Blood Test Page 13

  “They were staring at her and she was groping me and I was smiling through it all. Then she let go and waltzed over to the guy who was getting hitched—pudgy little fellow with big eyeglasses—and slipped her hand down his pants. Everything got real quiet then. He was red as a beet but he couldn’t say anything cause it woulda made him look like a wimp in front of his friends. He got a sick look on his face, forced himself to smile. She started tonguing his ear, kept yanking his chain. The other guys started to laugh. To relieve their tension. Soon they were yelling out lewd comments. Nona was high, like she was really getting off on groping the poor sucker.

  “Finally I was able to ease her away without it looking like a hassle. We got out of there and I yelled at her in the car. She looked at me like I was nuts, said what was the matter, we got a big tip, didn’t we. I could see it was no use talking to her so I gave up. We got on the freeway. I was driving fast because I couldn’t wait to get away from her. Then all of a sudden I felt her pulling at my zipper. Before I know it, my cock is out and she’s got it in her mouth. We’re going seventy and she’s sucking me off and telling me to admit it, I love it. I was helpless, just praying the highway patrol wouldn’t pull us over—that would be my balls, right? I asked her to stop but she had me and she wouldn’t let go until she finished me off.”

  “The next day I complained to Rambo, insisted I wouldn’t work with her anymore. She just laughed, said Nona would be great in films. Later I found out she’d left, just walked out.”

  Telling the story had made him sweat. He excused himself, went to the bathroom, and came back freshly combed and sprayed and smelling of aftershave. Milo started questioning before he sat back down.

  “And you have no idea where she went?”

  Carmichael shook his head.

  “She ever talk about anything personal?”

  “Nope. There was nothing personal about her. She was all on the surface.”

  “No hint where she might be headed?”

  “She never even said where she came from. Like I told you, we did three or four gigs, then she split.”

  “How’d she connect with Adam and Eve?”

  “No idea. Everyone gets into it differently. Rambo called me after she caught my act at Lancelot’s. Some find out by word of mouth. She runs ads in the underground papers and skin mags. Gets more applications than she wants.”

  “All right, Doug,” said Milo, standing, “I hope you’ve been straight with us.”

  “I really have, Detective. Please don’t pull me into this.”

  “I’ll do the best I can.”

  We left. Back in the car Milo checked in with the dispatcher. There were no important messages.

  “So what’s the diagnosis on Surfer Boy?” he asked.

  “Off the cuff? Personality problems, probably narcissistic.”

  “Which means?”

  “That he’s got low self-esteem and it expresses itself in self-obsession—muscles, vitamins, constant attention paid to his body.”

  “Sounds like half of L.A.,” he growled and turned on the ignition. As we pulled away, Carmichael came out of his house in swim trunks carrying a surfboard, a towel, and tanning lotion. He saw us, smiled, waved, and headed toward the beach.

  Milo parked in a no parking zone near the entrance to Western Peds. “I hate hospitals,” he said, as we boarded the elevator and rode up to the fifth floor. It took a while to locate Valcroix. He was examining a patient and we waited for him in a small conference room off the ward.

  He came in fifteen minutes later, gave me a disgusted look, and told Milo to hurry, he was busy. When the detective began talking, he made a show of pulling out a medical chart, perusing it, and writing notes.

  Milo’s a skilled interrogator but he struck out with the Canadian. Valcroix continued to chart, unflustered, as the detective confronted him with knowing the Touch visitors and his affair with Nona Swope.

  “Are you through, Officer?”

  “For the time being, Doctor.”

  “What am I supposed to do, defend myself?”

  “You might start by explaining your role in the disappearance.”

  “That will be quite simple. There is none.”

  “No collaboration between you and the couple from the Touch?”

  “Absolutely not. I visited them once. That’s the extent of it.”

  “What was the purpose of your visit?”

  “Educational. I’m interested in communal societies.”

  “Did you learn much, Doctor?”

  Valcroix smiled.

  “It was a peaceful place. They have no need for policemen.”

  “What were the names of the people who visited the Swopes?”

  “The man was called Baron, the woman, Delilah.”

  “Surnames?”

  “They don’t use them.”

  “And you’ve only visited the Touch once or twice.”

  “Once.”

  “All right. We’ll be verifying that.”

  “Feel free.”

  Milo fixed him with a hard stare. The Fellow smiled contemptuously.

  “Did Nona Swope tell you anything that would lead us to her family’s whereabouts?”

  “We didn’t talk much. We just fucked.”

  “Doctor, I suggest you rethink your attitude.”

  “Oh really?” The squinty eyes became hyphens. “You interrupt my work to ask me stupid questions about my personal life and expect me to have a good attitude?”

  “In your case personal and professional seem pretty enmeshed.”

