When the Bough Breaks (28 page)

When I saw the door shut after her I walked to the file cabinet. The drawer she’d opened was labeled “Staff A-G.” Two drawers down I found what I wanted. Into the old briefcase it went.

I was waiting by the door when she came out, flushed, pink and pretty, and smelling of patchouli. I extended my arm and she took it.

Over hospital coffee I listened to her talk. About her divorce—a seven-year-old wound that wouldn’t heal—the teenage daughter who was driving her crazy by doing exactly what she’d done as an adolescent, car troubles, the insensitivity of her superiors, the unfairness of life.

It was bizarre, getting to know for the first time a woman whose body I’d entered. In the scrambled word game of contemporary mating rituals, there was greater intimacy in her tales of woe than there had been in the opening of her thighs.

We parted friends.

“Come by again, Alex.”

“I will.”

I walked to the parking lot marveling at the ease with which I was able to slip on the cloak of duplicity. I’d always flattered myself with a self-assessment of integrity. But in the last three days I’d grown proficient at sneak-thievery, concealment of the truth, bald-faced lying and emotional whoring.

It must be the company I’d been keeping.

I drove to a cozy Italian place in West Hollywood. The restaurant had just opened and I was alone in my rear corner booth. I ordered veal in wine sauce, a side order of linguini with oil and garlic, and a Coors.

A shuffling waiter brought the beer. While I waited for the food I opened the briefcase and examined my plunder.

Towle’s medical staff file was over forty pages long. Most of it consisted of Xeroxes of his diplomas, certificates and awards. His curriculum vitae was twenty pages of puffery, markedly devoid of scholarly publications—he’d coauthored one brief report while an intern, and nothing since—and filled with television and radio interviews, speeches to lay groups, volunteer service to La Casa and similar organizations. Yet he was a full clinical professor at the medical school. So much for academic rigor.

The waiter brought a salad and a basket of rolls. I picked up my napkin with one hand, started to return the file to the briefcase with the other, when something on the front page of the resumé caught my eye.

Under
college or university attended
, he’d listed Jedson College, Bellevue, Washington.

20

I GOT HOME
, called the
L.A. Times
, and asked for Ned Biondi at the Metro desk. Biondi was a senior writer for the paper, a short, nervous character right out of
The Front Page
. I’d treated his teenage daughter for anorexia nervosa several years back. Biondi hadn’t been able to come up with the money for treatment on a journalist’s salary—compounded with a penchant for playing the wrong horse at Santa Anita—but the girl had been in trouble and I’d let it go. It had taken him a year and a half to clear his debt. His daughter had gotten straightened out after months of my chipping away at layers of self-hatred that were surprisingly ossified in someone seventeen years old. I remembered her clearly, a tall, dark youngster who wore jogging shorts and T-shirts that accentuated the skeletal conditions of her body; a girl ashen-faced and spindly legged who alternated between deep, dark spells of brooding silence and flights of hyperactivity during which she was ready to enter every category of Olympic competition on three hundred calories a day.

I’d gotten her admitted to Western Pediatric, where she’d stayed for three weeks. That, followed by months of psychotherapy, had finally gotten through to her, and allowed her to deal with the mother who was too beautiful, the brother who was too athletic, and the father who was too witty …

“Biondi.”

“Ned, this is Alex Delaware.”

It took a second for my name, minus title to register.

“Doctor! How are you.”

“I’m fine. How’s Anne Marie?”

“Very well. She’s finishing up her second year at Wheaton—in Boston. She got A’s and a few B’s, but the B’s didn’t panic her. She’s still
too rough on herself, but she seems to be adjusting well to the peaks and troughs of life, as you called them. Her weight is stable at a hundred and two.”

“Excellent. Give my regards when you speak to her.”

“I certainly will. It’s nice of you to call.”

“Well actually there’s more to this than professional follow-up.”

“Oh?” A foxy edge, the conditioned vigilance of one who pried open locked boxes for a living, came into his voice.

“I need a favor.”

“Name it.”

“I’m flying up north to Seattle tonight. I need to get into some transcripts at a small college near there. Jedson.”

“Hey, that’s not what I expected. I thought you wanted a blurb about a book in the Sunday edition or something. This sounds serious.”

“It is.”

