The Clinic (14 page)

She backed up against the wall to let classmates pass. I showed her my ID and began my introduction.

“No,” she said, waving one narrow hand, frantically.“Please.” Pleading in a hoarse voice. Her eyes darted to the exit sign.

“Ms. Bowlby—”

“No!” she said, louder. “Leave me alone! I have nothing to say!”

She shot for the exit. I hung back for a moment, then followed, watching from a distance as she hurried out the main doors of the tower, racing, nearly tumbling, down the front steps, toward the inverted fountain that fronted the tower. The fountain was dry and streams of students converged near the dirty black hole before spreading out and radiating across campus like a giant ant trail.

She ran clumsily, struggling with the heavy bag. A thin, fragile-looking figure, so emaciated her buttocks failed to fill out the narrow jeans and the denim flapped with each stride.

Drugs? Stress? Anorexia? Illness?

As I wondered, she slipped into the throng and became one of many.

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Her anxiety—panic, really—made me want to talk to the man she’d accused.

I recalled the details of the complaint: movie and dinner, heavy petting. Tessa claiming forced entry; Muscadine, consensual sex.

The kind of thing that could never be proved, either way.

AIDS testing for him. She’d already gotten tested.

Negative. So far.

But now she was ghostly pale, thin, fatigued.

The disease took time to incubate. Maybe her luck had changed.

That could account for the panic . . . but she was still enrolled in classes.

Maybe Hope Devane had been a source of support. Now, with Hope dead and her own health in question, was she overwhelmed?

The testing had been done at the Student Health Center. Getting records without legal grounds would be impossible.

Having a look at Muscadine seemed more important than ever, but the acting seminar was one of those weekly things that lasted four hours and was only half-over.

In the meantime, I’d try the others. Patrick Huang would be free in thirty minutes, Deborah Brittain soon after. Huang’s class was nearby, in the Engineering Building. Back to the Science Quad. As I started to turn, a deep voice behind me said, “Sleuthing on campus, Detective?”

Casey Locking stood several steps above me, looking amused. His long hair was freshly moussed, and he wore the same long leather coat, jeans, and motorcycle boots. Black T-shirt under the coat. The skull ring was still there, too, despite his remark about getting rid of it.

Glinting in the sunlight, the death’s-head grin wide, almost alive.

In the ringed hand was a cigarette, in the other an attachÉ case, olive leather, gold-embossed CDL over the clasp. The fingers sandwiching the cigarette twitched and smoke puffed and rose.

“I’m not a detective,” I said.

That made him blink, but nothing else on his face moved.

I climbed to his level and showed him my consultant’s badge. His mouth pursed as he studied it.

So Seacrest hadn’t told him.

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Meaning they weren’t confidants?

“Ph.D. in what?”

“Psychology.”

“Really.” He flicked ashes. “For the police?”

“Sometimes I consult to the police.”

“What exactly do you do?”

“It varies from case to case.”

“Crime-scene analysis?”

“All kinds of things.”

My ambiguity didn’t seem to bother him. “Interesting. Did they assign you to Hope’s murder because she was a psychologist or because the case is perceived as psychologically complex?”

“Both.”

“Police psychologist.” He took a long, hard drag, holding the smoke in. “The career opportunities they never tell you about in grad school. How long have you been doing it?”

“A few years.”

White vapors emerged from his nostrils. “Around here all they talk about is pure academics.

They measure their success by the number of tenure-track types they place. All the tenure-track jobs are disappearing but they groom us for them, anyway. So much for reality-testing, but I guess the academic world’s never been noted for having a good grip on reality. Do you think Hope’s murder will ever be solved?”

“Don’t know. How about you?”

“Doesn’t look promising,” he said. “Which stinks. . . . Is that big detective on the ball?”

“Yes.”

He smoked some more and scratched his upper lip. “Police psychologist. Actually, that appeals to me. Dealing with the big issues: crime, deviance, the nature of evil. Since the murder I’ve thought a lot about evil.”

“Come up with any insights?”

He shook his head. “Students aren’t permitted to have insights.”

“Have you found a new advisor yet?”

