"Granted," she said. "But what if he didn't sit around and make himself obvious? What if he just drove around not every day, just once in a while? Different times of day. Hoping to grab a glimpse of her?
And today he succeeded spotted her leaving the house alone and went after her. Or maybe it wasn't him at all-he hired someone to hurt her once, could have done it again. So the fact that he has an alibi is meaningless as far as I'm concerned. What about the man who actually attacked her-the one McCloskey paid? Maybe he's back in town, too.
"Melvin Findlay," I said. "Not the man I'd choose for the job."
"What do you mean?"
"A black man driving around San Labrador without a good reason wouldn't last two minutes. And Findlay served hard time in prison for being hired help. It's hard to believe he'd be stupid enough to go after her again."
"Maybe," she said. "I hope you're right. But I've studied the criminal mind, and I long ago gave up assuming anything about human intelligence."
"Speaking of the criminal mind, did Mrs. Ramp ever say what McCloskey had against her?"
She took off her glasses, drummed her fingers, picked a piece of lint from the desk, and flicked it away. "No, she didn't. Because she didn't know. Had no idea why he hated her so much. There'd once ebeen a romance, but they'd parted as friends. She was truly baffled. It made it even more difficult for her not knowing, not understanding. I spent a long time working on that."
She drummed some more. "This is totally uncharacteristic of her. She was always a good patient, never deviated from plan. Even if it is nothing more than car trouble, I have an image of her stranded somewhere, panicking and going out of control."
"Does she carry medication with her?"
"She should-her instructions are to have her Tranquizone with her at all times."
"From what I saw, she knows how to use it."
She stared at me, gave a close-lipped smile that tightened her jawline.
"You're quite the optimist, Dr. Delaware."
I smiled back. "Gets me through the night."
Her face softened. For a moment I thought she might actually show me some teeth. Then she grimaced and said, "Excuse me. I'm feeling a real lack of closure have to deal with it."
She reached for the phone, punched 911. When the operator came on the line, she identified herself as Gina Ramp's doctor and asked to be put through to the chief of police.
As she waited I said, "His name is Chickering."
She nodded, held up an index finger, and said, "Chief Chickering? This is Dr. Ursula Cunningham-Gabney, Gina Ramp's physician.... No, I haven't.... Nothing Yes, of course... Yes, she did. Three o'clock this afternoon No, she didn't, and I haven't... No, there's nothing.... No, not in the least." Look of exasperation. "Chief Chickering, I assure you she was in full possession of her faculties.
Absolutely... No, not at all... I don't feel that would be prudent or necessary.... No, I assure you, she was totally rational.... Yes. Yes, I understand.... Excuse me, sir, there is one thing I thought you might want to consider. The man who attacked her... No, not him. The one who actually threw the acid.
Findlay. Melvin Findlay has he been located?... Oh. Oh, I see.
... Yes, of course. Thank you, Chief" She hung up and shook her head. "Findlay's dead. Died in prison several years ago. Chickering was offended that I even asked seems to think I'm casting aspersions on his professional abilities."
"It sounded as if he's questioning Gina's mental stability."
She gave a look of distaste. "He wanted to know if she was "all there'-how's that for a choice of words?" Rolling her eyes. "I actually think he wanted me to tell him she was crazy. As if that would make it acceptable for her to be missing."
"Make it acceptable if he didn't find her, " I said. "Who can be responsible for the actions of a crazy person?"
She blinked several more times. Gazed down at the desk top and let all the severity drop from her face. I was willing to bet her beauty had bloomed late. For a moment I saw her as a myopic little girl. Growing up smarter than her peers. Unable to relate. Sitting up in her room, reading and wondering if she'd ever fit in anywhere.
"We're responsible," she said. "We've taken on the responsibility to care for them. And here we sit, ineffectual."
Frustration on her face. My eyes drifted to the Cassatt print.
She noticed and appeared to grow even more tense. "Wonderful, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is."
"Cassatt was a genius. The expressiveness, particularly the way she brought out the essence of children."
"I've heard she didn't like children."
"Oh, really?"
"Have you had the print for a long time?"
"A while." She touched her hair. Another locked-jaw smile. "You didn't come here to discuss art. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"Can you think of any other psychological factors that might explain Gina's disappearance?"
"Such as?"
"Dissociative episodes amnesia, fugue. Could she have had some sort of break, be out there wandering, unaware of who she is?"
She thought for a while. "There's nothing like that in her history.
Her ego was intact remarkably so, considering everything she's been through. In fact I always thought of her as one of my most rational agoraphobics. In terms of the origin of her symptoms. With some of them, you never know how it starts there's no trauma you can put your finger on. But in her case the symptoms manifested following a tremendous amount of physical and emotional stress.
