Case of Lucy Bending (38 page)

"I already have them," he said, giggling. "It's New Year's Eve; let them enjoy."

She had never before seen him in such an antic mood.

Dr. Scotsby owned a brownish Ford Mustang coupe. She drove as she did everything else: coldly, efficiently, precisely.

"All right, Ted," she said, swinging expertly into the fast lane on Federal Highway, "what's this all about?"

"What's what all about?"

"Your mania. You haven't stopped bubbling for a minute."

"Why shouldn't I bubble? I'm with a beautiful woman— that's a lovely gown, by the way—and it's New Year's Eve, and we're going out to celebrate."

She thawed a little. "You're sweet to say so, but you're a dreadful liar, Ted. Really incompetent. It's got something to do with work, hasn't it?"

"Well . . . maybe."

She was silent a few moments, thinking, and busy turning east onto Ocean Park Boulevard. Then . . .

"The case of Lucy B," she said definitely.

"You're so smart," he said. "You're so damned smart, it scares me."

"Tell me about it."

"Later," he said. "Let's have a nice, relaxed dinner. We won't talk shop. Then, after, instead of going on to some other place, I'd like to go home, to my apartment. There's something I want you to hear. All right?"

"Fine," she said agreeably. "We've got all that wine and two bottles of champagne. That should see us into the new year."

It was a cool night, but Levin wanted to sit outside, on the Waterway. Dr. Scotsby, wrapping her cashmere shawl around her bony shoulders, assured him she wouldn't be cold. So that's where they sat, a few feet from the water, watching the boats go by and hearing the raucous cries and drunken laughter of the boaters.

Mary ordered, because she was so much better at it than he was. After all those appetizers, she decided to keep the dinner simple: a rack of lamb and a shared Caesar salad. And absolutely nothing else. Except a bottle of a tingly California chardonnay and, with their espresso, a dark, heavy, thick rum on the rocks.

During their leisurely meal, never once did they talk of their work. But the conversation never flagged. Mostly they discussed marriage. Levin had proposed, not several times, but continually. Scotsby believed that he'd be better off with a full-time housekeeper.

This was an argument that had been going on almost since they met. Neither tired of it; both enjoyed it. They knew it was an intimate link between them. It brought them closer than most married couples they knew—this ceaseless, loving chivying.

"You'd tire of me," she told him. "Eventually."

"Never," he vowed.

"Oh yes. And then you'd want a creamer in a string bikini. The kind A1 Wollman goes for."

"God forbid!"

"I don't know what you see in me," she said honestly.

"I do," he said.

And in the flickering candlelight, she was not an unattractive woman. Quirkily appealing. The kind glow eased her angles and corners and edges. The mousy brown hair took on a sheen; the pale, freckled skin a gloss.

In that soft illumination, all the sharpness of her face and figure was dulled. She seemed very desirable to him at that moment. He wanted her to sleep over that night, and he told her so.

"We'll see," she said, giving him a dozy smile.

They got back to his apartment without misadventure, which surprised them. They were both conscious of functioning in a not totally rational manner or mood. The wine, no doubt.

All the appetizers on the dining table were congealing and browning.

"See?" Levin said. "No roaches."

They capped everything and jammed it all into the refrigerator. They decided a glass of cold champagne would be proper. Mary Scotsby opened the bottle—Levin was hopeless with anything more complicated than a screw-top—and poured into two handsome crystal flutes she had given him for his birthday.

She raised her glass. "Happy New Year, Ted."

"Happy New Year, Mary," he responded, gulping, not sipping.

"Now then," she said briskly, all business. "What is it you want me to hear?"

Suddenly his confidence and enthusiasm were gone. Doubt flooded in. He thought miserably that it was a very frail reed indeed that he had clung to. It was really ridiculous. Dr. Mary Scotsby would give him one of her twisted, ironic glances and think him an idiot.

"It's probably nothing," he mumbled.

"If I think so," she said, "I'll tell you. But at least give me the chance to judge."

"Well ... all right," he said. "It's just a tape I put together. Excerpts from several of the Lucy B. interviews."

"Let's hear it."

"You sit here, in the armchair. I'll put the champagne on the floor . . . here. You help yourself whenever you like."

"Fine."

"Would you like to take your shoes off? If you'd—"

"Ted!" she exploded. "Will you please stop fucking around and play the goddamned tape?"

"What? Yes. Of course. Right now. I'll play it this minute. Here we go . . ."

His voice was the first to come on. Pontifical. The self-important tones of a television newscaster.

"The first excerpt," he said, "is from the initial interview with Mr. and Mrs. B. Tape LB-One."

Grace: "Well, for the past three years, about, since she was five, she—Ronnie, wouldn't you say it's been for the past three years?"

Ronald: "Maybe longer. Maybe since she was four."

Grace: "Doctor, she has become increasingly, uh, affectionate. Hugging and kissing all the time. Hanging on to people. She's become very, uh, physical, and is always touching and stroking. Sometimes in a vulgar way."

Then Dr. Levin came on again, in his announcer's voice:
⁴
The second excerpt is from tape LB-Three: an interview with Grace B."

Levin: "Does she wet the bed?"

Grace: "No. Not now. She did in the past."

Levin: "When was this? At what age?"

Grace: "Up to about three or four years ago. Then she wet the bed regularly."

Levin: "How often?"

Grace: "Perhaps two or three times a week."

Levin: "But not recently?"

Grace: "No."

