The Oedipus Murders

by Casey Dorman

  To his surprise, the first familiar person he saw leave the elevator was Lucas Bonaventure. He watched Lucas walk to his car, unlock it and get in, then pull from his reserved parking spot. But instead of leaving, Lucas moved the car to another spot, in the middle of the parking garage: an unmarked space that gave him a clear view of the elevator, just as George’s parking spot did for him.

  A few minutes later, Sherry stepped from the elevator. She walked quickly to her car, three rows away, got in, then headed out of the garage. Lucas’ car followed. George followed slowly behind them.

  For the first few blocks he could keep both cars in view, but then the volume of traffic obscured Sherry’s car, so he resigned himself to following Lucas, assuming that the man was still following his secretary’s car, wherever it was headed. Finally, he was on a residential side street on which he could see Sherry’s car five or six blocks ahead, and Lucas’ about two blocks behind it. He saw Lucas pull over to the curb. He did the same. Several blocks ahead, Sherry’s car pulled into the parking structure of an apartment building.

  After about ten minutes Lucas pulled away from the curb and drove past the building, turned a corner and was out of sight. George guessed that Lucas had been satisfied that Sherry had simply gone home and was not doing anything dangerous. George continued to watch the apartment house. What was he doing? Lucas Bonaventure was no longer following Sherry, but George felt no impulse to leave. Perhaps Lucas had been fooled. Perhaps Sherry had only come home to freshen herself up before a date. He couldn’t believe the thoughts that were swirling through his head like ugly creatures that wouldn’t be still. He was acting stranger than his client.

  He waited for another half-hour, then his own mortification persuaded him to leave. Instead of going straight home, he did something he almost never did and drove to the Yard House at Fashion Island. It was happy hour, and the restaurant was crowded, but he managed to find a seat at the bar. He ordered the Belgian beer he’d had when he’d lunched with Susan Lin, then looked around the bar. Was he wondering if Susan Lin would show up? Did he really want to talk to the psychologist? About what? His obsession with Sherry Bennett? She wouldn’t understand and would think he was seriously disturbed, not to mention being a creep. He was an analyst. He had undergone a training analysis. He was supposed to understand himself.

  He downed the entire goblet of beer in three drinks and ordered another. “We don’t serve a customer more than two of these if they’re driving,” the bartender said, looking embarrassed.

  “One more will be enough,” George answered.

  He sipped his second beer. Maybe there was something especially appealing about Sherry Bennett, he mused, something that made her seem vulnerable. He had no real feelings for the man’s secretary. She wasn’t as attractive to him as Susan Lin, whom he’d had no impulse to follow home from work. He guessed that it was something about Sherry Bennett herself that brought out such behavior. George knew that Lucas had given him lots of suggestions that Miss Bennett might be in danger. Perhaps that was all it was, he told himself, sipping his beer. Perhaps he had just been influenced by the suggestions coming from his own client. And, of course, there was the factor of his unhappiness at home with Madeline.

  His wife didn’t respect him. She made no secret of the fact. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t turn to other men, as Lucas Bonaventure had apparently suspected his wife of doing, but George knew that his wife had her own coterie of confidants—professors of English and classics, fellow writers and editors—with whom she shared her disparagement of her husband and his profession. The ironic thing was that psychoanalysts, such as he, used to be celebrated by the very same intellectuals who now looked down upon them.

  But despite their skepticism, despite the world’s skepticism, George thought that he knew himself better because of what had been revealed during his own analysis. He knew the extent to which he feared powerful women, such as Madeline, even as he was attracted to them. He sometimes fantasized about finding someone who would simply serve him, respect him, agree with him, but he couldn’t help being attracted when he met such a person’s opposite, a Susan Lin. And he was competitive with successful and powerful men, men who resembled his father, a renowned surgeon who specialized in women and their diseases, something that had always engendered George’s, as well as his mother’s, suspicion. What had they suspected? That his father had chosen his specialty out of prurience? He’d never dared say as much to his father, although his mother, who was subservient to no one, had done so on more than one occasion and even in front of her son. And now George had a profession that allowed him to see inside his patient’s innermost fantasies, especially their sexual ones. Was he just as prurient as his father may have been?

  George was aware of how tortuous was the matrix of influences he’d acquired while growing up in his family. His own emotional growth had been twisted to fit within the volatile mold around him. Close to his mother, although secretive about his most precious feelings, distant from his father, seeking to outdo him without directly mounting a challenge. He’d learned all about it during his training analysis. But the emotional consequences and the behavioral patterns that his childhood had foisted upon him remained a part of his adult life, almost as powerful as they had been before his analysis, despite the understanding that he’d gained. It was the Achilles heel of his profession, the fact that was recognized but never mentioned by him and his colleagues: understanding is not mastery. Knowledge does not guarantee freedom from the chains of conflicts and motivations, which had previously been unconscious.

  He finished his beer. Susan Lin was not coming in. If she had, he wouldn’t have known what to say to her anyway, wasn’t even sure that she’d be interested in talking to him if she were with her police colleagues. He paid for his drinks and left. It was time to go home and have cocktails with his wife.

