Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 06 - Private Eyes

by Private Eyes(Lit)

  "Yes," she said absently. "He was a dear."

  I waited several moments before continuing. "And now the Harvard thing. That's a major decision. It would be foolish not to take it seriously."

  She sighed.

  I said, "Let me ask you this: If everything else was calm, would you want to go?"

  "Well I know it's a great opportunity my golden apple.

  But I have to I need to feel right about it."

  "What could help you feel right about it?"

  She shook her head and threw up her hands. "I don't know. I wish I did." She looked at me. I smiled and pointed at the couch. She returned to her seat.

  I said, "What could really convince you your mother will be okay?"

  "Her being okay! Normal! Like anyone else. That sounds terrible as if I'm ashamed of her. I'm not. I'm just worried."

  "You want to be sure she can take care of herself."

  "That's the thing, she can. Up in her room. It's her domain. It's just the outside world.. Now that she's going out-trying to change-it's scary.

  "Of course it is."

  Silence.

  I said, "I suppose I'd be wasting my breath to remind you that you can't go on taking responsibility for your mother forever. Being a parent to your parent. That it will get in the way of your own life and do her no good."

  "Yes, I know. That's what N Of course that's true."

  "Has someone else been telling you the same thing?"

  She bit her lip. "Just Noel. Noel Drucker. He's a friend not a boyfriend, just a boy who's a friend. I mean, he likes me as more than a friend, but I'm not sure how I feel about him. But I do respect him.

  He's an exceptionally good person.

  "How old is Noel?"

  "A year older than me. He got accepted to Harvard last year, took time off to work and save up money. His family doesn't have any money it's just him and his mother. He's been working his whole life and is very mature for his age. But when he talks about Mother, I just want to tell him to... stop.

  "Ever let him know how you feel?"

  "No. He's very sensitive. I don't want to hurt him. And I know he means well he's thinking of me."

  "Boy," I said, blowing out breath. "You're taking care of lots of people."

  "Guess so." Smile.

  "Who's taking care of Melissa?"

  "I can take care of myself." Stating it with a defiance that pulled me back nine years.

  "I know you can, Melissa. But even caretakers need to be cared for, once in a while."

  "Noel tries to take care of me. But I won't let him. That's terrible, isn't it? Frustrating him like that. But I've got to do things my way. And he just doesn't understand the way it is with Mother.

  No one does."

  "Do Noel and your mother get along?"

  "The little they have to do with each other, they do. She thinks he's a nice boy. Which he is. Everyone thinks that if you knew him you'd understand why. And he likes her well enough. But he says I'm doing her more harm than good by protecting her. That she'll get better when she really has to as if it's her choice."

  Melissa got up and walked around the room again. Letting her hands settle on things, touching, examining. Feigning sudden fascination with the pictures on the walls.

  I said, "How can I best help you, Melissa?"

  She pivoted on one foot and faced me. "I thought maybe if you could talk to Mother. Tell me what you think."

  "You want me to evaluate her? Give you a professional opinion as to whether she really can cope with your going to Harvard?"

  She bit her lip a couple of times, touched one of her earrings, flipped her hair. "I trust your judgment, Dr. Delaware. What you did for me, how you helped me change-it was like magic. If you tell me it's okay to leave her, then I will. I'll just do it."

  Years ago I'd seen her as the magician. But letting her know that, now, would be terrifying.

  I said, "We were a good team, Melissa. You showed strength and courage back then, just like you're showing now."

  "Thank you. So would you... ?"

  "I'd be happy to talk with your mother. If she consents. And if it's okay with the Gabneys."

  She frowned. "Why them?"

  "I need to make sure I don't disrupt their treatment plan."

  "Okay," she said. "I just hope she doesn't give you problems."

  "Dr. Ursula?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Any reason you think she might?"

  "No. She's just. She likes to be in charge of everything. I can't help thinking she wants Mother to keep secrets. That have nothing to do with therapy."

  "What kind of secrets?"

  "I don't know," she said. "That's the thing: I've got nothing to back me up just a feeling. I know it sounds weird. Noel says I'm being paranoid."

  "It's not paranoia," I said. "You care deeply about your mother.

  You've been taking care of her for years. It wouldn't be natural for you to just Her tension dissipated. She smiled.

  I said, "There I go again, huh?"

  She started to giggle, stopped, embarrassed.

  I said, "I'll call Dr. Ursula today, and we'll take it from there.

  Okay?"

  "Okay." She rook a couple of steps closer, wrote down the number at the clinic for me.

