Nothing's Certain but Death

by M. K. Wren

  “Damn. All right.” He picked up the phone, and while he was occupied with the call, Steve leaned toward Conan.

  “I have the lab reports—thank God Kleber has a Telex—and a prelim from Dan Reuben. Maybe we can mix business with lunch. ‘The best’ is open today, incidentally; I gave Tally the go-ahead this morning.”

  Conan nodded. “Good. By the way, where’s Kleber?”

  “He’s in Westport.” The flicker of tension around his eyes was at odds with his casual tone. “Left about an hour ago.”

  Conan made no response to that. Westport was the county seat, and it was there the grand jury met and there the circuit judge would act on their indictment and issue a warrant for the arrest of Brian Tally. The law would offer no delays; not in this case. Culpepper would see to that.

  Lorna was watching Conan with unabashed curiosity. He made a tentative overture with a friendly smile and was a little surprised when she returned it. He decided to see how far friendliness would get him.

  “Ms. Moody, I’d like to ask you a few questions, but they have nothing to do with—”

  That was as far as he got on his first try; at that moment Kautsky cradled the phone and said coolly, “Lorna’s answered enough questions.”

  Conan started to argue, then tried another approach, displaying an approximation of that slapped-child look for Lorna, then averting his eyes in embarrassed hopelessness. “Yes, of course. I…understand.”

  It worked. Her voice floated out to him plaintively.

  “Mr. Flagg, who are you working for?”

  “For a man Eliot Nye was on the verge of bankrupting, a man who will without a doubt be arrested for his murder.” He saw Steve’s blinking look of inquiry, but ignored it. “I know he’s innocent, but I can’t prove it. Still, it doesn’t seem fair that alive Nye could break him financially, and now…well, at least we don’t have the death penalty in Oregon.”

  Her blue eyes burned hot at her husband’s name, and despite Kautsky’s warning frown, she asked, “What did you want to ask me? I mean, what could I tell you?”

  “Lorna—”

  “Oh, Luke, at least let him tell me what he wants to know. I don’t have to answer his questions.”

  Conan grasped his advantage before Kautsky could offer further protest.

  “I just want to know something about your husband; the kind of man he was. Especially how he approached his work. Luther Dix tells me he was conscientious, tenacious, and all those good IRS virtues, but virtues carried to excess become vices. I want to know how far he carried his virtues.”

  Now her eyes turned icy. “To the limit, Mr. Flagg. He was puritanical, dogmatic, moralistic—” She caught herself, perhaps feeling Kautsky’s disapproving gaze. “Well, the very fact that I left him tells you I didn’t see eye to eye with him on many things.”

  Conan sat down on the edge of the desk, arms folded. “Why did he choose to work for the IRS?”

  Her mouth did manage to achieve unattractiveness then. “He saw it as his moral and patriotic duty to put all those tax evaders behind bars, even widows and children.”

  Conan demurred mildly, “Well, some tax evaders deserve to be behind bars, I suppose.”

  “Yes, of course.” She restored her mouth with a pretty smile. “And I guess it’s a good thing somebody feels the way he did about it.”

  “Was he so zealous in punishing tax evaders that he’d…bend the facts, shall we say?”

  She considered that and finally gave the dead its due.

  “I doubt it. He was such a—well, I’m sure he never railroaded anyone, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s what I mean. Was he capable of admitting error? His own or the IRS’s?”

  “Oh, yes. Errors—of any kind—upset him. I remember one case where something about the first audit bothered him, so he did a second audit on his own time, and then told Dix to drop the case. He nearly lost his job over that one.”

  Conan frowned. “He risked his job because a taxpayer was right and the IRS wrong?”

  “Yes, but not because the taxpayer was right. He just couldn’t stand it if everything didn’t balance out to the last penny.”

  “How did he feel about working on informers’ tips?”

  “Well, he didn’t like it. He said it was usually a matter of casting the first stone.” Then she smiled capriciously. “He always audited the informer too. Just a random audit, of course.”

