Eye to Eye: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective

by Don Pendleton

  Such, anyway, was the general content of my thought as we sat across from each other in a quiet coffee shop on Los Feliz, just down the hill from the observatory.

  "You're an unusual man," she'd just said to me, so I guess I was thinking that she was unusual, too.

  We were both tired and cold and jangled from a long vigil on the hillside with officialdom—and probably from an overexposure to Greg Souza, also—and I was also thinking that it was just a bit remarkable that here we were, the two of us, sharing intimate coffee after such an unpromising beginning.

  Maybe she was thinking the same thing, because she quickly added, "If I seemed cool to you at first, it was probably because I very nearly detest that man."

  "Why don't you fire him, then?" I asked casually.

  "Can't," she replied, smiling ruefully. "Didn't hire him. But I feel obligated to cooperate. I don't have to like the man—hell, I'd warm his bed if that was the only way to find Isaac."

  "Isaac is...?”

  "The missing man, yes, Isaac Donaldson. You've probably never heard of him, but anyone who ever took a course in solar physics—"

  I interrupted to say, "I have, and I've heard, and I'm impressed—but I've heard nothing about his disappearance. Surely that would be worth a mention on the evening news."

  She said, "Isaac was working on some secret project for the government when he disappeared. I assumed—he's so absentminded these days—I thought at first he'd just forgotten to say good-bye to anyone and he's just sequestered somewhere on this secret project, but..."

  "But now?" I prompted.

  She raised her hands in a mystified gesture. "We can't find anyone in government who'll own up to him. And when one of my associates went to the police for information, someone very high at L.A.P.D. personally delivered the message that 'the situation' was 'federally sensitive' and that we should leave it alone."

  I thought about that for a moment, then asked her, "What about his family?"

  "Isaac has no family that I know of," she replied. "He was an only child. He never married. Parents died before I was born."

  "You are... ?"

  She smiled. "A friend and a disciple. I adore the man, the only one I've ever known who I would consider marrying, but I'm a couple of generations too late. He wouldn't have me, anyway" She showed me a gold band adorning her third finger, left hand. "Isaac put this ring on my finger the day I received my doctorate, as a reminder of something he'd told me while I was an undergraduate. I'd asked him why he'd never married. He told me he'd taken a lesson from the church. Priests don't marry, nuns don't marry, he said, a true scientist also should not marry because it is all the same work. If a scientist is not thoroughly absorbed by his work, he told me, then he is not a good scientist, and the work—the work, he said, with a capital 'W'—cannot tolerate a bad scientist."

  I said, quietly, "Interesting point of view."

  She twisted the ring on her finger and said, "Not only that, but it's true."

  I said, "The right man maybe could change your mind about that."

  She shook her head. "About marriage, maybe, but I would have to give up one for the other."

  I decided to change the subject. "So who," I asked, "called in Greg Souza?"

  "He's very mysterious about that," she replied, frowning and still twisting the ring. "So much so, in fact, that I first thought he was connected to the government. He didn't actually say so, but..."

  I said, "It's possible. He has had federal contracts in the past."

  She blinked and asked, "For what?"

  I shrugged. "Greg was in Naval Intelligence. It's all one small, crazy world, the intelligence community. There are those times when it is convenient for one agency or another to farm out certain routine tasks. Greg has contacts. He gets some of the work."

  Her eyes narrowed just a bit as she inquired, "How do you happen to know all this?"

  I said, "I was part of that community, too, once."

  She was cooling again. "He told me he had retained you as a psychic consultant."

  I said, "Well, that sounds a bit more formal than the reality. I knew Greg at ONI. He—"

  "What is that?"

  "Office of Naval Intelligence. We were—"

  "Why did you leave it?"

  I held up my left hand to show her bare fingers. "Used to be a ring on this hand, an Annapolis class ring. Decided I didn't want to be married to the navy. Or to anything else, for that matter. So I..."

