Dr. Death (20 page)

"I'm always happy when hunting."

15

STACY'S CALL CAME at four P.M. The connection was grainy and I wondered where she was. Had Richard given her her own little silver phone?

"Sorry for the inconvenience," she said, not sounding apologetic at all. Cool. The detachment was back.

"What happened, Stacy?"

"Don't you already know?" From cool to cold.

"Eric," I said.

"So my father was right."

"About what?"

"The cop who was here to talk to him. My father said he's your friend. He informs you, you inform him. Didn't you think that would be a
problem
, Dr. Delaware?"

"Stacy, I spoke to your father about that and he—"

"You didn't speak to
me
about it."

"We haven't spoken at all. I was planning to bring it up when you arrived."

"And if I told you I didn't like it?"

"Then I'd drop off the Mate investigation. That's exactly what I planned to do until your father asked me not to. He wanted me to continue."

"Why would he want that?"

"You'd have to ask him, Stacy."

"He told you to continue?"

"In no uncertain terms. Stacy, if it's a matter of trust—"

"I don't get it," she said. "When he told me about the cop, he seemed angry."

"At something Detective Sturgis did?"

"At being questioned like a criminal. And he's right. After all we went through with my mother, to be harassed by the police. And now I find out
you're
working
with
them. It just seems . . . wrong."

"Then I'm off the investigation."

"No," she said. "Don't bother."

"You're my patient, you come first."

Pause. "That's the other thing. I'm not sure I want to be your patient— nothing to do with you. I just don't see why I need therapy again."

"So the appointment was all your father's idea?"

"Same as all the other appointments— no, I don't mean that. Before, once I got into it, it was good. Great. You helped me. I'm coming across so rude, I'm sorry. I just don't see that I need any more help."

"Maybe not," I said. "But can we at least sit down once to discuss it? I've got time right now if you can make it over."

"I— I don't know. Things are pretty intense— what exactly did your cop friend tell you about Eric?"

"That Eric hadn't returned to his dorm for a couple of days. That he'd missed a test."

"More like a day and a half," she said. "It's probably no big deal, he was always going off on his own."

"Back when he was living at home?"

"Back to ninth or tenth grade. He'd cut school without explanation, take his bike somewhere, disappear all day. Later, he told me he used to check out used-book stores, play pool on the pier, or go over to the Santa Monica courts and listen to trials. The school used to phone, but Eric always got away with it because his grades were so much higher than anyone else's. Once he got his driver's license, he'd go away overnight, not come home till morning.
That
got to my father. Waking up in the morning and finding Eric's bed still made and Eric gone. Then Eric would drive up at breakfast time, start toasting Pop-Tarts, and the two of them would get into hassles, my father demanding to know where Eric had been, Eric refusing to say."

"Did your mother get involved?"

"When she was still healthy, she'd take my father's side. But Dad's always been the main one."

"Was Eric ever punished?"

"Dad made threats— kept warning he'd take away Eric's car keys, but Eric shined him on. Everyone knew he wouldn't follow through."

"Why not?"

"Because Eric's his golden boy. Any time Dad complains about him, all Eric has to say is, 'What? Aren't straight A's good enough? Want me to get higher than sixteen hundred on the SAT?' Same for Pali Prep. He was their big advertisement. Perfect GPA, Bank of America Award winner, National Merit Scholar, Prudential Life Scholar, Science Achievement winner, hockey team, fencing team, baseball team. When he interviewed for Stanford, the interviewer called our headmaster and told him he'd just encountered one of the great minds of the century. So why would they want to tick him off?"

"So you're not worried about him," I said.

"Not really . . . The only thing that does bother me is his missing an exam. Eric always took care of business, academically speaking. . . . Maybe he just decided to hike."

"Hike?"

"Back when he was living at home and stayed out all night, he'd sometimes come home with mud on his shoes, looking pretty dusty. At least one time I'm sure he was out camping. This was maybe a year ago, when he was home taking care of Mom. Our rooms are next to each other, and when he came in I woke up, went to see what was going on. He was folding up this nylon tent, had this backpack, bag of potato chips and candy, pepperoni sticks, whatever. I said, 'What's all this, some kind of loner-loser picnic?' He got angry and kicked me out of his room. So maybe that's what he did last night— went out hiking. There are lots of nice places around Palo Alto. Maybe he just wanted to get away from the city lights so he could look up at the stars. He used to love astronomy, had his own telescope, all these expensive filters, the works."

I heard her breath catch.

"What is it, Stacy?"

"I was just thinking . . . We had a dog, this yellow mutt named Helen that we got from the pound. Eric would take her with him on long walks, then she got old and lost the use of her legs and he built her a little wagon thingie and pulled her around— pretty funny-looking, but he took it seriously. She died— a year before Mom. Eric stayed out all night with her. That's got to be what happened. When I asked him about it, he said he did his best thinking late at night, up in the mountains. So that's probably it, he's a little stressed, decided to try that. As far as the test, he probably figured he could talk his professor into a makeup— Eric can talk his way into anything."

"Why's he stressed?"

"I don't know." Long silence. "Okay, to be honest, Eric's having a
real
hard time. With Mom. He had a terrible time with it right from the beginning. Took it much worse than I did. Bet that's not what my father told you, though. Right?"

My son deals with his anger by organizing. . . . I think it's a great way of handling stress. . . . Get in touch with how you feel, then move on.

"We didn't discuss Eric in detail," I said.

