by Casey Dorman
George was disappointed. He had expected that he would be alone with the young psychologist for the entire lunch. Did he not want to share her, or was he afraid he wouldn’t get to tell her more of his personal problems?
Susan had turned to greet an old man, dressed very casually in jeans, an unbuttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled and a tee shirt underneath, sneakers and a baseball hat. She stood up and gave him a hug. George felt a momentary twinge of jealousy. “Ben Murphy, this is Doctor George Farquhar,” she said, turning back to George.
George stood and held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Ben.”
Murphy shook his hand then pulled out a chair at their table and sat.
“Are you hungry?” George asked. He had planned on picking up the tab for Susan, and he’d extended the offer to Murphy, mostly to be amicable.
“I’ll get mine. Do you order here or at the counter?” Ben asked.
“At the counter,” George said.
Murphy got up and strolled over to the counter. George could see that his white hair hung in a braided ponytail beneath his baseball cap.
“He’s quite a famous lawman,” Susan said. “…from Santa Barbara. Regina Bonaventure’s father has hired him to carry out his own investigation on her murder.”
“A famous lawman sounds like a sheriff from the old West.”
“He was the Chief of Police in Santa Barbara for many years. A very good investigator. Even Abe Reynolds welcomed his help on the case.”
Murphy returned to the table carrying a glass of red wine. “I talked them into giving me this right away,” he said, with a mischievous grin. He took a slow sip, then smiled. “This is quite good.” He set his glass down. “You’re Lucas Bonaventure’s psychiatrist?”
George nodded. “At least for the time being.”
Murphy looked at him quizzically. “What do you mean?”
“I’m suspicious of Bonaventure, just as you both probably are, but I don’t want to abandon a patient just because of my suspicions, which may be unfounded. That could change, of course.”
“Did you know that Lucas knew that you owned that lot at Banning Ranch?” Murphy asked.
George couldn’t conceal his surprise. “No, I didn’t.” He thought about Lucas’ dream; how it gave such a detailed description of his wife’s burial place that George was convinced it was his property. “How do you know that?”
“Yes, how do you know that?” Susan asked, her confusion showing on her face. “And does Abe Reynolds know?”
Their sandwiches had arrived and Murphy paused to take a bite of his turkey and cheese sandwich. “I haven’t talked to Detective Reynolds yet,” he said, turning to Susan. “The real estate agent on the property told me that Lucas had been there, that he had asked about who already owned property there.”
“Lucas never told me that,” George said, still looking puzzled.
“He never told us either,” Susan said.
“What do you think it means?” George asked, although he had a very good idea what it meant. He looked first from Murphy then toward Susan.
“”Lucas must have been setting you up,” Susan said. “Although how he knew that you’d visit the property and find his wife’s body, I can’t tell you.” She allowed her gaze to linger on George.
“I know how,” George said. “But I can’t tell either of you because of client confidentiality. But what I thought was just coincidence looks as if it was very deliberate.”
“Always distrust a coincidence,” Murphy said before taking another bite of his sandwich.
“What happens next?” George asked, looking at Susan Lin.
“I think you should keep seeing Bonaventure,” Susan answered.
George was surprised. “Why? He appears to be using me. I’m now a suspect in Detective Reynolds’s eyes because of my association with Lucas.” He realized, with a start, that his wife had been right all along. He had been manipulated and didn’t know it.
“You’re in a better position than anyone else to get information from Bonaventure. I’m going to try to work on him to give us a release of information. I don’t want to ask for a subpoena because that will scare him too much and he won’t reveal a thing. But I think I can convince him that allowing us to talk to you can help him if he later needs to use an insanity defense. That’s not true, but he may believe it.”
“My job is to heal people, not to spy on them,” George said, although he wondered if he was just saying it to give the impression that he had professional ethics. He wanted to prove that Lucas Bonaventure had killed his wife, and no doubt Sherry Bennett also, and he wanted to eliminate himself as a suspect.
“Then continue to heal him of whatever it is that ails him,” Susan said. “Although if, as I suspect, he’s a psychopath, I doubt you’ll have much luck.”
“If he’s a psychopath, he’s not just a psychopath,” George replied. “He has some real issues to wrestle with.” When he thought about Lucas’ neurotic symptoms he was reminded of his own dissociative fugue states. He felt relieved that Ben Murphy had found evidence of Lucas’ deliberate manipulations, making it more likely that Lucas had killed and buried his wife. George suddenly realized that he had been worried that he might have had something to do with Regina Bonaventure’s death. Was that the source of the guilt that had plagued him each time he returned from one of his fugue states? But, of course, such a thought was ridiculous. George hadn’t even known Regina Bonaventure.
“There are Farquhars in Santa Barbara,” Ben Murphy said, interrupting George’s thoughts. “Are you related to them?”
