The Clinic Read online

  The Gina Sydney Jerome Show:

  Hope Devane in a roundtable discussion with three other authors: a woman linguist who pooh-poohed psychology and recommended that men and women learn to interpret language correctly, a New York-based syndicated columnist on women's issues who had nothing to say but said it polysyllabically, and a depressed-looking man who claimed to have been a battered husband and had stretched the account of his torment to three hundred pages.

  Same old noise . . .

  Live with Morry Mayhew: Who's Really the Weaker Sex?

  Hope Devane debating the self-styled head of a men's-rights organization I'd never heard of who went after her with misogynistic lust.

  This one different— the hostility level ratcheted up several notches. I rewound and watched it again.

  The misogynist was named Karl Neese. Thirty or so, lean and outwardly hip in all black and a stylish haircut but Neanderthal in his point of view, hogging the airtime and layering insults relentlessly— psychodrama parmigiana.

  His target never fought back, never interrupted, never raised her voice even when Neese's comments drew applause from louts in the audience.

  MAYHEW: Okay, Mr. Neese, now let's ask the doctor—

  NEESE: Doctor? I don't see any stethoscope.

  MAYHEW: She happens to be a Ph.D.—

  NEESE: Am I supposed to be impressed by that? What does Ph.D. mean, anyway? “Piled higher and deeper”? “Papa has dough”?

  MAYHEW [Suppressing smile]: Okay, Dr. Devane, now if you could please tell us—

  NEESE: Tell us why feminists keep harping on about their problems— nag, nag, nag. But it's okay to abort on demand because babies are inconvenient—

  MAYHEW:— your theory of why women fall prey so often to unscrupulous—

  NEESE: Because they want unscrupulous. Bad guys. Danger. Excitement. And they keep coming back for more. They say they want nice, but just try to pick up a woman using nice. Nice means weak and weak means geek. And geek gets no peek!

  [Laughter, applause]

  HOPE DEVANE: You may actually have something there.

  NEESE: Oh, I do, baby. I do. [Leering]

  DEVANE: Sometimes we do fall into dangerous patterns. The crux, I believe, is in the lessons we learn as children.

  NEESE: Show me yours, I'll show you mine?

  MAYHEW: [Smiling] C'mon, Karl. What kinds of lessons, Doctor—

  DEVANE: The role models we learn from. The behaviors we're taught to emulate—

  Twenty more minutes of his double entendres and her reasoned statements. Each time he got the crowd hooting, she waited until things quieted before offering brief, precise replies that had nothing to do with him. Sticking to her own agenda. By the end of the show, people were listening and Neese was looking off-balance.

  I watched it again, concentrating on Hope and what made her effective. She made eye contact in a fearless way that established intimacy, projected an unflappability that made the obvious seem profound.

  Charisma. Calm charisma.

  If the medium was the message, she was a brilliant courier and I couldn't help thinking of what she might have accomplished had she lived.

  When the segment ended, the camera caught a close-up of Neese's face. No more wise-guy grin.

  Serious. Angry?

  It was a crazy idea, but could he have held on to the anger?

  Why not, the case was cold and Milo had asked me to “hypothesize away.” I wrote down Neese's name and reached for the homicide file.

  Words, pictures. Always pictures . . .

  It was close to five when I called Milo at West L.A. Detectives and told him I'd finished everything, including the book.

  “That was fast.”

  “Easy read, she had a good style. Conversational. As if she's sitting in your living room, sharing her knowledge.”

  “What'd you think of the contents?”

  “A lot of what's in there is hard to argue with— stick up for your rights, take care of yourself, choose your goals realistically so you can succeed and enhance your self-esteem. But when it comes to the more radical stuff she doesn't present facts to back it up. The part about testosterone and sadistic psychopathy is a pretty big stretch.”

  “All men are sex killers.”

  “All men have the potential to be sex killers and even consensual sex is partial rape because the penis is constructed as a weapon and penetration means invasion and loss of women's control.”

  “She's big on control, isn't she?”

  “It's her main theme. I went to the library and checked out the studies she quoted. They don't say what she claims they do. She took facts out of context, reported selectively, played fast and loose. But unless you took the time to carefully examine each source, it wouldn't be obvious. And apart from her writing skill, I can see why the book sold so well. She had a natural constituency because women almost always are the victims. You heard Robin last night. When we got home she told me the murder had kept her up nights because she found herself identifying with Hope. I never knew she'd given it a moment's thought.”

  “What about the TV tapes?”

  “She was good at that, too. Unflappable. Even when they put that moron against her on Mayhew, she never lost her cool. Remember him?”

  “Skinny idiot in black? He really dumped on her, didn't he?”

