Текст книги "A Shock to the System "

Автор книги: Richard Stevenson

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Richard Stevenson

SHOCK

TO THE SYSTEM

A Donald Strachey Mystery

St. Martin's Press New York

shock to the system. Copyright © 1995 by Richard Stevenson. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stevenson, Richard

Shock to the system: a Donald Strachey mystery / by Richard Stevenson, p. cm. ISBN 0-312-14732-5

1. Strachey, Donald (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—New York (State)—Albany—Fiction. 3. Gay men– New York (State)—Albany—Fiction. I. Title. PS3569.T4567S74 1995

813'.54—dc20 95-34505

CIP

First Stonewall Inn Mystery Edition: December 1996 10 987654321

For Joe Wheaton

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.

2

Back on Central, I phoned Larry Bierly at Whisk 'n' Apron and set up an appointment, then reached Timothy Callahan at his office at the legislature.

"You knew Paul Haig, didn't you?"

"Slightly—why?"

"Did he strike you as depressed?"

"Well, he killed himself."

"Other than that. Just what you saw."

"More anxious than depressed, I'd say. But I hardly knew him, so I'm not the best person to come to for an insightful diagnosis of his mental state. Why do you ask?"

"I'm coming to that. It's problematical. Was Haig the guy we'd see sometimes with his boyfriend at gay political events—him a tall blond with wavy hair and the boyfriend darker and chunkier? And they were always a little shy and nervous and apart from everybody else?"

"That's them. Larry something was the boyfriend."

"Larry Bierly."

"I tried to get them more involved, or at least to feel more at ease. And they were perfectly nice, and friendly, but they never seemed able to mix and get to know people and really relax."

"You're ever the thoughtful host, Timothy, whether it's brunch for twenty-two or an assault on the Senate Republicans."

"Thank you."

"They both must have friends in Albany. Any idea who?"

"Yes, but it would be easier to answer these questions if I

understood the context in which they were being asked. What's this all about?"

After nineteen years, he still needed explanations from me. If being willing to speak at length into an unresponsive void isn't one of the cornerstones of a rich relationship and enduring love, what is?

I said, "I'll get to the point, trust me. Just tell me what you know about Haig's and Bierly's social life, if any. Don't think context. Pretend we're deconstructionists."

He let out a little sigh that was so recognizable I could almost smell the tuna he'd had for lunch. He said, "Both Bierly and Haig owned and managed businesses out at Millpond. But you already knew that, right? We've seen them out there."

"Right. Bierly runs Whisk 'n' Apron and Haig owned Beautiful Thingies."

"Well," he said, "I have seen Paul Haig somewhere else."

"Where?"

A little tuna-scented silence. "You're going to consider this somewhat pompous," he said.

"Uh-huh."

"I'm not sure of the ethics of my telling you where I saw Haig."

"Oh, the ethics."

"I'm afraid so."

Now Timmy was neither a psychiatrist nor an attorney. Nor was he a priest—although at fourteen he had briefly entertained the idea of becoming one, in which calling he would have been able to wage holy war on his newly discovered unholy sexuality while at the same time dressing and undressing with men. By fifteen, though, he had discovered both liberation theology and Skeeter McCaslin, with whom he enjoyed a sweaty, Clearasil-slick affair for over two years—until they both had graduated from high school and left Poughkeepsie—that was carried out with the stealth of Mossad's operation in getting Adolf Eichmann back to Israel. I once asked Timmy if "Skeeter" was short for "Mosquito"; he just laughed and said most assuredly not.

I said, "Let me guess why you have ethical doubts about telling

me where you saw Paul Haig. Does it have something to do with covert U.S. government activities for dealing with North Korea's nuclear-bomb program?"

He laughed lightly. "I knew you'd see my reaction as kind of– morally overweening."

"Your term, not mine."

"The thing is, if I told you why I'm reluctant to tell where I saw Haig, you'd understand my point. But then you'd also know where I saw him, and I'm the one who would have told you. Can't you just take my word for it that I shouldn't tell you where I saw him? Trust me. Like I'm trusting you."

