He slapped it to his ear. “Sturgis … oh, hi … really? That was quick … okay … okay … okay … yeah, makes sense … could be … if I need to I’ll try it … no, nothing else from this end. Thanks, kid.”
Clicking off, he snatched up the crab claw, sucked meat, swallowed. “That was Liz Wilkinson. She dates the bones consistent with the clippings. No new evidence of trauma, internal or external, not a single deformity or irregularity. She didn’t find any marrow or soft tissue but will ask DOJ to try to get DNA from the bone tissue. Problem is between budget cuts and backlog, this is gonna go straight to the bottom of the pile. If I want to speed it up, she suggested I ask Zeus to descend from Olympus. Only thing that’ll motivate him is if the media continue to cover the case. And Liz just got a call from a
“The press contacts her but not you?”
“When did you hear me say I wasn’t contacted?” His tongue worked to dislodge food from a molar. Placing the crab claw on a plate piled with empties, he scrolled his phone through a screen of missed calls. The number he selected was from yesterday afternoon.
“Kelly LeMasters? This is Lieutenant Milo Sturgis returning your call on the bones dug up in Cheviot Hills. Nothing new to report, if that changes, I’ll let you know.”
He returned to his food.
I said, “So we forget about Swedish Hospital.”
“I don’t see it leading anywhere, but feel free to pursue. You come up with something juicy, I’ll say it was my idea in the first place.”
An innocuous chime sounded in my pocket. My phone’s turn to join the conversation.
Milo said, “The ringtone era and you’re living in a cave?”
I picked up.
“Hi, Doctor, Louise at your service. Just took one from a Holly Ruche. She said no emergency but to me she sounded kind of upset so I thought I’d be careful.”
“Thanks, Louise.”
“All these years talking to your patients,” she said, “you pick things up. Here’s her number.”
I walked to the front of the restaurant, made the call.
Holly Ruche said, “That was quick. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“No bother. What’s up?”
“Is there anything new on the … on what happened at my house?”
“Not yet, Holly.”
“I guess these things take time.”
“They do.”
“That poor little thing.” Sharp intake of breath. “That
“It’s a tough thing to go through, Holly.”
“But I’m fine,” she said. “I really am … um, would you have time to talk? Nothing serious, just one session to clear things up?”
“Sure.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, thank you. I couldn’t do it tomorrow. Or the day after.”
“What works for you, Holly?”
“Um … say in three days? Four? At your convenience.”
I checked my calendar. “How about three days, one p.m.?”
“Perfect. Um, could I ask what your fee is?”
“Three hundred dollars for a forty-five-minute session.”
She said, “Okay. That’ll work. Seeing as it’s only once. Where’s your office?”
“I work out of my home.” I told her the address. “Off of Beverly Glen.”
“You must have fantastic views.”
“It’s nice.”
“Bet it is,” she said. “I’d have loved something like that.”
CHAPTER 10
There are many reasons I became a psychologist. Some I understand, some I’ll never even be aware of.
One motive I think I do get is the urge to protect, to make up for the abandonment that ruled my childhood. It’s a trait that usually fits the job well, earning patient gratitude and delusions of godliness.
Sometimes I get heavy-handed, offering armor-plate when a thin sweater will do. That’s why figuring out how much to tell Robin about the bad stuff has always been an issue. I’ve learned to include her, but I’m careful about the details.
On this one, I didn’t even know how to start.
Robin’s an only child. Her mother’s a difficult woman, emotionally stingy, self-centered, competitive with her daughter. The loving parent was her dad, a master carpenter. He taught her what he knew about wood and the joy of craft, died when Robin was young. Now she works with power tools, doesn’t take well to being smothered by testosterone, no matter how well intended.
For all the support I got from my older sister, I might as well have been a singleton. Mom was too up and down mood-wise to be of use when Dad drank and went hunting for prey. I learned to value solitude because alone meant safe. Inherently a friendly child, I learned to be sociable and genuinely empathic, but more often than not any group of people makes me feel alienated.
Two people like that and you can see how it would take time to work out Relationship 101.
I believe Robin and I have done a pretty good job. We’ve been together for a long time, are faithful without strain, love each other madly, press each other’s erotic buttons. All that bliss has been ruptured twice by breakups, neither of which I understand fully. During one separation, Robin got pregnant by another man. The pregnancy and her time with him ended badly. I’ve worked with children my entire adult life but have never been a father. Robin and I haven’t talked about that in ages.
I hope she doesn’t spend too much time wondering.
I drove home thinking about tiny bones, a life barely lived, a nurse who could be anything between saint and monster. I still hadn’t figured out what to divulge when I reached the top of the old bridle path that snakes up to our property.
To look at the house, free of trim or artifice, high white stucco walls sliced into acute angles where the trees don’t shroud, you’d think emotionally distant people live here. The original structure, the one I bought for myself as soon as I had a bit of money, was tiny, rustic, all wood and shingle and quirk and creak. A psychopath burned it down and when we rebuilt we were looking for change, maybe a fortress.
Inside, matte-finished oak floors, comfortable, slouchy furniture, and art biased toward pretty rather than politics combine to warm things up. The square footage isn’t vast but it’s more than two people and one small dog need, and my footsteps echo when I cross the living room and head up the skylit corridor to my office.
Robin’s truck was parked out front but no sign of her in the house, so she was out in her studio, working. I postponed a bit, checking email, paying bills, scanning news sites and reassuring myself that the world continued to spin with all the logic of a grand mal seizure.
By the time I poured a mug full of coffee in the kitchen and walked down to the garden where I stopped to feed the koi, I was still unresolved about what to say.
“Baby bones,” I told the fish. “Don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl.”
They slurped in gratitude.
I was dawdling by the water’s edge when the door to the studio opened. Blanche, our little French bulldog, trotted toward me, twenty pounds of blond charm and Zen-serenity. The breed tends to be stubborn; Blanche isn’t, preferring diplomacy to artillery. She nuzzled my pant leg, snorted coquettishly. I rubbed her head and she purred like a cat. She’d rolled on her back for a belly tickle when Robin emerged, fluffing her mass of auburn curls and brushing sawdust from her favorite red overalls.
