Self-Defence

10

He left and I returned to Lucy's room. She was still sleeping, and I gave my name to the ward clerk along with a message for Dr. Embrey. Then I phoned West L.A. Detectives and got Milo at his desk.

"What's up, Alex?"

"Lucy tried to kill herself last night. She's out of danger, physically, but still pretty knocked out. I'm at Woodbridge Hospital, out in the Valley. They'll be keeping her here."

"Fuck. What'd she do, cut her wrists?"

"Stuck her head in the oven."

"You find her?"

"No, her half brother did. Lucky for her he stopped by looking for the other brother and saw her through the window, on her knees in the kitchen. Talk about Providence."

"Her drapes were open and she's got her head in the oven? What was it, a cry for help?"

"Who knows? She never dropped any hints to me. Still, I'm trying hard not to feel like an idiot."

"Jesus, Alex, what the hell happened?"

"It's complicated. More than you could ever imagine."

"And you can't tell me."

"No, in fact, I need to. But not over the phone. When can we get together?"

"Coming back into the city?"

"Yup."

"Gino's in forty-five."

Gino's Trattoria is on Pico, not far from the West L.A. station: checkered tablecloths, hanging Chianti bottles, rough wines.

Even during the day, the place is murky, lit by table candles in amber globes that are never washed. The one at Milo's rear corner table illuminated him from the bottom, accentuating every crater and lump, giving him the look of a gargoyle with chronic back pain.

He was wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and dark tie. Even at that distance I could tell his hair was freshly cut- military clip at the sides, long and shaggy on top, to-the-lobe sideburns that were hip, now, and against department regulations.

Two beers sat in front of him. He pushed one over to me. In the dirty glare his green eyes were gray-brown.

"How come all of a sudden you can talk to me?"

"Because Lucy asked me to. She said someone was trying to kill her, and she wants you to protect her. I'm sure it's some sort of gas-induced delusion- or massive denial because she just can't face the fact that she tried to kill herself. But I'm taking it as a formal instruction."

"How does she figure someone tried to kill her with gas? Dragged her to the stove and jammed her head in?"

"She's nowhere near coherent enough to discuss details."

"Remember those four calls she put in? Seems she's been getting some hang-ups."

"She told me. Said you didn't think it was serious."

"I didn't because she didn't. She told me it might be some technical problem with her phone; the line goes out all the time. Kind of casual about the whole thing, made me wonder if she just wanted to talk."

"I'm sure she did. That's part of what I have to tell you. She's got a major crush on you. Admitted it to me during yesterday's session."

He was silent and still.

"She wanted approval from me, Milo. I couldn't tell her you were gay because I didn't want to violate your privacy. And I couldn't warn you about the way she felt because of confidentiality. She got really upset and left. Now this. I feel like I've really screwed up, but I don't know what I could've done differently."

"You coulda told her about me, Alex. I'm not your patient."

"I didn't think it was appropriate to get into your personal life. She was the patient; I was trying to keep the focus on her."

"Jesus." His cheeks turned to bellows and he blew out beery air.

"Has she ever shown any romantic feelings?"

"I don't know," he said furiously. "I guess looking back… I mean, she hung around, phoned, but I figured it was a cop-victim thing. Looking for big brother." Rubbing one eye. "Pretty fucking dense, huh? Goddammit! I'm an asshole to let it get this far. All these years I've been careful not to get personal with victims or their families. So why her?"

"You didn't do anything wrong," I said. "You gave her support, and when it became clear she needed something more, you referred her to me."

"Yeah, but there was more. In my head. She probably picked up on it."

"More what?"

"Involvement. I'd find myself thinking about her. Worrying. Couple of times I called her, just to see how she was doing."

He slammed a big hand down on the table. "How else could she take it? What am I, brain dead?"

He shook his head. "For chrissake, she was only a juror. I've dealt with thousands of victims who had it a helluva lot worse. I must be losing it."

"You didn't put her head in the oven."

"Neither did you, but you still feel like shit."