  "So you do what?" "

  "What do you mean?"

  She was still frowning. "For a living."

  I said, "Oh," and waved it away.

  "What does that mean?"

  I smiled. "It does me."

  "You're worse than Souza," she said, but with a tiny smile.

  I said, "God! Then let me change the impression, quick. What do you want to know?"

  "I want to know what you do for a living."

  I said, "This is embarrassing."

  "Why is it embarrassing?"

  "Because I don't do anything for a living. Oh I do stuff, sure, lots of stuff. But I don't do it for a living. I do it because it's interesting. And somehow, along the way, I pick up enough money to keep going."

  She said, incredulous, "Don't you have any ambition?"

  "For what?"

  "For anything! Don't you have a goal in life? A program of some sort? A direction, at least?"

  I told her, "Sure I do. I want to go on living the way I live right now. What's the connection between Mary Ann and Isaac?"

  She blinked, trying to shift mental gears, and said, "What? Connection? There's no connection."

  I said, "Then why did I pick her up in Isaac's office?"

  She blinked again and said, "How do I know that you did?"

  I told her, "Doesn't matter whether you know it or not, I know it, and I feel that there has to be a connection."

  "Look, I'm sure you're very sincere—I mean, you probably think that you know what you're talking about, but..."

  I said, "But it's all hogwash."

  She said, "Okay, you said it, I didn't."

  "Where's your scientific objectivity?" I asked her. "Can you argue with the result? I found the girl's body."

  She said, "Any dog could have done that. Maybe you caught the odor."

  I replied, "Any dog didn't. But let's leave it at that, it really isn't important to the question. Mary Ann was a part-time employee of the observatory. Isaac spent time there. Were they associated in any way? Did they know each other, work together, eat together—what?"

  She was really agitated. "Why are you trying to link a sadistic rape-murder to the disappearance of a sweet old man? What are you trying to say?"

  I guess I had become rather agitated myself, because I slapped the table with an open palm with enough force to

  rattle the coffee cups in their saucers and said to her, "It's all one fucking world, Jennifer! It's all tied, all connected, in some fine way! Goddamn it, you ought to know that! You're wearing the goddamn ring, I'm not! Now look at it! A man disappears and a girl dies, almost beneath the same roof and within a few weeks of each other! We call that a coincidence, damn it, only after every other question has been exhausted!"

  I had made a scene. My voice, I guess, was as forceful as my open palm on the table. Not many were in that coffee shop with us, but those that were there were staring our way with open interest.

  Even before I had finished my little speech, Jennifer was making her move. She scooted her chair back, dabbed at her lips with a napkin, picked up the check, and left me sitting there with spilt coffee dripping onto my lap. We had each driven our own car from the observatory. I sat there, feeling like a jerk, and watched her pay the check and leave.

  The other patrons had lost interest already. The waitress came over with a sweet, understanding smile and asked if I would like more coffee. I accepted a refill, lit a cigarette, and sulked for ten minutes—trying and failing to justify the outburst to myself. She was
a condescending bitch. Well, no—a bit condescending, maybe, but certainly no bitch. A typical goddamn liberated woman, probably frustrated sexually and... Wait, no, what are you doing, Ash—you insulted the lady, damn it, you used foul language and... She was baiting me, I know she was baiting me, just couldn't wait to cut me up and watch me bleed. Hey! Hey, hey, hey! What is this shit? You were a pig! Who was being condescending to whom? You called into question her scientific objectivity! You played mysterious mystery a la fucking Greg Souza and then you lectured her—at Ph.D., damn it, and you lectured her!—then you had to go all the way as Mr. Macho—no, as Mr. Neanderthal—banging the damned table and splashing coffee all over the damn...

  You have probably been through it yourself, in one way or another, at one time or another. So you must know how I felt. I had really begun to like this lady, and I guess maybe I was beginning to entertain subconscious seduction scenarios, because I was really feeling ragged about the whole thing.

