The Clinic

“Do you get this clear with every attorney you work for?”

“I don't work much for attorneys.”

“I've heard you do lots of child-custody work.”

“When I do, I work for the court.”

“I see… so you're afraid of Mr. Muscadine. Why?”

“I have no specific fear of him but I'm careful. Let's say I don't come to the conclusions he wants me to. If he has murdered all those people, it's an indication he doesn't take well to disappointment.”

“Disappointment?” He flicked away the cigarette. “That's a mild way to describe loss of a vital organ.”

I looked at my watch.

He said, “Essentially, the man was raped, Dr. Delaware.”

“How does he claim it happened?”

“I'll let him tell you that. If I let him talk to you at all. Even if I don't, you'll get the contract and a check for your time today.”

“Meaning I already belong to you and can't cooperate voluntarily with the police.”

He smiled.

“Fine,” I said, looking at my watch again. “Far as I'm concerned, the less I have to do with any of this the better.”

He hooked a thumb in his vest. The line of waiting women inched past us.

“This,” he said, “may not work out.”

“Up to you.”

“I'm interested in your professional opinion because I think it's a clear case of mental anguish- like what battered wives go through. But I'm not sure, given your history with the police, that you'll render an impartial opinion.”

“If I get data, I'll render. If you want someone you can play ventriloquist with, I'm not your man.”

He looked at my card. “I hear a clear prosecution bias.”

“Have it your way.”

“You don't lean toward the other side?” he said.

“I keep an open mind. If you want a whore, drive down Hollywood Boulevard and flash a twenty.”

His freckles deepened in color and the skin between them turned pink. He gave a deep laugh. “That's good, I like that. Okay, you're my guy. Because his mental anguish is so obvious even you'll see it. And getting someone like you to testify to that will be all the more impressive. A police consultant.”

He held out his hand and we shook. Some of the women in line watched and I could only imagine what they were thinking.

“Let's go meet Reed,” he said. “And don't worry, he can't hurt you.”

41

“Therapy,” said Muscadine, smiling and flipping his long hair. “Quite a luxury for a starving actor.”

“Ever had any therapy?” I said.

“Just the mind games they put you through in acting class. Probably should've, though.”

“Why's that?”

“My obvious emotional problems. Which is what you're here to establish, right?”

“I want to know as much as I can about you, Reed.”

“That's kind of flattering.” He smiled and flipped his hair again. He was in street clothes- a black T-shirt and jeans- but behind glass. A few days of incarceration hadn't hurt his looks, and his muscles were still huge and well-defined. Push-ups in the cell, probably. He was big enough to defend himself.

The deputy in the corner of the visiting room turned toward us. Muscadine smiled at him, too, and he showed Muscadine a khaki back.

“How are they treating you?” I asked.

“Not bad, so far. Of course, I'm a model prisoner. No reason not to be- shall I tell you about my mother? She really was a piece of work.”

“Eventually,” I said. “But first, tell me about your love for animals.”

The smile left his face and returned, stiffer. I could hear a director shout, “Loosen up, go with the feeling, Reed!”

“Well,” he said, crossing his legs, “they do love me.”

“I know. The reason I'm asking is the day I visited you I noticed how well you got along with Mrs. Green's bullmastiff.”

“Samantha and I are good buddies.”

“Mrs. Green said Samantha's very protective of her.”

“She is.”

“But not around you.”

“I lived there,” he said. “I belonged. But yes, you're right. I do have a special rapport with animals. Probably 'cause they sense I'm at ease with them.”

“Did you have lots of pets as a child?”

“No,” he said. “Mom.”

“She wouldn't let you have any?”

He shook his head. “Never.” White-toothed snarl/smile. “Mom was an extremely neat woman.”

“And after you left home- how old were you, by the way?”

“College. Eighteen.”

“Ever return home?”

“Not a chance. I-”

“Did you get any pets once you were living on your own?”

“Couldn't. The places I rented wouldn't let me. Then my job got in the way.”

“Accounting.”

He nodded. “The old nine-to-five. It wasn't fair to leave an animal alone all day. When I went back to school and got serious about acting, same thing. I did do some work as a groomer for a while.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, just for a few months, one of those mobile van things. One of the many things I did in order to pursue my craft.”

“Starving actor.”

“Yes, I know I'm a clichÉ, but so what?”

“So am I, I guess. L.A. shrink.”

He chuckled.

“So,” I said. “Grooming must have increased your skills with animals.”

“Definitely. You learn how to touch them, how to speak to them. With animals, ninety-nine percent is nonverbal communication. You feel right about yourself, they'll feel right about you. And working with them, you learn to read them.”

“To know which ones are hostile, which are friendly?”

“Exactly.”

“Nonverbal,” I said. “Interesting. Was Hope Devane's Rottweiler easy to read?”

He looked at his feet. Flipped his hair. “We're going to get right into it?”

“Any reason not to?”

“I don't know,” he said. “Oster says I should talk freely to you, but he's just a P.D.”

“You don't have confidence in him?”

“He seems fine, but…”

“You don't trust him?”

“Sure I do. Twenty feet farther than I can throw him.” Another white-toothed grin. “Which is about fifteen feet more than I'd trust most lawyers- actually, he's smarter than I expected from a civil servant. And what's my choice? I am a starving actor.”

I jotted down notes, looked back up at him.

“The Rottweiler,” I said. “How'd you handle her- she was a bitch, wasn't she?”

“Very much so.” Smile. “Gave her some meat sprinkled with paregoric.”

“Through the gate?”

He nodded.

“She just took it from you?”

“Just like that,” he said. “Amazingly easy. Because I'd driven and walked by the house when she was out in the yard and she barked plenty. But she must have smelled the meat because the minute I started up the lawn, she quieted. And by the time I got to the gate, she was sitting there with her tongue out. Lapped it up.”

“Was this during the day or at night?”

“At night. Maybe eight o'clock.”

“The night Professor Devane was killed?” Use the passive voice, keep him at ease…

Nod.

“Was anyone home?” I said.

“They both were.” Big smile. “That was the beauty of it. The street was so dark, those big trees, no one walking. I leaned my bike against the tree, walked up their front lawn, gave the meat to the dog, and just rode away.”

Long silence.

Finally, he said, “So easy.”

I nodded. “You came back later?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Around ten.”

“Because that was the time of her nightly walk.”

The smile dropped off. “She walked between ten-thirty and eleven-thirty. Same route, black sweats one night, gray the next. Black, gray, black, gray. Like a machine. I didn't know if she'd walk without the dog or call it off. But she did- does that tell you the kind of person she was? The poor Rottie's barfing its guts out and she just goes about her routine? If she'd veered off-schedule, who knows, I might never have gone through with it.”

“Really?”

He stared at me. Broke into the widest grin yet. “Nah, eventually it would have happened.”