AS expected, the story broke in all the major newspapers the next day. Lilly still wouldn’t take my calls, and frustrated, I decided to go to Ojai. My obligation to tell Jupiter that we were officially off the case would provide convenient cover for a much-needed conversation with Dr. Blackmore.
For once traffic cooperated with me, and I soon found myself driving up the Pacific Coast Highway with the window rolled down and the salt air tickling my nose. I was making such good time that I gave in to a craving and stopped at a date shake shack. This Southern California delicacy is just what it sounds like—a smoothie made out of sweet, ripe dates. I lingered for a few moments sipping my sweet frozen drink and watching the surfers lying on their boards, bobbing in the waves like seals sunning themselves on shiny white slabs of rock. Out in the distance, a swell threatened to turn into an actual wave. The surfers began paddling furiously, and as the wave caught them, they jumped to their feet, skidding and sliding along the white frosted edge. One by one they crashed into the foam until finally only one was left. The lone surfer twisted and glided, riding the wave onto the shore with a casual grace. The dark wetsuit couldn’t disguise the swell of the surfer’s hips and breasts as she danced into the shallow water and scooped up the board with a practiced flip of her foot and a toss of her long blond hair. Every once in a while it becomes absolutely clear to me why I live in California.
I tossed my cup into a trashcan and got behind the wheel of my car. Just then, my cell phone rang. It was Peter.
“Juliet! There was a message from the doctor’s office on the machine when I woke up,” he said.
It had been two weeks since my CVS. I had been so busy with the case, I hadn’t even noticed the time passing. “Oh my God. What did they say?”
“Wait. I’ll play it for you.” The phone buzzed hollowly in my ear for a moment, and then I heard the shrill beep of the answering machine. A nasal and rather formal voice said, “This is Santa Monica Obstetrics and Gynecology. The result of your genetic test came back normal.” There was a pause. Then the voice became suddenly human and warm. “Congratulations!”
Peter got back on the phone. “She’s fine!” he said.
“How do you know she’s a she?”
“I just know.”
“I want to know for sure. Call right now.”
“Will they tell me? Or do you have to call yourself?”
After much incompetent fumbling, we managed to figure out how to use our three-way calling function. The receptionist at the doctor’s office switched us over to a nurse, who cheerfully agreed to dig out our file. While we waited, Peter repeated over and over again that it was a girl, and I reminded him that we didn’t care what sex it was, so long as it was healthy. Finally the nurse came back on the line. “Are you sure you want to know?” she asked.
“Yes!” we shouted in unison.
“It’s a little girl!” she said.
Honestly, I hadn’t cared whether it was a boy or a girl. Either would have been wonderful. But to be able, suddenly, to imagine the little daughter growing in my body filled me with an unexpected bliss. I suppose I can understand the desire not to find out your child’s sex; the thrill of surprise, the romance of the unknown. But I’ve always loved knowing beforehand. It says something about the importance of gender, I suppose, that it is only once I have this information that I can really begin to imagine the baby as something other than a vague, fantasy infant. Now I saw a red-headed creature, pink and white and delicious, with my green eyes, and her father’s bee-stung lips. And please God, without her big sister’s temper.
The nurse congratulated us again and hung up the phone, disconnecting us. I immediately called Peter back.
“See, I told you,” he said.
“I love you,” I replied.
“Me too. Come home soon, okay?”
That brought home to me again what I was doing, and while my joy didn’t evaporate, it did move to some other corner of my mind, one that wasn’t occupied with death and tragedy. I suppose that’s what life is like for most people—the constant give and take of birth and death, bliss and despair. My two occupations, mother and investigator, certainly made that dichotomy stark.
I almost didn’t make it onto the grounds of the center. The entrance was blocked by trucks with satellite antennae on the roofs, and reporters milled around, drinking coffee and making periodic attempts to breach the gate. They were kept at bay by a sheriff’s cruiser and two irritated Ventura County cops. It took a good twenty minutes of convincing to get the cops to call the center with my name, and another five for them to agree to admit me. Dr. Blackmore was not there, however. He had, according to Molly, sought refuge at a friend’s house in Malibu and left her to mind the store. I’d probably passed him on the Pacific Coast Highway.
I was determined to make the best of it. I probably couldn’t have gotten him to talk, but I was pretty confident that I could worm something out of his assistant.
Molly served me tea on the terrace.
“What a nightmare,” she said as she passed me a cup. “Poor Jupiter. He’s doing his best to continue his recovery work, but you can imagine—this is an awful distraction.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. “Was it a terrible shock for you all? I mean, did you know Lilly?”
Molly shook her head. “I didn’t really know her. I mean, of course I knew about her case. Because of my work with Reese. We work so closely together.”
I nodded.
“It’s terrible for her that all this has come out.”
“And bad for the center, too, I imagine,” I said.
She frowned. “Why would you say that? I mean if anything it’s more evidence of the fundamental truth of our theories. Repressed memory causes terrible emotional and psychological stress. Lilly’s case highlights the importance of recovering memory.”
