The Clinic

“And Hope's?”

“Hope's parents are both deceased. As are mine. Neither of us had siblings. I suppose I'm all that's left of both families.”

I knew what Milo was thinking: sole heir.

“What did her father do?” he said.

“He was a sailor. Merchant marine. He died when Hope was very young. She didn't talk much about him.”

“And her mother?”

“Her mother worked in a restaurant.” Seacrest headed for the door. “As I told the first detectives, she's also deceased and Hope had no other family.”

Milo said, “Quite a skill.”

“What is?”

“Keeping your professional lives separate. Keeping things separate, in general.”

Seacrest licked his lips. “Not at all. Quite the opposite, actually.”

“It was easy?”

“Certainly. Because we respected each other.” Opening the door, he extended an arm outside.

“Warm night,” he said. “The night it happened was much cooler.”

Milo drove Wilshire Boulevard through the corridor of high-rise condos that made up L.A.'s nod to Park Avenue.

“Diagnosis?” he said.

“He's not Mr. Warmth but he's got reason to be depressed. He could be hiding something or really not know much. Bottom line: nothing earth-shattering.”

“And Mr. Locking?”

“The skull ring was cute. First I found myself wondering about a relationship between him and Seacrest, then between him and Hope.”

“Him and Seacrest? Why?”

“Locking driving that car seemed awfully personal, though Seacrest's barter explanation could cover that. Also, Seacrest seemed to be delaying letting us in and once he did, he called upstairs to say the police were there. Which could have been his way of warning Locking. Giving him time to get his clothes on? All of which is pure supposition.”

“Okay… why Locking and Hope?”

“You've wondered all along about her having an affair. Most affairs begin at work and Locking was the guy she worked with. And after marriage to someone like Seacrest, she might have been ready for a little excitement.”

“Black leather and a skull ring,” he said, drumming the steering wheel and heading into Westwood Village. Like so much else in L.A., the district had been intellectually downscaled, the bookstores of my college days surrendering to games arcades, gyro shacks, and insta-latte assembly-line franchises.

“What I found interesting,” he said, “was the way Seacrest suggested the murder could be blamed on the book. Insisting it had nothing to do with her academic life. Which distances it from him. I've seen killers who think they're smart do that- give out alternative scenarios. That way they can look helpful while thinking they're steering us away from them. And that dog. Who better to slip her a nice big steak laced with God-knows-what. And now he's given her away.”

“Getting rid of the reminders.”

He made an ugly sound and loosened his tie. “Locking and Hope, Locking and Seacrest. Guess I'll make use of some of my homosexual contacts. Maybe the lieutenant was right and I am the perfect guy for the case.”

“I wonder,” I said, “why it took so long for Locking to come get his data. Hope's been dead three months. That's a lot of time when you're working on your dissertation. Then again, Locking hasn't found a new advisor so maybe he's having trouble adjusting to Hope's death. Maybe because they had more going than a student-teacher thing. Or, he's just a hang-loose guy in no great hurry to finish. You see that in grad school. Though his go-round with Ke

“What do you think of Hope appointing her own prize student to the committee?”

“Packing the jury. She could have justified it in the name of efficiency. Seacrest said she distrusted organizations, and everything else tells us she wasn't much of a team player.”

“That's why I'm interested in meeting people she did work with. Lawyer Barone's still ignoring me but Dr. Cruvic left a message saying he'll see me briefly at ten-thirty tomorrow morning. Care to come, psych him out?”

“Sure.”

“Not a team player,” he said. “Cowgirl with a Ph.D. Sometimes cowgirls get thrown.”

7

The following day I met Milo for breakfast at Nate 'n Al's on Beverly, then we drove to Dr. Cruvic's office on Civic Center Drive.

Interesting location for a private practitioner. Most of Beverly Hills's medical suites are housed in the stylish neo-Federal buildings that line North Bedford, Roxbury, and Camden, and in the big reflective towers on Wilshire.

Civic Center was the northern edge of the city's meager industrial district, a few nondescript blocks that paralleled Santa Monica Boulevard but were blocked from motorists' view by tall hedges and eucalyptus. Unused railroad tracks cut diagonally through the street. Past the tracks were a pink granite office complex, the frosted-glass headquarters of a record company, and the neo-retro-post-whatever-revival municipal center that contained Beverly Hills's city hall, library, police and fire departments.

Development hadn't come yet to the other side of the tracks, where Cruvic's pink stucco Spanish building shared space with an assortment of narrow, shabby/cute single- and double-story structures dating from World War I and earlier. The doctor's immediate neighbors were a beauty parlor, a telephone answering service, and an unmarked building with a loading dock. The pink building had no front windows, just a massive wood-and-iron door like those you see in Spain and Italy and Greece, leading to courtyards. A ring-in buzzer was topped by a tarnished bronze sign so small it seemed intent on avoiding discovery. M. CRUVIC, M.D. etched shallowly.

Milo punched the buzzer and we waited. But for the hum of the cars on Santa Monica, the street was sleepy. Geraniums grew out of boxes in the beautician's window. In all my years in L.A., I'd never had a reason to be here.

Milo knew what I was thinking. “Looks like someone else likes privacy.”

Rubbing his lip with his lower teeth, he pushed the buzzer again.

Electric bee-buzz response, the click of release. He shoved at the heavy wood and we stepped in.

On the other side was a courtyard. Flagstone-floored, open to the sky, set up with potted bananas, flax plants, azaleas. A small iron table and two chairs. Ashtray on the table. Two lipsticked butts. The interior building was two stories with barred windows and hand-wrought balconies. Two doors. The right one opened and a woman in a light blue uniform came out. “Right here.” Throaty voice. She pointed to the left.

She was around fifty, trim and brunette with a very large bust, a tight, shiny, tan face, and dancer's calves.

“Detective Sturgis? I'm A

“No, thanks.”

She'd taken us into a short, bright hallway. Dark wood doors, all closed, and dense tan carpeting that smothered our footsteps. The walls were white and looked freshly painted. She opened the fourth door and stepped aside.

The room was small with a low ceiling. Two beige cotton armchairs and a matching love seat sat on a black area rug. A chrome-and-glass coffee table separated them. A pair of high windows exposed the brick wall of the beauty-parlor building. No desk, no books, no phone.

“Dr. Cruvic's offices are on the other side but he'd like you to remain here so as not to upset the patients. You're sure you don't want coffee? Or tea?”

Milo declined again and smiled.

“Okay, then. Make yourselves comfortable, he should be right in.”

“Nice old building,” said Milo. “Must be good to have this kind of space in Beverly Hills.”