The Clinic (36 page)

“Hands-off, how?”

“She let me do my own thing. I’m kind of compulsive, so it worked out.”

“A self-starter.”

She laughed. “That’s a nicer way to put it.”

“So someone who needed more guidance might find her style difficult?”

“I suppose so, but that would just be speculation.”

“What about Casey Locking? Is he a self-starter?”

“I don’t know Casey.” Tension in her voice.

“Not at all?”

“Not well. You’re an alumnus, Dr. Delaware, you know how the program operates: three years of coursework, quals, then on to dissertation research. Some students know what they want, hook up with an advisor right away. I didn’t. Between my job, my daughter, and classes, I was in a pretty severe time crunch.”

“How old’s your daughter?”

“Three. I just sent her off to day care. They have excellent day care here.”

“Better than L.A.?”

“Better thanI found in L.A. I wanted someplace that would provide some nurturance, do more than warehousing. Anyway, I was crunched, needed to finish, so you can see why there wasn’t much time to socialize with Casey or anyone else.”

“Did you have any contact with him?”

“Minimal. He—our paths were different.”

“In what way?”

“I’m interested in clinical work. He didn’t seem to care about that at all.”

“Pure research?”

“I guess so.”

“He’s a little different,” I said.

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“What do you mean?”

“The black leather.”

“Yes,” she said. “He does try to project an image.”

“So even though the two of you were Professor Devane’s only students, you had little to do with each other.”

“Correct.”

“Do you know anything about his research?”

“Something about self-control. Animal studies, I think.”

“Was Professor Devane hands-off with him, too?”

“Well,” she said, “they published together, so they must have shared some common ground.

Why? Is Casey . . . implicated somehow?”

“Would it surprise you if he was?”

“Of course it would. The thought ofanyone I know doing something like that would be surprising. Dr. Delaware, I have to say this conversation is making me uncomfortable. I can’t even know for sure you’re really who you say you are.”

“If you’d like, I can give you the number of the police detective assigned to the case.”

“No, that’s all right. I have nothing more to say anyway.”

“But discussing Casey made you uncomfortable.”

She gave a small, soft laugh. “That sounds like a therapeutic comment, Dr. Delaware.”

“Is it an accurate comment?”

“Discussing anyone makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like to gossip.”

“So it’s nothing to do with Casey, specifically?”

“He—I have some feelings about him but they’re really not relevant.”

“You don’t like him?”

“I’d rather not,” she said, a bit louder.

“Ms. Gonsalvez,” I said. “Professor Devane was murdered very brutally. There are no leads and no way to know what’s relevant and what isn’t.”

“So Caseyis under suspicion?”

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“No, he isn’t. Not formally. But if there’s something about him that upset you, I’d like to know about it. Or I can have Detective Sturgis call.”

“Oh, boy,” she said. “Oh, boy . . . I really can’t afford to have this getting back to Casey.

He’s—I’m not afraid of him but he’s someone whose bad side I wouldn’t want to be on.”

“Have you seen his bad side in action?”

“No, but he’s—I’ve seen his research. I wasn’t being totally honest when I said I thought he was running animal studies. Iknow he was because one night I happened to be down in the basement and passed his lab. I was grading some papers and had to pick them up in the prof’s basement lab. It must have been eleven o’clock, everyone was gone. I heard music—heavy-metal music—and saw light coming through a partially open door. I peeked in and there was Casey, with his back to me. He had cages of rats, mazes, all sorts of psychophysiologic equipment. The music was very loud and he never heard me. He had a rat in his hand—between his fingers.

Pinching its neck. The poor thing was squirming and squeaking, Casey was clearly hurting it.

Then he started dancing around. To the music—doing a little jig while he pinched the rat. Its tail was—it was horrible to watch. I wanted to rush in and stop him but I didn’t. Too scared, being down there alone. Since then I guess he alwayshas scared me—the leather, his manner. Have you seen that ring he wears?”

“The skull.”

“Tacky,” she said. “And juvenile. He saw me looking at it once and said Hope had given it to him. Which I find hard to believe.”

“Why?”