“Not yet. I need someone who won’t make me start all over or dump scut work on me. Hope
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was great that way. If you did your job, she treated you like an adult.”

“Laissez-faire?”

“When it was deserved.” He ground out the cigarette. “She knew the difference between good and bad. She was a fine human being and whoever destroyed her should experience an excruciatingly slow, immensely bloody,inconceivably painful death.”

His lips turned upward but this time you couldn’t call the end product a smile. He put down his attachÉ case, and reaching under the coat, pulled out a hardpack of Marlboros.

“But that’s unlikely to happen, right? Because even if somehow they do catch him, there’ll be legal loopholes, procedural calisthenics. Probably some expert fromour field claiming the prick suffered from psychosis or an impulse-control disorder no one’s ever heard of before. That’s why I like the idea of what you do. Being on the right side. My research area’s self-control. Petty stuff—free-feeding in rats versus schedules of reinforcement. But maybe one of these days I’ll be able to relate it to the real world.”

“Self-control and crime detection?”

“Why not? Self-control’s an integral part of civilization.The integral component. Babies are born cute and cuddly andamoral. And it’s certainly not hard to train them to beim moral, is it?”

He made a pistol with his free hand. “Everyone’s making such a big deal about ten-year-olds with Uzis but it’s just Fagin and the street rats with a little technology thrown in, right?”

“Lack of self-control,” I said.

“On a societal level. Take away external control mechanisms and the internalization process—conscience development—is immobilized and what you get are millions of savages running around giving free rein to their impulses. Like the piece of shit who killed Hope. So goddamnstupid !”

He produced a lighter and ignited another cigarette. Slightly shaky hands. He jammed them in the pockets of his coat.

“I tell you, I’d study real life if I could, but I’d be in school for the rest of my life and that’s a no-brainer. Hope steered me right, said not to try for the Nobel Prize, pick something doable, get my union card, and move on.”

He sucked smoke. “Finding another advisor won’t be easy. I’m considered the departmental fascist because I can’t stand platitudes and I believe in the power of discipline.”

“And Hope was okay with that.”

“Hope was theultimate scholar-slash-good-mother: tough, honest, secure enough to let you go your own way once you proved you weren’t full of shit. She looked at everything with a fresh eye, refused to do or be what was expected of her. So they killed her.”

“They?”

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“They, he, some drooling, psychopathic, totally fucked-up savage.”

“Any theories about the specific motive?”

He glanced back at the glass doors of the tower. “I’ve spent along time thinking about it and all I’ve come up with are mental pretzels. Finally I realized it’s a waste of energy because I have no data, just my feelings. And my feelings were knocking me low. That’s really why it took so long to get back to my research. That’s why I couldn’t even go near my data til last night. But now it’s time to get back in gear. Hope would want that. She had no patience for excuses.”

“Whose idea was it to barter data for car care?” I said.

He stared at me. “I called Phil up, he said he was having trouble getting the car started, so I offered to help.”

“So you knew him before.”

“Just from working with Hope. Basically, Phil’s asocial. . . . Well, good talking to you.”

He picked up the attachÉ case and started up the stairs.

I said, “What’s your view of the Interpersonal Conduct Committee?”

He stopped, smiled. “That, again. Myview ? I thought it was an excellent idea with insufficient enforcement power.”

“Some people believe the committee was a mistake.”

“Some people believe quality of life means anarchy.”

“So you think it should have been allowed to continue.”

“Sure, but what chance was there of that? That rich snot’s father shut it down because this place operates on the same principles as any other political system: money and power. If the girl he harassed had been the one with the fat-cat daddy, you can believe the committee would be alive and healthy.”

He smoked the cigarette down to the filter, looked at it, snapped it away. “The point is, women will always be physically weaker than men and their safety can’t be left up to the good graces of anyone with a penis. The only way to simulate equity is through rules and consequences.”

“Discipline.”

“Better believe it.” He smoothed a leather lapel. “You’re asking me about the committee because you think it had something to do with Hope’s death. One of those chickenshit little weenies getting back at her. But like I said, they were all cowards.”

“Cowards commit murder.”

