Jonathan Kellerman - Blood Test

In graduate school I’d known him as Barry Graffius. He was older than I, in his early forties, but had been a class behind, a late starter who’d decided to become a psychologist after trying just about everything else.

Graffius’s family was wealthy, big in the movie business, and he’d been one of those rich kids who couldn’t seem to settle down — inadequate drive level because he’d never been deprived of anything. The consensus was that family money had gotten him in, but that may have been a jaundiced view. Because Barry Graffius had been the most unpopular person in the department.

I’ve always tended to be charitable in my evaluations of others but I’d despised Graffius. He was loudmouthed and contentious, dominating seminars with irrelevant quotes and statistics aimed at impressing the professors. He insulted his peers, bullied the meek, played devil’s advocate with malicious glee.

And he loved to flaunt his money.

Most of us were struggling to get by, working extra jobs in addition to our teaching assistantships. Graffius delighted in coming to class in hand-tailored leather and suede, complaining about the repair bill on his XKE, lamenting the tax bite. He was an outrageous name dropper, recounting lavish Hollywood parties, offering a teasing glimpse into a glamorous world beyond the grasp of the rest of us.

I’d heard that after graduating he’d gone into practice on Bedford Drive — Beverly Hills Couch Row — planning to capitalize on his connections and become Therapist to the Stars.

I could see where he’d run into Norman Matthews.

He recognized me too. I could tell by the flurry of activity behind his watery brown eyes. As we looked at each other that activity crystallized: fear. The fear of being discovered.

His former identity was no secret in the strict sense. But he didn’t want to be confronted by it: for those who imagine themselves reborn, bringing up the past has all the appeal of exhuming one’s own moldering corpse.

I said nothing, but wondered if he’d told Matthias about knowing me.

The woman was older, but uncommonly pretty despite the pony-tail no-makeup look that seemed to be de rigueur for Touch women. Madonna-faced with ivory skin, raven hair now streaked with silver, and brooding gypsy eyes. Beverly Lucas had called her a hot number who’d lost it but that seemed unfairly bitchy. Perhaps knowing the woman’s true age would have softened the critique.

She looked a well-preserved fifty but I knew she was at least sixty-five.

She hadn’t made a film since 1951, the year I was born.

Desiree Layne, Queen of budget films noirs. There’d been a revival of her movies when I was in college, with free screenings during finals week. I’d seen them all: Phantom Bride, Darken My Doorstep, The Savage Place, Secret Admirer.

An eon ago, before my early retirement, I’d been a frantic, lonely man, with little free time. But one of the few pleasures I’d allowed myself was a Sunday afternoon in bed with a tall glass of Chivas and a Desiree Layne flick.

It hadn’t mattered who the leading man was as long as there were lots of closeups of those beautiful evil eyes, the dresses that looked like lingerie. The voice husky with passion...

She emitted no passion now, sitting statue-still, white-garbed, smiling vacantly. So goddamned harmless.

The place was really starting to spook me. It was like walking through a wax museum...

“Noble Matthias told us you have questions,” said Baron.

“Yes. I just wanted to hear more about your visit to the Swopes. It could help explain what’s happened, aid in locating the children.”

They nodded in unison.

I waited. They looked at each other. She spoke.

“We wanted to cheer them up. Noble Matthias had us pick fruit — oranges, grapefruit, peaches, plums — the best we could find. We put it all in a basket, wrapped it with gay paper.”

She stopped talking and smiled, as if her narrative had explained everything.

“Was your graciousness well received?”

Her eyes widened.

“Oh yes. Mrs. Swope said she was hungry. She ate a plum — a Santa Rosa plum — right there. Said it was delicious.”

Baron’s face hardened as she prattled on. When she paused he said, “You want to know if we tried to talk them out of treating the boy.” He sat passively but there was an aggressive edge to his voice.

“Matthias told me you didn’t. Did the subject of medical treatment come up?”

“It did,” he said. “She complained about the plastic room, said she felt cut off from the boy, that the family was being divided.”

“Did she explain what she meant?”

“No. I assumed she was talking about the physical separation — not being allowed to touch him without gloves, only one person in the room at a time.”

Delilah nodded in assent.

“Such a cold place,” she said. “Physically and spiritually.” To illustrate she gave a little shudder. Once an actress...

“They didn’t feel the doctors treated them like human beings,” added Baron. “Especially the Cuban.”

“Poor man,” said Delilah. “When he tried to force his way in this morning I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Overweight and flushed red as a tomato — he must have high blood pressure.”

“What were their complaints about him?”

Baron pursed his lips.

“Just that he was impersonal,” he said.

“Did they mention a doctor named Valcroix?”

Delilah shook her head.

Baron spoke again.

“We didn’t talk about much of anything. It was just a brief visit.”

“I couldn’t wait to get out of there,” recalled Delilah. “Everything was so mechanical.”

“We dropped off the fruit, left, and drove back home,” Baron said with finality.

“A sad situation,” she sighed.

A GROUP of Touch people were sitting yoga-style on the grass when I came out, eyes closed, palms pressed together, faces glowing in the sun. Houten leaned against the fountain, smoking, eyes drifting idly in their direction. He saw me coming, dropped the butt, stomped on it, and tossed it in an earthenware trashbasket.

“Learn anything?”

I shook my head.

“Like I told you,” he cocked his head toward the meditators who had now started to hum, “strange but harmless.”

I looked at them. Despite the white costumes, the sandals, and the untrimmed beards, they resembled participants in a corporate seminar, one of those glossy pop-psych affairs promoted by management to increase productivity. The faces gazing heavenward were middle-aged and well-fed, suffused with an executive look that bespoke prior lives of comfort and authority.

Norman Matthews had been described to me as an aggressive and ambitious man. A hustler. As Matthias he’d tried to come across a holy man but there was enough cynicism in me to wonder if he hadn’t simply traded one hustle for another.

The Touch was a gold mine: offer the prosperous simplicity amid lush surroundings, remove the burden of personal responsibility, substitute an ethos that equated health and vitality with righteousness, and pass the collection plate. How could it miss?

But even if the whole thing was a scam it didn’t spell kidnapping and murder. As Seth had pointed out, loss of privacy was the last thing Matthias wanted, be he prophet or con man.

“Let’s take a look around,” said Houten, “and be done with it.”

I was allowed free access to the grounds, permitted to open any door. The sanctuary was domed and majestic, with clerestory windows and biblical murals on the ceiling. The pews had been removed and the floor covered with padded mats. There was a rough pine table in the center of the room and little else. A woman in white dusted and swept, stopping only to smile at us maternally.