“She was the epitome of class. He was just playing head games with me—anyway, it bothered me for a long time. The rat. I kept thinking I should tell someone—the department has rules about humane treatment of animals. But Hope was his advisor and I knew she liked him and . . .

I know this sounds like petty sibling rivalry but he was clearly the favored child. So if I made problems for him, how would she react? Cowardly, Dr. Delaware, but my goal is to finish my Ph.D., get out in the world, make a good home for my daughter. Hope was staying out of my life and I’d adjusted to it.”

“Did she stay out to the point of neglect?”

“Honestly? There were times I needed her and she wasn’t available and sometimes it hung me up. Because of my tight schedule, every delay threw me back. I even tried to tell her once. She was pleasant but really didn’t want to hear it so I never brought it up again. When I picked her, I thought she’d be ideal because of her feminism. My field of interest is cross-cultural sex-roles and child rearing. I thought she’d get turned on by the topic but she really wasn’t interested.”

“But with Casey it was different.”

“Very different. She always seemed to have time for him. Don’t get me wrong, when we did get together she was great—supportive, incredibly smart. And she did come through on my grant.

But getting her attention was always tough and after her book came out it became impossible.

By the time I left for England, I was starting to feel like an orphan.”

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“How do you know she had more time with Casey?”

“Because I saw them together a lot and he let me know. “Hope and I were lunching,’ “I was over at Hope’s house the other day.’ Almost gloating—God, this really does sound like sibling garbage, doesn’t it?”

“Grad school often works out that way.”

“I guess. She even took him with her to TV shows. He told me about sitting in the greenroom, meeting celebrities. Which isn’t to say she wasn’t entitled to work with whomever she preferred.”

“Pinching the rat,” I said. “Gloating. Sounds like he’s into control in some unpleasant ways.”

“Yes. I definitely see him as highly dominant. One of those people who won’t have anything to do with a situation unless he can control it. But he is bright.Very bright.”

“How do you know?”

“During the first three years of classes, he always scored high, and I remember someone saying he was at the top of his class at Berkeley.”

“But no interest in clinical issues.”

“Just the opposite. He used to disparage clinical work, said psychology was presumptuous because it hadn’t laid enough scientific groundwork to be able to help people. That point of view goes over pretty well with lots of the department biggies, so he’ll probably end up a full professor. Heck, with his brains and his dominance needs, he’ll probably end up a departmentchairman .”

“Chairman in black leather?”

“I’m sure it’s a stage,” she said. “Maybe next year it’ll be tweeds and elbow patches.”

I sat thinking about the rat suffering between Locking’s fingers. Mr. Skull Ring.

Hope’s gift.

Another Berkeley grad.

The Northern California connection. . . . Big Micky moving up to San Francisco because you could get away with more there.

How many connecting threads? How far back did it go?

I tiptoed into the bedroom, determined not to wake Robin. Eased into bed, careful not to rock the mattress.

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But she said, “Honey?” and reached out to me.

I wrapped my arms around her.

Next morning my mind was a gun scope with Locking centered in the crosshairs.

I started phoning at nine, in my bathrobe. No answer at his home or his campus office. Down in the basement with his rats?

I had no home address because his file was missing. Had he pulled it himself? Hiding something?

Dialing the Psych department, I filled my voice with annoyed authority and told the secretary,

“This is Dr. Delaware. I need to locate a grad student on a research matter. Casey Locking.

Your file on him’s missing and you gave me his number but I need an address.”

“One second, Doctor.” Click out, click in. “I have an address for him on 1391 Londonderry Place.”

After she read it off, I said, “What about his lab? Is there an extension there?”

“Hold on. . . . No, there’s nothing here.”

“Thanks. Is there a zip code for Londonderry Place?”

“L.A. 90069.”

Hollywood Hills, north of Sunset Strip. Nice address for a grad student. Thanking her again, I got dressed.

I drove Sunset through Beverly Hills and into West Hollywood, cruising by talent agencies, high-ticket defense attorneys, glass boxes filled with used Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Past the Roxy, the House of Blues, the Snake Pit, what used to be Gazzarri’s before it burned to the ground. At Holloway I spied a magenta-and-brass thing that saidCLUB NONE over a neon highball glass and stirrer.

