Self-Defense Read online

  I thought about that. “It’s sure possible. The half brother said the kids were at the retreat for the opening. A big party took place. The papers described it as a pretty wild scene. And in the dream, Lucy talks about noise and lights the night she leaves the cabin. She could’ve seen something X-rated.”

  “Involving Daddy. He and a couple of buddies having their way with a girl,” he said. “Not the kind of thing a little kid could handle easily.”

  “And the trial reawakens it. . . . On the other hand, what if she did witness violence and that’s why hearing about Shwandt evoked memories of a crime? Maybe—unconsciously—she was motivated to be a juror in order to right some kind of wrong. Maybe that’s the toughness the prosecutors sensed.”

  “Possible,” he said.

  “Trafficant was an attempted rapist, Milo. And he dropped out of sight right after the party.”

  “On the lam?”

  “Why else would he disappear at the height of his celebrity? All those years behind bars, then he’s a best-seller; it wouldn’t have made sense to quit unless he had something to hide. He and Lowell—the publicity would have been devastating. So maybe he took the money and ran. For all we know, he’s on some tropical island living off his royalties.”

  He rubbed his face and contemplated the table light. “For that to make sense, there would have to be no witnesses, meaning violence taken all the way.”

  “Maybe Lucy actually did witness a burial. Lowell and Trafficant and someone else getting rid of the body.”

  He thought a long time. “It’s a helluva leap based on a dream. For all we know, Trafficant disappeared because he died. Blew all his dough on dope and OD’d. He was a psychopath loser. Don’t they always end up doing something self-destructive?”

  “Usually. But still, the idea of him and Lucy, up there at the same time, her blocking out that summer, and now she’s dreaming about a dead girl. . . . I could call Trafficant’s publisher and see if they know where he is. If you feel up to it, you could run a background check.”

  “Sure, why not. . . . Best-seller.” Shaking his head. “What is it with these intellectuals anyway? All those fools marching for Caryl Chessman as if he was a saint. Norman Mailer with his pet creep, William Buckley rooting for that asshole Edgar Smith—beat a fifteen-year-old girl to death with a baseball bat.”

  I thought about that. “I suppose artists and writers can lead a pretty insulated life,” I said. “No freeway jams or time cards. Getting paid to make things up, you could start to confuse your fantasies with reality.”

  “I think there’s more to it, Alex. I think the so-called creative bunch believe they’re better than everyone else, don’t have to play by the same rules. I remember once, when I was first on the force, I pulled jail duty down at the Hall of Justice, and some sociology professor was leading a tour—earnest students, pens and notebooks. They walked past one asshole’s cell and it was full of drawings—bloody stuff but very well done; the guy had real talent. Not that it stopped him from robbing liquor stores and pistol-whipping the owners. Prof and the kids were totally blown away. How could someone that talented be in there. Such injustice! They started talking to the guy. He’s a stone psychopath, so he immediately smells an opening and plays them like guitars: Mr. Misunderstood Artist, poor baby robbed ’cause he couldn’t afford paints and canvas.”

  He shook his head. “Goddamn professor actually came up to me and demanded to know who the guy’s parole officer was. Letting me know it was criminal for such a gifted fellow to be shackled. That’s the equation they make, Alex: If you’re talented, you’re entitled to privileges. Every few years you see another bullshit article, some idealistic fool setting up a program teaching inmates to paint or sculpt or play piano or write fucking short stories. Like that’s going to make a damn bit of difference. Truth is, there’s always been plenty of talent in jail. Visit any penitentiary, you’ll hear great music, see lots of nifty artwork. If you ask me, psychopaths are more talented than the rest of us. But they’re still fucking psychopaths.”

  “There’s actually a theory to that effect,” I said. “Psychopathy as a form of creativity. And you’re right, there’s no shortage of artistically brilliant people who had low moral IQ’s: Degas, Wagner, Ezra Pound, Philip Larkin. From what I hear Picasso was pretty hard to live with.”