“I have a great uncle and his wife who live there,” George answered. “My grandfather’s younger brother’s family.” Suddenly he felt overwhelmed with anxiety.
Ben nodded. “They’re friends of Bertram Knowles. I’ve met them once or twice. Very nice people. Beautiful house right next to Bert’s. You ever visit them?”
He swallowed hard. He felt as if he might vomit. “A few times with my grandparents and then for a vacation from medical school. I took my wife up to visit once, right after we were married. I’m afraid, I’ve kind of lost touch in recent years.”
“You might have met Regina. Your uncle is her father’s neighbor.”
“Really?” George said. His entire body felt leaden. “I wasn’t aware of that. I don’t recall having ever met either her or her father.”
“Just another coincidence, I guess,” Ben Murphy said, drily.
“Six degrees of separation,” George said, laughing lightly. He felt himself sweating. He remembered that Ben Murphy didn’t trust coincidences.
“Small world,” Susan said. She looked at her watch. “Time for me to get back to work.”
George looked at his own watch. “You’re right. Me too.” He didn’t have a patient for another hour, but George didn’t want to stay and talk with Ben Murphy.
Ben hadn’t moved. “You two have more stringent schedules than I do,” he said. “That wine was so good I’m going to stay here and have another glass. Might even buy a bottle to take home with me. That’s the beauty of being retired. No schedule.”
Susan was already standing. “I thought you were still working for Mr. Knowles.”
“I am,” Ben said, standing to give her a hug and shake George’s hand. “But sitting and thinking is always a good plan in the middle of an investigation. And I’ve got a lot to think about.”
Chapter 42
George poured himself another gin and tonic. He had to do something to reduce his anxiety. He was at home, sitting in his den with boxes of old pictures open around him. Somewhere within his collection of old photographs, he knew there
were pictures of himself at his uncle’s house in Santa Barbara. He was hoping that seeing the old photos would jog his memory. Ben Murphy’s mention of the proximity of his uncle’s house to that of Bertram Knowles’ house had unsettled him. Was it possible that he had known Regina Bonaventure? George had no recollection of such an acquaintance. Was this one more trick that his memory was playing on him? And if so, what else didn’t George remember about his relationship with the dead woman?
Murphy’s revelation had shaken his conviction that Lucas Bonaventure was his wife’s killer. George was afraid that his flawed memory might be concealing one more candidate in Regina Bonaventure’s death: George himself.
There it was! It was the sixth box that he had opened, filled with old photos from his childhood and youth, most of them taken at his great uncle’s home in Santa Barbara.
George had not realized what a shy child he had been. At least that was how he appeared in the various photographs of him in his early years, hiding behind his mother’s skirts, gazing at the ground, rather than into the camera, standing on the sidelines in a game of flag football that was being led by his father. George gazed at the picture of his father. Even now George felt intimidated by the images in front of him. His father looked strong, fit, and athletic in those pictures, which always seemed to catch him running or throwing a pass. George knew that the image was misleading. His father had died at the age of 51, a victim of an aneurysm that had been lurking in his brain since infancy. His father’s heavy smoking and excessive use of alcohol, perhaps even his volatile temper, had contributed to the bursting of the paper-thin arterial wall, which would have given way eventually, no matter how he’d lived his life.
George put his father’s pictures aside and continued to sift through the hundreds of others in the box. He was now looking at a batch taken during his later high school years, some even from his vacations from college, vacations often spent at his great uncle’s, although George had somehow erased those memories from his mind. He felt his anxiety rising, as if he were about to stumble upon some great danger.
The young man George in the pictures was handsome, his head held proudly erect, his smile a practiced social one, and his eyes gazing directly into the camera’s lens. Something had happened to the shy young boy of the earlier pictures. George knew exactly what had happened: the fugue states had begun, magically erasing the conflicts that had created that earlier, neurotically inhibited child. This new George was confident and gregarious. When something provoked the conflicts that had paralyzed him as a young child, he blacked out, carrying out some kind of activity—he was never sure what he had done during those periods—that allowed his mind to encapsulate the memory that had threatened to reignite the troubling conflict in his history and to consign it once again to his unconscious.
Suddenly he was paralyzed. In his hand was a small photograph, taken by whom he had no idea. He looked to be about age twenty and was dressed in a checked sport coat, a tie and a pair of light-colored slacks. He was smiling brightly into the camera. At his side was Regina Knowles.
George stared at the picture. How could he have forgotten? He and Regina had been close friends once. They had seen each other each summer when George was sent to his great uncle’s home to spend his vacation. As children, they had learned to sail together, gone picnicking together.
And they had dated.
Not really dated, George now recalled. The photograph was from the annual summer dance put on by his uncle’s yacht club. Neither George nor Regina had wanted to go with anyone else so they had decided to go together. There had been no romance involved in their decision. Both were in Santa Barbara for their college summer vacations. Neither was dating anyone, and it had just seemed easier and more fun to go to the dance together, rather than alone.
