A Shock to the System - Stevenson Richard - Страница 25

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"Uh-huh."

"I know I asked for my money back—I'd paid him a goddamned small fortune—and never got so much as a red cent out of that chiseler."

"When Dr. Crockwell spoke with you, was he critical of Paul?"

"He was none too pleased with the outcome, if that's what you mean."

"But who did he blame it on?"

"Crockwell accepted no responsibility for himself, I can tell

you that, Mr. Don, private eye. That would have left him open for a lawsuit, and for all he knew I could have been taping the conversation. Doctors don't pass gas anymore without checking with their lawyers first."

I said, "Have you secretly taped conversations in the past?"

"No, why on earth are you asking me that?"

"You said Crockwell might have suspected that you were."

"God, I can't even get my friggin' VCR to work."

"Did Paul ever record people's conversations that you know of?"

"No. Now what are you getting at? Does somebody have something on tape?"

"The Albany police were sent a recording of the therapy session that Paul and Bierly walked out of and never came back. The sender remains anonymous. Accompanying the tape was a note implicating not Larry Bierly but Vernon Crockwell in Paul's death. There's no proof, just the tape, on which Crockwell says a lot of nasty stuff about Paul's sexuality and threatens to come between you and Paul if Paul quits therapy. When Paul warns Crockwell not to interfere in his family life and says he won't allow Crockwell to mess things up between you and Paul, Crockwell proclaims that he will not be impeded in his noble work, and he tells Paul that if he gets in the way Crockwell will stop him dead in his tracks. Those are Crockwell's words: 'I'll stop you dead in your tracks.' Are you familiar with any of this, Phyllis?"

A silence.

"Moreover," I went on, "on Wednesday you told me that Larry Bierly had threatened Crockwell, and Crockwell had it on tape. But it wasn't Crockwell who sent the cops the tape, and it wasn't Bierly who was recorded threatening Crockwell. It was Paul."

She did not reply, and after a moment I became aware that Mrs. Haig was quietly weeping.

"Are you there, Phyllis? Are you okay?"

She sniffled and said, in a breaking voice, "I don't know who taped what. I just know what Paul told me. Oh, poor, poor Paul. I want Paul. I want my son back. I want my Paul."

"What happened is terrible for you, Phyllis. It's bad, I know."

Choking back tears, she said, "Paul didn't kill himself, did he? Am I right? I was—maybe I said the wrong things. Yes, I know I did, I know maybe I did. But Paul wouldn't kill himself over that. Paul was used to me." She snuffled and blew her nose next to the phone.

I said, "Phyllis, the police actually have some good evidence now showing that Paul could not have killed himself. And as for you and Paul—hey, it's clear from the tape, which I've heard, that you and Paul hit it off, and he was used to you and devoted to you."

"I know I said some things that were harsh. But it was all tough love, you know? Am I right?"

"I know what you're saying."

"I even got Paul another doctor. To help Paul—goddamn get on with it. Whatever."

I said, "What doctor was this?"

"Glen Snyder in Ballston Spa. Deedee went to him for a while after her marriage broke up. He's not—I mean, he's just a regular head shrinker. Pills and whatnot. I was even going to foot the bill, but Paul only went five times before he died, so it only ended up costing me seven-fifty. So I was trying to do it Paul's way, wasn't I? Even if I opened my big yap once too often, maybe, right after Paul left Dr. Crockwell, later on I made it up to him by doing it his way. Am I right?"

"It sounds as if you were doing your best, Phyllis. Was it Dr. Snyder who prescribed the Elavil?"

"Yeah. And ain't that a kick in the head? It looks like indirectly I'm the one who supplied that treacherous homicidal maniac Larry Bierly with the murder weapon."

Back to that again. I said, "Larry Bierly tells a different story about Paul's finances from the one you told me. You said you thought Larry killed Paul for his lucrative business. Larry claims Beautiful Thingies is deeply in debt and, for the foreseeable future, more of a burden than a help. He said Paul was swindled by an assistant manager during a period when Paul was drinking too

much to notice and he nearly lost the business late last year."

"That is a lie!"

"It will be easy for me to check."

"Then do it, do it."

"And I'm sorry to have to remind you, Phyllis, that serious financial problems sometimes trigger suicide in people who are shaky otherwise. Isn't it possible that—"

She had begun to sob.

"Phyllis?"

Then a crash and a dial tone.

Now what had I said? I thought I'd described a possible suicide motive—financial desperation—that took Mrs. Haig more or less off the hook even if the murder theory somehow didn't pan out. But instead, something I said had pushed her over the edge. It was something I kept doing to people as I stumbled around in the darkness, and that darkness was one that the people I was hurting were choosing not to illuminate. Why?

15

You were right about one thing," I told Bierly. "It does look as if Paul did not commit suicide." I told him about the pill canister lid that could not have been put back on and tightened by someone who was already drunk.

"Oh, so I was right about one thing? Then what are the things I was wrong about?"

He had a big gauze packing taped to the side of his neck and a bulky wad of something under his hospital nightie that was covering up the chest wound. Luckily, he'd just told me, the neck injury was superficial, missing the carotid by a quarter of an inch, and the chest wound wasn't as serious as it could have been: a bullet had ricocheted off the car door, a la Ronald Reagan, and entered Bierly's left chest, shattering two ribs but missing vital organs. His recovery, his doctors had told him, would be slow but total.

"One thing you were wrong about," I said, "was your account of your and Paul's exit from Crockwell's therapy group. You told me Crockwell blew up and threatened you and threatened Paul—which he did. But what you didn't tell me was, Crockwell's threat was in response to Paul's vow to use any means to stop Crockwell from coming between Paul and his mother."

He gazed at me, red-eyed and sallow, but said nothing. He was propped up, his arms limp at his sides, an IV drip tube stuck in his thick right forearm. Even in repose Bierly's body looked powerful, and I was reminded anew of the destructive force of a metal

projectile shot from a cheap mechanism that any deranged twerp could pick up on a street corner.

Finally, he said, "How do you know what was said that day? Were you there? I don't remember seeing you there, Strachey."

"I've heard a tape of the session," I said.

Bierly squinted at me perplexedly. Then he suddenly croaked out, "That slimeball!"

"What slimeball?"

"Crockwell. Who else would have taped the session?"

"You're missing a point, Larry, that happens to be your own. The point is, whatever you said, or Paul said, at that session, it's Crockwell who comes off worst. He said if Paul interfered with him, he'd stop Paul dead in his tracks. Do you remember that?"

"I guess so," he said weakly, not looking me in the eye. What was with Bierly? He wanted more than anything, he kept telling me, to nail the wicked Crockwell, while at the same time there was a part of him that didn't want to have to confront Crockwell or even discuss him in any detail. Bierly loathed Crockwell, but for reasons I had yet to decipher he was afraid of him too, or at least reluctant to provoke him.

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