A Shock to the System - Stevenson Richard - Страница 7

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"Paul pretty much told Crockwell—yes, Paul told Crockwell— to go to hell. Then we just got up and walked out. We were afraid we might feel a little guilty for a while, but we didn't. We rode the high for weeks that we got from walking out of Crockwell's office that day. We started going to gay rights events, even some political stuff, although I'm not really very political. I saw you at some of those political meetings, I'm pretty sure."

"I remember you too—and Paul."

"The high didn't last long, though. Paul went to see his mother and started drinking again. And everything went downhill fast. But that first month or so after we kissed Crockwell good-bye was the happiest time of my life, I think."

"You just said so-long and that was your last contact with Crockwell?"

"You got it."

"You or Paul never threatened him or attacked him? Or said anything that could be construed as a threat?"

"He threatened us," Bierly said, his color rising again. "He said we'd be very, very sorry for disrupting the group. But no, nobody threatened him that I can recall. We were just glad to be out of there."

"I'll bet."

"My real bitterness toward Crockwell—and Paul's too—was after we left, and we looked back on all the unnecessary pain he caused people. And is still causing. He's still in practice, if you can believe it."

I said, "Phyllis Haig says you assaulted Crockwell and threatened to kill him and Paul bought him off so he wouldn't have you prosecuted. Any idea what she was referring to?"

"Paul told her that? Oh my God!"

"That's what she said."

Blushing deeply again, Bierly said, "That is totally off the wall. It's obviously another one of Phyllis's bizarre, alcohol-induced fantasies. Either that or it was one of Paul's. When those two drank together—who knew what one of them would come up with."

I said, "You're blushing."

Bierly said, "I am?" and got even redder. "Well, I have to admit I'm embarrassed about a lot of what I've told you tonight."

"Uh-huh."

"It's not only highly personal, it's—I have to admit that some of the things I've told you about myself make me look pretty damn stupid."

"The blunders you've described to me are the kind a lot of us made at some stage of our lives. Are there other relevant blunders that you're not telling me about?"

"None that are relevant," he said, still blushing.

I said, "What makes you think Crockwell killed Paul? If Paul had no contact with Crockwell after last September ninth, what

would suddenly prompt Crockwell to homicide in March? I don't get that."

"Crockwell is a hater," Bierly said. "He carried poisonous grudges. In the group, he talked about other people who left, and he ranted and raved about how wretched they must be and how they deserve to be unhappy. He seemed to be obsessed with those people."

"But if he got satisfaction from their misery," I said, "he certainly didn't have to kill them."

Bierly blushed some more. I figured he was lying about some or much or all of what he had told me about his and Paul's departure from Crockwell's program and its aftermath. Yet he didn't seem to care if I thought he was lying. He just lied and blushed, lied and blushed. I didn't get it.

Bierly said, "Look, something deep in my gut tells me that Vernon Crockwell killed Paul. All I ask is that you investigate Crockwell and see what you can come up with. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But I don't think I am, Strachey." And then he brought out his checkbook.

4

So which check do I cash?"

"Neer."

"What if Paul Haig was murdered?"

"Nnn."

"What if Crockwell did it?"

"Nnn."

"Axe you falling asleep?"

"Mmm."

Spring stars twinkled over the Hudson Valley. We lay under a cotton blanket, cool, reasonably clean air moving west to east across us. Ted Koppel was our nightlight.

I said, "I'm more inclined to take Phyllis Haig's money because she can afford it. And as much as I like Bierly and sympathize with him—his instincts seem pretty consistently decent—his selective evasions are glaring and unsettling. There were moments tonight when if Bierly had been wired to a polygraph, he'd have registered at about an 8.6 on a Richter scale of liars. Of course, polygraphs are notoriously unreliable. The anxiety they detect can result from the emotional significance of the question asked as well as from the emotional significance of the answer given, or just from the stress of being questioned at all. Anyway, I do think Bierly lied about some topics—this from the man disgusted by alleged chronic Haig-family dissimulation—and I don't know why. Why might he?"

"Nnn."

"Phyllis Haig, on the other hand, is a serious drunk and a

deluded homophobe with hardly a rational thought in her head. Except one, maybe—that Paul was not suicidal. People can fool themselves about that, too, of course—parents, in particular, will sometimes deny their children's suicides in order to avoid facing what they fear is their own responsibility somehow. But the idea that Paul could have committed suicide was the one thing that seemed to generate an emotion in Phyllis Haig besides jealousy or outrage over deviations from the country-club norm. There was an emotional clarity to her assertions on this point that was lacking on others. On the other hand, even if she's right about Paul's not having killed himself, I could be risking my license and possibly my peace of mind—not to mention my shirt—simply by getting mixed up with this deranged heiress with friends in high places. I mean, not that my financial and mental survival should be the sole, or even chief, determinants in taking on a client, eh wot?"

"Zzzz." His breath, sweet with chicken tikka masala and Crest, was regular now against my chest, his arm limp across my midsection. I groped for the remote, found it, and zapped a murmuring Ted Koppel and a couple of nervous Clinton apologists into blackness.

I said, "Of course, the most interesting figure in all of this is the one I haven't talked to yet. Maybe I should meet Vernon Crockwell before I decide what to do. I doubt he'll be forthcoming on the subject of a couple of former patients, or happy to see me at all. But I've been curious about him for years, in a macabre sort of way, and now's my chance to both satisfy that curiosity and gather information that might help me make an important decision. What do you think, Timothy? Should I talk to Crockwell?"

He said nothing, but his breathing rhythm altered perceptibly and his shriveled member, sticky against my leg, seemed to throb weakly once. I took this to be a reply in the affirmative.

How could this be? I phoned Crockwell at 9:00 a.m. and told his machine I was a private investigator looking into the death of Paul Haig and asked for a few minutes of Crockwell's time at his

convenience. At 9:55 Crockwell called back and, in a tone bordering on the cordial, informed me that he was extremely busy but that he could clear out a block of time at three that afternoon if that was convenient for me. I said it was and told him I would be happy to come to his office. I was eager for a peek inside Dracula's castle.

Why was Crockwell being so accommodating? When I phoned, I was fully prepared for a long wait before my call was returned, or for the call to be ignored, or for Crockwell to call back and explode with indignation. Instead, he was helpful and businesslike. Why? There had never been charges I knew of that Crockwell's treatment program was anything but voluntary, that he lured unsuspecting homosexuals into his lair and forced them at gunpoint to feign excitement over nude photos of Ole Miss sorority aquacade contestants. So when I drove out to Crockwell's office in mid-afternoon I felt reasonably safe but still mystified.

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