Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 11 - The Clinic

by The Clinic(Lit)

  "The quiet one?'

  'Sometimes the quiet ones have the most to say.'

  'Okay.' He pulled over next to a bus bench. Two Hispanic women in domestic's uniforms were sitting there and they stared at us before looking away.

  'Gonna walk home after that?'

  'Sure, it's only a couple of miles.'

  'What an aerobicon... listen, if you have time and inclination, I don't mind you talking to the other students involved in the committee, too. Maybe you won't scare them as much as I scared Cindy.'

  'I thought you did fine with her.'

  He frowned. 'Maybe I shoulda brought a parrot. You up for student interviews?'

  'How do I locate them?'

  Reaching over to the backseat, he grabbed his briefcase and swung it onto his lap, took out a sheet of paper, and gave it to me.

  Xeroxed photo-ID student cards and class schedules. The reproductions were dark and blurred, turning Cindy Vespucci into a brunette. Kenneth Storm had a full face, short hair, and a sad mouth, but that's about all you could say about him.

  I folded and pocketed it. 'Any rules about how I present myself?'

  He thought. 'Guess the truth would be fine. Anything that encourages them to talk. They'll probably relate to you better, professorial demeanor and all that.'

  'Maybe not,' I said. 'Professors are the ones who fail them.'

  The tall, white Psychology Tower was on the outer edge of the Science Quad - maybe more than architectural accident - and the brick cube that housed Chemistry was its next-door neighbor.

  It had been a long time since I'd been inside the chem building and then only to take an advanced psychopathology course in borrowed classroom space; back when I'd been a grad student, psychology had been the U's most popular major and the lecture halls had overflowed with those seeking self-understanding. Twenty years later, fear of the future was the dominant motive and business administration was king.

  Chemistry's halls still oozed the vinegary reek of acetic acid and the walls were toothpaste-green, maybe a bit grimier. No one was in sight but I could hear clinking and splashing behind doors marked LABORATORY.

  The directory listed two Steinbergers, Gerald and Julia, both with offices on the third floor. I took the stairs and found Julia's.

  The door was open. She was at her desk grading exams with radio soft-rock in the background, a nice-looking woman around thirty wearing a black scoop-necked sweater over a white blouse and gray wool slacks. An amber-and-old-silver necklace that looked Middle Eastern rested on her chest. She had square shoulders, an earnest face that surprised itself by bottoming out in a pointed chin, a serene mouth glossed pink, and shiny brown hair ending at her shoulders, the bangs clipped just above graceful eyebrows. Her eyes were gray, clear and unbothered as they looked up. Beautiful, really. They made her beautiful.

  She marked a paper and put it aside. 'Yes?'

  I told her who I was, trying without success to make it sound logical, and that I'd come to discuss Hope Devane.

  'Oh.' Puzzled. 'Might I see some identification?' Pleasant voice, Chicago accent.

  I showed her the badge. She studied my name for a long time.

  'Please,' she said, handing it back, and pointing to a chair.

  The office was cramped but fresh-smelling, gray-metal University issue brightened by batik wall hangings and folk-art dolls positioned among the books on the shelves. The radio rested on a windowsill behind her, next to a potted coleus. Someone singing about the freedom that love brought.

  The exams were stacked high. The one she'd put aside was filled with computations and red question marks. She'd given it a B-. When she saw me looking at it, she covered it with a notebook and turned the stack over just as the phone rang.

  'Hi,' she said. 'Actually not right now.' Looking at me. 'Maybe in fifteen. I'll come to you.' Pretty smile. Blush. 'Me, too.'

  Hanging up, she pushed away from the desk and rested her hands on her lap. 'My husband's down the hall. We usually have lunch together.'

  'If it's a bad time-'

  'No, he's got things to do and this shouldn't take long. So, run that by me again, I'm still intrigued. You're on the faculty but you're working with the police department on Hope's murder?'

  'I'm on the faculty crosstown, at the med school. I've done forensic work and occasionally the police ask me to consult. Hope Devane's murder is what they call a cold case. No leads, a new detective starting from scratch. Frankly I'm a member of the court of last resort.'

  'Crosstown.' She smiled. 'The enemy?'

  'I got my doctorate here so it's more of a case of split allegiance.'

  'How do you cope at football games?'

  'I ignore them.'

  She laughed. 'Me, too. Gerry - my husband - has become a football fanatic since we arrived. We used to be at the University of Chicago, which believe me is no great seat of athletic achievement. Anyway, I'm glad the police are still looking into Hope's murder. I'd assumed they'd given up.'

  'Why's that?'

  'Because after the first week or so there was nothing in the news. Isn't it true that the longer a case goes unsolved the less chance there is of success?'

  'Generally.'

  'What's the name of the new detective?'

  I told her and she wrote it down.

