The Clinic (21 page)

“After. The creep. It was obviously his way of getting back at me. Three separate times he asked me, three times I told him no. Three strikes and you’re out, right? But he wouldn’t accept it.

Everywhere I’d go I’d turn around and he’d belooking at me. A creepy look. It was really starting to get to me.”

“Was this all over campus?”

“No, only the library,” she said. “As if the library was his little den. He probably stayed down there looking for women to spook, because there was no other reason for him to be there. He’s an engineering major and engineering has its own library.”

She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “I’m not paranoid, I’ve always been able to take care of myself. But this was horrible. I couldn’t concentrate. School’s tough enough without getting so distracted. Why should I have to deal with that, too? But I wouldn’t have had the courage to do anything about it without Professor Devane.”

She bit back tears. “It’s such an incredible loss! So unfair!”

She rolled the bike faster.

“Has Huang stopped bothering you?”

“Yes. So God bless Professor Devane and to hell with the administration for caving in.”

“Who’d they cave in to?”

“What I heard was there was a rich alumnus who ordered them to shut it down.” She thrust her jaw out. “Is Huang dangerous?”

“Not that we’ve learned so far.”

Her laugh was unsteady. “Well,that’s really comforting.”

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“So you’re still worried about him.”

“I really wasn’t—we pass each other on campus sometimes and I feel empowered. But then I start thinking about Professor Devane’s murder.Could it have been something to do with the committee? And I just get sick.”

We walked a bit before she said, “When I start to get anxious, I think back to something Professor Devane told me: Harassers are underassertive cowards, that’s why they sneak around.

The key is to face up to them, show your inner strength. Which is what I do when I see Huang.

But look what happened to her.”

The bike came to a skidding halt so sudden she had to pull back to maintain balance. “The fact thatshe could become victimizedenrages me! I’ve got to find a way to make something good out of it—is thereany chance it couldbe Huang?”

“He seems to have an excellent alibi.”

“So at least you took him seriously enough to investigate him. Good. Lethim know what it feels like to be under scrutiny. But if you don’t suspect him, why are you talking to me?”

“I’m after any information I can get about Professor Devane. People she was close to, her activities, anyone she might have angered.”

“Well, we weren’t close. We only spoke a couple of times—before the hearing and after, when she coached me on how to handle myself. She was incredibly kind. So understanding. As if she reallyknew. ”

“About harassment?”

“About what it felt like to be the victim.”

“Did she talk about having been a victim?”

“No, nothing like that. Just empathy—genuine empathy, not someone trying to fake it.”

The blue eyes were unwavering.

“She was an amazing woman. I’ll never forget her.”

Tessa Bowlby’s dorm was one of several six-story boxes propped at the northwest edge of the U’s sprawling acreage. A big wooden sign on posts saidSTUDENT HOUSING, NO

UNAUTHORIZED PARKING. The landscaping was rolling lawn and bearded coco palms.

Just down the road was the cream-stucco-and-smoked-glass recreation center where Philip Seacrest and Hope Devane had met, years ago.

I parked in a loading zone at the side of the building, entered the lobby, and walked up to the front desk. A black woman in her twenties sat underlining a book with a thick pink marker. Her lips were the same shade of pink. Behind her was a switchboard. It blinked and beeped and as
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she turned to take the call she noticed me. Her book was full of fine print and pie graphs. I read the title, upside down.Fundamentals of Economics.

Plugging the board, she faced me. “Can I help you?”

“Tessa Bowlby, please.”

She slid over a sheaf of papers. Typed list of names. The B’s began on the second page and continued onto the third. She checked twice before shaking her head.

“Sorry, no one by that name.”

“Tessa might be a nickname.”

She inspected me and looked again. “No Bowlbys at all. Try another dorm.”

I checked all of them. Same results.

Maybe Tessa had moved off-campus. Students did it all the time. But combined with the fear I’d seen in her eyes, plus her reduced workload, it added up to escape.

I used a pay phone in the last dorm to call Milo, wondering if he had her home address and wanting to tell him about the holes in Cruvic’s training. He was away and the cell phone didn’t answer, either. Maybe he’d found another three-stab murder or something else that would make my train of thought irrelevant.