  “So why are people so goddamn stupid?”

  “NaäivetÉ, wanting to believe the best about others—who knows? And it’s not just the creative bunch who buys into it. Years ago, social psychologists discovered something called the halo effect. Most people have no trouble believing that if you’re good at one thing it transfers to unrelated areas. It’s why athletes get rich endorsing products.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Trafficant shoulda stuck around. Somebody would have paid him to endorse cutlery.”

  “Lowell set him loose on society. Dropped him in a totally unstructured situation full of booze, dope, groupies. And cute little kids.”

  He laughed wearily. “Get us together, feeling like failures, and we do build a nice house of cards. I’ll grant you it’s interesting—scumbag on the loose almost always spells some kind of trouble. But like you said, Lucy could have read about him or heard about him from her brother. Maybe the goddamn dream is pure fiction.”

  “Could be,” I admitted. “He got plenty of media coverage.”

  “Much as I like her, she’s got problems, right? The head in the oven, this paranoid talk about someone trying to kill her. And those hang-up calls. I feel like a bum saying this, but now that I know she’s been wanting to get close to me, I’d be an idiot not to wonder if she made them up to get attention. Even the way she tried to kill herself has a touch of that, doesn’t it? Gas, with the drapes open?”

  He gulped down the rest of his beer and looked at me.

  “Yes, there is a hysterical quality to it,” I said. “But let’s be charitable and assume that even if she is making things up it’s out of neediness rather than manipulation. That still doesn’t eliminate the possibility that something traumatized her that summer. Don’t forget, she’s not trumpeting herself as a victim or trying to make anything out of the dream. On the contrary, she tends to minimize things, just as she did with the hang-ups. She’s an ostrich, Milo, blocking out that entire summer. My gut tells me something happened when she was four and it’s stuck down in her unconscious. Something that relates—directly or indirectly—to Lowell. She’s not the only one with strong feelings about him. The half brother called him a total sonofabitch. He’s in the real estate business and his big fantasy’s foreclosing on Dad’s land. Maybe that summer was bad for all the Lowell kids.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s say we do somehow get to the bottom of it, find out Daddy did do something terrible twenty-one years ago. And let’s assume Lucy gets herself to a point where she can deal with it. Then what? Bring the bastard to the bar of justice? You know what uncorroborated memories are worth in court. And the fact that it came out in therapy makes it even weaker. Nowadays prosecutors assume anything retrieved in a shrink’s office is bullshit till proven otherwise. Too many cases thrown out of court, too much pop-psych crap, satanic bullshit—if you feel you’ve been abused, you have been.”

  “Baby-with-the-bathwater,” I said, “just like when the courts tossed out hypnotic evidence. But you know as well as I do hypnosis does help some witnesses remember facts. And plenty of patients do retrieve valid memories during therapy. I’ve seen dozens of corroborations. The key is never to plant anything in a patient’s head and never to lead. Stay skeptical as hell but keep it to yourself, and if you end up with something, check it out to the max.”

  “I know, I know, I’m just saying it’s an uphill battle.”

  “Look, even if it never goes anywhere legally, I think, at some point, knowing what really happened—or didn’t—will help her.”

  “What if we learn Daddy did something, can’t touch him legally, and the bastard gets away with it? What does that d
o to her psyche?”

  “So what do you suggest, drop it?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything, just creating problems to keep your mind active.”

  “What a pal,” I said. “Anyway, it’s probably theoretical. After the way the last session went, I doubt Lucy’ll want to see me. Maybe she’ll hook up with Embrey—maybe seeing a woman will make it easier. Whoever her therapist turns out to be, they’ll need to know what’s going on.”

  “Think they’ll keep her in past the seventy-two?”

  “Not unless she really falls apart. It’s what’ll happen when she gets out that worries me.”

  Neither of us spoke for a while. I thought of all the possibilities we’d just raised. Wondered if Lucy would connect with Embrey. I found myself hoping so.

