Shock to the system

1

The voice was a combination of Locust Valley lockjaw and Marge Schott, by way of the Albany Gardening Club and the Mary Lou Whitney Lounge at the airport Americana.

"I'm not gonna bullshit around," Phyllis Haig said, a little louder than was necessary even amid the lunch-hour din at Le Briquet. "Bullshitting around is not my style, you can ask anybody who knows me. I'm telling you, Don, I'm telling you straight out, no bullshit, that I am convinced Larry Bierly killed my son, Paul, for his money and then covered up the dastardly deed by trying to make it look like suicide. Do you get what I'm saying? Am I making myself clear? Larry Bierly is a murderer, and the police are not doing beans about it, and I want to pay you whatever your rate is-if it's in reason, of course-to put that little pissant Larry Bierly in the caboose where he belongs." She peered at me unsteadily across her uneaten arugula with Gorgonzola vinaigrette and corrected herself. "Calaboose."

Mrs. Haig seemed to have six or eight drinks lined up in front of her and three or four cigarettes smoldering in each hand, but there couldn't have been more than a couple of each. She was well on her way to ruin-fifty-nine pushing ninety-but still turned out with care and expense in pale blue-eyes, linen skirt, jacket-and pale orange-hair, lipstick, tangelo sections among the arugula.

When she'd phoned the day before, I'd suggested we meet at my office on Central, but she didn't like the sound of the address ("Is it safe to park a car up there?") and proposed lunch instead at Le Briquet. Situated on a shady lane off State Street down the hill from the Capitol, Le Briquet catered to the comfortably well-off general public but existed mainly to provide highly enriched nutrients and hydration to New York State's elected representatives and their paid staffs. These meals were customarily compliments of the pols' fellow diners, officers of business and professional associations with an interest in the legislature's proceedings. It was a place where your car was safe, if not your soul or your wallet.

I said, "I knew your son and Larry Bierly slightly, Mrs. Haig, if they were the couple I'm thinking of. Weren't they lovers?"

She sniffed. "If that's what you want to call it, 'lovers,' " she said dejectedly. "It's not easy for a mother, Don." She fired up another two or three more Camel Lights. "You know, Don, when my daughter, Paul's sister Deedee, went through the entire basketball team at Albany High before she was seventeen, I wasn't crazy about it, but I survived. I figured, What's a little fornication among the young? Am I right? This was before AIDS, naturally, and Condoms 101, so what the hoo. I knew Deborah would outgrow her throwing-it-around-for-nothing phase, and she did, years ago. But when Paul went through the boys' swim team, that was another matter. You can imagine your daughter with some guy's big, stupid hard-on jammed in her jaw, but not your son. Do you get what I mean? Am I right? Try to put yourself in my place."

I said, "Yours is not an uncommon reaction among parents, Mrs. Haig."

"Oh, I know what you're thinking. It's PC now to say it's all the same-women and men, women doing it with women, men and men acting like real couples and shoving it up each other's patoo-ties. But it's not the same. I know it, and I think you know it, Don. It's not what nature intended. Yes, my son was a homosexual, and he was crazy enough to go off with that little fart Larry Bierly and flaunt it in Lew's and my face. Lew was ripshit, as you can imagine, but not all that surprised. Paul wasn't the first Haig, Lew always said, who might've been better off in the bughouse." She took a long drag and shot a smokeball across the room.

"But that's my point, get it? Sure," she went on, "Paul was a prime candidate for the bin. But that's just the way he was, another Haig who was a little off plumb, and he was used to it. I'd kid him about it and we'd laugh. Did Paul get depressed sometimes? You bet he did. But who doesn't, am I right? So you go out and have a couple of drinks and get on with your life. Paul and I put a few away together, so I should know. The last time we tied one on was right after Lew died. Anybody wants to get depressed, they can get depressed about that. Pancreatic cancer- don't ever pick that one up, Don."

Another drag and another blunderbuss shot. "But what I'm telling you, Don, is, that's it. When life unloaded on you, Paul coped. He'd get knocked down and he'd bounce right back up. Paul was a survivor, like his old ma. That was one thing we had in common. It was his style to get the hell on with it. I know that about Paul as well as I know anything on God's green earth, and I know Paul would not destroy himself. Paul did not-Paul never could commit suicide. And if Paul didn't kill himself, then it stands to reason, if you ask me, that somebody else did. Am I right? And that somebody-I'll bet the bank on it-is that miserable little faggot Larry Bierly."

She sucked up another slug of her Dewar's and gave me a look that dared me to contradict a single word she'd spoken.

