Silent Partner

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Dissociation,” I said.

  “Par excellence.”

  I thought of all the fragmentation in Sharon's life. The routinized, ultimately passionless way she made love. The refusal to live with me, with anyone. The detachment with which she'd spoken about her dead parents. Going into a helping profession and seducing her patients. Graduating but never getting her license. That horrible night I'd found her with the twin photo.

  I'm their only little girl.

  The lies.

  The loop.

  Hooking up with a sleaze like Kruse.

  “Did Kruse ever film his students, Larry?”

  “You think he made her do the film?”

  “It's logical. He was her supervisor. He was into porn.”

  “I suppose so. Except his weren't loops—they were half-hour features, color, full sound. Supposed to be marital aids for couples with sexual dysfunction, pseudodocumentaries with a disclaimer at the beginning and some guy who sounds like Orson Welles doing a voice-over narration while the camera zooms in on insertion. Besides, Kruse used actors and actresses. Pros. I never saw a student in any of his stuff.”

  “There may have been stuff you didn't see.”

  “I'm sure there was. But do you have any indication he filmed her?”

  “No. Just a gut feeling.”

  “What do you know about the loop besides the fact that she was in it?”

  “Supposed to be a doctor-patient seduction thing. The person who described it to me never saw it himself, and it's since disappeared.”

  “So basically you're talking thirdhand information—the old telephone game. You know how that kind of thing improves with the telling. Maybe it wasn't even her.”

  “Maybe.”

  Pause. “Wanna try to find out?”

  “How?”

  “I might be able to get hold of a copy. Old contacts from the research project.”

  “I don't know,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It would be kind of morbid—forget I mentioned it. Oops, my light just went on. Got a patient in the waiting room. Anything else on your mind?”

  I wrestled with my feelings. Curiosity—no, tell it like it is, Delaware: voyeurism—locked in combat with fear of learning yet more repugnant truths.

  But I said, “See if you can get hold of the movie.”

  “You're sure?”

  I wasn't, but I heard myself say yes.

  “Okay,” he said. “I'll get back to you soon as I know.”

  Yesterday's conversation with Robin—my irritability, the way things had fizzled—still preyed on my mind. At four I phoned her. The last person I wanted to talk to answered.

  “Yes?”

  “It's me, Rosalie.”

  “She's not here.”

  “When are you expecting her back?”

  “She didn't say.”

  “All right. Would you please tell her—”

  “I'm not telling her anything. Why don't you just quit? She doesn't want to be with you. Isn't that plain to see?”

  “It'll be plain when I hear it from her, Rosalie.”

  “Listen, I know you're supposed to be smart and all that but you're not as smart as you think. You and her think you're all grown up, got everything figured out, don't need to hear advice from no one. But she's still my kid and I don't like people pushing her around.”

  “You think I push her around?”

  “If the shoe fits, mister. Yesterday, after she talked to you, she was all mopey for the rest of the day, the way she used to be when she was a kid and couldn't get her way. Thank God some friends called, so maybe she can finally have a good time. She's a good kid, doesn't need that kind of misery. So why don't you just forget it.”

  “I'm not about to forget anything. I love her.”

  “Bullpuckey. Words.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Just give her the message, Rosalie.”

  “Do your own dirty work.”

  Slam.

  I sat there, tight with rage, feeling cut off and helpless. Grew angry at Robin for allowing herself to be protected like a child.

  Then I cooled and realized Robin had no idea she was being protected, had no reason to expect her mother would protect her. The two of them had never had a close relationship. Daddy had seen to that. Now Rosalie was trying to reassert her maternal rights.

  I felt sorry for Rosalie, but it only partially quelled my anger. And I still wanted to talk to Robin, to work things out. Why the hell was that turning out to be so difficult?

  The phone was the wrong way to do it. We needed time alone, the right setting.

  I called two airlines for flight schedules to San Luis. At both of them recorded messages put me on hold. When the doorbell rang, I hung up.