“Jedson. I know it. Anne-Marie was going to apply there—we figured a small place would be less pressure for her—but it was fifty percent more expensive than Wheaton, Reed, and Oberlin—and they’re no giveaways themselves. What do you want with their transcripts?”

“I can’t say.”

“Doctor.” He laughed. “Pardon the expression, but you’re prick-teasing. I’m a professional snoop. Dangle something weird in front of me I get a hard-on.”

“What makes you think anything’s weird?”

“Doctors running around trying to get into files is weird. Usually it’s the shrinks who get broken into, if my memory serves me correctly.”

“I can’t go into it now, Ned.”

“I’m good with a secret, Doc.”

“No. Not yet. Trust me. You did before.”

“Below the belt, Doc.”

“I know. And I wouldn’t gut-punch you if it wasn’t important. I need your help. I may be onto something, maybe not. If I am you’ll be the first to hear about it.”

“Something big?”

I thought about it for a moment.

“Could be.”

“Okay,” he sighed, “what do you want me to do?”

“I’m giving your name as a reference. If anyone calls you, back up my story.”

“What’s the story?”

He listened.

“It seems harmless enough. Of course,” he added cheerfully, “if you get found out I’ll probably be out of a job.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Yeah. What the hell, I’m getting ready for the gold watch, anyway.” There was a pause, as if he were fantasizing life after retirement. Apparently he didn’t like what he saw, because when he came back on the line, there was verve in his voice and he offered a reporter’s priapic lament.

“I’m gonna go nuts wondering about this. You sure you don’t want to give me a hint about what you’re up to?”

“I can’t, Ned.”

“Okay, okay. Go spin your yarn and keep me in mind if you knit a sweater.”

“I will. Thanks.”

“Oh, hell, don’t thank me, I still feel crummy about taking all that time to pay you. I look at my baby now and I see a pink-cheeked, smiling young lady, a beauty. She’s still a little too thin for my taste, but she’s not a walking corpse like before. She’s normal, at least as far as I can tell. She can smile now. I owe you, Doctor.”

“Stay well, Ned.”

“You too.”

I hung up. Biondi’s words of gratitude made me entertain a moment’s doubt about my own retirement. Then I thought of bloody bodies and doubt got up and took a seat in the rear of the hearse.

It took several false starts and stops to reach the right person at Jedson College.

“Public relations, Ms. Dopplemeier.”

“Ms. Dopplemeier, this is Alex Delaware. I’m a writer with the
Los Angeles Times.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Delaware?”

“I’m doing a feature on the small colleges of the West, concentrating on institutions that are not well-known but academically excellent nonetheless. Claremont, Occidental, Reed, etcetera. We’d like to include Jedson in the piece.”

“Oh, really?” She sounded surprised, as if it was the first time anyone had labeled Jedson academically excellent. “That would be very nice, Mr. Delaware. I’d be happy to talk to you right now and answer any questions you might have.”

“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. I’m aiming for a more personal approach. My editor is less interested in statistics than in color. The tenor of the story is that small colleges offer a degree of personal contact and—intimacy—that is missing from the larger universities.”

“How true.”

“I’m actually visiting the campuses, chatting with staff and students—it’s an impression piece.”

“I understand exactly what you mean. You want to come across with a voice that’s human.”

“Exactly. That’s a marvelous way of putting it.”

“I did two years at a trade paper in New Jersey before coming to Jedson.” Within the soul of every flack there lurks a journalistic homunculus, chafing to be released to proclaim “Scoop!” to the ears of the world.

“Ah, a kindred soul.”

“Well, I’ve left it, but I do think of going back from time to time.”

“It’s no way to get rich, but it does keep me hopping, Ms. Dopplemeier.”

“Margaret.”

“Margaret. I’m planning to fly up tonight and wondered if I might come by tomorrow and pay you a visit.”

“Let me check.” I heard paper rustling. “How about at eleven?”

“Fine.”

“Is there anything you’d like me to do by way of preparation?”

“One thing we’re looking at is what happens to graduates of small colleges. I’d be interested in hearing about some of your notable alumni. Doctors, lawyers, that sort of thing.”

“I haven’t had a chance to thoroughly acquaint myself with the alumni roster—I’ve only been here for a few months. But I’ll ask around and find out who can help you.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“Where can I reach you if I need to?”