I wrinkled my brow. “Perhaps.” Except for the fact that her memories provided an all-too-compelling motive for murdering Chloe Jones.
“I’m leaving,” she said. “In a few months. Before the fall semester begins.”
“Really?” I said, surprised. “Was that sudden? I remember you told me that you’d been here a long time.”
She nodded. “Seven years. I’ve never been sober anywhere else.”
I smiled encouragingly at her. “Well, I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
She nodded again. “I’m feeling pretty confident.”
“What are you going to do?”
She shrugged. “Reese has arranged for me to teach at Santa Anita Community College. In the Psychology Department. Introduction to Psychology, and a seminar on recovered memory and addiction. They wanted him, but he convinced them that I’m the best person for the job.”
“Wow, that sounds great,” I said. “Dr. Blackmore must have a lot of confidence in you.”
“He’s a wonderful man. He really is. You know he gave me joint author credit on thirteen of his articles? Do you know how rare that is? He could have just thanked me in the acknowledgments or something. It’s going to be very difficult for both of us with me gone. I’m just grateful we’ll be able to continue to work on scholarship together.” She seemed suddenly to remember the reason for my visit. “Jupiter will be out of group in about half an hour,” she said.
“Great. I’m looking forward to seeing him.”
“I suppose these revelations about Lilly have complicated the case against him.”
I nodded. “Things have certainly taken some interesting turns. Molly, I wonder if you’d be willing to tell me a little bit about Dr. Blackmore and Chloe.”
She bit her lip nervously. “What do you mean?”
“Do you know what their relationship was? Do you know, for example, if he was the person who made it possible for Chloe to enroll at the center?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Chloe’s mother told me that Chloe didn’t have to pay for her treatment here. I was wondering if you knew anything about why that was.” I wasn’t ready to tell Molly any more than that. Yet.
“Her mother told you that?”
I nodded.
“How is she?”
“Chloe’s mother? She’s okay, considering everything that’s happened. They were very close. It’s going to be hard for Wanda without her.”
Molly shook her head ruefully. “I feel just awful. I never thought of Chloe even having parents, although of course she did. I should have sent a condolence card, or something. Whatever I thought of Chloe, her parents must still be grieving terribly.”
“There’s just her mom, and it’s not too late,” I said. “I’m sure Wanda would appreciate hearing from you. I know she misses Chloe terribly.”
Molly looked at me eagerly. “Do you think so?”
“Definitely. Can you tell me how come Chloe never had to pay for her treatment?”
Molly sat quietly for a moment, and then she said, “I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t talk about any of this.”
I leaned forward and said intently, “Look, Molly. It’s all going to come out sooner or later. The worst thing to do would be to force Jupiter’s lawyers to get a court order. They’ll get access to the files, they’ll compel depositions of all of you. If you talk to me, we might be able just to leave it at that. And you’ll be helping Jupiter.”
She knotted her hands in her lap nervously. “I want to do what I can for him. Really, I do. But I want you to understand—Reese is an incredible man. I was a junkie when I came here, and I’m completely sober now. I owe him a lot.”
“You owe yourself a lot. You’re the one who did the work.”
“But without his help I wouldn’t have been able to do it. He taught me so much. He helped me to realize why I was drawn to the heroin. He helped me to remember what my father did to me when I was a little girl.”
I wasn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. And I needed to stop her before she decided that she owed the doctor unmitigated loyalty.
“So Dr. Blackmore was the one who paid for Chloe’s treatment?”
“Not exactly. I mean, I’m not sure how the billing went, but I don’t think anyone paid for it. She showed up one day, and Reese told me to check her in as a special resident and not bother with a billing form.”
“So she came for free?”
“Yes.”
“What did Dr. Blackmore tell you about their relationship?”
“Nothing,” she said softly. There wasn’t any surprise in her voice, though, at the necessary implication of my question.
“Did you have any suspicions about them? Did you think they might have been, er, romantically involved?” I couldn’t quite bring myself to suggest to the young woman that her idolized therapist and boss paid young women to have sex with him.
“That’s a ridiculous suggestion. Look, Chloe might have acted like they were. I practically had to pry her off him to take her to her room. But first of all, Reese would never do anything like that. And second of all, it became very clear that that was just Chloe’s way.”
“What do you mean?”
“What happened with Jupiter, of course.”
“You mean their relationship?” I said.
“Within a day or two it was clear that something was going on between Jupiter and Chloe. They did everything together. They ate together, they hung out together. One day in group she was even massaging his feet. It was pretty gross.” She frowned with a vehemence that betrayed, once again, her feelings for the young man.
“Did you tell Dr. Blackmore about it?”
“You bet I did. I told him that if they weren’t sleeping together now, they were going to be soon. Jupiter just wasn’t ready for that kind of intimacy. It was distracting him from his recovery work. It was getting in the way of his therapy. And it was supposed to be against the rules.”