  I said, "Hang in there, Melissa. We'll get through this."

  "I sure hope so. You can call me on my private line that's the number you reached me at yesterday."

  She walked back to the coffee table, hastily picked up her purse, and held it in front of her, waist-high.

  The accessory defense.

  I said, "Is there anything else?"

  "No," she said, glancing at the door. "Guess we've covered plenty, haven't we?"

  "We had plenty to catch up on.

  We walked to the door.

  She turned the knob and said, "Well, thanks again, Dr. DetaTight shoulders. More tense than when she'd ware.

  Tight voice. come in.

  I said, "Are you sure there's nothing else you want to talk about, Melissa? There's no rush. I've got plenty of time."

  She stared at me. Then her eyes slammed shut like security shutters and her shoulders dropped.

  "It's him," she said, in a very small voice. "McCloskey. He's back in L.A. Totally free and I don't know what he'll do!"

  I brought her back inside and sat her down.

  She said, "I was going to mention it at the start but "It gives a whole different dimension to your fear of leaving."

  "Yes, but to be honest, I'd be worried even without him. He just adds to it."

  "When did you find out he was back?"

  "Last month. There was this show on TV some documentary about the Victim's Bill of Rights-how in some states the family can write away to the prison and they'll tell you when the criminal is coming up for a parole hearing. So you can protest. I knew he'd gotten out-years ago and had moved away. But I wrote anyway, trying to see if there was anything more I could learn-I guess it was part of the same thing.

  Trying to help her. The prison took a long time to write back, then told me to get in touch with the Parole Department.

  That was a real hassle talking to the wrong people, being put on hold.

  In the end I had to submit a written request for information.

  Finally I got through and found out the name of his last parole officer.

  Here in L.A.! Only he wasn't seeing him anymore McCloskey had just gone off parole."

  "How long's he been out of prison?"

  "Six years. That I found out from Jacob. I'd been bugging him for a while, wanting to know wanting to understand. He kept putting me off, but I wouldn't give up. Finally, when I was fifteen he admitted he'd been keeping an eye on Mccloskey the whole time, had found out he'd been released a couple of years before and had left the state.

  She made tiny white fists and shook them. "The creep served thirteen years out of a twenty-three-year sentence time off for good behavior.

  That really stin
ks, doesn't it? No one cares about the victim. He should have been sent to the gas chamber!"

  "Did Jacob know where he'd gone?"

  "New Mexico. Then Arizona and, I think, Texas working with the Indians on the reservation or something. Jacob said he was trying to fool the Parole Department into thinking he was a decent human being and that they'd probably he fooled. And he was right, because they did set him free and now he can do anything he wants.

  The parole officer was a nice guy, just about ready to retire. His name was Bayliss and he really seemed to care. But he said he was sorry, there was nothing he could do."

  "Does he think McCloskey's a threat to your mother or anyone else?"

  "He said he had no evidence of that but that he didn't know.

  That no one could be sure with someone like him."

  "Has McCloskey tried to contact your mother?"

  "No, but what's to say he won't? He's crazy that kind of craziness doesn't change overnight, does it?"

  "Not usually."

  "So he's a clear and present danger, isn't he?"

  I had no easy answer for that. Said, "I can see why you're concerned," and didn't like the sound of it.

  She said, "Dr. Delaware, how can I leave her? Maybe it's a sign-his coming back. That I shouldn't leave. I mean, I can get a good education here. UCLA and USC both accepted me. In the long run, what difference is it going to make?"

  Different tune from the one she'd sung just a few moments ago.

  "Melissa, a person with your brains can get a good education anywhere.

  Is there a reason, besides education, that you considered Harvard?"

  "I don't know maybe it was just ego. Yes, that's probably what it was out to show myself I could do it."

  "Any other reason?"

  "Well there's Noel. He really wants me to go there and I thought it would be- I mean, it is the best college in the country, isn't it? I figured, why not apply? It was actually kind of a lark. I really didn't think I was going to get in." She shook her head.

  "Sometimes I think it would have been easier being a C student.

  Fewer choices."

  "Melissa, anyone in your position the situation with your mother would be in conflict. And now McCloskey. But the harsh truth is that even if he does pose a danger, you're not in any position to defend your mother against him."

  "So what are you saying?" she said angrily. "That I should just give up?"

  "I'm saying McCloskey should definitely be looked into. By a professional. To find out why he came back, what he's up to. If he's judged to be dangerous, there are things that can be done."

  "Like what?"

  "Restraining orders. Security precautions. Is your home well guarded?"

