Mind to Mind: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (19 page)

He must be forty-two or so. Big guy,
impressive, carefully groomed, handsome. He took me aside and
explained that they had to book me to preserve the "legalities" for
the prosecutor, but I would be immediately released on my own
recognizance. That took about twenty minutes. Thompson and Olivas
hung around for the formalities then shook my hand and returned to
their own turf in Hollywood.

Valdiva suggested that we have lunch and
discussion. I stopped at a public phone and tried to reach Alison.
There was no answer at her place; I tried mine and scored. I
assured her I was okay; she assured me she was okay; I checked
with Valdiva and invited her to join us at Musso Frank's in
Hollywood for lunch. She promised to meet us there at
twelve-thirty.

It's funny how you can
slightly know a person and have no particular feeling one way or
the other, then get just a little closer and either love them or
hate them. I did not hate Frank Valdiva. One of the sharpest guys
I'd been around. Obvious Latino background, streetwise and tough
inside, but one who'd come through the fire with all the best
metals dominant, scrupulously fair-minded, ethically
superior.

He wanted to know my
entire sensing of the case. I was damned glad, then, that I'd
recently played with my jigsaw puzzle, because this guy could make
you feel very foolish very quickly if you came at him with faulty
logic.

I laid it all out for him, as I sensed it,
during the twenty-minute run into Hollywood. "I believe we have to
go back a few years to find the beginning of this case. At least
ten years, maybe more. I believe Jim knew Vicky's mother."

"You mean before..."

"Before Vicky was born, yeah. I think
there's at least a fifty-fifty chance that—"

"Wait. Are you giving me facts or
conjecture?"

I wanted to tell him that a fact was no more
than a particle in a field of conjecture, but I was trying to hew
a straight narrative out of the jigsaw in my head, so I replied,
"You asked for my sensing. Don't confuse me with what is factual
and what is not. Just let me give you my sensing."

He said, "Okay. Just don't get too
loose."

I told him, "There is at least an even
chance, I think, that Jim is Vicky's natural father. If not that,
then he was just a nice guy who befriended a girl in trouble and
ended up taking her child as his child."

"Just tell me this," Valdiva requested. "Are
you basing this on something you know, or think you know, or is it
just a wild hunch?"

"Yes to all three of those," I replied. "But
let's just leave it there for now and leap forward ten years.
Vicky's mother is found beside the Hollywood Freeway with her skull
bashed in. This is on Jim's turf. I need to ask: Did he request
this case or was he assigned to it?"

"I don't believe I will answer that right
now," the captain replied.

"That means I have to take
the worst position," I told him. "Jim took the case on himself,
even to the point of working it on his own time. He did that
because he recognized the girl. Now, I don't know what he was
thinking about, or why he chose not to identify the girl himself,
but he had to have recognized her as Vicky's mother.
He—"

"I don't see how you arrive at that. It's
pure conjecture."

"It's educated sensing," I corrected him.
"Just remember, it's what you asked for. But I'll go you a step
beyond, just to show you how far this could be extended. Maybe he
took on the case and jealously kept it to himself, only to cover
his own fanny. Jim could have been the assailant. The mother came
for her kid. Whether in a panic or in cold situation- management,
he beat her to death with a crowbar—or thought he did. Decorated
the body for Halloween and dumped it. Must—"

"That's ranging pretty far, isn't it?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. We're looking at missing
pieces to a puzzle...blanks. I can fill them in any damned way I
want to. When the final picture comes together, we'll know just how
distorted it is."

"Okay. I'm not agreeing with any of this,
mind you. But go on."

"If he did that, then it must have been
scary as hell to see her turn up alive and rapidly recovering. But
he did get a break even then, because she was so severely damaged
that it seemed highly unlikely that she would ever be able to
finger her assailant. But it could also have been comforting from
the standpoint that she also never would be able to cause a problem
over Vicky. He—"

"That's very weak, Ford. Jim and Georgia
legally adopted the child. I would say they were on firm legal
ground there."

