The Oedipus Murders

by Casey Dorman

  Chapter 25

  “I can’t believe you did all that and didn’t tell me until now,” Madeline said. Her eyes were narrowed in anger as she looked at her husband as if she could literally kill him. It was the night after Sherry Bennett’s murder, and George and his wife were sitting in their chairs in the living room having drinks.

  George sipped his gin and tonic slowly, trying to maintain his composure in the face of his wife’s withering attack. He was emotionally exhausted, hoping for the solace of an alcohol-befogged mind. But Madeline’s reaction, which had been no real surprise to him, had robbed him of any hope of respite from the turmoil that had begun with the call from Sherry Bennett the night before. “You were asleep when I got home last night, and out of the house before I was even up this morning. You seemed to have a full agenda, and I really had no opportunity to tell you any of this. I wasn’t avoiding telling you, you can trust me on that.”

  His wife’s eyebrows were arched, as she stared at him accusingly. “Can I, George? Can I trust you? You’ve continued to see your murderer-client despite my objections. It turns out that you talked to his girlfriend or secretary or whatever she might have been, but neglected to tell me that, although it is entirely outside the bounds of any normal method of doing therapy, even I know that. And finally, you responded to the poor dumb woman’s cry for help when she was being stalked by your client and drove to some unknown parking garage in Irvine, where you discovered her dead, moments before the police drove up to find you with your hands around her neck. You’re lucky you weren’t charged with murder or killed by the same person who killed her. And what would I have thought? I wasn’t even aware you had left the house.”

  “How would you have been aware? You had already left, yourself, without telling me where you were going, I might add.” He tried to make his own tone accusing, but he was too afraid of provoking another of her attacks to sound anything more than petulant. He had no intention of telling Madeline about the ten-minute dissociative fugue he’d experienced before finding himself bending over Sherry Bennett’s dead body. He couldn’t even let himself think about it. It bothered him, not just because he didn’t know what he had been doing for those ten minutes, but also because this was the fourth such fugue episode in less than two months. The symptoms he had thought had been resolved through his analysis had returned with a vengeance.

  “I was attending a lecture at UCI,” Madeline answered dismissively. “I’m sure that I told you about it, probably weeks ago. You just didn’t pay any attention when I told you; you never do, which is why you never know what I’m doing. Sometimes it’s like you’re off in another world, completely unreachable.”

  Her words frightened him. Were there other times in which he’d been in a dissociative state? Times he hadn’t even noticed? “Anyway, I’m still alive and I’m not a suspect. They let me go home last night and only called me in today to find out what I knew about Bonaventure harassing the woman.”

  “Are they going to arrest him? Bonaventure?”

  “I have no idea. I had the impression that they had no other evidence against him other than what I told them that Sherry told me.”

  “Well, of course he did it. Just as he killed his wife. The man’s not just a psychopath, now he’s a serial killer. I hope that this has convinced you to drop him as a patient.”

  “I don’t have any proof that he did anything.” He looked into his glass; there were only ice and the remains of a lime. He knew that his answer would anger Madeline, and he wanted another drink before he listened to her tirade. He swirled the ice in his glass and started to stand.

  Madeline was glaring at him. “ Proof?” she asked shrilly. “You don’t need proof. You’re not a judge, you’re a psychiatrist. You know for sure that he killed that woman and his wife. You can’t keep treating him. That’s absurd.”

  George sat back down. He stared wistfully at the bottom of his glass. “I’m not sure that he killed his wife, or if he did, that he’s aware of it. He had no motive for killing Sherry. He was worried about her. He wanted to protect her.”

  “Sherry? You talk about her as if she were your girlfriend.”

  He felt his face getting hot. “Nonsense. That’s her name. I was just using her name. I’ve gotten used to calling her Sherry in my sessions with Bonaventure since that’s all he talks about.”

  “And you can’t see that that makes him guilty? What’s wrong with you, George? Why can’t you let this go? This man is going to take you down with him.”

  He sighed and gazed into his empty drink glass. He stood up again and gazed longingly toward the kitchen. “I haven’t decided yet. If he’s charged with anything I’ll drop him for sure. But right now, I’m fascinated by him. I want to see how he reacts to Sherry’s death; will he be as indifferent to it as he has been to his wife’s disappearance?”

  “Fix me another, too,” she said, holding out her glass. “I think you’ve got a death wish, George. Either that or you’re doing this to deliberately frustrate me. If that’s the case, it’s just another sign of your immaturity. What am I going to tell my friends if it turns out that you’re embroiled in two murders?”

  “Tell them that it’s unfortunate for your husband but that it’s giving you great material for your next novel. They’ll be jealous of you.” His voice sounded bitter, even to him.

  “That shows how much you know about my friends and colleagues; or even my own literary work. I don’t write lurid murder mysteries. And that’s what this is, a cheap, low-class murder mystery. Only my husband is involved in it.”

  He continued into the kitchen, a glass in each hand. “I forgot that your literary crowd doesn’t write popular fiction. In fact, they don’t write anything anyone other than them actually reads. And neither do you. So forgive me for letting the real world intrude into your pristine intellectual domain. But I’m a psychiatrist, and the welfare of my client is my first concern.”

