“Some people believe quality of life means anarchy.”
“So you think it should have been allowed to continue.”
“Sure, but what chance was there of that? That rich snot's father shut it down because this place operates on the same principles as any other political system: money and power. If the girl he harassed had been the one with the fat-cat daddy, you can believe the committee would be alive and healthy.”
He smoked the cigarette down to the filter, looked at it, snapped it away. “The point is, women will always be physically weaker than men and their safety can't be left up to the good graces of anyone with a penis. The only way to simulate equity is through rules and consequences.”
“Discipline.”
“Better believe it.” He smoothed a leather lapel. “You're asking me about the committee because you think it had something to do with Hope's death. One of those chickenshit little weenies getting back at her. But like I said, they were all cowards.”
“Cowards commit murder.”
“But I sat on the committee, too, and I'm obviously intact.”
Same logic Cruvic had used, talking about abortion protest.
“Let me ask you something else,” I said. “Did Hope ever mention being abused, herself?”
The lapel bunched as his hand closed tight around the leather. “No. Why?”
“Sometimes people's work is directed by personal experience.”
The black brows dipped low and his eyes got cold. “You want to reduce her achievements to psychopathology?”
“I want to learn as much as I can about her. Did she ever talk about her past?”
Uncurling his fingers, he let his arms drop very slowly. Then he raised them very quickly, almost a martial-arts move. Folding them across his chest, as if warding off attack.
“She talked about her work. That's all. Whatever personal things I was able to infer came from that.”
“What did you infer?”
“That she was incredibly intelligent and focused and cared deeply about what she was doing. That's why she took me on. Focus is my thing. I get my teeth in and don't let go.”
He smiled, showing white enamel. “She appreciated the fact that I was willing to come out and say how I really felt. That I believed people can't just follow their impulses. Around here, that's still heresy.”
“What about her other student, Mary Ann Gonsalvez?”
“What about her?”
“Is she also focused?”
“Don't know, we didn't see each other much. Good talking to you, got to run an experiment. If you ever do find the piece of shit, convict him, sentence him to die, invite me to San Quentin to jam the hypodermic into his veins.”
Giving a choppy salute, he vaulted up the steps to the tower, shoved at one of the heavy glass doors. As it swung open, I caught a momentary flash of reflection. The delicate mouth curving, but hard to read.
11
Like Cruvic, he'd talked about Hope with passion.
Wet eyes notwithstanding, her husband hadn't.
Leading her to turn elsewhere?
Love, sex, stab in the back.
Seacrest had no history of violence, but men who killed their wives often didn't. And like Seacrest, they tended to be middle-aged.
As for the lover being left unharmed, that was also typical: jealous husbands targeting their wives, sparing the lover unless he happened to get in the way.
But if Locking had been Hope's lover, would Seacrest have maintained any connection to him?
I thought about the interplay between the two men. No signs of hostility, but formal.
Then a discrepancy hit me: Last night, Locking had called Seacrest Professor. Today it was Phil.
Did any of it matter?
I bought another cup of cardboard-flavored coffee and drank it on my way over to the Engineering Building, wondering what kind of surprises a chat with Patrick Huang would bring.
He was flustered when I showed up at his locker but offered no resistance when I suggested we talk.
We found a bench on the west end of the quad and I offered to get him coffee.
“No, thanks, I'm caffeined enough. NoDoz. Exams.”
He simulated a tremoring hand and frowned.
He was five-ten and heavy-set with a smooth square face and shoulder-length hair parted in the middle. His wrinkled T-shirt said STONE TEMPLE PILOTS and he wore it over paisley cutoffs and rubber beach thongs. A couple of books were sandwiched under his arm, both on thermodynamics.
“Thanks for talking to me, Patrick.”
He looked down at the bench. “I figured somebody would finally get to me.”
“Why's that?”
“After what happened to Professor Devane, I figured the committee was bound to come up. I'm surprised it took this long.”
He fidgeted. “Did they send a psychologist because they think I'm nuts?”
“No. I do work for the police and they thought I could be helpful on this case.”
He thought about that. “I think I'll get a burger, okay?”
“Sure.”
Leaving his books behind, he went to one of the snack bars and came back with a waxed-paper wad, a box of crinkled fries buried under a blob of ketchup, and a large orange soda.
“I have an uncle who's a psychologist,” he said, settling. “Robert Chan? Works for the prison system?”
“Don't know him,” I said.
