The Conan Flagg Mysteries: Bundle #3

by M. K. Wren

  And it might be enough.

  Enough to start a fire that couldn’t be stopped. Enough to make bombs of the four cars in the garage. He flung open the door, only to be enveloped in a cloud of reeking smoke. Within the smoke, flames raged.

  The gasoline had been consumed in the explosion, but the wall behind the generator seethed with flame. The generator was a wreck, its fuel tank burst open, shrapnel fragments littering the floor, the windshield of Al’s convertible webbed with cracks. Will was already bounding up the stairs, bellowing the alarm, and Lise pushed past Conan, making an abortive reach toward the shelves by the door. “The fire extinguisher’s gone!”

  “Where’s the nearest hose—hell!” He remembered then that Kim had said there were no hoses at the lodge.

  “Conan, the cars! We’ve got to move them, or the gas tanks will blow!” Lise slapped the switch just inside the door, and with a rattling rumble, the two garage doors rose, drawing the bitter brown smoke that spilled from the flames, and Lise cried, “We can’t get them out!”

  Conan heard voices, footsteps thudding on the stairs, as he stared at the rampart of snow, four feet high, that had drifted and packed against the garage doors. None of these cars could plow through that.

  But a moment later, he shouted, “Lise, there’s our water!” and raced between the wall and A. C.’s black Cadillac toward the garage doors, then behind the cars to the east wall, where Art Rasmussen had so neatly hung his tools. He snatched the snow shovel from its outlined position, plunged it into the drifted barrier, carried the load of snow between the XK-E and Lucas’s Mercedes, and flung it into the conflagration around the generator. A sizzle of steam in the choking smoke was his only reward, and he sprinted back to the white rampart, nearly collided with Lise who was running toward the fire with a snow-filled bucket. Shouts heralded the arrival of Will and the rest of the family. Conan dumped another load, returned to the snow barricade, filled the shovel, and sprinted again toward the fire, glimpsing Lise on the other side of the Mercedes, heading back for another bucketful.

  Will was shouting instructions, and within seconds, everyone had found a shovel or container, and like bizarre wraiths in layered sweaters and fluttering robes, they ran back and forth from the snow drift to the fire, flinging their loads to steam away in the smoke, going back for more, settling after a few awkward encounters into a frenzied rhythm, harried faces unrecognizable in the flickering glare.

  There was no counting the number of trips- made, nor how much snow was instantly volatilized into steam. At some point, Conan saw that the portion of drift from which he was loading his shovel was shrinking, almost down to the concrete in one place, yet it seemed to make no difference. The flames were spreading both laterally and vertically along the wall, but it was impossible to see how far they extended with the shimmering smoke boiling around them.

  Back and forth, snow to fire, fire to snow, the frantic wraiths plied. The heat made its own wind, or so it seemed, until finally Conan realized that the open door into the woodshed was creating a draft that spurred the fire.

  He flung yet another load of snow against the blazing wall where bones of studs showed through blackened plywood and browned, bubbled whitewash, then he struck out through the stygian swelter toward the woodshed door, holding his breath, eyes stinging as if he had dropped acid into them. He hit the fender of the XK-E, shifted course a few degrees, right hand outstretched, left hand clenched on the handle of the shovel. Choking and retching when he could no longer hold his breath, he reached the east wall, found the door, and plunged through it, slammed it shut behind him.

  His eyes registered nothing but the flaring afterimages of flames. Even here, smoke saturated the air, and he felt his way toward the outside door, nearly falling over the gas cans scattered on the floor, clanking hollowly as they crashed against each other. He reached the door, staggered out into a thigh-deep drift, and leaned on the shovel, gasping for the clean, icy air.

  It was perhaps a minute before he could stop coughing, before his inflamed eyes functioned well enough for him to see that the sky was beginning to pale. Stars glinted against a deep, sweet blue.

  He could hear shouts and desperate cries of encouragement as he pushed through the snow to the corner of the garage, following a track already plowed by other feet. When he reached the front of the garage, the glare of fire garishly illuminated the pouring smoke and the plain of white covering the parking area. Snowy lumps hid Lise and Will’s vans and Mark’s Lincoln. A furrow of tracks vanished into the darkness. He saw a distant light playing on the snow. A flashlight. Demara Wilder.

