Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 03 - THE SPRING -- a Legal Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

camera, and Queenie inhaled the three-day-old aroma coming from the depths of his thick woolen lumberjack shirt. She backed off a step.
    “Mr. Clark, if y’all see your way clear to leaving that camera with me, I’ll get the roll of film developed. You give me your address in El Jebel, I’ll put the prints and negatives in tomorrow’s mail. The county will pay for the processing. “
    Queenie thumbed through the file on missing dogs, but all she could come up with was a Labrador in heat that had run away from a famous actor’s home on Smuggler Street in the West End. She was wondering if the dead dog had been killed legally, while molesting human beings or wildlife, or illegally, for the hell of it, in which case whoever did it would be liable for prosecution under the state cruelty-to-animals statute. Or maybe it was an old dog or a sick dog and the owner had taken it up there to put it out of its misery. It wasn’t illegal to bury a dog on public land in the high country.
    But then Queenie decided that if she were going to put her sick or suffering old dog out of its misery, she’d have a vet inject it. And if she were a hunter and had hiked up to Pearl Pass with poor old Fido on his last legs, she might shoot him in the head with a pistol, but she didn’t think she’d take what amounted to target practice with a bow and arrow.
    Back in her office after a visit to the one-hour photo shop, Queenie stood in front of a large poster distributed free by the Gaines dog food company. It showed colored drawings of 150 recognized breeds of dogs, complete with characteristics, average weight, and known colorings.
    The two photographs taken by the Clark brothers revealed a large body swathed in shadow and laying in a hole that presumably was intended to be its grave. But Queenie had never seen a head like that. She didn’t know the breed. She scanned the Gaines chart for a few minutes, then buzzed through to the Sheriff’s Office. Doug Larsen answered. He was patrol director of the day.
    “Doug, I need your keen eye and razor-sharp powers of deduction.”
    When Larsen arrived, Queenie showed him the Clark brothers’ photographs. “Pick out the breed on the chart.”
    “What’s the prize?”
    “The warm feeling of having helped a fellow law-enforcement officer. Just do it, buddy.”
    Doug studied the chart for a few minutes. “Scottish deerhound?”
    “That’s what I think too,” Queenie said triumphantly.
    The last of the Roaring Fork Valley veterinarians whom she called said yes, he had given a rabies booster to a male deerhound maybe three or four years ago. No, he didn’t know any other deerhounds in the valley—he seemed to remember discussing that very fact with the owner, whom the file card listed as Mr. Henry Lovell Sr. of Springhill, over in Gunnison County. The dog’s name was Geronimo. If still alive, he’d be nine years old.
    Queenie had been to Springhill only once, about ten years ago, on a summer hike with friends. They didn’t encourage visitors up there on the back range, and there was little reason to go unless you had business with the marble quarry. Only a few families lived up there, with a fair amount of inbreeding over the generations, or so it was assumed. There were rumors of idiots.
    Queenie got the number from Information and tapped it out. A woman answered. The connection seemed a little blurred, as if it were an overseas call. Queenie identified herself and explained that she was trying to locate a Mr. Henry Lovell Sr.
    The woman said, “Mr. Lovell is deceased.”
    “I’m sorry. With whom am I speaking?”
    “Jane Lovell. Henry was my father-in-law. His son, Henry Lovell Jr.—Hank—is my husband.”
    “Mrs. Lovell, did your late father-in-law have a Scottish deerhound named Geronimo?”
    With just a slight hesitation, Jane said, “Yes, he did.”
    “And did that dog disappear recently?” When Jane didn’t reply, Queenie asked, “Were you taking care of it? After your