  Chapter 20

  Ben Murphy was older than Abe Reynolds expected him to be. He was at least in his early seventies. He sat slouched in the plastic chair in front of Abe’s desk, one leg slung over the other, wearing a pair of jeans, sneakers and a checked flannel shirt. The shirt was open in front and under it was a tee shirt that had, “Peewee League Flag Football” written across the chest. Murphy wore a faded blue baseball cap with a Dodgers logo on it. A thin braid of white hair trailed from beneath the back of the baseball cap.

  “Mostly I’m just gonna be fielding all these calls that come in for Knowles’ ransom money,” Murphy said. He had a friendly smile on his wrinkled face. “It’ll make your job a lot easier.”

  “You’re gonna do that all by yourself?”

  “I’ve got some help. A couple of my grandkids are home from college for the break, and they need part-time jobs. They’re both pretty bright—brighter than me—so they’ll do a good job.”

  Abe looked skeptical. “You sure you can handle that? A million bucks is going to bring a lot of calls.”

  “I told you, my grandkids are bright. Lots of energy. They’ll turn anything that sounds legit over to me.”

  “And you’ll turn it over to us.”

  “Of course… after I check it out.”

  “How about you just turn it over right away?”

  “You wouldn’t want that. No telling how many calls are going to need follow-up but most of them, heck, maybe all of them, will be red herrings. You don’t want to spend your time on wild goose chases.”

  “You’ve done this kind of thing before?”

  “Yup.”

  “You work out of Santa Barbara?”

  “I’ll be down here for this. The grandkids will still be in Santa Barbara, but we’re set up on a wireless phone exchange through the Internet. I can see all the numbers that call them, tap into a conversation anytime I need to. My grandson’s a computer w
hiz. He set the whole thing up. No difference from being in the same room with them. No need to bring them down here.”

  “OK,” Abe said, although he wasn’t completely satisfied. “What do you want from me?”

  “Where are you right now in your investigation?” Despite the affable expression on his face, Murphy’s eyes showed his seriousness.

  “I can only tell you what I’ve told the press. Bertram Knowles may be her father and he may be rich, but he doesn’t have any right to special access to our information.”

  “Of course not, but you can share a lot more than you’ve given the press. You’ve got a lot of discretion in that.”

  Murphy wasn’t the just friendly yokel that he appeared to be. “You’ve been a police officer?”

  “Thirty-five years. Used to run the Santa Barbara department.”

  “You’re that Ben Murphy?” Abe’s eyes widened in surprise.

  Murphy gave him an embarrassed smile. “I guess I am.”

  As the long-time Chief of the Santa Barbara Police Department, Murphy was legendary, not just for solving a number of high profile murder cases in Santa Barbara but also for cleaning up what was a corrupt police force. His reputation didn’t match the laid-back old man slouching in Abe’s plastic chair. “How long have you been a private detective?”

  “Twelve years. I opened up shop right after I retired from the department. Now I’m retired as a private detective, except for some security work for Mr. Knowles. He wanted me personally on this. And I knew Regina, his daughter, when she was younger.”

  Abe relaxed a little. Murphy probably did know what he was doing. “Things aren’t looking good for Regina Bonaventure. We found some blood in the back seat of her car. Can you keep that to yourself and not tell Mr. Knowles?”

  Murphy’s face showed his concern. “Blood?”

  “I didn’t tell her father.”

  Murphy nodded. “No sense getting him upset until we’ve got something real to go on. He’s a hard-ass, but if he loses Regina, he’s gonna take it real hard. What’s the deal on this Rosberg fellow who got killed?”

  “Still up in the air. None of his prints were in the car, but that may not mean anything because it looks as if the kidnapper wore gloves. You probably read about Rosberg’s record in the newspaper. What a piece of work. He’d served time for assault on a woman. Been charged with the same thing another time. But that’s all we’ve got. He changed his hotel when the papers ran his description, but that might just be because he knew that his record would make him a suspect. The bartender ID’d the corpse. Rosberg was definitely the guy in the bar that tried to buy Mrs. Bonaventure a drink the night she disappeared.”

  “You able to put together his movements later that night or the next day? He’d have had to get rid of the body or, if she was alive, stash her somewhere and put the car in the airport, then get back to his own car, which I assume was a rental.”

  Abe nodded. Murphy had analyzed the situation the same way he had. “The logistics are tough. The restaurant was down on PCH on the outskirts of Newport Beach. He’d have had to take a cab from the airport to get back there if he’d left his own car at the restaurant and drove hers. We’ve checked all the cab companies—Uber, Lyft—no one made that trip that night or the next morning. There were three passengers that went from the airport to the Hyatt where he was staying, but we’ve identified each of them, and it wasn’t him.”

  “So nada on Rosberg so far. Sounds as if you’re following up all the likely scenarios. What about Lucas? I met him once. At his and Regina’s wedding. Didn’t like him. Thought he married her for her father’s money.”

