by M. K. Wren
Steve purloined a cigarette from the package Conan had left on the table, squinting into the smoke as he lit it.
“So, nobody is really sure when Jastrow left the bar.”
“Except Jastrow. He says he was in the kitchen about five minutes, then he returned to the bar where Beryl was encouraging the last customers to leave. Meanwhile, back at the Seafarer…” He turned to the second page. “At twelve-twenty Lorna Moody Nye and friend arrived.”
“Oh—I forgot to tell you. I sent Frank Carp up to Portland to notify the widow and look over Nye’s house.”
“Any interesting results?”
“From Lorna, no; Frank was just notifying. But he talked to her lawyer, and he said Loma moved out of Nye’s house and life a year ago, and she filed twice for a divorce. The first time she backed off when Nye offered to contest it. The second time—well, you saw the summons. Nye hadn’t responded to that complaint yet. And that’s all the lawyer had to say. But it’s interesting that he’s on retainer for Kautsky Freight Lines, and by some odd coincidence, that’s where Lorna’s been working for the last year as private secretary to Luke Kautsky. He’s the owner’s son and a vice president. And by another coincidence, Luke drives a red Ferrari.”
Conan took a meditative puff on his cigarette.
“No wonder she backed off on the first complaint. Did Frank find anything in Nye’s house?”
“Some insurance policies.”
“Naming his faithful wife as beneficiary?”
“To the tune of a hundred thousand bucks.”
“Well. That might do for a motive.”
Steve gave a curt laugh. “You’ve got a few details to work out if you expect to make a case for murder one against Lorna Nye. Or her friend.”
“Maybe.” He frowned at his notes. “The next entry is twelve-thirty. Beryl got rid of the customers and locked the front door, then cleared the cash register, and told Howie and Jastrow she was going down to her office.”
“By the way, what did she mean by ‘down’?”
“There’s another story under the dining room; the banquet and conference rooms are down there and so is the office. And, yes, there’s an outside entrance on that level.”
Steve lifted his glass in a salute. “Just wondering. Jastrow and Bliss stayed in the bar, didn’t they?”
“Yes, although Jastrow was out in the front hall in time to see Beryl return from the parking lot at one. She said she went out to see if her car would start, since she’d been having trouble with it. It did then and again when she drove home a short while later.”
“I guess she knew how to talk to it, and whoever stole it didn’t.” He paused, squinting toward some inner horizon. “You know, that’s kind of funny about her car.”
Conan sent him a slanted glance. “Raises the old hackles, doesn’t it? It feels like it should be connected with the murder, but I’m damned if I can see how.”
“Mm. Well, on with your schedule.”
“Next entry, one-thirty. After leaving Tilda at her apartment, Brian returned to the Surf House and parted company with Max in the parking lot. He went into the bar in a ‘foul humor,’ according to Jastrow, and told him, Howie, and Beryl to leave. They did, and all of them swore they went directly to their respective homes. Alone of course. At about two, Hancock came into the bar to clean and was also told to leave and also went home, also alone. Hancock said the front door was unlocked when he left, and Brian admits he never got around to locking it. When Howie arrived at seven in the morning, it was still unlocked.”
Steve said with some asperity, “I get the point. The door was unlocked from about one-thirty till seven, so anybody could’ve walked in. Right?”
“Right, and with Brian in a virtual coma, I doubt anything less than a brass band would have disturbed him. At least nothing did, unfortunately. So. End of sequence.” He folded the sheets into an airplane and launched it, frowning acerbically when it crashed into the window. “So, what do you have to offer?”
“You just disposed of most of it. Kleber would have me court-martialed if he knew I let you see those statements.”
“Oh, yes. Thanks. Does he know you’re staying here? Looks like consorting with the enemy to me.”
“Yes, he knows. I told him this would be a good way to keep an eye on you. Anyway, I don’t have much else to offer yet. Too early for most of the lab reports, and Dan couldn’t do the autopsy today. About all I have now is that those initials were made in Nye’s blood.”