  It rang again. I went to the door, looked through the peephole, and saw a familiar face: big and broad and lumpy, almost boyish except for the acne pits that blanketed the cheeks. Coarse black hair, slightly graying, cut unfashionably close around the ears and neck and left long up on top, with a Kennedyesque shock falling across a low, square brow and sideburns that reached to the bottom of fleshy earlobes. A big high-bridged nose, a pair of startling green eyes under shaggy black brows. Pallid skin now lacquered with a hot pink coat of sunburn. The nose, red and peeling. The entire ugly assemblage, scowling.

  I opened the door.

  “Four days early, Milo? Crave civilization?”

  “Fish,” he said, ignoring the question and holding out a metal ice chest. He stared at me. “You look terrible.”

  “Gee, thanks. You look like strawberry yogurt yourself. Stirred from the bottom.”

  He grimaced. “Itching all over. Here, take it. I have to scratch.”

  He shoved the chest at me. The weight made me step backward. I carried it into the house and placed it on the kitchen counter. He followed me in and flopped down on a chair, stretching out long legs and running his hands over his face, as if washing without water.

  “So,” he said, spreading his arms. “What do you think? Pretty goddamned Abercrombie and Itch, huh?”

  He had on a red-and-black plaid shirt, baggy khakis, rubber-soled lace-up boots, and a khaki fisherman's vest with about a dozen zippered compartments. Trout lures hung from one of the pockets. A fishing knife in a scabbard dangled from his belt. He'd put on some weight—had to be pushing 230—and the shirt was tight, the buttons straining.

  “Stunning,” I said.

  He growled and loosened the laces on the boots. “Rick,” he said. “He forced me to go shopping, insisted we had to outmacho everyone.”

  “Did you succeed?”

  “Oh, yeah. We were so goddamned tough it scared the shit out of the fish. Little suckers jumped right out of the river, landing in our skillets, lemon slices in their mouths.”

  I laughed.

  “Hey,” he said, “man still remembers how. What's the matter, guy? Who died?”

  Before I could answer, he was up and prying open the chest, removing two big trout wrapped in plastic.

  “Give me a fry pan, butter, garlic, and onions—no, excuse me, this is an upscale household—shallots. Give me shallots. Got any beer?”

  I got a Grolsch from the refrigerator, opened it, and gave it to him.

  “Going temperate on me?” he asked, tilting his head back and drinking from the bottle.

  “Not right now.” I gave him the pan and a knife and went back to rummage in the refrigerator, which was near empty. “Here's the butter. No shallots. No garlic either, just this.”

  He looked at the wilted half Bermuda onion in my hand. Took it and said, “Tsk, tsk, slipping, Dr. Suave. I'm reporting you to the Foodie Patrol.”

  He took the onion, sliced it down the middle, and immediately his eyes teared. Moving away and rubbing them, he said, “Better yet, we play hunters and gatherers. Me catch, you cook.”

  He sat down and worked on the beer. I lifted a trout and inspected it. It had been gutted and cleaned, expertly.

  “Ni
ce, huh?” he said. “Pays to take a surgeon along.”

  “Where is Rick?”

  “Getting some shut-eye while he can. He's got a twenty-four-hour coming up at the E.R., then twenty-four off and back on again for the Saturday night shift—gunshots and malicious foolishness. After that he's started heading over to the Free Clinic to counsel AIDS patients. What a guy, huh? All of a sudden I'm living with Schweitzer.”

  He was smiling but his voice was heavy with irritation, and I wondered if he and Rick were going through another tough period. I hoped not. I had neither the energy nor the will to deal with it.

  “How were the great outdoors?” I asked.

  “What can I say? We did the whole Boy Scout camping bit—my daddy would have been heapum proud. Found a gorgeous place near the river, downstream from white water. Last day we were there a canoe full of executive types came coasting by: bankers, computer jockeys—you know the type. Play it so straight all year ‘round, the moment they're away from home they freak and turn into blithering idiots? Anyway, these yahoos come barreling downstream, stinking drunk and louder than a sonic boom, spot us, lower their pants, and flash us the moon.”