“Did Dr. Blackmore force them to break it off?”
She snorted. “He tried to. He called them into his office, and I guess they said they’d stop. At first I thought they had. And anyway, Jupiter finished the program, and I figured that was that.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“Obviously not.”
The son of Polaris Jones, the extravagantly wealthy religious leader, would have seemed like a terrific catch for a stripper with a drug habit. I could see why Chloe would have gotten involved with Jupiter, and I could certainly imagine why, once she realized the extent of his dependence on his father and the limitation of his own resources, she’d set her sights on the real cash-cow, Polaris. But whatever his assistant believed, I was certain Chloe already had Dr. Blackmore, a wildly successful doctor who was clearly crazy about her. Why would she have needed to look any farther afield?
“Is the clinic in financial trouble?” I asked.
Molly glanced at me, surprised. “No, we’re doing fine.”
“Not even with the debate over False Memory Syndrome?”
She sighed. “That. Yes, well, of course that hurt us, for a while. Memory therapy is an integral part of the recovery process here at the center. We even have a saying: ‘There is no recovery without the recovery of memory.’”
“Did people stop coming to the clinic because they objected to the theory?”
She nodded. “For a little while. You have to understand. There’s a lot of resistance to recovered memory. People repress memories for one reason and one reason only, because they’re traumatic. Recovering them, and facing the trauma, is incredibly painful. A person only becomes ready to face that pain when the alternative is worse.”
“Worse how?”
“Well, like, for example, when their addiction is about to kill them, and they can’t kick the drugs because the drugs are only a symptom of the problem, not the real issue.”
“And the center felt the effects of the False Memory Syndrome movement?”
“We did, for a brief while. But that was a long time ago.”
“But don’t you have a lot of CCU clients? I read that the CCU threatened to pull its parishioners and its funding.”
She frowned. “That’s ridiculous. I mean I think they once floated the idea of opening their own clinic, and that might have hurt us. But our work here is unparalleled. I’m sure all it took was a brief examination to figure out what a huge undertaking it would be for them to try to provide similar services.”
My web research had indicated more than just an idea being “floated.” There had, it seemed, been a firm plan to open up a CCU clinic. The CCU’s discomfort with the recovered memory movement had come at a time when Dr. Blackmore had been losing many of his clients to the same suspicions. What if Chloe hadn’t betrayed her benefactor after all? What if her relationship with the son of the CCU’s spiritual leader had been entirely Blackmore’s idea? He had introduced her to Jupiter at a time when the future of his clinic seemed in doubt. She had gone on to marry Polaris, and Blackmore’s relationship with the CCU had been sealed. Was it Chloe who had convinced Polaris to continue his support of Reese’s clinic?
Even if all that were true, I still couldn’t figure out what any of this had to do with Chloe’s blackmailing of Lilly. And I still had no idea who killed her.
Molly left me to my musing and went to let Jupiter know I was waiting for him. It was hard to believe that the man who sauntered up to me on the terrace was the same person who I’d last seen cowering at a table in the visiting room of the county jail. Unwound from his defensive crouch, he looked at least six inches taller. His skin had lost its jailhouse pallor and glowed with the kind of golden tan I’d always coveted. His hair was clean and parted neatly in the middle.
He sat down, leaned back, and smiled at me. I smiled back.
“Happy to be out?” I asked.
He nodded. “Oh yeah. It was in the nick of time. Just. Another week and I might have . . . I don’t know. Done something.”
I frowned. I knew Jupiter understood that if he was convicted, he would have to go back there, and on to prison. Obviously, however, his relief at being freed, even into the somewhat constricting arms of the Ojai center, was so profound that it transcended worry about what the future might hold.
“It sucks about Lilly,” he said. “The papers and everything.”
I nodded. “It does.”
“She didn’t kill Chloe,” he said. “I know she didn’t.”
“I know,” I said, wishing I could be as sure as he was.
“This is my fault. I brought this on everyone. She was a horrible person, Chloe was. She was poison. I poisoned everyone when I let her into our lives.”
There wasn’t anything I could say to comfort him. Instead, I took a deep breath, and said, “Jupiter, Al and I are not going to be able to stay on your case. It wouldn’t be ethical for us to continue taking Lilly’s money, now that she’s become a suspect.”
“Wasserman said he’d continue representing me for free,” Jupiter said.
“I know. I wish we could do that. But it’s more than just a financial issue.” I explained to Jupiter how my friendship with Lilly compromised my representation of him, since it was entirely possible that their interests would conflict now that she was a likely target both for the defense’s theory of the case and for the prosecution’s. As I spoke, I realized that I should have pulled out long before, when I had first had an inkling that Lilly might somehow be involved. All that was in the past, however. Right now I needed to do the correct thing.
Jupiter wasn’t happy, but ultimately he told me he understood. I held my hand out to him, and he shook it firmly. He gripped my palm in his and said, “Lilly didn’t kill Chloe. You should help her prove that.”
I only wished I could.