Milo asked if we could see Hope's study.
'As you like. Do you mind if I stay down here and have some tea?'
'Not at all.'
'Up the stairs and take the first room to your left. Look anywhere else you please.'
At the top were three smallish bedrooms and a bath off a central landing. The room to the left was walled with budget Swedish-modern cases jammed top to bottom with journals and books, the shelves bowing under the weight. Venetian blinds shielded two windows. The furniture looked strewn rather than placed: two mismatched chairs, a desk, and a workstand with PC, printer, modem, software manuals. The American Psychological Association's Style Guide, dictionary, thesaurus.
Next to the computer were "several copies of an article Hope Devane had authored last year in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Coauthor: Casey Locking. 'Self-Control As a Function of Gender Identity.'
I read the abstract. No significant differences between men and women in the ability to control nail-biting using a behavioral technique. No relationship between success and subjects' views on sex-role behavior and equality. In Wolves and Sheep Hope claimed women were superior to men in breaking bad habits because estrogen had an 'impulse-suppressing' role. The sole exception: compulsive overeating, because societal pressure created body-image conflict in women.
The article said just the opposite. I turned to the Discussion section at the back. Hope and Locking hedged, their results by stating that their sample was too small.
As Milo opened drawers and read the spines of shelved books, I inspected the rest of the room. Loose journals and books covered half the floorspace. A red wool throw was tossed carelessly over a box. Just like the carton Locking had carried out, the same neat black lettering.
Five sealed cartons from Hope Devane's publisher stamped wolves and sheep, comp. copies were shoved into a corner. Unopened reams of computer paper.
The lettered box contained more of Hope's published papers, Locking the coauthor on two of them. No authorship for the other student, Mary Ann Gonsalvez.
Teacher's pet?
Judging from the conduct committee transcripts, Locking had been a kindred spirit.
More than that?
He was young, bright, good-looking if you like the brooding underwear-ad type.
Younger man, older woman.
First I'd wondered about Locking and Seacrest, now I was speculating about a heterosexual affair.
Sin on the brain, Delaware?
But the wound pattern connoted sin - someone's idea of transgression made good.
Heart, vagina. Stabbing in the back.
The heat of passion buttressed by cold planning.
Seacrest seemed the bloodless type. Had he shed blood?
Milo fished some more, then said, 'Anything?'
I told him about the discrepancy between the self-control article and the book.
'Like you said, she fudged.' He looked through the office door, across the landing, and cocked his head. I followed him out to Seacrest's office.
Also book-lined and furnished with aesthetic apathy, but pin-neat.
Next, Seacrest's bedroom. Now that he had it all to himself, the historian kept his sleeping space tidy. Queen-sized brass bed, floral coverlet tucked so tight it looked painted on the mattress.
We went downstairs. Seacrest was nowhere in sight.
Milo said, 'Professor?' and Seacrest came into the dining room from the kitchen, mug in hand. The tag and string of a tea bag dangled over the side. University mascot on the mug.
'Anything else you'd like to see?'
'Where are Dr Devane's professional records -patient files, things like that?'
'Anything not here would be in her campus office.'
'I've been through that and there are no patient files.'
'Then I don't know what to tell you.'
'Did she have a private office?'
'No.'
'Did she see patients here?'
'No.'
'Did she see patients at all?'
'She never discussed her work.'
'I'm not talking specifics, Professor Seacrest. Just if she saw any patients.'
'If she did she never mentioned it. We didn't talk about our jobs. Only... scholarly issues.'
Seacrest touched his tattoo.
'Navy?' said Milo.
'Coast Guard.' Seacrest smiled. 'A moment of poor judgment.'
'Where'd you serve?'
'Off Catalina Island. More of a vacation, I'm forced to admit.'
'So you're from California.'
'Grew up right here. In this house. Campus brat. My father was a chemistry professor.'
'And Hope's?'
'Hope's parents are both deceased. As are mine. Neither of us had siblings. I suppose I'm all that's left of both families.'
I knew what Milo was thinking: sole heir.
'What did her father do?' he said.
'He was a sailor. Merchant marine. He died when Hope was very young. She didn't talk much about him.'
'And her mother?'
'Her mother worked in a restaurant.' Seacrest headed for the door. 'As I told the first detectives, she's also deceased and Hope had no other family.'
Milo said, 'Quite a skill.'
'What is?'
'Keeping your professional lives separate. Keeping things separate, in general.'
Seacrest licked his lips. 'Not at all. Quite the opposite, actually.'
'It was easy?'
'Certainly. Because we respected each other.' Opening the door, he extended an arm outside.
'Warm night,' he said. 'The night it happened was much cooler.'
Milo drove Wilshire Boulevard through the corridor of high-rise condos that made up L.A.'s nod to Park Avenue.
'Diagnosis?' he said.