“My dad's a lawyer.” He unwrapped the wad. The paper was translucent with grease, and cheese dripped over the sides of the hamburger. Biting down hard, he chewed fast and swallowed. “My dad was mega-pissed about the committee. That I didn't tell him about it. At the time I thought it was a bad joke, why get into it? But after I heard about Professor Devane I said uh-oh, I'm screwed.” He rolled his eyes.
“Trouble with your father.”
“He's traditional— big shame on the family and all that.” He took a huge bite out of the burger, and ate stoically while gazing across the quad.
“Not that I did anything wrong. Everything I said at the hearing was true. That girl's a stone racist. I never hassled her, she used me. But Dad . . .”
He whistled and shook his head. “After he chewed me out and reduced my credit-card limit for six months, he said I should expect trouble because the police were bound to look into Professor Devane's background. When it didn't happen, I thought, whew, lucky break.”
Looking around some more, he dragged his eyes back to me. “Wrong again. Anyway, I've got no real problem because on the night she was killed I was at a big family get-together. Grandparents' fiftieth anniversary. We all went out to Lawry's, on La Cienega. Prime rib and all the trimmings. I was there the whole time, from eight to after eleven-thirty, sitting right next to Dad, Numbah One Son, along with about a hundred relatives. I've even got documented proof: My cousin took pictures. Lots of pictures, big surprise, huh?”
He shot me an angry smile, placed his front teeth over his lower lip, and wiggled an index finger. “Ah so. Say cheese with wontons, crick crick.”
I didn't respond.
“Want some?” he said, pointing to the fries.
“No thanks.”
He put his mouth to the straw and filled it with orange soda. “You want the pictures, I'll have my dad send them. He actually put them in his office vault.” He laughed. “Now can I go?”
“Any thoughts about Professor Devane?”
“Nope.”
“What about the committee?”
“I told you, big joke.”
“How so?”
“Hauling people in like some kind of kangaroo court. One person's word against the other's. I don't know how many other guys got hassled, but if their cases were as stupid as mine, you've got plenty of pissed-off people. Maybe one of them offed Professor Devane.”
“But you have an alibi.”
He lowered the drink to the bench. It hit hard and some soda splashed onto the stone. “Thank God I do. Because for wee
ks after the hearing I was pissed at her. But you know us good little Chinese boys— play with computers, never get violent.”
I said nothing.
“Anyway, I'm over the whole thing and to prove it, I see that girl on campus all the time, just walk by, shine her on. And that's the way I eventually felt about Professor Devane. Forget about her, get on with things.”
“So you felt victimized,” I said.
“Yeah, but it was partly my own fault. I should have checked with Dad first before showing up. He told me she had no right to do that to me.”
“Why'd you go?”
“A letter comes to you on official University stationery, what would you do? How many other guys were involved?”
“Sorry,” I said, “I'm not talking to them about you, either.”
He blinked. “Yeah, okay, better to forget the whole thing.”
He picked up the books and stood. “That's all I've got to say. I'm probably in trouble already for talking to you without checking with Dad. You want the photos, contact him. Allan D. Huang. Curtis, Ballou, Semple, and Huang.” He shot off a downtown address on Seventh Street and a phone number and I copied them down.
“Anything else you want to tell me, Patrick?”
“About the committee?”
“The committee, Professor Devane, Deborah Brittain, anything.”
“What's to tell? Devane was hard as nails. Good at twisting words. And her agenda was clear: All men are scum.”
“What about the other judges?”
“Mostly they just sat there like dummies. It was her show— and that's what it was, a show. Like one of those improv things where they call you up from the audience and make a fool out of you. Only this was real.”
His free hand balled. “She actually asked me if I'd gone to college for the purpose of finding women to harass. All because I helped that girl. Sucks, huh? Well, bye, time to hitch up the ricksha.”
Deborah Brittain's math class was long over and her schedule said she had nothing more today. She lived off-campus, in Sherman Oaks, so I hiked to North Campus to find Reed Muscadine.
MacManus Hall was an unobtrusive pink building with auditoriums on the ground floor. Performance Seminar 201B, now two-thirds over, was held in the Wiley Theater at the back. The blond maple double doors were unlocked and I slipped through. Lights off, maybe fifty rows of padded seats facing a blue-lit stage.
As my eyes adjusted, I made out a dozen or so people, scattered around the room. No one turned as I walked toward the front.
Up on the stage were two people, sitting on hard wooden chairs, hands on knees, staring into each other's eyes.
I took an aisle seat in the third row and watched. The couple onstage didn't budge, the sparse audience remained inert, and the theater was silent.
Two more minutes of nothing.
Five minutes, six . . . group hypnosis?