I said, "I catch the drift of what your suspicions are, Mrs. Haig, and why you might want to hire an investigator. But I'm a little unclear as to why you went out of your way to consider hiring a gay detective-this is known about me around Albany-when you have, to put the most generous interpretation on it, conflicted feelings about homosexuals. Can you clear that up for me, Mrs. Haig?"

"Call me Phyllis," she said.

"Phyllis."

"Well, Don, that's a reasonable question and it deserves an honest answer. Number one, this is business. Lew always said that in the business world you have to consort with people you wouldn't dream of letting past your front door.

And in return you can usually expect those people to be nice to you even if the ground you walk on makes them want to heave. Take you, for instance. You've been listening to me badmouthing gays for the last five minutes, and all you've done is sit there picking the label off your beer bottle. You're not doing what you feel like doing, which is to get up and reach across the table and wring my neck. Because this is business. Am I right?"

"You nailed me on that one, Phyllis."

"You bet. I've got a fat checkbook in my handbag, and you haven't taken your X-ray vision off of it since the second I sat down."

"I always like to share a moral outlook with my clients," I said, "but it's not a requirement. Prompt payment can sometimes form a bond too. In your case, however, Phyllis, even beyond considerations of differing outlooks on life and the human personality, if I were to consider taking your case, I'd need to know more about the basis of your suspicions of Larry Bierly, and about how and why you think I might confirm your suspicions. Those are serious charges you've made against Bierly, Phyllis."

She raised one of her tumblers. "I like you, Don, you know that? You and I are on the same wavelength. Jay Tarbell knew what he was doing when he suggested I get in touch with you. Jay's the main reason I called you, of course.

You come well recommended."

"I've never been personally associated with Attorney Tarbell. But I know him by reputation, and I know he knows mine."

She crushed her butt end in the overflowing ashtray and shot a final volley of smoke over my shoulder and into the next room. "Jay's just another lawyer. Let me tell you about Jay Tarbell. One time Lew ran into him out at the club and asked Jay what he knew about Randy Hogan, the boy Deedee was engaged to at the time. Jay knew next to nothing at all-just some stupid crap about the Hogans suing the dog groomer who snipped off their Lhasa apso's business by mistake. A week after their country-club encounter, Lew received in the mail a bill for one hundred and eighty-five dollars. That's lawyers for you. I'll probably have to auction my grandmother's dentures to pay Jay for recommending you. So I hope you aren't going to let me down or take advantage of me now that you know that I'm a helpless widow." She gave me a caricature of her idea of a helpless-widow look. It was hard not to glance around to make sure nobody I knew was witnessing this.

I said, "My fee is four hundred dollars a day, plus expenses. A retainer of twelve hundred dollars is customary.

Unearned parts of the retainer are refundable. Sometimes I work cheap for the poor, and if you want me to have a look at your tax returns I might make an adjustment."

The helpless-widow look faded. "That's awfully stiff."

"You'll find it's average among private investigators you would consider hiring."

"Four hundred dollars used to buy people like you for a month."

"Not anymore."

"A hundred and fifty seems reasonable."

"Uh-huh."

She popped another cigarette out of a nearly empty pack on the table and used a butane torch to ignite it. The smoking section at Le Briquet was in a separate room from the nonsmokers and was about as freshly ventilated as a Russian airliner.

She said, "You know how to tighten the screws on an old widow."

"It's just business."

She looked for an instant as if she might spear me with a rejoinder, but then something in her slumped. She looked thoughtful for a long moment, before gathering herself and stating in a businesslike way: "The reason I want to hire you, Don- for your standard fee, even though it's goddamned highway robbery-is exactly what I told you on the phone yesterday. Paul's death on March seventeenth, two months ago yesterday, was ruled a suicide by the Albany Police Department and by the coroner. That's plain nuts. Paul got the blues once in a while, but he was never- never

– so depressed that he would do away with himself. That I can tell you with a hundred and fifty percent certainty. Anyhow, Paul and I did lunch at Shanghai Smorgasbord the week before he died, and everything was hunky-dory with him. Paul had been on Elavil for over a month when we had our lunch, and I can tell you without fear of contradiction that it had done wonders for him. He was more relaxed than I'd seen him in ages. He looked good and he sounded good. The only thing that seemed to be eating at him a little bit was, Larry's business was in trouble."

She gave me a significant look and at the same time sent her radar to a passing waiter, who spun in his tracks and asked if he might refresh her Dewar's and my Molson. I said I was ready for coffee; she just nodded.

"What kind of business is Larry in?" I asked. "Does he still have a mall gift shop?"

