Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 03 - THE SPRING -- a Legal Thriller (10 page)

He felt a flash of guilt following the vast relief. Stroke, he thought. Heart attack, broken hip. He had seen Bibsy at the senior citizens’ orgy in the hot tub, a memory to cherish. And last New Year’s Eve he had heard Scott Henderson refer to her as “that sexy blonde in the red dress, the one I’ve been married to forever and I’m still crazy about”— but even with all that, she was still vulnerable to the flaws of age.

Lila steered him down the steps toward the street and the law offices. “Sophie said that a couple of Pitkin County sheriff’s deputies came up to Springhill to talk to her. To your mother-in-law, I mean. She didn’t say what it was about.”

Again he felt relief; Bibsy was all right. But he was puzzled. “Deputies? What for?”

“Can’t be anything serious unless she’s a secret drug lord of the western slope. But Sophie said to drop whatever you’re doing and come up there. And call her right away.”

Dennis didn’t bother changing clothes except from ski boots into shoes so he could drive. On the highway, even before he reached the western outskirts of Aspen, he speed-dialed through on the car phone to his home. The answering machine came on after two rings, and he heard the beginning of Sophie’s message. It was brief, without frills: no chanting children or music preceded it. He hung up and dialed his in-laws’ number.

Sophie answered. “Yes?”

“It’s me. What’s going on?”

“Where are you?”

“In the car, just west of Aspen. Lila gave me your message at the gondola.”

“I wish you would come here and deal with this.”

“I am. I’m on the way. Is it true that two Pitkin County deputies were there?”

“Still are.”

“To see your mother?”

“Exactly.”

“Why?”

Sophie didn’t answer. She wasn’t alone, he deduced.

“They haven’t accused her of doing anything illegal, have they?”

“Not yet.”

“Where’s your father?”

“Right here.”

“Can’t he handle it?”

“Dennis, just please get here as soon as you can. And be careful. The roads have been plowed but they could be icy.”

She hung up.

Between the airport and the turnoff to Snowmass Mountain, Dennis battled his way through the Pitkin County switchboard and a secretarial deputy to Josh Gamble at the Sheriff’s Office.

“Josh, I’m in my car heading downvalley. I’ve just had an off-the- wall conversation with Sophie. Two of your deputies are at her parents’ home in Springhill, talking to her mother about I-don’t-know-what. Did Beatrice Henderson get picked up in your bailiwick on any sort of charge? Like a DUI?”

He heard a crackling silence on the telephone.

“Josh … you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“What’s going on?”

The sheriff said, “I don’t think I can discuss this with you on the phone, unless you’re calling as Beatrice Henderson’s lawyer.”

Dennis let that steep for a few seconds. “Does she
need
a lawyer?”

“If you’re calling as her lawyer, Dennis, I’ll see you here in my office and I’ll talk to you. If you’re just fishing for what I know, then, like I said, I think I’d better put an end to this conversation.”

Dennis felt a vestige of Irish temper rising in him. “Are you pulling my chain? I’m asking about my sixty-five-year-old mother-in-law! Is this some kind of practical joke?” He calmed down; it never paid to raise your voice to the law, even if the law was friendly. “I was up on Ajax on the best powder day of the year.”

“It’s not a joke,” Josh said.

“Is she accused of something?”

“I can’t talk about it. I have to go. Don’t take it personally.”

Dennis heard the buzz of a dead line. First his wife, and now his oldest friend had hung up on him. It was not a good day.

Outside the closed garage doors of the Hendersons’ house were Sophie’s gray Chevy Blazer, a Pitkin County Sheriff’s Department black gold-trimmed Jeep, and a third car, a snow-covered pickup truck that Dennis didn’t recognize.

No one in Springhill locked a front door. Dennis stepped into the warm hallway of the house, and Scott Henderson, bronzed from the winter sun, emerged from the living room to greet him. His handshake was hard as a chunk of wood. His mouth was drawn down now at the corners, but he spoke calmly, as if this were a normal occasion and his son-in-law had arrived for a dinner party. “Glad you could make it, Dennis.”

Dennis put an arm around Scott’s shoulder. “What’s Bibsy done? Run a red light?”

“We’ll talk about it,” Scott said.

“Wait a second. Is she all right?”

“Come inside.”

