“Trouble with your father.”
“He’s traditional—big shame on the family and all that.” He took a huge bite out of the burger, and ate stoically while gazing across the quad.
“Not that I did anything wrong. Everything I said at the hearing was true. That girl’s a stone racist. I never hassled her, she used me. But Dad . . .”
He whistled and shook his head. “After he chewed me out and reduced my credit-card limit for six months, he said I should expect trouble because the police were bound to look into Professor Devane’s background. When it didn’t happen, I thought, whew, lucky break.”
Looking around some more, he dragged his eyes back to me. “Wrong again. Anyway, I’ve got no real problem because on the night she was killed I was at a big family get-together.
Grandparents’ fiftieth anniversary. We all went out to Lawry’s, on La Cienega. Prime rib and all the trimmings. I was there the whole time, from eight to after eleven-thirty, sitting right next to Dad, Numbah One Son, along with about a hundred relatives. I’ve even got documented proof: My cousin took pictures. Lots of pictures, big surprise, huh?”
He shot me an angry smile, placed his front teeth over his lower lip, and wiggled an index finger. “Ahso. Say cheese withwontons, crick crick. ”
I didn’t respond.
“Want some?” he said, pointing to the fries.
“No thanks.”
He put his mouth to the straw and filled it with orange soda. “You want the pictures, I’ll have my dad send them. He actually put them in his office vault.” He laughed. “Now can I go?”
“Any thoughts about Professor Devane?”
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“Nope.”
“What about the committee?”
“I told you, big joke.”
“How so?”
“Hauling people in like some kind of kangaroo court. One person’s word against the other’s. I don’t know how many other guys got hassled, but if their cases were as stupid as mine, you’ve got plenty of pissed-off people. Maybe one of them offed Professor Devane.”
“But you have an alibi.”
He lowered the drink to the bench. It hit hard and some soda splashed onto the stone. “Thank God Ido. Because for weeks after the hearing I was pissed at her. But you know us good little Chinese boys—play with computers, never get violent.”
I said nothing.
“Anyway, I’m over the whole thing and to prove it, I see that girl on campus all the time, just walk by, shine her on. And that’s the way I eventually felt about Professor Devane. Forget about her, get on with things.”
“So you felt victimized,” I said.
“Yeah, but it was partly my own fault. I should have checked with Dad first before showing up.
He told me she had no right to do that to me.”
“Why’d you go?”
“A letter comes to you on official University stationery, what would you do? How many other guys were involved?”
“Sorry,” I said, “I’m not talking to them about you, either.”
He blinked. “Yeah, okay, better to forget the whole thing.”
He picked up the books and stood. “That’s all I’ve got to say. I’m probably in trouble already for talking to you without checking with Dad. You want the photos, contact him. Allan D.
Huang. Curtis, Ballou, Semple, and Huang.” He shot off a downtown address on Seventh Street and a phone number and I copied them down.
“Anything else you want to tell me, Patrick?”
“About the committee?”
“The committee, Professor Devane, Deborah Brittain, anything.”
“What’s to tell? Devane was hard as nails. Good at twisting words. And her agenda was clear:
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All men are scum.”
“What about the other judges?”
“Mostly they just sat there like dummies. It was her show—and that’s what it was, a show. Like one of those improv things where they call you up from the audience and make a fool out of you. Only this was real.”
His free hand balled. “She actuallyasked me if I’d gone to college for the purpose of finding women to harass. All because I helped that girl. Sucks, huh? Well, bye, time to hitch up the ricksha.”
Deborah Brittain’s math class was long over and her schedule said she had nothing more today.
She lived off-campus, in Sherman Oaks, so I hiked to North Campus to find Reed Muscadine.
MacManus Hall was an unobtrusive pink building with auditoriums on the ground floor.
Performance Seminar 201B, now two-thirds over, was held in the Wiley Theater at the back. The blond maple double doors were unlocked and I slipped through. Lights off, maybe fifty rows of padded seats facing a blue-lit stage.
As my eyes adjusted, I made out a dozen or so people, scattered around the room. No one turned as I walked toward the front.
