Shock To The System

by Shock To The System (lit)

  Tracy placed her hand on Cebulka's free one and gave it a squeeze.

  I said, "Some people think that Paul's suicide wasn't any such thing, but that he was murdered."

  "Whoa."

  "And that someone in the group or connected to the group in some way is the killer."

  "Holyjehelka!"

  "Ever hear of a Steven St. James?"

  "No. Who's that?"

  "I'm not sure yet. Gene, did anyone in the group ever threaten anyone else in the group or show signs of becoming violent?"

  He screwed up his face. Tracy was big-eyed. Cebulka said, "When you called me up earlier, and you said you wanted to talk about Paul's suicide and Dr. Crockwell's program, I figured you were with Dr. Crockwell's insurance company or what have you, maybe some type of malpractice lawsuit, and I could put in a good word for the doc—happy to help him out after all the help he gave me. But now you're telling me somebody thinks some­body murdered Paul? Where in the world did a crazy idea like that get started?"

  The waiter approached and set plates of two egg rolls each in front of Gene and Tracy and a bowl of hot-and-sour soup in front of me. When he was gone, I said, "There is some circumstantial evidence pointing to Dr. Crockwell's involvement—in Larry Bierly's shooting and maybe even Paul Haig's death. It's possible he'll be charged."

  Cebulka stared at me and momentarily ceased his labors above. Tracy said, "But Dr. Crockwell has done so much good for people. How can they do this to him?"

  "Who else in the group might have wanted to hurt Paul?" I asked. "Or shoot Larry Bierly? It's not clear yet, but the two events might be connected."

  Tracy perked up. "Tell him," she said, "about—what's-their-names? Those two guys."

  Cebulka was twisting away again with one hand, attempting with the other to cut a hunk off the end of an egg roll, which appeared to have been manufactured from a shingle-like mate­rial.

  "You mean Dean and Roland?" Gene said.

  "Yeah."

  He abandoned the egg roll. Tracy ignored hers. I sipped at my smooth soup.

  Cebulka said, "There were two guys in the group named Ro­land Stover and Dean Moody. They were always pretty down on gays—very negative, if you know what I mean. Gays are sinners, et cetera. They always talked like that in the group. Then when the group ended last December, I thought, one good thing is, I'll never have to listen to their hot air again. But then, lo and behold, I ran into them—about a month ago, I think. Over at Pizza Hut. Tracy was even with me. I introduced her to those two bozos. Jeez."

  I said, "They were together?"

  "Yeah, their table was right near our booth. Dean had salad bar and Roland was eating off of it too, and I'll bet Dean went back three times if he went back once. I think it says right on a sign, no sharing. The waitress saw it too, but she never let on."

  "And you spoke to them?"

  "For a minute."

  "What did they have to say?"

  Cebulka shook his head, a complicated maneuver. "Roland said, did I hear about Paul Haig? And I said yes, wasn't that too bad. And then do you know what Roland said?"

  "No."

  "He said, 'Paul had it coming.' "

  "That's all?"

  "No. He said, 'He who lieth with another man shall be put to death.' And then Dean said, 'Larry should die too,' and something about if American civilization is going to survive, it has to purge itself of people like that."

  I said, "But this condemnation didn't include you—or them­selves, of course."

  "No, why should it? We all had our certificates by that time."

  "You were certified heterosexual?"

  Cebulka nodded vigorously, and a good-sized clump of hair

  came out in his hand. We all looked at it.

  After a moment Tracy said, "Gene has a scalp condition." Cebulka shrugged. "I guess it runs in the family. I have an

  uncle with the same condition."

  13

  I parted company with the Cebulkas around nine and headed back into Albany. I told them I might need to be in touch again and they said fine. Gene said next time I should bring the wife along. I let it go.

  Following the revelation about Moody and Stover, not previ­ously known to be a pair, I'd asked Cebulka about the session where Bierly and Haig had walked out of therapy amid a crossfire of recriminations. But Cebulka remembered the event only hazily and said Crockwell's outburst, while unusual, didn't have any lasting effects. After Haig and Bierly left, the group just picked up and proceeded without them.