“But I sat on the committee, too, and I’m obviously intact.”

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Same logic Cruvic had used, talking about abortion protest.

“Let me ask you something else,” I said. “Did Hope ever mention being abused, herself?”

The lapel bunched as his hand closed tight around the leather. “No. Why?”

“Sometimes people’s work is directed by personal experience.”

The black brows dipped low and his eyes got cold. “You want to reduce her achievements topsychopathology ?”

“I want to learn as much as I can about her. Did she ever talk about her past?”

Uncurling his fingers, he let his arms drop very slowly. Then he raised them very quickly, almost a martial-arts move. Folding them across his chest, as if warding off attack.

“She talked about her work. That’s all. Whatever personal things I was able to infer came from that.”

“What did you infer?”

“That she was incredibly intelligent and focused and cared deeply about what she was doing.

That’s why she took me on. Focus is my thing. I get my teeth in and don’t let go.”

He smiled, showing white enamel. “She appreciated the fact that I was willing to come out and say how I really felt. That I believed people can’t just follow their impulses. Around here, that’s still heresy.”

“What about her other student, Mary Ann Gonsalvez?”

“What about her?”

“Is she also focused?”

“Don’t know, we didn’t see each other much. Good talking to you, got to run an experiment. If you ever do find the piece of shit, convict him, sentence him to die, invite me to San Quentin to jam the hypodermic into his veins.”

Giving a choppy salute, he vaulted up the steps to the tower, shoved at one of the heavy glass doors. As it swung open, I caught a momentary flash of reflection. The delicate mouth curving, but hard to read.

Like Cruvic, he’d talked about Hope with passion.

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Wet eyes notwithstanding, her husband hadn’t.

Leading her to turn elsewhere?

Love, sex, stab in the back.

Seacrest had no history of violence, but men who killed their wives often didn’t. And like Seacrest, they tended to be middle-aged.

As for the lover being left unharmed, that was also typical: jealous husbands targeting their wives, sparing the lover unless he happened to get in the way.

But if Locking had been Hope’s lover, would Seacrest have maintained any connection to him?

I thought about the interplay between the two men. No signs of hostility, but formal.

Then a discrepancy hit me: Last night, Locking had called Seacrest Professor. Today it wasPhil.

Did any of it matter?

I bought another cup of cardboard-flavored coffee and drank it on my way over to the Engineering Building, wondering what kind of surprises a chat with Patrick Huang would bring.

He was flustered when I showed up at his locker but offered no resistance when I suggested we talk.

We found a bench on the west end of the quad and I offered to get him coffee.

“No, thanks, I’m caffeined enough. NoDoz. Exams.”

He simulated a tremoring hand and frowned.

He was five-ten and heavy-set with a smooth square face and shoulder-length hair parted in the middle. His wrinkled T-shirt saidSTONE TEMPLE PILOTS and he wore it over paisley cutoffs and rubber beach thongs. A couple of books were sandwiched under his arm, both on thermodynamics.

“Thanks for talking to me, Patrick.”

He looked down at the bench. “I figured somebody would finally get to me.”

“Why’s that?”

“After what happened to Professor Devane, I figured the committee was bound to come up.

I’m surprised it took this long.”

He fidgeted. “Did they send a psychologist because they think I’m nuts?”

“No. I do work for the police and they thought I could be helpful on this case.”

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He thought about that. “I think I’ll get a burger, okay?”

“Sure.”

Leaving his books behind, he went to one of the snack bars and came back with a waxed-paper wad, a box of crinkled fries buried under a blob of ketchup, and a large orange soda.

“I have an uncle who’s a psychologist,” he said, settling. “Robert Chan? Works for the prison system?”

“Don’t know him,” I said.

“My dad’s a lawyer.” He unwrapped the wad. The paper was translucent with grease, and cheese dripped over the sides of the hamburger. Biting down hard, he chewed fast and swallowed. “My dad was mega-pissed about the committee. That I didn’t tell him about it. At the time I thought it was a bad joke, why get into it? But after I heard about Professor Devane I saiduh- oh, I’m screwed.” He rolled his eyes.