  “I think Knowles thinks that too. He said Bonaventure will get a load of cash from his wife’s estate.”

  “So there’s motive. Except he probably had access to the money when she was alive, but maybe he didn’t like having to share it with her.”

  “He’s got no alibi. Said he was home sleeping. My partner thinks that it’s strange that he reported her missing as soon as he woke up and she wasn’t in the house. She’s probably right, but that’s not enough to hang someone. She also thinks he’s a psychopath. She’s a psychologist. Pretty bright.”

  Murphy rubbed his chin, smiling as if he were thinking of something pleasant. “My granddaughter is studying to be a psychologist. She’s bright too. I hadn’t thought about her going into police work. Maybe I’ll talk to her about it.”

  “Bonaventure started seeing a shrink after his wife went missing. But the shrink won’t tell us anything, and we don’t have enough evidence to convince a judge to give us a subpoena. Anyway, he’s just started with the shrink. Susan—Doctor Lin—that’s my partner, is trying to get close to the shrink, hoping he’ll tell her something more.”

  “Bonaventure’s prints in the car?”

  “All over it. He told us that he drives her car when they go on long trips together. Hers gets better gas mileage than his.”

  “Does it?’

  “Does it what?”

  “Get better gas mileage. I mean does she drive a Prius and he drives a Hummer, or what?’

  “Couple of Mercedes. Looked identical to me.”

  “So maybe you caught him in a lie.”

  Abe nodded. The old man still had a good head on his shoulders.

  “I imagine I’ll be talking to him,” Murphy said.

  “Really? I thought you were just taking phone calls. Knowles told me not to let Bonaventure know that you were involved.”

  “Lucas is gonna know about the reward and that Bert Knowles is looking into things himself. I have to give him some explanation from his father-in-law about the reward, and that’ll give me a chance to form an opinion myself. But of course opinions are just opinions and, like I said, I didn’t like him the one time I did meet him. That doesn’t make him a murderer, though.”

  It sounded to Abe as if Ben Murphy was planning to do a lot more investigating than he’d first implied. Abe wasn’t sure how he felt about that. The old ex-police chief probably knew what he was doing and he was even more experienced than Abe. “I need you to keep me informed if you find anything.”

  “Of course. I can’t arrest anyone. You can. I know about preserving evidence and not biasing a case. If I find anything, I don’t want to nullify its use in a trial by screwing around with it myself. Trust me, you’ll be the first to know if I find anything.” He uncrossed his legs and looked as if he was getting ready to leave.

  “So let me know if you get any leads from those phone calls,” Abe said.

  “Like I said, you’ll be the first to know.” Murphy stood up. He massaged his knee as if sitting too long had stiffened it. “Oh, and sometime I’d like to talk to that bright psychologist on your staff. I want to learn more so maybe I can steer my granddaughter into police work. That would be nice, at least for me.” He stuck out his hand.

  They shook hands and Murphy ambled out the door.

  Chapter 21

  “Have the police made any progress in finding your wife?” George asked. It was three weeks since Regina Bonaventure had gone missing.

  Lucas lay on the couch and talked to the ceiling. “They found the guy she met in the bar. You probably read about that. He died in a car crash trying to get away from the police. I’d think that should pretty much seal his guilt, but the detective who talked to me says that he’s not sure that’s the guy who took her.”

  George had read about it. He’d felt relieved. Was it because he no longer had to fear that Lucas was the killer, or was there something else he’d been afraid of? “How do you feel about that?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure what you mean by how do I feel about it. I can tel
l you what I think. He sounds guilty to me. But it’s what the police think that matters.”

  “You’re not angry at the man? I know he’s dead, but you must have some feelings about him. He might be your wife’s killer.”

  “Why would I feel anything? Like I said, they don’t know if he’s the one who took her or not.”

  Lucas’ comment brought back George’s anxiety. “And they still don’t have any theories about what happened to your wife?”

  “This police psychologist told me to prepare for the worst. I guess she meant that they think my wife is dead.” He said it without emotion.

  “Doctor Lin said that?”

  Lucas looked surprised. “You know her?”

  “She and Detective Reynolds came to my office to talk to me, remember. You told them you were seeing me.” George wasn’t going to mention his lunch with Susan Lin.

  “Right. But you can’t tell them anything we say, right?”

  “Everything you say is confidential. They could subpoena my records, but they would need a good reason to convince a judge to grant a subpoena. Doctor-patient privilege is sacred in California.”

  Lucas sighed, as if he were relieved. “My father-in-law has offered a reward. And he’s hired a private detective. Some old guy who wants to talk to me.”

  “How do you feel about that? You’ve offered a reward yourself.”

  “Bert—that’s Regina’s father—is just trying to one-up me. I offered twenty-five thousand dollars and he’s offered a million. He can afford that. I can’t, and he knows it.”

  “Maybe he’s just trying to help.”

  “And show that he’s better than me. He and Regina always played that card. They both tried to make me feel inadequate.”

  “And that’s how his reward makes you feel?”

  “Not really, but I know that’s what he’s hoping for.”