Jonathan Kellerman - The Clinic

“The only person I'm interested in is Hope Devane.”

She smiled again. “You think I don't know who you are. You're the shrink who works with Sturgis. Anyway, in answer to your anticipated questions: Yes, we do terminations when we can find a doctor to perform them. No, I won't tell you which doctors do them. And, finally, Hope Devane wasn't involved with us much, so I'm sure her murder had nothing to do with us.”

“Not involved much,” I said. “As opposed to Dr. Cruvic.”

Her laugh could have corroded metal. She opened a drawer, pulled out a rough-textured briar pipe, rubbed the mouthpiece. “Mike Cruvic is an M.D. with excellent credentials willing to make a regular commitment to women in need. Want to guess how many other Hippocratic types are standing in line to do that? This place is run from month to month. Mostly it's nurses on their off-hours. A machine answers our phone and we try to listen for emergencies. Maybe next month we'll get voice mail: “If you are dying, press one.' ”

She put the pipe in her mouth, bit down so hard the bowl tilted upward.

“Money crunch,” I said.

“Strangulation time.” She raised a fist. “Few years ago we had government grants, staff on payroll, a damn good immunization-and-screening program. Then the government started discussing health-care reform, morons came out from Washington asking us about accountability, and things got weird.”

Yanking out the pipe, she pointed it like a periscope. “So, what's it like working with Milo Sturgis? Only reason I agreed to meet with you was to ask.”

“You know him?”

“By reputation. You, too- the straight shrink who hangs around with him. He's legendary.”

“In the gay community?”

“No, at the L.A. Country Club. What do you think?” Her eyes twinkled. “You know, some people think you're in the closet. That if you were really a good shrink you'd realize you're in love with him.”

I smiled.

“Hey, we got Mona Lisa.” She smiled back around the pipestem, looking, oddly enough, like Teddy Roosevelt. “So tell me, how come he never gets involved?”

“In what?”

“Sexual politics. Putting his image to constructive use.”

“You'd have to ask him that.”

“Ho, ho, I've touched a nerve- well, he should. Gay cop, breaking down barriers, the way he went up against the department, what was it, five years ago? Broke that lieutenant's jaw because he called him a fag.” She put the pipe back in, chewed with satisfaction. “At certain bars people still talk about that.”

“Interesting twist,” I said.

“You know different?”

“He broke the lieutenant's jaw because the lieutenant endangered his life.”

“Well,” she said, “I guess that's a reason, too- so why no social conscience? He never answers calls from fund-raisers or march organizers, never joins anything. Same with that doctor boyfriend. Studs like that, they could do some good.”

“Maybe he feels he already is.”

She looked me up and down. “Are you bisexual?”

“No.”

“So what's the connection?”

“We're friends.”

“ Just friends, huh?” She laughed.

“Like Hope and Cruvic?”

Her laughter died.

“I understand your wanting privacy,” I said. “But in a case like this everything gets examined.”

“Then get a court order- look, what if they were doing each other three times a day on top of his desk? And I'm not saying they were. Who gives a shit? Mike didn't kill her, who cares who screws who? She got killed because she got famous and pissed off some pig to the extreme.”

“Any idea who the pig could be?”

“Too many out there to count. I shall reiterate: She was minimally involved here. I'm sorry when any woman's killed but there's nothing I can tell you about this woman.”

Rising with effort, she made her way around the desk to the door.

“Say hi to Mr. Legend. Tell him no matter what he does for his bosses, he'll never be anything to them but a queer.”

Back in the waiting room, neither girl was there, only the little blond's mother. She looked up from her reading as I passed. The magazine was Prevention.

I was back at my Seville when I saw her running toward me in a pinched trot. Short and slight, she had a high waist and a hunched upper body. Her lower lip was thin, its mate nonexistent. She wore baby-blue jeans, a white blouse, flesh-colored sneakers.

“The nurse told me you're a psychiatrist?”

“Psychologist.”

“I was just wondering…”

I smiled. “Yes?”

She came closer, but carefully, the way you approach a strange dog.

“I'm Dr. Delaware,” I said, extending a hand.

She looked back at the clinic. A roar sounded overhead and she jumped. A Cessna flying low, probably a takeoff from the private airport in Santa Monica. She watched it head out over the ocean. When the noise faded, she said, “I was just- are you by any chance gonna be working here?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Dejection. “Okay, sorry to bother you.”

She turned to go.

“Is there some way I can help you?” I said.

She stopped. One hand began twisting the other. “No, forget it, sorry.”

“Are you sure?” I said, touching her shoulder very lightly. “Is something the matter?”

“I just thought maybe they were finally gonna get a psychologist here.”

“For your daughter?”

Her hands kept working.

“Teenage problems?” I said.

She nodded. “Her name's Chenise,” she said, tentatively, as if prepared to spell it for some bureaucrat. “She's sixteen.”

She patted her breast pocket. “Quit smoking, keep forgetting- yeah, teenage problems. She drives me crazy. Always has. I- she's- I been all over with her- a million clinics, all the way to the County Hospital. They always gimme some student and they can't never handle her. Last time, she ended up in the guy's lap and he didn't know what to do. The schools won't do nothing. She's been on all kinds of medication since she's little, now it's gotten… Dr. Cruvic- he's the doctor here who operated on her- said she should see a psychologist and he brought one over. A lady. Real good, she had Chenise's number right away. Smart. So of course Chenise didn't like talking to her. But I made her go. Then…”- lowering her voice-“something happened to her- to the psychologist.” Shaking her head. “You don't want to know… Anyway, better be getting back, she's probably almost through with her checkup.”

“The psychologist Dr. Cruvic had her see, was that Dr. Devane?”

“Yes,” she said, breathlessly. “So you know what happened?”

“As a matter of fact, that's why I'm here, Mrs.-”

“Farney, Mary Farney.” Her eyes opened wide. Same blue as her daughter's. Pretty. Once she might have been, too. Now she had the trampled look of someone forced to remember every mistake.

“I don't understand,” she said.

“I'm a psychologist and I sometimes work with the police, Mrs. Farney. Right now I'm working on Dr. Devane's murder. Did you-”

Terror in the blue eyes. “They think it had something to do with this place?”

“No, we're just talking to everyone who knew Dr. Devane.”

“Well, we didn't really know her. Like I said, she only saw Chenise a few times. I liked her, she took the time to listen to me, understood Chenise's games… but that's it. I gotta get back.”

“What about Dr. Cruvic?”

“What about him?”

“Did he understand Chenise?”

“Sure, he's great. Haven't seen him since- in a while.”

“Since the operation.”

“No reason to, she's fine.”

“Who's checking Chenise out today?”