  “What?” he said.

  “That summer,” I said. “At least we could try to narrow things down by finding out if any dark-haired girls were reported raped or murdered or missing in Topanga that summer. If they were, we’ve got possible corroboration. If not, that will also define the focus of Lucy’s therapy. Either way, she doesn’t need to be told until the time’s right.”

  “Narrow things, huh?”

  “I can’t see it hurting.”

  He scraped a tooth with a fingernail. “Guess I could make a call to Malibu Sheriffs. It’s a low-crime neighborhood, there shouldn’t be too much paper to wade through, assuming they keep their old files. I can also look into any public records on Mr. Trafficant. When exactly was this party?”

  “August—mid-August.”

  He took out his notepad and wrote it down. His beer glass was empty and he reached for a breadstick.

  “Hope she heals,” he said softly.

  “Amen.”

  Twirling the breadstick, he put it down. “Haven’t had lunch yet. You in any mood to eat?”

  “Not really.”

  “Me neither.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  He’d left his unmarked around the corner from the restaurant, in a loading zone, and a meter maid was approaching it with a predatory look in her eyes.

  Milo flashed his badge, wagged his finger, and grinned. The meter maid snorted, returned to her buggy, and putt-putted away.

  “Power!” he said. “Intoxicating as fine cognac and it won’t damage your liver.”

  As he got in the car, I said, “Anything new on the Santa Ana murder?”

  “Shwandt’s lawyers are going to use it as grounds for a mistrial.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “In lawyer logic, the similarity between this one and the Bogeyman murders casts doubt on Jobe’s guilt for all of them. We only had physical evidence on Carrie, Marie Rosenhut, and Berna Mendoza. All the others were circumstantial.”

  “So what? He still did those three.”

  “Three versus fifteen. The victim load—their phrase—prejudiced the jury against him and was responsible for the death penalty. They want a retrial on Carrie and the other two physicals, too—fruit of the poisoned tree or some shit like that.”

  “Absurd,” I said. “Like you said, anyone who’d been at the trial or read the transcripts would have had enough information to copycat.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Logic has nothing to do with it. It’s a game. There’s a whole subspecies of sharpies makes a living filing death penalty appeals. They’ve got it down to a science, and we pay for it with our taxes.”

  He shook his head and laughed.

  “What does that say about our society, Alex? A piece of shit like Shwandt can cut up women and kids, gouge their eyes out, shit on them, and get himself a supporting case of legal beagles, access to a law library, three squares, TV, magazines, nutritious snacks. I mean, let’s cut through all the theology and ideology and tell me what reason can there possibly be to let someone like that live?”

  “No argument from me.”

  “Does that mean you’ve finally converted?”

  “To what?”

  “The Church of Abject Hostility.”

  “Depends on what day you catch me.”

  He laughed and started his engine.

  I said, “Do you think there’s really any chance of a new trial?”

  “Who the hell knows? The goddamn press corps loves the slimy fuck. He feeds them like trained seals.”

  I wondered how Lucy would react to the legal circus. Would she see it as diminishing what she’d done in that jury box?

  Right now that seemed the least of her problems.

  I called Woodbridge Hospital and used my title to cadge information from a nurse.

  The patient was still sleeping. Dr. Embrey had not come in yet.

  I tried to reach Peter Lowell. No answer.

  Phoning my service, I discovered Dr. Wendy Embrey had left a message. My callback got her voice mail. I said I’d be happy to speak to her and returned to the Seville.

  I couldn’t rid myself of the thought that something had happened to Lucy that summer. Couldn’t erase the idea of a little girl and a paroled killer thrown together. Heading north on Westwood Boulevard, I drove to Vagabond Books, parked in the back, and entered the store.

  The owner was playing his sax. He looked up as I approached, not missing a note. Then he recognized me and said, “Hey.”

  The glass case of first editions fronting the register had something new in it, along with the books. Big silver automatic.