Driving away from the U, I pulled into the first filling station I found in Westwood Village. The phone booth was a tilting aluminum wreck, but a Westside directory dangled under the phone, coverless and shredded, lots of pages missing. The page with all the Bowlbys was there.

All two of them:

Bowlby, T. J., Venice, no address listed.

Bowlby, Walter E., Mississippi Avenue in West L.A.

L.A.’s a random toss of residential pickup sticks, and with a dozen directories covering the county, the odds of either Bowlby being related to Tessa were low. But I went with what I had, starting with Walter on Mississippi because he was closer.

Very close. Between Santa Monica Boulevard and Olympic, just a mile or so south of the University, in a district of small postwar homes and a few much larger fantasy projects.

Garbage day in the neighborhood. Overflowing cans and corpulent lawn bags shouted out pride of consumption. Squirrels scavenged nervously. At night, their rat cousins would take over. Years ago the people of California had voted to reduce predatory property-tax rates and the politicians had meted out punishment by eliminating rodent control and other services. Like
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tree trimming. Money seemed to be available for other things, though: Last year after a storm I’d watched a thirteen-man city crew take four entire days to chop down and haul half a fallen pine.

Walter Bowlby’s residence was a tan bungalow with a black shingle roof. The lawn was shaved close as a Marine recruit, more gray than green. A wide front porch played host to potted plants, an aluminum chair, and a small blue bike with training wheels. An old brown Ford Galaxie sat in the driveway. I walked up a strip of cement to the door. An enamel plaque, the kind you get at a carnival or an amusement park, saidTHE BOWLBYS ! No one answered the bell or my knock.

I was back in the Seville and about to drive away when a blue-and-white van approached from Olympic and pulled in behind the Ford. Two bumper stickers:GO DODGERS. BUY UNION.

It came to a smoking, shuddering stop and the driver’s door opened.

A dark-mustachioed, bowlegged man in his forties got out. He wore a white nylon polo shirt with a horizontal green stripe that Milo would have liked, pleated off-white pants, and black work shoes. His arms were thick and sunburned but his frame was narrow. The beginnings of a gut swelled the green stripe and a cigarette pack pouched his shirt pocket. Twirling his car keys, he stood there examining the lawn, then he touched the cigarettes, as if to make sure they were still there, and turned as Tessa Bowlby came out of the front passenger door.

She looked to be wearing the same dark, baggy sweater and pipestem jeans I’d seen her in at the Psych Tower, and her complexion was even chalkier. She kept her back to the mustachioed man and slid open the van’s rear door, allowing a pleasant-looking gray-haired woman in a red tank top and jeans to climb out. The woman looked tired. Gray hair but a young face. In her arms was a black-haired boy around four.

The child appeared to be sleeping but suddenly he squirmed and kicked, throwing the gray-haired woman off-balance. Tessa braced her and said something. The mustachioed man had pulled out a cigarette and now he just stood there as the gray-haired woman handed the child to Tessa.

Tessa broke into a smile so sweet and sudden it chilled me painfully, like ice cream eaten too fast.

She hugged the boy tight. He was giggling and still squirming. Tessa looked too frail to handle him, but she managed to hold on to him, planting her feet, tickling, laughing. His sneakered feet churned air and finally stopped. She nuzzled him and cut across the grass, carrying him to the porch.

All four of them went up the steps and the man put a key in the door. The little boy started squirming again and Tessa put him down. He ran straight to the blue bike and tried to get on, nearly falling. Tessa put him on the seat, held him, removed him. He tried to climb atop the porch rail and began laughing as Tessa rushed to hold his hand.

The man and the woman entered the house, leaving the door open. The boy was walking atop the rail, holding Tessa’s hand. Suddenly, he jumped off. She caught him. He shimmied down her leg and he ran for the door. As she turned, she saw me.

That same look of panic.

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She stared as the boy ran inside. Touched her cheek, stood there for a second, and ran in, herself.

The mustachioed man had come out a second later. Reminding myself I was legit, I stayed there.

