The Clinic (9 page)

“I have a certain . . . arm’s-length respect for law enforcement,” he said. “Perhaps because I’m an historian.”

“Have you studied crime history?”

“Not per se. My chief interest is the medieval period, but I’m also interested in Elizabethan history and one account of that age sticks in my mind. During the Elizabethan age, capital punishment was meted out for a wide variety of crimes. Even pickpockets were hanged. Then kindler, gentler souls had their way and the noose was eliminated for less serious offenses. Care to surmise what happened?”

“More crime,” said Milo.

“You get an A, Detective.”

“Do you advocate capital punishment, Professor?”

Seacrest touched his beard. “I don’t know what I advocate, anymore. Losing my wife has shaken up all my preconceptions—what exactly will you be doing to help find Hope’s killer, Dr.

Delaware?”

“Analyzing the file,” I said. “Perhaps talking to some of your wife’s colleagues. Anyone in particular I should start with?”

He shook his head. “Hope and I kept our professional lives separate.”

“You don’t know anyone she associated with?”

“No, not professionally.”

“What about friends?”

“We really didn’t have any. I know that’s hard to believe, but we both led very insular lives.

Work, writing, Hilde, trying to steal bits of privacy.”

“Must have been harder after the book came out.”

“For Hope it was. She kept me out of the limelight.”

Insular. Little boxes . . .

“Professor,” said Milo, “is the name Robert Barone familiar?”

Slow headshake.

“What about Milan Cruvic?”

“No. Who are they?”

“People your wife worked with.”

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“Well, there you go. I wouldn’t know about that.”

“Totally separate, huh?” said Milo.

“It worked best for us.” Seacrest turned to me. “When you do speak to Hope’s colleagues, I’m willing to bet what they tell you.”

“What’s that, Professor?”

“That she was brilliant but a loner. A first-rate scholar and teacher.” His hands balled.

“Gentlemen, pardon me for saying so, but I don’t believe this approach will prove useful.”

“What approach is that, sir?” said Milo.

“Examining Hope’s academic career. That’s not what killed her. It was thatbook. Getting out into what’s known laughably as thereal world. She had the courage to be controversial and that controversy inspired some schizophrenic fiend or whatever. Dear God . . .”

Rubbing his forehead, he stared at the floor. “Give me the ivory tower any day, Detective.

Spare mereality. ”

Milo asked if we could see Hope’s study.

“As you like. Do you mind if I stay down here and have some tea?”

“Not at all.”

“Up the stairs and take the first room to your left. Look anywhere else you please.”

At the top were three smallish bedrooms and a bath off a central landing. The room to the left was walled with budget Swedish-modern cases jammed top to bottom with journals and books, the shelves bowing under the weight. Venetian blinds shielded two windows. The furniture looked strewn rather than placed: two mismatched chairs, a desk, and a workstand with PC, printer, modem, software manuals. The American Psychological Association’s Style Guide, dictionary, thesaurus.

Next to the computer were several copies of an article Hope Devane had authored last year inThe Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Coauthor: Casey Locking. “Self-Control As a Function of Gender Identity.”

I read the abstract. No significant differences between men and women in the ability to control nail-biting using a behavioral technique. No relationship between success and subjects’ views on sex-role behavior and equality. InWolves and Sheep Hope claimed women were superior to men in breaking bad habits because estrogen had an “impulse-suppressing” role. The sole exception: compulsive overeating, because societal pressure created body-image conflict in women.

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The article said just the opposite. I turned to the Discussion section at the back. Hope and Locking hedged their results by stating that their sample was too small.

As Milo opened drawers and read the spines of shelved books, I inspected the rest of the room.

Loose journals and books covered half the floorspace. A red wool throw was tossed carelessly over a box. Just like the carton Locking had carried out, the same neat black lettering.

Five sealed cartons from Hope Devane’s publisher stampedWOLVES AND SHEEP, COMP.

COPIES were shoved into a corner. Unopened reams of computer paper.

The lettered box contained more of Hope’s published papers, Locking the coauthor on two of them. No authorship for the other student, Mary Ann Gonsalvez.

Teacher’s pet?

