Over the Edge

9

SOUZA'S STEAK bled as he cut into it, forming a pinkish puddle around the meat that spread and coated the white bone china plate. He inserted a chunk of sirloin in his mouth, chewed slowly, swallowed, wiped his lips, and nodded.

"He was that way when I saw him early this morning," he said. "Stuporous."

We were alone in the dining room of his law building. The room was hushed and dim, an Anglophile's fantasy. An oval Victorian table of mahogany polished to a mirror glow stretched nearly the length of the room, ringed by matching chairs upholstered in floral brocade. An oversized stone mantel liberated from some draughty Hampshire manor dominated one wall. Above it a collection of hunting prints surrounded a framed heraldic crest. Silk Persian rugs spread over dark parquet floors. The walls were carved, waxed, knotty pine panels hung with antique Punch caricatures and more hunt scenes. Fluted pedestals in each corner supported marble busts of men of letters. Heavy drapes of the same brocade that covered the chairs had been drawn over tall, arched windows, and the sole source of light was a Waterford chandelier suspended above the table's centre.

"One of the deputies told me he was agitated when he first came into the jail but has been withdrawing steadily," I said.

"That's an accurate assessment. The entire history has been one of deterioration. At the time of his commitment to Canyon Oaks he displayed long stretches of lucidity — days at a time. Anyone talking to him during those periods would have wondered what he was doing there. He was a brilliant boy before the… troubles, and his facility with the language was damn near awe-inspiring. He'd use his intellect to try to convince others that he'd been wrongfully committed. He was so good that even I found myself questioning the wisdom of the decision once or twice. But eventually, if you spent enough time with him, the psychosis emerged."

"In what way?"

"A misplaced word here, a jumbled thought there. The pairing of topics that bore no logical relation to one another. He'd begin a sentence and trail off into silence or add details that didn't fit. Attempts to question him about it made him acutely upset, often to the point of hysteria — jumping to his feet; making outrageous accusations; screaming. Eventually the lucid periods diminished, and he became more confused, less predictable. It became impossible to hold a normal conversation with him. Profoundly paranoid is the phrase Dr. Mainwaring used. Now" — he shook his head and sighed — "apparently it's got even worse."

"By less predictable, do you mean violent?"

"Not really, though I suppose unrestrained, he might have been able to do some damage. He'd flail out, jump up and down, clutch his face, tear at his hair. He may have been mildly assaultive on one or two occasions, but before the escape he had never hurt anyone. No one ever considered him homicidal, if that's what you mean."

"This morning he was drooling and trembling and making sucking motions with his mouth. Have you seen that before?"

"I noticed it for the first time yesterday. Of course, I haven't been in close enough contact with him to be certain he hasn't been that way before. What do these symptoms mean?"

"I'm not sure yet. I'll need a detailed record of any treatment he's received — medication, electroconvulsive therapy, psychotherapy, everything."

His eyebrows rose.

"Are you implying some kind of toxic reaction?"

"At this point I don't know enough to imply anything."

"Very well," he said with some disappointment. "I'll set up a meeting with Mainwaring, and he can fill you in. Be sure to let me know if you feel there's brain damage of any sort. It could prove useful."

"I'll keep you posted."

He looked at the untouched meal on my plate.

"Not hungry?"

"Not right now."

After lifting a glass of ice water to his mouth, he sipped and put it down before speaking.

"The severity of his condition has got me thinking, Doctor. I'd originally considered petitioning for a delay based upon incompetence to stand trial but decided against it. At that time I felt the chance of success was nil. He was disturbed but still verbal with occasional flashes of brilliance; a psychiatrist talking to him at the wrong time might have mistakenly assumed malingering. In a highly publicised case judges tend to play it conservative; few of them have the gumption to cope with the hue and cry certain to result from a delay. Now, however, I don't know. If he maintains this level of deterioration or gets worse, even the prosecution psychiatrists may agree he's incompetent. What do you think?"

"Have you yourself suspected him of malingering?"

He'd begun cutting another piece of meat, and the question stilled his knife and fork and caused him to look up.

"No, not really. I know he's quite ill."

