Blackbird (19 page)

‘No.’

‘So when cases were assigned, you ended up with what?’

He tossed the pencil back onto the calendar, saying, ‘More no-pays and slow-pays than I wanted, that’s for sure. More HOUNDs.’

‘Hounds?’

He waved this aside in the air with his hand, saying, ‘Nothing, just an old grad school saying – hardest patient for a therapist to get anywhere with: homely, old, unassertive, non-verbal and dumb.’

I looked up at the diplomas and certificates on the wall behind him. BS, Master’s, PhD. ‘Where’d Dr Gold train?’ I asked.

‘She didn’t have her paper up anywhere that I ever saw, but I understand she went to one of those schools of professional psychology in southern California. Design-your-own-curriculum or whatever, I’m really not sure.’

‘Know of any connection between her and Ben Frix?’

‘I never heard of one.’

‘Any idea who she did socialise with?’

‘Not really. I’m not even sure how much socialising she actually did. We didn’t have a lot of friends in common.’

‘How did you hook up with her originally?’

‘When I first came to town they put an announcement with a little headshot of me in the paper, the Business Focus column. I was just starting work at the mental health centre in the Louisiana Quarter, and she got in touch and offered a part-time deal at her offices. That eventually evolved into full-time, and I left the MH centre. I was with her about two years before the split.’

‘What happened with the appointment book?’ I said. ‘I’ve heard stories.’

A muscle jumped in his jaw. ‘Yeah, that. I picked it up to copy my appointments before I left, and she tried to grab it. Next thing you know, we’re wrestling for it across the receptionist’s desk.’

‘Who won?’

‘I ended up getting the pages copied, but things were pretty hectic there for a few minutes. The way she looked at it, all the patients who came through the door were hers, and if I was going to leave I could find my own. But as far as I was concerned, my patients were mine, therapeutic relationships established, ongoing issues, all that.’

I waited until I was sure nothing else was coming. ‘So that was the end of it?’

‘No, she got the lawyers involved. Judge Gaither obviously didn’t like either of us, but he basically ruled in my favour, and I kept all the patients I was seeing.’

‘Why do you say Gaither didn’t like you?’

Pendergrass barked out a sour little laugh. ‘He a friend of yours?’

‘No.’

‘The sneering old fart made faces at us, called us ridiculous.’

I said, ‘Where did things go from there?’

Pendergrass shrugged. ‘I don’t know how you’d put it except to say it went from there to her butchered and hung up to die.’

I watched him without speaking for a beat. ‘Why do you say butchered?’ I asked.

Another silence, Pendergrass glancing at his phone. ‘Do I need a lawyer?’

‘You’re not under arrest.’

‘Am I a suspect?’

‘I think you know how homicide investigations work, Mark,’ I said. ‘How about answering my question?’

He studied me for a moment, then said, ‘I know a couple of the reporters who were out there. One of them had telephoto gear.’

Trying to remember the angles and distances and wondering what might have been visible through good photo-optics from beyond the yellow tape at the crime scene, I decided to move on. I said, ‘How about Dr Gold’s marriage – you know anything about how that was going?’

He brushed absently at something on his desk blotter, then looked up. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘But there’s always talk.’

‘Talk?’

‘That Andy wasn’t happy but couldn’t get out. Deborah put some money into the business and got Jeff Feigel to do the paperwork, and by the time they were through there was no way for Andy to leave her without losing everything, or maybe ending up on salary or something with her
signing his paycheque. No idea how true that was, but it’d be a hell of a tight collar for a guy to wear.’

‘Are you saying it could be motive enough for murder?’

‘Professional opinion?’

‘Any kind of opinion.’

‘Why not?’

An old-time homicide detective I once knew had had a tendency to comment on situations like this by saying, ‘So much bullshit, so little time,’ and I could understand his thinking. I said, ‘Mark, I’ve got information that you were more socially involved with Dr Gold at one time than you’re saying.’

He looked down at his hands, jaw muscles tightening again. ‘Where’d that come from?’ he asked.

‘Sources close to the investigation.’

He looked at me, his eyes hardening with calculation. ‘How far is this thing going, Jim?’ he said. ‘I mean, I’ve got a lot on the table here.’