  “But she handled him beautifully, never let him get to her. To me, she came out the clear winner and he looked mad. What if he held a grudge?”

  Silence. “You've got to be kidding.”

  “You said be creative. Those shows are powder kegs— dealing with sensitive issues, exploiting people on the edge. Exactly what I was trained not to do as a therapist. I've always thought it was only a matter of time before things got violent.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “Okay, I'll look into him— what was his name?”

  “Karl Neese.”

  He repeated it. “Wouldn't that be something. . . . Okay, any other thoughts about Hope?”

  “That's it, so far. How about you?”

  “Nothing. I get a feeling Hubby's holding something back and your buddies at the U are no help— quoting me statistics about how if it takes too long to solve a case, forget it. Also, they treat me like Joe Cretin. Talk-ing re-al slo-ow.”

  “Class snobbery?”

  “Maybe coming in rubbing my knuckles on the ground while scarfing a banana was the wrong approach.”

  I laughed. “You should have dropped your master's degree into the conversation.”

  “Oh, sure, that would really impress a bunch of Ph.D.'s. So what do you think of the wounds? Does that groin stab make it sexual?”

  “If it was intentional, it would show definite sexual hostility.”

  “Oh, it was intentional all right. Three clean cuts, no error wounds, no hacking around. He got her exactly where he wanted: heart, groin, back.”

  “When you put it that way, it sounds orchestrated,” I said. “A definite sequence.”

  “How so?”

  “Stabbing her in the heart first could be romantic, in a sick sense. Breaking someone's heart, maybe some kind of revenge. Though I guess he could have chosen the heart in order to kill her quickly. But wouldn't a throat slash have been a better bet for that?”

  “Definitely. The heart's not that easy to hit, you can nick ribs, miss completely. Most quick-kill knife jobs are throat slashes. What about the other wounds?”

  “The groin,” I said, thinking of Hope's composure and impeccable clothes. Every hair in place. Left bleeding on the street. . . . “The groin could be an extension of the heart wound— love gone wrong, the sexual element. . . . If so, the back would be the coup de grce: back stabbing. The symbol of betrayal.”

  “To stab her in the back,” he said, “he had to take the time to flip her over and place her on her stomach. That's why I got interested when you said orchestrated. Think of it, you're standing there on the street, just killed someone. You take the time to do something like that?
To me it says crime of passion but carried out in a calculated manner.”

  “Cold rage,” I said. “Criminal intimacy— someone she knew?”

  “Which is exactly why I'm interested in Hubby.”

  “But for someone like her, intimacy could mean something totally different. Her book tour took her out in front of millions of people. She could have triggered rage in any of them. Even a delusional rage. Someone who didn't like the way she signed a book, someone who watched her on TV and related to it pathologically. Fame's like stripping in a dark theater, Milo. You never know who's out there.”

  He was silent for a few moments.

  “Gee, thanks for expanding my suspect list to infinity. . . . Here's something that never made it into the papers: Her routine was to take a half-hour to one-hour walk every night, around the same time. Ten-thirty, eleven. Usually she walked with her dog— a Rottweiler— but that day it came down with serious stomach problems and spent the night at the vet's. Convenient, huh?”

  “Poisoned?”

  “I called the vet this morning and he said he never worked the dog up 'cause it got better by morning, but the symptoms could have been consistent with eating something nasty. On the other hand, he said dogs eat garbage all the time.”

  “Did this one?”

  “Not that he knew. And it's too late now to run tests. Something else Paz and Fellows never thought to ask about.”

  “Poisoning the dog,” I said. “Someone watching her for a while, learning her habits.”

  “Or someone who already knew them. Wouldn't a husband fit perfectly into this love-sex-revenge orchestration thing? Someone who'd been cuckolded?”

  “Had this husband been cuckolded?”

  “Don't know. But assume yes. And if Seacrest was smarter than the average betrayed husband, colder, what better way to deflect suspicion than make it look like a street crime?”

  “But we're talking a middle-aged history professor with no record of domestic violence. No violence, period.”

  “There's always a first time,” he said.

  “Any idea how he dealt with her fame?”

  “No. Like I said, he's not helpful.”

  “It could have been a rough spot in their relationship: He was older, possibly more prominent academically til she wrote the book. And maybe he didn't take well to being discussed on TV. Though on the tapes I saw she talked about him fondly.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “ “Philip's attuned to a woman's needs but he's the rare exception.' A little patronizing, maybe?”

  “Another thing,” I said. “I never heard any feminist outcry about her death, or the fact that it hadn't been solved. Maybe because she wasn't affiliated with any feminist groups— at least I didn't see any listed in her resume.”

  “True,” he said. “A loner?”

