The Murder Book (31 page)

As I got in the Seville, he said, “What I told you before about Robin. I didn’t mean to presume to instruct you how to live your life. I’ve presumed an awful lot, today, haven’t I?”

“I didn’t take it that way, Bert.”

He sighed. “I’m an old man, Alex. Most of the time I
feel
young — sometimes I wake up in the morning ready to dash to the lecture hall and take notes. Then I look in the mirror… the life cycle. One regresses. Loses one’s sense of propriety. Forgive me.”

Tears welled in the gray eyes.

“There’s nothing to forgive—”

“You’re kind to say that.”

I placed a hand on his shoulder. Beneath the purple polyester he was soft and frail and small. “Is everything okay, Bert?”

“Everything is as it should be.” He reached up and patted my hand. “Lovely seeing you, son. Don’t give up.”

“On the case?”

“On anything that matters.”

I drove down the hill, paused to look through the rearview mirror. He remained standing in the driveway. Waved. A tired wave.

Definitely distracted, I thought as I drove away. And the sudden mood swings — the tears. A different Bert from the buoyant man I’d known.

The allusions to senility.

Nothing beyond my age norms.

As if he’d tested himself. Maybe he had.

An impressive man, afraid…

He called me
son
several times. I realized that for all his travels and adventures, the first-time mention of being married, he’d never spoken of having children.

Alone, in a house full of toys.

If I reached his age, how would I be living?

I got home just before dark, with a head full of road glare and lungs teeming with smog. No numeral blinked on my phone machine, but two messages had been left with my service: someone wanting to sell me earthquake insurance and a request to call Dr. Allison Gwynn.

A young female voice answered at Allison’s office.

“Hi, Dr. Delaware, I’m Connie Martino, Dr. Gwynn’s psych assistant. She’s in session right now but she told me to let you know that she’d like to speak with you. Her last patient’s finished by eight and you can drop by the office if you’d like. Or let me know what works for you.”

“Eight works for me.”

“Great. I’ll tell her.”

At seven-forty, I set out for Santa Monica. Allison Gwynn’s building was on Montana Avenue, just east of the beach city’s boutique row, a pale, one-story late-forties moderne affair with rounded corners and grilled slat windows and apricot-tinted accent lighting. A small patch of daylilies sprouted near the front door, bleached white by the night. Inside were four suites: a three-woman obstetric-gynecology group, a plastic surgeon, an endodontist, and, at the rear,
A. GWYNN, PH.D. AND ASSOCIATES
.

Allison’s waiting room was empty and smelled of face powder and perfume and the merest nuance of stress. The decor was soft chairs and thick wool carpeting and marine prints, everything tinted in variants of soft aqua and beige, as if someone were trying to bring the beach indoors. Halogen spots tuned to dim cast a golden white glow — the beach at twilight. Magazines were stacked neatly. A trio of red call buttons next to the door listed Allison’s name above those of two assistants:
C. MARTINO, M.A. AND E. BRACHT, PH.D.
I rang in, and, a moment later, she opened the door.

Her black hair was tied back into a ponytail and she wore an ankle-length, navy crepe dress above matte brown boots. The dress had a scoop neck that dipped just below her collarbone. The same meticulously applied makeup. Same diamond accents at wrist and neck and ears, but tension played around the big blue eyes. The first time I’d met her, she’d maintained steady eye contact. Now she was focused somewhere over my left shoulder.

“Sorry for bringing you all the way here,” she said, “but I didn’t want to talk over the phone.”

“I don’t mind being here.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Well, then, come in.”

Her inner office was more of the same maritime hues and compassionate lighting. The room was large enough for group therapy, but set up for individual work, with a desk in the corner, a sofa and a pair of facing easy chairs. She took one of the chairs, and I sat down opposite her. The navy dress covered most of her but clung to her body and as she positioned herself, I saw muscle and curve, the sweep of thigh, the tug of bosom.

Remembering her history with Michael Larner, I switched mental gears.

She said, “This may turn out to be nothing, but given the seriousness of what you’re doing, I thought it best that I tell you.”

She shifted in the chair, showed me another aspect of her figure. Not seductively; her mouth was set tight.