  "I guess. There's an alarm system and gates. And the police patrol regularly there's so little crime in San Labrador the police are basically just like rent-a-cops. Should we be doing more?"

  "Have you told your mother about McCloskey?"

  "No, of course not! I didn't want to freak her out not with how well she's been doing."

  "What about your Mr. Ramp?"

  "No. No one knows. No one asks me my opinion about anything anyway, and I don't volunteen" "Have you told Noel?"

  She gave an uncomfortable look. "Yes. He knows."

  "What does he say?"

  "To just forget about it. But that's easy for him it's not his mother.

  You didn't answer my question, Dr. Delaware is there something else we should be doing?"

  "I'm not the one to say. There are professionals who specialize in that kind of thing."

  "Where do I find them?"

  "Let me check," I said. "I might be able to help you with that."

  "Your court connections?"

  "Something like that. In the meantime, why don't we proceed as planned. I'll contact the Gabneys and see if it's okay for me to meet with your mother. If it is, I'll let you know and you can set up an appointment for me to come by. If it isn't, we'll take another look at our options. In either event, you and I should be talking some more.

  Want to make another appointment?"

  "How about tomorrow?" she said. "Same time. If you've got the time."

  "I do."

  "Thank you and sorry if I got too hot under the collar just now.

  "You're fine," I said, and walked her to the door for the second time.

  "Thanks, Dr. Delaware."

  "Take care of yourself, Melissa."

  "I will," she said. But she looked like a kid overloaded with homework.

  After she was gone, I thought about the way she'd dropped a crumbtrail of crucial facts: her mother's remarriage, the young man in her life, Dutchy's death, McCloskey's return. All of it delivered parenthetically. With an offfiandedness that screamed self-defense.

  But given everything she had to deal with loss, ambivalence, crucial decisions, the erosion of personal control self-defense was damn reasonable.

  The control issue had to be especially hard for her. An inflated sense of personal power was the logical legacy of all those years of raising her parent. She'd used it to guide her mother to the brink of change.

  Playing matchmaker. Referral service.

  Only to be defeated by her own success: forced to stand back and surrender authority to a therapist. To share affection with a stepfather.

  Add to that the normal strains and doubts of young-adulthood and it had to be crushing.

  Who, indeed, was taking care of Melissa?

  Jacob Dutchy had once filled that role.

  Though I'd barely known the man, thinking of him gone saddened me. The faithful retainer, ever protective. He'd had a certain... presence.

  For Melissa, that amounted to paternal loss number two.

  What did that bode in terms of her relationships with men? The development of trust?

  If her comments about Don Ramp and Noel Drucker were any example, that road hadn't been smooth, so far.

  Now the folks from Cambridge, Mass were demanding a decision, raising the specter of further surrender.

  Who was really afraid of separation?

  Not that her fears were totally without foundation.

  A Mikoksi with acid.

  Why had McCloskey come back to L.A nearly two decades after his conviction? Thirteen years of imprisonment plus six on parole made him fifty-three years old. I'd seen what prison years could do. Wondered if he was nothing more than a pallid, weary old con, seeking out the comfort of like-minded losers and dead-end haunts.

  Or perhaps he'd used the time at San Quentin to let his rage fester.

  Nursing acid-and-blood fantasies, filling his bottle.

  A discomfiting sense of self-doubt began nagging at me, the same feeling of missing the mark that I'd experienced nine years ago bending all my rules to treat a terrified child.

  A feeling of not really having a grip on the core of the problem Nine years ago, she'd gotten better despite that.

  Magic.

  How many rabbits were left in the hat?

  A machine answered at the Gabney Clinic, listing numbers and emergency beeper codes for both doctors. No other staff members were named. I left a message for Ursula Cunningham-Gabney, identifying myself as Melissa Dickinson's therapist and requesting a callback as soon as possible. During the next few hours several calls came in, but none from Pasadena.

  At ten after seven Milo arrived, wearing the same clothes he'd had on that morning, but with grass stains on the pants and sweat stains under the armpits. He smelled of turf and looked tired.

  I said, "Any holes in one?"

  He shook his head, found a Grolsch in the fridge, popped it, and said, "Not my sport, sport. Chasing a little white blur around the crab grass drives me crazy.

  "Putts you crazy. We're talking short-distance, guy.

  He smiled. "The only putz is me, for thinking I could go suburban."

  Tilting his head back, he guzzled beer. When the bottle was empty he said, "Where to, dinner-wise?"

  "W
herever you want.