  Demara Wilder King.

  “Conan! Where are you?”

  He slogged through the drifts into the garage. “Here, Will!”

  “You okay?” Will materialized out of the smoke near Conan.

  “I just made a detour to close the woodshed door.”

  Will nodded, then scooped up a pailful of snow and strode back into the inferno. Conan dug his shovel into the drift and followed suit.

  Rage drove him, overcame the hopelessness.

  What kind of human being would make a funeral pyre of this building, a pyre for six people? And why? Lise’s question. Why? Why had Demara murdered a father and two of his sons, one of whom she had taken as her husband?

  Why had she choreographed Sam Clemens’s death? For a share of A. C. King’s estate? For money? What could that money conceivably buy that would justify its cost?

  Panting and coughing, muscles quivering with fatigue, he drove his shovel yet again into the snow, raced toward the fire yet again.

  Chapter 28

  Only half a mile, Sam had said. Quarter of a mile to the gate, another quarter to the Bronco. Only half a mile. Stupid bastard.

  Stupid and dangerous. She’d had to give him the money. No choice there, knowing Sam. He’d cut her throat as soon as look at her. Now Flagg had the money. Not that it’d give him any joy, and she had enough cash to get to L.A., but she still felt cheated.

  Demara Wilder plodded through snow up to her knees. Damn snow had gotten inside her boots. It was like walking barefoot through ice cubes. Her panting breaths came out in clouds as she paused, moving her flashlight back and forth to catch the two lines of fenceposts thrusting out of the snow on either side of her, dwindling toward a vanishing point in the darkness. They were her only guide. The road was buried under the snow.

  She looked behind her. She couldn’t see the lodge; too many trees in the way. But she could see the glow of firelit smoke.

  And she laughed. No way could they stop that fire.

  Of course, that son of a bitch Flagg had almost screwed up everything. If it weren’t for him, nobody in that pile of a house would’ve known what hit them till the gas tanks in the cars exploded.

  But Flagg was only delaying the inevitable, wasn’t he? He couldn’t stop the fire, couldn’t stop the cars blowing up, and even if anybody lived through that, there they’d be in their jammies, freezing to death. It wouldn’t take long. She couldn’t guess what the temperature was, but it felt like forty below. Or like she expected forty below would feel.

  At least she had somewhere to go. Sam’s Bronco. He’d said there was still some gas left. All she needed was enough to run the heater until the highway was plowed and she could drive out.

  But Flagg and the others—if any of them survived—where would they go? The studio? She’d taken care of that. Thrown the stovepipe into that creek. They’d never find it, and they sure as hell couldn’t light a fire in that stove without the stovepipe.

  Help would come eventually, but not until the highway was clear and traffic started moving. The lodge would be burned out by then. Nobody could see it from the highway, so nobody would see the ruins.

  Of course, Flagg might head for the highway, come after her. Damn the bastard! If he’d just stayed the hell out of this thing—

  No. He wouldn’t survive. Not this time.

  She resumed her labored tramping, groaning
as she shifted the duffel bag from one shoulder to the other. Must weigh thirty pounds. But she couldn’t leave anything of hers to be found later in the ruins of the lodge.

  Nobody would ever know she’d been at the lodge or that she’d ever set foot in Oregon. If the police started asking questions when she presented her marriage license to A. C. King’s executor, well, she’d just tell them to talk to her mother. Letta Wilder, librarian, widow of distinguished black orthodontist Dr. Carver Wilder. Lena would lie for her. She always had. She would swear on a stack of Bibles that Demara had spent this weekend with her, while Lucas went to Oregon to visit his family. Demara knew her mother, knew Letta always believed anything her beautiful, glamorous daughter told her.

  Demara had considered turning to one of her patrons, as she liked to call them, for an alibi. But she couldn’t trust a white man—not any of those rich, respectable bastards—to lie for a black woman. They were willing to keep her in style and talk about her fabulous looks and fabulous performance in bed. Some even told her they loved her. But she couldn’t count on any of them to lie to the police for her.

