The Oedipus Murders

by Casey Dorman

  “Your wife knew Doctor Farquhar?” She tried to hide her shock. George had told her and Ben Murphy that he and Regina Bonaventure were unacquainted, even though George’s uncle lived near Regina’s father’s house in Santa Barbara.

  “She said she did. But that’s all. She only mentioned him once. Said she saw him someplace and hadn’t known he lived in Orange County.”

  “But she knew he was a psychiatrist?”

  “I guess so. She must have said so because when I started looking for someone, I thought of him. Is this what you came to talk to me about?”

  “In a way. I wondered what you thought about Doctor Farquhar finding your wife’s body and how that has affected your relationship with him as your therapist.”

  “Why do you care about that?”

  “Partly it’s professional. I’m a psychologist and I wonder about those things. But I’m also working with the police and we’ve wondered about the coincidence of your therapist finding your wife’s body on his property. We wonder what it means. Don’t you?”

  “Sure, I thought it was strange, but I guess he was just checking on his property and saw the grave and started digging. That’s what he said.”

  “So you asked him about it.”

  “We talked about it.”

  “And the fact that your wife was buried on Doctor Farquhar’s property? Does that seem strange to you?”

  “It doesn’t make much sense to me, but I don’t know if I’d call it strange.” His expression was bland.

  “What did Doctor Farquhar say about it?”

  “Haven’t you asked him?”

  “You withdrew his permission to talk to us, remember?”

  He looked at her sharply. “So you don’t talk to him anymore?”

  “I didn’t say that. We questioned him about finding your wife’s body of course. We don’t ask him about his sessions with you.”

  He nodded but said nothing.

  “What do the doctors say about your leg?” Susan asked.

  He looked at her with suspicion. “You mean Doctor Farquhar?”

  “You must have seen some other doctor about it. Doctor Farquhar is a psychiatrist, not a neurologist.”

  “My leg will be fine.”

  “Do they know what caused the paralysis?”

  “Why are you so worried?”

  “I’m just curious, since it happened right there in the morgue when I was present. It seemed to be triggered by your seeing your wife.”

  He glared at her. “You shouldn’t be worrying about me. Maybe worry about yourself a little.”

  She looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “You seem to enjoy poking into my business. You come to my house, you sit back like a princess in that chair and, then you act as if you’re interested in my welfare. I’ll bet you try to seduce Doctor Farquhar the same way.”

  “Do I seem as though I’m trying to seduce you?”

  “You sure seem interested. Maybe that’s just the way you are around men. If so, it can lead to trouble.”

  She felt a surge of anxiety, but she forced it down. She needed to find out what Lucas meant by his remark. “What kind of trouble?”

  He was struggling to control his anger. “Men don’t like to be toyed with. Women think they can act like they’re interested in you, but they’d act the same way to any other man. It’s asking for trouble. You’re playing with fire.”

  “You said it again, about trouble. What kind of trouble?”

  He stopped glaring at her and looked at the floor. “Just trouble.” He looked up. “I think this interview is over.” He struggled to his feet.

  Susan stood. “OK, I’ll go then.” She felt relieved that the interview was over. She recognized what she had been feeling. It was fear.

  Chapter 44

  George couldn’t stop checking the clock. If he had another fugue episode he ought to be able to detect it by seeing that time had elapsed without his being aware of it. He’d barely been able to pay attention to his morning appointments. Thank God all three of his clients were in analysis and had been lying on the couch with their backs to him. He’d mumbled vague answers to their queries and asked almost no questions, but they hadn’t seemed to notice.

  Lucas Bonaventure would arrive in less than five minutes. George felt his anxiety rising. He needed to keep probing for the key to Lucas’ psychological disorder. But the more he learned about his patient, the greater his own anxiety, as if it were his own unconscious terrors that were being exposed. There was a connection between his fugue states and Lucas. It was that connection that terrified him.

  — — —

  “Did you send that Chinese detective over to my house?” Lucas demanded as soon as he walked into George’s office. He was still walking with the aid of a cane.

  “Chinese detective? You mean Dr. Lin, the psychologist?”

  Lucas waved his hand dismissively. “Whatever. You told her things about me.”

  “I told her some things before you rescinded your waiver, but not really very much. She visited you at your house?” George felt himself getting angry. Was it jealousy he was feeling?

  Lucas looked around the office. “Can we get started? I need to talk to you and I’m more comfortable lying down.”

  “Then let’s begin our session.” George got up and took a seat in his chair behind the couch as Lucas took off his suit coat and lay down, staring at the ceiling.

  “I dreamt about that Chinese cop,” Lucas said.

  “You dreamt what?” George was barely able to keep the anxiety from his voice.

  “It was a sexual dream. Weird, because I don’t even like the woman. But I guess her wiles worked on me.”

  “Her wiles?”

  “You know. You’ve met her. She’s a flirt, a common flirt. Odd for a cop, don’t you think?”

