Bad Love (29 page)

“She was getting between them,” I said. “The whole therapy process was challenging whatever Hewitt had with Gritz. How did Becky phrase it in that last note?”

“Let me see — here it is: “Relationship between D and G strained. Me? D’s growth?’ Yes, I see what you mean. Then right after that, she mentions another p-c — the session where he actually kissed her. . . . You know, you could read this and feel almost as if she was seducing him.” She crumpled the notes. “God, what a travesty — why are you interested in this Gritz? You think he could be the one harassing people?”

“It’s possible.”

“Why? What else has he done criminally?”

“I’m not sure of the details, but the harassment involved the words “bad love’—”

“What Hewitt screamed . . . Does that actually
mean
something? What’s going
on
?”

Her fingers had become laced with mine. I looked at them and she pulled away and fooled with her hair. The flap covered one eye. The exposed one was alive with fear.

I said, “I don’t know, Jean. But given the notes, I have to wonder if Gritz played a role in getting Hewitt to murder Becky.”

“Played a
role
? How?”

“By working on Hewitt’s paranoia — telling Hewitt things about Becky. If he was a close friend, he’d know which buttons to push.”

“Oh, God,” she said. “And now he’s missing . . . it’s not over, is it?”

“Maybe it is. This is all conjecture, Jean. But finding Gritz would help clear it up. Any chance he was a patient at the center?”

“The name doesn’t ring a bell . . . bad love . . . I thought Hewitt was just raving, now you’re saying maybe he was reacting to something that had gone on between him and Becky? That he killed her because she rejected him.”

“Could be,” I said. “I found a reference to “bad love’ in the psych literature. It’s a term coined by a psychoanalyst named Andres de Bosch.”

She stared at me, nodded slowly. “I think I’ve heard of him. What did he say about it?”

“He used it to describe poor child rearing — a parent betraying a child’s trust. Building up faith and then destroying it. In extreme cases, he theorized, it could lead to violence. If you consider the therapist-patient relationship similar to child rearing, the same theory could be applied to cases of transference gone really bad. Hewitt may have heard about “bad love’ somewhere — probably from another therapist or even from Gritz. When he felt Becky had rejected him, he fell apart, became a betrayed child — and lashed out violently.”

“Betrayed child?” she said. “You’re saying his killing her was a
tantrum
?”

“A tantrum heated to the boiling point by Hewitt’s delusions. And by his failure to take his medication. Who knows, Gritz may have convinced him not to take it.”

“Gritz,” she said. “How do you spell it?”

I told her. “Be good to know if he was one of your patients.”

“I’ll comb the files first thing tomorrow, take that damned storage room
apart
if I have to. If he’s anywhere in there, I’ll call you right away. We need to know for our own safety.”

“I’ll be out of town tomorrow. You can leave a message with my service.”

“All day tomorrow?” A touch of panic in her voice.

I nodded. “Santa Barbara and back.”

“I love Santa Barbara. It’s gorgeous. Taking some vacation time?”

“De Bosch used to have a clinic and a school up there. I’m going to try and find out if Hewitt or Gritz were ever patients.”

“I’ll let you know if he was ours. Call me back, okay? Let me know what you find.”

“Sure.”

She looked at her salad again. “I can’t eat.”

I waved Ear over and got the bill.

She said, “No, I invited
you
,” and tried to take it, but she didn’t put up much of a fight and I ended up paying.

She stashed the notes in her purse and glanced at her watch. “Dick’s not coming back for another half an hour.”

“I can wait.”

“No, I won’t keep you. But I wouldn’t mind some fresh air. I’ll walk you to your car.”

Just outside the restaurant she paused to button her sweater and smooth her hair. The first time, the buttons were out of line and she had to redo them.

We walked to the city lot without speaking. She looked in shop windows but seemed uninterested in the wares they displayed. Waiting until I’d redeemed the keys from the attendant, she accompanied me to the Seville.

“Thanks,” I said, shaking her hand. I opened the driver’s door.

She said, “What I said before still stands, right? About keeping all this quiet?”

“Of course.”

“It’s nothing Detective Sturgis could ever use, anyway,” she said. “Legally speaking — what does it really prove?”