  'Does the fact that he's chosen not to come himself mean anything?'

  'It's a combination of time pressure and strategy,' I said. 'He's working the case alone and he hasn't fared well with the faculty people he's interviewed so far.'

  'In what way?'

  'They treat him as if he's a Neanderthal.'

  'Is he?'

  'Not at all.'

  'Well,' she said, 'I suppose as a group, we tend to be intolerant - not that we're really a group. Most of us have nothing in common beyond the patience to endure twenty-plus years of schooling. Hope and I are prime examples of that, so I don't think I'll be of much help.'

  'She knew you well enough to ask you to be on the Interpersonal Conduct Committee.'

  She placed her pen on the desk. 'The committee. I figured it had to be that. In terms of our relationship, we'd spoken a few times before she asked me to serve but we were far from friends. How much do the police know about the committee?'

  'They know its history and the fact that it was disbanded. There are also transcripts of the three cases that were heard. I noticed you didn't participate in the third.'

  'That's because I resigned,' she said. 'It's obvious now that the whole thing was a mistake but it took me a while to realize it.'

  'Mistake in what way?'

  'I think Hope's motives were pure but they led her somewhat... far afield. I thought it would be an attempt to heal, not create more conflict.'

  'Did you voice your concerns to her?'

  She tightened her lips and gazed up at the ceiling. 'No. Hope was a complex person.'

  'She wouldn't have listened?'

  'I don't really know. It was just... I don't want to demean the dead. Let's just say she was strong-willed.'

  'Obsessive?'

  'About the mistreatment of women, definitely. Which is fine with me.'

  Lifting the pen, she tapped one knee. 'Sometimes passion blocks out contradictory information. So much so - and this is more your area than mine - that I found myself wondering if she had a personal history of abuse that directed her scholarship.'

  The quiet one.

  'Because of the extent of her passion?' I said.

  She shifted in her chair, bit her lip, and nodded. Placed an index finger alongside one smooth cheek.

  'I must say I feel uncomfortable suggesting that, because I don't want to trivialize Hope's commitment - to bring it down to the level of personal vindication. I'm a physical chemist, which is about as far as you get from psychoanalysis.'

  She wheeled back, so her head was inches from the bookshelves. A brownish rag doll's legs extended past her right ear. She pulled it down, sat it in her lap, and played with its black string
hair.

  'I want you to know that I thought highly of her. She was brilliant, and committed to her ideals. Which is rarer than it should be - maybe I should explain how I got involved with the committee. Because clearly it's not going to just go away.'

  'Please,' I said. 'I'd appreciate that.'

  Taking a deep breath, she stroked the doll. 'I began college as a premed and in my sophomore year I volunteered at a battered-women's shelter on the South Side of Chicago. To get brownie points for med school and because both my parents are physicians and old-style liberals and they taught me it was noble to help people.

  I thought I'd heard everything around the dinner table, but the shelter opened my eyes to a whole new, terrible world. Putting it simply, I was terrified. It was one of the reasons I changed my mind about medicine.'

  Her fingers parted the doll's hair. 'The women I worked with - the ones who'd gotten past the fear and the denial and were in touch with what was being done to them - had the same look I sometimes saw in Hope's eyes. Part injury, part rage - I can only call it ferocious. In Hope's case it was strikingly discrepant from her usual manner.'

  'Which was?'

  'Cool and collected. Very cool and collected.'

  'In control.'

  "Very much so. She was a leader, had tremendous force of personality. But when we discussed abuse, I saw that look in her eyes. Not always, but frequently enough to remind me of the women at the shelter.'

  She gave a shy smile. 'No doubt I'm over-interpreting.'

  'Did she ask you to serve because of your experience at the shelter?'

  She nodded. 'We first met at a faculty tea, one of those dreadful things at the beginning of the academic year where everyone pretends to get acquainted? Gerry had gone off to talk sports with some guys and Hope came up to me. She was also alone.'

  'Her husband wasn't there?'

  'No. She said he never came to parties. She certainly didn't know me, I'd just arrived. I didn't know who she was but I had noticed her. Because of her clothes. Expensive designer suit, good jewelry, great makeup.

  Like some of the girls I'd known from Lake Forest -heiresses. You don't see much of that on campus. We got to-talking and I told her about the shelter.'

  She moved in a way that pinched the doll's soft torso and caused its head to pitch forward.

  'The funny thing is, all those years I hadn't talked about it. Even to my husband.' Smile. 'And as you can tell, I have no problem talking. But there I was at a party, with a virtual stranger, getting into things I'd forgotten about - horrendous things. I actually had to go into a corner to dry my eyes. Looking back, I think Hope drew the memories out of me.'

  'How?'

  'By listening the right way. Don't you people call it active listening?' She smiled again. 'Just what you're doing right now. I learned about that, too, at the shelter. I suppose anyone can grasp the rudiments but there are few virtuosos.'

