A Shock to the System - Stevenson Richard - Страница 12

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"Wednesday night, out at Millpond. We shared a pizza over his dinner break. Why?"

"You haven't been in touch with him since then?"

"I spoke with him briefly on the phone yesterday afternoon. Why do you ask? Have you been in touch with him?"

"In a manner of speaking, I have."

"Uh-huh."

His eyes narrowed and he said, "I guess you really don't know. Around eleven o'clock last night someone shot Larry Bierly in the Millpond Mall parking lot."

"Oh, hell."

"He's in serious but not critical condition over at Albany Med

with gunshot wounds to the chest and neck. Didn't you hear the news this morning?"

"I listen to public radio. WAMC would only report a shooting if it took place on the floor of the legislature or in a box seat at Tanglewood. Just how serious are Bierly's wounds?"

"He's in no real danger. He was lucky, and the last I knew they were saying he'd recover completely."

"Is he conscious?"

"Not yet, so far as I know. Bierly had surgery at midnight. Guy Colson's over there now to see if he can get a statement."

"Is anybody in custody?"

"Not yet. We're checking our snitches, but this doesn't look like robbery—Bierly's watch was on him when he was found, and his wallet with eighty dollars in it. Another mall employee, a waitress at Scarf-It-Up, finished her shift at eleven and went out to her car in the lot designated for employee parking. She found Bierly wounded and unconscious next to his car, with his keys on the tarmac beside him. The EMT crew was on the scene within six minutes. Their best guess is, Bierly had been shot within fifteen minutes of when they got there. Unfortunately, no witness has come forward. It's pretty quiet out there at that time of night. We do have a couple of people who were coming out of the cinemas on the other side of the mall around ten till eleven, and they think they heard shots, but now they aren't sure if the shots they heard were outside the mall or in the movie they'd just seen. They said it had a lot of shooting and explosions. That's as much as I can tell you for now, Strachey, because that's as much as I know."

I said, "This is bad."

"But the question now is, Strachey, do I know as much as you know about this incident?"

"Come again?"

"What's your connection with Bierly? If he's not your client, is he a friend of yours?"

"Al, I can't say, one way or the other, whether Larry Bierly is or is not my client. I can tell you that he is an acquaintance."

Finnerty let something he may have meant as a human expression form on his face. He said, "Boyfriend?"

"No, I have one at home."

"I mean on the side."

"Oh, I see what you mean. No, not that either. Do you have a woman you see on the side, Al? You're married, aren't you?"

"This is not about me, Strachey," he said, and blushed.

I said, "This is not about me either, Al. Mainly it's about Paul Haig, and now it looks as if it may be very much about Larry Bierly too. Look, if I'm going to perform the work Albany's taxpayers are paying you to perform, I'll have to have something more to work with. First, I need to see the letter you received accusing Vernon Crockwell of murder, and I need to hear the tape that came with it."

"I could arrange that if I wanted to," he said inanely.

I asked, "Is Crockwell a suspect in Bierly's shooting?"

"Like I told you, Strachey, we have no suspect in the shooting."

"Last night was Thursday night. That's Crockwell's no-alibi night. Have you talked to him?"

"I'm seeing him in an hour. You said you talked to Crockwell yesterday yourself. Did you tell him that Bierly was trying to hang a murder rap on him?"

"I didn't mention it, no."

"What did you tell him?"

"That I thought he was a crackpot, that he ought to be tarred and feathered by the mental health profession, stuff like that. I was there solely to ask him questions about Paul Haig."

"I guess you think Larry Bierly's shooting is connected in some way to Paul Haig's death. Am I right about that?"

"It's hard to say, Al, for now. Let me see the letter and hear the tape, and then I can start clearing this case for you—or cases, as the case may be."

Two for the price of one, he must have been thinking, the price of one being zip. Without speaking he got up and left the room. I watched the motor traffic on Arch Street and the pedestrians

strolling to work or school under a spring sun that smiled down on all the people.

Finnerty came back with a sheet of paper and a cassette player and placed these on the desk in front of me. Then he left the room without a word, closing the door behind him.

7

The paper appeared to be a photocopy of the original. It looked like a computer printout, with no date and no return address. It read:

To the Albany Police Dept. Homicide Division: Paul Haig died on March 17th. Verdict, suicide. Wrong. Ask Vernon Crockwell, the so-called psychologist, where he was that night. Crockwell had his reasons for shutting Haig up. Play this tape. Vernon Crockwell has gotten away with murder, so far. Justice demands that you look into this. Let justice be done.

There was no signature. Was this Larry Bierly's voice? It sounded more like Phyllis Haig's voice than Bierly's. But she thought Bierly, not Crockwell, was responsible for her son's death, and she wouldn't have been siccing the cops on Crockwell.

I pressed start on the cassette player. The sound quality was poor, the voices distant and tinny, but the words were discernible. I got out my pad and made notes while the tape played:

"Now, Larry, it is customary to discuss the reasons when making a decision to terminate therapy." This was obviously Crockwell, Mr. Unctuouser-Than-Thou. "I think you'll agree that you owe it both to the group and to yourself to present your reasons for termination and see if we all think it is wise. How do you feel about that?"

"You mean if you think it is wise." I recognized Bierly's voice. "Don't give me that what-the-group-thinks shit, Crockwell—it's always been what you think and it always will be."

A voice I didn't know said, "Now, Larry, all Dr. Crockwell meant was—"

"All he meant"—this was Bierly again—"was that you're a bunch of sick fucks, and sick fucks like you had better do what the doctor says. But you're not sick and I'm not sick, and the only thing that's sick is all of us deluding ourselves and coming here every week and trying to turn ourselves into people we're not. We're not straight, we're gay. That's all there is to it. And it's not because our fathers weren't affectionate with us or some crazy shit like that. We've been over and over that. Hardly any American fathers are affectionate enough with their sons, but it doesn't make them homosexual, for God's sake. Nobody knows why we're gay. We're all different and we all come from different kinds of families—"

"That's not true!" Another new voice. "The patterns are obvious. If my parents had—"

"Hey, Lar, don't you remember why you joined the group?" Yet another voice I hadn't heard. "Don't you remember how all alone you felt after you did it with another guy? How you always hated yourself in the morning? Do you want to go back to that kind of life?"

"But, Gene, I know now that that's not the only choice—"

"Perhaps," Crockwell said, "we should hear from Paul. I know that you and Larry have become good pals, Paul. What do you think of Larry's decision to close off therapy and terminate his relationship with the group?"

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