"But not so ill that he couldn't pull off eight murders that required careful planning."

He put the utensils down.

"You come right to the point, don't you, Doctor? No matter, I like that. Yes, you're right. We're not dealing with one cathartic explosion of bloodlust; the slashings were carried out with a perverse kind of care and attention to detail. That suggests detachment and the ability to think analytically, which poses a problem for the whole notion of an insanity defence. But I believe I have a way of dealing with that problem, which I'll come to later. In any event, what's your opinion regarding a petition for delay?"

"What would a delay mean in practical terms?"

"Involuntary commitment until such time as he's judged competent, which in this case may be if, not when. But would the boy's interests be best served by such a move? The commitment would have to be at a state hospital, and those places are horrors. He'd end up on a back ward, which might be a death sentence in itself. If I take the case to trial and the diminished capacity defence is successful, there'd be more flexibility in arranging his subsequent care."

I knew what he had in mind. Another private hospital, where the family's money would play a major role in influencing treatment and discharge decisions. There Jamey could be put away long enough for the furore to die down and then quietly released as an outpatient in the care of his guardians.

A chilling scenario ran through my head. Would he end up yet another psychological time bomb let out on the street with little more than a prescription for Thorazine and an appointment with a therapist because some expert had misread behavioural suppression as significant improvement? If so, the gradual fade to noncompliance was depressingly predictable — pills not swallowed, appointments not kept — as were its consequences: the inexorable return of the demons. Confusion, pain. Night walks. The sudden lashing out fuelled by paranoiac fury. Blood.

Up to this point I'd been able to involve myself in Jamey's case — to sit across from him and feel compassion — because I'd disassociated myself from the crimes of which he'd been accused, denying the possibility that he'd butchered eight human beings. But even Souza, it seemed, assumed he was guilty, and listening to him talking strategy and discussing flexibility of care was forcing me to confront the consequences of my involvement.

If Jamey had done what they said he had, I didn't want flexibility. I wanted him locked up forever.

Which made me a hell of a defence expert.

Mal Worthy had talked about the emotional balm that resulted from cutting off one's feelings, from detaching values from actions. But I was no attorney and could never be. I watched Souza slice a wedge of steak and pop it in his mouth and wondered how long I'd last on his team.

"I don't know," I said. "It's a tough question."

"Well, Doctor" — he smiled — "it's my problem, not yours."

He pushed aside his plate, and the lower part of his face disappeared, momentarily, behind a cloud of white linen.

"I can ring the kitchen for something else if you'd like — some fruit or coffee?"

"No, thanks."

There was a brass dish filled with after-dinner mints next to the water pitcher. He offered it to me and, after I'd declined, took a mint himself. A button under the table edge summoned a black-uniformed Filipino woman who cleared the dishes.

"Now then," he said, when she was gone, "what would you like to know about the Cadmus family?"

"Let's start with Jamey's caretaker history and the significant relationships in his life, including the details of his parents' deaths."

"All right," he said contemplatively. "To understand all of that, it's best to go back a generation and start with his grandfather."

"Fine." I pulled out a notepad and pen.

"I met John Jacob Cadmus in Germany right after the war. I was a legal officer assigned to the War Criminals Investigation Section, and he was a field representative for the adjutant general's office in charge of processing the bastards. He'd begun the war as an infantry private, served heroically in several major battles, and ended up a colonel at the age of twenty-seven. We became friends, and when I returned to California, Black Jack — he was called that because of his black Irish colouring — decided to come with me. He was from Baltimore, but his roots were shallow, and the West was the land of opportunity.

"He was a visionary, foresaw the postwar baby boom and the housing shortage it would bring. Back in those days the San Fernando Valley was undeveloped — a few ranches and orchards, some federal acreage set aside for military bases that were never built, the rest dust and scrub. Jack set about buying up as much Valley land as he could. He borrowed himself heavily into debt but managed to stall the creditors long enough to educate himself about architecture and construction and hire work crews. By the time the boom arrived he'd built dozens of huge housing tracts — thousands of units, mostly five-room bungalows on forty-by-eighty lots. He made sure each one had a fruit tree — orange, lemon, apricot — and advertised nationally, selling the California dream. The houses sold as fast as he could put them up, and by the age of thirty he was a millionaire several times over. Eventually he expanded to commercial and industrial projects, and by 1960 Cadmus Construction was the third largest builder in the state. When he died, in sixty-seven, the company had initiated major projects in Saudi Arabia, Panama, and half of Europe. He was a great man, Doctor."