‘So did she,’ I said. ‘The thing is, being in the middle of a murder investigation is like sleeping with an elephant – you kind of lose your bargaining power. Tell me about the group.’

‘Group?’

Another voice from the past came to me. It belonged to Gram, my grandmother, who’d actually been better than a dictionary because she not only knew the meaning and spelling of every word ever invented but could tell you where it came from, what it used to mean, who brought it to America, and about a thousand other things you didn’t want to know. In this case her remembered voice was patiently explaining to me the meaning of ‘disingenuous’.

‘You can do better than that, Mark,’ I said. ‘You’re too
smart to think I’d ask if I didn’t already know about it. What we’re looking for here is a story that fits the facts and doesn’t leave you in the crosshairs.’

He inspected his nails as he processed this. Finally he cleared his throat, and his eyes came back to me. ‘All right, the group,’ he said. ‘It’s not easy to explain, but I guess it just sort of evolved. Deb had always been an experimenter. Several of us got talking at a hot-tub party one night, everybody’s high, getting off on the music, and before long we were trying a group scene once in a while – ’

‘What kind of music?’

‘Not live, if that’s what you mean – digital stuff, rock oldies mostly. Why?’

‘Idle curiosity,’ I lied. ‘Was everybody in the group on board for the tub parties and blow?’

‘I got the feeling it was a bigger thing for Deb and Ben than it was for the rest of us. For sure it was those two, and especially her, who were always pushing the envelope, “opening ourselves up to new things”, moving into weirder and weirder stuff until it all started getting a little too surreal for me. Anyway, I drifted out of it around the time I started getting pissed off at Deb over the office stuff. I don’t know where the whole thing went after that.’

‘Who all was involved?’

‘The only other regular I knew of was Jeff Feigel, but there were always at least half a dozen people there. We had day-trippers sometimes, people just checking out the scene. A lot of times Ben would show up with some girl who worked for him, or even two or three of them, and Deb was always bringing in her practicum students, interns and miscellaneous kids – ’

‘Kids?’

‘What? Oh, no – I don’t mean
kid
kids. I’m just talking about somebody under twenty-five. Anyway, none of them stuck.’

‘What about Andy Jamison?’

‘I have no idea what he was thinking, but to me it was obvious this was Deb’s thing, not his. He was around quite a bit at first, but less and less as time went by, and eventually he just kind of faded away.’

‘Any patients involved?’

‘Not as far as I know, but with Deb there’s no telling. She married a patient, of course, if that proves anything.’

‘Was he ever actually into the scene in a big way?’

‘Just the chemical end of it, enough to try a little blow once or twice. The rest of it didn’t seem to interest him. He bailed too.’

‘Ever hear of anybody in the group involved with drugs at the wholesale level?’

‘Dealing? No. Is that your theory – this could be drug related?’

‘I’m just asking the question, Mark. I don’t know enough yet to have a theory.’

‘I was never aware of any drug connection other than for personal use. Do you think Ben Frix’s death was connected with Deb’s? I mean, are we talking about some kind of vendetta against the group?’

‘I don’t have any reason to think so,’ I said. ‘On the other hand there’s no evidence the other way either. Do you know of anybody who could be carrying that kind of grudge?’

‘Not a clue,’ he said. ‘What I want to know is whether I should expect to see my name in the media over this?’

‘You know how these things go,’ I said. ‘The longer it takes to clear the case, the more digging the cops and
reporters are going to do, and they’re not going to prioritise anybody’s privacy ahead of that.’

He looked at me as if he thought I might say something to take the edge off this. I didn’t.

Finally he shrugged, saying, ‘I guess there are worse things that can happen to a guy than bad publicity – you take what you can get.’

I ended the interview on that note and drove back to Three thinking random thoughts about sex, drugs and rock and roll, and wondering where in this puzzle a piece of work like Mark Pendergrass was going to end up fitting.

TWENTY-ONE

It wasn’t quite full dark, and the air drifting in through the open sliding doors to my back deck was fresh and just cool enough. The cookout. Total relaxation. I looked around at LA, Johnny, Li, Jonas and Abby, all holding drinks and looking amused, comfortably seated in various chairs and a loveseat in my living room. They seemed to be watching me expectantly.

‘How are you feeling?’ asked LA.

