“There was no formal treatment, Bert. I don’t see any problem, legally.”
“That’s not the point. Morally, it’s an issue–moral issues transcend the law.” He slapped his own wrist and smiled. “Gawd, doesn’t that sound self-righteous.”
“There is a moral issue,” I said. “But weigh it against the alternatives. Two definite murders. Three if you include Grant Stoumen. Maybe four, if someone pushed Mitchell Lerner off that cliff.
Myra Paprock was raped, as well. Taken apart physically. She left two small children. I just met her husband. He still hasn’t healed.”
“You’re quite good at guilt yourself, young man.”
“Whatever works, Bert. How’s that for a moral stance?”
He smiled. “No doubt you’re a practical therapist…. No his name wasn’t Silk.
Another type of fabric. That’s what made me think of it. Merino.” He spelled it out.
“First name?”
“He didn’t give one. Called himself Mister.” Mr. Merino. It sounded pretentious in someone so young. Awful insecurity.”
“Can you pinpoint his age?”
“Twenties–early twenties would be my guess. He had a young man’s impetuousness. Poor impulse control to call like that and make demands. But he was stressed, and stress causes regression, so maybe he was older.”
“When was the Corrective School established?”
“Nineteen sixty-two.”
“So if he was in his twenties in seventy-nine, he could easily have been a patient. Or one of the field hands–Merino’s an Hispanic name.”
“Or someone with no connection to the school at all,” he said. “What if he was just someone with deep-seated problems who sat in on the conference and reacted to it for one reason or another?”
“Could be,” I said, calculating silently: Dorsey Hewitt would have been around eighteen in 1979. Lyle Gritz, a year older.
“All right,” I said, “thanks for telling me, and I won’t give out the information unless it’s essential. Is there anything else you remember that might help?”
“No, I don’t think so. Thank you. For warning me.”
He looked around his small house with longing. I knew the feeling.
“Do you have a place to go?” I said.
Nod. “There are always places. New adventures.”
He walked me to my car. The heat had turned up a bit and the air was thick with honeybees.
“Off to Santa Barbara now?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Give Katarina my best when you see her. The easiest way is Highway 150. Pick it up just out of town and take it all the way. It’s no more than a half-hour drive.”
“Thanks.”
We shook hands.
“One more thing, Bert?”
“Yes?”
“Mitchell Lerner’s problems. Could they have resulted in any way from his work at the school–or did they cause problems there?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “He never spoke about the school. He was a very closed person–highly defensive.”
“So you did ask him about it?”
“I asked him about every element of his past. He refused to talk about anything but his drinking. And even then, just in terms of getting rid of a bad habit. In his own work, he despised behaviorism, but when it came to his therapy, he wanted to be reconditioned. Overnight.
Something short term and discreet– hypnosis, whatever.”
“You’re an analyst. Why did he come to you?”
“Safety of the familiar.” He smiled. “And I’ve been known to be pragmatic from time to time.”
“If he was so resistant, why’d he bother to go into therapy in the first place?”
“As a condition of his probation. The social work ethics committee demanded it, because it had affected his work–missed appointments, failure to submit insurance forms so his patients could recover. I’m afraid he acted the same way as a patient. Not showing up, very unreliable.”
“How long did you see him?”
“Obviously, not long enough.”
2l There seemed little doubt that Myra Evans and Myra Paprock were the same person. And that her murder and the deaths of others were related to de Bosch and his school.
Silk. Merino.
The conference putting someone in touch with his problems. .. some sort of trauma.
Bad love.
Taken apart.
A child’s voice chanting.
I felt a sudden stab of panic about leaving Robin alone, stopped in the center of Ojai, and called her from a pay phone. No answer. The Benedict number had been channeled through my answering service, and on the fifth ring an operator picked up.