Jonathan Kellerman - The Clinic

“But what connection would Seacrest have to Mandy Wright?”

He paced some more. “It's not just flashy guys who fool with girlies. A quiet middle-aged professor might want a hot little playmate, too. And a quiet middle-aged professor would have reason to pay cash to the playmate. And if the playmate realized how vulnerable the professor was and decided to blackmail him, the professor could decide to end his problems: heart, vagina, back. And after succeeding at that, why not go after the wife who's become such a pain in the ass?”

“Creative,” I said.

“You're a good influence.”

“Okay, as long as we're screenwriting, how about this: a threesome. Cruvic, Hope, and Mandy. Or Seacrest, Hope, and Mandy. Or even an unknown guy. Flying down a call girl to spice up a tired relationship. Then, for whatever reason, the guy decides to call it quits. Permanently. Gets rid of Mandy first because murdering a call girl three hundred miles away won't attract attention in L.A. But Hope's a different story. She's prominent, local, smarter. So he waits, planning, waiting for the right time. Then Hope helps him by getting notorious with her book. Which sets up a perfect cover: some nut acting out because of the controversy she generated.”

He thought about that. “But if Mandy and Hope knew each other, wouldn't Mandy's murder have alerted Hope?”

“If they'd parted ways, how would she know Mandy'd been killed? Did Mandy's murder get any media coverage?”

He shook his head. “Just one small blurb in the Sun the same day. Still, if Hope had been engaged in a three-way with Mandy, wouldn't she be likely to find out?”

“Okay,” I said. “Let's say she knew Mandy'd been murdered but didn't connect it to herself. Like you said, prostitutes get killed all the time.”

He drank, looked out the kitchen window. The sun was small and pale, silvering the tops of the pines, turning them as shiny as Mandy Wright's dress.

“Great screenplays,” he finally said. “It would sure be nice to have some facts.”

“At least,” I said, “I can look into Cruvic's credentials, see if anything funny shows up.”

“Do that. My next stop's a chat with Kenny Storm. I want to clear the whole committee angle. I'll also check with Vegas to see if Mandy had health insurance, maybe her sterilization was documented and we can find out who did it. The boyfriend, Barnaby, might know about that, so we'll put out the word for him, too. Anything else occur while I was gone?”

“I found Reed Muscadine. Like Kenny, he dropped out of school, but for another reason. He was up for a soap-opera part, thought he had it, but it fell through. He denied raping Tessa Bowlby, repeated the same story he told at the hearing.”

“Credible?”

“No alarm bells went off, but he's an actor. Take it for what it's worth.”

“What do you think it's worth?”

“I don't know. Tessa looked extremely traumatized. I'd like to know what's eating at her. Maybe I'll give her another try.”

“What's Muscadine like physically?”

“Very big and muscular, good-looking, body-conscious. His place is basically a gym.”

“The kind of guy who could overpower a woman and hold her still in order to stab her in the heart.”

“Easily. He could have subdued her with two fingers. But he seemed pretty calm about being questioned, so either he's innocent or he's honed his craft and was prepared for me. His landlady likes him, says he never causes problems. He claims he's HIV-negative and if he's lying, he's not showing the effects yet. Tessa, on the other hand, looks worn-out. But now that we know about Mandy, what connection could there be to the committee?”

“Good question, but I want to finish with it, seen too many screwups that seemed perfectly logical at the time. Only one student left, right?”

“Deborah Brittain. I'll try to get to her tomorrow.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate this, Alex.”

He put the file back in the briefcase. “Thanks for the theorizing, too. I mean it. I'd rather have theories than nothing.”

I walked him to the door. “Where to now?”

“Home for a shower and then talking to fellow gendarmes. Maybe I can turn up some other pretty ladies triple-stabbed under big trees, and retreat to the comfort of utter powerlessness.”

Cruvic's lie about not knowing Hope before the fund-raiser stuck in my head and at 7:00 P.M., with Robin working in her shop, I took a drive over to Civic Center.

Hoping for what? A glimpse of his Bentley as he left the office? Some pretty face in the passenger window?

Futile. The pink building's windowless facade gave no indication if anyone was in.

Not exactly welcoming architecture. The same question: Why set up practice here, away from all the other Beverly Hills medicos?

Privacy alone didn't answer it. Psychiatrists and psychologists managed to provide confidentiality in conventional office buildings.

Something to hide?

Beverly Hills streets are accompanied by parallel back alleys- part of a city plan that intended to keep garbage collection and deliveries out of sight. Hanging a U-turn, I drove back to the nearest intersection- Foothill Drive- where I turned right and into the asphalt strip running behind the buildings. Rear facades, loading docks, dumpsters. Finally, a high pink wall.

Three parking spots, all of them empty. The building's back entrance was an old-fashioned wooden garage door, dark and crisscrossed by beams. Heavy hasp secured by a large padlock. More like storage space than a doctor's private entry.

No cars said this doctor had left for the day. Maybe for his nighttime gig at the clinic?

I reversed direction again, taking little Santa Monica to Century City, then Avenue of the Stars south to Olympic Boulevard West. Another twenty minutes and I was in Santa Monica, and by that time the sky was black.

A few lights on at the Women's Health Center, a dozen or so cars parked in the sunken lot. Mostly compacts, with the exception of a gleaming silver Bentley Turbo pulled up close to the clinic's main door.

The chain across the driveway was fastened and locked and a uniformed guard patrolled slowly. Even in the dim light I made out the holster on his hip. When he saw me, he picked up his pace. I sped away before we could read each other's faces.

Tying up loose ends.

The next morning I called the Psychology office and got Mary Ann Gonsalvez's number. The time difference made it 5:00 P.M. in London. No answer, no machine.

I made coffee and toast and ate without tasting, thinking of the crowd at the women's clinic last night.

The armed guard, the chain blocking the parking lot.

Dr. Cruvic operating.

On patients like Chenise Farney?

Fifteen cars. Even allowing for staff, probably ten or more procedures. And for all I knew he'd been going for hours, bringing them in in shifts.

Idealism, or profit motive?

The profit could be high if he was using the clinic's facilities at no cost, and billing the state. The clinic happy to have someone volunteer services to its poor clientele.

Poor women meant Medi-Cal. Abortion funding was always subject to political fluctuations and I had no idea if Medi-Cal paid.

I made a call to the L.A. Medi-Cal office, was referred to an 800 number in Sacramento, put on hold for ten minutes, and cut off. Trying again, I endured another hold, got through, and was transferred to another 800 number, more holds, two shell-shocked-sounding clerks, and finally someone coherent who admitted that Medi-Cal did indeed reimburse for both terminations and tubal ligations, but that I would need procedure codes, too, in order to obtain specific reimbursement allowances.