The Clinic

32

“It is not,” Philip Seacrest repeated, “a crime.”

He might have been lecturing to students, but Milo was no sophomore.

A West L.A. interrogation room. A video camera hummed on auto but Milo's pen kept busy. I was alone in the observation cubicle, with cold coffee and frozen images.

“No, it's not, Professor.”

“I don't expect you to understand but I believe people's personal lives are just that.”

Milo stopped writing.

“When did it begin, Professor?”

“I don't know.”

“No?”

“It was not my idea… never my propensity.”

“Whose propensity was it?”

“Hope's. Casey's. I was never sure which of them actually initiated it.”

“When did you get involved?” said Milo, picking up one of the Polaroids on the table and flicking a corner with his index finger.

Seacrest turned away. Moments ago, his gray herringbone jacket had been off and the sleeve of his white shirt had been rolled up, revealing the anchor tattoo. Now he was fully dressed, the jacket buttoned.

He began picking at his untidy beard. His first reaction upon seeing the snapshots had been shock. Then wet-eyed resignation followed by hardened resolve. He hadn't been arrested, though Milo had offered him an attorney during questioning. Seacrest had turned him down curtly, as if insulted by the suggestion. As the interview ground on, he'd managed to build upon the indignation.

“When did you get involved, Professor?”

“Later.”

“How much later?”

“How could I possibly know that, Mr. Sturgis? As I told you, I have no idea when they began.”

“When did you get involved in absolute terms?”

“A year, year and a half ago.”

“And Locking was your wife's student for over three years.”

“That sounds right.”

“So it may have been going on for two years before you started.”

“It,” said Seacrest, smiling sourly. “Yes, it might have.”

“So what happened?” said Milo. “The two of them just walked in one day and announced hey, guess what, we've gotten into some B-and-D games, care to join?”

Seacrest flushed but he kept his voice even. “You wouldn't understand.”

“Try me.”

Seacrest shook his head and flexed his neck from side to side. The smile hadn't totally faded.

“Something amusing, Professor?”

“Being brought here is perverse. My wife's been murdered and you concern yourself with this kind of thing.”

Milo leaned forward suddenly, staring into Seacrest's eyes. Seacrest startled but composed himself and stared back. “Perverse, trivial, and irrelevant.”

“Humor me, Professor. How did you get involved?”

“I- you're right about it being a game. That's exactly what it was. Just a game. I don't expect you to be tolerant of… divergence, but that's all it was.”

Milo smiled. “Divergence?”

Seacrest ignored him.

“So they asked you to diverge with them.”

“No. They- I happened upon them. One afternoon when I was supposed to be lecturing. I felt a touch of something coming on, canceled class, came home.”

“And found the two of them?”

“Yes, Mr. Sturgis.”

“Where?”

“In our bed.” Seacrest smiled. “The marital bed.”

“Must have been a big shock.”

“To say the least.”

“What'd you do?”

Seacrest waited a long time to answer. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“That's right, Mr. Sturgis. Nothing.”

“You didn't get angry?”

“You didn't ask me how I felt, you asked what I did. And the answer is nothing. I turned around and walked out.”

“How'd you feel?”

Another delay. “I really can't say. It wasn't anger. Anger would have been futile.”

“Why?”

“Hope didn't take well to anger.”

“What do you mean?”

“She had no tolerance for it. Had I displayed anger, things would have gotten… confrontational.”

“Married people fight, Professor. Seems to me you had a damned good reason.”

“How understanding of you, Mr. Sturgis. However, Hope and I never fought. It didn't suit either of us.”

“So what did you mean by confrontational?”

“A war. Of silence. Interminable, frigid, seemingly infinite stretches of silence. Psychological exile. Even when Hope claimed to forgive, she never forgot. I knew her emotional repertoire the way a conductor knows a score. So when I saw the two of them, I maintained my dignity and simply walked away.”

“And then what?”

“And then…” Seacrest pulled at his beard again, “someone closed the door and I assume they… finished. I'm sure you find my reaction contemptible. Cowardly. Wimpish. No doubt you think you would have reacted differently. No doubt you'll be going home tonight to a dutiful wife and dutiful children- probably somewhere in the Valley. A charmingly conventional 818 lifestyle.”

Milo sat back and pressed a thick finger over his lips.

Looking suddenly tired, Seacrest covered his eyes with both hands, pulled down at the lids, let the hands trail down his cheeks and fall in his lap.

“It was go along, Mr. Sturgis, or…”

“Or what?”

“Or lose her. Now I've lost her anyway.”

He slumped. Began to weep.

Milo waited a long time before saying, “Can I get you something to drink, Professor?”

Headshake. Seacrest looked up. Then at the Polaroids. “May we end this? Have you heard enough about the sick divergent world of intellectuals?”