So Locking lived close to the place where Mandy had plied her trade, maybe with the ultimate bad john.

Next came Sunset Plaza with its Oscar-party fashion boutiques and sidewalk cafes crowded with would-be actresses and the poorly shaved vultures who wait for them to get rich or die. If any of the women found screen work, chances are it would be with their clothes off. One way or another the men would be watching.

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Londonderry Place was a block beyond the last cafe, just past Ben Franks’s twenty-four-hour coffee shop, a steep, skinny, aerobic hike above the traffic. High, canted lawns, good-sized houses, most with less architecture than a bus stop.

Locking’s was two blocks up, one story, white, unmodified since its fifties birthdate. This high up there was bound to be a city view but the house had low, slatted windows. Arrow plants and yuccas and gazania crowned the sloping frontage. Concrete steps led to the front door and an alarm-company sign was staked at the top.

I walked up a very long driveway that continued past the house. Space for half a dozen vehicles but only one was parked there: black BMW 530i. Through an open wooden gate I saw a blue pool and concrete decking, an outdoor lounge chair. Thick, low-hanging ficus trees cast black shade.

Nothing luxurious but, still, the rent had to be two thousand a month.

I climbed the steps to the door. No mail piled up but it was too early for today’s delivery. The car said Locking might be home.

I rang the bell and waited. Music or something like it came through the door. Loud, pounding music. Screaming vocals.

Thrash metal. Locking’s choice of background as he tormented the rat.

I knocked louder, rang again, still no response. Descending to the driveway, I looked back at the street. No neighbors out. In L.A., they rarely are.

I slid past the BMW, and walked along the side of the house. More slatted windows.

The pool was fifties-big, an oval that took up ninety percent of the backyard. The rest was a hill of ivy disappearing under the gloom of the ficus trees—two of them, sixty feet tall and nearly as wide, with thick roots that had worked their way under the pool decking, cracking it, lifting it up. The lounge chair was rusted, as were two others just like it. Not far away were a gas barbecue and an unfurled garden hose, kinked so badly it was useless.

The music much louder from back here.

A fiberglass roof darkened sliding-glass doors left an inch ajar.

I went over and looked in. The room looked to be a den. Well-stocked wet bar, pub mirrors with ale trademarks, hanging glasses, big plastic ashtrays. Lights out except for green numbers dancing on a black face. Six-foot stereo stack. The CD player going. The music at steam-drill level.

Trying to ignore it, I put my hand against the glass and squinted. Alarm panel in a corner.

Another green light: unarmed.

The gray carpeting was grubby. Black leather couches, black-lacquer tables, Lucite sculpture of a nude woman bending submissively. One wall was taken up by a huge chrome-framed litho of a melon-breasted, rouged woman in leather tights. Motorcycle cap pulled down over one of her eyes. The other winked. Opposite stood a free-form gray-granite fireplace with ragged edges.

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No logs. Black beanbag chairs. A single CD case on one.

Panic-attack drumbeat, tortured bass, jet-engine guitars. Brain-scraping vocals, over and over.

No sign of Locking.

I slid the door open a few inches wider, stuck my head in. “Hello!”

Cigarettes, butts and ashes on the carpet. On one of the tables were piles of magazines.

I took a few steps closer, shouted another “Hello?”

The magazines were a mix of psychology journals I recognized and things you didn’t need a Ph.D. to understand.

Full-color covers: nipple-pink, lip-red, coif-blond, pubic-hair-umber. The oyster glisten of fresh ejaculate.

The Journal of Clinical Practiceand that.

Locking’s idea of homework?

On another table stood a popped can of cola, a nearly empty bottle of Bacardi, and a glass filled with something diluted, barely tinted amber. Melted ice cubes, the drink poured hours ago.

One glass. Party for one.

Maybe Locking had rum-and-Coked himself into a deep enough stupor not to hear the noise.

I shouted again.

No answer.

I tried once more. The room stank of nicotine and a durable relationship with takeout food.