  He saw me looking at it. “There’s a guy running around robbing used bookstores. Comes in just before closing time, pulls a gun, beats and sodomizes the clerk, and takes the cash. Kid over at Pepys Books is getting tested for AIDS.”

  “God.”

  He fingered his ponytail. “So what can I do for you?”

  “Terrence Trafficant. From Hunger to Rage.”

  He took the gun out, put it in his waistband, and stepped out from behind the counter. Ambling over to the rear of the store, he came back with a worn-looking paperback. Bright red cover, black title letters that resembled knife slashes.

  Two cover blurbs:

  “It stirs and jolts with all the cruel authority of the electric chair!”—Time

  “Twisted, heroic, visionary, touched with genius, Trafficant holds us by the scruff and forces us to stare into our own nightmare. This may be one of the most important books of our century.”—Denton Mellors, The Manhattan Book Review

  “Doing some kind of psychology research?” he said, ringing up the sale. “You couldn’t be reading for pleasure. It’s really a piece of crap.”

  I opened the book. More raves from Newsweek, Vogue, The Washington Post, the Times on both coasts.

  “The critics didn’t think so.”

  “The critics are brainless sheep. Trust me, it’s crap.”

  “Well,” I said, paying him, “you’ve got the gun.”

  I got home at three, feeling antsy, yet tired. The ocean was green and silky. Putting the book on the coffee table, I went out, lay down on a lounge chair, caught a face full of ultraviolet, and fell asleep.

  Robin kissed me awake.

  “Someone on the phone for you.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Five-fifteen.”

  “Must have dozed off.”

  She wiped my forehead. “You’re really hot. Better watch that sun, honey.”

  I took the call in the kitchen, rubbing my eyes and clearing my throat. “Dr. Delaware.”

  “Doctor, this is Audrey from Dr. Wendy Embrey’s office. Dr. Embrey said to tell you she’d like to meet with you concerning Lucretia Lowell, if you’ve got the time. Would sometime tomorrow be okay?”

  “Tonight would be okay, too.”

  “Dr. Embrey’s all over the place tonight—she attends at a bunch of different hospitals. How about tomorrow around lunchtime?”

  “Sure. Where?”

  “She’ll be over at the university all morning. If it’s convenient, she could meet you in the med school dining room at twelve-thirty.
”

  “That would be fine.”

  “Good, I’ll tell her.”

  “How’s Ms. Lowell doing?”

  “I’m sure she’s doing as well as can be expected.”

  I read From Hunger to Rage over breakfast. The bookseller had been right.

  Trafficant’s style was crude and uncontrolled, boiling with junior-high revolutionary rhetoric and obscenities. His editor had left his faulty spelling and grammar intact, aiming, I suppose, for gritty authenticity.

  In the first half, he worked two themes to the death: “Society screwed me” and “I’m getting even.” The next fifty pages were letters he’d written to various celebrities and officials. Only two had answered, the congressman from Trafficant’s home district in Oklahoma—who responded with a Dear Constituent form letter—and M. Bayard Lowell, who praised Trafficant’s “bloody poetry.”

  The two men began to correspond, Trafficant ranting and Lowell commiserating. The final page was a photocopy of Trafficant’s approved parole application.

  A biography and picture were on the inside back cover, the mug shot the papers had run.

  Terrence Gary Trafficant, of uncertain parentage and hot blood, was born April 13, 1931, in Walahachee, Oklahoma. Beaten often and suckled by wolves, he spent his formative years in various institutions and hells-on-earth. His first major punitive adventure came at the age of ten, when he was locked up at The Oklahoma Institute for Children for stealing cigarettes. He proved an uncooperative prisoner and alternated for the next thirty years between steadily escalating violence and incarceration, much of it in solitary confinement. He brings a unique perspective to our perception of right and wrong. From Hunger to Rage has been purchased for adaptation as a major motion picture.

  A psychopath making it in Hollywood—not a huge stretch. Yet Trafficant had turned his back on it.