  Conan looked at her so intently her smile faded.

  “He audited the informer? Did he always do that?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know if he made it an absolute rule, but he did it quite a lot. I’m sure of that.”

  Conan glanced at Steve, and the slight lift of one eyebrow told him the significance of the Van Roon file in Nye’s attaché case hadn’t been lost on him.

  Conan returned to Lorna, giving some thought to the wording of his next question.

  “Your husband took a highly moralistic attitude toward tax evaders. Did he—well, hold a grudge against any of the people whose cases he handled?”

  She laughed caustically. “No. All he cared about was setting the books right. You know what I mean? He’d be more likely to know their Social Security numbers than their names. A grudge? Never. That would be an emotional thing. Eliot never got that emotional about anything.”

  With that acrimonious appraisal, she closed and locked a door with a finality that reverberated in Conan’s mind.

  As Steve had observed, it would take a hell of a grudge to make a man accuse another of his murder if he really wasn’t sure he was guilty. That would be an emotional thing.

  If the initials pointing that incarnadined finger at Brian couldn’t be explained as a mental quirk on Nye’s part, there was only one other possibility: the killer had made them, drawn them in the blood of one victim to incriminate another.

  He said absently, “Thank you, Ms. Moody.”

  “Is that all?” She seemed a little disappointed.

  “Yes. That’s all.” A few minutes later Conan stood at the window and watched Lorna and Kautsky departing in the red Ferrari. They would be back at three o’clock, armed with counsel.

  “Steve, you didn’t mention Nye’s insurance policies.”

  “No. Thought I should keep something in reserve.” He had his feet propped on a corner of the desk, hands cupped around the match held to his cigarette. “Sounds like Van Roon ought to have more to offer than he put in his statement.”

  “About playing Judas to the IRS? Yes. Let me talk to him first.”

  “You’re welcome to him.”

  “Don’t say that as if it were a gift.” Conan looked up at the sky; a curdled overcast had moved in, but there was no wind. “What do you think?”

  “Of the young lovers? Well, if Nye had died of cyanide poisoning, I wouldn’t have a doubt in the world that Lorna fed it to him. My God, she’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?”

  Conan laughed and put his back to the window.

  “Enchanting. By the way, that was very neat about the Surf House audit. Now all you have to do is find out if she did learn about it from this anonymous auditor friend, or if she saw the records in Nye’s motel room.”

  “Yes, well, if the case depended on finding that out, forget it.” He assayed a smoke ring, but it didn’t hold together.

  “You know, there’s something about those two that makes me want to doubt every word they say.” Conan went to the chair Lorna had vacated and crossed his feet on another corner of the desk while he lit a cigarette. “But maybe I’m just envious of Kautsky. He’s such a sporty-looking feller.”

  “And she might be damned sporty, too, on occasion.”

  “Well, you and I will never know. But I have this funny gut feeling they’re telling the truth.”

  “Maybe you’re just hungry. It’s nearly noon.”

  “If they are telling the truth, and if Nye wasn’t just snubbing them, then that means he hadn’t returned to the Seafarer by
twelve-thirty, but Beryl said she saw him heading for the door at the restaurant at five after twelve. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to walk that distance.”

  “Maybe he stopped for a drink.” When that elicited only a musing puff of smoke, Steve added, “Little joke, there.”

  Conan’s eyes came into focus on him. “You said you have the lab reports and a prelim from Reuben.”

  “Yes, but you’re not going to like some of it.”

  “Then you’d better give me the bad news first.”

  Steve shrugged uneasily. “Okay. The bad news is about the initials. Conan, Nye did make them. There were three good prints where he started or stopped a line, all of them Eliot Nye’s right index finger. And he was right-handed.”

  Conan felt an aching hollow forming in his solar plexus. He asked tightly, “Can you be sure the killer didn’t use Nye’s finger to make the letters—and the prints?”

