Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 03 - THE SPRING -- a Legal Thriller (9 page)

“The investigative legal mind strikes again.”

“Don’t you see what I mean?”

“I never truly noticed it,” Sophie said.

“Come on, darling. Every town always has a few ancient geezers. But here, where everyone is physically vigorous, there isn’t one old fogy sitting on a porch in a creaky rocking chair. They get to be seventy or thereabouts, and
bang
“—Dennis snapped his fingers—”they just
go.
As if by appointment.”

Sophie said nothing.

“When did your grandparents die?” he asked.

She considered for a while. “My maternal grandparents died in their mid-seventies, I guess. My paternal grandmother died young— cancer of the uterus. But my father’s father—a wonderful man—lived to be eighty-five. Dennis, you’re like a dog worrying a bone. As a matter of fact, a few months before you got here, a woman named Ellen Hapgood died at the age of ninety-one. Before that, she sat in her rocking chair talking to herself all day long and swatting imaginary bats with a broom. Scott and Bibsy, I’m sure, will live a long life. That’s Brian upstairs, knocking into chairs. He’s trying to get your attention.”

Dennis took Sophie’s arms in a firm grasp. He was not willing to be sidetracked this time.

“One more thing. What’s this second language all about?”

He had heard it the first time outside Mary Crenshaw’s house when he and the children hunted for the missing cat. Sophie had said, “She’s an old woman. She slurs her words.” But Dennis heard odd words spoken again. Oliver Cone, walking down the road from the town gym with one of his pals, had pointed to a large-breasted girl and sniggered something about her “socker muldunes.” Dennis had also learned that in Springhill a car was often a “horker,” an apple was a “babcock,” and a deer rifle was a “boshe gun.”

“I’ve begun to pick up on it,” Dennis said. “I know that when something is good quality it’s ‘bahler.’ I even know that ‘mollies and ose’ are tits and ass. So tell me, Sophie—what’s that all about?”

“It’s been around forever,” Sophie said. “It’s called Springling.”

“And you speak it, of course.”

“Since I was a child. It gets passed from one generation to another.”

“Then why is everyone secretive about it? Why did you never mention it to me?”

“I was waiting for the right time, and I guess this is it.” Sophie smiled. “It originated in California and was brought here around the turn of the century by some miners. At first it was a children’s language, so their parents wouldn’t know what they were talking about. But it caught on. We speak it… sometimes. Give me a barney,” she said.

“What’s a barney?”

“A kiss. It’s your reward for being so einy and bilchy.”

“Which means … ?”

“Smart and sexy.”

“Will you teach the language to me?”

Sophie hesitated.

“Why not?” Dennis asked. “I live here, don’t I? I’m your husband.”

“Yes, I’ll teach it to you,” she said. “But don’t let anyone know you understand it. People here are funny about some things. They like you to live here awhile before they let you in on their secrets. Will you agree to that?”

Dennis thought it was odd, but he agreed.

“Bahl. Now where’s the barney you promised me?”

He kissed her and would have done more if the children had not thundered down the stairs.

A few weeks later, on a Saturday night in June, Dennis couldn’t sleep. He was concerned about a real estate case in Aspen that had taken a wrong turn. He went down to the kitchen, microwaved a leftover cup of coffee, and settled into a big easy chair in the living room. He made notes on a legal pad for nearly a hour. By the time he had finished he was still wide awake, and since it was a bright night with a warm breeze coming from the south, he decided to go for a walk on the path by the creek.

Mountain people retired early. At nearly midnight, under a full moon, the world at Springhill seemed sound asleep. The path along the creek led to his in-laws’ house and land. The moon cast strong shadows. Dennis strolled through the darkness, listening to water bounding over rocks—the spring meltdown reaching its zenith. A night breeze hummed overhead through the pines. He took deep breaths of the thin air.

The Hendersons’ house was a huge A-frame, and the first thing Scott showed visitors was his party-sized redwood hot tub squatting on the deck outside. Fifty yards from the house itself, Dennis saw that lights were on upstairs and downstairs. Blurred light from the patio broke through the ponderosa pines. Then he heard voices.