It was a paean to a dead man, and I wasn't sure what the point was.

"How was he as a husband and father?" I asked.

Souza was annoyed by the question.

"He loved his boys and was kind to his wife."

A strange answer. My expression reflected it.

"Antoinette was a troubled woman," he explained. "She came from an established Pasadena family that had lost its money but managed to maintain appearances and a foothold on the social ladder. Jack met her at a charity ball and was taken with her immediately. She was a beauty. Slender, very pale, very fragile, with huge, mournful blue eyes — the boy has those same eyes — but I always found her strange. Distant, extremely vulnerable. I imagine it was her very vulnerability that attracted Jack, but soon after the marriage the extent of her problems became evident."

"What kinds of problems?"

"The kinds that fall within your bailiwick. At first it seemed like severe shyness, social withdrawal. Then it became clear that she was terrified of leaving the house, terrified of life itself. I'm sure there's a technical term for it."

"Agoraphobia."

"Agoraphobia," he repeated. "That was Antoinette's problem. Back then, of course, she was thought of as physically ill. Constitutionally weak. As a wedding present, Jack set her up in a glorious Spanish mansion on Muirfield, overlooking the country club, just a few blocks from here; a Pakistani surgeon owns it now. Once ensconced, she never left the place, not even to tour the gardens. In fact, she seldom ventured out of her room, staying in bed all day, scribbling verse on scraps of paper, sipping weak tea, complaining of all sorts of aches and pains. Jack had half the specialists in town on retainer, and each of them supplied nostrums and tonics, but none of it helped. Eventually he gave up and simply let her be, accepting her weakness."

"She was strong enough to bear children," I said.

"Amazing, isn't it? Peter — Jamey's father — was born ten months after the wedding, in forty-eight; Dwight, a year later. Jack hoped the joys of motherhood would pull her out of her depression, but she got worse and had to be sedated for the bulk of both pregnancies. After Dwight's birth her withdrawal deepened, and she rejected the baby, refused to nurse or even to hold it. Things deteriorated to the point where she bolted her door and wouldn't see Peter or Jack. For the next two years she stayed in her room, drinking her tonics and swallowing her pills, writing poetry and napping. She'd cry out in her sleep, as if having horrible nightmares. Then she began to accuse everyone — Jack, the servants, even the children — of conspiring against her, plotting to kill her, the usual paranoid nonsense. When she stopped eating and grew downright skeletal, Jack realised she'd have to be institutionalised and made plans to have her flown to a place in Switzerland. It was supposed to be a secret, but she may have got wind of it because a week later she was dead, overdosed on one of her medications; apparently it contained some kind of opiate, and she ingested enough to stop her heart."

"Who took care of the boys through all this?"

"Jack hired governesses. When they were older, they were sent to boarding schools. He did the best he could under the circumstances, Doctor, which is why I answered your question about what kind of father he was the way I did."

I nodded.

"Schizophrenia is believed to be genetic nowadays, isn't it?" he asked.

"It runs in families. Probably a combination of heredity and environment."

"I view Jamey as very much the product of his genes. The superior intellect is his endowment from Jack. The rest of it comes from the other side — antisocial tendencies, paranoia, a morbid preoccupation with fantasy and poetry. Saddled with such a chemistry, how could he have turned out normal?"

He tried to look empathetic, but his rhetoric had the studied passion of a prepared oration.

Instead of answering his question, I posed one of my own:

"How did the lack of mothering affect Peter and Dwight?"

"They turned out differently, so it's hard to pinpoint an effect per se. Dwight was always a good boy, eager to please. A me-tooer. He staked out the middle road early in life and stayed on it. Peter was another story. Good-looking, wild, always testing the limits. He was bright but never buckled down to studying, and Jack had to endow a building to get him into college. Once accepted, he continued to goof off and was finally expelled after three semesters. Jack should have been more firm with him, but Peter was his favourite, so instead, he indulged him. Sports cars, credit cards, early access to a trust fund. It sliced the spine right out of the boy. Combining that type of permissiveness with the nonsense of the sixties destroyed his character completely."