Dennis found his mother-in-law sitting next to Sophie on the living room sofa. Mother and daughter both wore jeans and winter sweaters, and despite the fact that Bibsy was blonde and Sophie dark haired, the resemblance between them was obvious. Bibsy must have been a beauty, Dennis thought. And still was, for her age. He had seen the remarkable firmness of her body by candlelight as she approached the hot tub.

He glanced at Sophie, suffered the usual blow to his heart at the presence of her beauty—the liquid amber of her hair, the softness of her eyes—and smiled: a smile that was meant to say, I’m here, and I’ll do whatever has to be done, and all will be well.

On the matching love seat sat a plump blue-eyed young woman. She wore a dark green uniform shirt over a white turtleneck, jeans, and workaday black boots. Dennis glanced at the chrome name pin that gleamed in the light streaming through the living room windows. It proclaimed her to be Queenie O’Hare, Pitkin County deputy sheriff.

Deputy O’Hare was drinking a mug of steaming coffee and eating some of Bibsy’s chunky chocolate chip cookies. The cookies were still warm, the dark chocolate dripping a little onto the plate. Cozy, Dennis thought. There’s nothing serious about this. All
will
be well.

Another Pitkin County deputy, a mustachioed thirtyish man introduced to Dennis as Doug Larsen, sat in a chintz-covered easy chair under a hanging plant. Behind a marble backgammon board sat an amiable-looking man in his early fifties. Herb Crenshaw, the local part-time police chief, looked after parking violations, littering by teenagers, and the maintenance of the local jail: a two-bunk cell attached to his mother’s cowshed. In his eleven-month residence in Springhill Dennis had never known anyone to spend a night in the jail. It would have been the topic of conversation for a week: there was no crime in Springhill.

Scott’s voice was mellow, deep, and relaxed. He explained to Dennis that Herb Crenshaw was there at the request of Deputy O’Hare as a courtesy to the municipality of Springhill. But Deputy O’Hare was in charge of the investigation.

Dennis turned politely to Queenie O’Hare. “May I ask
—what
investigation?”

“Sir, please sit down.”

Trying to hide his discomfort, Dennis sat.

Queenie said, “On November tenth, to be precise, the Sheriff’s Office became aware of two bodies buried three miles northwest of Pearl Pass in Pitkin County. We haven’t a positive ID yet, but we have reason to believe that they were residents of this town, and that their names were Henry Lovell and Susan Lovell, husband and wife. However, officially, they’re still John Doe and Jane Doe.”

“I see,” Dennis said. But he didn’t see. Not a bit. It was a dark and mysterious undergrowth into which he peered. He was waiting for more information that would shed light and part the tangle of leaves. He was skilled at that. A good hunter and a veteran, he knew when to keep quiet and wait.

“I called Mrs. Henderson this morning,” Queenie resumed, “and asked her if she’d be willing to come down to the courthouse in Aspen and help us out by answering a few questions.”

Queenie halted, and Dennis still waited. He realized Queenie O’Hare was no fool: she had some interrogation skills. He finally asked, “What made you think that Mrs. Henderson could help you out in this … investigation?”

Queenie blinked a few times. “She said she’d call me back—she thought she ought to discuss it with her husband. Okay, I asked her to call back within an hour. I waited two hours. She didn’t call.” Queenie shrugged, as if to say, What could I do?

She hasn’t answered my question, Dennis realized.

“So,” Queenie said, “I drove up here with Deputy Larsen. When we arrived Mrs. Henderson called her daughter, who I take it is your wife as well as the mayor of Springhill.” She nodded in a friendly, woman- to-woman manner at Sophie. “And then Mrs. Henderson said to me she didn’t feel she should talk to me until counsel was present. And she said you were her counsel.”

This was news to Dennis. But he was not about to challenge his mother-in-law. He nodded a few times, and said to the deputy, “When you first called from Aspen, did you tell Mrs. Henderson what you wanted to see her about?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

Bibsy interrupted. In a normal voice, she asked, “Dennis, would you like some tea and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies?”

“I’d love both, Bibsy.”

The offer served to reenforce his disbelief in what was happening. He turned back to Queenie.

“Is Mrs. Henderson under suspicion of anything?”

Queenie smiled winningly, showing one of her physical assets: white, beautifully capped teeth. “Sir, do you remember those Inspector Clouseau movies?
The Pink Panther
and the rest of them? And Peter Sellers always says”—she frowned theatrically and broke into a pseudo-French accent—” ‘M’sieur, I suspect…
everyone.
‘ “

Dennis allowed himself the faintest of smiles. Again, Queenie had not answered his question.

