The Blue Journal (31 page)

The trashing of her office was another matter entirely.

Now, after confronting Stanley Knoebel, her concerns had only grown.

As Walker's men went off to assemble their clues and Stratford worked to protect her legal rights, she decided it was time for her to seek the guidance of a man she had trusted for nearly two decades. She made a call, canceled her afternoon appointments, got in her car and drove more than three hours west, to the university where they had first met.

For as long as Randi Conway had known him, from their very first faculty-student conference all those years ago, Leonard Rubenfeld maintained his office in a constant state of purposeful chaos. Folders, forms, periodicals and books were haphazardly piled everywhere, documents were scattered about, and the place looked as if it hadn't been dusted in years.

She stood in the open doorway for a moment, watching as he pored over some papers, feeling the urge to rush over and hug him. But she hesitated, knowing how the professor felt about physical displays of affection. When he finally looked up from his work, his rumpled face broke into a wide grin. Then he stood and, as Randi approached with her arms outstretched, he grudgingly allowed her to wrap him in a warm embrace.

“All right,” he said as he backed away, “are we all done with that now?”

Rubenfeld was several inches shorter than Randi, his paunchy physique earned from endless hours hunched over a desk. His nose was a touch too large, his mouth a touch too small, and he was almost completely bald, the few surviving wisps of hair giving him something of a monastic look. He had a weak left eye that regularly floated off to the side, making any effort to meet his gaze through his thick-lensed glasses a virtual impossibility.

As she took a step back Randi saw that he appeared much older than the last time they met. They kept in touch over the years, occasionally speaking on the telephone, running into each other at professional conferences, exchanging e-mails and articles and so forth. Still, it was sad for her to see how he had aged.

He waved her toward one of the two old-fashioned leather armchairs in front of the cluttered bookcases that lined the walls of the musty old room. They exchanged some pleasantries but Rubenfeld, in his brusque manner, soon cut that short. “I was happy to get your call, but you didn't come all this way to make small talk. Let's begin with the headlines, shall we?”

“I've got a few issues,” she told him.

Rubenfeld removed his tortoise-shell glasses and wiped them with a crumpled tissue he found amidst the papers and books on his untidy desk. He studied her for a moment, then replaced the smudged spectacles and made an impatient wave of his hand. He was exceptionally fond of hand signals. “Go,” he said.

“First, one of my female patients was murdered a week ago.” She gave him the headlines, as he would say.

“I actually read something about it when I saw it was in your part of the world. Didn't have any idea she was one of yours. Tell me everything.”

Randi did, including the involvement of Anthony Walker, the discovery of Elizabeth's diary, the anonymous notes and the vandalism of her office.

“Hmmm. I certainly didn't read anything about a diary,” he said, zeroing in on the key piece of information.

“It's not public knowledge yet, but based on what she wrote, the police believe she had affairs with some of my male patients, husbands of the other women in her group.”

“Is it true?”

Randi sighed. “I think it is.”

“Nice girl,” the professor observed with a frown.

“I also believe she had a brief sexual relationship with at least one of my female patients.” Here Randi paused again. “A woman I introduced her to.”

Rubenfeld nodded solemnly without comment.

“The other woman had an extremely difficult background. She was an abused child of an alcoholic father. Then she was an abused wife.”

He shook his head. “Abused child becomes abused wife. Textbook stuff.” Rubenfeld was well respected in his profession—an academic who had forsaken private practice and lucrative offers to write pop psychology manuals, choosing to remain at the university, conducting his classes, engaging in research, issuing scholarly papers and maintaining the purity of his intellectual purpose. It was a rewarding position, leaving him free to pursue anything that piqued his interest. “So now we have two victims, so to speak.”

“Not that simple. This other woman was not only a victim.”

He responded with one of his lopsided looks, but said nothing.

“Several years ago, in the midst of an attack by her husband, she stabbed him with a kitchen knife. Spent five years in a psychiatric facility.”

“Killed the sonuvabitch. Good.”

“No. He didn't die.”

“Just ventilated him for a while, eh?” He made a slashing motion through the air with his right hand.

“I guess you could say that.”

“And you figure Lizzie Borden might be the one who did in Madame Bovary?”

Randi shook her head. “No, I don't.”

“All right, what about these men she was sleeping with. You know who they were?”

“I have a suspicion about who three of them were.”

“Only three, eh? And is this just a suspicion?”

“None of them ever admitted it to me outright. One of them is a patient I don't feel I know all that well, I only see him in group, but he made some comments to me a while back. And Elizabeth said things. Nothing specific . . .”

“Have you asked any of them about her? Since this Elizabeth woman was killed, I mean.”

“Not directly.”

Rubenfeld leaned forward, now peering at Randi over the top of his glasses. “This isn't one of those ‘I've got a friend with a problem' deals, is it?”

“No, no, no. Of course not.”

“You weren't drawn into this little web yourself, were you?”

She did her best to meet his off-kilter gaze and said, “No.” She replied to his dubious look by saying, “I would tell you.”

“But she took a run at you, am I right?”

Randi sat back. “Yes,” she admitted.

“All right,” he said with another wave of his hand, “go on.”

“The police want me to cooperate with their investigation. If they have it their way I'd tell them everything I know about each of my patients, just on the chance it might help them solve the murder.”

“And this is only topic number one?”

“Yes.”

“What's next, world peace?”

Randi managed a wan smile. “No. The next two subjects are my personal life and my future as a practitioner.”

Rubenfeld started to laugh so hard he doubled over and began coughing. “You really are some piece of work, you know that?” He rubbed the palm of his hand across the top of his mostly bald pate. “Well, I don't have a class until day after tomorrow. Maybe if we talk until then we can make some headway.”