Up on the stage were two people, sitting on hard wooden chairs, hands on knees, staring into each other’s eyes.
I took an aisle seat in the third row and watched. The couple onstage didn’t budge, the sparse audience remained inert, and the theater was silent.
Two more minutes of nothing.
Five minutes, six . . . group hypnosis?
Tough job market for actors so maybe the U was training them to be department-store mannequins.
Five more minutes passed before a man in the front row stood up and snapped his fingers.
Pudgy and bald, tiny eyeglasses, black turtleneck, baggy green cords.
The couple got up and walked offstage in opposite directions. Another pair came on. Women.
They sat.
Assumed the position.
More nothing.
My eyes were accustomed to the darkness and I scanned the audience, trying to guess which young man was Muscadine. Hopeless. I looked at my watch. Over an hour to go and spending it in Static Heaven was threatening to put me to sleep.
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I walked quietly to the front row and sat down next to the bald finger-snapper.
He gave me a sidelong look, then ignored me. Up close I saw a little patch of hair under his lower lip. What jazz musicians used to call a honey mop.
Taking out my LAPD badge, I flexed it so the plastic coating caught stage light.
He turned again.
“I’m looking for Reed Muscadine,” I whispered.
He returned his eyes to the stage, where the two women continued to simulate paralysis.
I put the badge away and crossed my legs.
The bald man turned to me again, glaring.
I smiled.
He hooked a thumb toward the rear of the theater and got up.
But instead of walking, he stood there, hands on hips, staring down at me.
A few eyes from the audience drifted toward me, too. The turtlenecked man snapped his fingers and they sat straighter.
He hooked his thumb, again.
I got up and left. To my surprise he followed me, catching up out in the hall.
“I’m Professor Dirkhoff. What the hell’s going on?” His chin hairs were ginger, striped with white, as were the few left on his head. He scowled and the honey mop tilted forward like a collection of tiny bayonets.
“I’m looking for—”
“I heard what you said. Why?”
Before I could answer, he said,“Well?” Stretching the word theatrically.
“It’s about Professor Hope Devane’s murd—”
“That?What does Reed have to do withthat ?” One hand flew up to his face and the knuckles rested under the chin, socratically.
“We’re talking to students who knew Professor Devane and he’s one of them.”
“There must be hundreds,” he said. “What a waste of time. And it doesn’t permit you to barge in here, unannounced.”
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“Sorry for interrupting. I’ll wait til after class.”
“Then you’ll be wasting your time. Reed’s not here.”
“Okay, thanks.” I turned and walked away. When I’d taken three steps, he said, “I mean, he’s not here at all.”
“Not in class or not in school?”
“Both. He dropped out a month ago. I’m quite miffed—more than miffed. Our acting program is extremely selective and we expect our students to finish no matter what the reason.”
“What was his reason?”
He turned his back on me and headed back to the swinging doors. Placing one hand on blond wood, he gave a pitying smile.
“He got ajob. ”
“What kind of job?”
Long, deep breath. “One of thosesoap operas. A serious mistake on his part.”
“Why’s that?”
“The boy has talent but he needs seasoning. Soon he’ll be driving a Porsche and wondering why he feels so empty. Like everyone else in this town.”
Back home a note on the fridge said, “How about we eat in? Went for provisions with Handsome, back by six.”
At five-thirty Milo called and I pulled out my notes and got ready to report on the day’s interviews. But he broke in:
“Got a response to my teletype. Las Vegas Homicide has a cold case that matches: twenty-three-year-old call girl, found on a dark side street near her apartment. Stabbed in the heart, groin, and back, in that order. Under a tree, no less. A month before Hope. They’ve been figuring it for a lust-psycho. Working girls get killed all the time there. This girl danced, in addition to hooking, had been in a topless show at the Palm Princess casino last year. But recently she’d been working the pits as a freelance. Two, three hundred a trick.”
“So why was she found on the street?”
“The theory was she hitched up with the wrong john and he killed her either on the way over to
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party at her place or afterward. Maybe she was walking him out to his car and he surprised her with the knife. Or maybe she hadn’t made him happy enough or they couldn’t agree on price and he left mad.”