"But I know," she said. "Dad thinks I'm the screwed-up one. Because I get low, while Eric does a great job of looking okay on the surface— keeping up his grades, staying achievement-oriented, saying the right things to my father. But I can see through that.
He's
the one who took it really hard. By the time my mother died, I'd already done my years of crying, but Eric kept trying to pretend nothing was wrong. Saying she'd get better. Sitting with Mom, playing cards with her. Acting happy, like nothing was any big deal. Like she just had a cold. I don't think he ever dealt with it. Maybe hearing about Dr. Mate brought the memories back."

"Did Eric talk about Mate?"

"No. We haven't talked at all, not for weeks. Sometimes he e-mails me, but I haven't heard from him in a while. . . . One time— toward the end of my mother's . . . a few days before she died, Eric came into my room and found me crying, asked what was the matter. I said I was sad about Mom and he just
lost
it, started screaming that I was stupid, a wimp and a loser, that falling apart would accomplish nothing, I shouldn't be so selfish, thinking about my own feelings
— wallowing
in my feelings was the phrase he used. It was Mom's feelings I should be concentrating on. We all needed to be positive. To never give up."

"He was tough on you," I said.

"No big deal. He yells at me all the time, that's his style. Basically, he's this big huge brain machine with the emotions of a little kid. So maybe he's having some sort of delayed reaction, doing what he used to do when he got uptight. Do you think I
should
be worried about him?"

"No, but I think you did exactly the right thing by calling your father."

"Walking in on that detective . . . Guess what my father did? Chartered a plane and flew up to Palo Alto. He looked worried. And
that
bothers me."

"He doesn't get worried too often?"

"Never. He says anxiety is the province of fools."

I thought: The lack of anxiety is the province of psychopaths. Said, "So you're alone in the house."

"Just for a couple of days. I'm used to it, my father travels all the time. And Gisella— the maid— comes every day."

The phone cut in and out during the last sentence.

"Where are you, Stacy?"

"At the beach, some big parking lot on PCH. I must have driven here from Dad's office." She laughed. "Don't even remember.
That's
weird."

"Which beach?" I said.

"Um, let's see . . . There's a sign over there, says . . . Topanga . . . Topanga Beach. Kind of pretty out here, Dr. Delaware. Plenty of traffic on the highway, but no one on the sand— except for one guy walking around near the tide line . . . seems to be looking for something . . . he's holding some kind of a machine . . . looks like a metal detector . . . I know this place, you can see it from Dad's office."

Her voice had softened, turned dreamy.

"Stay right there, Stacy. I can be there in twenty, twenty-five minutes."

"There's no need," she said. It sounded like a policy statement.

"Humor me, Stacy."

Silence. Crackle. For a moment I thought I'd lost her. Then: "Sure. Why not? Got nowhere else to go."

• • •

I drove too fast, thinking about Eric. A brilliant, impetuous loner, used to getting his way. The one person who seemed able to elude Richard's dominance. Working hard at maintaining control, but powerless over what had mattered most: his mother's survival.

Close to his father, and his father despised Mate, expressed his hatred openly.

Eric. A hiker who disappeared when he wanted to, liked the mountains, knew the terrain. Dark, hidden places, like the dirt road stretch of Mulholland.

Impetuous enough to get violent? Smart enough to clean up thoroughly?

How far had filial devotion taken him?

After Joanne's death, Richard had tried to contact Mate, but the death doctor hadn't called back. Had Joanne warned Mate about Richard? Knowing Richard would fight her decision— that's why she'd kept it from him. From her children, as well.

But what if Mate
had
answered a call from Eric?

Poor, distraught kid wanting to talk about his mother's final passage. Had there been enough of the physician left in Mate to respond to a cry for help?

Dark BMW parked down the road.

Borrowing Daddy's car . . .

I kept racing west on Sunset, turning it over and over. Pure speculation, I'd never breathe a word to Milo or anyone else, but there was nothing that
didn't
fit.

A red light at Mandeville Canyon stopped the Seville, but my mind kept revving.

Stacy had offered a sibling's eloquence: a big brain machine combined with emotional immaturity.

Combined with boiling, adolescent rage. Perfect for the meld of compulsive planning and reckless daring that had transformed the brown van into a charnel house on wheels.

Broken stethoscope
. . . Beowulf. Happy Traveling, You Sick Bastard.

Slaying the monster, as if it were just another myth— just another video game.

There was an adolescent feel to the phony book. To sneaking into Mate's flat and leaving a note. The message itself. Primitive gamesmanship, but backed up by an intellect that was starting to scare the hell out of me.

Where had Eric been last Sunday? The trip from Stanford to L.A. was no big deal, shuttles from San Francisco ran all day. Easy enough for a college student with a credit card. Do your business, jet back to school, show up for class as if nothing had happened.

But now the perfect student had missed a test for the first time. Unable to run from what he'd done? Or had some other stress worked apart the fissures that had spidered their way across the perfect porcelain image of the Doss family?

Richard jetting up to Stanford, leaving Stacy alone, sitting at the beach, oblivious . . . I sensed she'd always been alone. Squeakless wheel not getting any grease.

A car horn honked. The light had turned green but I'd sat there— obliviousness was contagious.

I shot forward, warning myself not to get caught up in it. Not good for the soul, all this hypothesizing. Besides, Milo had other suspects.

Roy Haiselden. Donny Mate.

Richard Doss.

None of the above? None of my business. Time to concentrate on what the state said I was qualified to do.

• • •