Silent Partner (23 page)

"Smart, but screwed up—those borderline characteristics we talked about. And you yourself told me how persuasive Kruse was—he had radical libbers believing whipping his wife was something noble. Those were women he knew casually. He was Sharon's supervisor, her training therapist, and she stayed with him after she got her doctorate, as his assistant. I never really understood the relationship between them, but I knew it was intense. The film was made soon after she came to L.A., which means he was monkeying with her head right from the beginning."

"Or maybe," he said, "he knew her from before."

"Maybe."

"Therapy plus cum shots." He looked grim. "Our esteemed department head's a real prince."

"Do you think the University should be apprised of his methods?"

"A little fling at whistle-blowing?" He worried his mustache. "Brenda tells me the slander laws are pretty damned convoluted. Kruse's got money—he could keep us in court for years—and no matter how it turned out we'd be raked over in the process. Are you ready for something like that?"

"I don't know."

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"Well, I'm not. Let the University do its own damned detective work."

"Let the buyer beware?"

He put his hand on the door handle, looked peeved. "Look, D., you're semi-retired, your own man, got plenty of time to run around looking at dirty movies. I've got five kids, a wife in law school, high blood pressure, and a mortgage to match. Forgive me for not wanting to play Crusader Rabbit, okay?"

"Okay," I said. "Take it easy."

"I try to, believe me, but reality keeps squeezing my nuts."

He got in the car.

"If I do anything," I said, "I'll keep you out of it."

"Good idea." He looked at his watch. "Got to roll. Can't say it's been a yuck a minute but it certainly has been different."

Two films. Another link to a dead billionaire.

And one amateur movie producer, masquerading as a healer.

I drove home determined to reach Kruse before I left for San Luis the next day. Determined the bastard was going to talk to me, one way or the other. I tried his offices again. Still no answer. I was about to phone his university exchange when the phone rang.

"Hello."

"Dr. Delaware, please."

"Speaking."

"Dr. Delaware, this is Dr. Leslie Weingarden. I've got a crisis on my hands that I thought you might be able to help me with."

She sounded tightly strung.

"What kind of crisis, Dr. Weingarden?"

"Related to our previous conversation," she said. "I'd rather not discuss it over the phone.

Could you see your way clear to come down to my office sometime this afternoon?"

"Give me twenty minutes," I said.

I changed shirts, put on a tie, called my service, and was told Olivia Brickerman had called.

"She said to tell you the system's down, Doctor," said the operator. "Whatever that means. She'll try to get you what you want as soon as it's up again."

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I thanked her and hung up. Back to Beverly Hills.

Two women sat reading in the waiting room. Neither appeared in good humor.

I rapped the glass partition. The receptionist came around and let me in. We passed several examining rooms, stopped at a door marked PRIVATE and knocked. A second later it opened partially and Leslie slipped out. She was perfectly made up, every hair in place, but she looked haggard and frightened.

"How many patients out there, Bea?"

"Just a couple. But one's a nagger."

"Tell them an emergency came up—I'll be with them soon as I can."

Bea left. Leslie said, "Let's get away from the door."

We moved down the hall. She leaned against the wall, blew out her breath, knitted her hands.

"Wish I still smoked," she said. "Thanks for coming."

"What's up?"

"D.J. Rasmussen. He's dead. His girlfriend's inside, totally coming apart. She walked in half an hour ago, just as I got back from lunch, and broke down in the waiting room. I hustled her in here fast, before the other patients arrived, and I've been tied up with her ever since. I gave her a shot of IM Valium—ten milligrams. That seemed to calm her down for a while but then she started falling apart again. Still want to help? Think you can do anything by talking to her?"

"How did he die?"

