The Forgotten (10 page)

Jill added, “In the end, it is our decision…whether or not we permit you to talk to Ernesto.”

“So we’re swapping favors, is that it?”

She blushed. “I’m just saying it is our decision. Surely you can see that Ernesto’s not a criminal.”

Decker couldn’t see anything of the sort. But he had a half hour for lunch to spare. Rina had packed him a pastrami sandwich topped with mustard, mayo, sauerkraut, and spicy pickles. He figured he might as well get indigestion from something other than food.

Crimes more pressing
than vandalism still plagued the city, leaving Decker to contemplate the wisdom of using valuable time to interview a couple of shrinks even if it meant a second chance with Ernesto. Still, he might as well try to understand someone else’s kid, because his own stepson left him abashed.

Wanda had found quite a bit of material about Mervin Baldwin and his psychologist wife, Dee, on the Internet. They had been interviewed by the top news-lite magazines, and had had a cover article about them as a power couple in
Psychology Now
. There were also several “in-depth” profiles on them in in-house papers for local psychology organizations, both city and state. They had written about a dozen pieces for journals, most of them having to do with “Oppositional Behavior in Teenagers.” From reading the abstracts, Decker gleaned that Merv Baldwin’s specialty was working with troubled teens.

There were essays devoted to his own unique treatment entitled Nature Therapy. It espoused being at one with the earth and land, using a combination of intense group programs out in the wild as well as individual therapy. The articles contained lots of psychological jargon that Decker didn’t understand, so he took notes. He wasn’t sure what it meant to be “at one with the land,” but to him it sounded a lot like camping.

The Baldwins had several satellite offices, but the main digs were in Beverly Hills; the exact address was given to Decker by the Goldings before he left. Wanda had downloaded several pictures of the psychologists, but they hadn’t reproduced that well. From the photos, Merv was bald but dressed expensively. Dee was meticulously groomed, as stiff as her coiffed hairdo. He looked to be in his fifties, about ten years older than his wife.

Traffic was thick over the hill because of freeway construction. Decker pulled off at Sunset and took it east, passing through Westwood, then the opulent residential area of Beverly Hills. The sinuous boulevard had been narrowed to two lanes because of roadwork, and was treacherous because of a sudden May downpour. The asphalt had a thin coating of slick mud, and that had brought the flow down to a crawl. Los Angeles was always unprepared for rain, and when it came, the locals drove like beginners, going either too fast or too slow.

Turning left onto Roxbury Drive, he kept going until the street turned one-way, and of course, it was the wrong way. He maneuvered the unmarked through the maze of crazed shoppers and tourists until he was finally going the correct way on the street—except that the curb parking was taken up. To make matters worse, the public lots were full to capacity. By the time he had successfully landed a place to leave his vehicle, he was ten minutes late.

It didn’t seem to matter, because the Baldwins kept him waiting. Decker didn’t expect that they’d do a kiss-up number, but he didn’t think they’d leave him cooling his heels. He was about to leave when the door opened, and a young African-American woman who introduced herself as Maryam Estes apologized for the delay. Lovely and curvy, she swayed as she ushered him into an “intake suite,” an interview room with very low ceilings. Decker didn’t have to duck to make it through, but he could touch the wood beams with a simple arm stretch. The space was large and done up à
la Frank Lloyd Wright with lots of rich, wood built-ins, a conference table, and a gleaming ebony desk. The couches were constructed from slats of wood and covered with dozens of colored pillows. There were lush floral still lifes on the walls, and a stone fireplace was going full blast.

Even though the surroundings had improved, Decker wasn’t about to wait anymore. He was about to vocalize his displeasure to the next person he saw, but then a woman came in, took his one hand in her two-handed grip, and introduced herself as Dee Baldwin. She looked even younger than she had in the photographs, in her late thirties. But she did have the same coiffed honey-dipped hair that wouldn’t survive too long in the wild. She had a round face with round brass-colored eyes and white teeth, her visage reminiscent of a lioness. She was quite petite except for shoulders that were very broad, made even bigger by the shoulder pads of her black pant-suit jacket. Her earlobes dripped gold, her neck as well. Her perfume was light and airy.

“I am so sorry for the delay.” An apologetic smile. “A crisis came up…one even bigger than Ernesto Golding. This boy is in
real
trouble. Merv is still dealing with the parents, but he’ll be here soon. I know you’re a busy man, so perhaps we can start without him.”