  “Yes. I asked Harry Quincy—he’s our handwriting expert. He said the angles and weight of the lines, the fade at the bottom of the verticals—it’s all consistent with the position Nye was in. If somebody else made those letters using his finger, they’d be working above him, and the angle and set would be different. And the prints would be from the end of the finger, and there’d be some nail marks. But these prints are the flat of the fingertip—and no nail marks. Harry’s willing to swear Nye made those initials.”

  Conan’s feet slammed down to the floor.

  “But he couldn’t have!”

  Steve didn’t argue; he didn’t need to. Conan knew he was still faced with that sardonic enigma, and the two answers he had regarded as the only rational alternatives to both, within a few minutes, dissolved into meaninglessness like smoke in his hands.

  “Damn it, Steve, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “No. Not if Tally didn’t kill him.”

  That was only a statement of fact, devoid of inflection. Conan discovered his cigarette still in his hand, took a puff and found it searingly bitter, then put it out before he reached for the phone.

  Steve asked, “Who are you calling?”

  “A lawyer—who else?”

  Chapter 11

  Steve Travers was smiling as they left the station.

  “Marcus Fitch. Damn, Kleber’ll drop his uppers.”

  “You don’t think there’s prejudice in Holliday Beach, do you?”

  “I don’t know about Holliday Beach, but I have a good idea how Earl’s going to take it.”

  Conan was smiling a little himself at that. Marcus Fitch was one of Portland’s top lawyers; he was also black. Not that Holliday Beach was consciously bigoted. The fact that there wasn’t a single black among its twelve hundred inhabitants was an accident of economics and geography more than purposeful exclusion. But unfamiliarity inevitably breeds distrust.

  “Marc is one of the best criminal lawyers I know, and he owes me a favor; otherwise I wouldn’t expose him to Earl.”

  “He must owe you a big favor. Want to take my car?”

  “Let’s take mine. I like to have wheels handy, and you can always call the state patrol. My only alternative is the local taxi. You want to drive?”

  “Sure. This is the only way I’ll ever get to drive a twelve-thousand-dollar car. That hand bothering you?”

  Conan surrendered the keys to him when they reached the Jaguar, then went around to the passenger side.

  “Not really, but I have to think harder when I drive. Just remember, it doesn’t have an automatic shift.”

  “Relax. After all, I learned to drive on a ten-gear cattle truck.”

  “I remember. What about the rest of the lab reports?”

  “You can boil it all down to one word: nothing. At least, nothing Hancock didn’t mop or disinfect out of existence. The only clear prints Jeff pulled belonged to Hancock, Jastrow, Bliss, or Tally, which figures since they’re in the kitchen every day. Yes, we checked the mop. Smudge.”

  Conan nodded and waited until Steve turned onto the highway and passed a braying log truck.

  “What did Dan Reuben have to say?”

  “Hypothermia. Nye froze to death. No alcohol or other extraneous ingredients in the stomach or blood. No contusions, abrasions, fractures, et cetera, other than the head wound. Time of death is hopeless. Circumstantial evidence tells us more about that than Dan could.”

  “What about the head wound?”

  “Inflicted by an unidentified blunt instrument. Not so blunt, really. Dan said the wound seemed to be made by something with three sides coming to a point at right angles. You know anything that would fit that description around the kitchen?”

  “I was in that kitchen only twice before yesterday, and cooking utensils are one of the eternal mysteries to me.” He gave the bookshop the usual survey as they passed; business was a little better today. Then he looked to the other side of the highway and Driskoll’s Garage. Beryl’s Mercedes was absent from the ranks of the disabled.

  “Steve, what about Beryl’s car? Did you see any of the reports on that?”

  “Yes. It was clean. I guess somebody was smart enough to wear gloves.”

  “But not smart enough to get farther out of town before they stopped to enjoy the view. Or whatever.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind; it’s not important. What about those drugs Jeff found in the cooler?”

  “Oh, damn, I almost forgot. We got some nice clear prints, all belonging to Johnny Hancock. We put out an APB on him this morning. He lives in a trailer park in the north end of town, but he wasn’t home last I heard.”

  “He may never be. Take the next turn to the right.”