Both of us drank.

"If I hadn't tried to help her," he said, "I wouldn't know about her head being in the oven, would I? And you and I would be sitting here talking about something else."

His glass was empty and he called for a refill, looking at me.

"No, thanks."

He said, "Ignorance is bliss, right? All the talk about insight and self-understanding, but far as I can tell, being a good ostrich is the key to psychological adjustment. Christ, now I have her sitting on my shoulder… So what do I do, tell her, Gee, honeybunch, if I went for women you'd be at the top of my list? Might as well shove her head back in the oven."

"There's no need to do anything right now," I said. "Let's see how she handles the seventy-two hours. If the psychiatrist at Woodbridge is good, she'll know how to deal with it."

"Seventy-two hours… praise the law."

"There's more you need to know about." I told him about Lucy's summer as a prostitute.

"Oh, man, it keeps getting better. Just a summer fling, huh?"

"So she says. She confessed right after she told me how she felt about you. Asked me if I thought she wasn't good enough for you. As if she was giving me a reason to reject her."

"Not good enough for me." He gave a scary laugh. "Remember I told you she reminded me of a girl in high school who became a nun? Someone else who convinced herself I was wonderful."

This time he rubbed his face. Hard.

"Prom night back in Hoosierville. All the little virgins and would-be virgins from Our Lady on the arms of us pimpled lads from St. Thomas. I was eighteen and knew I was gay for a couple of years, no one to tell it to. Her name was Nancy Squires, and when she asked me to be her date I said yes because I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Orchid corsage, tux, Dad's car washed and waxed. Doing the Twist in the gym. Mashed Potatoes and the fucking Hully Gully. Drinking the fucking spiked punch."

He looked into his beer glass.

"She was pretty, if you liked skinny and pale and tortured. Wrote poetry, collected these little porcelain doohickeys, didn't know how to dress, tutored the boys in math. Of course the other girls treated her like a leper."

He turned and faced me.

"She was nice to talk to, a little lady. Then when I drove her home, she put her hands all over me, and when I parked in front of her house she told me she loved me. It was like being sucker-punched. Genius that I was, I told her I liked her as a friend but couldn't love her. Then I explained why."

He gave another frightful laugh. In the bad light he looked homicidal.

"She didn't say a thing for a while. Just let her hands drop and stared at me as if I was the biggest goddamn disappointment in her eighteen-year life. She didn't have it easy. Her whole family was a bunch of assholes, brothers in jail, father a drunken shit who slapped her around from time to time, maybe worse. And here I was, the last straw."

He rubbed his eyelids. "She kept staring at me. Finally shook her head and said, "Oh, Milo, you're going to end up in Hell.' No anger. Sympathetic. Then she patted her brand-new Tonette and got out of the car and that's the last I saw her. Next week she shipped off to a convent in Indianapolis. Five years ago my mother wrote me she was murdered, over in El Salvador. She and a bunch of other nuns washing clothes in a stream." He threw up his hands. "Let's do a screenplay."

"Lucy reminds you of her that strongly."

"They could be sisters, Alex. The way she carries herself- the vulnerability."

"The vulnerability's definitely there," I said. "Given what I've learned of her childhood, it's no surprise. Her mom died right after she was born; her father deserted the family. She's functionally an orphan."

"Yeah, I know. She was talking to me about Shwandt, once. Said he had two parents, nice home, father who was a lawyer, so what was his excuse? Said her own father was a lowlife."

"Did she tell you who her father is?"

He looked up. "Who?"

"M. Bayard Lowell."

Staring, he put his hands around his beer glass. "What is this, Big Fucking Surprise Day? The goddamn moon in Pisces with Herpes or something? Lowell as in Mr. Belles Lettruh?"

"None other."

"Unbelievable. He still alive?"

"Living in Topanga Canyon. His career died and he moved to L.A."

"I read him in school."

"Everyone did."

"She's his daughter? Unreal."

"You can see why he'd have impact, even being absent."