“But did Nye make them?”
Steve shrugged. “Fingerprints may tell us that, but not much else. Jeff said every likely surface in that kitchen was solid smudge. Nye’s room didn’t give us anything, either; no blood, nothing damaged to suggest a struggle. His car was locked, no sign of jimmying, and it hadn’t been moved since the rain started, which the Coast Guard says was about 8 p.m. There was dry gravel under it.”
Conan stabbed at the ashtray with his cigarette.
“Did your boys pull any prints off the mop handle or bucket?”
“I’ll have to check. Why?”
“That head wound bled a lot. If it was administered in the kitchen, the mop was very conveniently at hand for cleaning up the blood.”
“If the blow was administered in the kitchen, and if—never mind. I’ll check it.” He paused, swirling the ice in his glass, then asked hesitantly, “Conan, how well do you know Brian Tally? I mean…”
“I know what you mean: Did he kill Eliot Nye?”
“Yes, I guess that’s what I mean.”
Conan considered his answer through the poignant first phrases of Für Elise.
“We’re not close friends, Steve; not what I call close, but I’ve known him long enough to be absolutely sure he didn’t kill Nye. I’m not saying he isn’t capable of it, but the MO is wrong, particularly that business about the missing records. If Brian killed him, it would be an act of passion, of rage, and entirely unpremeditated. This thing is too convoluted; Brian thinks in straight lines.”
Steve mumbled into his glass, “Thank you, Dr. Flagg.”
“You asked for an opinion.”
“I know, and I’m not putting yours down. I just wish I had something a little more solid to work with.”
“Why? You couldn’t ask for a more beautifully packaged suspect.” He emptied his glass, then seeing that Steve’s was equally dry, rose and took both glasses to the bar.
“He’s too beautifully packaged,” Steve grumbled. “Like leaving the body in his own freezer while he went to sleep in the same building. Would a jury believe anybody could be that stupid? No, except he was also known—by a lot of people—to be drunk to the gills.”
Conan put more ice in the glasses, brows drawn in an irritable frown.
“So his drunkenness explains his stupidity?”
“That’s how Kleber sees it. According to his theory, Nye came back to the restaurant after everybody else left—that’s the ‘later’ Tally says he doesn’t remember—they got to arguing, and that time you weren’t in the way, so he connected with Nye’s cranium—”
“But the wound was at the back of the cranium.”
“Just because he got you in the face doesn’t mean—”
“All right, objection overruled.” He brought the freshened drinks and handed one to Steve but didn’t return to his chair; he stood at the window searching for the phantoms of breakers.
“Anyway,” Steve went on, “Kleber figures Tally put Nye in the freezer for safekeeping—thinking he was dead—took his motel key and made a beeline for those records, figuring that if they disappeared while they were in the possession of an IRS agent, it would put a hole in their claim. Of course, the agent was supposed to disappear, too, with no clues that Tally had anything to do with it, but after he disposed of the records and went back to dispose of Nye, he decided he needed another drink to brace him up first and—”
“—and braced himself into unconsciousness. Yes, I heard the birthing of that theory
this morning.”
“Well, for Earl it’s come of age by now. He’s already talked to the D.A., and Culpepper likes it, too. And I can see why. It fits the known facts, and it has two real clinchers. The first is motive. Who else had a better motive to kill Nye? The IRS has a seizure order scheduled to be served next Friday, and it was Nye who made the original audit and came up with the tax deficiency.”
Conan nodded impatiently. “But if Nye’s picture-changing discovery was something that would negate the threat of an IRS seizure, then Brian didn’t have a motive.”
Steve lifted a skeptical eyebrow.
“Conan, we don’t know what Nye meant by that picture-changing business. Maybe it was something that put Tally even farther up the creek, and if Nye did come back to talk to him about it after two—well, unless we find out what Nye actually had on his mind, it doesn’t change the picture for Tally as far as motive is concerned.”
