Jonathan Kellerman - The Clinic

“No,” I said. “There are no suspects at all. Is there something I should know about him?”

“He's been good to the center,” she said, but her tone was flat.

“And he brought her to the fund-raiser.”

“Are you asking if they had something going?” she said.

“Did they?”

“I wouldn't know. And what's the difference? Hope was murdered because of her views, wasn't she?”

“Is that the assumption at the center?”

“That's my assumption. Why else? She spoke out and was silenced.”

She stared at me.

“You really do suspect Mike, don't you?”

“No,” I said. “But anyone with a relationship to Hope is being checked out.”

“Checked out. Sounds like CIA stuff.”

“Basic police stuff. I understand about Cruvic's value to the center, but if there's something I should know…”

She shook her head. “Their relationship… I feel like such a traitor… but what happened to her…” She closed her eyes, took several shallow breaths, as if practicing yoga. Opened them and let her fingers graze the muffin, then picked up her hat and traced the edge of the brim.

“I'm telling you this because it feels like the right thing to do. But it also feels wrong.”

I nodded.

She breathed a few more times. “One time, after the board meeting, I saw them. It was late at night, I was measuring rooms for furniture, thought everyone else had gone home. But when I walked out to the parking lot, Mike's car was still there, way at the far end. It's easy to spot- he drives a Bentley. He and Hope were standing next to it, talking. Her car was next to his- a little red thing. They weren't doing anything physical but they were standing close to each other. Very close. Facing each other. As if ready to kiss or they'd already kissed. They heard me and they both turned very quickly. Then she hurried to her car and drove away. Mike stayed there for a second, one leg bent. Almost as if he wanted me to see he was relaxed. Then he waved and got into the Bentley.”

She winced. “Not worth much, is it? And please, if you question Mike, or anyone else, don't mention my name. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “After Hope stopped coming round, was there resentment of Mike because he sponsored her?”

“If there was I didn't hear it. As I said, Mike's our most reliable volunteer M.D.”

“How often does he see patients there?”

“I don't get involved in scheduling but I do know he's been coming for years.”

“Doing obstetrics-gynecology?”

She tensed. “I assume.”

“Abortions?”

“I said I don't know.” Her voice had risen. “And if he does them, so what?”

“Because abortion sometimes inspires violence.”

“But Mike wasn't murdered, Hope was. I really don't want to get into any more of this.” She stood. “I really don't.”

“Fair enough. Sorry to upset you.”

“It's all right,” she said. “But please. I beg you. Don't draw us into the abortion thing. We've avoided problems, so far, but all we need is for this to hit the press.”

“Promise,” I said.

She laughed. “Boy, you really got me into a fix. When you called I thought you wanted to volunteer so I spoke to the director on your behalf, set up an appointment for you in a half hour. Now I've got to call and tell her.”

“I'd still like to talk to her.”

“And I can't stop you, can I?”

“I'm not the enemy, Holly.”

She looked down on me. “Hold on.”

She walked to the back of the restaurant, veered right, and disappeared. Jake finished with the beans and concentrated on glaring at me, til Holly came back.

“She's not happy, but she'll see you very briefly. Marge Showalsky. But don't expect to learn much about Hope.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And sorry.”

“Forget it,” she said. “I'm sure you're not the enemy. Robin's too smart for that.”

The stretch of Olympic that housed the Women's Health Center was one of those clumsy L.A. mixes: factories, junkyards, storage barns, a trendy prep school pretending it was somewhere else by erecting a border of potted ficus.

The clinic was a single story of charmless brown brick next to a parking lot rimmed with iron posts and heavy chains. The front door was locked. I rang the bell and gave my name. A moment later I was clicked in.

Three women sat in the waiting room and none of them looked up. At the rear were swinging wooden doors with small windows. The walls were covered with posters on AIDS awareness, breast examination, nutrition, support groups for trauma. A TV in the corner was tuned to the Discovery Channel. Animals chasing each other.

One door opened and a heavy, bespectacled woman around sixty held it ajar and stuck her head out. She had short, gray, curly hair and a round, pink face that wasn't jolly. Her eyeglasses were steel-rimmed and square. She wore a dark green sweater, blue jeans, and sneakers.

“Dr. Delaware? I'm Marge,” she boomed. “I'm tied up, gimme a minute.”

As the door closed, the women in the waiting room looked up.

Closest to me was a black girl around eighteen, with huge, wounded eyes, meticulous cornrows, and tightly clenched lips. She wore the uniform of a fast-food outlet and clutched a Danielle Steel paperback in both hands. Across from her were what looked to be a mother and daughter: both blond, daughter fifteen or sixteen, Mom an old forty, with black roots, pouchy eyes, sunken body and spirit.

Maybe Daughter had something to do with that. She looked me straight in the eye and winked, then licked her lips.

She had an unusually narrow face, off-center nose, low-set ears, and a slightly webbed neck. Her hair color looked natural except for the hot-pink highlights at the tips. She wore it long and teased huge and flipped back. Her Daisy Duke cutoffs barely covered her skinny haunches, and a black halter top exposed spaghetti arms, a flat, white midriff, and minimal shoulders. Three earrings in one ear, four in the other. An iron nose ring, the skin around the puncture still inflamed. High black boots reached midway up her calves. Black hoop earrings were the size of drink coasters.

She winked again. Gleefully furtive crossing of legs. Her mother saw it and rattled her magazine. The girl gave a wide, naughty smile. Her teeth were blunt pegs. One hand finger-waved. Foreshortened thumbs.

It added up to some kind of genetic misalignment. Maybe nothing with an official name. What used to be called syndromy back in my intern days.

Her legs shifted again. A hard nudge from her mother made her sit still and pout and look down at the floor.

The black girl had watched the whole thing. Now she returned to her book, one hand rubbing her abdomen, as if it ached.

The door opened again. Marge Showalsky motioned me in and led me down a hall of examining rooms.

“Lucky for you it's a quiet day.”

Her office was large but dim with moisture stains on the ceiling. Random furnishings and bookshelves that didn't look earthquake-safe. Half-open blinds gave a striped view of the asphalt lot.

She settled behind a desk not much wider than her shoulders. Two folding chairs. I took one.

“Used to be an electronics factory. Transistors or something. Thought we'd never get rid of the metal smell.”

Two posters hung on the wall behind her: Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas at a cafe table, under the legend GIRLTALK. A Georgia O'Keeffe skull-in-the-desert print.

“So you work for the police. Doing what?”

I told her, keeping it general.

She righted her glasses and gave a bearish grin. “You give good bullshit. Best I've had this week. Well, I can't tell you much either. The women who come here have very little left except their privacy.”