Jonathan Kellerman - The Clinic

He thought about that. “I think I'll get a burger, okay?”

“Sure.”

Leaving his books behind, he went to one of the snack bars and came back with a waxed-paper wad, a box of crinkled fries buried under a blob of ketchup, and a large orange soda.

“I have an uncle who's a psychologist,” he said, settling. “Robert Chan? Works for the prison system?”

“Don't know him,” I said.

“My dad's a lawyer.” He unwrapped the wad. The paper was translucent with grease, and cheese dripped over the sides of the hamburger. Biting down hard, he chewed fast and swallowed. “My dad was mega-pissed about the committee. That I didn't tell him about it. At the time I thought it was a bad joke, why get into it? But after I heard about Professor Devane I said uh- oh, I'm screwed.” He rolled his eyes.

“Trouble with your father.”

“He's traditional- big shame on the family and all that.” He took a huge bite out of the burger, and ate stoically while gazing across the quad.

“Not that I did anything wrong. Everything I said at the hearing was true. That girl's a stone racist. I never hassled her, she used me. But Dad…”

He whistled and shook his head. “After he chewed me out and reduced my credit-card limit for six months, he said I should expect trouble because the police were bound to look into Professor Devane's background. When it didn't happen, I thought, whew, lucky break.”

Looking around some more, he dragged his eyes back to me. “Wrong again. Anyway, I've got no real problem because on the night she was killed I was at a big family get-together. Grandparents' fiftieth anniversary. We all went out to Lawry's, on La Cienega. Prime rib and all the trimmings. I was there the whole time, from eight to after eleven-thirty, sitting right next to Dad, Numbah One Son, along with about a hundred relatives. I've even got documented proof: My cousin took pictures. Lots of pictures, big surprise, huh?”

He shot me an angry smile, placed his front teeth over his lower lip, and wiggled an index finger. “Ah so. Say cheese with wontons, crick crick. ”

I didn't respond.

“Want some?” he said, pointing to the fries.

“No thanks.”

He put his mouth to the straw and filled it with orange soda. “You want the pictures, I'll have my dad send them. He actually put them in his office vault.” He laughed. “Now can I go?”

“Any thoughts about Professor Devane?”

“Nope.”

“What about the committee?”

“I told you, big joke.”

“How so?”

“Hauling people in like some kind of kangaroo court. One person's word against the other's. I don't know how many other guys got hassled, but if their cases were as stupid as mine, you've got plenty of pissed-off people. Maybe one of them offed Professor Devane.”

“But you have an alibi.”

He lowered the drink to the bench. It hit hard and some soda splashed onto the stone. “Thank God I do. Because for weeks after the hearing I was pissed at her. But you know us good little Chinese boys- play with computers, never get violent.”

I said nothing.

“Anyway, I'm over the whole thing and to prove it, I see that girl on campus all the time, just walk by, shine her on. And that's the way I eventually felt about Professor Devane. Forget about her, get on with things.”

“So you felt victimized,” I said.

“Yeah, but it was partly my own fault. I should have checked with Dad first before showing up. He told me she had no right to do that to me.”

“Why'd you go?”

“A letter comes to you on official University stationery, what would you do? How many other guys were involved?”

“Sorry,” I said, “I'm not talking to them about you, either.”

He blinked. “Yeah, okay, better to forget the whole thing.”

He picked up the books and stood. “That's all I've got to say. I'm probably in trouble already for talking to you without checking with Dad. You want the photos, contact him. Allan D. Huang. Curtis, Ballou, Semple, and Huang.” He shot off a downtown address on Seventh Street and a phone number and I copied them down.

“Anything else you want to tell me, Patrick?”

“About the committee?”

“The committee, Professor Devane, Deborah Brittain, anything.”

“What's to tell? Devane was hard as nails. Good at twisting words. And her agenda was clear: All men are scum.”

“What about the other judges?”

“Mostly they just sat there like dummies. It was her show- and that's what it was, a show. Like one of those improv things where they call you up from the audience and make a fool out of you. Only this was real.”

His free hand balled. “She actually asked me if I'd gone to college for the purpose of finding women to harass. All because I helped that girl. Sucks, huh? Well, bye, time to hitch up the ricksha.”

Deborah Brittain's math class was long over and her schedule said she had nothing more today. She lived off-campus, in Sherman Oaks, so I hiked to North Campus to find Reed Muscadine.

MacManus Hall was an unobtrusive pink building with auditoriums on the ground floor. Performance Seminar 201B, now two-thirds over, was held in the Wiley Theater at the back. The blond maple double doors were unlocked and I slipped through. Lights off, maybe fifty rows of padded seats facing a blue-lit stage.

As my eyes adjusted, I made out a dozen or so people, scattered around the room. No one turned as I walked toward the front.

Up on the stage were two people, sitting on hard wooden chairs, hands on knees, staring into each other's eyes.

I took an aisle seat in the third row and watched. The couple onstage didn't budge, the sparse audience remained inert, and the theater was silent.

Two more minutes of nothing.

Five minutes, six… group hypnosis?

Tough job market for actors so maybe the U was training them to be department-store mannequins.

Five more minutes passed before a man in the front row stood up and snapped his fingers. Pudgy and bald, tiny eyeglasses, black turtleneck, baggy green cords.

The couple got up and walked offstage in opposite directions. Another pair came on. Women. They sat.

Assumed the position.

More nothing.

My eyes were accustomed to the darkness and I scanned the audience, trying to guess which young man was Muscadine. Hopeless. I looked at my watch. Over an hour to go and spending it in Static Heaven was threatening to put me to sleep.

I walked quietly to the front row and sat down next to the bald finger-snapper.

He gave me a sidelong look, then ignored me. Up close I saw a little patch of hair under his lower lip. What jazz musicians used to call a honey mop.

Taking out my LAPD badge, I flexed it so the plastic coating caught stage light.

He turned again.

“I'm looking for Reed Muscadine,” I whispered.

He returned his eyes to the stage, where the two women continued to simulate paralysis.

I put the badge away and crossed my legs.

The bald man turned to me again, glaring.

I smiled.

He hooked a thumb toward the rear of the theater and got up.

But instead of walking, he stood there, hands on hips, staring down at me.

A few eyes from the audience drifted toward me, too. The turtlenecked man snapped his fingers and they sat straighter.

He hooked his thumb, again.

I got up and left. To my surprise he followed me, catching up out in the hall.

“I'm Professor Dirkhoff. What the hell's going on?” His chin hairs were ginger, striped with white, as were the few left on his head. He scowled and the honey mop tilted forward like a collection of tiny bayonets.

“I'm looking for-”

“I heard what you said. Why?”