  “How insightful of you to notice.”

  “Is that all you have to say, Doctor?”

  “What more would you like to hear? That I like to fuck women? All right. I do. I crave it. I’m going to fuck as many women as I can in this life and if there’s a life thereafter I hope it will provide an endless chain of warm, willing women so I can keep fucking. Last I heard, fucking was no crime, or have they passed a new law in America?”

  “Go back to work, Doctor.”

  Valcroix gathered his charts and left, dreamy-eyed.

  “What an asshole,” said Milo walking back to the car. “I wouldn’t let him near my hangnail.” There was an illegal parking warning from Hospital Security taped on the windshield. He ripped it off and put it in his pocket. “I hope he’s not typical of what they’re passing off as doctors nowadays.”

  “He’s one of a kind. He won’t last much longer here.”

  We headed west on Sunset.

  “You going to check out his story?” I asked.

  “I could ask the Touch people how well they know him but if there is some kind of conspiracy they’d lie. Best thing is to call the sheriff down there and find out if the joker’s been spotted more than once. Small town like that the law tends to notice things.”

  “I know someone who might be familiar with the Touch. Want me to call him?”

  “Why not? Couldn’t hurt.”

  He drove me home and stayed for a minute to look at the koi. He was transfixed by the colorful fish and smiled as they gobbled down the pellets he tossed them. When he tore himself away to leave, his big body seemed heavy and slow.

  “Any longer, I’d stay here till my beard turned white.”

  We shook hands, he gave a little salute, turned and ambled off for another afternoon of witnessing the human animal at its worst.

  12

  I PHONED Professor Seth Fiacre at UCLA. He’s an old classmate from grad school, a social psychologist who’d been studying cults for several years.

  “Hi, Alex,” he said, cheerful as always, “just got back from Sacramento. Senate hearings. Stultifying.”

  We reminisced and played catch-up and then I told him why I’d called.

  “The Touch? I’m surprised you’ve even heard of them. They’re not well-known and they don’t proselytize. They’ve got a place called the Retreat, used to be a monastery, down near the Mexican border.”

  “What about th
e leader—Matthias?”

  “Noble Matthias. He was a lawyer originally. Used to call himself Norman Matthews.”

  “What kind of law did he practice?”

  “I don’t know. But it was high powered. Beverly Hills.”

  Attorney to guru seemed an unlikely metamorphosis.

  “Why the change of lifestyle?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, Alex. Most charismatic leaders claim some sort of cosmic vision, usually after a trauma. Your basic voice in the desert stuff. Maybe he ran out of gas in the Mojave and saw God.”

  I laughed.

  “I wish I could tell you more, Alex. The group hasn’t attracted much attention because it’s so small, maybe sixty members. And like I said, they’re not out looking for converts, so it’ll probably stay small. Whether or not that’ll change if there’s increased attrition remains to be seen. They’ve only been around for three or four years. Another thing that’s unusual is that most of their members are middle-aged. Groups that recruit tend to go after young people. In practical terms that means you don’t have parents screaming to the cops or calling in the deprogrammers.”

  “Are they into holistic health?”

  “Probably. Most of these groups are. It’s part of rejecting the values of the greater society. But I haven’t heard about them obsessing on it, if that’s what you mean. I think their focus is more on self-sustenance. Growing their own food, making their own clothes. Like the original Utopians—Oneida, Ephrata, New Harmony. Can I ask why you want to know all of this?”

  I told him about the Swopes’ decision not to treat Woody and the family’s subsequent disappearance.

  “Does that sound like something this group could be involved in, Seth?”

  “It doesn’t seem likely, because they’re reclusive. Taking on the medical establishment would subject them to lots of scrutiny.”

  “They did visit the family,” I reminded him.

  “If they wanted to be subversive why do it so publicly? You said the family lived near the Retreat?”

  “From what I understand.”

  “So maybe they were just being neighborly. In a small town like La Vista there’s bound to be plenty of distrust of oddballs on the part of the natives. A smart oddball makes a special effort to be friendly. It’s good survival strategy.”

  “Speaking of survival,” I asked, “how do they support themselves?”

  “My guess is member contributions. On the other hand, Matthews was a rich man. He could be bankrolling the whole thing himself just for the power and prestige. If they’re really into self-reliance the overhead wouldn’t be that high.”

  “One more thing, Seth. Why do they call themselves the Touch?”

  He laughed. “Damned if I know. I think I’ll sic a grad student on it.”

  Mal Worthy called me later that day.

  “It appears that Mrs. Moody didn’t get a rat because she was destined for bigger and better things. This morning she found a dog eviscerated, hanging from the front doorknob by its entrails. He castrated it too, stuffed the balls in its mouth.”