"Sure," he said. "He's just there, like the goddamn Ten Foot Gorilla."

"Lucy compared it to being the President's kid. I can understand her looking for a benevolent authority figure. Maybe your thoughts about a big brother weren't all that far from the truth."

"Great. And now I disappoint her, too… So how do I handle this? Visit or keep my distance?"

"Let's see how she does during the next few days."

"Sure. Head in the oven… No idea what could have led her to it?"

I shook my head. "She was upset, but nothing that pointed to suicide."

"Upset about me."

"That, but we'd also started to get into other things- the prostitution, feelings toward her father. And the dream she mentioned to you. That's something else I want to talk to you about."

I described the buried girl story.

He said, "I'm no shrink, but I hear, "Daddy scares the shit out of me.' "

"She started having it midway through the trial, right after you testified about Carrie. I figured all that horror raised her anxiety level and released long-buried feelings toward Lowell- seeing herself as some kind of victim. His last poems are viciously anti-woman; she may have read them and had a strong reaction. And the last time we discussed the dream she said she'd felt her soul entering the dark-haired girl's body- as if she were being buried too. Explicitly identifying with the victim. But something the half brother told me in the hospital makes me wonder if there's even more. She claims she's had no contact with Lowell her entire life, but the brother said twenty-one years ago she spent the summer with him in Topanga. All four of his kids did. Lucy was four years old at the time- the age she feels in the dream. And Lowell's place has log buildings, exactly what she describes. Now, the newspapers did cover the opening of the retreat, down to the architecture; I found the clippings so she could've also. Or she could have heard about it from her brother Peter. He did some family research and filled her in. If that's the case, she's flat out denying being there. But the alternative is that she really doesn't remember. Maybe because something traumatic happened that summer."

His jaw flexed. "Daddy did something to her?"

"Like I said, his last poems are grossly misogynistic. If he abused her, I can see why the trial might kick in the memories- sex and violence thrown together. One thing's for sure, she's struggling with something major. The recurrent nature of the dream and its intensity- when she talks about it she actually seems to experience it- she's trancelike. Almost as if she's going into hypnosis by herself. That tells me her ego boundaries are weakening; this is something potent. So maybe I should've been more careful. But there was no profound depression, no hint she'd do this."

"What about the other two guys in the dream?"

"Could be that part's fantasy, or maybe what happened to her wasn't a solo act. And I've got another possible participant. That summer, Lowell had a protégé living with him named Terry Trafficant. Career criminal, history of attempted rape, assault, manslaughter. Locked up long-term till Lowell helped him get parole and publish his jail diary. It became a best-seller."

"Yeah, yeah, I wasn't a cop yet, still in college, but I remember thinking how asinine."

"So did a lot of other people. The last cop who arrested him called him a stick of dynamite waiting to go off. There was a stink about Lowell's patronage, then Trafficant disappeared. A guy like that, all those years in confinement, stick him in Topanga Canyon with a cute little girl running around, who knows."

He grimaced. "Trafficant's record include pedophilia?"

"I don't remember reading that, but a guy like him might very well not be repulsed by sex with a little girl."

"Yeah. The other possibility, Alex, is that nothing happened directly to her but she saw something. And not even criminal violence- maybe wild sex, some kind of orgy. A girl and three guys- that would freak out a four-year-old, right? What if the grinding was exactly what she first thought it was and her mind ran away with it? Like you said, sex and violence are all mixed up in her head."

I thought about that. "It's sure possible. The half brother said the kids were at the retreat for the opening. A big party took place. The papers described it as a pretty wild scene. And in the dream, Lucy talks about noise and lights the night she leaves the cabin. She could've seen something X-rated."

"Involving Daddy. He and a couple of buddies having their way with a girl," he said. "Not the kind of thing a little kid could handle easily."

"And the trial reawakens it… On the other hand, what if she did witness violence and that's why hearing about Shwandt evoked memories of a crime? Maybe- unconsciously- she was motivated to be a juror in order to right some kind of wrong. Maybe that's the toughness the prosecutors sensed."