  He gave an evil grin. “If they'd only known who they were shoving their asses at, huh? Panic time at the GOP convention.”

  I laughed and began frying the onions. Milo went to the refrigerator, got another beer, and came back looking serious.

  “Nothing in here,” he said. “What's going on?”

  “I need to shop.”

  “Uh-huh.” He reached under his shirt and scratched his chest. Paced the kitchen and said, “How's the lovely Ms. Castagna?”

  “Working hard.”

  “Uh-huh.” He kept pacing.

  The onions turned translucent. I added more butter to the pan and put the trout in. They hissed and sizzled and the smell of fresh fish filled the room.

  “Ah,” he said. “Nothing like a friend at home in the kitchen. Do you do windows too?”

  “Why'd you come back early?” I asked.

  “Too much pristine, unspoiled beauty—couldn't take it. Amazing the things one learns about one's wretched self out in the wilds. Seems both of us are urban sleaze-junkies. All that clean air and calm and we were going through the shakes.” He drank more beer, shook his head. “You know how we are, marriage made in heaven until we spend too much time together. But enough about the sweet agony of relationships. How're the trout?”

  “Almost done.”

  “Be careful not to overcook.”

  “Want to do it yourself?”

  “Touchy, touchy.”

  I gave him one and a half trout and put half a fish on my plate, then filled two glasses with ice water and brought them to the table. I had a bottle of white wine somewhere but it wasn't chilled. Besides, I didn't feel like drinking, and the last thing Milo needed was more alcohol.

  He looked at the water as if it were polluted but drank it anyway. After finishing the trout in a few moments, he looked at my uneaten food.

  “Want it?” I said.

  “Not hungry?”

  I shook my head. “I ate just before you dropped in.”

  He gave me a long look. “Fine, hand it over.”

  When the half-trout was gone, he said, “Okay, tell me what the hell is bothering you.”

  I considered telling him about Robin. Told him about Sharon instead, honoring my pledge to Leslie Weingarden and leaving out the patient seductions.

  He listened without commenting. Got up and searched the refrigerator for dessert and found an apple that he demolished in four bites.

  Wiping his face, he said, “Trapp, huh? You're sure it was him?”

  “He's hard to miss with that white hair and that skin.”

  “Yeah, the skin,” he said. “Some sort of weird disease. I described it to Rick and he gave me a name for it but I forgot it. Auto-immune condition—the body attacks itself by leeching pigment. No one knows what causes it, but in Trapp's case I've got a theory: Asshole's so full of poison, his own system can't stand him. Maybe we'll be lucky and he'll fade away completely.”

  “What do you think about his being at the house?”

  “Who knows? I'd love nothing more than to get something on the scrote, but this one doesn't scream felony. Maybe he and your late friend were getting it on and he went back to make sure he hadn't left any evidence. Sleazy but not indictable.” He shook his head. “If she was getting it on with him she must have been nuts.”

  “What about the quick sale on the house?” I asked. “And the twin sister? I know she exists—existed—because I met her six years ago. If she's still alive she'd be Sharon's heir.”

  “Six years is a long time, Alex. And who's to say she hasn't been found? Del was right—that's up to the lawyers. Sure, sure, it smells of cover-up, but that doesn't mean what's being covered up is anything juicy, pal. This kind of thing's routine when you're dealing with the pricey crowd. Just last month we had an art theft up in Bel Air. Thirteen million dollars' worth of French Impressionism, gone, like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Private chef did it and split to Monaco. We filed the papers; family hired private help. They recovered the pictures; few months later the chef had an accident with scalding water.