“Just a few more questions, please.”

Seacrest sighed.

Milo said, “When you found your wife and Locking you didn't figure you'd already lost her?”

“Of course not. It wasn't as if it were the…”

“The first time?”

Seacrest's mouth shut tight.

“Professor?”

“This is exactly what I was afraid of- Hope's reputation filthied. I refuse to be part of that.”

“Part of what?”

“Dredging up her past.”

“What if her past led to her murder?”

“Do you know that?”

“Now that Locking's dead, what do you think?”

No answer.

“How many other men did she play games with, Professor Seacrest?”

“I don't know.”

“But you do know there were others.”

“I don't know for a fact, but she had owned the… apparatus for some time.”

“By “apparatus' you mean the hood and the bindings and those rubber and leather garments in her size that we found at Locking's house.”

Seacrest gave a dispirited nod.

“Anything else other than those items?”

“I'm not aware of any.”

“No whips?”

Seacrest snorted. “She wasn't interested in pain. Only…”

“Only what?”

“Restraint.”

“Self-control?”

Seacrest didn't answer.

Milo wrote something down. “So she'd had the apparatus for some time. How long?”

“Five or six years.”

“Three years before she met Locking.”

“Your arithmetic is excellent.”

“Where did she keep the apparatus?”

“In her room.”

“Where in her room, Professor?”

“In a box in her closet. I came across it by accident, never told her.”

“What else was in there?”

“Pictures.”

“Of her?”

“Of… us. Pictures we'd taken. She'd told me she'd thrown them out. Apparently she liked to review them.”

“Who moved the photos and the apparatus to Locking's house?”

“Casey.”

“When?”

“The night you dropped in.”

“I only saw him carry out one box.”

“He came back later. I'd asked him to move them before. Right after Hope was murdered. I was afraid of something exactly like this.”

“Why didn't he comply?”

Seacrest shook his head. “He said he would but kept delaying.”

“More games,” said Milo.

“I suppose. He was a rather… calculated fellow.”

“You didn't like him.”

“Hope did, that's all that mattered.”

“Your feelings didn't matter?”

Seacrest's smile was eerie. “Not one bit, Mr. Sturgis.”

“If Locking was delaying, why didn't you just throw them out?”

“They were Hope's.”

“So?”

“I… felt they should be preserved.”

He licked his lips, averted his eyes.

“Before she died they were hers, Professor. Wouldn't that make them yours? So why give them to Locking?”

“For safety,” said Seacrest. “I thought the police might search Hope's room.”

“But still,” said Milo. “You didn't want to sully Hope's name, yet you kept a couple hundred photos?”

“I hid them,” he said. “In my University office. Not that I needed to. Those first two detectives never even bothered to search Hope's room. You never really did, either.”

“So you brought them to your University office, then back home.”

“Correct.”

“Then you waited for Casey Locking to take them off your hands- but what role did they play for you?”

Seacrest gave a start. “What role should they have played?”

“I'm asking you, sir. All I know is you kept them instead of destroying them. That tells me you had some use for them.”

Seacrest flexed his neck again. Adding a forward bend, he opened and closed his fingers. “Because, Mr. Sturgis, they were the only pictures I had of her, except for her book jacket. She hated the camera. Hated having her picture taken.”

“Except this way.”

Seacrest nodded.

“So these were mementos.”

Seacrest's jaws clenched.

“But you let Locking have them, anyway.”

“I… kept some.”

“Where?”

“In my home.”

“Special ones or did you just stick your hand in and grab randomly?”

Seacrest shot to his feet. “I am terminating this.”

“Fine,” said Milo. “I guess I'll have to get my information elsewhere. Ask around at some bondage clubs and see if anyone knew your wife. If that doesn't work, I can go to the press, see what that stirs up.”

Seacrest shook a finger. “Sir, you are…” His hands fisted. “You said if I came down and talked to you here, you'd be discreet.”

“I said if you came down and cooperated.”

“That's exactly what I'm doing.”

“Think so?”

Seacrest flushed deeply, the way I'd seen in his office. I watched his breathing get quicker until he closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate on slowing it down.

“What more do you want?” he finally said. “I keep telling you this had nothing to do with Hope's murder.”

“Yes, you do, Professor.”

“I knew her! Better than anyone. She didn't go to bondage clubs! She'd never have countenanced anything so…”

“Plebeian?”

“Vulgar- and stop looking at the pictures every time I defend her. They were private.”

“Private games.”

“Yes!” Striding forward, Seacrest swiped at the table, knocking most of the photos to the floor. Snapping his eyes toward Milo, as if expecting retaliation, he placed his hands on his hips and stood there.

Milo looked at him briefly, wrote something down.

Seacrest's shoe had settled near one of the pictures. He stepped on it, ground it under his heel.