  “Hurry up with my drink, George. And if the welfare of your clients was your first concern, you’d refer them all to someone else, someone who practiced a therapy that worked. You don’t fool me, you’re in this to excite your own prurient interests with your client’s peccadilloes. You’re not curing anyone of anything. Only this time your voyeurism is going to cost you. It’s going to cost us both, and I hope you remember that I told you so.”

  Her words frightened him. They reminded him of his own doubts about himself and whether, in his choice of a profession, he was engaging in the same vices that he had suspected were his father’s. “How could I forget,” he answered, standing in front of her with full glasses in each of his hands. His own was straight gin. He handed Madeline her drink then sat down in his chair. “Shall we watch the news on CNN?”

  “Fine. Just let’s not watch the local news. I have no interest in seeing my husband’s face on television, listed as a witness to a murder.”

  — — —

  George awoke with a start. Something was wrong. He looked over at his wife’s place next to him in bed. She was gone. He swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was still wearing his pants and his shirt. Why had he gone to bed in his clothes? And where was Madeline?

  He stumbled downstairs, feeling lightheaded. Madeline wasn’t in the kitchen, but the gin bottle was still out on the countertop. It was empty. How much had he had to drink? The wooden knife block was in the center of the counter instead of against the tile splashguard where it belonged. The largest knife was missing. George felt a wave of panic. What had he done? He called his wife’s name but no one answered. Had she left? He checked the garage. Her car was still next to his. What had happened last night? Why had he no memory? He called her cell phone. There was no answer.

  Chapter 26

  Susan Lin had agreed to meet Ben
Murphy in the coffee shop of the Marriott hotel where he was staying. She’d been briefed on the private detective by Abe Reynolds and she was looking forward to meeting him, given his legendary status among Southern California peace officers. She felt touched that Murphy’s main interest in talking to her was to find out information about the field of forensic psychology so he could advise his granddaughter, who was studying psychology at UC Santa Barbara.

  The seventy-two-year-old detective was dressed in a pair of faded jeans and an unbuttoned green and white checked flannel shirt with a tee shirt underneath, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He wore a faded Dodgers baseball cap behind which his hair was in a braid, and he wore a pair of worn white sneakers. As he walked into the coffee shop, Susan stood up to greet him.

  “Doctor Lin, I presume,” Murphy said, smiling a broad smile and sticking out his hand.

  “Call me Susan. It’s a real honor to meet you, Chief Murphy.”

  “I’m just Ben now—no more Chief. You’re doing me a favor. We’re working on the same case, but my reasons for wanting to meet with you are personal.” He slid into the booth opposite her.

  “I understand you have a granddaughter who is studying psychology,” Susan said.

  He nodded, his mouth crinkled in a smile. “She’s a bright kid. I’ve even got her working with me during her vacation. She and her brother, who’s a whiz with computers, are taking calls on a hotline I set up for tips on Bertram Knowles’ daughter, Regina. My granddaughter’s a junior at UCSB.”

  “Is she planning to go to graduate school?”

  “She says so. She’s really into psychology. Not so much mental health kind of stuff, more research. I think she wants to teach someday. But I’m not sure that she’s aware that there are police psychologists. It might be something that interests her. She’s always had a keen interest in my work. She’s got the kind of mind that figures stuff out quickly. She’s intuitive and observant.”

  “You know the value of those qualities for police work more than I do.”

  “So why don’t you tell me what you do and how you got involved in doing it? And by the way, are you hungry? It’s on me since you’re doing me the favor by being here. I’m going to have a bagel with my coffee. Go ahead and order whatever you like.”

  “Just coffee is fine.” Susan relaxed. It was rare that anyone asked her about herself, and, like many Asians, she usually avoided making herself the topic of conversation. But Ben Murphy’s casual friendliness was inviting, and she felt as if she were helping him with his granddaughter. “I was like your granddaughter. I wanted to teach, still do someday. But teaching jobs are few and far between. They want you to have published several papers before even hiring you as an assistant professor. Also, like your daughter, I was enchanted with police work. My father was a policeman, a homicide detective in Chicago.” She saw the surprised look on his face. “I know most people don’t think of a Chinese-American when they envision a police detective. My family has been in the U.S. for generations. My great-great-grandfather came to America to work on the railroad at the beginning of the last century. My Parents are much more American than they are Chinese. Anyway, my father’s retired now. When I was in graduate school at Northwestern, he got me a consulting job on a couple of cases with his department. When I got my Ph.D., I looked around for openings for forensic psychologists—that’s what the field is called—and the first one I found was here in Orange County. I work with several different cities’ departments, depending on the kind of cases they have.”

  “How do the guys on the force accept you… and the gals?”

  She gave him a “so-so” gesture. “Most are pretty open, especially the higher ups. Abe Reynolds, whom you met, was a little slow to warm up to me, but we got through it, and now we work well together. An Irvine detective just called me to invite me in on one of their cases. Both Lucas Bonaventure and his psychiatrist are involved in some way with the case. I have to meet with him this afternoon and find out more, but Frank Jensen, that’s the Irvine detective, got Bonaventure to sign a release so I can question his psychiatrist, which is something I’ve been wanting to do.”

