The Spring: A Legal Thriller - The Spring: A Legal Thriller Part 9
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The Spring: A Legal Thriller Part 9

An alarm bell clanged in Dennis's head. The friendly deputy had twice stated that no one was in custody and now she had made it a point that Bibsy's movements were in no way restricted. If you were in custody-and by legal definition that could happen even in your home if you were not permitted to leave it-you had to be Mirandized and explained the nature of your constitutional rights. You had to be told that anything you said might be used against you. In theory, you had to be accused of a crime and placed under arrest. From a thousand TV shows and movies, everyone in the U.S.A. and probably even in Bangladesh was familiar with the reading of the accused's rights, usually at gunpoint with the accused spread-eagled against a car. But few citizens understood that until those rights were read, if you were not in custody you were wholly accountable for what you said to law-enforcement personnel.

Dennis wondered why he had let things go even this far. Because this is my wife's mother, he realized, and I know beyond doubt that she hasn't done anything illegal. Well, amend that. Nothing wrong.

"I don't think I'm going to let Mrs. Henderson answer any more questions," he said. "She has a heart condition, which I confess I didn't know about until today. We've had enough stress for one session. Is there anything else we can do for you, Deputy O'Hare?"

Queenie thought that over for about seven or eight seconds: a long time in a room full of silent, waiting people. Then she nodded positively.

"I'd like to ask a question or two of Mr. Henderson. Do you represent him too, Mr. Conway?"

Dennis waited. It was not his question to answer.

Scott said, "Go ahead and ask, Deputy. I'm a lawyer, even if I'm a little out of practice-literally. I understand my rights. If it's a proper question, I'll be glad to answer it and do my best to enlighten you." Queenie said, "Do you own a Remington thirty-thirty rifle?"

"No, I do not," Scott said.

"Did you own one within the past year?"

"I did not."

"And have you or your wife lost or misplaced a down sleeping bag, blue in color? Or had it stolen from you?"

"No, ma'am. Neither lost nor stolen."

"Did you know Henry Lovell Sr. and his wife, Susan Lovell?"

"Henry and Susie were dear and old friends of ours."

"Do you remember when it was that the Lovells passed away?"

"Last summer," Scott said.

Quite a bit more than just "a question or two," Dennis realized, but he held his tongue. His father-in-law could handle himself, although maybe he didn't think this pleasant, cherubic young woman deputy was dangerous. Dennis disagreed.

"The Lovells passed away here in Springhill?" Queenie asked.

"At home, under a doctor's care."

"Was there a funeral?"

"Two funerals. They didn't die at the same time."

"You attended the funerals, Mr. Henderson?"

"Of course."

Queenie turned to Sophie. "Mrs. Conway, you're the mayor of Springhill, so I'll ask you, if you don't mind-who issues death certificates here in town?"

"Dr. Pendergast," Sophie said.

"Do you think we'll find him at his office today?"

"You'll find Dr. Pendergast at her office," Sophie said, "unless Grace is out of town for some very important reason, like downhill skiing at Highlands or cross-country skiing at Owl Creek, which is her favorite trail. She's in a blue Victorian on Main Street, three houses down from the post office, right across the street from the general store. You'll see a shingle."

The Hendersons' telephone rang. Scott picked up the cordless extension, listened, and said, "It's for you, Deputy O'Hare."

Queenie listened for a minute, gave a few yes and no answers, then turned to Dennis. "The sheriff's on the line, Mr. Conway, and he'd like a word with you."

Dennis picked up and said curtly, "Josh."

Josh drawled, "I understand you're in this thing now as an attorney, not just an interested bystander. So I can talk to you. Sorry about before. Sometimes I play by the rules."

"That's all right. Nothing is predictable."

"Want to come down and have a powwow?"

"The sooner the better," Dennis said.

"I've got to round up a few of the other players. I'll call you early tomorrow morning and let you know when. Don't plan on bringing the client."

