The Clinic

19

At 9:00 A.M. I tried Julia Steinberger's office but she wasn't in and the Chemistry Department office said she was teaching a graduate seminar til noon.

I had other things to do on campus.

In the Psychology office, three secretaries sat at computer screens but the receptionist's desk was empty. Mail was piled high on the counter and several students stood at the bulletin board reading employment ads.

I said, “Excuse me,” and the nearest typist looked up. Young, cute, redheaded.

Showing her my faculty card from the med school crosstown, I said, “This probably makes me persona non grata, but perhaps you'll be kind enough to help me anyway.”

“Ooh,” she said, smiling, still punching keys. “Treason, Doctor? Well, I don't care about football. What can I do for you?”

“I'm looking for a grad student named Casey Locking.”

“He's got an office down in the basement but he isn't here too often, mostly works out of his house.”

She made a trip to the back, came back empty-handed.

“That's funny. His folder's gone. Hold on.”

She typed, switched computer files, brought up a list of names. “Here we go. Room B-five-three-three-one, you can use the phone at the end of the counter.”

I did. No answer. I went downstairs, anyway. Most of the basement rooms were labs. Locking's was marked by an index card. No answer to my knock.

Back upstairs, I told the redhead, “Not in. Too bad. He applied for a job and I was going to set up an appointment.”

“Would you like his home number?”

“I guess I could try it.”

She wrote something down. Out in the lobby I read it: A 213 number with an 858 prefix. Hollywood Hills, east of La Cienega. Not the Mulholland house.

So he'd gone there to meet someone. Probably Cruvic.

His folder gone. I used a lobby pay phone and called the number. Locking's liquid voice said, “No one home. Speak or forget it.” Hanging up, I left the building.

Time to visit the History Department.

Hays Hall was one of the U's oldest buildings, just behind Palmer Library and, like Palmer, yellowish limestone grimy with pollution. Seacrest's office was on the top floor, up three flights and at the end of an echoing, musty hallway lined with carved mahogany doors. His door was open but he wasn't inside.

It was a big, chilly, pale green room with a domed ceiling and leaded windows that needed washing, brown velvet drapes tied back with brass rings, built-in bookshelves, a tatty Persian rug once red, now pink.

An ugly seven-foot Victorian desk on ball feet was backed by a black cloth orthopedic chair. Facing it were three cracked red leather club chairs, one of them mended with duct tape. The desk was as neat as his home office: Arranged on the surface were a precisely cornered stack of blue-book exams, two neolithic urns, and a Royal manual typewriter. Half an egg-salad sandwich on waxed paper sat on a green blotter along with an unopened can of Diet Sprite. Not a stain, not a crumb.

Seacrest came in drying his hands with a paper towel. He had on a gray V-neck sweater over a brown-checked shirt and gray knit tie. The sweater's cuffs were frayed and his eyes looked filmy. Walking around me, he sat down behind the desk and looked at the sandwich.

“Morning,” I said.

He picked up the sandwich and took a bite. “What can I do for you?”

“If you've got time, I have a few questions.”

“About?”

“Your relationship with your wife.”

He put the sandwich down. He hadn't invited me to sit and I was still on my feet.

“My relationship with my wife,” he repeated softly.

“I don't want to intrude-”

“But you will, anyway, because the police are paying you.”

He broke off a small piece of bread crust and chewed slowly.

“Good racket,” he said.

“Pardon?”

“Why are you willing to intrude?”

“Professor, if this is a bad time-”

“Oh, spare me.” He tilted back in the chair. “You know, it wasn't until that little nocturnal visit you and Sturgis paid me that I realized I was actually a suspect. What was the purpose of that, anyway? Trying to catch me off-guard? Hoping I'd somehow incriminate myself? Is it a bad time? It's always a bad time.”

He shook his head. “This goddamn city. Everyone wants to write his own tawdry tabloid story. Tell Sturgis he's been living in L.A. too long, should learn to do some real detecting.”

His face had turned scarlet. “I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. No doubt there's some idiotic detective manual that says suspect the husband. And those first two stooges were hostile from the beginning. But why inject you into the process? Does he really think I'm going to be impressed by your psychological acuity?”

Shaking his head again, he ate more of the sandwich, striking at it with hard, sharp movements, as if it were dangerous but irresistible.

“Not that being under suspicion matters to me,” he said. “I've got nothing to hide, so root around to your heart's content. And as far as my relationship with my wife, neither of us was easy to get along with so the fact that we stayed together should tell you something. Furthermore, what reason would I have to harm her? Money? Yes, she made a fortune last year, but money means nothing to me. When her estate clears I may damn well donate all of it to charity. Wait and see if you don't believe me. So what other motive could there be?”

He laughed. “No, Delaware, my life hasn't improved since Hope died. Even when she was alive I was a solitary person. Losing her has left me completely alone and I find I no longer want that. Now kindly let me eat my lunch in peace.”

As I headed for the door, he said, “It's a pity Sturgis is so uncreative. Following the manual will only reduce whatever small chance he has of learning the truth.”

“You're not optimistic.”

“Have the police given me reason to be? Perhaps I should hire a private investigator. Though I wouldn't know where to turn.” He gave a low, barking laugh. “I don't even have an attorney. And not for lack of opportunity. Someone must have given my phone number to the Sleazy Lawyers Club or perhaps the bastards just sniff out misery. Right after the murder I had several calls a day, then it tapered off. Even now, they occasionally try.”

“What do they want from you?”

“To sue the city for not trimming the trees.” He barked again. “As if landscaping were the issue.”

“What is?”

“The total breakdown of order- too bad I can't work up a healthy lust for profit. Write a book that would sell- wouldn't that be charming? The grieving widower on the talk-show circuit. Following in Hope's footsteps.”

“Hope was pretty good at it.”

“Hope was good at everything. Do you understand that? The woman was exceptional.”

I nodded.

“Actually,” he said, “she despised the publicity game but knew it was useful.”

“She told you that.”

“Yes, Delaware. She was my wife. She confided in me.”

Popping the top of his soda can, he peered into the opening. “Oh, Christ, why am I wasting my time with you- can you even imagine what it was like sharing my roof with someone like that? Like living with a borrowed masterpiece- a Renoir or a Degas. One knows one can never own it, or even fully understand it, but one is grateful.”

“Borrowed from whom?” I said.

“God, the Fates, choose your superstition.”

He drank soda and put down the can. “So now he thinks: Was he jealous? The answer is no, I was in awe, but a loving awe. Next question in his psychoanalytic mind: What did she see in him? And the answer is sometimes I wondered myself. And now, she's gone… and your boob police friend thinks I'm the culprit- have you studied much history, Dr. Delaware?”

“Not formally since college but I try to learn from the past.”

“How admirable… Have you ever thought about what history really is? An accounting of failure, iniquity, errors of judgment, character flaws, bloody cruelties, obscene missteps. Human beings are such low things. What greater support of atheism is there than the repulsive nature of those scraps of flesh and weakness allegedly created in God's image? Or perhaps there is a master deity and he's an incompetent boob like everyone else. Wouldn't that be a hoot- now please leave me alone!”