Tough job market for actors so maybe the U was training them to be department-store mannequins.
Five more minutes passed before a man in the front row stood up and snapped his fingers. Pudgy and bald, tiny eyeglasses, black turtleneck, baggy green cords.
The couple got up and walked offstage in opposite directions. Another pair came on. Women. They sat.
Assumed the position.
More nothing.
My eyes were accustomed to the darkness and I scanned the audience, trying to guess which young man was Muscadine. Hopeless. I looked at my watch. Over an hour to go and spending it in Static Heaven was threatening to put me to sleep.
I walked quietly to the front row and sat down next to the bald finger-snapper.
He gave me a sidelong look, then ignored me. Up close I saw a little patch of hair under his lower lip. What jazz musicians used to call a honey mop.
Taking out my LAPD badge, I flexed it so the plastic coating caught stage light.
He turned again.
“I'm looking for Reed Muscadine,” I whispered.
He returned his eyes to the stage, where the two women continued to simulate paralysis.
I put the badge away and crossed my legs.
The bald man turned to me again, glaring.
I smiled.
He hooked a thumb toward the rear of the theater and got up.
But instead of walking, he stood there, hands on hips, staring down at me.
A few eyes from the audience drifted toward me, too. The turtlenecked man snapped his fingers and they sat straighter.
He hooked his thumb, again.
I got up and left. To my surprise he followed me, catching up out in the hall.
“I'm Professor Dirkhoff. What the hell's going on?” His chin hairs were ginger, striped with white, as were the few left on his head. He scowled and the honey mop tilted forward like a collection of tiny bayonets.
“I'm looking for—”
“I heard what you said. Why?”
Before I could answer, he said, “Well?” Stretching the word theatrically.
“It's about Professor Hope Devane's murd—”
“That? What does Reed have to do with that?” One hand flew up to his face and the knuckles rested under the chin, socratically.
“We're talking to students who knew Professor Devane and he's one of them.”
“There must be hundreds,” he said. “What a waste of time. And it doesn't permit you to barge in here, unannounced.”
“Sorry for interrupting. I'll wait til after class.”
“Then you'll be wasting your time. Reed's not here.”
“Okay, thanks.” I turned and walked away. When I'd taken three steps, he said, “I mean, he's not here at all.”
“Not in class or not in school?”
“Both. He dropped out a month ago. I'm quite miffed— more than miffed. Our acting program is extremely selective and we expect our students to finish no matter what the reason.”
“What was his reason?”
He turned his back on me and headed back to the swinging doors. Placing one hand on blond wood, he gave a pitying smile.
“He got a job.”
“What kind of job?”
Long, deep breath. “One of those soap operas. A serious mistake on his part.”
“Why's that?”
“The boy has talent but he needs seasoning. Soon he'll be driving a Porsche and wondering why he feels so empty. Like everyone else in this town.”
12
Back home a note on the fridge said, “How about we eat in? Went for provisions with Handsome, back by six.”
At five-thirty Milo called and I pulled out my notes and got ready to report on the day's interviews. But he broke in:
“Got a response to my teletype. Las Vegas Homicide has a cold case that matches: twenty-three-year-old call girl, found on a dark side street near her apartment. Stabbed in the heart, groin, and back, in that order. Under a tree, no less. A month before Hope. They've been figuring it for a lust-psycho. Working girls get killed all the time there. This girl danced, in addition to hooking, had been in a topless show at the Palm Princess casino last year. But recently she'd been working the pits as a freelance. Two, three hundred a trick.”
“So why was she found on the street?”
“The theory was she hitched up with the wrong john and he killed her either on the way over to party at her place or afterward. Maybe she was walking him out to his car and he surprised her with the knife. Or maybe she hadn't made him happy enough or they couldn't agree on price and he left mad.”
“Any physical resemblance to Hope?”
“From the photo they faxed me, no, other than they were both good-looking. This girl— Mandy Wright's her name— looks gorgeous, actually. But dark-haired. And twenty-three makes her a lot younger than Hope. And clearly no professor. But given the wound pattern, we may have a traveling psycho, so I think I'd better concentrate on finding out if any other homicides around the country match. For all her controversy, the good professor may very well have been the victim of a nutcase
stranger. I'm planning to fly out to Vegas tonight, play show-me-yours-and-I'll-show-you-mine.” He coughed. “So, what were you saying?”
Before I could tell him, Robin came through the door, holding a grocery bag and Spike's leash. Her color was high and she was smiling as she waved. She put the bag down and kissed me.
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