The Clinic (38 page)

“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 foryou ?”

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

“I’m askingyou, 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.”

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“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.”

“Iknew her! Better thananyone. She didn’t go tobondage 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’dkill him! I’m well-versed in medieval torture devices, the things I could do!”

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“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—everythingrevolved around Hope. She was the . . . nexus.”

“One sun, two moons,” said Milo.

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

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“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 sayyou 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.

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“You’re wasting my time and yours, Mr. Sturgis. Iloved my wife in a way few women are ever loved—Iobliterated myself in her honor. Losing her has sucked all the joy from my life. I appreciated Casey becausehe contributed toher 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’sParadise 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 thrilledme. 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
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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.”

“Yeah, it’s true about the paraffin test, he hasn’t fired a gun in a while,” said Milo. “But he still could have hired someone to shoot Locking. Maybe someone he met through the bondage trade.”

“He’s got a point about not destroying the photos,” I said. “If he had, you’d never have thought of him. So maybe the bondage gameswere the reason he was evasive.”

“Whydid he hold on to the photos?”

“Could be just what he said. Mementos.”

“Mental or sexual?”

“Either, both.”

“So you buy his Mr. Submissive routine? Hope was God, he worshiped at her altar?”

“It would explain their marriage,” I said. “She was so controlled as a child, she craved someone willing to subjugate his ego totally. Despite what she told Elsa Campos, being tied up and left behind had to have been terrifying. She kept trying to work it through. And Seacrest’s passivity made him a perfect mate for her. He told Paz and Fellows he’d been a confirmed bachelor for years. Maybe the reason was he’d been a moon looking for a sun.”

“Working it through,” he said. “So she gets herself tied up again? Manipulated, bruised.”

“Restaging it,” I said. “But this time,she’s calling the shots.”

“With their games, the three of them coulda gone on the talk-show circuit,” he said.

“You are starting to sound,” I said, “less like a West Hollywood legend than a bourgeois policeman with a dutiful wife and an 818 lifestyle.”

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He laughed harder than I’d heard him in a long time.

“Those guns you found in Locking’s house,” I said. “Heavy artillery for a grad student.”

“Three pistols, one rifle,” he said. “All loaded but stashed up in the closet. Too cocky for his own good.”

“And all that porn he had,” I said. “Locking was from San Francisco. Big Micky’s city, Big Micky’s business. Who owns the house?”

“Don’t know yet, but a neighbor said it was a rental. Before Locking there’d been lots of other tenants.”

“Be interesting if it’s the same landlord who owns Cruvic’s place on Mulholland.”

“Cruvic pays rent to a corporation based here in L.A.—Triad or Triton, something like that, but we haven’t traced it to any individual, yet. In terms of Big Micky, what I’ve learned so far is that he used to be a sizable sex-biz honcho—theaters, peep shows, massage parlors, escort services—but retired because of serious health problems. Heart, liver, kidneys, everything’s on the fritz. Had a couple kidney transplants that failed awhile back and ended up pretty screwed-up.”

“The old guy Ted Barnaby saw in Vegas with Cruvic was yellow,” I said. “Meaning jaundiced, meaning liver problems. Any word on whether Mandy Wright had ever worked in San Francisco?”

“Not yet. But there’s another NorCal connection: Hope’s mother died up there. Stanford Medical Center, breast cancer. All bills paid by a third party, we’re trying to find out who.”

“It reeks of history,” I said.

“Ph.D.’s with gangster connections.” He scratched his jaw. “I hate this case. Too many goddamn smart people.”

He walked me out of the station. As we hit the sidewalk on Purdue, someone called out,

“Detective Sturgis?”

A big blue Mercedes sedan was parked in a red zone across the street. Two cell-phone antennas on the rear deck. One of those after-market custom packages that doubles the price: wire wheels, all the chrome removed, front apron, rear spoiler. Smoke puffed out the exhaust pipes, almost daintily.

The man at the wheel was in his early sixties with a shaven head and a deep tan that was probably part sun, part bottle. Black wraparound shades, white shirt, yellow tie. Gold glint of wristwatch as he turned off the engine, got out, and jogged across the street. Six feet tall, trim and nimble, probably a few face tucks, but time had tugged at the stitches and his chin flesh shook.

“Robert Barone,” he said in a breathy voice. A tan hand shot forward. “I know you’ve been
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trying to reach me but I’ve been out of town.”

“San Francisco?” said Milo as he shook the lawyer’s hand.

Barone’s smile was as sudden as bad news, as warm as sherbet.

“As a matter of fact, Hawaii. Little downtime between cases.” The sunglasses angled at me.

“And you are Detective . . . ?”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Barone?” said Milo.

“I was going to ask you the same thing, Detective.”

“You made a trip here in person to offer your services to the poor benighted LAPD?”

“The way things have been going,” said Barone, “you guys can use all the help you can get—seriously, there is a matter I’d like to discuss. If I didn’t find you I was going to talk to your lieutenant.”

Still looking at me, he said, “I didn’t catchyour name.”

“Holmes,” said Milo. “Detective Holmes.”

“As in Sherlock?”

“No,” said Milo, “as in Sigmund. So what does Dr. Cruvic want? Police protection now that Darrell Ballitser put his name out on the airwaves, or is he ready to confess to something?”

Barone turned serious. His bald head was liver-spotted. “Why don’t we go inside?”

“You’re in a no-parking zone, counselor.”

Barone laughed. “I’ll take my chances.”

“Guess that’s what you get paid to do,” said Milo, “but don’t blame me.” To me: “Catch you later, Sig. Any research you want to do on the aforementioned topic is fine.”

He headed for the station’s front door, leaving Barone to catch up.

Research. On the Kruvinski/Cruvic clan.

The family lawyer arriving in person because someone was worried.

Little Micky still the only one with a confirmed link to Hope and Mandy.

I drove to the library and looked up his father, found fifteen citations on Milan V. Kruvinski going back twenty years, all from San Francisco papers. A couple of photos showing a bull-necked, flat-featured man with slanted eyes that cemented his paternity. But cruder than his son, a less-finished sculpture.

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Not a single story from any Bakersfield paper. Quieter town, quieter time? Or payoffs?

Most of the San Francisco pieces had to do with obscenity busts. The “sex impresario and reputed crime figure” had been arrested dozens of times during the seventies and early eighties.