  “Already? Funny how the miles fly when you’re driving a twelve-thousand—”

  “Yes, Steve, I know the price tag. I wrote the check.”

  The Surf House parking lot was full, so Steve nonchalantly left the XK-E in a loading zone. When they reached the restaurant door, they encountered a contingent of elderly ladies on their way out. Steve gallantly held the door for them and pretended not to notice their meaningful looks and sotto voce comments.

  “…detective…the state police…well! Didn’t I tell you…”

  Inside the entry hall, he shook his head ruefully.

  “Word sure gets around, doesn’t it?”

  “Apparently. Seems to be good for business, though.” The dining room was crowded, which was a phenomenon at this time of year, but the diners were nearly all locals. Tilda Capek was at the counter behind the cash register ringing up a guest check and trying to ignore Claude Jastrow, who was leaning close to her, speaking in low, taut tones.

  “…doesn’t mean anything to you, I suppose? Oh, Til, you’re making a terrible mistake. Don’t you know that?” She counted out the change onto a small tray and handed it to a passing waitress.

  “For A-2, Kay. No, Claude, I don’t know it. Now, please—” She stopped when she saw Conan and Steve; Jastrow turned, head tilted back, eyes hooded.

  “Ah, the fell sergeant, so strict in his arrest.” That was for Steve, who only looked at him blankly.

  Conan said, “Bad casting, Claude. Steve would never play as Death.”

  He laughed. “True. Horatio, perhaps. Give me that man that is not passion’s slave…” He paused as a couple came down the steps, and Tilda took menus and went out to greet and seat them. She was wearing a rose-beige pantsuit of a soft material that clung nicely exactly where it should.

  Conan reluctantly turned his attention to Jastrow, and his effort was rewarded. In that unguarded moment, Jastrow’s face was a revelation. He was passion’s slave, and Tilda Capek was his passion.

  Then he seemed to catch himself and displayed a smile. “Gentlemen, you’ll excuse me if I make my exit now…a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage… And then is heard no more.” He executed a mocking bow with his exit, while Steve delivered a sigh.

  “I guess I should brush up on my Shakespeare.”

  Conan laugh
ed. “At least Hamlet and Macbeth, and what could be more appropriate? They’re both about murders.”

  Tilda paused to give orders to a busboy on her way back to the counter.

  “Water B-7, Ken. Oh—next time I pass C-4, I want to see the silver placed properly. You should know better by now. Jenny…” This to a waitress sailing past under a loaded tray a yard in diameter. “Cocktail B-7 for me, please, when you get your table served.” She didn’t mention Jastrow when she reached the counter.

  “Conan, is something wrong?” Then she added bitterly, “Or should I ask, is anything right?”

  He shrugged. “Everything and nothing. We’re just here for lunch, Tilda. Looks like you have a full house.”

  “The smell of disaster. We haven’t had so much lunch business since summer.” She assessed the seating possibilities in a sweeping glance. “In about ten minutes I can give you a window table.”

  “That’s worth waiting for. Where’s Brian?”

  “At his apartment. At least, he said he was going there. He couldn’t stand it here. All the people. Conan, is…”

  Her gray eyes were so full of aching appeal, it was all he could do not to turn away.

  “I don’t have any good news, Tilda. In fact, Kleber’s in Westport now, and when he returns he’ll have a warrant for Brian’s arrest.”

  “Oh, dear God…” For a moment it seemed she might faint, then she turned her look of stunned appeal on Steve.

  He couldn’t meet it.

  “Miss Capek, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do.”

  “No…no, of course not. I understand that.” She took a deep breath to compose herself. “Conan?”

  The real question was in her eyes; she couldn’t seem to reduce it to words.

  “I have nothing but bits and pieces, Tilda, a maze of maybes. But I’ll put it together somehow.” It seemed a pitifully inadequate assurance.

  She nodded, apparently satisfied with it, but a moment later her eyes seemed to slip out of focus.

  She said softly, “But who will put Brian together again after…”

  There was fear in that, and something very near grief.