"Carmen—the girlfriend—said he'd been drinking heavily for the last few days. More heavily than usual. She was frightened he was going to get rough with her, because that was his usual pattern. But instead he got weepy, deeply depressed, started talking about what a bad person he was, all the terrible things he'd done. She tried to talk to him but he just got lower, kept drinking. Early this morning she woke up and found a thousand dollars in cash on his pillow, along with some personal snapshots of the two of them and a note that said 'Goodbye.' She jumped out of bed, saw he'd taken his guns out of the cabinet but couldn't find him. Then she heard his truck starting and ran out after him. The truck was full of guns and he'd already started drinking—she could smell it on him. She tried to stop him but he shoved her away and drove off. She got in her car and followed him. They live out in Newhall—apparently there are lots of canyons and winding roads there. He was speeding and weaving, going over ninety. She couldn't keep up and missed a turn. But she retraced, stayed with him, and saw him go over an embankment. The truck rolled around, landed at the bottom, and exploded. Just like TV, she said."

Leslie chewed on a fingernail.

"Do the police know about this?"

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"Yes. She called them. They asked her a few questions, took her statement, and told her to go home. According to her, they didn't seem very concerned. D.J. was known locally as a troublemaker, history of driving under the influence. She claims she heard one of them mutter,

'Fucking streets are safer now.' That's all I know. Can you help?"

"I'll try."

We entered her private office—small, book-lined, furnished with a pine writing desk and two chairs, decorated with cute posters, plants, souvenir mugs, photo cubes. In one of the chairs sat a chubby young woman with a poor complexion. She wore a white blousy shift, brown stretch pants, and flat sandals. Her hair was long and black, blond-streaked and disheveled; her eyes, red-rimmed and puffy. When she saw me she turned away and buried her face in her hands.

Leslie said, "Carmen, this is Dr. Delaware. Dr. Delaware, Carmen Seeber."

I sat in the other chair. "Hi, Carmen."

"Carmen, Dr. Delaware's a psychologist. You can talk to him."

And with that, Leslie left the room.

The young woman kept her face hidden, didn't move or speak. After a while, I said, "Dr.

Weingarden told me about D.J. I'm very sorry."

She started to sob, humped shoulders heaving.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Carmen? Anything you need?"

More sobs.

"I met DJ. once," I said. "He seemed a very troubled person."

A rush of tears.

"It must have been hard for you, living with him, all the drinking. But even so, you miss him terribly. It's hard to believe he's gone."

She began swaying, clutching her face.

"Oh, God!" she cried out. "Oh, God! Oh, God, help me! Oh, God!"

I patted her shoulder. She shuddered but didn't move away.

We sat that way for a while, she calling out for divine help, me absorbing her grief, feeding her small bites of empathy. Providing tissues and a cup of water, telling her none of it was her fault, that she'd done the best she could, no one could have done better. That it was okay to feel, okay to hurt.

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Finally she looked up, wiped her nose, and said, "You're a nice man."

"Thank you."

"My papa was a nice man. He ya know died."

"I'm sorry."

"He left a long time ago, when I was in ya know kindergarten. I came home with stuff we made for Thanksgiving—ya know paper turkeys and Pilgrim hats—and I saw them take him away in the ambulance."

Silence.

"How old are you, Carmen?"

"Twenty."

"You've dealt with a lot in twenty years."

She smiled. "I guess so. And now Danny. He was ya know nice, too, even though he was a mean one when he drank. But deep down, nice. He didn't ya know give me no hassles, took me places, got me ya know all kinds of stuff."

"How long did you know each other?"

She thought'. " 'Bout two years. I was driving this catering truck—ya know, the roach wagon.

Used to drive by all these ya know construction sites and Danny was working at one, framing."

I nodded encouragement.

"He liked burritos," she said. "Ya know meat and potato but no beans—beans made him toot which made him ya know mean. I thought he was kinda cute so I gave him freebies, the boss never knew. Then we started ya know living together."

She gazed at me, childlike.

I smiled.

"I never, ever thought he'd really ya know do it."

"Kill himselP"

She bobbed her head. Tears ran down her pimpled cheeks.

"Had he talked about suicide, before?"

"When he drank and got all p.o.'d, ya know, he'd go on about how ya know life sucked, it was better to be dead, ya know, he was gonna do it some day, tell everyone the 1-word off. Then when he hurt his back—ya know the pain, out of work—he was real low. But I never thought..."