“Just that people are fallible.”

“Oh, boy, are they.”

I got into the car. She leaned in through the window.

“You’re more than just a consultant on this, aren’t you?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Your passion. Consultants don’t go this far.”

I smiled. “I take my work seriously.”

She moved her head back, as if I’d blown garlic in her face.

“So do I,” she said. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t.”

Monday morning at nine, I set out for Ojai, taking the 405 to the 101 and making it to the strawberry fields of Camarillo in less than an hour. Migrant workers stooped in the stubby, green rows. The crop became blue cabbage and the air turned bitter. Kissy-face billboards boosted housing developments and home equity loans.

Just past the Ventura County Fairgrounds, I turned onto 33 north, speeding by an oil refinery that resembled a giant junkyard. Another few miles of trailer parks and mower rental sheds and things got pretty: two lanes draped by eucalyptus, black mountains off to the northwest, the peaks flesh colored where the sun hit.

The town of Ojai was a quarter of an hour farther, announced by a bike and equestrian trail, orange groves, and signs directing the motorist to the Ojai Palm Spa, the Humanos Theosophic Institute, Marmalade Hot Springs. To the south were the clean, green slopes of a country club. The cars were good-looking and so were the people.

Ojai proper was quiet and slow moving, with one traffic light. The main drag was Ojai Avenue, lined with the kind of low-rise, neo-Spanish architecture that usually means tight zoning laws. Unrestricted parking, plenty of spaces. Tans and smiles, natural fibers and good posture.

On the left side of the avenue, a colonnaded, tile-roofed building was filled with storefronts. Native American art and antiques, body wraps and herbal facials, a Little Olde Tea Shoppe. Across the street was an old theater, freshly adobed. Playing tonight:
Leningrad Cowboys
.

I had my Ventura County Thomas Guide on the passenger seat, but I didn’t need it. Signal was a couple of intersections up, and 800 north meant a left turn.

Big trees and small houses, residential lots alternating with olive groves. A drainage ditch paved with fieldstones ran alongside the left side of the street, spanned every few yards by one-stride foot bridges. Wilbert Harrison’s address was near the top, one of the last houses before open fields took over.

It was a shingle-roofed wooden cottage painted an odd purplish-red and nearly hidden behind unruly snarls of agave cactus. The purple was vivid and it shone through the agave’s sawtooth leaves like a wound. Atop a steep dirt driveway, a Chevy station wagon was parked up against a single garage. Four stone steps led up to the front porch. The screen door was shut, but the wooden one behind it was wide open.

I knocked on the frame while looking into a small, dark living room, plank floored and crowded with old furniture, shawls, throw pillows, an upright piano. A bay window was lined with dusty bottles.

Chamber music came from another room.

I knocked louder.

“One minute.” The music turned off and a man appeared from a doorway to the right.

Short. Chubby as in his old picture and white haired. He had on a polyester jumpsuit the same purplish-red as the house. Some of the furniture was upholstered that color, too.

He opened the screen door and gave me a curious but friendly look. His eyes were gray, but they picked up magenta accents from his surroundings. There was a softness to his face, but no weakness.

“Dr. Harrison?”

“Yes, I’m Bert Harrison.” His voice was a clear baritone. The jumpsuit was zipped in the front and had large, floppy lapels. Short-sleeved, it exposed white, freckled arms. His face was freckled, too, and I noticed reddish-blond tints in his white hair. He wore a pinkie ring set with a violet cabochon, and a bolo tie with leather thongs held together by a big, shapeless purple rock. Sandals on his feet, no socks.

“My name is Alex Delaware. I’m a clinical psychologist from Los Angeles and I wondered if I could talk to you about Andres de Bosch and “bad love.’ ”

The eyes didn’t change shape or hue, but they became more focused.

He said, “I know you. We’ve met somewhere.”

“Nineteen seventy-nine,” I said. “There was a conference at Western Pediatric Medical Center on de Bosch’s work. You presented a paper and I was a co-chair, but we never actually met.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling. “You were there as the hospital’s representative, but your heart wasn’t in it.”

“You
remember
that?”

“Distinctly. The entire conference had that flavor — ambivalence all around. You were very young — you wore a beard then, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I said, amazed.