Multiple surgeries, prolonged stretches of time when she was ordered to remain in bed so that her face could heal medically prescribed agoraphobia, if you will. Combine that with the fact that the assault took place when she stepped out of her home and it would be almost irrational for her not to behave the way she did. Maybe even in a biological sense data are coming out showing actual structural change in the midbrain following trauma."
"Makes sense," I said. "I suppose even after she turns up, we may never know what happened."
"What do you mean?"
"The life she leads-the insularity. In her own way she's quite self-sufficient. That can lead a person to treasure secrecy. Even luxuriate in it. Back when I treated Melissa, I remember thinking that for this family, secrets were the coin of the realm. That an outsider would never really know what was going on. Gina may have stockpiled plenty of coins."
"That's the goal of therapy," she said. "To break into that stockpile.
Her progress has been remarkable."
"I'm sure it has. All I'm saying is that she still may decide to hold on to a private reserve."
Her face tightened as she prepared to defend against that. But she waited until she'd calmed before speaking. "I suppose you're right.
We all hold on to something, don't we? The private gardens we choose to water and feed." Turning away from me." "Gardens brimming with iron flowers. Iron roots and stems and petals." A paranoid schizophrenic once told me that, and I do believe it's an apt image.
Not even the deepest probing can uproot iron flowers when they don't want to be dug up, can it?"
She faced me again. Looking hurt once more.
"No, it can't," I said. "Still, if she does choose to dig them up, you'll probably be the one she hands the bouquet."
Weak smile. Teeth. White and straight and gleaming. "Are you patronizing me, Dr. Delaware?"
"No, and if it sounds that way, I'm sorry, Dr. Cunningham hyphen Gabney."
That pumped some strength into the smile.
I said, "What about the members of her group? Would they know anything useful?"
"No. She never saw any of them socially."
"How many are there?"
"Just two.
"Small group."
"It's a rare disorder. Finding motivated patients and those with the financial means to embark on the extensive treatment we offer cuts the number even further."
"How are the other two patients doing?"
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"Well enough to leave home and come to group.
"Well enough to be interviewed?"
"By whom?"
"The police. The private detective he'll be looking for her in addition to investigating McCloskey."
"Absolutely not. These are fragile individuals. They're not even aware she's missing, yet.
"They know she didn't show up today."
"No-shows aren't unusual, given the diagnosis. Most of them have missed sessions at one time or another."
"Has Mrs. Ramp missed any before today?"
"No, but that's not the point. No one's absence would be especially noteworthy."
"Will they be curious if she doesn't show up by next Monday?"
"If they are, I'll deal with it. Now if you don't mind, I'd prefer not to discuss the other patients. They haven't lost their right to confidentiality."
"Okay."
She started to cross her legs again. Thought better of it and kept her feet flat on the floor.
"Well," she said, "this hasn't been very profitable, has it?"
She stood, smoothed her dress, looked past me toward the door.
I said, "Would there be any reason for her to walk out voluntarily?"
She snapped her head around. "What do you mean?"
"The great escape," I said. "Trading in her life-style for something new. Jumping the therapeutic gun and going for total independence."
"Total independence?" she said. "That makes no sense at all.
Not a lick."
The door swung open before she was able to get me to it. A man charged in and race-walked across the entry hall. Leo Gabney. But even though I'd seen his photo just a few days ago, I had to look twice before his identity registered.
He noticed us mid-stride, stopped so suddenly I expected to see skid marks on the parquet.
It was his get-up that had thrown me off: red-and-white flannel western shirt, pipestem blue jeans, pointy-toed bullhide boots with riding heels. His belt was tooled cowhide, the buckle a big brass letter psi-the Greek alphabet's contribution to psychology's professional identity. A retractable key ring was attached to the belt.
Urban Cowboy, but he lacked the brawn to make it work.
Despite his age, his build was almost boyish. Five nine, 130, sunken thorax, shoulders narrower than his wife's. The bushy hair stark white over a face sun-baked the color of sour-mash whiskey. Active blue eyes. Bristly white brows. Liver-spotted cranial dome high enough to host half a dozen worry lines; prominent, high-bridged nose with pinched nostrils; less chin than he deserved. His neck was wattled. A bramble of white chest hair ended at his gullet. The entire assemblage elfin but not whimsical.
He gave his wife a peck on the cheek, gave me a laboratory look.
She said, "This is Dr. Delaware."
"Ah, Dr. Delaware. I'm Dr. Gabney."
Strong voice. Basso profundo too deep a tone for such a narrow box. A New England accent that turned my name into Dullaweah.