“What about opportunity, then? Brian did not see Nye again after midnight. He was at the hospital until one-thirty and in the bar from then on. If Nye was in the restaurant after two, Brian wasn’t aware of it.”
“I know, Conan. That’s what he said in his statement.”
“But he can’t prove it.”
“Well, can he?”
Conan stared out into the blackness, feeling the ache of protracted tension in his swollen jaw.
“All right, but someone else does have a motive against Nye: Loma Moody Nye. And/or friend. A divorce denied and a hundred thousand dollars in insurance.”
“Sure, they’ve got motive, but if they did it, how come Nye’s body ended up in the freezer at the Surf House?”
Conan shrugged. “The facts can also be explained if you assume Loma and friend are guilty. I don’t think they came to Holliday Beach with malice aforethought or Loma wouldn’t have announced herself at the motel office, but it’s not unreasonable to assume there were harsh words exchanged when she appeared at Nye’s door with this ‘sporty-looking feller’ in the red Ferrari—”
“We don’t know it was Luke Kautsky’s Ferrari yet.”
“But we know Loma had an escort, so maybe the scenario went something like this: Husband, wife, and unidentified sport argue, and in the heat of the moment Nye is hit and knocked unconscious.”
Steve began to protest while he was taking a swallow of his drink; it was a moment before he got his throat clear.
“One thing we do know, there was no sign of a struggle and no blood in Nye’s room, and as you already pointed out, that head wound bled a lot.”
Conan took that objection in stride.
“So the argument took place outside the room in a driving rain. Maybe Nye didn’t feel hospitable enough to invite his reluctant wife and her lover in. Anyway, the blow was struck and they thought he was dead. Then if either of the lovers went into his room—which isn’t unlikely—they’d see the Surf House records. Now, Brian and the resort do a lot of advertising; the name would undoubtedly be familiar to them, and the Surf House is only two blocks from the Seafarer. They probably passed it coming in.”
Steve was frowning critically, eyes down to slits.
“So they decided Tally might make a handy scapegoat?”
“Yes. Lorna would certainly know enough about her husband’s work to realize that anyone he was auditing would probably have a motive against him, so to point the finger at Brian, they took all the Surf House records, then transported the body—or what they thought was a body—to the restaurant. They had to wait until the coast was clear there, but that could be scouted through the windows, and the chances of observation at that hour and in that storm were nil. Finally, after Hancock left, one of them tried the doors and, by an incredible stroke of luck, found the front door unlocked, and what better place to dispose of a body than a walk-in freezer? They could be sure it wouldn’t be found until the next day, and freezing would confuse the time of death so it wouldn’t be so easily connected with Lorna’s appearance at the Seafarer.”
Steve gave that hypothesis due consideration while he lowered the liquid level in his glass a quarter inch.
“You’re reaching, Conan.”
“Maybe I am, but nothing we know now precludes that scenario. My point is, someone other than Brian did have a motive against Nye, and at least you can’t say it was impossible for them to kill him. And I have more to say on the subject of motive.” He settled himself in his chair to say it, while Steve sighed and took his drink down half an inch.
“Okay, who else has a motive against Nye?”
“Against Nye? No one that I know of.” He reached for his cigarettes, offering Steve one before he lit his own. “Have you considered this possibility, Steve: maybe we’re looking at the motive from the wrong angle; maybe the motive wasn’t against Nye, but against Brian. He’s the one who’s so beautifully packaged as a result of Nye’s death.”
“Yes, well, that would open things up a little.” Steve shook his match out furiously; it had burned down to his fingers. “Okay, elucidate.”
“As if you could stop me short of walking out. Well, I was thinking along this line: assume that someone had some compelling reason to put Brian in jeopardy and accomplished it by the simple expedient of betraying him to the IRS. But if whatever Nye discovered was good news for Brian—and I wasn’t the only one who got that impression, by the way; Tilda, Max, and Beryl had the same feeling about it—then look at that piece of good news from the point of view of the person who wanted Brian in trouble in the first place. That person would be just as anxious to keep him there, and right now he’s in about as much trouble as a man can get. If things looked bad for him yesterday with the IRS ready to close him up, how do they look now with a murder charge hanging over his head?”
