"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 mate. 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."
"Your nitro? The Ismo?"
"Ismo is long-term. I'm talking about nitro pills to use sublingually if I should have a coronary spasm-a heart event, as the cardiologists dearly love to say. They're a vasodilator-they open up the coronary arteries. Boom. Like dynamite."
"What brand nitroglycerin is it?" Queenie asked.
"Nitrostat. I'm told it lasts twice as long as any of the others."
Bibsy had begun to look pale. Dennis interrupted. "Are you all right? You're not feeling bad now, are you?"
"I don't enjoy talking about an infirmity," his mother-in-law said. "It makes it that much more real. In variant angina the artery goes into radical closure without any warning, so no blood gets through to the heart muscle. You can go like that. " She snapped her fingers, surprisingly loud.
Queenie asked, with apparent sympathy, "Do you have to carry all those pills around with you when you leave the house?"
"You bet your boots I do," Bibsy replied. "In one of those little gray plastic cylinders that Kodak thirty-five-millimeter film comes in. That's not chic, but I promise you it's marvelously practical. I used to have a silver pillbox that I carried them in, but I lost it a few years ago." She turned to her husband. "You remember when that happened, honey?"
"Sure," Scott said. "You went off to Glenwood one day to shop. When you came back, you didn't have it. You were so upset."
"I bought that silver case in Paris," Bibsy explained. "A long time ago, when we were on a kind of second honeymoon."
"On the rue de Rennes," Scott said, "in a shop that sold bric-a-brac. We were staying in Saint-Germain-des-Pres at the Hotel d'Angleterre, where Hemingway first stayed when he lived in Paris."
Queenie O'Hare was studying her. To Dennis's ears the detailed husband-and-wife dialogue about shopping in Glenwood and second-honeymooning in Paris sounded hollow.
Queenie mused. "You believe you lost the silver pillbox a few years ago, is that correct?"
Bibsy nodded: correct.
"Can you be more specific about the time, Mrs. Henderson?"
"Two and a half years?" Bibsy shrugged. "Maybe three?"
"What month?"
"Summer, I believe. That's the best I can do. Does it matter?"
"And where in Glenwood Springs do you think you might have lost it?"
Dennis interrupted. "What's the significance of this, Deputy?"
Queenie said, "Sir, a silver pillbox was found in a grave near the graves of John Doe and Jane Doe."
Dennis thought about that. "Did you say, 'In a grave near the graves'?"
"That's correct."
"So there was a third grave? A third body?"
"The corpse of a dog, sir, was found in a separate grave."
Dennis sighed as if this were too weighty for mortal man to fathom. "Deputy, please, what's it all about? What if the silver pillbox found in a dog's grave once belonged to Mrs. Henderson? You heard her say she lost it several years ago. What do you want further from my client?"
"Truthful answers, that's all."
That annoyed Dennis. He gave Queenie a cool look and said, "Do you have any reason to believe that these two people you refer to as John Doe and Jane Doe were homicide victims?"
"Yes sir, we do."
Dennis looked at Bibsy, and then at Scott, and then at Sophie. He learned nothing from their expressions. He wondered why Bibsy hadn't gone down to the Sheriff's Office in Aspen and why she hadn't called back within the promised hour, and why she felt she needed a lawyer in this matter. A stab of unease worked its way between his ribs.
"How did these two victims die?" he asked.
"I don't think I can answer you at this point," Queenie replied. "But if you don't mind, I have a few more questions for Mrs. Henderson."
"I do mind," Dennis replied firmly. "There's got to be a little give- and-take here, don't you think? You've found a couple of unidentified alleged homicide victims buried in a grave far from here. You've got a silver pillbox found in a different grave altogether-a dog's grave, you say. It may or may not have been Mrs. Henderson's property a long time ago. As I'm sure common sense will tell you, there's more than one silver pillbox in this world. Will you be kind enough to tell me when these two victims were supposed to have been murdered?"
"Four or five months ago," Queenie said.
"Long after Mrs. Henderson lost her silver pillbox, correct?"
"We're just conducting an investigation," Queenie said. "We're not accusing anybody of anything. No one's in custody. Mrs. Henderson is in her own home-free to stay or go." She glanced at Doug Larsen to make sure he was still taking notes.