something and that's odd since my room is on a nonsmoking floor. Then they point out that sometimes smoke from other units gets circulated to nonsmoking areas through the ventilation ducts.
They examine my door lock, declare it hasn't been touched, but change the code anyway and issue me a new key card. Finally, apologizing for any inconvenience, they advise me to store my valuables in the hotel safe downstairs.
After they leave, I open the room minibar, pull out a beer, sit in my easy chair, and sip.
Yes, Robin ambushed me, but this isn't his work, which can only mean one thing: Mr. Potato Head, the guy who was asking about me at the Flamingo, must be working for someone else.
13
Sunday morning
I had hoped to sleep in, but so many things nag at me, so many loose ends. I wake up at 6:00 a.m., and, unable to get back to sleep, do the unthinkable and go up to the rooftop gym.
There's no one around. At this hour my jock media colleagues are in their or their lovers' beds below sleeping off another drunken Saturday night.
I mount the Stairmaster, work out hard for twenty minutes, until, panting and sweating, I'm too exhausted to go on. Then I go back down to my room, shower, order breakfast, and look over the Sunday papers, which the hotel had kindly left by my door.
Finally, nurtured, rested and well-informed, I take up Dad's old agenda book, lay in on my hotel room desk, and see what I can make of the entries.
It's one of those one-day-per-page leatherette bound datebooks with a separate line for each hour increment. In it he lists all his appointments with patients: Mr. L; Dr. K; Mrs. M; Mrs. F; etc.
Mrs. F, I note, was scheduled, starting in late April, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:30 a.m.. After the Flamingo killings on August 27, Dad drew a line through her name whenever it appeared, this being his way to designate cancelled appointments. In fact, I discover, he had scheduled her at her usual hour through to the end of the year.
There are other appointments noted: medical conferences; Psychoanalytic Institute meetings; lunches with colleagues including a regular Tuesday lunch with Izzy Mendoza; various social engagements including the April 17 Parents Day at Hayes where he encountered Mrs. F; the April 22 Parents Day at Ashley-Burnett attended by my sister; and June 6, the day of my graduation from Hayes Lower School.
Yes, it's all fairly straightforward. This is a doctor's appointment datebook, not a personal diary. Still, looking at the pages pertaining to the summer months, I find several intriguing entries:
On July 11, a Friday, he writes: Difficult session. Headache. Cancel tennis/?
On July 14, the following Monday: Very difficult day. No sympathy from I (which initial, I reason, must stand for Izzy).
On Friday, July 18: Another tough week. See L about headaches/?
On Thursday, July 24: Call MHHC re show/G/?
And on Sunday, July 27, one of the very few weekend notations in the book: Attend show MHHC 2-5.
Monday, July 28: Very difficult session with F. Worried. Consulted I at 6:00 p.m..
Friday, August 1: Idea for new approach. Consulted I. Negative!
Monday, August 4: Implemented idea. Backfired. Will try again.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, August 14, all his regular sessions with clients are marked cancelled. A week later on August 20, he does the same thing, again freeing up his afternoon. At the end of the day, there's a cryptic notation: F/F.
On August 27, the day of the Flamingo killings, he sees all his regular Wednesday patients including Mrs. F at 10:30 a.m.. At the end of the day, he notes the calamity with a single word: FLAMINGO!
I sit back, reflect. The killings, I know, took place between 3:40 and 3:50 that afternoon. Dad had successive appointments with patients at 2:30, 3:30, and 4:30 p.m.. If he kept those appointments, he couldn't possibly have been at the Flamingo at the time Kate Evans thinks she saw him there.
Did he keep them? No way to know; his billing records were thrown out years ago. And though I have never really believed Dad was the Flamingo shooter, who did Kate see that afternoon?
I try to decipher his other entries. I'm pretty sure I know what he meant by MHHC: the Maple Hills Hunt Club, which, mid-summer every year, held a Sunday afternoon horse show. But why would Dad, who didn't much care for horses, be interested in attending such an event? Because it was at a dance there that Barbara Lyman met Andrew Fulraine? Perhaps… but I think his notation CALL MHHC re show/G/? gives the reason. G was the letter Dad used in his paper to designate Barbara's old instructor in dressage, the man who asked her to slap him and with whom she had her first experience of oral sex. But why would Dad want to see G? To validate Barbara's story? Or, God help him, did he view G as a rival, and like many a man pining after his beloved, feel a need to see his imagined rival in the flesh?
August 1, it's clear, was the day he decided to ‘enter into’ Barbara's seduction fantasy. He consulted Izzy about it, Izzy counseled against it, but the following Monday, August 4, he went ahead. It seemed to backfire when Barbara masturbated during the session, but despite that setback, he resolved not to give up his plan.
The two Wednesday afternoons he cancelled all his afternoon appointments suggest that on one or both days he followed Barbara to the Flamingo. But why twice? One reconnaissance would have been sufficient to verify her affair with Jessup. Why go back again? Could he have been so obsessed he took to stalking her? Or was there some other reason? Could F/F stand for Fulraine/Flamingo? If so, did she lure him there or did they meet there by prearrangement? Did they actually go to bed together there, and if so, was that the day Kate Evans saw him, an encounter Kate later mistakenly transposed to the day of the killings?
10:00 a.m.
My room phone rings. It's Mace.
'Good news. I found Jessup's neighbor in the rooming house. Her name back then was Shoshana Bach. Now she's Dr. Shoshana Bach, Associate Professor and Chairperson of the Women's Studies Department at Calista State.'
'You're sure she's the girl?'
'Positive. She was the only young woman living in the house at the time. I checked with the university. Her campus office hours are Wednesday and Friday, 3 to 5 p.m.. I'm going to drop in on her Wednesday afternoon. Thought you'd like to tag along.'
'I'd love to.'
'I'll pick you up at the courthouse quarter of three.'
'Thanks, Mace. I appreciate your including me in this.'
'My pleasure.' He pauses. 'So who was it jumped you the other night?'
'Robin Fulraine and a couple of his buddies.'
'Barbara's son – Jesus!'
'Yeah, he and his brother heard I was sniffing around, they didn't like it, so they tried to scare me off.'
'Going to bring charges?'
'No. I confronted them and they confessed. At least Robin did. Apologized, too. There's still a core of decency there.'
'I think you're the decent one to let them off,' he says.
Middle of the afternoon
The phone rings again. It's the long-awaited call from Pam.