“Any physical resemblance to Hope?”
“From the photo they faxed me, no, other than they were both good-looking. This girl—Mandy Wright’s her name—looks gorgeous, actually. But dark-haired. And twenty-three makes her a lot younger than Hope. And clearly no professor. But given the wound pattern, we may have a traveling psycho, so I think I’d better concentrate on finding out if any other homicides around the country match. For all her controversy, the good professor may very well have been the victim of a nutcase stranger. I’m planning to fly out to Vegas tonight, play show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine.” He coughed. “So, what were you saying?”
Before I could tell him, Robin came through the door, holding a grocery bag and Spike’s leash.
Her color was high and she was smiling as she waved. She put the bag down and kissed me.
I mouthed, “Milo.”
“Say hi.” She left to change.
I relayed the message, then told him all of it: the conversations with Julia Steinberger and Casey Locking, Tessa Bowlby’s panic, Patrick Huang’s anger and alleged alibi, Reed Muscadine dropping out to take the acting job.
“Bottom line: Hope made a strong impression on everyone. Though if it is a traveling serial, that’s probably no longer relevant.”
“The Bowlby girl—was she really scared?”
“Petrified. Pale and skinny and weak-looking, too, so I wondered if Muscadine’s AIDS test might have come back positive. And if he dropped out ’cause he’s sick. Or maybe it was just because he got the acting job. But what’s the difference?”
“Don’t go around feeling useless, yet. Mandy Wright changes things but I can’t afford to eliminate anyone or anything, at this point. Just because it looks like a psycho, doesn’t mean it was a stranger. Maybe Hope and Mandy knew the same psycho.”
“A call girl and a professor?”
“This professor may turn out to be different,” he said. “So I’m still gonna talk to Kenny Storm and I’m sure as hell gonna verify the Huang boy’s alibi. And if you don’t mind talking to the other two girls, I’d appreciate it. Something else: Before Vegas called I was looking into Lawyer Barone’s recent cases and Hope’s name doesn’t come up in any of them. So what did he pay Hope for?”
“Something she didn’t want publicized?”
“That’s the only thing I can think of. Now, Barone does lots of porno defense, mostly out of his San Francisco office, and porno’s something a call girl like Mandy could get involved with. But as to Hope’s role, I just can’t put it together.”
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“Barone could have been looking for academic and feminist credentials to shore up the defense,” I said.
“Then why no record of her on the cases?”
“Maybe Barone hired her to write a report but didn’t like the end product. It’s happened to me.”
“Could be. Whatever. I’m just about to put in my tenth call to the good barrister. And I’d still like to learn more about Dr. Cruvic. The whole consulting thing is interesting—all that money.”
Robin returned to the kitchen and began heating water.
I said, “In terms of Cruvic, I can check out the Women’s Health Center in Santa Monica. Got an address?”
“No, sorry. Okay, thanks, Alex. Off to Burbank airport.”
“Have a good trip. Maybe you can get in some gambling.”
“On the taxpayers’ time? Tsk-tsk. Anyway, games of chance aren’t my thing. Randomness scares me.”
When I put down the phone Robin was slicing onions, tomatoes, and celery, and a pot of spaghetti approached a boil on the stove.
“Gambling?” she said.
“Milo’s going to Vegas. He found a murder there that matches Hope’s.”
I told her the details. The knife stopped.
“If it’s a nut,” she said, “there could be others.”
“He’s checking around the country.”
“So ugly,” she said. “That Women’s Health Center you mentioned. Holly Bondurant used to be involved in a place in Santa Monica. I know because she did a benefit concert a few years ago and I set up her twelve-string. What’s the connection between the center and the murder?”
“Probably nothing, but Milo got interested because Hope met a Beverly Hills gynecologist named Cruvic there. She ended up consulting to Cruvic’s private practice—counseling patients undergoing fertility procedures. We went over to see him this morning and Milo wondered if there was something going on between him and Hope.”
“Why?”
“Because he spoke of her with such passion. And her marriage seems somewhat passionless, so
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the obvious question came up. You know how thorough Milo is. Even with this new lead, he wants to clear everything.”