I said, "Not if the
natural mother could show that the child had been illegally
obtained from her in the first place. At the least, she could bring
a lot of trouble. But let's not get too picky over technical points
here. People do not always react rationally when confronted with an
emotional issue, not even people like Jim Cochran—maybe especially
not people like Jim. Cops live with a lot of stress. I don't have
to tell you that. They sometimes come off flaky as hell over simple
personal problems, simply because they're already overloaded. But I
am not insisting on painting this piece of the jigsaw with Jim's
face. It's enough for now to say that, for whatever reason, Jim's
conduct in this case has been improper."

"You're overlooking something that destroys
your logic."

"What's that?"

"He went to you for help in solving the
case. Why would he do that if he was covering it all the
while?"

I said, "He came to me for help, yeah, but
how do you know what sort of help he was hoping to receive? Suppose
he only wanted me to find the girl's family?"

"Why would he want that, if not to identify
the girl and hopefully catch her assailant?"

"Maybe," I said, "because he'd already
planned to finish the job. He brought me in as a cover. And,
additionally, if I could turn something for him, to nail down any
loose ends in the girl's own environment. Maybe her people knew him
from the old days. So maybe they could endanger him and—"

"So who killed him?"

"Exactly."

"Exactly what?" he inquired warily.

I replied, "Sorry, I
thought you were leading me. As it turned out, I did help him. I
found a clue to the dead girl's origins. Don't ask about that just
now unless you really want to get into something very freaky. But I
did point Jim toward Ojai. I believe it went a bit beyond that,
even. I believe Jim was tailing me all day Wednesday. I believe he
tailed me to Sportsman's Lodge, watched me check in, got my room
number, assumed I was there for the night. I believe he took my
Walther PPK from the Maserati. I believe he called the dead girl's
sister in Ojai and got her to come to Studio City, on one pretext
or another. I believe he intended to kill that girl with my gun and
dump her on me. I believe he would have killed Dr. Saunders, too,
just on the off chance that she could be dangerous to him. She had,
after all, been very close to the dead girl for several weeks. But
obviously something went wrong with his plan. The bullet went into
his head instead of hers. I believe a guy known as Gordon Campbell
helped it to happen that way."

"Who is Gordon Campbell?"

"A fringe loony in Ojai.
Runs a sweet little fortune-telling and sex-farm scam there.
Strictly a small operator, small enough to be scared to death over
any involvement in the death of a policeman, whatever the
circumstances. He and the dead girl's sister live
together."

Captain Valdiva was looking exceptionally
tired. "They also steal the body from the morgue?"

I replied, "Jim probably did that. I believe
he was going for total destruction of the evidence."

"Shit," Valdiva said quietly. "I couldn't
buy you as the killer on a hell of a lot less fanciful scenario
than that."

I said, "Don't like it, eh?"

"Not even a little," he said
disgustedly.

"Neither do I," I admitted. "But I guess I
like it better than the alternative."

"Which alternative is that?"

"Jim did not attack
Vicky's natural mother with a crow bar. He was simply trying to
move heaven and earth to protect the one who did."

"Aw, no," Valdiva said wearily.

"Aw, yeah," I said. "If Jim didn't start all
that, then Georgia did."

"Aw, no."

My feelings exactly. We do
not always love the puzzle we solve.

Chapter Twenty-Six:
Profile

Valdiva did not feel like
eating, after all, by the time we got to the restaurant. He
reminded me of my legal obligations and dropped me there. It was
exactly twelve o'clock; Alison was not due for another thirty
minutes. I left my name with the maitre d' and went to the bar to
wait for her. Did not mind waiting; had a lot to think about. Sat
at the end of the bar and nursed a Kahlua-coffee until she arrived,
early, twenty minutes later.

We embraced and exchanged the usual status
examination. She seemed okay, maybe a bit weary around the eyes,
very sober and thoughtful, wearing the same casual outfit we'd
bought in Ojai the day before but freshly done up.