  Visiting hours at Albany Med were over, so I'd have to wait until morning to talk to Larry Bierly. I went home and called my machine. Nothing from Crockwell or Finnerty, but Phyllis Haig had left a minute's worth of breathy pauses and slurred impreca­tions.

  While Timmy read a travel book called Around the World by Yak and Kayak, by Maynard Sudbury, one of the Peace Corps old boys Timmy knew from his long-ago but fondly remembered days in Andhra Pradesh, I tried to reach Roland Stover and Dean Moody, the only two surviving members of the therapy group I hadn't met yet.

  I got no answer at the number I had for Moody, but just as I was about to hang up, a man breathing hard picked up the phone at Roland Stover's residence.

  "Yes?"

  "Is this Roland Stover?"

  "Yes, and who is this?" He sounded tense and mean, fitting the consensus description I had.

  "Hi, Roland, I'm Don Strachey, an investigator doing some work that might be of assistance to Dr. Vernon Crockwell. Dr. Crockwell didn't give me your name, but it was provided by another member of the psychotherapy group you were in. Could we get together some time soon so that I could ask you a couple of questions about the group? Dr. Crockwell might be having some legal problems, and there's a chance you could shed some light on the situation."

  "What kind of legal problems?" Stover growled. "What do you mean by that?"

  "Well, if we could sit down over a cup of coffee—"

  "And who has the right to give you my name? That is a breach of medical confidentiality, and I demand to know this minute who gave you my name!"

  "Larry Bierly did. He thought if I talked to you, Roland, I might come away with some insights into Dr. Crockwell's therapy group and who his friends and enemies in it are."

  "I can tell you right now," Stover snapped, "that I am Vernon Crockwell's friend and Larry Bierly is his number-one enemy. Anyway, I heard on TV that somebody shot Larry, so how did you get my name from him?"

  "He gave it to me before he was shot."

  "Is he dead?"

  "No. It looks as though he'll recover."

  "Too bad. Sorry to hear it. Did you know Larry was an unre­pentant sexual deviant?"

  "I'm aware that he did not successfully complete Vernon Crockwell's course of therapy. But you did, I understand."

  "Yes, I did. Dr. Crockwell along with the Holy Scriptures saved me from a life of moral corruption."

  "I'd like to hear about that, and whatever additional informa­tion you'd be willing to share about Dr. Crockwell's mission. Could we meet somewhere?"

  A pause. "Did you say you're a private investigator?"

  "Yes, I am."

  "Who is employing you?"

  "I'm sorry, but I can't divulge that. My client must remain anon­ymous for now. I can tell you, however, that in this matter and many others I have a strong interest in moral truth." I was looking across the room at Timmy, whose eyes came up from his book.

  "Well, what exactly are you investigating?" Stover said. "Devi-ancy?"

  "That might play a part in it. Incidentally, there's another mem­ber of the Crockwell therapy group I haven't been able to get hold of. Are you in touch with Dean Moody, by chance?"

  "Yes, I'm in touch with Dean."

  "Perhaps we could all get together and I could pick your brains—I mean yours and Dean's—about deviancy. For this in­vestigative study I'm doing." Timmy placed his book in his lap and watched me.

  "Well, then, what about tomorrow after wo
rk?" Stover said. "I'm a sales associate at Wal-Mart on Route 4, and I get home around five-thirty." He gave me his Albany address.

  "I'd be pleased to drop by then," I said. "I hope Dean can make it too."

  "I'll have to check with him," Stover said, and hung up.

  Timmy said, "Wasn't that a little misleading?"

  "Yep."

  "Which one were you talking to?"

  I said it was Roland Stover, and I described Stover and Dean Moody and their feverish homophobia and their apparent status as a twosome of some sort.

  "Do you think maybe they killed Paul Haig?"

  "No, probably not."

  "Or shot Larry Bierly?"

