Jonathan Kellerman - Blood Test

The sleeping rooms were indeed cells — no larger than the one in which Raoul was confined — low-ceilinged, thick-walled, and cool, with a single window the size of a hardbound book and grilled with wood. Each room was furnished with a cot and a chest of drawers. Matthias’s differed only in that it had a small bookcase. His literary taste was eclectic — the Bible, the Koran, Perls, Jung, Cousins’s Anatomy of An Illness , Toffler’s Future Shock , the Bhagavad-Gita, several texts on organic gardening and ecology.

I took a tour of the kitchen, where cauldrons of broth simmered on industrial stoves and bread baked sweetly in brick ovens. There was a member’s library, its stock leaning toward health and agriculture, and a conference room with textured adobe walls. And everywhere people in white working, smiling, bright-eyed and friendly.

Houten and I traipsed through the fields, watching Touch members tend the grapes. A black-bearded giant put down his shears and offered us a freshly picked cluster. The fruit was moist to the touch and it burst electrically upon my tongue. I complimented the man on the flavor. He nodded and returned to his work.

It was well into the afternoon but the sun continued to rage. My unprotected head began to ache and after cursorily inspecting the sheepyard and the vegetable plots I told Houten I’d had enough.

We turned and walked back toward the viaduct. I wondered what I’d accomplished, for the search had been symbolic, at best. There wasn’t any reason to believe the Swope children were there. And if they were, there’d be no way to find them. The Retreat was surrounded by hundreds of acres, much of it forest. Nothing short of a bloodhound pack could cover it all. Besides, monasteries are secret places, designed for refuge, and the compound might very well harbor a maze of underground caverns, secret compartments, and hidden passages that only an archaeologist could unravel.

It had been a futile day, I thought, but if it helped Raoul confront reality it was worth it. Then I realized what reality meant and craved the balm of denial.

Houten had Bragdon bring Raoul’s personal effects in a large manila envelope. In the end he’d agreed to accept the oncologist’s check for six hundred eighty-seven dollars worth of fines and while he recorded the amount in triplicate, I walked around the room restlessly, eager to get going.

The county map caught my eye. I located La Vista and noticed a back road to the east that seemed to skirt the town, allowing entry to the region from the outlying woodlands without actually passing through the commercial district. If that was the case, avoiding Houten’s scrutiny was easier than he’d let on.

After some hesitation I asked him about it. He fiddled with a piece of carbon paper and continued writing.

“Oil company bought up the land, got the county to seal off the road. There was big talk of deep deposits, prosperity just around the corner.”

“Did they strike it rich?”

“Nope. Bone dry.”

The deputy brought Raoul out. I told him about my visit to the Retreat and the negative findings. He took it in, looking downcast and beaten, and offered no protest.

The sheriff, pleased with his passivity, treated him with exquisite courtesy while he signed him out. He asked Raoul what he wanted to do about his Volvo, and the oncologist shrugged and said to have it fixed, he’d pay for it.

I led him out of the room and down the stairs.

He was silent throughout the ride home, not even losing his cool when a chubby female border guard pulled us over and asked for his identification. He accepted the indignity with a mute acquiescence that I found pitiful. Two hours ago he’d been aggressive and poised for battle. I wondered if he’d been laid low by the accumulated stress or if cyclical mood swings were a part of his makeup I’d never noticed.

I was famished but he looked too grungy to take to a restaurant so I bought a couple of burgers and Cokes at a stand in Santa Ana and pulled to the side of the road near a small municipal park. I gave Raoul his food and ate mine while watching a group of teenagers play softball, racing to finish before nightfall. When I turned to look at him, he was asleep, the food still wrapped and lying in his lap. I took it, stowed it in a trashcan and started up the Seville. He stirred but didn’t awaken and by the time I got back on the freeway he was snoring peacefully.

We reached L.A. by seven, just as traffic on the downtown interchange was untangling. When I turned off at the Los Feliz exit he opened his eyes.

“What’s your address?”

“No, take me back to the hospital.”

“You’re in no shape to go back there.”

“I must. Helen will be waiting.”

“You’ll only scare her looking like that. At least go home and freshen up first.”

“I have a change of clothes in my office. Please, Alex.”

I threw up my hands and drove to Western Peds. After parking in the doctors’ lot I walked him to the front door of Prinzley.

“Thank you,” he said, looking at his feet.

“Take care of yourself.”

On the way back to the car I met Beverly Lucas leaving the wards. She looked tired and worn, the oversized purse seeming to weigh her down.

“Alex, I’m so glad to see you.”

“What’s the matter?”

She looked around to make sure no one was listening.

“It’s Augie. He’s been making my life miserable ever since your friend interrogated him, calling me unfaithful, a quisling. He even tried to embarrass me on rounds but the attending doc stopped it.”

“Bastard.”

She shook her head.

“What makes it hard is that I see his point. We were — close, once. What he did in bed was nobody’s business.”

I took her by the shoulders.

“What you did was right. If you got enough distance to see straight that would be obvious. Don’t let him get to you.”

She flinched at the harshness in my voice.

“I know you’re right. Intellectually. But he’s falling apart and it hurts me. I can’t help my feelings.”

She started to cry. A trio of nurses walked our way. I steered her off the walkway and into the stairwell to the doctors’ level.

“What do you mean falling apart?”

“Acting strange. Doping and drinking more heavily than usual. He’s bound to get caught. This morning he pulled me off the ward and into a conference room, locked the door, and came on to me.”

She lowered her eyes in embarrassment.

“He told me I was the best he’d ever had, actually tried to get physical. When I stopped him he looked crushed. Then he started to rant about Melendez-Lynch — how he’d scapegoated him and was going to try to use the Swope case to terminate the fellowship. He started to laugh — it was a freaky laugh, Alex, full of anger. He said he had an ace up his sleeve. That Melendez-Lynch would never get rid of him.”

“Did he say what that was?”

“I asked him. He just laughed again and walked out. Alex, I’m worried. I was just on my way to the residents’ dorm. To make sure he was okay.”

I tried to talk her out of it but she was resolute. She had an infinite capacity for guilt. Someday she’d make someone a wonderful doormat.

It was clear she wanted me to accompany her to his apartment, and tired as I was, I agreed to go with her, in case things got hairy. And on the off-chance Valcroix really had an ace and might show it.

The residents’ dorm across the boulevard from the hospital was a utilitarian affair, three stories of unfinished concrete over a subterranean parking lot. Some of the windows had been brightened up with plants and flower arrangements resting on sills or hanging from macrame harnesses. But that didn’t stop it from looking like what it was: low-cost housing.