious problems to deal with.”

  That served to erode Mark’s persona as attorney-at-law, and no one else ventured a comment. Demara even had a crooked smile for Conan as she raised her snifter to take a sip of brandy.

  He turned to Loanh, and her face seemed carved of white jade, cool, perfect, except for the fine lines etched around her mouth and eyes. He asked, “Loanh, why did Al hire a private investigator on October sixteenth? I can’t believe he thought he might catch you in a tryst with a lover. It wouldn’t have occurred to him that you might be capable of anything as outrageously independent as taking a lover. It had something to do with your family, didn’t it?”

  She shook her head. “No. I do not know why Al hired a private investigator.”

  “Loanh.” Lise took Loanh’s hand in hers, said softly, “You don’t have to keep the secret any more.”

  As if Lise had delivered a stunning blow rather than a gentle reassurance, Loanh pulled her hand away, and her searching gaze went to Conan’s face. It rested there only a split second before she averted her eyes, but Lise caught it, and perhaps she came to the same conclusion Conan did: Loanh was particularly worried about keeping her secret from Conan.

  He watched Lise’s eyes narrow. Her tone was still gentle, yet there was an unmistakable resoluteness in it now. “This is not the time to hold on to old secrets, Loanh.”

  Mark again took his lawyerly stance. “Loanh, you don’t have to say a word.” And obviously he hoped she wouldn’t.

  But Loanh ignored him, her gaze focused on Lise, and Conan wondered if it weren’t Lise’s resoluteness that induced Loanh to let go of this particular secret. She said, “Once every week I visited them, and Al never knew. But he followed me that day. October sixteenth. He saw me with them, and he knew who they were. He told me he would see that they were deported.”

  “Deported?” Conan asked. “How could they be deported unless there was something illegal about their immigration?”

  She answered obliquely, “They have lived here for nearly twenty years, my mother, my brother and sister, her husband, their daughter. They have become American citizens. Married and had children. Worked hard and bought a home. Voted and paid taxes. But there is no statute of limitation for immigration fraud.”

  “Then that’s why Al hired the private investigator—to find out if they had entered this country illegally?”

  “I can think of no other reason.”

  “And you knew there was fraud for an investigator to discover?”

  “Loanh, don’t answer that,” Mark counseled firmly.

  “For God’s sake, Mark,” Lise cut in, “it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “What do you know about this?”

  “Everything.” She looked at Loanh, added, “Mom told me about it before she died.”

  Mark sagged down on the arm of the chair. “Oh, no…”

  “The only people who might’ve called in the INS are dead, Mark. Al a
nd Dad. They’re…dead.”

  “Lise, there are legal ramifications in this matter that you’re not aware of, and I strongly advise you—”

  “Not here, Mark!” she cut in, her face nearly as pale as Loanh’s. “In this place, there are no legal ramifications.” Then she turned to Conan. “No one did anything wrong—even if it was illegal.”

  Conan waited, while Lise looked at Loanh, who didn’t seem to respond in any way, yet Lise apparently found a signal of acquiescence in her silence. Lise began, “Al once told me he fell in love with Loanh the moment he saw her. Like a ton of bricks, he said. I don’t think he ever really understood that. But he didn’t want any part of the Nguyens, her family, and he refused to do anything to help them immigrate. He said he didn’t want any more gooks in this country. Yet her father was a general in the Vietnamese army and died fighting for the same things—whatever they were—that Al was there to fight for. Of course, Al came by his bigotry naturally enough from Dad. Not from Mom. She loved Loanh dearly, and when she found out about the Nguyens—that was right after Charles was born—Mom made up her mind to reunite Loanh with her family.”

  Loanh said, “Your mother was a wonderful woman, Lise.”

  “Yes, she was. Anyway, she went to Mark. He’d just passed the Oregon bar and gone to work for Dad in the legal department.”

  Mark groaned. “Lise, I’m warning you.”

  Again, the warning was ignored. “Mark found out that the only way to get Loanh’s family into the United States was for an employer to file a form with the INS saying he wanted to hire her brother and brother-in-law for specific jobs.”

  “That was only the first of the forms,” Loanh said. “Form I-129. I remember that number because it was so full of hope for us. And we were lucky. My brother and brother-in-law had gone to university in California. Thien had a degree in chemical engineering, and Tuong studied computers. He didn’t finish his degree before my father was killed, and they came home. Then they could not leave Vietnam again. But Tuong’s training was enough. Computers were at their beginning then. He says he is now one of the grandfathers of the field, and he is barely forty.” She managed a fleeting smile with that.

  Lise took up the story: “Dad had talked about trying computers at the research center in Sublimity, and since they were experimenting with laminates there, they could always use a chemical engineer. But of course Mom knew Dad wouldn’t approve of bringing in specialists and their dependents from Vietnam. He’d consider that un-American. So she made some sort of pact with the director of the Sublimity center—she didn’t give me any details on that—and she had Mark draw up the INS forms, listing Dad as the employer requesting the services of these foreign aliens. Oh, she hated that term. As if they came from Mars. Anyway, she signed the forms. She forged his name.”

  Mark loosed another despairing groan, but Lise went on: “Mom signed Dad’s name all the time on household checks when he was too busy to do it, so I guess she was pretty good at it. Eventually, the Nguyens all became citizens, and the men found jobs with other companies. Mom said she never regretted what she’d done, because Dad should have been willing to sign those forms himself.”

  Conan leaned back with his right arm as a prop, feeling something between disbelief and admiration for Carla King, a woman who thought in straight, clear lines. But she was dead now, and the lines she had drawn had wavered and blurred.

