Free Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 03 - THE SPRING -- a Legal Thriller by Clifford Irving Page B

back shelves. Dennis had noticed that few Springhillers drank to excess; this sobriety had impressed him.
    “Better let me talk to her,” Sophie said. “She’s odd.”
    Dennis and the children waited outside on Mary Crenshaw’s porch. They heard Sophie inside asking about the missing cat. Dennis thought he heard her say, a little louder, “The tweeds’ yank tomker, Mary. Zacky and grease…” He could make even less sense out of Mrs. Crenshaw’s reply.
    Sophie came out of the house. “She hasn’t seen Donahue, but she’ll keep her eye peeled.”
    “What was it that you asked her?” Dennis asked. “I couldn’t make head or tail out of it.”
    “She’s an old woman,” Sophie said. “She slurs her words.”
    “It was you I heard, Sophie. It was like gobbledygook.”
    The children had gone off to make hissing and clicking noises among the pines behind Mary Crenshaw’s house, hoping the cat would respond.
    “Dennis, darling, please. I’ve had a long day and I’m upset. I don’t think we’re going to find Donahue.”
    In the next few days Dennis scoured the woods in the search for a body, or remains, or even for a bit of fur. He found nothing.
    Lucy came to him a week later, with Sleepy cradled in her arms. “Maybe,” she said, “Donahue fell in love with another girl kitty and she lived somewhere else, like you did with Sophie. So he went there to be with her. Do you think so, Daddy?”
    “That’s a definite possibility.”
    “And he might come back one day to visit.”
    “Yes, he might.”
    “Or for good, if he stops liking the other girl kitty.”
    “Yes, darling, that could happen,” Dennis said, “but don’t count on it.”
    He had planned to take Sophie to the South Seas in June for their belated honeymoon. They would do nothing except swim off the reef of Mooréa and sail outrigger canoes and eat tropical fruit and make love.
    The plan included leaving the children with Sophie’s parents. Taking his cue from Sophie, Dennis said, “I don’t think the kids will miss us. By June they’ll have friends.”
    But by May it hadn’t happened. The children clung to him more and more. They came home from school with or without Sophie and did their homework, and played with each other and the cats, and watched television when it was allowed. After Donahue’s disappearance, they played only with Sleepy.
    “Why aren’t they making friends?” Dennis asked Sophie.
    “It takes time. The village kids are clubby.”
    “What can we do?”
    “Let it work itself out.”
    “I don’t like to just do nothing. It’s not my nature.”
    “Dennis, you can’t change your children’s social lives. They’ll do it themselves, when they’re ready, in their own way. Parents only stand and wait, like civilians on the home front in a protracted war. It’s difficult, it’s frustrating, but that’s the only way that makes sense in the long run.”
    Sometimes he felt that Sophie had wisdom and knowledge beyond her years.
    “You love them,” she said, “and they know that. Be supportive and instructive, not interfering. Let them work out their own destiny.”
    “I hate to fly off to Tahiti if things are like this.”
    “Air France is a friendly airline—they’ll let you change the reservations. Let’s wait until winter.”
    “Life is short,” he said. “Usually when you postpone things you want to do, it’s a mistake.”
    Sophie was silent for a long moment, as if she were struggling with a concept or wanted to say something but wasn’t sure it was the right time to say it. Then she sighed and said, “When you genuinely believe that good things will happen, it works out to be that way. I know. Trust me.”
    All right, he decided. I can do that. And I will.

Chapter 8
Under the Full Moon
    WHEN DENNIS FIRST unpacked his luggage in Springhill the locals referred to him as the new lawyer. The new lawyer had skied crosscountry to Owl Creek with Edward Brophy. Restless fellow, the new lawyer: did