  Besides which, I had begun to get a feeling for Isaac Donaldson and that whole question. I had studied the man's work at Annapolis and again at war college, and I remembered how I had admired his almost mystic feeling for the natural sciences. If that man was in trouble, then... Well, hell, I needed to be involved in that. Maybe I was already involved in it, and maybe that's why I blew it with Jennifer Harrel.

  I would have to give her a call, and...

  Well, no, I would not have to do that. The lady was walking toward me at that very moment. She stood beside the table and, without looking at me, said, "Well are you coming or not?"

  I said, quietly, "Sorry. I hadn't finished my coffee."

  "Leave it," she said. "It's much better at my place."

  The waitress was smiling at me.

  I put a buck on the table, got up, and followed Dr. Harrel outside.

  Everything, believe me, was better at her place.

  Chapter Three: A Compensation

  I followed the good doctor in my own car, which can be pretty tricky anywhere in Southern California, but she'd taken the precaution of jotting down a Glendale address in case I "couldn't keep up"—sheer jest, no doubt, in view of the fact that she drives a Jaguar sedan while I was snorting along about two inches off her rear bumper in my impatient Mas erati.

  The Maserati is my chief vice. No, of course not, I cannot afford such a toy—and I will agree that no automobile ever built or dreamed of being built is worth that kind of money— but what the hell, every man has his folly: the Maserati is mine; she's my compensation for every thing I never had and never will have. Everyone should have a personal folly. So you can always say to yourself, in bad moments, "Well, maybe I'll never have a million bucks to call my own... but damn it, I've got my folly." Or, "Okay, she thinks I'm a jerk. But that's okay. I've got my folly." I've got mine, and she's the last thing I will ever surrender. When she's too old to run then I'll just put her up on blocks in the living room, or something, and maybe someday I'll be buried in her. Then people can say, "Well, old Ash never really made much of himself in life but, by golly, you've got to hand it to him, he'll spend eternity with his folly."

  Anyway, the Maserati stayed right with the Jaguar all the way up the Glendale Freeway and into the Verdugo Mountains. I was not surprised that the lady lived in this area; made beautiful sense, with Cal Tech right next door in Pasadena, the Mt. Wilson Observatory just on up the hill along Angeles Crest, Griffith Park twenty freeway minutes away—besides which, Glendale is a beautiful community with an abundance of upper middle class neighborhoods at an altitude a bit above the normal smog belt.

  I was a bit surprised, though, by the house at the end of the trek. I would not expect a young scientist to live in poverty, exactly, but I was not prepared for a hillside mansion, either, complete with electronic gate and circular drive, pool, tennis court, and still half an acre or so of lawn. Well, what the hell, I thought, people in Southern California know how to live well, that's all—for some, their home is their folly. They may eat hobo stew seven nights a week—but God, look at that beautiful home!

  Somehow, though, I very much doubted that Jennifer Harrel ate hobo stew even once a week; just did not seem the type. I said to her, "Some crazy joint you live in."

  She said to me, "Thanks. That's some crazy car you drive, too."

  I shrugged and said, "Well, a Jag is only half bad."

  "It has twelve cylinders," she said proudly.

  I smiled and corrected myself. "One third bad, then."

  She laughed delightedly—really, a very nice sound—and led me through a Venetian foyer and up two steps to the most sensual goddamned living room I have ever seen. I am talking damasks and velvets and fine oriental silks, nude sculptures in marble and bronze, coffee tables of glass and acrylics that are really wet bars, sectional sofa groups that could nicely accommodate several group-gropes all at once, ankle-deep pile carpeting, expensive-looking artworks everywhere. One whole wall was a curved glass bay and overlooked about 120 degrees of the Los Angeles basin, clear to the edge of the earth. A domed ceiling was about forty feet above all that. A circular steel stairway climbed gently around the walls and into the dome which was, naturally, a small observatory.