"Drugs?"

"Drugs, alcohol, promiscuity — all of the counterculture idiocy fed right into Peter's natural hedonism. At the age of nineteen he had a Ferrari. He used it to cruise Sunset Boulevard and pick up girls. One night he drove to a topless bar, took a liking to one of the dancers, flashed his smile and his billfold, and whisked her away to San Francisco. This was in sixty-eight, with the hippie scene in full bloom up there. The two of them jumped right into it — communal living in some Haight-Ashbury dive, swallowing any drug they could get their hands on. Lord knows what else. The leeches they lived with knew a good thing when they saw it, and the trust fund started running dry."

He frowned indignantly.

"Didn't his father try to stop it?"

"Of course he did. He had me hire private detectives, who tracked them down in a matter of days. Jack flew up to talk to Peter and received the shock of his life. The boy he remembered had been outstanding-looking, meticulous to the point of vanity about dress and appearance. In San Francisco Jack came face-to-face with a creature he barely recognised. I still remember his words: 'He looked like a goddamn dead Jesus, Horace, right off the goddamn cross.' As he recounted it, Peter was dirty, smelly, and emaciated, with glazed eyes and blurred speech. His hair was as long as a girl's, tied in a pony tail, and he wore a scraggly, untrimmed beard. Jack ordered him to come home and, when Peter refused, threatened to cut off the money. Peter told him to mind his own business — said it obscenely — and the two of them came to blows. The leeches got in the act, and Jack took a pummeling. He came back to Los Angeles emotionally shattered.

"Eventually the girl became pregnant. She had the baby without benefit of medical attention, used some kind of brown rice diet and home-concocted herbal poultices. It was a difficult delivery, and afterward she bled to death. Somehow the baby survived, and Peter had enough sense scared into him to bring him to a hospital. He was suffering from bronchitis, skin rashes, and other infections but eventually recovered."

He shook his head, remembering.

"And that, Dr. Delaware, is how our boy Jamey came into this world. Not an auspicious beginning, is it?"

I paused in my note taking.

"What was the mother's name?"

"Margaret Norton," he replied absently, as if the name and its owner were inconsequential. "She called herself Margo Sunshine. We did some background investigation on her. A runaway, from New Jersey. One relative: a mother dying of alcohol poisoning. When Peter spotted her dancing naked, she was seventeen. Just another one of the aimless kids who drift out here. But she was in the right place at the right time and ended up a Cadmus."

And dead, I thought, keeping it to myself.

Souza examined his cufflinks and kept talking.

"You can see from all this why I feel the history will support a dim cap defence. Look at what we've got: atrocious genes, prenatal malnutrition, and parental drug abuse, which could certainly lead to some kind of subtle inborn brain damage, couldn't it? Add to that traumatic birth, early infection, and maternal deprivation, and it's a litany of disasters."

"Who raised Jamey?" I asked, ignoring the speech.

"Peter did. Not that he was cut out for it. But for a while he seemed to be growing up, meeting his responsibilities. There'd been some doubt in Jack's mind about the baby's paternity; but the resemblance to Peter was striking, and when they came home, he accepted both of them with open arms, paid for the best doctors, nurses, and nannies, built an elaborate nursery. At first the baby seemed to be bringing Jack and Peter together. They worked hard at amusing him — no easy task because he was colicky and cried constantly. When Peter's patience ran out, Jack was there to step in. They were closer than they'd ever been. Then in November of sixty-nine Jack became ill. Pancreatic cancer. He was gone in a matter of weeks.

"We all were stunned, but the most severely affected was Peter. He was in shock, confronted suddenly by the enormousness of his obligations. For twenty-one years his father had blunted all the rough edges for him, but now he was on his own. In addition to the baby, there was the business to run. Jack was your typical charismatic leader, poor at delegating, kept things in his head or on scraps of paper. His affairs were a mess, and poor Peter was left with the task of sorting it out.

