Self-Defence

11

He'd left his unmarked around the corner from the restaurant, in a loading zone, and a meter maid was approaching it with a predatory look in her eyes.

Milo flashed his badge, wagged his finger, and grinned. The meter maid snorted, returned to her buggy, and putt-putted away.

"Power!" he said. "Intoxicating as fine cognac and it won't damage your liver."

As he got in the car, I said, "Anything new on the Santa Ana murder?"

"Shwandt's lawyers are going to use it as grounds for a mistrial."

"You're kidding."

"In lawyer logic, the similarity between this one and the Bogeyman murders casts doubt on Jobe's guilt for all of them. We only had physical evidence on Carrie, Marie Rosenhut, and Berna Mendoza. All the others were circumstantial."

"So what? He still did those three."

"Three versus fifteen. The victim load- their phrase- prejudiced the jury against him and was responsible for the death penalty. They want a retrial on Carrie and the other two physicals, too- fruit of the poisoned tree or some shit like that."

"Absurd," I said. "Like you said, anyone who'd been at the trial or read the transcripts would have had enough information to copycat."

He put his hand on my shoulder.

"Logic has nothing to do with it. It's a game. There's a whole subspecies of sharpies makes a living filing death penalty appeals. They've got it down to a science, and we pay for it with our taxes."

He shook his head and laughed.

"What does that say about our society, Alex? A piece of shit like Shwandt can cut up women and kids, gouge their eyes out, shit on them, and get himself a supporting case of legal beagles, access to a law library, three squares, TV, magazines, nutritious snacks. I mean, let's cut through all the theology and ideology and tell me what reason can there possibly be to let someone like that live?"

"No argument from me."

"Does that mean you've finally converted?"

"To what?"

"The Church of Abject Hostility."

"Depends on what day you catch me."

He laughed and started his engine.

I said, "Do you think there's really any chance of a new trial?"

"Who the hell knows? The goddamn press corps loves the slimy fuck. He feeds them like trained seals."

I wondered how Lucy would react to the legal circus. Would she see it as diminishing what she'd done in that jury box?

Right now that seemed the least of her problems.

I called Woodbridge Hospital and used my title to cadge information from a nurse.

The patient was still sleeping. Dr. Embrey had not come in yet.

I tried to reach Peter Lowell. No answer.

Phoning my service, I discovered Dr. Wendy Embrey had left a message. My callback got her voice mail. I said I'd be happy to speak to her and returned to the Seville.

I couldn't rid myself of the thought that something had happened to Lucy that summer. Couldn't erase the idea of a little girl and a paroled killer thrown together. Heading north on Westwood Boulevard, I drove to Vagabond Books, parked in the back, and entered the store.

The owner was playing his sax. He looked up as I approached, not missing a note. Then he recognized me and said, "Hey."

The glass case of first editions fronting the register had something new in it, along with the books. Big silver automatic.

He saw me looking at it. "There's a guy running around robbing used bookstores. Comes in just before closing time, pulls a gun, beats and sodomizes the clerk, and takes the cash. Kid over at Pepys Books is getting tested for AIDS."

"God."

He fingered his ponytail. "So what can I do for you?"

"Terrence Trafficant. From Hunger to Rage."

He took the gun out, put it in his waistband, and stepped out from behind the counter. Ambling over to the rear of the store, he came back with a worn-looking paperback. Bright red cover, black title letters that resembled knife slashes.

Two cover blurbs:

"It stirs and jolts with all the cruel authority of the electric chair!"-Time

"Twisted, heroic, visionary, touched with genius, Trafficant holds us by the scruff and forces us to stare into our own nightmare. This may be one of the most important books of our century."- Denton Mellors, The Manhattan Book Review

"Doing some kind of psychology research?" he said, ringing up the sale. "You couldn't be reading for pleasure. It's really a piece of crap."

I opened the book. More raves from Newsweek, Vogue, The Washington Post, the Times on both coasts.

"The critics didn't think so."

"The critics are brainless sheep. Trust me, it's crap."

"Well," I said, paying him, "you've got the gun."

I got home at three, feeling antsy, yet tired. The ocean was green and silky. Putting the book on the coffee table, I went out, lay down on a lounge chair, caught a face full of ultraviolet, and fell asleep.

Robin kissed me awake.

"Someone on the phone for you."

"What time is it?"

"Five-fifteen."

"Must have dozed off."

She wiped my forehead. "You're really hot. Better watch that sun, honey."

I took the call in the kitchen, rubbing my eyes and clearing my throat. "Dr. Delaware."

"Doctor, this is Audrey from Dr. Wendy Embrey's office. Dr. Embrey said to tell you she'd like to meet with you concerning Lucretia Lowell, if you've got the time. Would sometime tomorrow be okay?"

"Tonight would be okay, too."

"Dr. Embrey's all over the place tonight- she attends at a bunch of different hospitals. How about tomorrow around lunchtime?"