I said, "Paul Haig's mother is convinced Larry Bierly killed Haig and made it look like suicide. Haig and Bierly were on the outs, she says. Bierly was the beneficiary of Haig's estate and needed money to save his business, according to Mrs. Haig. She told me Bierly has a history of violence and once assaulted and threatened to kill a man. Mrs. Haig wants to hire me to prove the coroner was wrong and the suicide was murder and have Bierly charged. The mother is something of a horror show herself, and I'm trying to evaluate whether or not to hire myself out to her. That's why I'm asking you these questions, Timothy. Now are you going to help me out?"

"AA," Timmy said.

"As in Alcoholics Anonymous?"

"That's where I've seen Haig—with the AA bunch that hangs out on the sidewalk in front of Saint Aggie's before their meetings."

"More than once? He was a regular at that meeting?"

"I'd say off and on over several years. When I worked late and walked home in warm weather, I'd sometimes pass there while they were out smoking and drinking coffee on the sidewalk before the eight o'clock meeting. Sometimes I'd say hello to Haig and he'd say hi back."

"What about Bierly? Was he ever there too?"

"Not that I ever saw. I just saw Paul Haig."

I said, "Timmy, I don't think it's unethical for you to pass this

on to me. AA members are morally bound to protect the privacy of other members. But you're not a member. Anyway, you're telling me, not Le Monde. So what's the big deal?"

"I'm not a member, but I respect AA's confidentiality ethic, and the best way I can show my respect for that ethic is by observing it."

"So by walking past their meeting you fall within AA's ethical penumbra?"

"Yes, I believe I do."

Now it was he who must have gotten a whiff of my gnocchi breath. I said, "Then I appreciate your ethical lapse on my behalf."

"You're welcome to it this one time. It's no big deal. Do you really think Bierly might have killed Haig? I thought Haig died of a drug overdose."

"It was a combination of Elavil and Scotch. The mother is something of a boozer herself and maybe delusionary. But the one thing that's more or less plausible in her account is that she knew her son's mental state and she's certain he had not been suicidal. So I'm going to ask around a little and talk to Bierly before I decide whether or not to take Mrs. Haig's money. She stuffed a retainer check in the bun basket at Le Briquet and shoved it across the table toward me, but I handed it back for now. I'm meeting Bierly for an early dinner at Millpond, so I won't be home until eight or nine."

"I'm glad you're meeting Bierly in the mall if he's violence-prone."

"That's Mrs. Haig's story, but who knows. It is her assertion that after Bierly attacked someone, the guy was going to press charges, but her son bought him off before the cops were notified. And here's the intriguing part. The man Bierly supposedly threatened to kill was Vernon Crockwell."

This elicited a sound that was part guffaw and part snort. "My, my. Herr Doktor Crockwell. Was Bierly in Crockwell's treatment group—getting cured of his sexual deviancy?"

"They both were. It's where they met, according to Mrs. Haig."

"If subjecting yourself to Crockwell isn't incitement to murder, I don't know what is. No wonder Bierly is full of rage and confusion. It sounds as if you should approach him very gingerly, Don."

"I'm meeting him in a mall pizzeria, not in a dark alley. But from what I know of the homosexuality cure programs, people tend to come out of them either zombielike or with a healthy anger directed not at themselves or one another but at the programs they were victimized by. So, not to worry."

"I will. I do."

"I know. Maybe I'll bring you a lovely gift from Beautiful Thingies to help you feel better. A Gucci waterpick cozy. Or a Georg Jensen nipple ring."

"Just watch out for your own beautiful thingie."

"I'll make a note."

3

The darling buds of May had popped out even on the genetically stunted arboreal species around the Millpond Mall parking lot, and the air was fresh after a spring shower. All but glacier-ridden from November to March—and hot and sopping as Bangladesh in summer—Albany during a brief spring and briefer fall was not only fit for human habitation but certifiably pleasant. Crossing the newly washed tarmac, I'd have felt downright jaunty if I'd driven out to Millpond for a movie or a pack of clean sweat socks instead of an interview with the object of a scurrilous accusation of homicide that was conceivably true.

Bierly had suggested we meet at the Irish-pub-style pizza-and-beer joint across from the cineplex (Timmy had once said, "The pizza here is definitely Irish"), and I spotted Bierly at a table in the back, away from the bar and the sports rowdies.

"So, what did Phyllis have to say about me?" he said, looking curious and mildly skeptical but with no apparent fear of what my answer might be. I had told him on the phone only that I was considering investigating Paul Haig's death for Mrs. Haig and that she had suggested I interview Bierly.