I said, “I appreciate any help you can give me.”

The edge of her lower lip insinuated itself between her teeth, and she chewed. Her hands flexed. She shook her head.

Neither of us spoke. Two therapists measuring the silence.

She said, “I recalled something right after we talked. I’d forgotten about it — or maybe it never really registered because at the time… I’m sure it’s nothing, but a short while after Willie Burns left Achievement House — maybe a week later — I was with
him
. Larner. And he was angry about Willie. Worked up. I know because he called me into his office and his anger was obvious. I never really thought about it in terms of Willie because I had my own issues…” She chewed her lip, again. “Let me back up…”

Undoing her ponytail, she shook her hair loose in a sable billow, tied it up again. Tucking her legs under her, she hugged herself and studied the carpet.

“Larner had been bothering me for a while. It began soon after I started volunteering. Nothing blatant — looks, smiles, little asides about my clothes — how cute they were, what a nice healthy girl I was. He’d pass me in the hall and pat me on the head or brush my hip or chuck my chin. I knew what was going on, but what I didn’t realize was just how wrong it was.” She took hold of her hair, smoothed the ends. “I didn’t want to leave Achievement House, thought it would be a good summer experience. And even if I’d told someone, what was he really doing to me?”

“Insidious,” I said.

“Insidious and devious and altogether creepy. I tried to avoid him. For the most part, it worked. But that day — it was a Monday, I remember that because I’d been to the beach over the weekend, had gotten tan. Willie Burns had been gone a good week, maybe more. I remember asking about Willie because with him gone the halls were quiet. When he worked, he’d usually be humming, low-key, some kind of bluesy thing. He always looked stoned, but he did have a good voice. And he was friendly, would generally look up and smile, and say, ‘Hi.’ ”

“Friendly to everyone?”

“To the kids. They seemed to like him, though I got the feeling some of them were making fun of him — that drugged-out demeanor. The only time he got furtive was when he was with Caroline. Anyway, he was gone, and an older woman was doing his job — an old Latina who didn’t speak English. I asked people what had happened to Willie, but no one seemed to know.”

She twisted in her chair, cupped one hand over a knee. “That Monday, I’d been delivering charts when Larner called me into his office. Something about new filing procedures. That sounded strange — why would the director want to talk to a student volunteer about procedure? I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t see any way out. If I refused, that would be insubordination. When I got there, Larner’s secretary was out in front, and that made me feel better. But then she told me to go right in and closed the door after me. It was summer and I was wearing a sleeveless white sundress and my tan was pretty blatant and I just knew he’d say something about it and started to tell myself I was stupid for not covering up more. But Larner didn’t even look at me. He was standing, sleeves rolled up, a cigar in one hand, his back turned, on the phone, listening. I stood near the door. He was rocking on his heels and clenching the phone tight — he was a big, pink disgusting thing, and his hands were tight around the receiver — mottled, like lunch meat. Then he half turned, but he still didn’t acknowledge me. His face was different from all the other times I’d seen him. In the past he’d always smiled. Leered. Now he looked furious. Red-faced — he’s naturally ruddy, but this time he was like a beet. I remember the contrast with his hair — he had this blond-white hair that looked as if he waxed it. I just stayed there, with my back against the door, and he barked something into the phone and slammed it down. All I caught was Willie Burns’s name. Then something about ‘We’d better do something about it.’ Then he hung up.” She held out one hand. “That’s it. I never paid much attention to that, because it really wasn’t the focus of my memories.”

“You had your own issues,” I said.

She lowered her head, then raised it very slowly. Her eyes were closed, and her face had lost color.

“After he slammed down the phone, he began to dial another number, then he saw me, gave me this surprised look — surprised and hateful. As if I wasn’t supposed to be there. Then there it was — that smile of his. But the anger remained on his face, also, and the combination scared me — predatory. He came around from behind the desk, shook my hand, held on too long, told me to sit down, said something to the effect of ‘How’s my favorite volunteer?’ Then he walked behind me and just stood there, not talking or moving. I could smell his cigar, the smoke kept wafting toward me. To this day, I can’t see a cigar without…”

She sprang up, strode to her own desk, and sat down, putting wood and space between us.