"Possible," he said.

"Trafficant was an attempted rapist, Milo. And he dropped out of sight right after the party."

"On the lam?"

"Why else would he disappear at the height of his celebrity? All those years behind bars, then he's a best-seller; it wouldn't have made sense to quit unless he had something to hide. He and Lowell- the publicity would have been devastating. So maybe he took the money and ran. For all we know, he's on some tropical island living off his royalties."

He rubbed his face and contemplated the table light. "For that to make sense, there would have to be no witnesses, meaning violence taken all the way."

"Maybe Lucy actually did witness a burial. Lowell and Trafficant and someone else getting rid of the body."

He thought a long time. "It's a helluva leap based on a dream. For all we know, Trafficant disappeared because he died. Blew all his dough on dope and OD'd. He was a psychopath loser. Don't they always end up doing something self-destructive?"

"Usually. But still, the idea of him and Lucy, up there at the same time, her blocking out that summer, and now she's dreaming about a dead girl… I could call Trafficant's publisher and see if they know where he is. If you feel up to it, you could run a background check."

"Sure, why not… Best-seller." Shaking his head. "What is it with these intellectuals anyway? All those fools marching for Caryl Chessman as if he was a saint. Norman Mailer with his pet creep, William Buckley rooting for that asshole Edgar Smith- beat a fifteen-year-old girl to death with a baseball bat."

I thought about that. "I suppose artists and writers can lead a pretty insulated life," I said. "No freeway jams or time cards. Getting paid to make things up, you could start to confuse your fantasies with reality."

"I think there's more to it, Alex. I think the so-called creative bunch believe they're better than everyone else, don't have to play by the same rules. I remember once, when I was first on the force, I pulled jail duty down at the Hall of Justice, and some sociology professor was leading a tour- earnest students, pens and notebooks. They walked past one asshole's cell and it was full of drawings- bloody stuff but very well done; the guy had real talent. Not that it stopped him from robbing liquor stores and pistol-whipping the owners. Prof and the kids were totally blown away. How could someone that talented be in there. Such injustice! They started talking to the guy. He's a stone psychopath, so he immediately smells an opening and plays them like guitars: Mr. Misunderstood Artist, poor baby robbed 'cause he couldn't afford paints and canvas."

He shook his head. "Goddamn professor actually came up to me and demanded to know who the guy's parole officer was. Letting me know it was criminal for such a gifted fellow to be shackled. That's the equation they make, Alex: If you're talented, you're entitled to privileges. Every few years you see another bullshit article, some idealistic fool setting up a program teaching inmates to paint or sculpt or play piano or write fucking short stories. Like that's going to make a damn bit of difference. Truth is, there's always been plenty of talent in jail. Visit any penitentiary, you'll hear great music, see lots of nifty artwork. If you ask me, psychopaths are more talented than the rest of us. But they're still fucking psychopaths."

"There's actually a theory to that effect," I said. "Psychopathy as a form of creativity. And you're right, there's no shortage of artistically brilliant people who had low moral IQ's: Degas, Wagner, Ezra Pound, Philip Larkin. From what I hear Picasso was pretty hard to live with."

"So why are people so goddamn stupid?"

"Naäiveté, wanting to believe the best about others- who knows? And it's not just the creative bunch who buys into it. Years ago, social psychologists discovered something called the halo effect. Most people have no trouble believing that if you're good at one thing it transfers to unrelated areas. It's why athletes get rich endorsing products."

"Yeah," he said. "Trafficant shoulda stuck around. Somebody would have paid him to endorse cutlery."

"Lowell set him loose on society. Dropped him in a totally unstructured situation full of booze, dope, groupies. And cute little kids."

He laughed wearily. "Get us together, feeling like failures, and we do build a nice house of cards. I'll grant you it's interesting- scumbag on the loose almost always spells some kind of trouble. But like you said, Lucy could have read about him or heard about him from her brother. Maybe the goddamn dream is pure fiction."