  “And speaking of accidents, last April the teenage daughter of a ‘prominent manufacturer' up in the Palisades got pissed at the family maid for throwing out one of her magazines, stuck the poor lady's hand in a garbage disposal. Bye-bye five fingers, but the maid changed her mind about filing charges. Took early retirement—ten thousand per digit—and shipped back to Guatemala. Then there's a talk show host—everyone knows him, helluva witty and charming guy. His game is getting drunk and putting women in the hospital. The network adds two million a year to his salary for damage control. Ever read a word about any of it? Ever see it on the six o'clock news? Rich folk in awkward situations, Alex. Sweep it under the rug and keep it out of court. It happens all the time.”

  “So you're saying forget the whole thing.”

  “Not so fast, Lone Ranger. I didn't say I was going to forget it. I'll pursue it. But for selfish reasons—the chance of getting something on Trapp. And there's one thing about the film story that does snag my interest—Harvey Pinckley, the guy who caught the call. He was one of Trapp's boys when Trapp was at Hollywood. First-class ass-kisser.”

  “Del made it sound as if he was okay.”

  “Del didn't know him. I did. Besides, Del's a good guy, but our relationship's been a bit frosty of late.”

  “Departmental politics?”

  “Marital problems—his wife's giving him grief. He's sure she's stepping out. It's turned him asocial.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Me too. He was the only one in the division who ever treated me human. And don't get me wrong—we're not ripping each other's throats out. But he's not going to extend himself—for anyone. Anyway, the timing's right for a little extracurricular info-gathering. I don't have to report till Monday, and Rick will either be working or sleeping it off all weekend.”

  He got up, walked around. “Idle hands make the devil's work, lad. Far be it from me to tempt Satan. Just don't expect anything dramatic, okay?”

  I nodded, took the dishes to the sink and started washing.

  He came over and placed a big, padded hand on my shoulder.

  “You look down. 'Fess up, Doctor. This friend was more than just a friend.”

  “A long time ago, Milo.”

  “But from the way you look when you talk about her, it's not that ancient a history. Or is there something else on that scary thing you call your mind?”

  “Nothing, Milo.”

  He removed his hand. “Do consider one thing, Alex. Are you ready to hear more dirt about her? 'Cause, from what we already know, once we start digging, it ain't gonna be buried treasure time.”

  “No problem,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “Uh-huh,” he said. And went to get another beer.

>   Chapter

  14

  When he was gone my nonchalance faded. How much more dirt did I really want to encounter, when I'd never made sense of what I knew already?

  Free follow-up visits.

  I'd been followed up too.

  The scene with the twin photo left me addled, in pain, unable to concentrate on work. Three days later I started calling her, got no answer. Four days later I gathered my resolve and went back to the house on Jalmia. No one home. I inquired at the psych department, was informed she was on temporary leave. None of her professors was worried about her absence. She'd had to take leave before—“family business”—had always made up the work, was a top-notch student. They suggested I talk to her adviser, Dr. Kruse.

  When Kruse didn't return a week's worth of phone calls, I looked up his office address and drove there. The building was five stories of anodized steel and bronzed glass on Sunset near Doheny, granite-lobbied and maroon-carpeted, with a noisy French restaurant that opened to a sidewalk café on the ground floor. The directory listed an odd mix of tenants: about a third psychologists and psychiatrists, the rest various film-related concerns—production companies, agents, publicists, personal managers.

  Kruse's suite was on the top floor. His door was locked. I kneeled, opened the mail slot, and peeked in. Darkness. I got up and looked around. One other suite took up the rest of the floor—an outfit called Creative Image Associates. Its double doors were locked too.

  I taped a note under Kruse's nameplate, leaving my name and number, and asking him to get in touch as soon as possible re: S.R. Then I drove up to the house on Jalmia again.

  The oil stain in the carport was dry, the foliage wilting. The mailbox was crammed with at least a week's worth of correspondence. I skimmed the return addresses on the envelopes. All junk. Nothing indicating where she'd gone.

  The following morning, before heading for the hospital, I went back to the psych department and got Kruse's home address out of the faculty files. Pacific Palisades. I drove there that evening and sat waiting for him.