“He started talking — softly, in a singsong. How did I like working at Achievement House? Was I finding satisfaction? Had I thought about career choices? Maybe teaching would be good for me because I was clearly a people person. I didn’t say much, he really didn’t want answers. It was a monologue — droning, hypnotic. Then he stopped talking and I tensed up, and he said, ‘Don’t be nervous, Allison. We’re all friends, here.’ Nothing happened for what seemed to be forever. Then suddenly I felt his finger on my cheek, pressing, stroking, and he said something about my skin — how clean and fresh it was, how nice it was to see a young lady who cared about her hygiene.”

She caught hold of her hair with one hand and tugged hard. Then both hands slapped flat on the desk and she was staring at me — daring me to look away.

“He kept stroking,” she said. “It was annoying — ticklish — and I twisted my head away. And then he chuckled and I looked up and I saw that it hadn’t been his finger on my cheek. It was his thing — oh, listen to me, like a child — it was his
penis
, and he was rubbing it against my cheek,
pushing
. I was so freaked out that my mouth dropped open and that was the worst thing to do because he chuckled again and in it went and all of a sudden he was holding the back of my head with his other hand, the hand with the cigar, and the smoke wrapped around me, and he forced himself deeper into my mouth and I couldn’t breathe, I was gagging. But my eyes were open, for some reason I kept them open, and I could see his white shirt and his tie — a striped tie, blue and black — and the bottom of his face, all that pink flab, quivering, his double chin and he was rocking on his heels again, but in a different way and the cigar smoke was burning my eyes and I started to cry.”

She turned icy and still. Didn’t move for a long time. “He didn’t come. Thank God for that. I managed to wrench free, first, made it to the door, ran out, never looked back. Drove home like a zombie, called in sick. Which wasn’t much of a stretch because I felt sick as a dog. For the next few days, I took to bed. Threw up when my mother wasn’t listening, lay there feeling degraded and scared and worst of all stupid — replaying it over and over, blaming myself. For the tan and the dress and not being on guard — I know it’s never the victim’s fault, God knows how many times I’ve told that to
patients
. But…”

“You were seventeen,” I said.

“I’m not sure I’d have handled it better — or felt differently — had I been twenty-seven. Not at the level of consciousness twenty years ago.” She slumped, loosened her hair again, fooled with it, flicked something away from the corner of one eye.

“The worst part was how
alone
I felt. Abandoned, with no one in my corner. I couldn’t tell my parents, because I was too humiliated. I told Larry Daschoff a sanitized version, because even though Larry had been my mentor for the summer and he’d been kind and helpful, he was a
man
. And I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I was to blame. So I just kept calling in sick to Achievement House, told my mother I had some kind of flu, stayed holed up in my room. Obsessing about what had happened, dreaming about it — in the dreams it was worse. In the dreams I
didn’t
get away and Larner came in my mouth and then he hit me and raped me and forced me to smoke the cigar. Finally, I realized I was falling apart — was
wasting
. I needed to do something. So I found out the name of the school’s chairman of the board — some downtown lawyer — Preston something — and after agonizing about it for a whole week, I called his office, got through after several attempts, and told him what had happened. Only I didn’t really tell him. I soft-pedaled it. Reduced it to grabbing — the same story I told Larry.”

Larry had told me,
Mashing and groping
.

“How’d Preston react?” I said.

“He listened. Didn’t say anything at all, at first. Didn’t ask any questions, which really upset me. I got the impression he thought I was crazy. Finally, he said he’d get back to me. Two days later a letter of dismissal arrived in the mail. I was being let go for poor work habits and excessive absenteeism. I never showed the letter to my parents, just told them I’d quit because the job wasn’t challenging. They didn’t care. My mother wanted me to swim at the club and play tennis and meet guys. What she
wasn’t
happy about was that I just wanted to hang around the house and not be
social
. So she arranged a family cruise to Alaska. Big luxury liner cruising past the glaciers — baby otters nursing amid the ice floes. All that blue ice wasn’t as cold as my heart was that summer.”