  Revulsion kept me silent.

  “What a guy, huh? On top of that he snuck in a phone call, in defiance of the order, talked to the boy and told him to run away. The kid obeyed and it took seven hours to find him. They finally caught up with him late last night, wandering around the parking lot of some mall, five miles from home. Apparently he thought his father was going to pick him up and take him away. No one showed up and he was scared out of his mind, poor kid. Needless to say Darlene is going bananas, and I’m calling to ask you to see the kids. More for their mental health than anything else.”

  “Did they see the dog?”

  “Thank God, no. She cleaned it up before they had a chance. How soon can you see them?”

  “I won’t have access to the office until Saturday.” I’d been renting space for forensic evaluations in the Brentwood suite of a colleague, but only had use of the office on weekends.

  “You can do it here. Just name the time.”

  “Can you get them down there in a couple of hours?”

  “You got it.”

  The offices of Trenton, Worthy & La Rosa were located on the penthouse floor of a high-prestige building at the intersection of Roxbury and Wilshire. Mal, resplendent in a navy silk and worsted from Bijan, was in the waiting room to greet me personally. He informed me I’d be using his office. I remembered it as a cavernous, dark-walled room with an oversized amorphous desk that looked like a piece of free-form sculpture, saw-toothed abstract prints hanging from the paneling, and shelves full of expensive—and breakable—mementos. Not an ideal place for child therapy but it would have to do.

  I rearranged some chairs, moved an end table, and created a play area in the center of the room. Removing paper, pencils, crayons, hand puppets, and a portable playhouse from my carrying case, I placed them on the table. Then I went to fetch the Moody children.

  They were waiting in the law library: Darlene, Carlton Conley, and the children, who’d been dressed as if for church.

  The three year old, April, wore a white taffeta dress and white patent leather sandals over lace-hemmed socks. Her blond hair had been ribboned and braided. She nestled sleepily in her mother’s lap, worrying a knee scab and sucking her thumb.

  Her brother’d been costumed in a white western shirt, brown corduroy pants with the cuffs turned up, a snap-on tie and black oxfords. His face had been scrubbed, his dark hair slicked down in an unsuccessful attempt to make it behave. He looked as miserable in the getup as any nine year old could. When he saw me he turned away.

  “Now, Ricky, don’t be rude to the doctor,” admonished his mother. “Say hello, nice and polite. Hello, Doctor.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Moody.”

  The boy shoved his hands in his pockets and scowled.

  Conley got up from his seat next to her and shook my hand, grinning awkwardly. The judge had been right. Except for being significantly taller, he looked strikingly like the man he’d replaced.

  “Doctor,” he said weakly.

  “Hello, Mr. Conley.”

  April stirred, opened her eyes, and smiled at me. She’d been the easy one during the evaluation, an expressive, happy child. Because she was a girl her father had chosen to ignore her and she’d been spared his destructive love. Ricky was the favorite; he’d suffered for it.

  “Hi, April.”

  She batted her lashes, lowered her face, and giggled, a natural coquette.

  “Remember the toys we played with last time?”

  She nodded and giggled again.

  “I have them here. Would you like to play with them again?”

  She looked at her mother, requesting permission.

  “Go ’head, honey.”

  The little girl climbed down and took my hand.

  “I’ll see you in a while, Ricky,” I said to the sullen boy.

  I spent twenty minutes with April, mostly observing as she manipulated the miniature inhabitants of the playhouse. Her play was organized and structured and relatively untroubled. Though she enacted several episodes of parental conflict, she was able to resolve them by having the father leave and the family live happily ever after. For the most part, hope and determination emanated from the scenarios she constructed.

  I drew her out about the situation at home and found that she had an age-appropriate understanding of what was going on. Daddy was angry at mommy, mommy was angry at daddy, so they weren’t going to live with each other anymore. She knew it wasn’t her fault or Ricky’s and she liked Carlton.

  Everything was consistent with what I’d learned during the initial evaluation. At that time she’d expressed little anxiety over her father’s absence and had seemed to be growing attached to Conley. When I questioned her about him now her face lit up.

  “Carlton’s so nice, Docka Alek. He take me to da zoo. We saw da diraffe. An da cockadile.” Her eyes widened with wonder, the memory alive.

  She went on singing
his praises and I prayed Judge Severe’s cynical prophecy would be proved wrong. I’d treated countless girls who’d suffered tortured relationships with their fathers or no relationship at all, and had witnessed the psychic damage they’d incurred, grievously handicapped in the relationship game. This little sweetheart deserved better.

  When I’d observed long enough to convince myself she was functioning reasonably well, I took her back. She stood on tippy toes and reached out toothpick arms. I bent and she kissed my cheek.