JONATHAN KELLERMAN. THE CLINIC

So Seacrest hadn’t told him.

Meaning they weren’t confidants?

“Ph.D. in what?”

“Psychology.”

“Really.” He flicked ashes. “For the police?”

“Sometimes I consult to the police.”

“What exactly do you do?”

“It varies from case to case.”

“Crime-scene analysis?”

“All kinds of things.”

My ambiguity didn’t seem to bother him. “Interesting. Did they assign you to Hope’s murder because she was a psychologist or because the case is perceived as psychologically complex?”

“Both.”

“Police psychologist.” He took a long, hard drag, holding the smoke in. “The career opportunities they never tell you about in grad school. How long have you been doing it?”

“A few years.”

White vapors emerged from his nostrils. “Around here all they talk about is pure academics. They measure their success by the number of tenure-track types they place. All the tenure-track jobs are disappearing but they groom us for them, anyway. So much for reality-testing, but I guess the academic world’s never been noted for having a good grip on reality. Do you think Hope’s murder will ever be solved?”

“Don’t know. How about you?”

“Doesn’t look promising,” he said. “Which stinks. . . . Is that big detective on the ball?”

“Yes.”

He smoked some more and scratched his upper lip. “Police psychologist. Actually, that appeals to me. Dealing with the big issues: crime, deviance, the nature of evil. Since the murder I’ve thought a lot about evil.”

“Come up with any insights?”

He shook his head. “Students aren’t permitted to have insights.”

“Have you found a new advisor yet?”

“Not yet. I need someone who won’t make me start all over or dump scut work on me. Hope was great that way. If you did your job, she treated you like an adult.”

“Laissez-faire?”

“When it was deserved.” He ground out the cigarette. “She knew the difference between good and bad. She was a fine human being and whoever destroyed her should experience an excruciatingly slow, immensely bloody, inconceivably painful death.”

His lips turned upward but this time you couldn’t call the end product a smile. He put down his attachÉ case, and reaching under the coat, pulled out a hardpack of Marlboros.

“But that’s unlikely to happen, right? Because even if somehow they do catch him, there’ll be legal loopholes, procedural calisthenics. Probably some expert from our field claiming the prick suffered from psychosis or an impulse-control disorder no one’s ever heard of before. That’s why I like the idea of what you do. Being on the right side. My research area’s self-control. Petty stuff—free-feeding in rats versus schedules of reinforcement. But maybe one of these days I’ll be able to relate it to the real world.”

“Self-control and crime detection?”

“Why not? Self-control’s an integral part of civilization. The integral component. Babies are born cute and cuddly and amoral. And it’s certainly not hard to train them to be immoral, is it?”

He made a pistol with his free hand. “Everyone’s making such a big deal about ten-year-olds with Uzis but it’s just Fagin and the street rats with a little technology thrown in, right?”

“Lack of self-control,” I said.

“On a societal level. Take away external control mechanisms and the internalization process—conscience development—is immobilized and what you get are millions of savages running around giving free rein to their impulses. Like the piece of shit who killed Hope. So goddamn stupid!”

He produced a lighter and ignited another cigarette. Slightly shaky hands. He jammed them in the pockets of his coat.

“I tell you, I’d study real life if I could, but I’d be in school for the rest of my life and that’s a no-brainer. Hope steered me right, said not to try for the Nobel Prize, pick something doable, get my union card, and move on.”

He sucked smoke. “Finding another advisor won’t be easy. I’m considered the departmental fascist because I can’t stand platitudes and I believe in the power of discipline.”

“And Hope was okay with that.”

“Hope was the ultimate scholar-slash-good-mother: tough, honest, secure enough to let you go your own way once you proved you weren’t full of shit. She looked at everything with a fresh eye, refused to do or be what was expected of her. So they killed her.”

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