"Sure. Where?"

"She'll be over at the university all morning. If it's convenient, she could meet you in the med school dining room at twelve-thirty."

"That would be fine."

"Good, I'll tell her."

"How's Ms. Lowell doing?"

"I'm sure she's doing as well as can be expected."

I read From Hunger to Rage over breakfast. The bookseller had been right.

Trafficant's style was crude and uncontrolled, boiling with junior-high revolutionary rhetoric and obscenities. His editor had left his faulty spelling and grammar intact, aiming, I suppose, for gritty authenticity.

In the first half, he worked two themes to the death: "Society screwed me" and "I'm getting even." The next fifty pages were letters he'd written to various celebrities and officials. Only two had answered, the congressman from Trafficant's home district in Oklahoma- who responded with a Dear Constituent form letter- and M. Bayard Lowell, who praised Trafficant's "bloody poetry."

The two men began to correspond, Trafficant ranting and Lowell commiserating. The final page was a photocopy of Trafficant's approved parole application.

A biography and picture were on the inside back cover, the mug shot the papers had run.

Terrence Gary Trafficant, of uncertain parentage and hot blood, was born April 13, 1931, in Walahachee, Oklahoma. Beaten often and suckled by wolves, he spent his formative years in various institutions and hells-on-earth. His first major punitive adventure came at the age of ten, when he was locked up at The Oklahoma Institute for Children for stealing cigarettes. He proved an uncooperative prisoner and alternated for the next thirty years between steadily escalating violence and incarceration, much of it in solitary confinement. He brings a unique perspective to our perception of right and wrong. From Hunger to Rage has been purchased for adaptation as a major motion picture.

A psychopath making it in Hollywood- not a huge stretch. Yet Trafficant had turned his back on it.

A best-seller who admired the Däusseldorf Monster.

Steadily escalating violence… The more I thought about it, the harder it was to ignore his presence that summer.

Call his publisher… too late to phone New York.

I let my own imagination run on: Trafficant seducing the long-haired girl. Things getting out of hand… or maybe she'd resisted and he'd raped, again, then killed her. And told Lowell. Lowell panicking, rushing to bury the evidence, unaware that a little girl was watching.

A little girl who wet the bed- maybe dank sheets had aroused her.

Waking and walking and witnessing.

And paying for it now.

The med school cafeteria was a mass of flatware clatter, white coats everywhere. Soon after I walked in, a pretty Asian woman in a plum-colored silk suit came up to me.

"Dr. Delaware? Wendy Embrey."

She was young and petite with long, straight, blue-black hair and onyx eyes. A faculty picture badge clipped to her lapel showed her hair permed. W. TAKAHASHI-EMBREY, M.D., PSYCHIATRY.

"I've got a table over there," she said. "Would you like to get some lunch?"

"No, I'm fine."

She smiled. "Have you eaten here before?"

"Occasionally."

"Are you on staff?" she said, as we walked to her table.

"Crosstown."

"I interned crosstown. Are you in Psychiatry?"

"Pediatrics. I'm a child psychologist."

She gave me a curious look and we sat down. On her tray were a tuna sandwich, coleslaw, red Jell-O, and milk. She unwrapped her utensils and spread her napkin on her lap. "But Lucretia was your patient?"

"Yes. Once in a while I see adults- short-term consults, usually stress-related. She was referred by the police."

Another curious look. She couldn't have been more than a year or two out of residency, but she'd learned her therapeutic nuances.

"I consult to the police occasionally," I said.

"What kind of stress had she been through?"

"She was a juror on the Bogeyman trial."

She picked up her fork. "Well, that could certainly be difficult. How long did you treat her?"

"Only a few sessions. She came to me because of sleep problems. A recurrent nightmare and, later, some somnambulism."

"Walking in her sleep?"

"At least once, before the suicide attempt. She woke up in her kitchen. I guess, looking back, it can be seen as a rehearsal for the attempt. She also had an episode of something that looked like narcolepsy- falling asleep at her desk at work and waking up on the floor."

"Yes, she told me about that. Said you'd sent her to a neurologist and he pronounced her healthy."

"Phil Austerlitz. He's on staff here."

"Did he come up negative, the way she claims?"

"Yes. He thought it was stress."

The fork dipped into the coleslaw. "That's what the neurologist at Woodbridge said, too. Interesting, though, the somnambulism. Do you think the suicide attempt could have occurred during some sort of sleepwalking trance? I've read case histories of self-destruction during arousal from deep sleep. Have you ever seen anything that extreme?"

"No suicide attempts, but I have treated children with night terrors who hurt themselves thrashing and walking around. I even had a family where the children and the father had terrors. The father used to try to strangle the mother in his sleep. And there are cases of people committing murder and claiming somnambulism."

"Claiming? You don't believe it's possible?"

"It's possible, but it's rare."

She ate some slaw, looked at her sandwich, then at me.