He extended his hand. Thin and soft-he hadn't been roping steers.
Even the bones felt soft, as if they'd been soaked in vinegar.
The skin around them was loose and dry and cool, like that of a lizard in the shade.
"Has she shown up yet?" he said.
She said, "I'm afraid not, Leo."
He clucked his tongue. "Hellish thing. I came down just as soon as I could."
She said, "Dr. Delaware informed me that McCloskey the man who assaulted her is back in town."
The white eyebrows tented and the worry lines became inverted V's.
"Oh?"
"The police located him but he had an alibi, so they let him go.
We were discussing the fact that his previous modus was to hire someone-there's no reason to think he wouldn't do it again. The man he hired the first time is dead, but that doesn't rule out another scoundrel, does it?"
"No, of course not. Dreadful. Letting him go was absurdabsolutely premature. Why don't you call the police and remind them of that fact, dear?"
"I doubt they'd pay much attention. Dr. Delaware also feels it's unlikely anyone could have watched her without being noticed by the San Labrador police."
He said, "Why's that?"
"The bare streets, the fact that the local police's area of competence is looking out for strangers.
"Competence is a relative term, Ursula. Call them. Tactfully remind them that McCloskey's behavioral style is contractor, not contractee.
And that he may have contracted again. Sociopaths often repeat themselves behaviorally rigid. Cut out by a cookie cutter, the lot of them."
"Leo,Idon't "Please, darling." He took both of her hands in his.
Massaged her smooth flesh with his thumbs. "We're dealing with inferior minds, and Mrs. Ramp's welfare is at stake."
She opened her mouth, closed it, said, "Certainly, Leo."
"Thank you, darling. And one more thing, if you'd be so kind pull the Saab in a bit. I'm sticking out into the street."
She turned her back on us and walked quickly to her office.
Gabney watched her. Following her sway almost lasciviously.
When she closed the door, he turned to me for the first time since we'd shaken hands. "Dr. Delaware, of pavor nocturnus fame.
Come into my office, won't you?"
I followed him to the rear of the house, into a wide, paneled room that would have been the library. Drapes of cranberry-colored velvet under gold-edged valances covered most of one wall. The rest was bookcases carved with near-rococo abandon and murky paintings of horses and dogs.
The ceiling was as low as the one in his wife's study, but adorned with moldings and centered with a plaster floral medallion from which hung a brass chandelier set with electric candles.
A seven-foot carved desk sat in front of one of the bookcases. A silver and crystal pen-and-inkwell set, bone-bladed letter opener, antique fold-up blotter, and green-shaded banker's lamp shared the red leather top with an In/Out box and piles of medical and psychological journals, some still in their brown paper wrappers. The case directly behind him was filled with books with his name on the spine and letter-files tagged PEER REViEW ARTiCLES and dated from 195 through the last year.
He settled himself in a high-backed leather desk chair and invited me to sit.
Second time, in just a few minutes, on the other side of the desk. I was starting to feel like a patient.
Using the bone-knife to slit the wrapper on a copy of The Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, he opened to the table of contents, scanned, and put the magazine down. Picking up another journal, he flipped pages, frowning.
"My wife's an amazing woman," he said, reaching for a third journal.
"One of the finest minds of her generation. M.D. and Ph.D. by the age of twenty-five. You'll never find a more skillful clinician, or one more dedicated."
Wondering if he was trying to make up for the way he'd just treated her, I said, "Impressive."
"Extraordinary." He put the third journal aside. Smiled. "After that, what else could I do but marry her?"
Before I'd figured out how to react to that, he said, "We like to joke that she's a paradox." Chuckling. Stopping abruptly, he unsnapped one shirt pocket and pulled out a packet of chewing gum.
"Spearmint?" he said.
"No, thanks."
He unwrapped a stick and got to work on it, weak chin rising and falling with oil-pump regularity. "Poor Mrs. Ramp. At this stage of her treatment she's not equipped to be out there. My wife called me the moment she realized something was wrong we keep a ranch up in Santa Ynez. Unfortunately, I had little to offer by way of wisdom who could expect such a thing? What on earth could have happened?"
"Good question."
He shook his head. "Very distressing. I did want to be down here in case something developed. Abandoned my duties and zipped down."
His clothes looked pressed and clean. I wondered what his duties were.
Remembering his soft hands, I said, "Do you
ride?"
"A bit," he said, chewing. "Though I don't have a passion for it.
I'd never have bought the beasts in the first place, but they came with the property. It was the space I wanted. The place I settled on included twenty acres. I've been thinking about planting Chardonnay grapes.
Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 06 - Private Eyes Page 21