  George would never have said Susan was a flirt, not in terms of how she’d acted around him. Had she acted differently with Lucas? George could feel his stomach churning, as if he were being challenged. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear Lucas’ dream about the psychologist. “She flirted with you?”

  “Just like a lot of women do around men, but she was also trying to find out something.”

  “What do you think she was trying to find out?”

  “Who knows? I know she thinks I killed Regina. She’s been talking to the private detective that Bert Knowles hired, and he thinks I killed her.” He raised his head and turned toward George. “Don’t you want to hear my dream?” It seemed to George that he was smiling, even smirking.

  “Of course; if you want to tell me, that is.”

  “I’ve told you all of the other dreams. I thought that was what you wanted to hear. Dreams are the ‘royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious’ isn’t that what you people say?”

  Lucas hadn’t just paraphrased Freud’s words from The Interpretation of Dreams; Lucas had quoted the text exactly. “Freud said that in his book on dreams. You said you hadn’t read it.”

  “You’re sounding like Doctor Lin. I guess you and she do talk.” Lucas continued to stare at the ceiling, but George imagined that he was still smirking. Was he trying to get under George’s skin?

  “I told you that Doctor Lin and I don’t talk anymore.”

  Lucas was quiet for a moment. “So do you want to hear my dream?”

  Did he? The thought of hearing Lucas’ sexual fantasies about Susan disturbed him, but he was curious. And aroused? He tried to push such thoughts out of his head. “Of course.”

  “I was at
home in my own house, sitting in my study reading when I heard the door open. I remember feeling this great sense of relief, thinking that it was Regina returning home. But instead of coming into the study, she walked right past the doorway and down the hall to her bedroom.”

  “And it was Regina?”

  “It felt like it, although I didn’t get a clear view of her as she walked past the doorway. I called her, but she didn’t stop. When I got up and looked down the hallway, she’d gone into the bedroom and closed the door.”

  “What were you feeling?”

  “Like I said, relieved. I felt this sense of relief, as if a burden were off my shoulders. It was as if something I’d done wrong had been removed from my conscience.”

  “You felt as if something had been removed from your conscience?”

  Lucas hesitated before answering. “I meant I felt relieved that she was alive.”

  “OK. So what happened next in the dream?”

  “I followed Regina down the hall and stopped in front of the door. It was still closed. I could hear the shower going. I went into the room. There were clothes all around the floor. The bathroom door was open. I walked into the bathroom and I could see her outline in the shower.” He stopped and lay silent for a period of seconds.

  “What happened next?”

  “That’s when it got weird. Suddenly I was naked. I stepped into the shower and it wasn’t Regina, it was Doctor Lin. She was naked with her back to me.”

  George could feel himself sweating. As soon as Lucas mentioned Susan naked, George felt aroused. He was tempted to close his eyes and imagine the scene in his own mind.

  “I had an erection,” Lucas said, interrupting George’s thoughts. “I was standing behind her looking at her body. Then she turned around. She gave me a sexy look then reached down and rubbed my penis. I became even more aroused. We began to kiss, but that’s when I woke up.”

  George felt his muscles relax. He realized he’d been tensing his shoulder muscles so much that they were beginning to hurt. “How did you feel when you woke up?”

  “Excited, disappointed that the dream had ended. Then I became angry.”

  “Angry?”

  “Regina was gone again. She was there in my dream and then she was replaced by that bitch. That bitch who’d spent the day showing off her body to me, causing me to dream about her.”

  “You think it’s her fault you dreamed about her?”

  “She did everything but jump in my lap when she was at my house. Of course, I was going to dream about her. She should know she’s playing with fire. If she acts that way around other men, it’s going to get her in big trouble.”

  George was alarmed by Lucas’ words. They were too similar to what he’d said about his wife and Sherry Bennett. “What kind of trouble.”

  “Somebody’s going to do more than dream about her. Then when she doesn’t come across, she’s gonna get hurt.”

  “So you see her as a tease.”

  “Exactly. That’s exactly what she is, a tease. Like a lot of women who want to make men feel inadequate.”

  “Did you feel inadequate around her?”

  “Me? No, of course not. I was angry that she was teasing me that way. I’m sure she went back to that little apartment she owns in Irvine and gloated about how smart she was. But I saw right through her.”

  “How do you know she owns an apartment in Irvine?” George’s alarm was starting to turn to fear.

  “I looked her up on the internet. I wanted to find out more about her, if she’s a cop or a doctor. She pretended not to be a cop when she visited me, like she was just a concerned doctor, but she didn’t fool me.” His voice was angry, menacing.

  “Why did she say she was visiting you if it wasn’t police business?”

  “To see how I was doing, if my leg was improving.”

  “And how is your leg?” George wanted to change the subject. His anxiety about Susan was becoming too difficult to control.