  I just stood there speechless, immersed in all that, until Jennifer took my hand and led me to the window bay. Then all I could say was, "Nice, very nice."

  "When the weather cooperates," she told me, "I can see Catalina. But the city lights," she added, "are really prettier under an overcast, like tonight. When it gets dark, you'll see. And remember I told you so."

  It sounded as though she was planning on my staying awhile—an idea which I found not unattractive. But I stood there like a bump on the carpet and again gave my brilliant commentary: "Nice, very nice."

  "Get comfortable," she said softly. "I'll go put the coffee on. Or, take a tour, if you'd like. The whole crazy joint is yours."

  Didn't I wish. Well, after all, I had the Maserati. And my beach pad at Malibu, a lesser folly.

  I took that tour, though—maybe only as inventory, I don't know; I think I was hung up on the sheer grandeur of this working girl's home and trying to compute income versus outgo and it simply did not compute. Mind you, I have been inside of better mansions and I have seen private art collections far more valuable than the one in this mansion. But I was recalling fragments of a conversation on a hillside in Griffith Park in which Jennifer Harrel was drawing parallels between her own struggle for an education and the one just ended for Mary Ann Cunningham, and it had been my distinct impression that Dr. Harrel was from a family of modest means; I was also recalling her story about Isaac Donaldson placing the "Bride of Science" ring on her finger—so she had not married into this. I am a certified Bachelor of Science myself, so have heard all the recruiting pitches and know somewhat about the earnings potential of scientific careers—and this "crazy joint" no way computed with that.

  The master/mistress bedroom suite—(I'm no sexist)—was larger than the average family home. It was split-level. A full bath, a Jacuzzi, and a sit-down wet bar with three overstuffed backrest stools uncrowdedly shared the entry level with a walk-in closet and a vanity area to shame some cosmetics shops. The bed, capable of sleeping a basketball team, shared the lower-level window bay with a French antique desk, a projection-TV and lush sectional sofa. The same million-dollar view was available from any spot; even from the john, if you leave the door open.

  The rest of the house—and there was probably another ten-thousand square feet or so—wandered away in various directions and at various levels of two to three steps up or down. There was a library and a game room and a projection room, several ordinary bedrooms, various nooks and crannies and short hallways serving as art galleries, a large formal dining room, a couple of informal dining nooks, an island gourmet kitchen with hanging brass and stainless, which is where I finished my tour just as the coffee was being readied for service.

  "Still nice, very nice?" Jennifer inquired, without looking at me.

 
; I said, "Oh yes—nice, very nice."

  She laughed softly. "Surely an obvious man of the world, such as yourself, is not intimidated by opulent display."

  Which gave me an excellent opportunity to be a total ass and satisfy my curiosity with some dumb question but I resisted stoutly; replying, instead, "Everything about you intimidates me, Dr. Harrel."

  She gave me a soft, mocking laugh and a sparkling glance as she carried the coffee tray past me. "Oh sure." She summoned me with a jerk of the head. "Follow me, scaredy-cat."

  I followed, To the split-level bedroom. She set the coffee service on the bar, said, "Sit!—drink!"—and went on to the john.

  I sat, poured a cup of coffee from the silver pot, lit a cigarette, and wondered.

  You must know what I wondered.

  Dr. Harrel came out of the john a moment later, switched on the Jacuzzi, pointed to it, said, "Undress!—bathe!"—then stepped into her walk-in closet.

  I quit wondering, carried my coffee to the Jacuzzi and left it there while I went to the john. Then I undressed and "bathed," just as the lady ordered.

  She came out of the dressing room wearing a large white bath towel like a sarong and joined me in the Jacuzzi, sat across from me, removed the towel and arranged it carefully behind her, turned back to give me a dazzling smile and a flash of luxurious boobs bobbing just beneath the surface of the agitated water, then said, "Oh damn! I forgot my coffee!"