Chapter 10.

The Painter

THE SHERIFF'S CALL came at seven o'clock in the morning while Dennis was in bed making love with his wife. He was invited to attend a meeting at 9 A.M.-a powwow, Josh Gamble had called it, without the client present. What that meant, Dennis wasn't quite sure. But he understood it was not a meeting to be missed.

"Thanks, pal. I'll be there."

He hung up, returning his attention in a timely manner to Sophie. The morning was his favorite time with her, when her body was warm from sleep, her slender hands cool. He would pad off to the bathroom first to brush his teeth. If he had time he could hold her in his arms for an hour, just touching her, being touched, dozing off now and then into short bursts of intense sleep, listening to her murmurs of pleasure.

She said to him softly, "This is so precious." Her words thrilled him: that she felt that way, that it was enough to be in his arms. When he made love to her she quivered, twisted, groaned with passion. She shut her eyes. Sometimes, tears fell.

Now, as he rose to the surface of another reality, he heard the refrigerator door slam in the kitchen downstairs. The children were up and about.

"Do you think they listen to us sometimes?" he asked.

"It can't hurt them to hear the sounds of love."

"It is love, isn't it?" he said. "It's not just lust and chemical reaction."

"Well, it may be that too," Sophie said.

He laughed, bent to kiss her, then swung off and vaulted out of bed. "I have to go. The sheriff is going to give me the lowdown about this crazy business with your mother."

"Dennis ..."

He was already on his way to the bathroom, but something in her voice stopped him. "Yes?"

"Is anything unpleasant going to happen to my mother?"

"Not if I can help it." He realized his answer was unsatisfactory. "No, nothing. Law enforcement can sometimes be overzealous. They make mistakes. Don't worry." Still he asked, "Do you know anything about this that you haven't told me, Sophie?"

"I know she didn't do anything wrong," Sophie said.

"But is there anything I should know that I don't know?"

"No."

"Good. I'll call you at school after I've seen the sheriff."

Dennis drove in his red Jeep Cherokee down toward Carbondale for Aspen. On the outskirts of Springhill he passed Harry Parrot's house, an old gray Victorian set off the road in a thick grove of evergreens. It was the last habitable dwelling before the twisting descent to the Crystal River. A curl of dark gray smoke, like that of a cigarette smoldering in an ashtray, rose from the chimney into the cold morning air. Harry Parrot was at home. Harry was at work.

"Go for it, Harry," Dennis said softly.

One sunny January afternoon, almost a year previously, Dennis had been passing by that gray Victorian. He had seen the painter outside in the yard, smoking a cigar and shoveling snow to clear a path for his pickup truck. Dennis pulled over, parked his car, and introduced himself.

White bearded, of indeterminate age but dry as a wood chip and nimble as a monkey, Harry Parrot liked his vodka straight out of the two-quart Smirnoff bottle he kept in the freezer. In the mornings when he started work he was sober. By late afternoon there was no guarantee. The day of their first meeting, after some persuasion, Harry took Dennis down into the huge concrete cellar of his studio behind the old Victorian and showed him his work. It took the better part of two hours to look at it properly. There were dozens of unframed canvases too deep in the piles to be extricated and seen. Some were immense: six-foot or ten-foot squares. There were marble sculptures under yards of dirty canvas. The work was passionate, intricate, as if Brueghel and Cezanne-this was the conjoined image that occurred to Dennis-had been reborn in one skin.

"Harry, these are extraordinary."

"Think so? My boy, you've got exceptionally good taste."

"How long have you been painting?"

"I didn't start till I was damn near forty. Worked in the quarry until then. Didn't know any better."

"How old are you?"

Harry hesitated.

"All right," Dennis said, "don't tell me. Everyone around here seems to be elusive about their age. But I want to say something. I don't pretend to be an expert, but I think the quality of these canvases and pieces of sculpture is first class. Who did you study with?"