The blue-gray shadows of a clump of firs cloaked his presence. The roar of the creek drowned out the sound of his footsteps. He could see the hot tub now, steam rising. It was ringed with candles. Naked people moved about in the tub, and he heard throaty laughter.

Somebody’s broken into the property, he thought. Scott and Bibsy must have gone to Denver, and the kids from town decided to have a hell of a good time. But when his eyesight adjusted to the distance and the flickering light of the candles, he saw that the people in the tub were not kids from town. He heard warmer, softer, older voices.

The back door to the house opened. Rich strains of a Mozart flute concerto flowed from the living room. Bibsy stepped out of the house, a man’s arm encircling her waist. She wore a white robe half open, trailing along the dark red hand-rubbed Mexican tiles of the terrace. Under the robe Dennis could see she was naked.

The man with his arm about her waist was also naked. He was short, well built, with a silvery gray beard. It was Edward Brophy, the dentist, Sophie’s good friend whom Dennis had first met on Aspen Mountain. Dennis’s gaze shot back to the tub, where he saw Scott in the steamy water with two men and two other women.

Realizations flowed into him so rapidly that he had trouble sorting them out. He recognized the women in the tub: one was Grace Pendergast, the town doctor—a handsome, dominating woman with black hair and cool blue eyes. The other was Rose Loomis, a plump and sexy widow who ran the Springhill general store with the help of her two children.

His father-in-law, Scott Henderson, was in the hot tub, kissing the breast of Rose Loomis while with his other arm he fondled Grace Pendergast. Grace’s husband, Jack Pendergast, a retired building contractor, was behind Rose Loomis, sitting on the edge of the tub. He was grunting, rocking back and forth.

My God, Dennis realized,
he’s fucking
her.

Jack Pendergast had to be even older than Scott. The other man who sat on the edge of the tub, naked, clutching a bottle of vodka, was Harry Parrot, the painter.

An orgy. Decorous, well-behaved, with Mozart for background music—an orgy on a warm summer night for a select group of Springhill’s senior citizens.

Dennis chuckled, knowing he couldn’t be heard. He was seeing it; he wasn’t hallucinating. In moonlight the bodies, though far from young, had a sculpted beauty. The men were muscular. The women moved with light, quick steps. Rose Loomis looked like Botticelli’s Venus rising from the sea.

Dennis retreated. He was not a voyeur: this knowledge had come to him by accident. He walked home along the creek, still shaking his head.

Back in his kitchen he brewed coffee, then sat on the porch, drinking and watching the serene light of the stars. The night air was soft, the color of the sky somewhere between royal blue and velvety black- violet.

He decided he would not tell Sophie—after all, Scott and Bibsy were her parents.

But when he finally went to bed he was still stimulated by what he had seen. He woke Sophie and made love to her in the darkness.

The next day he mulled over what he’d seen.

They were free, he decided, and certainly old enough to choose. If I’m lucky enough to reach that age, please let me be that open-minded and physically vigorous.

Bless them!

A few evenings later he was watching the NBA finals on television while his children played on the lawn by the creek. The June days were warm and dry. An occasional evening thunderstorm struck the back range and the nights following were always fresh. The mountains became greener every day, the grass turning from viridian toward emerald.

He heard the smooth rumble of Sophie’s car approaching on the dirt road. She had gone to the village for a joint meeting of the Water Board with the Town Council, which she chaired. These meetings, which took place at least once a week, puzzled him. Sophie always attended them. Earlier that evening he’d said, “Sweetheart, tell me— how much business does a village of three hundred and fifty people have to discuss? I don’t think the mayor of New York is as busy as you are, and he’s got nine million disgruntled city dwellers to keep in line. What goes on here? Are you worried about being reelected?”

Sophie laughed warmly. Small communities, she explained, were the worst when it came to civic matters. There were endless debates about taxes, allocation of the budget, rezoning suggestions, equipment for the gym, school repairs and change of curriculum—the quarry business, road repair—the list went on.

“How long is your term as mayor?”

“We have a peculiar system. I wasn’t elected, I was appointed by… well, I suppose you’d call it a council of elders. There’s no set term. I stay mayor as long as I want to and as long as they like the job I do. It could last a long time.”

“And you don’t get paid for it.”

“Of course not. It’s an honor. And a community obligation. Does it bother you?” Her forehead knitted in a light frown. “When I met you, you told me you were impressed.”