"It's a strange case. Her denial's so absolute. Usually, with attempters, you see just the opposite: guilt, confessions, promises never to do it again, because they feel physically lousy and want to get out of hold. The really severe ones- the ones who're sorry they failed- either get really mad or go mute. But Lucretia's cooperative and articulate; she understands why she has to be observed. Yet she remains adamant that she never tried to kill herself. Which would be a dumb approach to take if you were trying to convince your psychiatrist to let you go, right? In the wrong hands you could be tagged as delusional."

"You don't see her as delusional?"

"I'm not sure how I see her yet, but she sure doesn't look crazy. Maybe I'm missing something, but I think she truly believes, on a conscious level, that she didn't make an attempt."

"Did she give you an explanation for what happened?"

"She says she fell asleep and woke up in the hospital and that her first thought when you told her why she was there was someone had tried to kill her. Now that she's fully awake, she realizes it makes no sense. All in all, she's pretty confused. I could be missing the boat completely, but I don't see any schizophrenic output. Just depression- but not the crushing depression you'd associate with an attempt. I had our psychologist test her for a bipolar disorder. She seems to have such a big stake in keeping busy, I thought maybe there was some mania going on and the daytime sleep was crashing after an episode. He found her MMPI somewhat elevated on depression and anxiety but no hint of anything manic. And her Lie Scale was normal, so she seemed to be telling the truth. He said unless she's been tested a lot and knows how to fool the instruments, there's no serious personality disturbance."

"She'd have other reasons to be anxious," I said. "Just before the attempt, we got into some areas that upset her. She had a very isolated childhood- a mother who died when she was an infant, a highly troubled relationship with an absentee father. But she was always coherent, and if she was really disturbed I doubt she could have lasted three months on that jury."

"What areas upset her?"

I described the dream.

"Interesting," she said. "Any indication he molested her?"

"She denies ever being with him, but her brother told me she spent a summer up at his place when she was four. So she's either denying that or she's repressed it completely. As to what happened up there, I don't know."

I told her about Trafficant, emphasizing how speculative everything was.

"Well," she said, "at the very least it sounds like lots of garbage coming to the surface. Going to take a long time to sift through. This is one where we'll have to tread carefully."

"Adding to the garbage, she had a brief episode of working as a prostitute when she was eighteen. She denies any guilt, but there's probably lots. And she developed a crush on one of the detectives who worked on the Bogeyman case, the one who referred her to me. He's gay."

She put the sandwich down. "Just a few sessions and all that came out?"

"Most of it during the last one," I said. "Too much, too soon, but I couldn't stop her. That night she put her head in the oven."

"Lovely."

"Are you planning to let her go after the seventy-two's up?"

"She's not psychotic or violent, I can't see a judge giving me any more time. But she sure needs careful outpatient follow-up… A prostitute- she seems so prim. How long is brief?"

"Part of a summer. She claims she's been celibate since. And Phil Austerlitz said she had a real aversion to being touched."

She put her hands together. "I can see what you mean about that summer with her father… Despite all that, she relates well to a male therapist- talks very fondly about you. Are you planning to follow her?"

"The last thing I want is for her to be abandoned again," I said, "but I may not be right for her. The policeman she likes is a close friend."

I recounted Lucy's request for permission to love Milo. My silence. The reaction.

"So she doesn't know he's gay."

"Not yet."

She opened the milk carton. "I don't want to get personal, but is he your lover?"

"No, just a friend," I said. Adding, "I'm straight," and wondering why it sounded so defensive.

"I can see what you mean by complications."

"It might be in her best interests to transfer her care, if it can be done without traumatizing her. When I heard she was going to be seen by a woman, I was glad."

"We seem to have a good rapport," she said. "She cooperates, appears to be relating. Then I review my notes and realize she hasn't told me much."

"I felt the same way about her in the beginning," I said. "Like I said, most of the substantive material came out in the last session."

"Maybe it's her family style. I spoke to her brother, and he didn't tell me much of anything either. Given the situation, you'd think he'd want me to know as much as possible."

"He doesn't know much about her himself. He's a half brother, hasn't seen her in over twenty years."

"No, I'm not talking about the one who brought her in. This was the other one, Peter. He phoned me this morning from Taos. Said he'd heard about Lucretia from Ken. Very upset about not being able to be with her, but he couldn't fly back. And when I tried to ask questions, he backed away, like he was in a big hurry to get off the phone."

"Why can't he be with her?"

"Business obligations. I called Ken- he's gone back to Palo Alto. He knew nothing, like you said. Pretty nice of him to pay for her care."

"I got the sense he wants to make contact."

"Me, too. He offered to handle everything- he seems to have money. Lucretia has no insurance because she quit her job, so that's lucky. The hospital looks askance at doctors who treat nonpaying patients. Nowadays, we have to be bookkeepers, too, right?"

I nodded.

"Anyway," she said, "sounds like a complicated family. Are there any other relatives in town for support?"

"In town," I said. "But not for support."