“The beginnings of old age,” he said, still smiling. “Distant memories become clearer, but I can’t remember where I put my keys.”

“I’m still impressed, doctor.”

“I remember the beard vividly, perhaps because I have trouble growing one. And your voice. Full of stress. Just as it is right now. Well, come in, let’s take care of it. Coffee or tea?”

There was a small kitchen beyond the living room and a door that led to a single bedroom. The little I could see of the sleeping chamber was purple and book-lined.

The kitchen table was birch, not more than four feet long. The counters were old white tile trimmed with purple-red bullnoses.

He fixed instant coffee for both of us and we sat. The scale of the table put us close together, elbows nearly touching.

“In answer to your unasked question,” he said, whitening his coffee with lots of cream, then adding three spoonfuls of sugar, “it’s the only color I can see. A rare genetic condition. Everything else in my world is gray, so I do what I can to brighten it.”

“Makes sense,” I said.

“Now that that’s out of the way, tell me what’s on your mind concerning Andres and “bad love’ — that was the title of the conference, wasn’t it.”

“Yes. You don’t seem surprised that I just popped in.”

“Oh, I am. But I like surprises — anything that breaks up routine has the ability to freshen our lives.”

“This may not be a pleasant surprise, Dr. Harrison. You may be in danger.”

His expression didn’t change. “How so?”

I told him about the “bad love” tape, my revenge theory, the possible links to Dorsey Hewitt and Lyle Gritz.

“And you think one of these men may have been a former patient of Andres’s?”

“It’s possible. Hewitt was thirty-three when he died, and Gritz is a year older, so either of them could have been his patient as a child. Hewitt killed one psychotherapist, perhaps under Gritz’s influence, and Gritz is still out there, possibly still trying to even scores.”

“What would he be trying to avenge?”

“Some kind of mistreatment — by de Bosch himself or a disciple. Something had happened at the school.”

No response.

I said, “Real or imagined. Hewitt was a paranoid schizophrenic. I don’t know Gritz’s diagnosis, but he may be delusional, as well. The two of them could have influenced each other’s pathology.”

“Symbiotic psychosis?”

“Or at least shared delusions — playing on each other’s paranoia.”

He blinked hard. “Tapes, calls . . . no, I haven’t experienced anything like that. And the name of this person who giggled over the phone was Silk?”

I nodded.

“Hmm. And what role do you think the conference played?”

“It may have triggered something — I really don’t know, but it’s my only link to de Bosch. I felt an obligation to tell you because one of the other speakers — Dr. Stoumen — was killed last year, and I haven’t been able to loca—”

“Grant?” he said, leaning forward close enough for me to smell the mint on his breath. “I heard he died in an auto accident.”

“A hit-and-run accident. While attending a conference. He stepped off the curb and was knocked down by a car. It was never solved, Dr. Harrison. The police put it down to Dr. Stoumen’s old age — poor vision, faulty hearing.”

“A conference,” he said. “Poor Grant — he was a nice man.”

“Did he ever work at the school?”

“He did occasional consultations. Coming up summers for a week or two, combining vacation with business. Hit-and-run . . .” He shook his head.

“And as I was saying, I can’t locate any of the other speakers or co-chairs.”

“You’ve located me.”

“You’re the only one, Dr. Harrison.”

“Bert, please. Just out of curiosity, how did you find me?”

“From the
Directory of Medical Specialists
.”

“Oh. I suppose I forgot to cancel it.” He looked troubled.

“I didn’t want to impose on your privacy, but—”

“No, no, that’s fine. You’re here for my own good . . . and, to tell the truth, I welcome visitors. After thirty years in practice, it’s nice to talk to people rather than just listen.”

“Do you know where any of the others are? Katarina de Bosch, Mitchell Lerner, Harvey Rosenblatt.”

“Katarina is just up the coast, in Santa Barbara.”

“She’s still there?”

“I haven’t heard that she’s moved.”

“Do you have her address?”

“And her phone number. Here, let me call it for you.”

He reached over, pulled a crimson rotary phone from the counter, and put it on the table. As he dialed I wrote down the number on the phone. Then he held the receiver to his ear for a while, before putting it down.