  "Maybe, but I doubt it. It's possible they did one or the other, or both crimes, assuming Paul Haig's death was even a crime, which hasn't been established. But so far I'd have to say I doubt either Stover or Moody was involved in either event. They both

  sound hateful and deranged enough to hurt people badly, maybe even physically. But so far there's no real connection I've heard about between either of them and Paul and Larry, except for two things: in the group they had hissy fits over Paul's and Larry's gay-and-proud departure, and of course there's their glee over the death and misfortune of the two brazen sodomites. But they don't act guilty of actual murder or assault. They're completely open and unashamed about their hatreds, and they're probably no more than a couple of obnoxious gasbags. People like that can be psychopathic killers—I know, it wouldn't be unprece­dented—and I'm going to stay alert and open to the possibility. But what I'm really after now is a clearer picture of Crockwell, Paul Haig, Phyllis Haig, and Larry Bierly and some weird dynamic among them that none of them has been forthcoming about. I think that's where the key lies to Paul Haig's death—whether it was murder or suicide—and maybe to Larry Bierly's getting shot. And it seems this Steven St. James—Mr. You-Don't-Want-to-Know—fits in somewhere too. Though as to where, beats me."

  "So tomorrow you're meeting this Stover thug posing as an investigator on deviancy?"

  "Something like that."

  "I could come along and vouch for your interest in the sub­ject."

  "Right, and my expertise."

  "If he asked about your scholarship, I could say, 'His life is his treatise.' "

  "You don't really want to come along, do you? This is all in jest."

  "No," he said, "I don't want to get anywhere near Stover or Moody. They may not be as interesting and mysterious and murky in their motives as Crockwell and Bierly and the Haigs and this other guy, but they do sound truly dangerous."

  "Maybe you're right. I'm not sure what to think. Bierly is con­scious now. I'll talk to him tomorrow. That might help."

  "Maybe he'll shed some light."

  "Yes," I said, "if shedding light is anything he really wants to come out of all this. Nailing Crockwell at any cost seems to be his main aim. Nobody really seems to want to shed light, and I've got to find out why."

  14

  Saturday morning at ten, before heading over to Albany Med, I phoned Phyllis Haig.

  "Well," she said, "you're goddamned hard to get ahold of. I've been trying to reach you for days. I'd've had better luck trying to get a rise out of Dick Tracy than getting one out of you. So, Don, what's your pleasure? Are you gonna rob me blind and go to work for me and put that little fairy Larry Bierly behind bars where he belongs, or am I going to have to go out and find a real man for the job? Say, I see somebody shot Bierly and put him in the hospital. Too bad. I'd much rather see justice take its course. It wasn't you that shot him, was it? Jay Tarbell never said you were a hit man, which wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Though you call a lawyer these days and you never know what kind of stunt they're going to pull, just so they can charge you top dollar for it."

  I didn't think she'd started drinking yet—my guess was she observed the proprieties of her class by holding off until 12:05— but otherwise she was in vintage form.

  I said, "No, Phyllis, I didn't shoot Larry Bierly. Did you?" "No, I didn't, Don. I didn't drive out to Millpond at midnight the other night brandishing my forty-four and plug Bierly in the gut. At least, not as far as I can recall, I didn't. So if I didn't do it, and you didn't do it, what was it, a mugging?"

  "It doesn't appear to have been. Nothing was taken." "The little homo probably staged the whole thing. Everybody knows what a conniver he is."

  I said, "Why would he do that, Phyllis?"

  "Well, how the hell should I know? You're the one who's supposed to be . . . Now look. I've done everything but hire a detective to get ahold of the detective—that's Y-O-U—who was supposed to let me know two days ago if you're gonna help me out on this goddamn thing or not. So, Mr. Hard-to-Get-Ahold-Of Strachey, what is the verdict?"

  I said, "Sorry to have been out of touch, Phyllis, but I've been doing some preliminary snooping around before I decide whether or not to take your money. I'll let you know one way or another in a day or so for sure if I'm going to hire on with you. But first I've got some questions that need answering, and there are a couple of them that you can answer."

  "Oh, really? What questions? I hope this isn't going to be some kind of third degree. Larry Bierly is the one you should be grill­ing, not me. So, what do you want to ask me?"

  I said, "After Larry and Paul left Crockwell's therapy group, did Crockwell ever contact you?"

  After a little silence, she said, "I don't know what that has to do with the price of tea in China."