‘Great,’ I said truthfully. I wiggled my toes and stretched. I’d never felt better, in fact. All was right with the world, my usually stiffly painful knees like well-lubricated bearings. Same with my right hand. The sensation was weird but beautiful.

Johnny smiled ironically as Li whispered something in his ear. LA raised her ginger ale glass, delicately pinged its rim with her fingernail.

‘To arms!’ I blurted.

Laughter all around, happy applause.

‘Wait.’ I held up my hand for silence. ‘To arms – ’

More laughter. But I wasn’t going to let that stop me. ‘Just hold on,’ I said. ‘The Redcoats are coming!’ I completed the rhyme, then looked around at everybody in satisfaction. For some reason they were all still laughing.

Then it began to come back to me: LA’s hypnotic induction, the pain management suggestions, asking if I’d allow a gag for entertainment in return for the therapy. She’d always found me a good subject, a ‘somnambulist’, who could do all sorts of stunts while in trance.

‘Okay, you got me,’ I said, shaking my head, reaching to pick up my beer. ‘Am I going to embarrass myself any more, or are we done?’

‘You know my rule: one party, one parlour trick,’ said Dr LA, the ethical prankster.

Remembering the induction took nothing at all away from the effect of the suggestions; I still felt terrific. I could have danced the Nutcracker. The only cloud in my sky was that Jana and the girls weren’t here.

Later on the patio, the charcoal settling back down to cooking temperature after a session with the leaf blower to get it started, Jonas and Johnny pumped me about the case. I told them what I could, including a description of the city manager’s attempts to pressure OZ.

‘Any conclusions?’ asked Johnny, sipping Dos Equis, interested but looking tired. A midnight-oil lawyer who worked all his cases hard.

‘Just that I may have to look for a new job if I don’t get these killings off my calendar pretty soon.’

‘Hazen’s always had his head up his ass,’ observed Jonas.

‘Maybe you ought to buck this to somebody else,’ said Johnny. ‘Get the heat off you.’ He took a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his green Viyella shirt, slid one out and lit it with a Bic lighter. ‘Maybe even get out of Dodge for a while.’

I shook my head. ‘Probably good advice, but I’d be bullshitting you if I said I was going to take it.’

‘What’s OZ’s thinking?’

‘He knows what I know,’ I said. ‘He’ll probably do the usual – give me all the rope I need to hang us both, then sit back and see what happens.’

Johnny nodded, took a drink. ‘You decide you want to spend a few days out at my place to let things cool down a little, just say the word. I could probably use some hands-on advice about running a farm.’ Li came over and asked him some question she’d just thought of about the new well pump they’d had installed last week out at their place. Jonas wandered off toward the bathroom.

When Li was gone Johnny said, ‘So, you liking the idea of the survivalists or what?’

‘They’re as good a bet as anybody,’ I said. ‘But there’s been some buzz from another psychologist about things going on out at the federal prison – gives us a couple of other angles to look at.’ I took a sip of my own beer. ‘What do you think, Johnny?’

He considered for a few seconds, swirling his beer around a couple of times. ‘If you can rule out the usual love-money suspects, yeah, I’d like the paintball and camo guys for it,’ he said. ‘Aren’t they pretty much all anti-Semitic?’

‘I just hate thinking about it,’ said Abby. ‘I hate it that something so ugly could happen here. Did you hear that asshole on NBC talking about the Blight on America’s Soul while the camera panned down Border Avenue? Like, “Here it is, folks, the home of the Blight”.’

‘That’s what’s so heinous about the whole thing,’ said Jonas as he returned to his chair. ‘A life is lost, and the smugness of the network anchors ratchets up another notch.’

‘I’d rather think about food,’ said Li.

‘I’ll second that,’ said Abby. ‘Why don’t we have an intervention or something, see if we can get Jim cooking?’

Beginning to feel hungry myself, I walked into the kitchen to get everything ready, Mutt monitoring every move. As I blended the sauce and assembled the fillets, condiments, utensils and side items – green salads, foil-wrapped ears of corn and thick slices of fresh pineapple and plantain; basically whatever I’d seen at the supermarket that looked good to me – Mutt purred roughly and butted at my leg with his big head. I sliced a small corner off the biggest fillet and dropped it in front of him. He grabbed it, ran to the far end of the counter, shook it viciously to make sure it was dead, then ate it.