"Her opinion of you is poor," I said, pulling up a chair. "But I'll bet you already knew that."

He laughed, but without amusement. "When Paul and I lived together, she'd get lit and call the apartment about once a week. Whenever I answered the phone, she'd start off by saying, 'Well, if it isn't Buttfucker Bierly.' That says it all about what Phyllis Haig thought of me. It also tells you what she really thought of

Paul. . . although she'd never admit what she actually thought of Paul—even to herself. To her little boy, who could do no wrong, she was nice as pie."

He said this less with bitterness than with bemused resignation. What I had taken to be shyness when I'd seen Bierly at gay political events now seemed another kind of reticence altogether, the holding back of a man with reduced expectations of how other people were going to regard him. I remembered him more clearly now, and he hadn't changed since I'd last seen him: about thirty, with curly black hair and big, wary dark eyes in one of those pleasing but not-quite-locatable, all-over-the-map American faces that suggest some of each of the auld sod and the Rhine and Calabria and maybe even pre-Columbian Vera Cruz. He looked muscular under the white dress shirt he had on, sleeves rolled up to mid-forearm, with a paisley necktie roller-coastering down a well-developed chest.

I said, "Mrs. Haig believes that Paul did not commit suicide. She told me he was not depressively suicidal and would never have taken his own life. Did you know that this was her belief?"

A curt nod. "Oh, I certainly knew that."

"She told you?"

A hard look. "The police are the ones who told me. Phyllis and I have not spoken since Paul's funeral in March." He watched me grimly, waiting for what—it now dawned on me—he had known was coming since I had sat down.

Dragging it out unnecessarily, I said, "And the police raised the possibility with you that Paul's death might not have been suicide?"

He grunted. "They did raise that possibility."

A waiter in a white shirt and black bow tie appeared and asked if we were ready to order or if we needed a few more minutes. I asked for a draft and said we needed a few more minutes. After the waiter went away, I said to Bierly, "What evidence did the police have that pointed away from suicide toward accidental death? Or homicide, of course."

Bierly had been absently rotating a beer glass on the tabletop, but suddenly he stopped. "Now look. I know she thinks I killed Paul," he said tightly. "So let's just quit playing these fucking games. Can we just do that?" His face was red and the muscles in his forearms were taut, and he didn't look so philosophical anymore.

"That suits me," I said.

Bierly started rotating his glass again, faster this time. "One of the cops told me the line of crap she gave them—I was violent, and I was jealous, and I was a crazy queer who murdered Paul for his money, and I tried to cover it up by making it look as if her happy, well-adjusted little boy had committed suicide. Jesus, that woman!" Veins throbbed at the sides of his temples and on the big hairy hand that worked the beer glass.

I said, "You and Phyllis didn't hit it off too well, did you?"

This poor attempt to lighten Bierly's mood failed. He said, "She hired you to get me, didn't she?" Now the veins were bleeping faster. "The police checked me out and found out I had an alibi for the night Paul died—I drove my landlady to Utica, where her daughter had been in a car crash, and we didn't get back until four in the morning—but of course that wasn't enough for Phyllis. Phyllis knows what Phyllis knows. How much is she paying you to frame me, or just harass me, or whatever it is this is supposed to be?"

He regarded me as if I were a plague bacterium deserving of fear, scorn, and, if it could be arranged, extermination. I said, "I have no interest in persecuting you, Larry. I haven't agreed to actually work for Phyllis Haig. I wanted to talk to you first. That's why I'm here. I'm not sure I want to get mixed up in this at all. The situation would interest me only if I became convinced that Paul Haig had actually been murdered. But you seem to be telling me that that was not the case."

The rotating beer glass came to a halt. "Oh, is that what I seem to be telling you? I don't think so."

"You're not telling me that Paul wasn't murdered?"

The waiter came back with my draft and asked if we'd like to order or if we needed a little more time. I said we needed a little more time.

Bierly eyed me levelly and said with what looked like carefully controlled emotion, "Of course I didn't kill Paul. Phyllis is—she's a serious, out-of-control alcoholic, and her brain is—she's a crazy, obnoxious old booze hound. Even when she's sober she's a chronic liar. Probably all the Haigs are. Paul was. Based on what Paul told me about him, his father was a liar too. Unless Paul was lying about that."