“Is Mrs. Henderson in custody?”

“Definitely not.”

He turned to Sophie’s mother on the sofa; she was busy pouring his tea. “Bibsy, is it true you’d like me to represent you as your lawyer in whatever this matter is about?”

“If you don’t mind,” Bibsy said, handing him the cup of hot fragrant tea.

Dennis raised a questioning eyebrow in his father-in-law’s direction.

“I think it would be more appropriate,” Scott said, “for you to be her counsel rather than me. I’ve explained that to Bibsy. She understands.”

I’m glad she does, Dennis thought, because I don’t. But now he wondered if this was more serious than he’d first assumed.

He turned back to Queenie O’Hare. “Deputy, what is it that you want to know?”

Queenie reached deep into her big cluttered handbag. “I have a battery-operated tape recorder with me, Mr. Conway. Do you mind if I turn it on?”

Dennis whistled through barely open lips. “Is that necessary?”

“I’m a lousy note taker,” Queenie explained. “My boss has been known to be displeased with my notes.”

“Yes, I know your boss well, and one should not take his displeasure lightly.” He let that hang there; he was trying to tell her something. “Can’t Deputy Larsen take notes while you ask the questions?”

Queenie closed the handbag. “I suppose he could. This is a friendly talk. Doug, okay with you?”

“I haven’t got a notebook,” Larsen said, reddening.

Scott Henderson rose to his feet; he was tall enough that his head didn’t seem too far from the ceiling. “I’ll get you one.”

He returned with a yellow legal pad and handed it to Larsen. Queenie said immediately, “Mrs. Henderson, are you taking any medication?”

Dennis put his cup down hard enough to make a clacking noise and to spill some tea from the saucer onto the old maple table. Bibsy reached out with her napkin to mop it up. Old maple stained easily.

“Deputy,” Dennis said, “is that one of the questions you’ve come to ask on behalf of the Sheriff’s Office, or is that just an impertinent inquiry?”

Calmly, Queenie replied, “It’s a question I’ve come here to ask on behalf of the Sheriff’s Office.”

Dennis had been told only that two Springhill residents, the parents of the same Hank Lovell whom he had met on the day he had first met Sophie, had been found buried in a mountain grave in the wilderness of Pitkin County. They were still officially being called Jane Doe and John Doe. The chubby woman deputy had given no indication as to how they had died. Whatever had happened, Dennis was sure of one thing: his mother-in-law had nothing to do with it.

“Bibsy,” he said, “you can reply to any of the questions that this young woman asks you—unless I tell you not to. I’m sure you have nothing to hide, but still, pay heed if I tell you not to answer. Understood?”

Bibsy nodded with solemn slowness. “May I answer the question about medication?”

“Yes.”

“I am taking medication,” Bibsy said in a clear voice.

“What medication is it?” Queenie inquired.

“A number of vitamins and minerals, and some garlic tablets in oil, that kind that don’t make your skin reek. And a product put out by Herbalife that contains valerian root and yerba maté. Also, something called Rejuvelax, where the active ingredient is senna extract. That’s all for regularity and internal cleansing—my cardiologist in Aspen, Dr. Morris Green, has forbidden me to have high-colonic irrigations, which I used to prefer.” Bibsy hesitated a moment, frowning. “I have what’s been diagnosed as Prinzmetal’s variant angina. It’s a tendency of the coronary artery to go into spasm for no discernible cause.” Larsen was writing notes. Dennis wondered what on earth this had to do with anything that the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office might be interested in. But Queenie O’Hare kept nodding as though she were being made privy to fascinating news. She said, “Do you have a medical background, Mrs. Henderson?”

“Until I retired, I was a registered nurse and a board-certified midwife.”

“With Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs?”

“Oh no. Goodness gracious, that was only part-time. I worked here in Springhill. And sometimes I delivered babies in Marble.”

“For this angina condition, do you take any medication?”

“Something called Ismo,” Bibsy said. “It’s a goofy-sounding name, but that’s it. It’s a slow-acting nitroglycerin. To keep the artery open. And Cardizem, a calcium channel blocker that does the same thing in an entirely different chemical way. And one aspirin a day. That’s against clotting. I know it sounds like a lot of medication, but actually I’m fit as a fiddle as long as I take my pills and carry my nitro in case of emergency.”