Dee sat down opposite him.

“You were so kind to see us in the first place. Especially because I’m sure your personal feelings about Ernesto are less than laudatory.”

Decker said, “Since we’re both on a tight schedule, maybe you can tell me why everyone was so anxious for us to meet.”

“We deal with the police all the time, you know.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Perhaps I should tell you a bit about Merv and me. Our therapy is rather unorthodox in the conservative field of psychotherapy.”

“I never thought of psychology as conservative.”

“Oh, but it is!” Dee crossed her legs. Fabric rubbed against fabric, producing a swishing sound. “The field has utilized
the same disciplines and methods over and over. It’s Freud and psychoanalysis, or Skinner, or some variation of behavior therapy, or Rogers and client-centered therapy, or some kind of humanism—gestalt therapy. Then there are the various therapies that deal with anxiety and fear—hypnosis or meditation or relaxation. But nothing in psych has yet addressed the fact that we—human beings—have had our core essence stripped by domestication and urbanization. We have moved from the primitive to the advanced. That’s good—don’t get me wrong—but there is still this residual part of us that longs to be harmonious with nature.”

“That’s why there are national parks, I suppose.”

“Camping, hunting, fishing…” She waved them away. “They have become hobbies instead of livelihoods. We have become such Urban Irvings that we have forgotten how we were fashioned. Not that we can turn back the clock—time steadily marches forward—but we must deal with this issue of our animalistic side. If we don’t harness it into constructive means, the destructive takes over. Hence boys like Ernesto Golding. This is a young man who needs his
primitus
guided to
constructo
rather than
destrudo
.”

Decker smiled. “What does that translate into?”

From the doorway, a voice boomed out, “He needs to be challenged physically, is what it translates into!”

Decker turned around. Now, Merv Baldwin looked
older
than the computerized image—in his mid-fifties, which meant there was about a fifteen-year difference between Dee and him. Not that Decker was judging—he was twelve years older than Rina—but it was something he just noticed. Dee was as pretty as Merv was plain. The man was bald and paunchy with a round face vanquished by sag. He had short limbs and short fingers, and no doubt had short toes, since his shoes—croc loafers with tassels—looked to be a tiny size. He wondered how the man balanced on such wee soles. He was dressed in an expensive suit—hand-fashioned because of his size with working buttonholes. Good color sense—blue pinstriped suit, white shirt, and a gold tie.

“Merv Baldwin.” A hearty handshake. “I apologize for being late. Crisis! Not unexpected, not to me anyway, but it caught certain parties by surprise.” He began pacing. “So you’re the detective who extracted the confession from Ernesto. A physical confession as well as a confession of the soul. I must tell you that I did not approve of this meeting.”

“Neither did I,” Decker said.

He stopped pacing, regarded Decker, then continued to walk back and forth. Decker looked at the distaff Baldwin, trying to gauge her facial reaction to Merv’s perpetual motion. But her face was relaxed, as if this was totally natural.

Merv called out, “Perhaps we both didn’t approve because we’re on opposite sides of the fence, eh?”

“I don’t know about that,” Decker said. “We both want to know the truth.”

“Yes, but you want to know a tangio/sensory truth. A truth you can see or hear or feel. I, on the other hand, want to know the truth up here.” He pointed to his temple. “To me, what happened at that synagogue, although terrible, is not as significant as what was happening in the boy’s mind. The
why.
With you, the why isn’t of chief importance. Oh sure, you’d like to have a motivation. It helps clinch a case. But the mere fact that it was done—that is your primary concern.”

“That’s not entirely accurate,” Decker said.

“Oh, no?” Merv shouted as he trod the carpet. “The law takes into account some extenuating circumstances, but not all of them. In the mind, there are
always
extenuating circumstances.”

The man was irritating. Decker was irked. “Why am I here, Doctor?”

Merv hopped about. “Ernesto requested that I present my therapy for your approval. Not that I care if you approve or not. I’m just trying to do an old friend a favor.”

“You’re friends with the Goldings?” Decker asked.

“We marched together.” He stopped to regard Decker’s face. “You must be of that same generation vintage.”

“As a vet, I was on the opposite side, Doctor.” Decker smiled. “Seems to be a pattern.”

