“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?”
“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 absurd— absolutely 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, I don’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 1951 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.” His mouth was still for a moment. I could see the gum wadded up inside one cheek, like a plug of tobacco. “Do you think a behaviorist is capable of producing a first-rate wine?”
“They say great wine is the result of intangibles.”
He smiled. “No such thing,” he said. “Only incomplete data.”
“Maybe so. Good luck.”
He sat back and rested his hands on his belly. The shirt billowed around them.
“The air,” he said between chews, “is what really draws me up there. Unfortunately my wife can’t enjoy it. Allergies. Horses, grasses, tree-pollens, all sorts of things that never bothered her back in Boston. So she concentrates on clinical work and leaves me free to experiment.”
It wasn’t the conversation I’d have imagined having with the great Leo Gabney. Back in the days when I used to imagine things like that. I wasn’t sure why he’d invited me in.
Perhaps sensing that, he said, “Alex Delaware. I’ve followed all your work, not just the sleep studies. “Multimodal Treatment of Self Damaging Obsessions in Children.’ “The Psychosocial Aspects of Chronic Disease and Prolonged Hospitalization in Children.’ “Disease-Related Communication and Family Coping Style.’ Et cetera. A solid output, clean writing.”
“Thank you.”
“You haven’t published in several years.”
“I’m working on something currently. For the most part I’ve been doing other things.”
“Private practice?”
“Forensic work.”
“What kind of forensic work?”
“Trauma and injury-related cases. Some child custody.”
“Ugly stuff, custody,” he said. “What’s your opinion about joint custody?”
“It can work in some situations.”
He smiled. “Nice hedge. I suppose that’s adaptive when dealing with the legal system. Actually, parents should be strongly reinforced for making it work. If they fail repeatedly, the parent with the best child-rearing skills should be selected as primary custodian, regardless of gender. Don’t you agree?”
“I think the best interests of the child are what counts.”
“Everyone thinks that, Doctor. The challenge is how to operationalize good intentions. If I had my way, no decisions about custody would be made until trained observers actually lived with the family for several weeks, keeping careful records using structured, valid, and reliable behavioral scales and reporting their results to a panel of psychological specialists. What do you think of that notion?”
“Sounds good, theoretically. In practical terms—”
“No, no,” he said, chewing furiously. “I speak from practical experience. My first wife set out to murder me legally— this was years ago, when the courts wouldn’t even hear what a father had to say. She was a drinker and a smoker and irresponsible to the core. But to the idiot judge that heard the case, the crucial factor was that she had ovaries. He gave her everything— my house, my son, sixty percent of the paltry estate I’d accumulated as an untenured lecturer. A year later, she was smoking in bed, dead-drunk. The house burned down and I lost my son forever.”
Saying it matter-of-factly, the bass voice flat as a foghorn.
Resting his elbows on the desk, he placed the fingertips of both hands together, creating a diamond-shaped space that he peered through.
I said, “I’m sorry.”
“It was a terrible time for me.” Chewing slowly. “For a while it seemed as if nothing would ever have reinforcement value again. But I ended up with Ursula, so I suppose there’s a silver lining.”
Heat in the blue eyes. Unmistakable passion.
I thought of the way she’d obeyed him. The way he’d looked at her rear. Wondered if what turned him on was her ability to be both wife and child.
He lowered his hands. “Soon after the tragedy I married again. Before Ursula. Another error in judgment, but at least there were no children. When I met Ursula, she was an undergraduate applying for graduate school and I was a full professor at the university and the medical school as well as the first non-M.D. associate dean the medical school had ever appointed. I saw her potential, set out to help her realize it. Most satisfying accomplishment of my life. Are you married?”
“No.”
“A wonderful convention if the proper confluence can be achieved. My first two were failures because I allowed myself to be swayed by intangibles. Ignored my training. Don’t segregate your scholarship from your life, my young friend. Your knowledge of human behavior gives you great advantage over common, bumbling homo incompetens.”
He smiled again. “Enough lecturing. What’s your take on this whole thing— poor Mrs. Ramp?”
“I don’t have a take, Dr. Gabney. I came here to learn.”
“This McCloskey thing— very distressing to think such a man is roaming free. How did you find out?”
I told him.
“Ah, the daughter. Managing her own anxiety by attempting to control her mother’s behavior. Would that she’d shared her information. What else do you know about this McCloskey?”
“Just the basic facts of the assault. No one seems to know why he did it.”
“Yes,” he said. “An atypically close-mouthed psychopath— usually those types love to brag about their misdeeds. I suppose it would have been nice to know from the beginning. In terms of defining variables. But in the end, I don’t feel the treatment plan suffered. The key is to cut through all the talk and get them to change their behavior. Mrs. Ramp has been doing very well. I hope it hasn’t all been for naught.”
I said, “Maybe her disappearance is related to her progress— enjoying her freedom and deciding to grab a bigger chunk.”
“An interesting theory, but we discourage breaks in schedule.”
“Patients have been known to do their own thing.”
“To their detriment.”
“You don’t think sometimes they know what’s best for them?”
“Not generally. If I did, I couldn’t charge them three hundred dollars an hour in good faith, could I?”
Three hundred. At that rate— the kind of intensive treatment they did— three patients could carry the whole clinic.
I said, “Is that for both you and your wife?”
He grinned, and I knew I’d asked the right question. “Myself alone. My wife receives two hundred. Are you appalled by those figures, Dr. Delaware?”
“They’re higher than what I’m used to, but it’s a free country.”
“That it is. I spent most of my professional life in academia and in public hospitals, ministering to the poor. Setting up treatment programs for people who never paid a penny. At this stage in my life I thought it only fair that the rich be offered the benefit of my accumulated knowledge.”
Lifting the silver pen, he twirled it and put it down. “So,” he said, “you feel Mrs. Ramp may have run away.”
“I think it’s a possibility. When I spoke to her yesterday, she hinted that she was
planning to make some changes in her life.”
“Really?” The blue eyes stopped moving. “What kind of changes?”
“She implied that she didn’t like the house she was living in— too big, all the opulence. That she wanted something simpler.”
“Something simpler,” he said. “Anything else?”
“No, that’s about it.”
“Well, disappearing like this can hardly be thought of as a simplification.”
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