  'Like Hope.'

  She laughed. 'There, just what you're doing: bouncing things back. It works even when you know what's going on, doesn't it?'

  I smiled and stroked my chin and said, 'Sounds like you think it's effective,' in a stagy voice.

  She laughed again, got up, and closed the door. She was shapely, and taller than I'd thought: five eight or nine, a good deal of it legs.

  'Yes,' she said, sitting down again and crossing them. 'She was a brilliant listener, had a way of... moving in. Not just emotionally, actually getting close physically - inching toward you. But without seeming intrusive. Because she made you feel as if you were the most important person in the world.'

  'Charisma and passion.'

  'Yes. Like a good evangelist.'

  The legs uncrossed. 'This must sound so strange. First I tell you I didn't know her, and then I go on as if I did. But everything I've said is just an impression. She and I never got close, though at first I thought she wanted a friend.'

  'Why's that?'

  'The day after the tea she called me saying she'd really enjoyed meeting me, would I like to have coffee in the Faculty Club. I was ambivalent. I liked her but I didn't want to talk about the shelter again. Even so, I accepted. Determined to keep my mouth shut.' The doll bounced. 'Unbelievably, I ended up talking again. About the worst cases I'd seen: women who'd been brutalized beyond comprehension. That was the first time I saw the ferociousness in her eyes.'

  She looked at the doll, put it back on the shelf. 'All this can't possibly help you.'

  'It might.'

  'How?'

  'By illuminating her personality,' I said. 'Right now, there's little else to go on.'

  'That assumes her personality had something to do with her being murdered.'

  'You don't think it did?'

  'I have no idea. When I found out she'd been killed, my first assumption was that her politics had angered some psychotic'

  'A stranger?'

  She stared at me. 'You're not actually saying it had anything to do with the committee?'

  'We don't have enough information to say anything, but is it impossible?'

  'Highly improbable, I'd say. They were just kids.'

  'Things got pretty rough. Especially with the Storm boy.'

  'Yes, that one did have a temper. And a foul mouth. But the transcripts may be misleading - make him out worse than he was.'

  'In what way?'

  She thought. 'He was... he seemed to me more bark than bite. One of those blustery kids who throws tantrums and then gets it off his chest? And the accounts of the murder made it sound like a stalking. I just can't see a kid doing that. Then again, I don't have kids, so what do I know?'

  'When Hope asked you to serve, what specifics did she give you?'

  'She reassured me it wouldn't take much time. She said it was provisional but certain to be made permanent and that it had strong backing from the administration. Which, of course, wasn't true. In fact, she made it sound as if the administration had asked her to set it up. She told me we'd be focusing on offenses that didn't qualify for criminal prosecution and that our goal would be early detection - what she called primary prevention.'

  'Catching problems early.'

  'Catching problems early in order to avoid the kinds of things I'd seen at the shelter.' Shaking her head. 'She knew what button to push.'

  'So she misled you.'

  'Oh, yes,' she said, sadly. 'I suppose she felt a straightforward approach wouldn't have worked. And maybe it wouldn't have. I certainly don't enjoy sitting in judgment of people.'

  'From the transcripts, the other member, Casey Locking, didn't mind judging.'

  'Yes, he was quite... enthusiastic. Doctrinaire, really. Not that I fault him. How sincere can any student be when collaborating with his faculty supervisor? Power is power.'

  'Did Hope say why she appointed him?'

  'No. She did tell me one member would have to be a man. To avoid the appearance of a war between the sexes.'

  'How did she react when you resigned?'

  'She didn't.'

  'Not at all?'

  'Not at all. I called her office and left a message on her machine, explaining that I just didn't feel comfortable continuing, and thanking her for thinking of me. She never returned the call. We never spoke again. I assumed she was angry... and now we're judging her. That bothers me. Because no matter what she did I believe she had good intentions and what happened to her is an atrocity.'

  She got up and showed me the door.

  'I'm sorry, I can't talk about this anymore.' Her hand twisted the knob and the door opened. The gray eyes had narrowed with strain.

  'Thanks for your time,' I said, 'and sorry to dredge up unpleasantness.'

  'Maybe it needed dredging... The whole thing is sickening. Such a loss. Not that one person's life is worth more than another's. But Hope was impressive - she had spine. Especially impressive if I'm right that she had been abused, because that would mean she'd made it. Had summoned the strength to help others.'

  She bit her li
p again. 'She was strong. The last person you'd think of as a victim.'

  It was 2:00 P.M. when I stepped outside. I thought of the way Hope had elicited Julia Steinberger's tears at the faculty tea by stoking old memories.

  A good listener - Cindy Vespucci said the same thing.

  But she hadn't handled Kenny Storm - or the other two male students - very skillfully.