Judging from the conduct-committee transcripts, Locking had been a kindred spirit.

More than that?

He was young, bright, good-looking if you like the brooding underwear-ad type.

Younger man, older woman.

First I’d wondered about Locking and Seacrest, now I was speculating about a heterosexual affair.

Sin on the brain, Delaware?

But the wound pattern connoted sin—someone’s idea of transgression made good.

Heart, vagina. Stabbing in the back.

The heat of passion buttressed by cold planning.

Seacrestseemed the bloodless type.

Had he shed blood?

Milo fished some more, then said, “Anything?”

I told him about the discrepancy between the self-control article and the book.

“Like you said, she fudged.” He looked through the office door, across the landing, and cocked his head. I followed him out to Seacrest’s office.

Also book-lined and furnished with aesthetic apathy, but pin-neat.

Next, Seacrest’s bedroom. Now that he had it all to himself, the historian kept his sleeping space tidy. Queen-sized brass bed, floral coverlet tucked so tight it looked painted on the
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mattress.

We went downstairs. Seacrest was nowhere in sight.

Milo said, “Professor?” and Seacrest came into the dining room from the kitchen, mug in hand.

The tag and string of a tea bag dangled over the side. University mascot on the mug.

“Anything else you’d like to see?”

“Where are Dr. Devane’s professional records—patient files, things like that?”

“Anything not here would be in her campus office.”

“I’ve been through that and there are no patient files.”

“Then I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Did she have a private office?”

“No.”

“Did she see patients here?”

“No.”

“Did she see patients at all?”

“She never discussed her work.”

“I’m not talking specifics, Professor Seacrest. Just if she saw any patients.”

“If she did she never mentioned it. We didn’t talk about our jobs. Only . . . scholarly issues.”

Seacrest touched his tattoo.

“Navy?” said Milo.

“Coast Guard.” Seacrest smiled. “A moment of poor judgment.”

“Where’d you serve?”

“Off Catalina Island. More of a vacation, I’m forced to admit.”

“So you’re from California.”

“Grew up right here. In this house. Campus brat. My father was a chemistry professor.”

“And Hope’s?”

“Hope’s parents are both deceased. As are mine. Neither of us had siblings. I suppose I’m all that’s left of both families.”

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I knew what Milo was thinking:sole heir.

“What did her father do?” he said.

“He was a sailor. Merchant marine. He died when Hope was very young. She didn’t talk much about him.”

“And her mother?”

“Her mother worked in a restaurant.” Seacrest headed for the door. “As I told the first detectives, she’s also deceased and Hope had no other family.”

Milo said, “Quite a skill.”

“What is?”

“Keeping your professional lives separate. Keeping things separate, in general.”

Seacrest licked his lips. “Not at all. Quite the opposite, actually.”

“It was easy?”

“Certainly. Because we respected each other.” Opening the door, he extended an arm outside.

“Warm night,” he said. “The night it happened was much cooler.”

Milo drove Wilshire Boulevard through the corridor of high-rise condos that made up L.A.’s nod to Park Avenue.

“Diagnosis?” he said.

“He’s not Mr. Warmth but he’s got reason to be depressed. He could be hiding something or really not know much. Bottom line: nothing earth-shattering.”

“And Mr. Locking?”

“The skull ring was cute. First I found myself wondering about a relationship between him and Seacrest, then between him and Hope.”

“Him and Seacrest? Why?”

“Locking driving that car seemed awfully personal, though Seacrest’s barter explanation could cover that. Also, Seacrest seemed to be delaying letting us in and once he did, he called upstairs to say the police were there. Which could have been his way of warning Locking. Giving him time to get his clothes on? All of which is pure supposition.”

“Okay . . . why Locking and Hope?”

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“You’ve wondered all along about her having an affair. Most affairs begin at work and Locking was the guy she worked with. And after marriage to someone like Seacrest, she might have been ready for a little excitement.”

“Black leather and a skull ring,” he said, drumming the steering wheel and heading into Westwood Village. Like so much else in L.A., the district had been intellectually downscaled, the bookstores of my college days surrendering to games arcades, gyro shacks, and insta-latte assembly-line franchises.

