Bad Love

given to the walls. The crypt look, nice and cold, but the room was hot with impatience and I had to elbow my way through a cranky crowd.

I looked around and saw Jean already seated at a table near the back, next to the south wall of the restaurant. She waved. The man next to her looked at me but didn't move.

I recalled him as the heavyset fellow from the photo in her office, a little heavier, a little grayer. In the picture, he and Jean had been wearing leis and matching Hawaiian shirts. Today, they'd kept the Bobbsey twins thing going with a white linen dress for her, white linen shirt for him, and matching yellow golf sweaters.

I waved back and went over. They had half-empty coffee cups in front of them and pieces of buttered olive bread on their bread plates. The man had an executive haircut and an executive face. Great shave, sunburnt neck, blue eyes, the skin around them slightly bagged.

Jean rose a little as I sat down. He didn't, though his expression was friendly enough.

'This is my husband, Dick Jeffers. Dick, Dr. Alex Delaware.'

'Doctor.'

'Mr. Jeffers.'

He smiled as he shot out his arm. 'Dick.'

'Alex.'

'Fair enough.'

I sat down across from them. Both their yellow sweaters had crossed tennis-racquet logos. His bore a small, gold Masonic pin.

'Well,' said Jean, 'some crowd. Hope the food's good.'

'Beverly Hills,' said her husband. 'The good life.'

She smiled at him, looked down at her lap. A large, white purse sat there and one of her arms was around it.

Dick Jeffers said, 'Guess I'll be going, Jeanie. Nice to meet you, doctor.'

'Same here.'

'Okay, honey,' said Jean.

Cheek pecks, then Jeffers stood. He seemed to lose balance for a second, caught himself by resting one palm on the table. Jean looked away from him as he straightened. He shoved the chair back with the rear of his thighs and gave me a wink. Then he walked off, limping noticeably.

Jean said, 'He has one leg, just got a brand new prosthesis and it's taking a while getting used to.' It sounded like something she'd said many times before.

I said, 'That can be tough. Years ago, I worked with children with missing limbs.'

'Did you?' she said. 'Well, Dick lost his in an auto accident.'

Pain in her eyes. I said, 'Recently?'

'Oh, no, several years ago. Before anyone really appreciated the value of seat belts. He was driving a convertible, was unbelted, got hit from behind and thrown out. Another car ran over his leg.'

'Terrible.'

'Thank God he wasn't killed. I met him when he was in rehab. I was doing a rotation at Rancho Los Amigos and he was there for a couple of months. He made a great adjustment to his appliance- always had until it started bothering him a few months ago. He'll get used to the new one. He's a good guy, very determined.'

I smiled.

'So,' she said, 'how are you?'

'Fine. And intrigued.'

'By?'

'Your call.'

'Oh.' The sheet of hair fell over her eye. She let it stay there. 'Well, I didn't mean to be overly dramatic, it's just-' She looked around. 'Why don't we order first, and then we can talk about it.'

We read the menu. Someone in the kitchen had a thing for balsamic vinegar.

When she said, 'Well, I know what I want,' I waved over a waiter. Asian kid, around nineteen, with a waist-length ponytail and ten stud earrings rimming the outer cartilage of his left ear. It hurt to look at him and I stared at the table as Jean ordered an insalata something or other. I asked for linguine marinara and an iced tea. Ruined Ear came back quickly with the drink and a refill of her coffee.

When he left, she said, 'So you live pretty close to here?'

'Not far.'

'For a while Dick and I thought about moving over the hill, but then prices started to go crazy.'

'They've slid quite a bit recently.'

'Not enough.' She smiled. 'Not that I'm complaining. Dick's an aerospace engineer and he does well, but you never know when the government's going to cancel a project. The place we've got in Studio City is really pretty nice.' She looked at her watch. 'He's probably over at Rudnicks now. He likes to shop there for sweaters.'

'He's not having lunch?'

'What I need to talk to you about is confidential. Dick understands that. So why did I bring him with me, right? To be honest, it's because I'm still shaky. Still haven't gotten used to being alone.'

'I don't blame you.'

'Don't you think I should be past it by now?'

'I probably wouldn't be.'

'That's a very nice thing to say.'

'It's the truth.'

Another smile. She reached over and touched my hand, just for a second. Then back to her coffee cup.

'I'm sleeping a little better,' she said, 'but still far from perfect. In the beginning I'd be up all night, heart pounding away, nauseated. Now I can get to sleep, but sometimes I still wake up all in a knot. Sometimes the thought of going to work makes me just want to crawl back in bed. Dick works in Westchester near the airport, so sometimes we take one car and he drops me off and picks me up. I guess I've become pretty dependent on him.'

She gave a small smile. The unspoken message: for a change.

'Meanwhile, I'm telling the staff and the patients there's nothing to worry about. Nothing like consistency.'

Ear brought the food.

'This looks yum,' she said, pushing her fork around in her salad bowl. But she didn't eat, and one arm stayed around her purse.

I tried a little linguine. Memories of school lunch.

She nibbled on a piece of lettuce. Dabbed at her mouth. Looked around. Unsnapped the purse.

'You have to promise me to keep this absolutely confidential,' she said. 'At least where you got it from, okay?'

'Does it relate to Hewitt?'

'In a way. Mostly- it's nothing that can help Detective Sturgis- not that I can see, anyway. I shouldn't even be showing it to you. But people are being harassed and I know what it's like to feel besieged. So if this does lead anywhere, please keep me out of it- please?'

'All right,' I said.

'Thank you.' She inhaled, shoved her hand into the purse, and drew out a legal-sized envelope. White, clean, unmarked. She held on to it. The paper made her nails look especially red.

'Remember how sketchy Becky's notes on Hewitt were?' she said. 'How I made excuses for her, saying she'd been a good therapist but not big on paperwork? Well, it bothered me more than I let on. Even for Becky that was cursory- I guess I just didn't want to deal with anything related to her murder. But after you left, I kept thinking about it and went looking to see if she'd taken any other notes that had somehow been misfiled. With all the upheaval right after, housekeeping wasn't exactly a high priority. I didn't find anything, so I asked Mary, my secretary. She said all Becky's active charts had been distributed to other caseworkers, but it was possible some of her inactive files might have ended up in our storage room. So she and I took some time on Friday and looked around for a few hours, and sure enough, stuck in a corner was a box with Becky's initials on it-'RB.' Who knows