'He's not Mr Warmth but he's got reason to be depressed. He could be hiding something or really not know much. Bottom line: nothing earth-shattering.'
'And Mr Locking?'
"The skull ring was cute. First I found myself wondering about a relationship between him and Seacrest, then between him and Hope.'
'Him and Seacrest? Why?'
'Locking driving that car seemed awfully personal, though Seacrest's barter explanation could cover that. Also, Seacrest seemed to be delaying letting us in and once he did, he called upstairs to say the police were there. Which could have been his way of warning Locking. Giving him time to get his clothes on? All of which is pure supposition.'
'Okay... why Locking and Hope?'
'You've wondered all along about her having an affair. Most affairs begin at work and Locking was the guy she worked with. And after marriage to someone like Seacrest, she might have been ready for a little excitement.'
'Black leather and a skull ring,' he said, drumming
the steering wheel and heading into Westwood Village. Like so much else in L.A., the district had been intellectually downscaled, the bookstores of my college days surrendering to games arcades, gyro shacks, and insta-latte assembly-line franchises.
'What I found interesting,' he said, 'was the way Seacrest suggested the murder could be blamed on the book. Insisting it had nothing to do with her academic life. Which distances it from him. I've seen killers who think they're smart do that - give out alternative scenarios. That way they can look helpful while thinking they're steering us away from them. And that dog. Who better to slip her a nice big steak laced with God-knows-what. And now he's given her away.'
'Getting rid of the reminders.'
He made an ugly sound and loosened his tie. 'Locking and Hope, Locking and Seacrest. Guess I'll make use of some of my homo sexual contacts. Maybe the lieutenant was right and I am the perfect guy for the case.'
'I wonder,' I said, 'why it took so long for Locking to come get his data. Hope's been dead three months. That's a lot of time when you're working on your dissertation. Then again, Locking hasn't found a new advisor so maybe he's having trouble adjusting to Hope's death.
Maybe because they had more going than a student-teacher thing. Or, he's just a hang-loose guy in no great hurry to finish. You see that in grad school. Though his go-round with Kenneth Storm was anything but mellow.'
'What do you think of Hope appointing her own prize student to the committee?'
'Packing the jury. She could have justified it in the name of efficiency. Seacrest said she distrusted organizations, and everything else tells us she wasn't much of a team player.'
"That's why I'm interested in meeting people she did work with. Lawyer Barone's still ignoring me but Dr Cruvic left a message saying he'll see me briefly at ten-thirty tomorrow morning. Care to come, psych him out?'
'Sure.'
'Not a team player,' he said. 'Cowgirl with a Ph.D. Sometimes cowgirls get thrown.'
The following day I met Milo for breakfast at Nate 'n Al's on Beverly, then we drove to Dr Cruvic's office on Civic Center Drive.
Interesting location for a private practitioner. Most of Beverly Hills's medical suites are housed in the stylish neo-Federal buildings that line North Bedford, Roxbury, and Camden, and in the big reflective towers on Wilshire.
Civic Center was the northern edge of the city's meager industrial district, a few nondescript blocks that paralleled Santa Monica Boulevard but were blocked from motorists' view by tall hedges and eucalyptus. Unused railroad tracks cut diagonally through the street. Past the tracks were a pink granite office complex; the frosted-glass headquarters of a record company; and the neo-retro-post-whatever-revival municipal center that contained Beverly Hills's city hall, library, police and fire departments.
Development hadn't come yet to the other side of the tracks, where Cruvic's pink stucco Spanish
building shared space with an assortment of narrow, shabby/cute single- and double-story structures dating from World War I and earlier. The doctor's immediate neighbors were a beauty parlor, a telephone answering service, and an unmarked building with a loading dock. The pink building had no front windows, just a massive wood-and-iron door like those you see in Spain and Italy and Greece, leading to courtyards. A ring-in buzzer was topped by a tarnished bronze sign so small it seemed intent on avoiding discovery. M. CRUVIC, M.D. etched shallowly.
Milo punched the buzzer and we waited. But for the hum of the cars on Santa Monica, the street was sleepy. Geraniums grew out of boxes in the beautician's window. In all my years in L.A., I'd never had a reason to be here.
Milo knew what I was thinking. 'Looks like someone else likes privacy.'
Rubbing his lip with his lower teeth, he pushed the buzzer again.
Electric bee-buzz response, the click of release. He shoved at the heavy wood and we stepped in.
On the other side was a courtyard. Flagstone-floored, open to the sky, set up with potted bananas, flax plants, azaleas. A small iron table and two chairs. Ashtray on the table. Two lipsticked butts. The interior building was two stories with barred windows and hand-wrought balconies. Two doors. The right one opened and a woman in a light-blue uniform came out. 'Right here.' Throaty voice. She pointed to the left.