She broke down again.

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"There was no way to know, Carmen. When a person makes up his mind to kill himself, there's no way to stop him."

"Yeah," she said, between gulps of air. "Ya couldn't stop Danny when he made his mind up, that's fer sure. He was a real hardbutt, real ya know stubborn. I tried to stop him this morning but he just kept going, like he wasn't ya know hearing me, just all juiced and ya know shootin'

ahead like a bat out of... hell."

"Dr. Weingarden said he talked about some bad things he'd done."

She nodded. "He was pretty broke up. Said he was a ya know grievous sinner."

"Do you know what he was broken up about?"

Shrug. "He used to ya know get in fights, beat people up in bars—nothing really heavy, but he did hurt some people." She smiled. "He was little but ya know real tough. Scrappy. And he liked to smoke weed and drink, which made him real scrappy—but he was a good dude, ya know. He didn't do nothing real bad."

Wanting to know her support system, I asked her about family and friends.

"I don't got no family," she said. "Neither did Danny. And we didn't have no ya know friends. I mean I didn't mind but Danny didn't like people—maybe 'cause his papa beat him up all the time and it turned him ya know angry at the world. That's why he*..."

"He what?"

"Offed him."

"He killed his father?"

"When he was a kid—self-defense! But the cops did a number on him—they sent him to ya know CYA till he was eighteen. He got out and did his own thing but he didn't like no friends.

All he liked was me and the dogs— we got two Rottweiler mixes, Dandy and Paco. They liked him a lot. They been crying all day, going to miss him something bad."

She cried for a long time.

"Carmen," I said, "you're going through hard times. It will help to have someone to talk to. I'd like to hook you up with a doctor, a psychologist like me."

She looked up. "I could talk to you."

"I'm... I don't usually do this kind of work."

She pursed her lips. "It's the bread, right. You don't take no Medi-Cal, right?"

"No, Carmen. I'm a child psychologist. I work with children."

"Right, I understand," she said with more sadness than anger. As if this were the latest injustice in
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a life full of them.

"The person I want to refer you to is very nice, very experienced."

She pouted, rubbed her eyes.

"Carmen, if I talk to her about you and get you her number, will you call?"

"A her?" She shook her head violently. "No way. I don't want no lady doctor."

"Why's that?"

"Danny had a lady doctor. She messed with him."

"Messed with him?"

She spit on the floor. "Ya know ballin' him. He always said, no bullshit, Carmen, we never done it. But he'd come back from ya know seein' her and have that ya know look in his eyes and he'd smell all of lovin'—disgustin'. I don't want to talk about it. Don't want no lady doctor in any case."

"Dr. Weingarden's a lady."

"That's different."

"Dr. Small, the person I want to send you to, is different too, Carmen. She's in her fifties, very kind, would never do anything dishonest."

She looked unconvinced.

"Carmen, I've seen her myself."

She didn't understand.

"Carmen, she was my doctor."

"You? What for?"

"Sometimes I need to talk too. Everyone does. Now promise me to go see her once. If you don't like her, I'll get you someone else." I pulled out a card with my exchange number on it and gave it to her.

She closed one hand over it.

"I just don't think it's right," she said.

"What isn't?"

"Her balling him. A doctor should, ya know, know better."

"You're absolutely right."

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That surprised her, as if it were the first time anyone had ever agreed with her.

"Some doctors shouldn't be doctors," I said.

"I mean," she said, "I could sue or something."

"No one to sue, Carmen. If you're talking about Dr. Ransom, she's dead. She killed herself too."

Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, my God, I didn't... I mean, I ya know wished it to happen, but I didn't... Now it's... oh, my God."

She crossed herself, squeezed her temples, stared at the ceiling.

"Carmen, none of this is your fault. You're a victim."

She shook her head.

"A victim. I want you to understand that."

"I—I don't understand nothing." Tears. "This is all too ya know... too... I don't understand it."

I leaned forward, smelled her anguish. "Carmen, I'll stay here with you as long as you need me to. All right? All right, Carmen?"