  He said, “A delicate situation. If Al had discovered the fraud, he might’ve succeeded in getting the Nguyens deported, obviously something you feared, Loanh. And beyond that, in secretly abetting your family’s immigration, you defied him flagrantly, and I doubt Al King would accept that. He’d have the option of divorcing you, and I wonder where that would leave you financially.”

  Loanh didn’t respond to that, but there was in the lift of her chin a hint of cold resentment. Conan turned his attention to Mark, who slumped bonelessly on the arm of the chair, looking like a man who has just been informed that he faces an IRS audit.

  “A delicate situation for you, too, Mark,” Conan observed. “Carla isn’t alive to take the blame for the forgery, if it were exposed. No, Lise, what she told you doesn’t constitute proof, and I’m afraid you were in error to dismiss the legal ramifications in this matter so lightly. One is that if the fraud is uncovered, the lawyer who expedited it would be in a very precarious position. Isn’t that right, Mark?”

  Mark said wistfully, “Damn it, she was my mother. I never could say no to her, and she kept insisting it was all for a good cause.”

  “No doubt, but the ramifications for you might include disbarment or even prison. And I can’t help but wonder what Al’s reaction would have been when he learned his brother had abetted his wife’s defiance. Or what A. C.’s reaction would have been when he learned that a son of his had perpetrated a fraud against the United States government.”

  Tiff had remained rarely silent for some time, but now she couldn’t seem to contain herself. “Oh, that’s ridiculous. I mean, to think that Al would, you know, even care that Mark had anything to do with…well, whatever happened. And why would he betray his own brother? Family was very important to Al. And A. C.—well, he’d never turn against his own son. I mean, he wouldn’t blame him for something Carla did, and he’d believe Mark if…well, I mean, he wouldn’t cut—”

  “Tiff, please,” Mark said. “You’re only making things worse.”

  Conan nodded and leaned forward, trying, with little success, to find a more comfortable position for his shoulder. Mark had stopped Tiff almost in time, before she finished a phrase that in all likelihood ended with cut Mark out of his will. But Conan didn’t have an opportunity to pursue that line of thought with Mark or Tiff.

  Demara abruptly came to her feet, looking down imperiously at each of them in turn. “Jesus, you’re all over the edge—all of you! And you, Conan—why in hell do you have to rake over all these stupid, dead secrets, things that happened years ago and don’t matter a damn? Why are you trying to make everything so complicated? Maybe a streak of sadism, for God’s sake?”

  Conan didn’t reply, but he was aware that the others seemed to find merit in her questions. He was the object of speculative looks while she went on, the satin in her voice gone hard. “What happened here and at that camp is simple. The answer is upstairs, and I’m with Tiff—I wish to hell you had killed him! The only so-called evidence you’ve shown us is that twenty thousand dollars, and we’ve only got your word for it that Tuttle—or Clemens, or whatever he calls himself—did not have it with him when he first came here. I know this is none of my business. I’m not family. But, damn it, I think we’ve all been through enough shit in the last couple of days without you adding to it!”

  There were mutterings of agreement, and Tiff launched into another convoluted monologue, but Conan focused intently on Demara and said, “But you are family, Demara. You’re Lucas’s wife.”

  Mark blew out a spray of Scotch when that revelation caught him with his mouth full, and Tiff was obviously at a loss for words. Like Loanh and Lise, she turned to stare at Demara, while Kim paused as she lit another cigarette and said, “I’ll be damned.”

  “And as his wife,” Conan added, “you’re also his heir.”

  Where Loanh’s face had seemed carved in white jade, Demara’s was planed in polished bronze, patinated to rich translucence. Here was a face, Conan thought, to trip a thousand shutters, to beguile a thousand lenses with its absolute perfection. The hooded, onyx eyes glinted with anger, and she hissed, “You bastard!”

  Yet a moment later, the anger collapsed, and her eyes slowly closed. She whispered, “Lucas didn’t want to tell any of you yet. He thought it would be better…easier…to wait and see if…”

  Tiff said, “Oh, my dear, oh, if only we’d known—”

  “I’m not your dear!” Demara countered, turning on Tiff, anger surfacing again. “What would you have done if you’d known? You lily-white bitch, you’d have been the first to look down you
r cute little nose and toady up to old A. C. about how awful it was, Lucas bringing home a nigger woman, and oh, how embarrassing, and really, you know, just unforgivable!”

  Tiff answered that acid imitation of herself with a self-righteous, “I would not have said anything of the sort, because I’ve always done everything I could to open doors for people of color wherever they—”

  “And some of your best friends are niggers?”

  “Oh, that’s the trouble with you people. I mean, I can’t help it what A. C. thought or what he said, you know, but I never did anything, not one thing, to deserve to be treated like this!”

  Mark was gripping Tiff’s shoulder hard, but to no effect, and it wasn’t she who ended the brief argument. It was Demara.

  Her rage drained away suddenly, and she sank down onto the couch and said in a voice raw with pain, “God, we never should’ve come here. It was my idea. Lucas didn’t want to come. No, I think he did want to come, but he was afraid, because he didn’t think any of you, especially A. C., would welcome him. But I told him…I told him he had to make peace with his dad. He couldn’t go on living with…”

  She didn’t try to finish that, nor did she weep, but her bronze face might have been a sculpted icon of grief. No one spoke or even moved, except finally Loanh, who reached out and placed her small, pale hand on Demara’s long, dark, red-nailed hand.

  Kim stubbed out another half-smoked cigarette and rose. “This is going nowhere,” she said irritably, then stopped while the grandfather clock tolled the hour. Two o’clock.

  Conan asked, “Where’s the radio? Maybe we can get a weather report.”

  “It’s over here,” Mark said as he limped to the dining table to turn the radio on.