Jonathan Kellerman - The Clinic

Milo looked at him briefly, wrote something down.

Seacrest's shoe had settled near one of the pictures. He stepped on it, ground it under his heel.

“Private,” said Milo, softly. “Hope and Locking and you.”

“Exactly. Nothing illegal- absolutely nothing! Neither of us killed her.”

I expected Milo to follow that up but instead he said, “Are you terminating this interview, sir?”

“If I stay will you promise not to expose Hope?”

“I'm not promising anything, Professor. But if you cooperate, I'll do my best.”

“The first time we met,” said Seacrest, “you told me we were on the same side. What a line.”

“Show me we are, Professor.”

“Are we?”

“I'm out to catch your wife's murderer. How about you?”

Seacrest started to lurch forward, stopped himself, his whole body shaking. “If I found him I'd kill him! I'm well-versed in medieval torture devices, the things I could do!”

“The rack, huh?”

“You have no idea.” Seacrest placed one hand on his own wrist, steadying it.

“Any idea who killed Locking?”

“No.”

“No hypotheses?”

Seacrest shook his head. “Casey was… I never really knew him.”

“Outside of the games.”

“Correct.”

“The night I dropped by he returned your wife's car.”

“Yes.”

“Helping out?”

“Yes.”

“Even though you didn't really know him.”

“Hope knew him.”

“So he merited driving her car.”

“Yes. And I was grateful to him.”

“For what?”

“The pleasure he brought Hope.”

“That night, he acted formal toward you, called you Professor Seacrest. Trying to make it seem as if you two had no personal relationship.”

“We didn't, really.”

Milo lifted one of the photos remaining on the table.

Seacrest said, “The relationship wasn't between Casey and myself, Mr. Sturgis. Both relationships - everything revolved around Hope. She was the… nexus.”

“One sun, two moons,” said Milo.

Seacrest smiled. “Very good. Yes, we were in her orbit.”

“Who else was?”

“No one I'm aware of.”

“No other games?”

“None she told me about.”

“Would she have told you?”

“I believe so.”

“Why?”

“She was honest.”

“About everything?”

Seacrest gave a disgusted look. “You saw the pictures. How much more honest could anyone be?”

Milo stretched a hand toward Seacrest's chair.

“I'll remain standing, Mr. Sturgis.”

Smiling, Milo got up, kneeled, and began collecting the fallen photos. “Three-way game, and two of the players are dead. Do you feel threatened?”

“I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

“I don't think about myself much.”

“No?”

Seacrest shook his head. “I don't think much of my own value.”

“That sounds kind of depressed, sir.”

“I am depressed. Profoundly.”

“Some might say you had a motive to kill both of them.”

“And what motive is that?”

“Jealousy.”

“Then why would I leave the pictures near Casey's body and incriminate myself?”

Milo didn't answer.

“You're wasting my time and yours, Mr. Sturgis. I loved my wife in a way few women are ever loved- I obliterated myself in her honor. Losing her has sucked all the joy from my life. I appreciated Casey because he contributed to her joy. Other than that, he meant nothing to me.”

“Where did your joy come from?”

“Hope.” Seacrest smoothed the lapels of his jacket. “Be logical: Casey was shot and your own tests proved I haven't fired a gun recently. As a matter of fact, I haven't touched a firearm since I was discharged from the service. And at the time Casey was murdered, I was home.”

“Reading.”

“Would you like to know the title of the book?”

“Something romantic?”

“Milton's Paradise Lost .”

“Original sin.”

Seacrest waved a hand. “Gorge yourself on interpretation- why don't you go fetch Delaware, get him into the act, I'm sure he'll have a field day. May I go, Mr. Sturgis? I promise not to leave town. If you don't believe me, have a policeman watch me.”

“Nothing else you want to tell me?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay,” said Milo. “Sure.”

Seacrest walked shakily to the door that led to the observation room, found it locked.

“That one,” said Milo, indicating the opposite door.

Seacrest stood taller, reversed direction.

Milo squared the stack of pictures. “Reading at home. Not much of an alibi, Professor.”

“I never imagined I'd need one.”

“Talk to you later, Professor.”

“Hopefully not.” Seacrest made it to the door and stopped. “Not that you'll believe me, but Hope was never coerced or oppressed. On the contrary. She made the rules, she was the one in control. Being able to surrender herself without fear thrilled her, and her pleasure thrilled me. I admit that at first I was repelled, but one learns. I learned. Hope taught me.”

“Taught you what?”

“Trust. That's what it's all about, Mr. Sturgis. Total trust. Think about it- would your wife trust you the way mine trusted me?”

Milo hid his smile behind a big, thick hand.

“I know,” said Seacrest, “that there's very little use asking you to keep those pictures out of the police locker room but I'm asking anyway.”

“Like I said, Professor, if they've got nothing to do with the murder, there's no reason to publicize them.”

“They don't. They were part of her life, not her death.”

“Yeah, it's true about the paraffin test, he hasn't fired a gun in a while,” said Milo. “But he still could have hired someone to shoot Locking. Maybe someone he met through the bondage trade.”

“He's got a point about not destroying the photos,” I said. “If he had, you'd never have thought of him. So maybe the bondage games were the reason he was evasive.”

“Why did he hold on to the photos?”

“Could be just what he said. Mementos.”

“Mental or sexual?”

“Either, both.”

“So you buy his Mr. Submissive routine? Hope was God, he worshiped at her altar?”

“It would explain their marriage,” I said. “She was so controlled as a child, she craved someone willing to subjugate his ego totally. Despite what she told Elsa Campos, being tied up and left behind had to have been terrifying. She kept trying to work it through. And Seacrest's passivity made him a perfect mate for her. He told Paz and Fellows he'd been a confirmed bachelor for years. Maybe the reason was he'd been a moon looking for a sun.”

“Working it through,” he said. “So she gets herself tied up again? Manipulated, bruised.”

“Restaging it,” I said. “But this time, she's calling the shots.”

“With their games, the three of them coulda gone on the talk-show circuit,” he said.

“You are starting to sound,” I said, “less like a West Hollywood legend than a bourgeois policeman with a dutiful wife and an 818 lifestyle.”

He laughed harder than I'd heard him in a long time.

“Those guns you found in Locking's house,” I said. “Heavy artillery for a grad student.”

“Three pistols, one rifle,” he said. “All loaded but stashed up in the closet. Too cocky for his own good.”

“And all that porn he had,” I said. “Locking was from San Francisco. Big Micky's city, Big Micky's business. Who owns the house?”

“Don't know yet, but a neighbor said it was a rental. Before Locking there'd been lots of other tenants.”