“I’ll be in transit most of the time. You can leave any message with my colleague at the
Times
, Edward Biondi.” I gave her Ned’s number.

“Very good. It’s all set for tomorrow at eleven. The college is in Bellevue, just outside of Seattle. Do you know where that is?”

“On the east shore of Lake Washington?” Years back I’d been a guest lecturer at the University of Washington and had visited my host’s home in Bellevue. I remembered it as an upper-middle-class bedroom community of aggressively contemporary homes, straight-edge lawns and low-rise shopping centers occupied by gourmet shops, antique galleries and high-priced haberdasheries.

“That’s correct. If you’re coming from downtown take 1-5 to 520 which turns into the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. Drive all the way across the bridge to the east shore, turn south at Fairweather and continue along the coastline. Jedson is on Meydenbauer Bay, right next to the yacht club. I’m on the first floor of Crespi Hall. Will you be staying for lunch?”

“I can’t say for sure. It depends upon how my time is running.” And what I find.

“I’ll have something prepared for you, just in case.”

“That’s very kind of you, Margaret.”

“Anything for a fellow journalist, Alex.”

My next call was to Robin. It took her nine rings to answer.

“Hi.” She was out of breath. “I had the big saw going, didn’t hear you. What’s up?”

“I’m going out of town for a couple of days.”

“Tahiti, without me?”

“Nothing quite so romantic. Seattle.”

“Oh. Detective work?”

“Call it biographical research.” I told her about Towle’s having attended Jedson.

“You’re really going after this guy.”

“He’s going after me. When I was at W.P. this morning Henry Bork grabbed me in the hall, trundled me off to his office and delivered a not-so-subtle version of the old arm twist. Seems Towle’s been questioning my ethics in public. He keeps cropping up, like toadstools after a flood. He and Kruger share an alma mater and it makes me want to know more about the ivy-covered halls of Jedson.”

“Let me come up with you.”

“No. It’s going to be all business. I’ll take you on a real vacation, after this is all over.”

“The thought of you going up there all alone depresses me. It’s dreary this time of year.”

“I’ll be fine. You just take care of yourself and get some work done. I’ll call you when I get settled.”

“You’re sure you don’t want me to come along?”

“You know I love your company, but there’ll be no time for sightseeing. You’d be miserable.”

“All right,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too. I love you. Take care.”

“The same goes for you. Love you, sweetie. Bye bye.”

“Bye.”

I took a 9 p.m. flight out of LAX and landed at Sea-Tac Airport at 11:25. I picked up a rented Nova at a Hertz desk. It was no Seville but it did have an F.M. radio that someone had left on a classical station. A Bach organ fugue in a minor key unraveled out of the dash speaker and I didn’t cut it off: the music matched my mood. I confirmed my reservation at the Westin, drove away from the airport, connected to the Interstate highway and headed north toward downtown Seattle.

The sky was as cold and hard as a handgun. Minutes after I hit the blacktop the gun proved to be loaded: it fired a blast of thunder and the water started coming down. Soon it was one of those angry North-west
torrents that transforms a highway into miles of drive-thru car wash.

“Welcome to the Pacific Northwest,” I said out loud.

Pine, spruce and fir grew in opaque stands on both sides of the road. Starlit billboards advertised rustic motels and diners offering logger’s breakfasts. Except for semis groaning under loads of timber I was the road’s sole traveler. I thought to myself how nice it would be to be heading for a mountain cabin, Robin at my side, with a trunkload of fishing gear and provisions. I felt a sudden pang of loneliness and longed for human contact.

I reached downtown shortly after midnight. The Westin rose like a giant steel-and-glass test tube amid the darkened laboratory of the city. My seventh-floor room was decent, with a view of Puget Sound and the harbor to the west, Lake Washington and the islands to the east. I kicked off my shoes and stretched out on the bed, tired, but too jumpy for sleep.

I caught the sign-off edition of the news on a local station. The anchor man was wooden-jawed and shifty-eyed, and reported the day’s events impersonally. He lent identical emphasis to an account of mass murder in Ohio and the hockey scores. I cut him off in midsentence, turned off the lights, stripped down in darkness and stared at the harbor lights until I fell asleep.