"On the day of the funeral he came to me literally shaking with terror, wondering how he was going to run the company and raise an infant when he couldn't even run his own life. The pathetic truth was, he was right. He had no head for business. Dwight had shown some talent along those lines — he was a business major at Stanford — but he was barely twenty, and I encouraged him to stay in school.

"I set about hiring professional managers, and they reorganised the company on a more conventional basis. It took a year to get it done. All the while Peter was at loose ends. He tried getting involved in corporate affairs but was easily bored. My suggestion that he return to college was shrugged off. There was no purpose in his life, and he sank into depression and started to pull away from the baby. It was history repeating itself, and I urged him to seek psychiatric help. He refused and went rapidly downhill. I'm certain he started taking drugs again. His eyes took on a wild look, and he lost a lot of weight. He'd spend days in his room brooding, then go roaring off in one of his cars and not return for days."

"How did Jamey react to the changes in his father?"

"He seemed to develop independent of Peter's ups and downs. It was obvious early on that he was unusually bright. He'd come toddling around, making precocious remarks clearly aimed at engaging his father's attention. But rather than charm him, the precociousness frightened Peter, and he reacted by rejecting Jamey, actually pushing him away physically.

"I've never been a parent myself, but I knew what that could do to a young child. I talked to Peter about it, but he grew angry and called Jamey a freak, said he was 'spooky'. He worked himself up into a fury talking about it, so I backed off, out of fear for the child's safety."

"Was he always that volatile?"

"Until then, no. Like Jack, he had a short fuse, nothing serious. But it began to get out of hand. Minor things — the little messes children create — what would have annoyed a more stable person enraged him. He had to be restrained more than once from striking out at Jamey with a closed fist. The nannies were instructed to keep a close watch at all times. When he lost all interest in fatherhood, no one tried to talk him out of it."

"Was there ever any actual physical abuse?"

"No. And once Peter refused to be a father, the child was safe, because the withdrawal was absolute. As his mother had done, he shut his door on life and became a hermit. And just as she had, he ended his misery by taking his own life."

"How'd he do it?"

"Hanged himself. The house had a ballroom with high, vaulted ceilings and thick oak crossbeams. Peter stood on a chair, threw a rope over one of the beams, looped it around his neck, and kicked the chair away."

"How old was Jamey when it happened?"

"That was in 1972, so he must have been around three. We shielded him from the details. Do you think he could remember that far back?"

"It's possible. Has he ever talked about it?"

"Only in general terms — not having a father, philosophical questions about suicide. I spoke to Dwight and Heather, and as far as they know, he's never asked for the gory details nor been given any. Did he ever mention anything about hanging to you?"

"No. He was very closed about personal matters. Why is it important?"

"It may be relevant in terms of setting up a defence. The circumstances surrounding the slashings — especially the Chancellor murder — have made me wonder about the influence of early memories upon adult behaviour. All the victims were strangled before being cut, and Dig Chancellor was found suspended from a crossbeam. I'm not a strong believer in coincidence."

"So you're suggesting the murders were symbolic acts of patricide?"

"You're the psychologist, Doctor. I defer to your interpretation."

"Wouldn't it hurt your case to supply motivation for the murders? Make the crimes look more purposeful?"

"Not if the motivation's shown to be illogical and psychotic. Jurors' minds abhor a vacuum. Given no motive, they'll supply their own. If I can show that the boy is a prisoner of long-buried morbid impulses, it will help steer them my way. In general, the more psychology I can inject into the trial, the better our chances of success."

Always thinking strategically.

I put aside the invitation to play Freud and asked him who reared Jamey after his father's suicide.

"Dwight did. He'd received his M.B.A. by then and was working at Cadmus Construction as an executive trainee. Of course, the physical caretaking continued to be carried out by governesses and babysitters, but Dwight extended himself — took the boy on outings, taught him to play catch. Certainly gave him more attention than Peter ever had."

"You said 'governesses', plural. How many were there?"

"Quite a few. They came and went in a stream. None stayed longer than several months. He was a difficult child, cranky and moody, and his intelligence actually made matters worse because he knew how to use his tongue as a weapon of intimidation. Several of the women left in tears."