“Private,” said Milo, softly. “Hope and Locking and you.”

“Exactly. Nothing illegal- absolutely nothing! Neither of us killed her.”

I expected Milo to follow that up but instead he said, “Are you terminating this interview, sir?”

“If I stay will you promise not to expose Hope?”

“I'm not promising anything, Professor. But if you cooperate, I'll do my best.”

“The first time we met,” said Seacrest, “you told me we were on the same side. What a line.”

“Show me we are, Professor.”

“Are we?”

“I'm out to catch your wife's murderer. How about you?”

Seacrest started to lurch forward, stopped himself, his whole body shaking. “If I found him I'd kill him! I'm well-versed in medieval torture devices, the things I could do!”

“The rack, huh?”

“You have no idea.” Seacrest placed one hand on his own wrist, steadying it.

“Any idea who killed Locking?”

“No.”

“No hypotheses?”

Seacrest shook his head. “Casey was… I never really knew him.”

“Outside of the games.”

“Correct.”

“The night I dropped by he returned your wife's car.”

“Yes.”

“Helping out?”

“Yes.”

“Even though you didn't really know him.”

“Hope knew him.”

“So he merited driving her car.”

“Yes. And I was grateful to him.”

“For what?”

“The pleasure he brought Hope.”

“That night, he acted formal toward you, called you Professor Seacrest. Trying to make it seem as if you two had no personal relationship.”

“We didn't, really.”

Milo lifted one of the photos remaining on the table.

Seacrest said, “The relationship wasn't between Casey and myself, Mr. Sturgis. Both relationships- everything revolved around Hope. She was the… nexus.”

“One sun, two moons,” said Milo.

Seacrest smiled. “Very good. Yes, we were in her orbit.”

“Who else was?”

“No one I'm aware of.”

“No other games?”

“None she told me about.”

“Would she have told you?”

“I believe so.”

“Why?”

“She was honest.”

“About everything?”

Seacrest gave a disgusted look. “You saw the pictures. How much more honest could anyone be?”

Milo stretched a hand toward Seacrest's chair.

“I'll remain standing, Mr. Sturgis.”

Smiling, Milo got up, kneeled, and began collecting the fallen photos. “Three-way game, and two of the players are dead. Do you feel threatened?”

“I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

“I don't think about myself much.”

“No?”

Seacrest shook his head. “I don't think much of my own value.”

“That sounds kind of depressed, sir.”

“I am depressed. Profoundly.”

“Some might say you had a motive to kill both of them.”

“And what motive is that?”

“Jealousy.”

“Then why would I leave the pictures near Casey's body and incriminate myself?”

Milo didn't answer.

“You're wasting my time and yours, Mr. Sturgis. I loved my wife in a way few women are ever loved- I obliterated myself in her honor. Losing her has sucked all the joy from my life. I appreciated Casey because he contributed to her joy. Other than that, he meant nothing to me.”

“Where did your joy come from?”

“Hope.” Seacrest smoothed the lapels of his jacket. “Be logical: Casey was shot and your own tests proved I haven't fired a gun recently. As a matter of fact, I haven't touched a firearm since I was discharged from the service. And at the time Casey was murdered, I was home.”

“Reading.”

“Would you like to know the title of the book?”

“Something romantic?”

“Milton's Paradise Lost.”

“Original sin.”

Seacrest waved a hand. “Gorge yourself on interpretation- why don't you go fetch Delaware, get him into the act, I'm sure he'll have a field day. May I go, Mr. Sturgis? I promise not to leave town. If you don't believe me, have a policeman watch me.”

“Nothing else you want to tell me?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay,” said Milo. “Sure.”

Seacrest walked shakily to the door that led to the observation room, found it locked.

“That one,” said Milo, indicating the opposite door.

Seacrest stood taller, reversed direction.

Milo squared the stack of pictures. “Reading at home. Not much of an alibi, Professor.”

“I never imagined I'd need one.”

“Talk to you later, Professor.”

“Hopefully not.” Seacrest made it to the door and stopped. “Not that you'll believe me, but Hope was never coerced or oppressed. On the contrary. She made the rules, she was the one in control. Being able to surrender herself without fear thrilled her, and her pleasure thrilled me. I admit that at first I was repelled, but one learns. I learned. Hope taught me.”

“Taught you what?”

“Trust. That's what it's all about, Mr. Sturgis. Total trust. Think about it- would your wife trust you the way mine trusted me?”

Milo hid his smile behind a big, thick hand.

“I know,” said Seacrest, “that there's very little use asking you to keep those pictures out of the police locker room but I'm asking anyway.”

“Like I said, Professor, if they've got nothing to do with the murder, there's no reason to publicize them.”

“They don't. They were part of her life, not her death.”