Read Online Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 03 - THE SPRING -- a Legal Thriller by Clifford Irving - Free Book Online
Authors: Clifford Irving
Tags: Thrillers, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Law, Thrillers & Suspense, Professional & Technical, Criminal Law
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seventeen-year-old son of a visiting film star on a drug-sale charge, and then a local bar owner on a DUI. He plea-bargained both cases before Judge Florian, the local district judge. Both his clients received suspended sentences. Dennis was pleased, and so were the clients.
New clients began to call. He began to feel he could make a living here—not a fortune, but enough to live on. That was enough. His ambitions and his vision of the future had changed.
In Springhill Dennis spent so much time with Sophie—talking, making love, listening to Mozart and Verdi in front of the log fire on winter and spring evenings—that he had little time for anyone else besides the children. Occasionally some friends came to dinner: Hank and Jane Lovell or Edward Brophy. The mountain hamlet was small. Life was simple. He had never seen a Springhill man wearing a jacket or tie, and the women, including Sophie, wore jeans not only to work but at home and in the evening. Yet there was nothing tawdry or common about them. In New York and Connecticut he had been accustomed to a physical cross-section of Americans, from the slim, beautiful, and fashionable to the weird, plain, and frighteningly obese. The inhabitants of his new hometown, however, were almost uniformly attractive and well formed. There seemed to be a simplicity about them and their lives that he grew more and more to admire. Within a few weeks Dennis had met all of Sophie’s friends, neighbors, and family. She told him she had at least a dozen first and second cousins who lived in the town. “In fact, Oliver Cone is one of them.”
“What does the town do about inbreeding?”
“As much as it can. Oliver is the result of inbreeding—the positive side of it. He’s got a master’s in hydraulic engineering. He’s smart as a whip, although you wouldn’t know it unless he trusts you, and the only people he trusts are Edward and those pals of his he goes hunting with. He’s a first-rate bow hunter, did you know that? He supplies me with most of the venison every fall. He only works at the quarry because … well, because the quarry is a town-owned enterprise, and everyone pitches in.”
Sophie paused. “But of course you’re right. When I was younger I remember a girl who had an epileptic fit and died, and then there was a twelve-year-old boy who we couldn’t control, and he had to be sent away. That was all unfortunate. Since then, as far as I know, we don’t have any feebleminded Snopeses locked away in padlocked barns. We keep a good check on the family trees. We try to keep the bloodlines separate.”
“Who was ever able to deal with teenagers in rut?”
“In a community like this, if there’s a genetic risk, we have no misgivings about encouraging abortion. Obviously the kids can say no, and then there’s nothing we can do. But they usually listen to reason.” Something about the concept, and the way Sophie expressed it, troubled Dennis. At first he didn’t grasp it. Then it came to him.
“Who is the we you talk about? The we who keeps a check on family trees? The we who can ‘do nothing about it.’ Don’t tell me it’s part of the mayor’s job.”
“Believe it or not,” Sophie said, “the town Water Board does it.”
“The Water Board? Are you serious?”
“It’s a small town. Just three hundred and fifty of us—anywhere else, we’d be a wide spot in the road. We don’t have committees or agencies for every little thing. The Town Council handles the finances, the legislation, and the school and the quarry. The Volunteer Fire Department deals with emergencies, organizes holidays, and does avalanche control in the town and even on the road down to Redstone. So everything else, like pollution control, and even genetics, got dumped on the Water Board. It just fell out that way. Kind of elegant, I think.”
Dennis nodded, silent. What did it matter? What did it have to do with the new heart of his life?
Some evenings Sophie read poetry
New clients began to call. He began to feel he could make a living here—not a fortune, but enough to live on. That was enough. His ambitions and his vision of the future had changed.
In Springhill Dennis spent so much time with Sophie—talking, making love, listening to Mozart and Verdi in front of the log fire on winter and spring evenings—that he had little time for anyone else besides the children. Occasionally some friends came to dinner: Hank and Jane Lovell or Edward Brophy. The mountain hamlet was small. Life was simple. He had never seen a Springhill man wearing a jacket or tie, and the women, including Sophie, wore jeans not only to work but at home and in the evening. Yet there was nothing tawdry or common about them. In New York and Connecticut he had been accustomed to a physical cross-section of Americans, from the slim, beautiful, and fashionable to the weird, plain, and frighteningly obese. The inhabitants of his new hometown, however, were almost uniformly attractive and well formed. There seemed to be a simplicity about them and their lives that he grew more and more to admire. Within a few weeks Dennis had met all of Sophie’s friends, neighbors, and family. She told him she had at least a dozen first and second cousins who lived in the town. “In fact, Oliver Cone is one of them.”
“What does the town do about inbreeding?”
“As much as it can. Oliver is the result of inbreeding—the positive side of it. He’s got a master’s in hydraulic engineering. He’s smart as a whip, although you wouldn’t know it unless he trusts you, and the only people he trusts are Edward and those pals of his he goes hunting with. He’s a first-rate bow hunter, did you know that? He supplies me with most of the venison every fall. He only works at the quarry because … well, because the quarry is a town-owned enterprise, and everyone pitches in.”
Sophie paused. “But of course you’re right. When I was younger I remember a girl who had an epileptic fit and died, and then there was a twelve-year-old boy who we couldn’t control, and he had to be sent away. That was all unfortunate. Since then, as far as I know, we don’t have any feebleminded Snopeses locked away in padlocked barns. We keep a good check on the family trees. We try to keep the bloodlines separate.”
“Who was ever able to deal with teenagers in rut?”
“In a community like this, if there’s a genetic risk, we have no misgivings about encouraging abortion. Obviously the kids can say no, and then there’s nothing we can do. But they usually listen to reason.” Something about the concept, and the way Sophie expressed it, troubled Dennis. At first he didn’t grasp it. Then it came to him.
“Who is the we you talk about? The we who keeps a check on family trees? The we who can ‘do nothing about it.’ Don’t tell me it’s part of the mayor’s job.”
“Believe it or not,” Sophie said, “the town Water Board does it.”
“The Water Board? Are you serious?”
“It’s a small town. Just three hundred and fifty of us—anywhere else, we’d be a wide spot in the road. We don’t have committees or agencies for every little thing. The Town Council handles the finances, the legislation, and the school and the quarry. The Volunteer Fire Department deals with emergencies, organizes holidays, and does avalanche control in the town and even on the road down to Redstone. So everything else, like pollution control, and even genetics, got dumped on the Water Board. It just fell out that way. Kind of elegant, I think.”
Dennis nodded, silent. What did it matter? What did it have to do with the new heart of his life?
Some evenings Sophie read poetry
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