"Where did they live during this period?"

"In the house on Muirfield. Dwight had moved back home after graduation — shortly before Peter's death. When he and Heather married, they sold it and bought a more manageable place nearby."

"How did Jamey adjust to the marriage?"

For the first time in the conversation Souza hesitated, if only for a second.

"I suppose there were difficulties — logic dictates there would be — but outward appearances were calm."

"How did Jamey and Heather get along?"

Another pause.

"Just fine, as far as I could see. Heather's a lovely girl."

During most of the interview he'd narrated with authority. Now he seemed tentative. I commented on it.

"That's correct," he said. "I felt confidence in Dwight, and once he took over, my involvement in personal matters lessened. He and Heather are in a better position than I to answer questions about recent events."

"All right."

He rang for the black-garbed waitress and ordered tea. She left and reappeared with a cart that held the china service from his office. This time I accepted a cup.

"You seem," I said, between sips, "to have been much more than a family attorney."

He put down his cup and licked his lips with a brief, saurine movement of his tongue. In the dimness his complexion glowed rosy, and I watched it deepen angrily as he spoke.

"Blackjack Cadmus was the best friend I ever had. We came up together the hard way. When he began purchasing land, he offered me a fifty percent buy-in. I was cautious, had trouble believing all that scrub would turn into city, and turned him down. Had I accepted, I'd be one of the richest men in California. When the money started pouring in, Jack insisted I receive a substantial sum anyway, claiming I'd helped him with the legal end of it — title searches, drawing up deeds. That was true as far as it went, but he paid me much more than my services were worth. That money financed the establishment of this firm, the purchase of this building, everything I own, which I'm not ashamed to say is substantial."

He leaned forward and a pinpoint of light from the chandelier reflected off his naked cranium.

"Jack Cadmus is responsible for who I am today, Doctor. You don't forget something like that."

"Of course not."

It took several seconds for the broad features to settle back into professional repose. My comment had been innocent — curiosity about the degree of his involvement with a client. Yet answering it had evoked a strong reaction. Maybe he didn't believe that a comment from a psychologist could ever be innocent. Or perhaps he was peeved at having his privacy invaded. An overreaction, it seemed, but people who earn their livings rooting in the psychic refuse of others often develop an obsession with personal secrecy.

"Anything else?" he asked, pleasant again, and I stopped surmising.

"Yes. I want to know more about Ivar Digby Chancellor. The papers have been describing him as a prominent banker and gay activist, but that doesn't tell me much. In your office Dwight Cadmus called him a damned deviate. Were he and Jamey lovers?"

"Once again we're in an area where Dwight and Heather could be more helpful, but I'll do my best to describe things in general terms. Yes, there was some kind of intimate relationship, but I don't know that I'd call it love."

His mouth puckered as if he'd eaten something spoiled. "Pederasty maybe."

"Because Jamey was a minor?"

"Because the whole thing smacked of exploitation," he said angrily. "Dig Chancellor had other fish to fry. He didn't need to seduce an impressionable, disturbed boy. For God's sake, Doctor, the man was old enough to be his father. In fact, Chancellor and Peter had been classmates in military school."

"So the families have known each other for a long time."

"They were neighbours, lived a block apart, ran in the same social circles. The Chancellors are prominent in accounting and banking. Big, strapping people — even the women are large. Dig was the largest — six-five, shoulders like a mountain, loved football, squash, polo. Married an heiress from the Philadelphia Main Line. A man's man — or so everyone thought. No one suspected he was queer until after the divorce. Then the rumours started spreading — the nasty kind of thing passed behind hands at cocktail parties. They might have faded, but Dig turned them into fact by going public. Showed up at one of those marches for gay rights holding hands with two hairdresser types. It made the front page of the papers and was picked up by the wire services."

Suddenly I remembered the photo. It jogged my memory and created a mental image of a dead man: a towering, square-jawed, executive type in grey suit and rimless glasses marching down the middle of Santa Monica Boulevard, dwarfing the svelte moustached men on either side. Banners in the background. Under the picture a caption commenting on the melding of old money and the new morality.