“What I found interesting,” he said, “was the way Seacrest suggested the murder could be blamed on the book. Insisting it had nothing to do with her academic life. Which distances it fromhim. I’ve seen killers who think they’re smart do that—give out alternative scenarios. That way they can look helpful while thinking they’re steering us away from them. And that dog. Who better to slip her a nice big steak laced with God-knows-what. And now he’s given her away.”

“Getting rid of the reminders.”

He made an ugly sound and loosened his tie. “Locking and Hope, Locking and Seacrest. Guess I’ll make use of some of my homosexualcontacts. Maybe the lieutenant was right and I am the perfect guy for the case.”

“I wonder,” I said, “why it took so long for Locking to come get his data. Hope’s been dead three months. That’s a lot of time when you’re working on your dissertation. Then again, Locking hasn’t found a new advisor so maybe he’s having trouble adjusting to Hope’s death.

Maybe because they had more going than a student-teacher thing. Or, he’s just a hang-loose guy in no great hurry to finish. You see that in grad school. Though his go-round with Kenneth Storm was anything but mellow.”

“What do you think of Hope appointing her own prize student to the committee?”

“Packing the jury. She could have justified it in the name of efficiency. Seacrest said she distrusted organizations, and everything else tells us she wasn’t much of a team player.”

“That’s why I’m interested in meeting people she did work with. Lawyer Barone’s still ignoring me but Dr. Cruvic left a message saying he’ll see me briefly at ten-thirty tomorrow morning.

Care to come, psych him out?”

“Sure.”

“Not a team player,” he said. “Cowgirl with a Ph.D. Sometimes cowgirls get thrown.”

The following day I met Milo for breakfast at Nate ’n Al’s on Beverly, then we drove to Dr.

Cruvic’s office on Civic Center Drive.

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Interesting location for a private practitioner. Most of Beverly Hills’s medical suites are housed in the stylish neo-Federal buildings that line North Bedford, Roxbury, and Camden, and in the big reflective towers on Wilshire.

Civic Center was the northern edge of the city’s meager industrial district, a few nondescript blocks that paralleled Santa Monica Boulevard but were blocked from motorists’ view by tall hedges and eucalyptus. Unused railroad tracks cut diagonally through the street. Past the tracks were a pink granite office complex, the frosted-glass headquarters of a record company, and the neo-retro-post-whatever-revival municipal center that contained Beverly Hills’s city hall, library, police and fire departments.

Development hadn’t come yet to the other side of the tracks, where Cruvic’s pink stucco Spanish building shared space with an assortment of narrow, shabby/cute single- and double-story structures dating from World War I and earlier. The doctor’s immediate neighbors were a beauty parlor, a telephone answering service, and an unmarked building with a loading dock. The pink building had no front windows, just a massive wood-and-iron door like those you see in Spain and Italy and Greece, leading to courtyards. A ring-in buzzer was topped by a tarnished bronze sign so small it seemed intent on avoiding discovery.M. CRUVIC, M.D. etched shallowly.

Milo punched the buzzer and we waited. But for the hum of the cars on Santa Monica, the street was sleepy. Geraniums grew out of boxes in the beautician’s window. In all my years in L.A., I’d never had a reason to be here.

Milo knew what I was thinking. “Looks like someone else likes privacy.”

Rubbing his lip with his lower teeth, he pushed the buzzer again.

Electric bee-buzz response, the click of release. He shoved at the heavy wood and we stepped in.

On the other side was a courtyard. Flagstone-floored, open to the sky, set up with potted bananas, flax plants, azaleas. A small iron table and two chairs. Ashtray on the table. Two lipsticked butts. The interior building was two stories with barred windows and hand-wrought balconies. Two doors. The right one opened and a woman in a light blue uniform came out.

“Right here.” Throaty voice. She pointed to the left.

She was around fifty, trim and brunette with a very large bust, a tight, shiny, tan face, and dancer’s calves.

“Detective Sturgis? I’m Anna, come on in.” She gave a one-second smile, led us to the left, and opened the door. “Dr. Cruvic will be right with you. Can I get you some coffee? We have an espresso machine.”