She watched as Rubenfeld lit his pipe. It was part of an age-old routine. He would light it, take a single puff, then ignore it as it went cold again.

“Let's start with the ethics problem,” he said as he exhaled a small amber cloud of smoke. “Honoring the confidences of your patients is more than a matter of your personal integrity, it is an absolute obligation.”

“I understand that. But this is murder.”

“And murder is a terrible thing. But so is forcible incest. Spousal abuse. Molestation. Where do you draw the line on where you're allowed to betray these confidences? Will you reveal the confidences of a murderer but protect a sodomizer of children? How about an adulterer who contracts HIV and may infect a spouse?”

“I understand the issue.”

“Oh, good. Do you also understand the difference between someone threatening to commit a heinous act and someone who confesses a horrible deed that is already done? And, by the way, who gets to make these moral judgments? You? Who the hell died and left you in charge? A secret is a secret, a confidence is a confidence. There is no ambiguity here, it's black and white.” He struck another match. “Unless you're being warned about a crime that is about to be committed, you have no right to share these secrets with anyone. That leaves you with the problem of how to protect your patients, your practice and, by the way, yourself.” He lit the tobacco remaining in his pipe, then blew out the match just as it was about to burn his fingers. “But you've omitted one critical piece of information.” He stared at his former student through his thick lenses. “Do you actually know who murdered this woman?”

Randi Conway stared back at him, this man she respected and trusted more than any she had ever known. “I'm not sure,” she said. “I'm afraid that I might not be seeing things I should.”

“The abused woman who stabbed her husband, for instance?”

Randi nodded. “For instance.”

“You simply can't bring yourself to believe she'd be capable of murdering this Elizabeth, eh?”

“No.”

“Of course not,” Rubenfeld responded with a rheumatic chuckle as his pipe went out again. He drew on it, saw it was dead, then tossed it on his desk, cold ashes flying out of the bowl, scattering among the others already strewn amidst the clutter. “No decent therapist wants to believe a patient is capable of a horrible deed like murder. Before therapy, fine, that's perfect. They had problems, that's why they came to see you in the first place. Or worst case, they do something terrible after your therapy is completed, when they're not your patient anymore. Not so terrific, but what the hell, she was beyond your influence, you can forgive yourself. But doing something terrible while a patient is still in your care? That's the ultimate proof you've failed, you've cocked it up completely, you're an imbecile and that's that. Am I right?” When she hesitated, he said, “Of course I'm right.”

“I see your point, but I still don't believe she's the murderer.”

“Fine,” the professor responded with a dismissive flick of his wrist, “that's good enough for me. We've decided this woman is not guilty. So who's the next suspect? Let's get back to all the men this Elizabeth was screwing. Any of them you don't like?”

Randi shook her head.

“What about the husband? Don't the police think it was the husband? You're telling me the woman was cheating on him all over town, right?”

“The police say he had an alibi.”

“Ah, an alibi.” He rolled that one again on his tongue. “An alibi. Good, now we can start talking like TV show detectives. Alibi,” he repeated derisively. “Forget the alibi. Give him the third degree. Work him over. Throw the book at him.”

Randi tried to force a smile, but Rubenfeld waved it off.

“Don't humor me,” he told her. “Tell me who else you aren't looking at.”

“I really don't know.”

“Yourself?”

“Me?”

“Hey, don't look so upset, I don't mean that you murdered this woman. I mean you were never any good at looking at yourself. That's why I was always so concerned about you. You've always avoided your own feelings. You lose yourself in your work, you hide behind the problems of these strangers you treat.”

She wanted to say something, but just stared at him dumbly.

“What about this policeman you mentioned?”

“What about him?”

“When you started telling me this saga, you mentioned your personal life. The way you talked about him, I was wondering . . .”

“Detective Walker,” Randi interrupted, as if stating his name would explain something.

“Is that what you call him, ‘Detective Walker'? How intimate.”

This time Randi could not help but laugh. “We're not intimate. And sometimes I call him Anthony.”

“Ah, now we
are
getting someplace.”

“I thought you wanted to discuss who might have murdered Elizabeth.”

“Is that what you thought, that I'm interested in solving a murder? Not my line of work, young lady. My only interest here is you.”

She stared at him.

“All right, all right. Let's get back to these guys who slept with this Elizabeth. The men you know about.”

Randi shook her head slowly. “They're patients. One of them I don't see privately, only in group. I don't feel I know him very well.”

“So you said,” Rubenfeld reminded her impatiently. “Tell me, Randi, do you think I'm not listening or am I starting to look a touch senile?”

She sighed.

“So then,” Rubenfeld announced triumphantly, “the man you don't know very well, he must be the murderer, because you had the least influence on him. It's obvious, no?”

She lowered her head and looked at him with a disapproving grimace.

“Fine,” Rubenfeld said, announcing his willingness to abandon criticism for the moment. “First you have to be honest with yourself, which, as I've said, is not your long suit. If you really don't know anything specific that would identify the murderer, you have no right to disclose a random selection of secrets you've learned from your patients just so the police can pick through them to make their own misguided judgments. If there is something concrete, if you have direct information that could help solve the case, that's when the true dilemma arises.”

Randi nodded obediently. “And then what?”

“The police can compel your testimony in a murder case. You know that of course.”

“They've threatened that more than once.”

“But they haven't done anything about it yet.”

“No.”

“How interesting.” He appeared pleased. “It sounds like your friend Detective Anthony Walker may have more interest in protecting you than in finding a killer.”

The look she gave him said she had already wondered about that herself. “I do know that Anthony is concerned I'm in harm's way. With the discovery of Elizabeth's diary, I may be the best person to piece everything together and figure out who killed her. If the murderer finds out about the diary, well, you see where it goes from there.”