Levin: "Not at all?"

Grace: "No."

Levin: "It simply stopped?"

Grace: "Yes."

"The following," Dr. Levin's voice announced hollowly, "is from tape LB-Four. Subject: Ronald B."

Levin: "Has your wife always had a lack of interest in sexual relations?"

Ronald: "God, no! She used to be too much for me."

Levin: "So her, uh, coolness is a recent development?"

Ronald: "Fairly recent."

Levin: "How recent?"

Ronald: "Say about, oh, three or four years."

Dr. Levin introduced the next segment: "From tape LB-Six, an interview with Lucy B."

Lucy: "Well . . . you see . . . my mother isn't my real mother. My real mother is dead. She was killed dead in a tragic car accident."

Levin: "When did this happen, Lucy?"

Lucy: "A long time ago."

Levin: "How long?"

Lucy: "Oh, maybe five years ago."

"And now," Dr. Theodore Levin said, "one short speech from tape LB-Seven. The subject, Wayne B, twelve years old."

Wayne: "Son of a bitch. You miserable shit. I haven't cried since I was eight. You lousy bastard."

"The final excerpt," Dr. Levin said, "is from tape LB-Eight, a session with Grace B."

Levin: ". . .to which church do you belong?"

Grace: "Officially, I am a Presbyterian."

Levin: "Officially?"

Grace: "That was my parents' church. I am a registered member, and still attend faithfully. However, I have become interested in other beliefs and faiths, and sometimes attend their meetings as well."

Levin: "I see. And you have been doing this for how

long?"

Grace: "Doing what?"

Levin: "Your interest in other beliefs and faiths outside the Presbyterian Church—when did this begin?"

Grace: "Oh . . . perhaps four or five years ago."

Then Dr. Levin reached over and switched off the tape deck. He sat back, made a tent of his hands, stared at Dr. Mary Scotsby over his fingertips.

"That's it," he said, "for the moment. What do you think?"

She rose suddenly. "I've got to go to the bathroom. Be right back."

While she was gone, he relighted his dead cigar and filled their glasses with more champagne. She returned by way of the dining room, picking up her beaded purse. She fished for a cigarette, lighted it. Then she donned her wire-rimmed glasses and looked closely at Levin.

"Ted, let me make certain we're on the same wavelength. You're predicating some family cataclysm, a traumatic experience, that affected parents and children alike—something that happened about four years ago?"

"Has to be," he said, nodding. "Four or five years ago. Everyone is very vague about the exact date. The event has been pushed away; no one wants to remember it. But it happened."

"It couldn't be coincidence," she said, half-statement, half-question.

"No," he said, "I don't think so. Not with six references to the same time frame. That strains the limits of coincidence.''

Dr. Mary Scotsby sipped her champagne, regarding Levin thoughtfully over the rim of the glass.

"Very clever, Ted," she said, "to pick that up."

"I concur," he said, smiling.

"A sexual episode?" she suggested. "Witnessed by Lucy?"

"I believe so," he said. "Possibly, probably in her own home, in her parents' bedroom. But not, I would guess, between her parents. Did you listen to the tape with Lucy on which she spins a fantasy of what she'd like to do with me if her father was absent?"

"I heard it."

"That was adult dialogue she used. Very realistic. Very believable. I think she was repeating speeches she overheard, an event she actually witnessed."

"Between whom?"

"Did you listen to the tape of my last session with the father?"

"No, I haven't gotten to that one yet."

"I want to run one section for you now. It'll just take a few minutes."

He found tape LB-Eleven, raced it through his portable recorder at double speed, then found the section he wanted. He played back to Dr. Mary Scotsby the "tube of meat" speech by Ronald Bending.

When it was over, she laughed softly.

"An honest man," she said. "Apparently an habitual womanizer."

"Yes," Levin agreed. "Elsewhere on that tape he denies indignantly that he ever had an extracurricular affair in his own home. But I think we can take that with a grain of salt. He's a man who admits to lusting after young creamers on the beach, wanting to screw them right there on the sand."

She thought a moment, frowning. "So Ronald brings one of his creamers home?"

"Or it's a party," Levin suggested. "Everyone a little drunk. Inhibitions relaxed. Ronald takes one of the female guests up to the master bedroom. Lucy's bedroom is next to it. Grace told me that; it's on tape. And Ronald and the female guest get it off while Lucy listens at the adjoining wall or watches through a keyhole. Whatever."

"And hears or sees the woman doing to her father what she, Lucy, has been doing ever since?"

"What she
wants
to do. To her father. All the other men have been father-surrogates."

Mary Scotsby was troubled. "It's awfully neat, Ted."

"It covers all bases," he argued. "Assuming the entire family became aware of what had happened: the father involved in a sexual experience with a strange woman in mommy and daddy's bedroom. It would account for Lucy's subsequent behavior, for Grace seeking alternative forms of spiritual help, for Wayne's never crying and becoming a juvenile misanthrope. Harry, the younger son, was only one year old at the time, and probably has no subconscious recall. Still, I believe it possible that he, too, has been affected by the cold climate of indifference between his parents that resulted from that episode."

"An elegant solution," she admitted.

"Then what bothers you?" he demanded.

"Surely Ronald had been guilty of adultery before? I mean, it didn't start with that single event four years ago."

"That's correct. He admits he has been unfaithful since the day he was married. But the special psychic injury to wife and children was caused by the place he selected for this particular seduction: the home, the sacred place."