Merv smiled. “Not as much as you think. I did my tour—not in action, so I suppose you think less of me. But I was not anti-army, only anti-Vietnam. I was a staff psychologist in Germany—the one called in to help the mental basket cases that the confrontation created. It was a very ugly war.”

“Yes, it was.” Decker checked his watch. “It’s been nice talking politics, but I have other obligations awaiting.”

“We know you must be very busy,” Dee stated. No sarcasm in her voice. “Thank you for taking time out for us and for Ernesto. Over the years, we have seen many cases of boys-will-be-boys. We deal in the extremes, helping young men bleed energy in constructive means. And they can’t contact the constructo within until they feel a sense of harmony with nature. That’s why we call our therapy Nature Therapy. We take our clients out of the city and back into the untamed. During the day, our clients are challenged with the physical: the construction of a shelter, the search for food, protection from animals, insects, and the forces of nature. We have Nature Masters who preside over these exercises. Our guides are professional survivalists. They are instructed to teach the client about the physical but offer no therapy. Even if a client wants to confide in them, they are instructed to tell the client to hold the question or statement until group or individual therapy times. Each of our boys gets individual as well as group therapy. Integrating the mind with the body is what puts our clients back into harmony.”

Merv continued the speech. “We have had a tremendous success rate. It’s not perfect, but no therapy is a panacea, especially if the clients aren’t willing to change. In Ernesto’s case, we feel he is ripe for our self-awareness therapy. He is bright, physical, and troubled by what he did. Surely you must believe that the boy, given the right intervention, would prove to be a productive citizen and an asset to the community.”

Decker said, “If you think you can turn him around, great.”

“That would please you,” Merv asked.

“You bet.”

“It wouldn’t be cognitively dissonant with your preconceived notion of the boy?” Merv asked. “I’m sure you have assessed him as problematic.”

“More like criminal,” Decker said. “But, hey, prove me wrong.”

Dee smiled. “Oh, we will do that, Lieutenant. Have no doubt. We will do that.”

“It sounds to me like a summer camp for troubled kids.” Decker sat back in his desk chair, regarding Martinez, Webster, and Bontemps. They looked like an updated and older version of the Mod Squad. “Ever look in the back of
Sunset
magazine or any other similar periodical? It’s filled with nature camps for troubled teens. I really don’t know what makes this one so different.”

Martinez rubbed his tired face. It was close to five and his stomach was rumbling. “Maybe it’s different because the Baldwins appeal to a rich clientele.”

“All those places appeal to rich clientele, Bert. Ever call up and ask the prices?”

Wanda said, “Maybe they have a higher staff-kid ratio. Or maybe the docs are just real good with the therapy.”

“Or maybe they’ve got a good racket going,” Decker said. “However, if it straightens the kid out, I’m all for it.”

“But you have doubts,” Martinez said. “Me, too. Let me hear your reasons.”

Decker made his hands into a teepee. “If the kids were redeemable, it might work. Frankly, it’s garbage in, garbage out. I think the survival camps just turn the psychos into better psychos. Because now they’ve learned enough survival skills to be great fugitives.”

“Ditto,” Martinez stated.

“You really think Ernesto is all that hopeless?” Webster
said. “I’m not excusing the sucker—I think he deserves more than just CS—but his acting out is probably rebellion against radical parents. Y’all know how it is. Kids experiment and if they don’t succeed in really buggin’ their parents, they didn’t do it right.”

“This is beyond the ordinary rebellion,” Decker said. “The kid left pictures that showed piles of dead Jews. It was totally repulsive!”

“I know you were offended, but consider this, Loo.” Webster wasn’t ready to concede the point. “How do teens act out? Drugs? Sex? Weird dress and loud music? Given the Goldings’ background, I couldn’t see them being too worked up about any of those things. But racism or violence—swastikas and horrific photos—that would get them where it hurts.” He paused. “They
were
upset, correct?”

“I think so.”

“You
think
so?” Martinez said.

“Put it this way. They were very glad to see their son get therapy. That was the important issue, not the degradation of a synagogue. Jill Carter is a therapist, and in the Baldwins, they think they’ve found a cure for Ernesto’s problems. Total bullshit. That boy knew what he was doing. In answer to your question, Tom, he could be redeemable, but it’s out of my hands now. The deal’s been cut, and I was part of it. The therapy and community service will satisfy a judge, and that’s that. If I want more, I’m going to have to do it on my own.”