Jonathan Kellerman - Blood Test

“Damn,” she said, “left my zinger at the bar.”

“How about some coffee?”

She pouted.

“You think I’m drunk or somethin’?”

She was talking clearly and moving normally. Only her eyes gave her away, as they focused and unfocused in rapid succession.

I smiled and shrugged.

“Playing it safe, huh?” She laughed.

I called for the waiter and ordered coffee for myself. She had a glass of white wine. It didn’t seem to affect her. She was maintaining as only a heavy drinker can.

A while later the waiter returned. She asked me to order first while she scanned the menu. I kept it simple, choosing a small spinach salad and broiled chicken, because trendy places usually have lousy food and I wanted something they couldn’t ruin too easily.

She continued to study the menu as if it were a textbook, then looked up brightly.

“I’ll have an artichoke,” she said.

“Hot or cold, ma’am?”

“Uh, cold.”

The waiter wrote it down and looked at her expectantly. When she didn’t say anything he asked if that was all.

“Uh huh.”

He left, shaking his head.

“I eat artichokes a lot because when you run you lose sodium and artichokes have lots of sodium.”

“Uh huh.”

“For dessert I’ll have something with bananas because bananas are high in potassium. When you up your sodium you have to up your potassium to put your body in balance.”

I’d always seen her as a level-headed young lady, if a bit too hard on herself and prone to self-punishment. The dizzy broad across the table was a stranger.

She talked about running marathons until the food came. When the artichoke was set down before her she stared at it and began picking delicately at the leaves.

My food was unpalatable — the salad gritty, the chicken arid. I played with it to avoid eating.

When she’d dismantled and polished off the artichoke and seemed settled, I asked her what she wanted to talk about.

“This is very difficult, Alex.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I feel like a — traitor.”

“Against whom?”

“Shit.” She looked everywhere but at me. “It’s probably not even important and I’m just shooting off my mouth for nothing but I keep thinking about Woody and wondering how long it’ll be before the metastases start popping up — if they haven’t already — and I want to do something, to stop feeling so damned helpless.”

I nodded and waited. She winced.

“Augie Valcroix knew the couple from the Touch who came to visit the Swopes,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“I saw him talking to them, calling them by name, and I asked him about it. He said he visited the place once, thought it was nice. Peaceful.”

“Did he say why?”

“Just that he was interested in alternative lifestyles. I know that’s true because in the past he’d spoken of checking out other groups — Scientologists, Lifespring, a Buddhist place in Santa Barbara. He’s Canadian, thinks the whole California thing is fascinating.”

“Did you ever detect any collusion between them?”

“None. Just that they knew each other.”

“You said he used their names. Do you remember them?”

“I think he called the guy Gary or Barry. I never heard the woman’s name. You don’t really think this was some sort of conspiracy, do you?”

“Who knows?”

She squirmed as if her clothes were too tight, caught the waiter’s eye, and ordered a banana liqueur. She sipped it slowly trying to appear relaxed, but she was jumpy and ill-at-ease.

She put the glass down with a furtive look in her eyes.

“Is there anything else, Bev?”

She nodded, embarrassed. When she spoke it was barely a whisper.

“This is probably even less relevant but as long as I’m blabbing I might as well spill it all out. Augie and Nona Swope had a thing going. I’m not sure when it started. Not too long ago because the family was only in town a couple of weeks.” She fiddled with her napkin. “God, I feel like such a shit. If it weren’t for Woody I’d never have opened my mouth.”

“I know that.”

“I wanted to tell your cop friend about it right there, at the motel — he seemed nice enough — but I just couldn’t. Then I got to thinking about it later and I couldn’t let go of it. I mean, what if there was a way to help that little boy and I let it go by? But I still didn’t want to go to the police. I figured if I told you, you’d know what to do with it.”

“You did the right thing.”

“I wish doing right didn’t feel so wrong.” Her voice broke. “I wish I could be sure that my telling you has any meaning.”

“All I can do is let Milo know. At this point he’s not even convinced a crime’s been committed. The only one who seems sure of that is Raoul.”

“ He’s always sure of everything,” she said angrily. “Ready to assess blame at the drop of a hat. He dumps on everyone but Augie’s been his favorite scapegoat since he got here.”

She dug the nails of one hand into the palm of the other. “And now I’ve made things worse for him.”

“Not necessarily. Milo may brush it off completely or he may choose to talk to Valcroix. But he doesn’t care what Raoul thinks. No one’s going to get railroaded, Bev.”

That was meager balm for her conscience.

“I still feel like a traitor. Augie’s my friend.”

“Look at it this way, if Valcroix’s sleeping with Nona had anything to do with this mess, you did a good deed. If not, he can endure a few questions. It’s not like the guy’s a total innocent.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way I hear it he makes a habit of sleeping with his patients’ mothers. This time it was a sister, for variety. At the very least it’s unethical.”

“That’s so self-righteous,” she snapped, turning scarlet, “so damned judgmental!”

I started to reply but before I knew what was happening she got up from the table, grabbed her purse, and ran out of the restaurant.

I pulled out my wallet threw down a twenty and went after her.

She was half-running, half-walking north on Westwood Boulevard, swinging her arms like a foot soldier, heading into the crush and commotion of the Village at night.

I ran, caught up, and took her arm. Her face was wet with tears.

“What the hell’s going on, Bev?”

She didn’t answer but let me walk with her. The Village seemed especially Felliniesque that evening, litter-strewn sidewalks clogged with street musicians, grim-faced college students, squealing packs of junior high kids wearing oversized clothes pocked with high-priced holes, empty-eyed bikers, gawking tourists from the exurbs, and assorted hangers-on.

We walked in silence all the way to the southern edge of the UCLA campus. Inside the grounds of the university the pandemonium and bright lights died and were replaced by tree-shadowed darkness and a silence so pure it was startling. Except for an occasional passing car, we were alone.

A hundred yards into the campus I got her to stop and sit on a bench at a shuttle stop. The buses had stopped running for the night and the lights near the stop had been turned off. She turned away and buried her face in her hands.

“Bev—”

“I must be going nuts,” she mumbled, “running out like that.”

I tried to put my arm around her for comfort but she jerked away.

“No, I’m okay. Let me spit it out, once and for all.”

She sucked in her breath, bracing herself for an ordeal.

“Augie and I were — involved. It started pretty soon after he came to Western Peds. He seemed so different from the men I’d been meeting. Sensitive, adventurous. I thought it was serious. I allowed myself the luxury of romance and it turned to shit. When you talked about his sleeping around it brought back all that shit.