But the evening had not ended well.
George had had too much to drink; he remembered that much now that his memories of Regina were returning. Something had happened, something about which, even with his memories of Regina reinstated, he still had no recollection. He had apparently gone into one of his fugue states, for he had no memory of what he had done. All he knew was that he had acted “disgracefully,” according to Regina when he was dropping her off at her father’s estate. She hadn’t seemed angry at the time, in fact, her assessment of his behavior was accompanied by her embarrassed laughter. “You are a naughty, naughty boy George and in my opinion, a perverted one,” she told him, smiling at his mystified look of guilt. “I won’t tell anyone about you, but I don’t want to go out with you again,” she added. “I’m still your friend, but my advice is that you should never get drunk. You simply can’t control your behavior.”
George had had no idea what she was talking about. Even with his memory of Regina restored, he still didn’t. In fact, they had never seen one another again. Except, George realized, that perhaps they had. With his memories rushing back into his head, he remembered that several months ago he had seen someone who reminded him of Regina in a bar in Newport Beach. But his memory of the evening was interrupted by a fugue episode, the first of the present series, which he had been experiencing, and the first such episode in twenty years.
Why hadn’t he remembered any of this when Lucas Bonaventure appeared in his office? Why hadn’t the newspaper description of Bertram Knowles’ daughter provoked a flood of recollections on his part, recollections of all those summers spent together, of their single date and its enigmatic ending, of his chance glimpse of her at a bar a few months ago? George had no answer, except that he had obviously prevented his conscious mind from accessing those memories. Beginning when? Was it only after Regina’s disappearance that he no longer remembered knowing her, or had he wiped her memory from his own history from the time of their disastrous date? No, he had the distinct feeling that it was seeing her in that bar a few months earlier that had provoked his massive repression, because the incident, which even now was vague to him, had marked the return of his dissociative symptoms.
George breathed a little easier, or perhaps it was the effect of his third gin and tonic. He told himself that the fact that he had buried his memories of his childhood friendship with Regina Knowles, buried them because they reminded him of whatever “disgraceful” thing he had done when he was twenty years old, had nothing to do with her disappearance two months later. He realized that he had been worried that he might have killed her. The realization brought back his anxiety and prompted him to pour himself another gin and tonic. Such a thought was ridiculous. He wasn’t capable of murder. He wasn’t a psychopath, not even a neurotic psychopath as Lucas no doubt was. His own training analyst had assured him that, despite his feeling of guilt after his dissociative episodes, he had surely done nothing wrong. He was simply a neurotic with a debilitating Oedipus complex and a resulting castration anxiety. Such people became artists, poets, sometimes nonfunctioning failures, but never murderers. If they were lucky enough to undergo psychoanalysis, they sublimated their unconscious conflicts into a respectable profession, such as medicine, and turned their private lives into a reenactment of their conflict regarding their mother.
And most importantly, he had had no contact with Regina except that one fleeting moment a few months ago in a bar… at least as far as he could remember.
Chapter 43
“It must have been a great shock seeing your wife like that,” Susan said, searching Lucas’ face, trying to read the feelings behind his expressions. She glanced down at his leg. “You’re still having trouble walking?” They were standing in the vestibule of his home; he was leaning on a cane.
He shrugged. “I can get by. What is this visit about? Do you have news about my wife’s killer?”
“Maybe we could sit down somewhere.”
He looked at her with a cold stare. “You can’t just tell me what you want?”
“I’d rather have a conversation.”
He shrugged and limped down the hallway. “We can go in the study.” Without looking back, he turned and entered a room on the right side of the hallway.
Susan followed. The room was a small den, with a desk on one side of the room and a heavily padded leather desk chair facing it. Across the room was a long, black leather couch. There was a TV screen on one wall and the others were all lined with books.
Lucas had taken a seat in the chair and swiveled it around to face the couch. Susan sat down on the couch and let her gaze wander around the room. “This is where you work?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not really. I do almost all my work at my office. Regina and I shared this room for reading and TV or if one of us just wanted to be alone.
“Did your wife like to be alone?”
“She liked to read. She came in here to read.”
“How about you?”
He gazed at her with a blank stare. “How about me what?”
“Do you like to be alone? Do you come in here to read?”
“I don’t read much. Sometimes I watched games in here when Regina didn’t like the noise of the game on the family room TV.”
Her gaze swept around the room. “There are a lot of psychology books.”
Lucas heaved a sigh. “You and that private detective Murphy, you both want to know about the psychology books. They’re Regina’s. I’ve never read any of them.”
“Not even the books by Freud? There are several of those. And you’ve chosen a psychoanalyst for your therapist.”
“Is that supposed to mean something? I didn’t know anything about Doctor Farquhar until I met him. Regina had mentioned his name once and I remembered it when I felt like I needed to talk to someone.”