"Hope you don't mind that I went to your
place instead of my own," she said soberly. "I gambled that one of
the extra keys would open a door. Oh—the parking valet has them.
That's a honey of a car, by the way. Only took me about a half hour
to get in here."

I tried to suppress an automatic wince,
said, "Yeah, she'll fly if you let her."

She was looking me over, still evincing
concern. "You look terrible."

I said, "Thanks. Feel about the same, to
tell the truth. It has not been a joyful twelve hours."

She murmured something meant to be
comforting, I'm sure, then asked, "Did Frank tell you I talked to
him early this morning?"

I lifted an eyebrow to confirm. "Frank?"

"Captain Valdiva."

The bartender came over.
She shook her head at him, nodded at me, explained, "I started
trying to reach him at four o'clock. Took me that long to get
myself together enough to get down to Malibu and—I just couldn't go
home, I couldn't. Anyway, Malibu was closer. I took the coast
highway down from Oxnard. Hit your place about four. Started trying
to—they wouldn't give me Frank's home number. I pestered them
until—kept calling back every ten minutes. Finally he returned my
call at about five-thirty. He was very sweet, really. Assured me
that you were okay and that you would be on the streets again very
soon. I was absolutely nutty with worry and fatigue. Anyway, Frank
assured me, and—I guess I conked out at about six o'clock—the sleep
of the dead, I guess, until about half an hour before you called. I
was slowly going crazy again—uh, that?—where is Frank?—I
thought—isn't he here?"

I thought it very sweet that she'd be so
concerned about me. But I was also a bit puzzled by the seemingly
intimate way she referred to Valdiva. I told her, "Something came
up. He couldn't stay. Had you met the guy before last night?"

She replied, 'Twice, as a
matter of fact. He came to the hospital once to see Jane. And, uh,
when I was dating Jim, we ran into him one night at the Old World
on Sunset."

The maitre d' interrupted
that line of conversation. Our table was ready. The next few
minutes were devoted to studying the menus and ordering lunch. It's
a nice restaurant, sort of New York-style, wide menu selection.
Like Valdiva, I could not become too interested in food, though;
finally decided on a brunch-style offering of eggs Benedict. That
sounded okay to Alison too; obviously she was in no particular mood
for food, either.

That out of the way, I returned immediately
to Valdiva. "You said that Frank visited Jane at the hospital. When
was that?"

She furrowed her brow to reply, "Gosh,
I..."

“
I mean, at about what
point? Before Jim became...?”

"Oh, no, not before. I guess—it was about a
week after I took over. But, see, Jim was on the case before I
was."

"What do you think of Valdiva?"

"Interesting man," she replied. "Very
intense. I would say probably every inch the police officer."

"Stressed?"

"Oh, yes, definitely, he has the classic
profile. Not a lot of humor in his life, I would say. He would see
life as a challenge that must be met twenty-four hours a day."

"The guard is up," I suggested.

"It's always up, right."

"But very fair-minded."

"Yes, and that would contribute to the
stress. Things can get very difficult for us if we have no refuge
in prejudices."

It could be very easy to forget that this
highly attractive young woman carried such impressive scientific
credentials. Add to that the fact that she rarely volunteered
psychological pronouncements on everyday affairs and the transition
from pretty girl to clinical psychologist was even more
remarkable.

I was asking for a professional point of
view when I said to her, "Do you think he is a man who would come
into serious conflict if he had to decide between loyalty to a
friend and loyalty to his oath as a police officer?"

She replied very quickly to that. "Oh,
undoubtedly."

"Which would win?"

She screwed her face into a thoughtful
grimace, said, "Gosh, I don't know. It would be tough. I believe be
would probably try to find a way to satisfy both."

"Compromise?"

"Not that, exactly. He
would not see it as a compromise. He would see it as—"

I suggested, "Giving a friend the benefit of
every possible doubt?"

'To some extent, yes."

"To an extreme extent?"