She was around fifty, trim and brunette with a very large bust, a tight, shiny, tan face, and dancer's calves.
'Detective Sturgis? I'm Anna, come on in.' She gave a one-second smile, led us to the left, and opened the door. 'Dr Cruvic will be right with you. Can I get you some coffee? We have an espresso machine.'
'No, thanks.'
She'd taken us into a short, bright hallway. Dark wood doors, all closed, and dense tan carpeting that smothered our footsteps. The walls were white and looked freshly painted. She opened the fourth door and stepped aside.
The room was small with a low ceiling. Two beige cotton armchairs and a matching love seat sat on a black area rug. A chrome-and-glass coffee table separated them. A pair of high windows exposed the brick wall of the beauty parlor building. No desk, no books, no phone.
'Doctor Cruvic's offices are on the other side but he'd like you to remain here so as not to upset the patients. You're sure you don't want coffee? Or tea?'
Milo declined again and smiled.
'Okay, then. Make yourselves comfortable, he should be right in.'
'Nice old building,' said Milo. 'Must be good to have this kind of space in Beverly Hills.'
'Oh, it is neat,' she said. 'I think it used to be some kind of stable - they ran horses around here back in the old days. I think Mary Pickford kept her horses here, or maybe it was another of those old-time stars.'
I said, 'Does Dr Cruvic do his operating right here or does he go over to Cedars or Century City?'
Her taut face turned glassy. 'Mostly we do outpatient procedures. Nice to meet you.'
She left, closing the door. Milo waited several moments, then opened it and looked out. Four long strides took him to the end of the corridor and a door marked to west wing. He tried the knob. Locked. On his way back, he jiggled others. All bolted.
'Is my paranoia kicking in cause I don't like doctors' offices or did she not like your question about where he operates?'
'It did seem to throw her,' I said. 'Sorry to put a stress on her face-lift.'
'Yeah, she is glossy. I thought she might have been recuperating from a sunburn, but with that chest you're probably right... Did you want coffee? Far be it for me to speak for the entire class.'
'No, this room is stimulating enough.'
He laughed. 'Warm and cozy, huh - could you do therapy, here?'
'I can do therapy anywhere but I'd prefer something a little less stark.'
'Maybe this was Hope's therapy room.'
'Why do you say that?'
'Because it's separate from the west wing. No upsetting the patients. Assuming she worked here. Which isn't that big of a stretch: He paid her almost forty grand, we haven't found patient files anywhere else.'
The door opened and a very broad-shouldered man about five nine gusted in wearing a very wide frown.
He was around forty with thick gray hair styled in a long, spiky crew cut, the sideburns clipped high above small, close-set ears. Dark, extremely alert eyes
studied us. Slanted - five degrees short of an Asian tilt.
His face was round with pronounced, rosy cheekbones, a straight nose with flared nostrils, and a strong chin already shadowed with morning growth.
He wore a tailored white double-breasted jacket over a spread-collar blue shirt and a black silk crepe tie hand-painted with crimson and gold swirls. Black slacks broke perfectly over two-tone black-leather-and-gray-suede wing tips. He stuck out his hand and revealed a French cuff held together by a gold-barrel link. His wrist was thick and coated with straight black hair.
'Mike Cruvic' Nodding, as if we'd just come to a consensus. Even when he stood still he seemed to bounce.
'Doctor,' said Milo. They shook, then I got Cruvic's hand. Muscular grip but soft palm. Buffed nails.
'Thanks for taking the time, sir.'
'Happy to, though I really don't know how I can help you find Hope's killer.' He shook his head. 'Let's sit, okay? Got myself a heel spur from running in old shoes. You'd think I'd know better.' He knuckled his forehead three times and sank into the love seat.
'You know what they say,' said Milo. 'The doctor's kids go barefoot.'
Cruvic smiled and stretched his arms. 'In this case the doctor gets sore feet. I never thought I'd be talking to the police about murder, let alone Hope's.'
Tucking his finger into a wing tip, he rubbed the side of his foot and winced.
'Creak, creak,' he said, rolling his shoulders. Their bulk wasn't due to padding. His posture was perfect, his belly board-flat. I pictured him in his home gym at daybreak, bouncing and peddling and pumping. One of those early risers just waiting to take on the day and knock it out in two rounds.
'So,' he said, finally sitting still. 'What would you like to know?'
'We have on record that you paid Dr Devane thirty-six thousand dollars last year,' said Milo. 'Did she work for you?'
Cruvic float
ed a palm over the spikes of his crew cut. 'I never tallied it up but that sounds right. She consulted to the practice.'
'In what capacity, Doctor?'
Cruvic touched a finger to a broad, pale lip. 'Let's see, how can I be forthcoming without compromising my patients... are you aware of what we do here?'
'Obstetrics-gynecology and fertility.'
Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 11 - The Clinic Page 7