  "Before he was shot, I spoke with Larry Bierly, who said when he and Paul left the therapy group, Crockwell threatened to turn you against Paul unless Paul reconsidered and continued ther­apy. My question is, did Crockwell ever try to do that?"

  Another pause. "Well, I don't remember exactly what Dr. Crockwell had to say to me at that point in time. I suppose we must have chatted."

  "Uh-huh."

  "I know I asked for my money back—I'd paid him a god­damned small fortune—and never got so much as a red cent out of that chiseler."

  "When Dr. Crockwell spoke with you, was he critical of Paul?"

  "He was none too pleased with the outcome, if that's what you mean."

  "But who did he blame it on?"

  "Crockwell accepted no responsibility for himself, I can tell

  you that, Mr. Don, private eye. That would have left him open for a lawsuit, and for all he knew I could have been taping the conversation. Doctors don't pass gas anymore without checking with their lawyers first."

  I said, "Have you secretly taped conversations in the past?"

  "No, why on earth are you asking me that?"

  "You said Crockwell might have suspected that you were."

  "God, I can't even get my friggin' VCR to work."

  "Did Paul ever record people's conversations that you know of?"

  "No. Now what are you getting at? Does somebody have some­thing on tape?"

  "The Albany police were sent a recording of the therapy ses­sion that Paul and Bierly walked out of and never came back. The sender remains anonymous. Accompanying the tape was a note implicating not Larry Bierly but Vernon Crockwell in Paul's death. There's no proof, just the tape, on which Crockwell says a lot of nasty stuff about Paul's sexuality and threatens to come between you and Paul if Paul quits therapy. When Paul warns Crockwell not to interfere in his family life and says he won't allow Crockwell to mess things up between you and Paul, Crockwell pro­claims that he will not be impeded in his noble work, and he tells Paul that if he gets in the way Crockwell will stop him dead in his tracks. Those are Crockwell's words: 'I'll stop you dead in your tracks.' Are you familiar with any of this, Phyllis?"

  A silence.

  "Moreover," I went on, "on Wednesday you told me that Larry Bierly had threatened Crockwell, and Crockwell had it on tape. But it wasn't Crockwell who sent the cops the tape, and it wasn't Bierly who was recorded threatening Crockwell. It was Paul."

  She did not reply, and after a moment I became aware that Mrs. Haig w
as quietly weeping.

  "Are you there, Phyllis? Are you okay?"

  She sniffled and said, in a breaking voice, "I don't know who taped what. I just know what Paul told me. Oh, poor, poor Paul. I want Paul. I want my son back. I want my Paul."

  "What happened is terrible for you, Phyllis. It's bad, I know."

  Choking back tears, she said, "Paul didn't kill himself, did he? Am I right? I was—maybe I said the wrong things. Yes, I know I did, I know maybe I did. But Paul wouldn't kill himself over that. Paul was used to me." She snuffled and blew her nose next to the phone.

  I said, "Phyllis, the police actually have some good evidence now showing that Paul could not have killed himself. And as for you and Paul—hey, it's clear from the tape, which I've heard, that you and Paul hit it off, and he was used to you and devoted to you."

  "I know I said some things that were harsh. But it was all tough love, you know? Am I right?"

  "I know what you're saying."

  "I even got Paul another doctor. To help Paul—goddamn get on with it. Whatever."

  I said, "What doctor was this?"

  "Glen Snyder in Ballston Spa. Deedee went to him for a while after her marriage broke up. He's not—I mean, he's just a regular head shrinker. Pills and whatnot. I was even going to foot the bill, but Paul only went five times before he died, so it only ended up costing me seven-fifty. So I was trying to do it Paul's way, wasn't I? Even if I opened my big yap once too often, maybe, right after Paul left Dr. Crockwell, later on I made it up to him by doing it his way. Am I right?"

  "It sounds as if you were doing your best, Phyllis. Was it Dr. Snyder who prescribed the Elavil?"

  "Yeah. And ain't that a kick in the head? It looks like indirectly I'm the one who supplied that treacherous homicidal maniac Larry Bierly with the murder weapon."