to come across as a human being instead of
some white-coated technocrat. He didn’t bother to
get to know the Swopes but it doesn’t occur to him
that his remoteness has anything to do with their–defection.
I extended my’self, so I’m the goat.” He
sniffed, wiped his nose, and drained one of the
water glasses. “What’s the use of dissecting it?
They’re gone.”
I remembered Milo’s conjecture about the abandoned
car.
“They may be back,” I said.
“Be serious, man. They see themselves as having-escaped
to freedom. No way.”
“Freedom’s going to sour pretty quickly when
the .disease gets out of control.”
“The fact is,” he said, “they hated everything
about this place. The noise, the lack of privacy,
even the sterility. You worked in Laminar Flow,
right?”
“Three years.”
“Then you know the kind of food the kids in
there get–processed and overcooked and dead.”
It was true. To a patient without normal immunity
a fresh fruit or vegetable is a potential medium
for lethal microbes, a glass of milk a breeding pond
for lactobacillus. Consequently, everything the kids
in the plastic rooms ate was processed to begin
with, then heated and sterilized, sometimes to the
point where no nutrients remained.
“We Understand the concept,” he said, “but tots
of-parents have difficulty grasping
bly sick kid can have his fill of cola and potato
chips and all kinds of junk while carrots are out. It ‘
goes against the grain.”
“I know,” I said, “but most people accept it pretty
quickly because their child’s life is at stake. Why
not the Swopes?”
“They’re country ‘folk. They come from a place
where the air is clean and people grow their own
food. They see the city as a poisonous place. The
father used to rail on about how bad the air was.
‘You’re breathing sewage’ he’d tell me every time I
saw b, im. He had a thing for clean air and natural
foods. For how healthy it was back home.’-‘
“Not healthy enough,” I said.
“No, not healthy enough. How’s that for a frontal.
assault on a belief system?” He gave a mournful
look. “Isn’t there a term in psych for when it all
comes tumbling down like that ?”
“Cognitive dissonance.”
“Whatever. Tell me,” he leaned forward, “what
do people do when they’re in that state?”
“Sometimes change their beliefs, sometimes distort
reality to fit those beliefs.”
He leaned back, ran his hands through his hair
and smiled.
“Need’I say more.?”
I shook m y head and tried the coffee again. It had
gotten colder, but no better.
“I keep hearing about the father,” I said: “The
mother sounds like his shadow.”
“Far from it. If anything, she was the tougher of
the two. It’s just’that she was quiet. She let him
run off at the mouth while she stayed with Woody,
doing what needed to be done.”
122 Jonathan Kellerman
“Could she have been behind their leaving?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “All I’m saying is she
was a strong woman, not some cardboard cutout.”
“What about the sister? Beverly said there was
no love lost between her and her parents.”
“I wouldn’t know about that. She wasn’t around
much, kept to herself when she was.”
He wiped his nose and stood.
“I don’t like to gossip,” he said. “I’ve indulged in
too much of it already.”
He snatched up his white coat, flung it over his
shoulder, turned his back and left me sitting there.
I watched him walk away, lips moving, as if in
silent prayer.
It was after eight by the time I reached Beverly Glen.
My house sits atop an old bridle path forgotten by the
city. There are no streetlights and the road is serpentine
but I know every twist by heart and drove home
by Sense of touch. In the mailbox was a love letter
from Robin. I got high on it for a while but after
the fourth reading, a hazy sense of sadness set in.
It was too late to feed the koi so I took a hot bath,
toweled off, put on my ratty yellow robe, and carried
a brandy into the small library off the bedroom.
I finished writing a couple of overdue.forensic