"That was Paul's," she said glumly. "Beautiful Thingies, out at Millpond. Larry's is out there too, Whisk 'n' Apron.

But Larry borrowed heavily to buy his franchise, and his bank was threatening to call in his loan. Paul said Larry was six months behind with ConFed. Paul wasn't overly communicative when it came to Larry. He'd heard my feelings on that subject any number of times, and I suppose he didn't especially want to get World War III going. But I dug it out of him about Larry's financial problems, and it's just lucky I did. There's your motive, am I right?"

"It could be."

"The tragedy of it is, in spite of all the rocky times those two had-screaming and hair-pulling and moving in together and moving out again-Paul never took the time to have his will changed. And now Larry gets everything

– Paul's stocks, bonds, cash. Even the business, and Beautiful Thingies is-it's a goddamned gold mine, is what it is."

"Are you contesting the will?"

This elicited an uninhibited raspberry. Three suits huddled at the next table glanced our way briefly, then resumed plundering the Treasury or mauling the Constitution. She said, "It's airtight, Jay says. Unless we can prove Paul was mentally incompetent when the will was signed, or he was forced. Being dumb as bricks isn't enough. Larry gets it all. That little tramp must have been great in bed, is all I can say."

I said, "Did your late husband leave you his estate?"

"Yes, he did. Not that it's any business of yours."

"Did he leave it to you because you were great in bed?"

"Yes," she said, missing not more than half a beat. "I'm sure that was a big part of it." The waiter deposited her Scotch in front of her. "Thanks." She sampled it and found it up to par. "I successfully feigned interest in making love to my husband right up to the day he was too sick to want to do it anymore. I also loved my husband and made a home for him and raised his children. That's called a marriage-and is recognized as such by the State of New York and is honored throughout the land. That marriage is the very good reason that I am the beneficiary of Lew Haig's estate. What else would you like to know about me, Don?"

"I guess I know all I need to know about you for now, Phyllis. You're quite a remarkable piece of work."

"You bet I am."

"Tell me more about Paul's death. The papers, as I recall, said he died from a drug overdose."

"Elavil and Scotch," she said, raising her glass by way of partial illustration. "At least a thousand milligrams of Elavil-that's over a week's worth-and a fifth of Paul's beverage of choice. They found Paul in his apartment on the morning of Friday, March eighteenth. When Paul didn't show up to open the shop, some of the help went over to Whisk 'n' Apron and Larry went to Paul's apartment and found him, he said. I'm sure he knew right where to look."

"They weren't living together at the time?"

"Larry'd had his own place since the first of the year. He told Paul he needed his space, Paul said. I'm sure he was sneaking around. Paul lived on Willet Street. Larry has an apartment elsewhere in Albany. I really couldn't tell you where. I was never invited."

"Would you like to have been?"

"Don't make me laugh."

"Was it the amount of Elavil that ruled out an accidental overdose?"

"That's what the police said, and I'll give them credit for two watts of brainpower on that one."

"Was there a suicide note?"

The waiter brought my coffee. Mrs. Haig's Joe Camel was nearly spent and she used it to light a new one. "Oh, there was a 'note,' all right." She waggled her fingers dramatically to indicate quotation marks, ashes and sparks flying. "It was exactly the type of 'note' you'd expect." She gave me a look of bright-eyed disgust.

"What type of note was that?"

"Not handwritten. The 'note' was on Paul's computer. It said, 'I love you, Larry. I'm sorry. Paul.' Any fool can see that Bierly put it there himself, the goddamn conniving little homicidal piece of shit."

"He could have," I said. "But what makes you so sure he did, Phyllis? What evidence have you got beyond Larry's financial problems and the fact that you don't happen to like him? This is awfully thin stuff you're presenting me with-a combination of resentful-mother-in-law-ism and vague circumstantiality. It's not much to start out with, and probably grossly unfair to Larry Bierly."

She gazed at me levelly and said, "That's what the police thought too. But there is something about Larry Bierly that you ought to know, Don. Just because it's not on the official record, the police pooh-poohed it. But I've got the lowdown on Mr. Larry Bierly. I got it from Paul. Larry Bierly is a violent man. He once assaulted a man and threatened to kill him. This was all recorded on tape, but the man didn't press charges because Paul bought him off."

She watched me with cool expectancy. I said, "Who was this man?"

"Vernon Crockwell."

"Vernon Crockwell, the psychologist?"

"That's the man."

I said, "Even if Bierly had carried out his threat and murdered Crockwell, a lot of people in Albany would have considered it justifiable homicide."

Phyllis Haig neither laughed nor exclaimed over this. She just opened her bag and confidently pulled out her checkbook. end user