"Once out of the closet, he flaunted it," said Souza disgustedly. "The family was scandalised, so he broke away and started his own bank — Beverly Hills Trust. Built it up soliciting accounts from homosexual businesses; there's a lot of money there, you know. Used his fortune and influence to buy sympathetic political candidates. Purchased an estate from a movie mogul, one of those dinosaurs north of Sunset, and let it be used for fundraisers — ACLU, the arty crowd, male go-go-dancers, that kind of thing."

"You didn't like him."

Souza sighed.

"For years I've had a box at the Hollywood Bowl. Dig had one in the same section. Inevitably we'd bump into each other at concerts, chat, trade hors d'oeuvres, compare wines. In those days he sported the finest tailored evening wear and always had a young lady on his arm. Very gallant. Then one year he showed up with his hair peroxided and curled, wearing mascara and a loose robe, like some bloody Roman emperor. Instead of a woman, he had with him a gaggle of boys straight out of a Maxfield Parrish print. He greeted me heartily, held out his hand, as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Perverse."

He stirred his tea and frowned.

"Mind you, I have nothing against homosexuals, though I'll never be convinced they're normal. Let them keep a low profile and go about their business. But Chancellor didn't show that type of discretion. He advertised his deviance, exploited the innocent. A damned predator."

He'd grown flushed again and seemed to have worked himself into a passion; this time I thought I understood why.

"That should fit perfectly into your stragegy," I said.

The stirring accelerated, and he looked up sharply. The expression on his face told me my guess had been right on target.

"Oh?"

"You said before you had a way of reconciling diminished capacity with the premeditated nature of the slashings. Painting Chancellor as the homicidal mastermind and Jamey as his dupe would be an excellent way to accomplish that. You could claim that Chancellor did the actual killing and Jamey was a passive observer. That would shift the bulk of the blame to a dead man and turn the one murder Jamey had to have committed — that of Chancellor — into a noble act, the elimination of a sadistic predator."

Souza smiled.

"Very impressive, Doctor. Yes, I have been thinking along those lines. It's no secret that all the Slasher victims were murdered elsewhere and dumped around the city. My assertion will be that the killings took place at Chancellor's estate, with Jamey no more than an observer, seduced by an older man, befuddled by psychosis. The boy allowed himself to be swept along for several months. No doubt his guilt at witnessing the butchery contributed to his break-down and the subsequent need for hospitalisation."

"During his hospitalisation the slashings stopped."

He waved his hand, dismissing the point.

"We know Chancellor was a sick man. What if he were bent in more than one way, exhibitionistic as well as queer. So many of them are. I assert that he needed an audience for his crimes and tagged Jamey for the role. The boy and he had a twisted relationship, no doubt about that. I won't claim Jamey is a total innocent. But it's the leadership role that's crucial. Who led the way? Who premeditated? A powerful, domineering older man or a confused teenager? Even the escape can work in our favour. I've got investigators searching for witnesses, someone who saw the boy that night. If we can show that Chancellor broke Jamey out of Canyon Oaks, we can claim he abducted him in order to have him witness another blood orgy. Took him home and slaughtered Richard Ford. But this time Jamey was overcome by the savagery of what he saw. They argued, struggled, and the boy managed to kill the butcher."

When he'd enlisted my participation in Jamey's defence, Souza had made the case sound hopeless. Now, barely two days later, he was trumpeting a neat psychodrama that transformed Jamey from monster to mind slave and, finally, to dragon slayer. But I wondered how much confidence he really had in the Svengali strategy. To my mind, there were plenty of holes in it.

"You said Chancellor was a very large man. Jamey's a wraith. How could he overpower him and hoist him over a crossbeam?"

"Dig was taken by surprise," he said, unperturbed, "and Jamey was strengthened by the release of pent-up fury; I'm sure you're aware of the power of adrenaline. With the proper fulcrum it's surprising what even a small person can lift. I know a prominent physicist who'll testify to that."

The look on his face invited further questioning.

"Chancellor had an estate," I said, "which means servants. The slashings were messy affairs. How could he conceal that kind of thing from them?"

