“Could I talk to the other fellows?” I said.
“Why not? Walt Yee didn’t know her, of course, and I don’t believe Shashi Lakshman did, either-he’s the pharmacologist, has his own lab in a separate building. But maybe she interfaced with the M.D.’s-Mary Hertzlinger and Andy Vel-man. Let me call
Shashi first.”
A few seconds on the phone confirmed that Dr. Lakshman had never met Claire. We took the stairs down to a second-floor lab and found Doctors Hertzlinger and Velman typing at personal computers.
Both psychiatric fellows were in their thirties and had on white coats. Mary
Hertzlinger wore a short brown dress under hers. She was thin, with cropped platinum-blond hair, ivory skin, well-formed but chapped lips. Andrew Velman’s coat was buttoned up high, revealing a black shirt collar and the tight knot of a lemon-yellow tie. He was short, broad, with black wavy hair, a gold stud hi his left ear.
I asked them about Claire.
Velman spoke first, in a clipped voice. “Virtual stranger. I’ve been here two years
and maybe we exchanged twenty sentences. She always seemed too busy to hang out.
Also, I do the structured clinical interviews on the study and she did the neuropsych testing, so at any given time, we’d be with different patients.”
“Did she ever say why she was leaving to work at Starkweather?”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t even know about that until Mary told me.” He glanced at
Hertzlinger. So didTheobold.
She held her coat closed with one hand and said, “She told me a few days before she left.” Low, smooth voice. “I had a really small office on the floor below, and she asked me if I wanted hers. I went to look at it and said yes, helped her carry some boxes to her car. She said her grant had run out and she hadn’t tried to renew it.
She’d just written a note informing Dr.Theobold.”
Theobold said, “What reason did she give you, Mary?”
“None.”
“What was her mood when she told you?” I said.
“Pretty calm. Not agitated or upset… I’d have to describe her as calm and deliberate. As if she’d planned it for a while, was at peace with it.”
“Time to move on,” said Velman.
“Did you socialize with her?” I asked Hertzlinger.
She shook her head. “Same thing as Andy-we had almost no contact. I’ve only been here a year. We saw each other in the cafeteria and had coffee. Maybe three, four times. Never lunch. I never saw her eat lunch. Sometimes when I was on my way out to the caf, I’d pass her office and her door would be open and she’d be at her desk working. I remember thinking, What a work ethic, she must be extremely productive.”
“The times you did have coffee,” I said, “what did you talk about?”
“Work, data. After I found out what happened to her, I realized how little I knew about her. It’s so grotesque-do the police have any idea who did it?”
“Not yet.”
“Terrible,” she said.
Velman said, “Had to have something to do with Starkweather. Look at the patient population she got herself involved with.”
I said, “Only problem is, the patients don’t get out.”
“Never?”
“So they claim.”
He frowned.
“Did she tell either of you that she was going to Starkweather?”
Velman shook his head.
Mary Hertzlinger said, “She told me. The day we moved the boxes. It surprised me, but I didn’t question her-she was like that. You didn’t get personal with her.”
“Did she give a reason?” I said.
“Not really a reason,” she said. “But she did say something… uncharacteristically
flippant. We’d just loaded the car. She thanked me, wished me luck, and then she smiled. Almost smugly.”
“What was funny?” said Theobold.
“Exactly,” said Hertzlinger. “I said something to the effect that ‘I’m glad you’re pleased about your plans.’ That’s when she said it: ‘It’s not a matter of being pleased, Mary. So many madmen, so little time.’ ”
“SHE WAS IN a big damn hurry to work with psychotics?” saidMilo.
It was noon. We were standing next to the Seville, on Butler Avenue, across from the
West L.A. station.