  Murphy sipped his coffee. His bagel had arrived, but he ignored it. “So you do investigating as well as psychology?”

  “I wouldn’t call it investigating so much as establishing a suspect’s history. Psychology has its own methods—personality tests, neuroimaging, specialized interviewing techniques—but the best clue to a suspect’s behavior, even with regard to his psychological profile, is gained from analyzing background information. A person’s past behavior is the best clue to his personality.”

  “And talking to his shrink—excuse me, I didn’t mean that as a disrespectful term—is part of gaining background information?” Murphy was looking at her with a rapt expression, as if everything she was saying was important to him.

  “Shrinks, as you call them, are experts at gathering information about people. I’m hoping that Lucas Bonaventure told his psychiatrist things he’d never tell an investigating officer or even a private detective like yourself.”

  Murphy nodded as if he understood. “I talked to Lucas Bonaventure yesterday. Kind of a courtesy visit, since I’m working for his father-in-law.”

  She was surprised. She knew that Ben Murphy was handling the phone tips that came in as a result of Bertram Knowles’ million-dollar reward, but she didn’t know that the former police chief would talk to Bonaventure himself. “How did that go?”

  “I think Lucas is a little put out that his father-in-law has offered such a big reward. Thinks the old man is trying to one-up him since he only offered twenty-five thousand himself. Wouldn’t own up to saying that he and Regina had a fight the night she left, even though I’m willing to bet that they did. She wasn’t the type to go out to a bar by herself, or at least she didn’t use to be.”

  “You knew her?” she asked.

  “Bert Knowles and I have been friends for years. I was always fond of Regina, but I haven’t seen her much since she got married.”

  “Bonaventure hasn’t told us anything about his relationship with his wife. He just describes it as ‘normal’.”

  “He’s not your most forthcoming person. Always has been arrogant… and distant. Bert thought that Lucas was a business genius, that’s why he wanted his daughter to marry him, to give her security, although, God knows, Bert’s money is security enough for her. But Lucas hasn’t really panned out as a businessman.”

  “I thought he was very successful.” She was learning all sorts of things she hadn’t known before.

  “He acts the part, but the truth is that Bert has had to bail him out a couple of times. Too impulsive, Bert says. I wouldn’t know since that’s not my bailiwick.”

  “His wife has a lot of money in her name, but being California, that’s half her husband’s anyway.”

  “Could become all his.” Murphy narrowed his eyes as if he were thinking of something, then took a bite of his unbuttered bagel.

  “Learn anything else from talking to Bonaventure?” Susan wasn’t sure that Murphy would be willing to share more of what he’d found out, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

  “One of them was really into psychology. The bookshelves in their den are full of the stuff. Lucas said all the books were Regina’s. Said she was a big fan of Freud.”

  “Really? That’s odd for a nonprofessional unless she’s into the arts or literature. Freud is a lot more popular with the artsy crowd than with psychologists. Bonaventure’s psychiatrist is a psychoanalyst, so maybe that’s why he picked him, if his wife had told him about Freud.”

  “Or if Lucas reads the stuff himself. He looked uncomfortable when I asked him about it. His denial was too emphatic. One of the books, something about int
erpreting dreams, was a big hit with one of them. Its pages were pretty dog-eared.”

  “The Interpretation of Dreams?”

  “That was it.”

  “It’s a classic. Not that I’m an expert on Freud. I’m into research and neuroscience, like your granddaughter. But that would be interesting if Bonaventure was reading Freud. He’d know just what to tell his shrink.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wonder if Bonaventure isn’t seeing the psychiatrist in order to lay the groundwork for a diminished capacity defense, although I doubt that he knows how hard that kind of defense is to make.”

  “And now you’ve got permission to talk to the psychiatrist?”

  She smiled, as if they shared a secret. “Yes I do, and I plan to make the most of it.”

  “Sounds as if being a police psychologist is as much police work as it is psychology.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, especially coming from you.”

  “I’m impressed. A good policeman has to be an amateur psychologist, but that doesn’t mean that a professional psychologist wouldn’t make an even better policeman—or policewoman—especially if he or she had the respect you seem to have for real investigating. I think my granddaughter would like you and what you do. Maybe I can bring her down here to talk to you.”

  “I’d be happy to talk to her.”

  Chapter 27

  George was surprised at how happy he felt that Susan Lin, the young police psychologist had called to ask to meet with him again. He was also worried. How could he talk to someone from the police department when he had no idea what had happened to Madeline?

  He was still at home. He had told Mrs. Schrempf to cancel his appointments for the day, claiming to feel too ill to come in. In fact, he was overcome with anxiety, paralyzed by the fear that, during one of his amnesic fugue episodes he had done the unthinkable: harmed his own wife. He was sitting in bed, still dressed, leaning against the headboard. He knew it was bad for him, but he was sipping on a gin and tonic from a newly opened bottle. He needed something to calm his nerves.