  No, she’d depend on the one person who’d always come through for her. Her mother. And after the estate was settled, maybe they’d move to Hawaii. Or Greece. Maybe she’d buy that villa on that gorgeous little island near Thíra with the pink beach. Dry and warm, all year long. Hell, she could buy the whole damn island.

  Oh, God, warm sounded good.

  She was not a stranger to suffering. After all, she had the guts and stamina and iron ambition to make it to the top in the modeling business. It had meant deprivation in the form of ceaseless dieting, hard labor in the form of relentless exercise. It had meant hours of sultry smiles when she was so tired she could barely stand up. It had meant people ordering her around, bitching at every tiny flaw, prodding at her and fingering her like she was a Barbie doll. If she hadn’t been so well paid, it would’ve qualified as cruel and unusual punishment.

  But one form of suffering she had never had to endure was cold as intense as this. Everything seemed to be shutting down inside her. Everything except whatever it was that made her hurt. Her feet, her hands, her face, her lungs, everything hurt.

  She cast the beam of the flashlight forward along the lines of fence posts and let out a cry of triumph. She could see the square gate posts rising higher than the others, then the new lines of fence posts extending left and right along the highway. Couldn’t see the gate. Buried in the snow. Or maybe nobody had bothered to close it.

  She quickened her pace, but she couldn’t keep it up for more than a few clumsy, painful strides. Jesus, how was she going to explain a case of frostbite to her mother?

  No, it wouldn’t come to that. Just keep going.

  Poor Lucas. She had to admit she’d miss him. He was a lot of fun, until he’d got himself in such deep shit with the IRS. But she’d warned him. Told him they’d never get away with it if the police didn’t find his body in the rock slide. He didn’t believe her. Said it would cost a fortune to move all those tons of rock.

  Well, maybe it would. But they’d do it.

  And they’d find Lucas King’s body.

  The snow seemed whiter. She looked up at the sky. It was dark blue, pink in the east. She couldn’t see any clouds.

  In a way, she was sorry the blizzard had stopped. That would’ve definitely taken care of Flagg and the others. But then she’d have no way out. Had to take the bitter with the sweet, and she’d had a lifetime of that, a lifetime of having other people in control. She’d made a fortune by the time she was eighteen, and her father had controlled that. And lost it. Then died and left her holding a deep and empty bag. Then there’d been Charlie. Investment counselor, he called himself, and she’d made more money, worked like a slave—a big, beautiful, nigger slave, she thought bitterly—for another five years until she couldn’t get the top jobs anymore. Fresh meat. Young meat. That’s what they wanted. And Charlie jumped ship like a rat. Told her those investments hadn’t panned out. We’re in a recession, darling. Maggoty white bastard. Left her with the dregs. And she’d had to take the dregs since, all the rich bastards, rich white bastards. Except maybe Maxie. He would’ve taken care of her. But he was dead.

  The gate posts. She had reached the gate posts.

  She began laughing through harried gasps, but as she staggered forward, the laughter turned to wheezing sounds closer to sobs.

  A ridge of snow stood between her and the highway.

  Must be seven feet high, and it ran along the highway in both directions as far as she could see, as far as the flashlight beam would reach.

  “Shit!” She shouted the word in a rage of frustration, repeated it over and over, threw the flashlight at the white barrier.

  The snow swallowed it, leaving only a dimple in the pristine slope, and she shuddered, pulling in deep breaths of frozen air, clenching her numb hands in the leather gloves.

  The snowplow had already been through, and it was the snowplow that threw up this endless ridge of snow. When? Last night? But more snow had fallen since and closed the highway again. She hadn’t heard a single vehicle go past.

  Shivering uncontrollably, she looked west. The bridge had to be down there. And Sam’s Bronco. She sought a dark shape against the snow, but saw nothing. Maybe the light was still too dim. And maybe the damn truck had been buried under the ridge the snowplow left.

  Well, she’d just have to find the Bronco and dig it out. At least dig enough to open a door and get inside. She had to get inside somewhere soon. How the hell had Flagg ever made it down from that camping place? Of course the blizzard was just beginning then.

