The Clinic

the committee kiboshed. Academic freedom and all that. Then Wolves and Sheep came out and she lost interest.”

“Maybe she intended to use it as material for the publicity tour.”

“The dean suspected that, too. He said he warned her that she'd be putting herself in a dangerous position legally. That according to the University lawyers, since she hadn't gotten official approval, she'd been functioning as an independent psychologist when she chaired the committee, not as a faculty member. So if she divulged information she'd be violating patient confidentiality and putting her license in jeopardy. She took issue with that and threatened to hire her own lawyer, but apparently changed her mind because that was the end of it.”

“It's amazing none of this ever came out after the murder.”

“Everyone had a vested interest in keeping it quiet. Administration, students- especially the students.”

He gave me the file. “Read it when you have a chance, let me know what you think. I can't close my eyes to this even though I still like Hubby. Even better, now, because I just got a look at her tax returns.”

“The book made her rich?”

He nodded. “But even before then she had some interesting extracurricular activities. Ever hear of Robert Barone?”

I shook my head.

“Big-shot lawyer, does criminal defense, porn and censorship, some racketeering cases, some entertainment work- same thing, right? Last year, he paid her forty grand in consulting fees, year before that, twenty-eight.”

“Diminished-capacity reports?”

“Probably something like that. Barone has offices here in Century City and up in San Francisco. He isn't returning my calls.”

Drinking more milk, he said, “Her other consulting client is a Beverly Hills doctor named Milan Cruvic. He's listed in the directory as an OB-GYN and fertility expert. Any idea why a fertility expert would pay a psychologist thirty-six grand a year? Two years in a row?”

“Maybe she screened candidates for fertility treatment.”

“Is that Standard Op?”

“The procedures can be grueling. A thoughtful doctor might want to see which patients could handle them. Or provide counseling for those who couldn't.”

“So why not just refer to her? Why pay her directly out of his pocket?”

“Good question.”

“When I called Cruvic's office his nurse said he was doing public service at some women's clinic. Which could mean abortions- another potential point of hostility if Hope got involved in that, too. Abortion violence hasn't come big-time to L.A. but we get everything, eventually. And that creep on TV- Neese- threw the issue around, pegged her as Ms. Slice-the-Fetus Radical Feminist. Who knows, maybe some nut got mad.”

“Not Neese, himself,” I said. I told him about confirming the alibi.

“One down,” he said. “He thought she was psyching him out?”

“Neese's term. Trying to control him.”

“So maybe she tried to psych out the wrong person… you think the abortion angle's worth pursuing?”

“Not really,” I said. “Hope was no standard-bearer for the cause and a political killer would have gone public in order to make some kind of statement.”

“Yeah… but I do want to know what she did for Cruvic and Barone. We're talking over a hundred grand in two years. Though after the book, she didn't need it.”

He pulled photocopied tax returns out of his briefcase.

“Her last filing. Gross income of six hundred eighty thousand dollars, the bulk of it from advances and royalties and public speaking. The after-tax came out to almost half a mil and it's sitting in a money-market account at Merrill Lynch jointly registered to her and Seacrest. No real debts, she had the Mustang before, and Seacrest inherited the house from his parents. Another half a mil. Not a bad investment to cash in on, especially if the marriage is sour.”

“How long were they married?”

“Ten years.”

“How'd they meet?”

“Seacrest says at the University rec center, swimming.”

“Was he married before?”

“Nope, he told Paz and Fellows he'd been one of those “stodgy confirmed bachelors,' unquote. In addition to the five hundred grand, there's more coming to him. Her literary agent wouldn't give me numbers but she did say substantial royalties were likely to come in over the next year or so. Book sales were brisk before the murder, the publisher was about to offer her a deal on a sequel. Hope and Seacrest did estate planning a few years ago, established a marital trust to avoid estate taxes, so Seacrest gets to keep all of it. His income last year was sixty-four gees, all from his University salary. His Volvo's eight years old and he's managed to put away some cash in his faculty pension plan. Plus there's the house. He's written some books, too, but they don't pay royalties. Guess romantic elements of the medieval age can't compete with penis-as-lethal-weapon.”

“Ten-to-one income ratio,” I said.

“Another kind of jealousy angle. What if she was going to leave him just as she struck it big? For another guy- your love-sex-betrayal thing, plus all that money sitting there. A temptation, right? And who'd be in a better position to know her habits? To poison the dog? Hope did have one thing right: More women are killed by so-called loved ones than by all the scumbags combined.”

“Seacrest went all these years without big bucks,” I said. “Has he turned into a high liver recently?”

“No, on the contrary, nothing's changed about his life: He goes to work each day and comes home. Weekends he stays home. Says he reads and watches TV. Doesn't even rent videos. But if she was cheating on him, no telling what that could do to an old-fashioned confirmed bachelor. Someone who studies romance- don't forget that stab in the heart. The guy's fifty-five, Alex. Maybe he had a midlife crisis. And like I said, I keep thinking he's hiding something.”

“Why?”

“Nothing I can put my finger on, that's the problem. He answers questions but volunteers no info. He never called Fellows and Paz once, to find out how their investigation was going. When I got assigned I phoned him right away and got the feeling I was taking up his precious time. Like he was off somewhere else.”

“Maybe he's still in shock.”

“No, this was more like he had better things to do. If someone you loved got sliced up, how would you react? Tell you what, how about I give you a firsthand look? I'm planning to drop in on him tonight, late. Not that I'm out to exploit a pal- if you've got some serious time to invest on the case, I can actually”- he panted-“pay you.”

He drew a folded form out of his jacket pocket. “Surprise from Uncle Milo.”

Police ID badge and a consultant contract in triplicate, my name typed on the dotted line. The department was willing to engage me for no more than fifty hours at less than a quarter of my private hourly fee. Small print limited LAPD's liability: If I tripped on a banana peel or got shot, they'd be sympathetic but stingy.

“It ain't filthy lucre,” he said, “but by department standards it's Supermarket Sweep.”

“How'd you pull this off?”

“Lied and told the loo I'd heard radical-feminist-butch-lesbian grumblings about the slow progress of the case. If we didn't make it look like we were doing all we could, we might end up being called before the Police Commission. Told him radical-fem-butch-lesbo types liked shrinks, would take your involvement as proof of expanded sensitivity.”

“Very creative.”

“I asked him for a new computer, too, but you were cheaper. You on?”

“Fifty hours,” I said. “Does that include feeding you?”

“What do you think?”

Returning to the fridge, he came back with a slab of brownie.

“Despite your suspicions of Seacrest,” I said, “I still think you have to seriously consider a delusional stranger.”