He stopped, as if expecting me to pass judgment on that.
I said, “Claire worked for you for six years. She must have liked that.”
“I suppose.”
“How’d you find her?”
“I’d put in for my grant and she applied for the neuropsych position. She was completing a postdoc at Case Western, had published two papers as a grad student, sole author. Nothing earth-shattering, but encouraging. Her interest-alcoholism and reaction times-meshed with mine. No shortage of alcoholics here. I thought she’d be able to attract her own funding, and she did.”
All facts I’d read in Claire’s resume.
“So she worked with you and on her own research.”
“Twenty-five percent of her time was her research; the rest she spent on my longitudinal study of neuroleptic outcomes- NIMH grant, three experimental drugs plus placebo, double-blind. She tested the patients, helped organize the data. We just got renewed for five more years. I just hired her replacement-bright kid from
Stanford, Walter Yee.”
“Who else worked on the study?” I said.
“Three research fellows besides Claire-two M.D.’s, one Ph.D. pharmacologist.”
“Was she friendly with any of them?”
“I wouldn’t know. As I said, I don’t meddle. It’s not one of those situations where we fraternize after hours.”
“Five-year renewal,” I said. “So there was no financial reason for her to leave.”
“Not in the least. She probably could’ve renewed her own study, too. She had substance-abuse money from NIH, completed the final study before she left.
Inconclusive results, but well run, very decent chance. But she never applied.” He glanced upward. “Never even told me she was allowing the grant to lapse.”
“So she must have been intending to leave for some time.”
“Looks that way. I was pretty irritated at her. For not wanting to follow through.
For not communicating. Irked at myself, too, for not staying in touch. If she’d come to me, most likely I’d have been able to raise her to full-time, or to find her something else. She was very good at what she did. Dependable, no complaints. I managed to get Dr. Yee on full-time. But she never bothered to- I suppose you’re right. She wanted to leave. I have no idea why.”
“So she never complained.”
“Not once. Even the way she told me she was leaving-no personal meeting; she just sent in a summary of her data with a note that the grant was finished and so was she.”
That reminded me of the way she’d divorced Joe Stargill.
” Who’d she work with on her own grant?”
“She got part-time secretarial help from the main pool, ran all her own studies, analyzed her own data. That was also irksome. I’m sure she could’ve applied for ancillary funding, brought more money into the department, but she always wanted to work by herself. I suppose I should be grateful. She took care of herself, never bothered me for anything. The last thing I need is someone who requires hand-holding. Still… I suppose I should’ve paid more attention.”
“A loner,” I said.
“But all of us are. In my group. I didn’t think I’d been hiring antisocial types, but perhaps on some level…” Wide smile. “Did you know I started as an analyst?”
“Really.”
“You bet, classical Freudian, couch and all. This”-he touched the beard-“used to be a very analytic goatee. I attended the institute right after residency, got halfway through-hundreds of hours cultivating the proper ‘hmm’- before I realized it wasn’t for me. Wasn’t for anyone, in my estimation, except possibly Woody Alien. And look at the shape he’s in. I quit, enrolled in the biochem Ph.D. program at USC. I’m sure those choices mean something psychodynam-ically, but I’d rather not waste time trying to figure out what. Claire seemed to me the same way-scientific, focused on reality, self-possessed. Still, she must have been terribly unhappy here.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Leaving for a place like that. Have you been there?”
“Yesterday.”
“What’s it like?”
“Highly structured. Lots of high-dose medication.”
“Brave new world,” he said. “I can’t see why Claire would have wanted that.”
“Maybe she craved clinical work.”
“Nonsense,” he said sharply. Then he smiled apologetically. “What I mean is, she could’ve had all the clinical work she wanted right here. No, I must have missed something.”