  “It’s coming along. I use the cane, but I can walk a ways without it. It’s no problem.”

  “Have you had any thoughts about why you developed a paralysis after seeing your wife’s body?” George was still trying to keep Lucas from talking about Susan Lin.

  “You and Doctor Lin, you both want to know the same things.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Lucas hung his head, as if he were defeated. “I don’t know what happened to my leg. I think seeing Regina reminded me of my brother.”

  “And you think that had something to do with why your leg became paralyzed?”

  Lucas looked up. “I don’t know.” His face was blank.

  “Since you have the same symptom, the paralysis, in your dreams, I think we can try to figure out why it happens.”

  “You mean it’s all in my head?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I really don’t know. It just happens.”

  George put down his note pad. “Well, we’ll see what we can find out in our next few sessions.”

  “Times up?” Lucas sounded as if he didn’t want the session to end.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Chapter 45

  “You haven’t been honest with us,” Abe Reynolds said, his eyes narrowed as he gave George a long, angry stare.

  George dragged his eyes away from Reynolds and looked at Susan Lin, sitting in the chair next to the detective on the other side of George’s desk. She dropped her gaze. George thought she looked embarrassed. He remembered Lucas’ dream of seeing her naked. He put the thought out of his head. “What are you talking about?” George asked, turning back to Reynolds.

  “Lucas Bonaventure says his wife mentioned to him that you were a psychiatrist here, locally. He said she knew you and had even run into you recently. He also said that he told you that the day he made his first appointment with you.”

  George tried to subdue his rising panic. How much more did the detective know about George’s relationship with Regina Bonaventure? What had Lucas told Susan when she visited his house? “It’s silly, I guess, but it hadn’t really registered with me that Mrs. Bonaventure was the girl who lived next door to my uncle in Santa Barbara. I barely knew her, of course. I had no idea that she had mentioned me to her husband.”

  “But he said that he told you that when he called to make an appointment,” Reynolds said. He looked at George with an accusatory stare.

  “My secretary makes all my appointments. I guess he told her but she certainly never told me.”

  Susan seemed to have overcome her embarrassment and was staring at George. She leaned forward. “Lucas said that you met his wife somewhere a few months ago.”

  “He told you that?” Was it really Susan who had learned about his relationship with Regina? George wondered. It must have been. But why had she referred to Bonaventure as “Lucas,” almost as if they were intimate? His thoughts returned to Lucas’ dream of Susan, naked in the shower. He was sweating; he tried to clear his mind.

  “Yes,” she answered. “And he said he’d told you that it was because of her that he chose you instead of another therapist.”

  “I told you that my secretary makes my appointments. He must have told her. Either he was mixed up about it or you are.”

  She looked irritated. “I’m not mixed up, Doctor Farquhar. Did you meet Regina Bonaventure a few months ago, as Lucas said?”

  Why was Susan taking Lucas’ side? Were she and Lucas colluding somehow? He dismissed the idea. He was becoming paranoid and even jealous. He looked at both Susan and Abe Reynolds. They were both waiting
for his answer. “I don’t recall meeting Mrs. Bonaventure at all. It sounds as if Lucas is trying to shift the suspicion for his wife’s murder onto me, and you’ve fallen for him… I mean for his story.” He was still sweating and getting mixed up. Was it because he wasn’t sure if he was guilty? How could he be guilty? And of what?

  “So how well did you know Regina Bonaventure when you were younger?” Reynolds asked. “I guess she would have been Regina Knowles back then.”

  “I didn’t know her at all. I was aware that my uncle’s neighbor had a daughter, but I don’t even know if I ever met her. I was only an occasional visitor to my uncle’s house in the summers, I didn’t live there or go to school there.”

  “You never knew her as an adult?” Susan asked. She had gotten over her apparent irritation and had a friendly smile on her face.

  He shook his head. “I’m sure I wouldn’t even have recognized her if I met her. In fact, her picture was in the paper and it never rang a bell in my memory.” That part of his story was at least true.

  “And Lucas never mentioned that she said she knew you during his sessions?” Susan asked.

  “Never.” He was as curious as she was as to why Lucas wouldn’t have mentioned this to him, unless George had blocked such discussion from his memory and from his session notes. He knew that he had indeed known Regina when he was younger, but perhaps Lucas didn’t know that. Perhaps he was, in fact, just trying to shift suspicion onto George. George’s thoughts were traveling in circles.

  Reynolds looked over at his partner. “I think we’ve asked enough for now.” He closed his notebook and stood.

  Susan looked less eager to leave, but she also stood up. “Thank you for your time, Doctor Farquhar. We’ll be in touch with you if we need more information.”

  Why was she being so formal, George wondered. He had thought they were becoming friends. Would there be no more lunches? No more talks about psychoanalysis? He felt a surge of panic. Was it abandonment that he was feeling? He stood and shook each of their hands without saying anything.