Jonathan Kellerman - The Clinic

“What'd you do?”

Seacrest waited a long time to answer. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“That's right, Mr. Sturgis. Nothing.”

“You didn't get angry?”

“You didn't ask me how I felt, you asked what I did. And the answer is nothing. I turned around and walked out.”

“How'd you feel?”

Another delay. “I really can't say. It wasn't anger. Anger would have been futile.”

“Why?”

“Hope didn't take well to anger.”

“What do you mean?”

“She had no tolerance for it. Had I displayed anger, things would have gotten… confrontational.”

“Married people fight, Professor. Seems to me you had a damned good reason.”

“How understanding of you, Mr. Sturgis. However, Hope and I never fought. It didn't suit either of us.”

“So what did you mean by confrontational?”

“A war. Of silence. Interminable, frigid, seemingly infinite stretches of silence. Psychological exile. Even when Hope claimed to forgive, she never forgot. I knew her emotional repertoire the way a conductor knows a score. So when I saw the two of them, I maintained my dignity and simply walked away.”

“And then what?”

“And then…” Seacrest pulled at his beard again, “someone closed the door and I assume they… finished. I'm sure you find my reaction contemptible. Cowardly. Wimpish. No doubt you think you would have reacted differently. No doubt you'll be going home tonight to a dutiful wife and dutiful children- probably somewhere in the Valley. A charmingly conventional 818 lifestyle.”

Milo sat back and pressed a thick finger over his lips.

Looking suddenly tired, Seacrest covered his eyes with both hands, pulled down at the lids, let the hands trail down his cheeks and fall in his lap.

“It was go along, Mr. Sturgis, or…”

“Or what?”

“Or lose her. Now I've lost her anyway.”

He slumped. Began to weep.

Milo waited a long time before saying, “Can I get you something to drink, Professor?”

Headshake. Seacrest looked up. Then at the Polaroids. “May we end this? Have you heard enough about the sick divergent world of intellectuals?”

“Just a few more questions, please.”

Seacrest sighed.

Milo said, “When you found your wife and Locking you didn't figure you'd already lost her?”

“Of course not. It wasn't as if it were the…”

“The first time?”

Seacrest's mouth shut tight.

“Professor?”

“This is exactly what I was afraid of- Hope's reputation filthied. I refuse to be part of that.”

“Part of what?”

“Dredging up her past.”

“What if her past led to her murder?”

“Do you know that?”

“Now that Locking's dead, what do you think?”

No answer.

“How many other men did she play games with, Professor Seacrest?”

“I don't know.”

“But you do know there were others.”

“I don't know for a fact, but she had owned the… apparatus for some time.”

“By “apparatus' you mean the hood and the bindings and those rubber and leather garments in her size that we found at Locking's house.”

Seacrest gave a dispirited nod.

“Anything else other than those items?”

“I'm not aware of any.”

“No whips?”

Seacrest snorted. “She wasn't interested in pain. Only…”

“Only what?”

“Restraint.”

“Self-control?”

Seacrest didn't answer.

Milo wrote something down. “So she'd had the apparatus for some time. How long?”

“Five or six years.”

“Three years before she met Locking.”

“Your arithmetic is excellent.”

“Where did she keep the apparatus?”

“In her room.”

“Where in her room, Professor?”

“In a box in her closet. I came across it by accident, never told her.”

“What else was in there?”

“Pictures.”

“Of her?”

“Of… us. Pictures we'd taken. She'd told me she'd thrown them out. Apparently she liked to review them.”

“Who moved the photos and the apparatus to Locking's house?”

“Casey.”

“When?”

“The night you dropped in.”

“I only saw him carry out one box.”

“He came back later. I'd asked him to move them before. Right after Hope was murdered. I was afraid of something exactly like this.”

“Why didn't he comply?”

Seacrest shook his head. “He said he would but kept delaying.”

“More games,” said Milo.

“I suppose. He was a rather… calculated fellow.”

“You didn't like him.”

“Hope did, that's all that mattered.”

“Your feelings didn't matter?”

Seacrest's smile was eerie. “Not one bit, Mr. Sturgis.”

“If Locking was delaying, why didn't you just throw them out?”

“They were Hope's.”

“So?”

“I… felt they should be preserved.”

He licked his lips, averted his eyes.

“Before she died they were hers, Professor. Wouldn't that make them yours? So why give them to Locking?”

“For safety,” said Seacrest. “I thought the police might search Hope's room.”

“But still,” said Milo. “You didn't want to sully Hope's name, yet you kept a couple hundred photos?”

“I hid them,” he said. “In my University office. Not that I needed to. Those first two detectives never even bothered to search Hope's room. You never really did, either.”

“So you brought them to your University office, then back home.”

“Correct.”

“Then you waited for Casey Locking to take them off your hands- but what role did they play for you ?”

Seacrest gave a start. “What role should they have played?”

“I'm asking you, sir. All I know is you kept them instead of destroying them. That tells me you had some use for them.”

Seacrest flexed his neck again. Adding a forward bend, he opened and closed his fingers. “ Because, Mr. Sturgis, they were the only pictures I had of her, except for her book jacket. She hated the camera. Hated having her picture taken.”

“Except this way.”

Seacrest nodded.

“So these were mementos.”

Seacrest's jaws clenched.

“But you let Locking have them, anyway.”

“I… kept some.”

“Where?”

“In my home.”

“Special ones or did you just stick your hand in and grab randomly?”

Seacrest shot to his feet. “I am terminating this.”

“Fine,” said Milo. “I guess I'll have to get my information elsewhere. Ask around at some bondage clubs and see if anyone knew your wife. If that doesn't work, I can go to the press, see what that stirs up.”

Seacrest shook a finger. “Sir, you are…” His hands fisted. “You said if I came down and talked to you here, you'd be discreet.”

“I said if you came down and cooperated.”

“That's exactly what I'm doing.”

“Think so?”

Seacrest flushed deeply, the way I'd seen in his office. I watched his breathing get quicker until he closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate on slowing it down.

“What more do you want?” he finally said. “I keep telling you this had nothing to do with Hope's murder.”

“Yes, you do, Professor.”

“I knew her! Better than anyone. She didn't go to bondage clubs! She'd never have countenanced anything so…”

“Plebeian?”

“Vulgar- and stop looking at the pictures every time I defend her. They were private.”

“Private games.”

“Yes!” Striding forward, Seacrest swiped at the table, knocking most of the photos to the floor. Snapping his eyes toward Milo, as if expecting retaliation, he placed his hands on his hips and stood there.