Suddenly exhausted, she put her drink aside and laid her cigarette in an ashtray full of butts, several smoldering. She was starting to nod off. She said, "I'll do what I can. But I don't think I can pay you. You charge an arm and a leg, you know, and I'm going to have to paint the house this summer."
"We can talk about that later, Phyllis." I meant when she was sober, provided I could locate a window of opportunity.
Blinking and trying to remain conscious, she said, "How the hell did all this crazy shit happen?"
After a moment, I said it probably went way back. But by then she had begun to snore. end user
20
I managed to get Larry Bierly on the phone at Albany Med. He said, "There are no pictures."
"But Paul told his mother there are."
"But I'm telling you there are no pictures. And anyway, Strachey, you are completely off base."
I said, "Where are Paul's personal belongings?"
"I've got some, Phyllis has some, and a lot we gave away."
"I'd like to have a look at what you've got. If there's nothing there, there's nothing there. But humor me in this, Larry."
"No, I will not. I'm telling you, Strachey, it's all a waste of time, what you're doing. Just drop it. It's not worth it."
"After Paul died and you went into his apartment, was there any indication the place had been searched?"
A little silence. "I don't think so. But I do know this for sure: there are no pictures."
"Pictures of what?"
"I can't tell you. If I could, I would. But it has nothing to do with Paul's death-that I am one hundred percent certain of. Why the fuck can't you just take my word about this, Strachey?"
"But Larry, if you know exactly what I'm talking about that there are no pictures of, and if it's so sensitive a subject that you refuse to tell me about it, then why couldn't Paul have tried to blackmail someone with this information and that person killed him to shut him up?"
Bierly said nothing, but I could hear him breathing, and I thought I could almost, but not quite, hear him thinking.
I said, "Could Paul have been blackmailing Emil Provost?"
"Who?"
"Steven St. James's gentleman friend."
No response.
I said, "Did it have anything to do with drugs?"
Another silence.
"Two members of the therapy group told me you and Paul used to argue about his alcohol intake and your regular use of recreational street drugs, namely acid and Ecstasy. Were drugs involved in the blackmail situation or actions?"
"Shit!" he said, and his phone came crashing down.
With the dial tone I now had, I considered calling him again but decided instead to let him cool off. After all, he wasn't going anywhere.
Crockwell still wasn't answering his phone, and neither was Steven St. James. I did reach Phyllis Haig, who by late afternoon was up and around again. She remembered the gist of our conversation and said she'd call Dr. Glen Snyder in Ballston Spa and give her okay for him to talk to me about Paul and his brief course of therapy with Snyder in February and March. I told her to emphasize to Snyder that it now seemed likely Paul had not committed suicide no therapist likes the idea of a patient in his or her care rejecting life and the world and the therapist-and that murder was more likely. An hour later, Snyder called me and said he could talk to me Monday evening at eight if I'd drive up to his Ballston Spa office. I said I would.
Timmy and I dined at the new Vietnamese place on Madison, and I told him about my visit with Phyllis Haig, her confirmation of my suspicions about blackmail and her revelation about incriminating photographs.
"This is getting pretty racy," he said.
"Why 'racy'? That's a term with sexual connotations."
"I don't know. It's just that blackmail photos are often sexual."
"But it's hard to imagine the parties involved in this-the ones St. James said I 'don't want to know' what they were up to together-combining for anything sexual. Not Crockwell, anyway.
The others conceivably, but not the cure-a-fag high priest of the Hudson Valley. Of course, Emil Provost still looks like an ideal candidate for sexual blackmail-old-crust family man and all that."
"So you still think that old guy who goes around in a smoking jacket in the middle of May, and who probably couldn't find his way around Albany without a chauffeur and a valet, drove up alone to Albany in March and somehow got Paul Haig alone in his apartment and forced him to drink a bottle of Scotch laced with enough Elavil to kill him? Don, it's farfetched."
I said, "Maybe St. James was in on it. He helped."
"That's a little more plausible."
"It's one of the possibilities I might ask St. James about. I'm going to take a chance and drive down there after dinner. St. James ought to be resting at home tonight after a long day at the animal farm. Do you want to come along?"
"I'll pass. But good luck. You'd better take some Mace along, in case those wild dogs are on the loose again."
"I'll just use psychology. Like we did yesterday."
"In case he asks, who are you going to tell St. James your client is on this case?"
"Good question, Timothy. It will give me something to think about on the way down-and on the way back too, if I have to."
WAMC had pushed back the Sunday-night jazz shows yet another half-hour to make way for a program of Irish music-not Irish drama, mind you, or Irish literature, but Irish music. What was next, Irish cuisine? Heading down the thruway, I played an old Horace Silver tape. The road was still wet in spots, but the sky had cleared and stars were breaking out across the purple dusk. Traffic was heavy with weekenders heading back to the city. The flow slowed to a crawl in spots on account of bridge reconstruction. Bridge rebuilding had been popular in New York State since the collapse of a thruway span in the eighties killed several motorists-though when Senate Republicans complained of high construction costs, Timmy said maybe they could just put up signs along certain stretches of the thruway that said "Falling Bridge Zone."
I pulled into St. James's parking area at nine-ten next to his old Rabbit. Lights were on in his little house. I walked up to his front door and knocked.
St. James opened the door in the company of the two snuffling dogs, who came at me sniffing and licking.
"Hi, Steven, I'm Don Strachey, and I'm a private investigator. We met on Friday at Albany Med."
"I remember you. My landlord said you came here yesterday. How did you even know where I lived?" He looked alarmed but not panic-stricken. Just out of the shower, apparently, he was barefoot in jeans and a white T-shirt.
Auburn hair curled up out of the neck of his shirt in the front and down over his neck in the back. He looked nice and smelled good, the same cologne as the other day.
I said, "I'd like to talk to you about a case of blackmail involving Paul Haig, you, Emil Provost, Larry Bierly and Vernon Crockwell. Have you got a few minutes?"
He took this in with what looked like fear mixed with bewilderment. But there was no indication he felt cornered and might try to bolt.
"I can't believe this," was all he said, as he shook his head. "I just can't believe this."
"You can't believe what?"
"That I'm being dragged into-whatever I'm being dragged into. Did they find out who shot Larry?"
"Not yet."
"I called him at the hospital yesterday. I had to work and I couldn't get up to see him. I asked Larry about you, and he did say he knew you. But he said he didn't think you would bother me, and if you did I shouldn't give you the time of day. So-no. No, you can't come in. I'm sorry."
"Look," I said, "it's either me or the Albany cops. Take your pick. Believe me, I'm preferable. I could go to them and tell them all I know about you and Emil and Larry and Paul and all of it, and let them apply their customary thumbscrews. From me, though, you might get a little understanding or even sympathy. Unless, of course, you don't deserve it."