“I’m still impressed. I’m not suggesting you be a hausfrau. I’m just trying to figure out how things work in this village. It’s not easy, you know. It’s … different here.”

He was still thinking about that when Sophie returned from the meeting. Dennis saw right away that something was wrong. He hit the mute button on the remote.

“What is it?”

“Jack Pendergast died of a heart attack.”

“Jack? My God, I just saw him—”

He stopped. The nocturnal sighting of Jack and the others in the hot tub was something he had resolved to keep to himself.

“He was so damned healthy,” he said.

“There was no warning.”

Two days later they attended the funeral. Almost the whole adult population of the town was at the little cemetery on the edge of the forest. Jack Pendergast had been a popular man who had helped build many of the newer homes for younger couples. Grace Pendergast was doctor and friend to everyone.

Dennis thought of Jack as he had last seen him in the tub at the Hendersons’, sharing his wife and Rose Loomis with Scott while Bibsy cavorted in an upstairs bedroom with the town dentist.

The sun shone from a blue sky surrounded by slow-moving cumulus. There was no church in Springhill. Grace, as the widow, conducted the ceremony. Hank Lovell, Oliver Cone, and two young men lowered the casket into the earth. On top of it Grace placed a stone, a handful of earth, and a small clear glass of water.

“We are here to affirm Jack’s departure,” she said. “We loved him, and we know he loved us. Jack left with full acceptance. The bond between us lives on.”

A few people murmured; everyone nodded. Grace inclined her head toward the young men, and they shoveled earth on top of the casket. No more was said.

Dennis and Sophie walked home along a road bordered by wild- flowers and unruly June grass. “What a peculiar little speech Grace made,” Dennis observed.

“I thought it was fine,” Sophie said.

“ ‘Jack left with full acceptance.’ What’s that mean? The poor guy died of a heart attack. Grace wasn’t even around when it happened. Why does she think he accepted that kind of sudden end to his life? He might well have been in pain. How old was he? Early seventies? That’s not old to go. Certainly, these days, too young to go with what she called ‘full acceptance.’ “

Sophie remained silent. After a few moments Dennis understood that she was not going to answer his question. He looked at her, and in that same instant, as they continued walking down the dirt road, her hand sought his and clasped it. Her head turned toward him. Her dark eyes, reflecting the sun, were exceptionally clear. Certainty beamed from them—beamed with such strength that Dennis felt reassured. She was answering his question; there was no doubt of it. Her smile and her whole being was saying to him:
You will see. You will soon understand.
Almost without realizing he was doing it, he nodded to her. He felt satisfied. He could not have explained why.

Chapter 9
A Deputy Pays a Visit

THE WEEK FOLLOWING Thanksgiving, the official opening of the ski season, a snowstorm struck the Roaring Fork Valley like a beast thundering out of the wilderness. It began in the late afternoon and snowed heavily all night. Then it stopped, and the skies cleared. In the morning the slopes of Aspen Mountain were covered with ten inches of dry powder. The hardpack below those ten inches was already three feet deep. The temperature at the base of the mountain was fifteen degrees, and there was no wind. The blue sky was bright enough to hurt the eyes of anyone foolish enough not to wear goggles or good sunglasses. These were perfect skiing conditions.

Dennis finished the work on his desk by midmorning, grabbed skis, poles, boots, and ski suit from his locker at the law offices of Karp & Ballard, and prepared to tackle the mountain. He told Lila Hayes, his secretary, that he would be back at his desk by two in the afternoon.

“But, Dennis, if we want to reach you—”

“That will be difficult.”

You had to draw the line somewhere, he believed. And when it came to carrying a cellular phone while he carved his way across the fall lines of Aspen Mountain, he drew it firmly.

At noon he boomed down the lower slope of Little Nell. In a blinding spray of white powder, he swung to a hockey stop. He was shouldering his skis and heading for the gondola when Lila Hayes appeared in his vision, bundled in a pale blue Norwegian sweater and wearing a Rockies baseball cap. She waved at him, but she wasn’t smiling.

“What happened, Lila?”

“Your wife called.” She saw his expression. “No, she’s all right, and your children are fine. It’s her mother.”