Steve mulled that through a long drag on his cigarette. “Then the person you’re looking for is the informer?”
“Possibly. Maybe even probably. But it could also be someone else who simply took advantage of Brian’s motive against Nye to frame him for his murder. Obviously, that person would also have a compelling reason to want Brian in jeopardy, but it isn’t necessarily the informer.”
“Just somebody who didn’t shed any tears when Tally ended up in that IRS box canyon, right? Okay, I suppose you have some candidates in mind.”
“Yes. It was Nye’s announcement of his discovery, whatever it was, that changed the picture for the killer; that was the catalyst. So, the killer had to be one of the people in the bar last night. I’m not eliminating Hancock; he says he was carting garbage out, but the path—the one Nye could have taken through the resort to his motel—goes past the back door of the kitchen.”
Steve nodded absently. “Hancock might’ve seen Nye on his way to the bar, then gone inside and eavesdropped from the entry hall. But what’s his reason for keeping Tally in trouble?”
Conan related Brian’s ill-fated attempt at criminal rehabilitation, smiling faintly when Steve first stared incredulously, then, his head falling back against his chair, sighed his world-weary resignation.
“Oh, my God. Did Tally—I mean, I can’t believe he really thought—”
“He did, Steve. I’m afraid Brian is an unreformed reformer. He disposed of the confession, incidentally, but Johnny doesn’t know that, and the penalty for selling drugs is a little stringent.”
“That all depends. Of course, Hancock isn’t a juvenile, and he’s a long way from a first offense, so it probably would be stringent for him. So, who else do you have tabbed as a suspect? Everybody in the bar?”
Conan stretched his legs and savored a swallow of bourbon before he answered.
“The five unidentified customers I’ve eliminated because they were unidentified. This is a personal affair; something between friends—or enemies. But not strangers. I don’t think you can argue if I also eliminate Dore and me.”
“Oh, I probably could, just for the hell of it.”
“But you’re hungry, so you won’t. That leaves Max, Tilda, Beryl, Howie, Claude,
and Conny Van Roon. I’ve already told you about Van Roon’s Nevada connections and his heavy selling campaign—all according to Beryl.”
“Who also thinks he’s the informer.”
“And he may be, so he’s on my list. Beryl also told me Howie Bliss has taken a very recalcitrant attitude toward Brian; nothing arouses resentment so much as kindness. And Howie’s an alcoholic, which doesn’t automatically make him a killer, but a permanently pickled brain doesn’t function logically or reasonably, so his resentment can’t be treated lightly.”
Steve laughed. “Not when he entertains himself knocking out windshields.”
“He also sent Brian to the hospital when he tried to save any remaining windshields.”
“Damn, I never knew the restaurant business was so violent. Okay, who else is on your list?”
“Possibly Claude. The motive would be jealousy. Beryl hinted that Claude and Tilda were having an affair, or whatever it’s called these days, before they came to Holliday Beach, but it’s off now. Tilda’s on with Brian, and the feelings are so mutual, they eliminate her from my list. I eliminate Max and Beryl offhand because they’re both so unquestioningly loyal to Brian. So, at the moment my list includes Johnny, Howie, Van Roon, and possibly Claude, and not one of them has an alibi for his time after he left the restaurant except Van Roon. He says his wife gave him hell when he came home at twelve-thirty, but I don’t have much faith in spousely alibis. The scenario for any of them would be essentially what I outlined for Loma and friend, but you wouldn’t have to reach so far to cast Brian as the scapegoat.”
Steve leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his cigarette held in the curl of his palm as if he were shielding it from a desert wind. The Debussy La Cathédrale engloutie, and the tape, came to an end, leaving a silence paced by the soft rush of surf.