  “She did the usual committee things, joined academic societies. But nothing political. Despite the tone of the book. And speaking of the resume, one thing caught my eye: She chaired something called the Interpersonal Conduct Committee. It sounds like it might have something to do with sexual harassment— maybe handling complaints by students against faculty. Which could have been another source of controversy. What if she put someone's career in jeopardy?”

  “Interpersonal conduct. I never noticed that.”

  “It was just a notation at the end.”

  “Thanks for paying attention. Yeah, that sounds interesting. Want to do me a favor and check it out on campus? The department head hasn't returned my calls since the first time I spoke to him.”

  “Ed Gabelle?”

  “Yeah, what's he like?”

  “A politician,” I said. “Sure, I'll ask.”

  “Thanks. Now let me tell you what gets me about Professor Devane. The discrepancy between what she wrote and the way she acted on TV. In the book she basically tagged all men as scum, you'd think she was a major-league man-hater. But on the tapes she comes across as a woman who likes guys. Sure she thinks we've got some things to work out, maybe she even pities us a little. But the overall attitude is friendliness, Alex. She seemed comfortable with men— more than that. I guess to me she came across as the kind of gal you could have a couple of beers with.”

  “More like champagne cocktails,” I said.

  “Okay, granted. And not at the Dewdrop Inn. Paneled lounge at the Bel Air Hotel. But the contrast is still dramatic. At least to me.”

  “You know,” I said, “you could say the same thing about the resume. The first half was all by-the-book academic, the second was Media Star. Almost as if she were two separate people.”

  “And another thing: Maybe I'm not the best judge, but to me she was sexy on the tube. Seductive, the way she made eye contact with the camera, gave that little smile, crossed her legs, showing a little thigh. The way she said plenty by not saying anything.”

  “Those could have been shrinks' pauses. We learn to use silence to get others to open up.”

  “Then she sure learned well.”

  “Okay, what if she was sexy?”

  “I'm wondering if she was the type to get involved in something dangerous. . . . Am I pop-psyching myself into a corner?”

  “Maybe what you're really talking about is compartmentalization. Separating aspects of her life. Putting them in little boxes.”

  “Maybe little secret boxes,” he said. “And secrets can get dangerous. On the other hand, could be we've got something stupid— a stone nutso who saw her on the tube and God told him to kill her. Or a psychopath out stalking blonds on the Westside and she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. God forbid. . . . Okay, I appreciate the time, Alex. Gonna be working late right here, if you think of anything else.”

  “I'll try Ed Gabelle on that conduct committee, call you if it gets interesting.”

  “It's already interesting,” he said. Then he cursed.

  3

  Ed Gabelle was an aggressively casual physiological psychologist with a thick thatch of gray hair, a tiny mouth, and a whiny, singsong voice that sometimes veered toward an English accent. His specialty was creating lesions in cockroach neurons and observing the results. Lately, I'd heard, he'd been trying to get grant money to study drug abuse.

  It was just after lunchtime and I found him leaving the faculty club wearing blue jeans, a denim shirt, and an outspoken yellow paisley tie.

  His obligatory greeting faded fast when I told him what I wanted.

  “The police, Alex?” he said, pityingly. “Why?”

  “I've worked with them before.”

  “Have you . . . well, I'm afraid I can't help you on this. It wasn't a departmental issue.”

  “Whose was it?”

  “It was . . . let's just say Hope was somewhat of an individualist. You know what I mean— that book of hers.”

  “Not well-received in the department?”

  “No, no, that's not what I'm getting at. She was brilliant, I'm sure the book made her money, but she wasn't much for . . . affiliation.”

  “No time for colleagues.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What about students?”

  “Students?” As if it were a foreign word. “I assume she had some. Well, nice seeing you, Alex.”

  “The committee,” I said. “You're telling me it was solely her project?”

  He licked his lips.

  “What was it all about, Ed?”

  “I really can't get into that. It's a closed issue, anyway.”

  “Not anymore. Murder changes everything.”

  “Does it?” He began walking.

  “At least tell me—”

  “All I'll tell you,” he said, stretching the whine, “is that I can't tell you anything. Take it up with a higher power.”

  “Such as?”

  “The dean of students.”

  When I told the dean's secretary what I was after, her voice closed up like a fat-laden artery and she said she'd get back to me. Hanging up without getting my number, I phoned Mil
o again.

  He said, “Ass-covering. I like it. Okay, I'll take on the dean myself. Thanks for reading that resume so carefully.”

  “That's what you pay me for.”

  He laughed, then turned serious. “So obviously Hope ruffled someone's feathers with this committee. And speaking of ruffling, I've got a number for the assistant producer of the Mayhew show. Want to follow through for me so I can concentrate on persecuting academics?”