  That had been the first thing to go wrong, the blizzard. But she couldn’t stop then, and it still would’ve worked if it hadn’t been for that damned half-breed. Those people should be locked up on a reservation.

  But Flagg hadn’t stopped her, and he wouldn’t. He couldn’t now.

  She looked back toward the lodge. That was smoke rising above the trees, wasn’t it? Still too dark to be sure. Strange, she hadn’t heard any explosions yet. When the gas tanks in those cars blew, they should make a hell of a noise.

  Her chattering teeth reminded her that she had another quarter mile to go. She turned left into what seemed a white lane between the fence along the highway and the ridge of snow left by the snowplows. She took two steps, and the snow collapsed under her.

  She yelled, flung both arms out, tumbled under suffocating, freezing white that was like a crashing breaker, drowning her. Burying her alive. In a frenzy, she struggled and flailed, felt a hard surface under her knees, and with a spasm of exertion she wouldn’t have guessed she was capable of, she pushed upward, screaming for air.

  She stood chest-deep in snow, head throbbing with her heartbeat, every breath a hoarse cry. Only a ditch. It was only a ditch filled with snow. But damn it, it had felt like death.

  The duffel bag had slipped off. She found it buried in snow and hitched it up on her shoulder, grunting with the effort. She saw the gate post and aimed for it, wallowed through the snow, finally reached the post and clung to it, waiting for her pulse and breathing to slow.

  At first she thought the low, grinding roar was inside her head. It was so quiet here. So spooky quiet.

  No. The sound was definitely outside. A motor. Probably a truck, from the throaty rumble of it. A snowplow. It had to be a snowplow.

  Yes! She thrust a fisted hand into the air and waded toward the ridge. She had to get over that ridge. At least see over it. But she kept sinking into the snow, slipping backward. Finally she spread-eagled on the slope, packing the snow with her feet as she squirmed to the top, and at last she could see the highway.

  A wide, flat ribbon of white curving out of the forest and ultimately back into it. Not a track on it. The rumbling came from the east. It had to be a snowplow, even if she couldn’t see it yet, and that meant traffic would be moving through soon. Sooner than she expected.

  But she was flexible, al
ways had been. If Sam’s truck was buried, and she couldn’t drive it out, she’d hitch a ride. Maybe that was even better. The Bronco had been parked at the bridge for a while. A patrolman might’ve noticed it, taken down the license number. Besides, if she drove out, she wouldn’t get far because she’d need gas within a few miles. That meant stopping at a gas station where somebody might remember a tall, black woman in a Bronco.

  A tall, black frozen woman. Damn, the snow was cold against her body. Couldn’t stop shivering. She thought of an island in the Aegean Sea, sun hot on pink sand.

  Lights! She could see headlights and yellow warning lights winking through the trees as the snowplow rumbled around the curve.

  She had to restrain the impulse to scramble over the snow ridge, to stand out in the middle of the highway and wave, yell for help. Take me with you, take me anywhere, but get me out of here!

  No. Just hold on. The driver of that snowplow probably lived around here. He was the kind of person the police might question, and he’d probably remember a tall, black woman—frozen or not—outside the gate to the King lodge.

  There it was, the snowplow, inching around the curve, a squared-off gravel truck, solid as a tank, with a huge, concave blade angled across the front. It cut through the snow like a broad-bowed ship, the snow crumpling, riding up and out to pile onto the ridge on the other side of the highway. Thank God it was in the other lane. That meant any traffic that followed it would be heading west toward Portland. She’d wait until the snowplow was gone and a few cars and trucks had passed. Then she’d cross the highway, walk west as far as she could, and flag down an eighteen-wheeler. Not so much risk of a trucker being local and available for questioning by the police.

  And she had a story for the driver. She was traveling with her boyfriend, and they had a fight, and the son of a bitch dumped her here and told her to find her own way home. Home would be San Francisco. She knew San Francisco. Maxie had owned a condo there. She’d ask the trucker to take her to the nearest bus station. He’d go out of his way for her. And if the trucker was a woman—well, Demara had never met a woman yet who didn’t have her own hard-luck story about a man, who wouldn’t sympathize with another woman’s story.