Jonathan Kellerman - The Clinic

I turned to leave and noticed something under one of the ashtrays.

Polaroid snapshot. One corner pinned.

Aligned perfectly with the counter edge.

Positioned.

As if for display.

Photo of a woman.

Bare to the waist, arms stretched high above her head, bound at the wrists and tied to a wooden headboard. Her smallish breasts were tugged upward by the pressure, stretching pale skin over a delicate rib cage. Tight deltoids, goosebump skin.

Her face was covered by a black leather hood studded with zippers.

Two open zippers in the nasal region, zippered mouth-slit fastened shut.

The eyeholes open, too.

Two bright, brown discs shone through.

Below them, two erect nipples, pinched by a pair of hands.

Male hands.

Two different men.

The one on the left, striped with hair, connected to a bare arm.

Small anchor tattoo midway up the forearm.

The hand on the right, smooth and hairless, emerging from a ribbed black cuff.

A ring on that one. Silver skull, red glass eyes.

I inched closer to the photo.

And saw Locking.

On the floor behind the bar.

Propped in a corner, legs splayed, arms limp. One hand curled inward, the fingers of the other outstretched.

Blue nails. Blue lips.

The skull ring grinned back at me.

His head had been thrown back so that his neck arched toward the ceiling. Cheekbones in relief, long hair mussed.

A black silk bathrobe did a poor job of covering his thin, white body.

White except for the raspberry lividity splotches where the blood had settled after he'd stopped breathing.

Mouth agape.

In life he'd been smug but he'd left this world looking surprised.

Crusted hole in the center of his high forehead.

Rusty stripes on his face, trailing down to his hairless chest, browning the black silk where they hit the robe.

Blood on the carpet and on the wall behind him.

Blood under the body.

Lots of blood; why hadn't I seen it right away?

His eyes were half-shut, dry, and dull like those of a fish left on the dock. Long lashes mascaraed by gritty blood.

I'd seen plenty of death. The last time, the man I'd killed… self-defense.

I could hear myself breathing.

Suddenly, the room smelled sour.

The position of his head caught my attention. It should have dropped.

But it was tilted upward, leaning against the wall, as if in prayer.

Positioned?

All around him, more Polaroids.

Lots more. Framing the corpse.

The same woman, bound and masked.

Close shots that obsessed on her thighs, her chest, her belly and below.

Full views that exposed her entire body, long and slim and pale, spread-eagled on a white-sheeted bed.

Legs knotted to the footboard, hips thrusting upward as if trying to buck a rider.

Shots of her alone, others with the same two hands.

Pinching, squeezing, kneading, spreading, probing.

Gynecologic close-ups.

And one facial close-up, placed near Locking's right hand.

The hood removed.

Blond hair pinned tightly and pulled away from the face.

Lovely face, cultured.

The open mouth expressing fear or arousal. Or both. The brown eyes wide, bright, focused and distant at the same time.

Even exposed that way, Hope Devane's emotions were hard to read.

My eyes shifted back to Locking's corpse.

Something else on the floor.

A cardboard box. More photos. Hundreds of them.

Neat lettering on the side in black marker.

SELF-CONTROL STUDY, BATCH 4, PRELIM.

When Locking had carried the carton from Seacrest's house he hadn't even bothered to close it. Hiding the pictures under a top layer of computer printout.

Big joke on the cops.

And Seacrest had been in on it. He had warned Locking.

The tattooed arm. Co-players.

A buzzing sound made me jump.

A shiny green fly had entered through the open door. It circled the room, alighted on the bar, took off again, inspected an ashtray, sped toward me. I swatted it away and it veered off, studied itself in a Beck's mirror, flew back. Hovering above Locking's body, it dove and landed on a patch of abdomen.

Pausing, then climbing up to the lifeless face.

To a bloody spot.

It stayed there. Rubbed its forelegs together.

I went to look for a phone.

“It is not,” Philip Seacrest repeated, “a crime.”

He might have been lecturing to students, but Milo was no sophomore.

A West L.A. interrogation room. A video camera hummed on auto but Milo's pen kept busy. I was alone in the observation cubicle, with cold coffee and frozen images.

“No, it's not, Professor.”

“I don't expect you to understand but I believe people's personal lives are just that.”

Milo stopped writing.

“When did it begin, Professor?”

“I don't know.”

“No?”

“It was not my idea… never my propensity.”

“Whose propensity was it?”

“ Hope's. Casey's. I was never sure which of them actually initiated it.”

“When did you get involved?” said Milo, picking up one of the Polaroids on the table and flicking a corner with his index finger.

Seacrest turned away. Moments ago, his gray herringbone jacket had been off and the sleeve of his white shirt had been rolled up, revealing the anchor tattoo. Now he was fully dressed, the jacket buttoned.

He began picking at his untidy beard. His first reaction upon seeing the snapshots had been shock. Then wet-eyed resignation followed by hardened resolve. He hadn't been arrested, though Milo had offered him an attorney during questioning. Seacrest had turned him down curtly, as if insulted by the suggestion. As the interview ground on, he'd managed to build upon the indignation.

“When did you get involved, Professor?”

“Later.”

“How much later?”

“How could I possibly know that, Mr. Sturgis? As I told you, I have no idea when they began.”

“When did you get involved in absolute terms?”

“A year, year and a half ago.”

“And Locking was your wife's student for over three years.”

“That sounds right.”

“So it may have been going on for two years before you started.”

“It,” said Seacrest, smiling sourly. “Yes, it might have.”

“So what happened?” said Milo. “The two of them just walked in one day and announced hey, guess what, we've gotten into some B-and-D games, care to join?”

Seacrest flushed but he kept his voice even. “You wouldn't understand.”

“Try me.”

Seacrest shook his head and flexed his neck from side to side. The smile hadn't totally faded.

“Something amusing, Professor?”

“Being brought here is perverse. My wife's been murdered and you concern yourself with this kind of thing.”

Milo leaned forward suddenly, staring into Seacrest's eyes. Seacrest startled but composed himself and stared back. “Perverse, trivial, and irrelevant.”

“Humor me, Professor. How did you get involved?”

“I- you're right about it being a game. That's exactly what it was. Just a game. I don't expect you to be tolerant of… divergence, but that's all it was.”

Milo smiled. “Divergence?”

Seacrest ignored him.

“So they asked you to diverge with them.”

“No. They- I happened upon them. One afternoon when I was supposed to be lecturing. I felt a touch of something coming on, canceled class, came home.”

“And found the two of them?”

“Yes, Mr. Sturgis.”

“Where?”

“In our bed.” Seacrest smiled. “The marital bed.”

“Must have been a big shock.”

“To say the least.”