"Picasso. Matisse. Claude Monet. Henry Moore. Only the best. I taught myself out of books. No art school horse shit for me."

"You're from here, right? Like everyone else?"

"Wrong." Parrot smiled. "A goddam immigrant, just like you. The only other one around at the moment. I came from a dirt-poor mining family. Thirty-three-year-old hobo on the lam for putting some cop in the hospital back in the West Virginia coalfields. I walked up here to Springhill one day, asked for a job up at the quarry. They said hell no, you filthy bum, git. But I knew they was shorthanded. It was summertime-I camped down by the lake, took a bath, started eating berries and trapping rabbits and chipping away at those bits of stray marble you find all over the place, making sculpture. Got talking to people. They liked me-couldn't help it, could they? Liked my sculpture too. Then I got talking to this pretty widow gal, Rosemary. Husband drowned in the big flood, and she had two kids. They never could get rid of me after that-that there Cupid is a blind gunner, and it just takes one shot. Married her, just like you did Sophie. Lost her nine years ago."

"You mind my asking you questions?"

"You didn't ask. I just ran off at the mouth." Harry Parrot laughed. "Anyway, you're a lawyer, aren't you? Isn't that what you people do? Butt in?"

Dennis smiled. "Do you have an agent for your paintings?"

"Had a couple. Didn't work out too good. One stole, and the other was an idiot. The one who stole made more money for me than the one who was an idiot."

"Any exhibitions?"

"A few. Didn't sell much. And never the big oils."

"Look, forgive me," Dennis said, "I do know a few gallery owners and art dealers, but I don't keep in touch that much with contemporary art. Have any of your shows been in New York or London or Paris? Does the art world pay homage? Are you a cult? Am I a dolt for not knowing your name? "

Harry took a swig from the vodka bottle. "No, no, and no. I do what I do because I need to. Braque said, A painter paints because he don't know how to do anything else.' And old Renoir said, 'No misery in the world can make a real painter quit painting.' So that's me."

"Tell me this, if it still doesn't strike you as cross-examination. How do you make enough to live on?"

"The town helps me out."

"In what way?"

"Well, you know that the marble quarry and the coal mines are a town-owned corporation. The stock and the profits belong to the whole goddam town. A while back they voted me a salary so's I could paint and have a swig of vodka now and then. Don't need anything else."

Maybe, Dennis thought, such patronage might happen in an Israeli kibbutz or in a nineteenth-century socialist utopian community. But Springhill was a tiny Colorado mountain town-a capitalist hamlet- where everyone seemed to work at ventures far more prosaic and utilitarian than giant-sized oils on canvas.

"Does the town have a poet and a modern jazz composer they also support?" he asked, not quite sure if he were serious or jesting. You never knew around here, it seemed.

Harry shook his shaggy gray head. "Nope. I'm it. What they do for me isn't a matter of principle or policy. It's just the way things fell out.

Someone suggested it way back when. Next thing you knew, in a weak moment, the folks said, 'Hell, why not?' "

Dennis looked around at the heavy canvases stacked against every wall. "If you keep going at this rate, Harry, you'll run out of storage space."

"I have a problem there," Parrot admitted.

"You won't live forever, Harry. You might think of showing and selling, if not for your sake, then-this may sound pompous, but I really mean it-for the sake of art. If I can help ..."

Here I go again, Dennis thought. His father had instructed him as a boy: "Son, in the next life the only gifts you'll get are what you gave away in this one." Dennis had handled more than his share of pro bonolaw cases, but even beyond the ethical dictates of his profession it was his nature to help anyone he thought was deserving. His mind brimmed immediately with ideas, speculations, road maps. He backed up his advice with time and money if that was the way to get done what he believed had to be done.

"Kind of you," Parrot said. "Maybe. If there's enough time."

"There's never forever, Harry."

"No, there sure isn't forever. Nobody gets forever. We decided that a long time ago."

Dennis frowned, not quite understanding.