He came toward me, swinging thick arms. When he was ten feet away, he stopped and surveyed the Seville from grille to taillight. Then he walked around the front of the car, stepping out into the street and making his way to the driver’s window.

“I’m Walt Bowlby. My daughter says you’re the police.”

No challenge in his voice, just the weak hope that maybe it wasn’t true. Up close his skin was leathery. A thin gold chain circled his neck. Chest hairs sprouted around it.

I showed him my ID. “I’m a police consultant, Mr. Bowlby.”

“A consultant? Is there a problem?”

“I came here to talk to Tessa.”

“Could you tell me about what, sir?”

“There was a crime near campus involving a professor of Tessa’s. We’re talking to anyone who knew the victim.”

His shoulders dropped. “The lady professor. Tessa really doesn’t know nothing about that and she’s pretty—you know—upset.”

“About the murder?”

He touched the cigarette pocket again, pulled out a softpack of Salems, then patted his pants for matches.

I found a book in the glove compartment and lit him up.

“Thanks. Not exactly about the professor. She . . .” He looked back at the house. “Mind if I get in your car, sir?”

“Not at all.”

He walked around the back and took the passenger seat, touching the leather. “Nice shape, always liked this model—seventy-eight?”

“Nine.”

He nodded and smoked, blowing it out the window. “GM built it on a Chevy Two chassis, which lots of people thought was a mistake. But they hold up. This belong to the city, one of those impounds?”

“No, it’s mine.”

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“Had it long?”

“A few years.”

Another nod. He looked at the floorboards. “Tessa had a problem. Do you know about that?”

Not knowing if Tessa had told him about the rape, I said, “A problem Professor Devane helped her with?”

“Yeah. She . . . she’s very bright. Tessa. Almost a genius IQ. When she wanted to drop out we asked why but she wouldn’t tell us, just said she wanted to move back home. We were surprised, my wife and me, because she’d been the one made such a fuss about living on her own. Finally she broke down and cried and told us about the—you know. The assault. And how the professor hauled the guy up on charges. And then she got murdered. At first it sounded so wild we didn’t know what to believe. Then we saw the news about the murder.”

“What was wild, the murder or the rape?”

He inhaled a lot of smoke and held on to it for a long time. “Tell the truth, sir, all of it.”

“Did you have doubts Tessa had been attacked?”

He stuck his arm out the car and flicked ashes. “How do I put this—I love my daughter a lot but she’s . . . she’s really smart, always was. Right from a baby. But different. She gets in these low moods. Depression. Since she’s been little, always moody. And then she goes into her own little world—a real good imagination. Sometimes . . .” He shrugged and smoked. The cigarette was nearly down to the filter.

“Her imagination can get wild,” he said.

“Has she accused others of raping her, Mr. Bowlby?”

He sighed, took another drag, looked at the butt, and squeezed it out between his fingers. I slid open the ashtray and he dropped it in.

“Thanks. Mind if I light up another?”

“Go ahead.”

“Disgusting habit. I quit every day.” He laughed.

I smiled and repeated my question.

He said, “We used to live out in Temple City, the police there probably still got records.

Though maybe not, ’cause the boy was a minor, I heard they don’t keep records on minors.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Tessa’s almost twenty and she was twelve at the time, so eight years. The boy—we knew his family, I worked with his father at Ford, back when they had a plant in Montebello—the boy was
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a little older. Thirteen, I think. The families were close. We were all camping at Yosemite.

Supposedly it happened in a tent, the two of them stayed behind while the rest of us went to the dump looking for bears. But the thing was, Tessa never said nothing til we got back home. Three or four days later. The Temple City police said it was really the park rangers’ jurisdiction but they brought the boy in anyway for questioning. Then they said they thought he was innocent but we could pursue it if we wanted. They also said we should have a psychiatrist see Tessa.”

Hollowing his cheeks, he sucked hungrily on the second cigarette and let the smoke trail out of his mouth. His teeth were brown, widely spaced. Veins bulged in the heavy, sunburned arms, and the tips of his nails were coal-black.

“She’s—the thing is, sir, Tessa’s smart, even with her problems, she always did great in school.