"He employed a day staff — gardeners, maid, cook — but only one man lived on the premises, a combination bodyguard majordomo named Erno Radovic. Radovic is an unstable character, used to be a policeman until he was booted off the force. I employed him once or twice as an investigator before I realised what kind of troublemaker he was. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if he were in on all of it, but for the time being he's in the clear, alibied for the night of the murder. Seems Thursday was his day off. He'd leave mornings and return Friday by noon. Slept once a week on a boat he had moored in the Marina. He produced a woman who said she'd been with him all last Thursday. All of which strengthens my theory because each of the Slasher victims were dumped on a Friday, in the early-morning hours, and, according to the forensics lab, killed several hours before. On Thursday night. Now we know the reason. With Radovic gone there'd be no witnesses."

"Has the forensics lab produced any evidence that Chancellor wielded the knife?"

"Not to my knowledge. But neither is there proof that Jamey wielded it. The handle was blood-smeared, no clean fingerprints. In any event, whether or not it actually happened that way is hardly relevant, is it? The key is to provide the jurors with a reasonable doubt. To get them to consider a different scenario from the one the prosecution will present."

He gazed at me steadily, awaiting a response. When I gave none, he turned away and ran a blunt finger around the rim of his saucer.

"You ask good questions, Doctor. Answering them helps keep me on my toes. Anything else?"

I closed my notepad. "Given Jamey's history, I'm concerned about suicide."

"So am I. It was one of the first things I mentioned when I petitioned for release to an institution prior to trial. The DA's office said the High Power lockup featured twenty-four-hour suicide watch and was safe. The judge agreed."

"Is that true?"

"For the most part. You couldn't get tighter security anywhere. But can suicide ever really be prevented?"

"No," I conceded. "If someone's determined, he'll eventually succeed."

He nodded.

"Right now he seems too lethargic to damage himself. Nevertheless, if you pick up any danger signs, please inform me immediately. What else?"

"Nothing for now. When can I talk to Dwight and Heather Cadmus?"

"They're in seclusion with friends in Montecito, avoiding the press. Dwight should be returning in a couple of days. Heather was planning to stay longer. Is it necessary that you see them together?"

"No. In fact, individually would be better."

"Excellent. I'll have it arranged and phone you. I've got a call in to Mainwaring, and I'll try to set up a time for you to meet with him and review the records within the next few days."

"Fine."

We stood simultaneously. Souza buttoned his suit jacket and walked me out the door of the dining room and down the corridor to the building's entrance. It was late afternoon, approaching dusk, and the rotunda was full of immaculately turned-out young men and women — associates and ancillary staff leaving for the day, trailing wisps of perfume and cologne, designer loafers and stiletto heels tattooing the checkered marble. The sight of Souza evoked reflexive smiles and servile nods. He ignored them and drew me away from the crowd, placed a hand on my shoulder, and smiled.

"Coming up with my Chancellor strategy was first-rate thinking, Doctor, as was your little interrogation. Perhaps you're in the wrong profession."

I backed out of his grasp and moved toward the door.

"I don't think so," I said, and walked away.

On the way home I stopped at the Pico kosher deli near Robertson and bought provisions: a pound of corned beef, new pickles, coleslaw, and a loaf of caraway rye sliced thick. The evening traffic was chromium soup, but I made it to the glen by six-thirty. Once settled, I fed the koi, glanced at the mail, and went into the kitchen, where I prepared sandwiches and set them on a platter in the refrigerator. When Robin's truck pulled into the carport, I was waiting on the terrace, Grolsch in hand. She'd been sawing and planing for most of the afternoon and looked tired; when she saw the food, she cheered.

After dinner we sat in the living room, put our feet up, and shared the Times. I got as far as page three before Jamey's face jumped out at me.

The picture was a head shot, formally posed, that looked to be a couple of years old. Black-and-white photography had turned his blue eyes murky. In another context the downward turn of his lips might have seemed sad; under the present circumstances it took on a sinister cast. The article surrounding the photo described him as the "scion of a family prominent in the construction industry" and made note of his "history of serious psychiatric problems". A paragraph at the end said the police were delving into Ivar Digby Chancellor's background. Souza worked fast.