I asked her if Robin had left word where she was going.
“No, she didn’t, doctor. Would you like your messages?”
“Please.”
“Just one, actually, from a Mr. Sturgis. He called to say Van Nuys will be getting to your tape soon–got a broken stereo, Dr. Delaware?”
“Nothing that simple,” I said.
“Well, you know how it is, doctor. They keep making things more complicated so people have to feel stupid.”
* I picked up 150 a few miles out of town and headed northwest on two curving lanes. Lake Casitas meandered parallel to the highway, massive and gray under a listless sun. The land side was mostly avocado groves, gold tipped with new growth.
Halfway to Santa Barbara, the road reconnected with 101 and I traveled the last twelve miles at freeway speed.
I kept thinking about what Harrison had told me about de Bosch’s racism and wondered what I’d tell Katarina when I found her, how I’d approach her.
I got off the highway without an answer, bought gas, and called the number Harrison had given me. No answer. Deciding to delay confrontation for a while, I looked through my Thomas Guide for the site where the Corrective School had once been. Near the border with Montecito, several miles closer than Shoreline Drive–an omen.
It turned out to be a straight, shady street lined with gated properties. The eucalyptus here grew huge, but the trees looked dried out, almost dessicated.
Despite the fire risk, shake roofs were in abundance. So were Mercedes.
The exact address corresponded to a new-looking tract behind high stone walls.
A sign advertised six custom homes. What I could see of them was massive and cream colored.
Across the way was a pink and brown Tudor mansion with a sign out in front that said THE BANCROFI SCHOOL. A semicircular gravel drive girdled the building. A black Lincoln was parked under a spreading live oak.
A man got out of the car. Midsixties–old enough to remember. I drove across the road, pulled up next to his driver’s side, and lowered my window.
His expression wasn’t friendly. He was big and powerful looking, dressed in tweeds and a light blue sweater vest despite the heat, and he had very white, very straight hair and knockedabout features. A leather briefcase–an old one with a brass clasp –dangled from one hand. The leather had been freshly oiled–I could smell it. Several pens were clasped to his breast pocket. He looked the Seville over with narrow, dark eyes, then had a go at my face.
“Excuse me,” I said, “was the Corrective School once across the street?”
Scowl. “That’s right.” He turned to leave.
“How long has it been gone?”
“Quite a while. Why?”
“I just had a few questions about it.”
He put his briefcase down and peered into the car. “Are you an. .
.
alumnus?”
“No.”
He looked relieved.
“Do alumni come back frequently?” I said.
“No, not frequently, but. .. you do know what kind of school it was.”
“Troubled children.”
“A bad lot. We were never happy with it–we were here first, you know.
My father broke ground thirty years before they came.”
“Really.”
“We were here before most of the houses. This was all agricultural back then.”
“Did the students from the Corrective School cause problems?”
“And what’s your interest in that?”
“I’m a psychologist,” I said, and gave him a card. “I’m doing some consulting to the Los Angeles Police Department, and there’s some evidence one of the alumni is involved in something unpleasant.”
“Something unpleasant. Well, that’s not much of a surprise, is it?”
He scowled again. His eyebrows were bushy, low-set, and still dark, giving him a look of perpetual annoyance. “What kind of unpleasantness?”
“I’m sorry but I can’t go into detail–is it Mr. Bancroft?”
“It certainly is.” He produced a card of his own, white, heavy stock, a heraldic shield in one corner.
The Bancroft School Est. 1933 by Col. C. H. Bancroft (Ret.) “Building Scholarship and Character” Condon H. Bancroft, Jr B.A M.A Headmaster “By unpleasant do you mean criminal?” he said.
“It’s possible.”
He gave a knowing nod.
I said, “Why did the place close down?”