"Could be," I admitted. "He got plenty of media coverage."

"Much as I like her, she's got problems, right? The head in the oven, this paranoid talk about someone trying to kill her. And those hang-up calls. I feel like a bum saying this, but now that I know she's been wanting to get close to me, I'd be an idiot not to wonder if she made them up to get attention. Even the way she tried to kill herself has a touch of that, doesn't it? Gas, with the drapes open?"

He gulped down the rest of his beer and looked at me.

"Yes, there is a hysterical quality to it," I said. "But let's be charitable and assume that even if she is making things up it's out of neediness rather than manipulation. That still doesn't eliminate the possibility that something traumatized her that summer. Don't forget, she's not trumpeting herself as a victim or trying to make anything out of the dream. On the contrary, she tends to minimize things, just as she did with the hang-ups. She's an ostrich, Milo, blocking out that entire summer. My gut tells me something happened when she was four and it's stuck down in her unconscious. Something that relates- directly or indirectly- to Lowell. She's not the only one with strong feelings about him. The half brother called him a total sonofabitch. He's in the real estate business and his big fantasy's foreclosing on Dad's land. Maybe that summer was bad for all the Lowell kids."

"Okay," he said. "Let's say we do somehow get to the bottom of it, find out Daddy did do something terrible twenty-one years ago. And let's assume Lucy gets herself to a point where she can deal with it. Then what? Bring the bastard to the bar of justice? You know what uncorroborated memories are worth in court. And the fact that it came out in therapy makes it even weaker. Nowadays prosecutors assume anything retrieved in a shrink's office is bullshit till proven otherwise. Too many cases thrown out of court, too much pop-psych crap, satanic bullshit- if you feel you've been abused, you have been."

"Baby-with-the-bathwater," I said, "just like when the courts tossed out hypnotic evidence. But you know as well as I do hypnosis does help some witnesses remember facts. And plenty of patients do retrieve valid memories during therapy. I've seen dozens of corroborations. The key is never to plant anything in a patient's head and never to lead. Stay skeptical as hell but keep it to yourself, and if you end up with something, check it out to the max."

"I know, I know, I'm just saying it's an uphill battle."

"Look, even if it never goes anywhere legally, I think, at some point, knowing what really happened- or didn't- will help her."

"What if we learn Daddy did something, can't touch him legally, and the bastard gets away with it? What does that do to her psyche?"

"So what do you suggest, drop it?"

"I'm not suggesting anything, just creating problems to keep your mind active."

"What a pal," I said. "Anyway, it's probably theoretical. After the way the last session went, I doubt Lucy'll want to see me. Maybe she'll hook up with Embrey- maybe seeing a woman will make it easier. Whoever her therapist turns out to be, they'll need to know what's going on."

"Think they'll keep her in past the seventy-two?"

"Not unless she really falls apart. It's what'll happen when she gets out that worries me."

Neither of us spoke for a while. I thought of all the possibilities we'd just raised. Wondered if Lucy would connect with Embrey. I found myself hoping so.

"What?" he said.

"That summer," I said. "At least we could try to narrow things down by finding out if any dark-haired girls were reported raped or murdered or missing in Topanga that summer. If they were, we've got possible corroboration. If not, that will also define the focus of Lucy's therapy. Either way, she doesn't need to be told until the time's right."

"Narrow things, huh?"

"I can't see it hurting."

He scraped a tooth with a fingernail. "Guess I could make a call to Malibu Sheriffs. It's a low-crime neighborhood, there shouldn't be too much paper to wade through, assuming they keep their old files. I can also look into any public records on Mr. Trafficant. When exactly was this party?"

"August- mid-August."

He took out his notepad and wrote it down. His beer glass was empty and he reached for a breadstick.

"Hope she heals," he said softly.

"Amen."

Twirling the breadstick, he put it down. "Haven't had lunch yet. You in any mood to eat?"

"Not really."

"Me neither."