None of the houses on the island was higher than three stories, and charming bungalows huddled next to huge showplaces. Closterman lived in a cozy-looking two-story with gables, decorative shutters, and window boxes filled with English primrose.
When he answered the door, the barefoot physician was wearing tan cotton pants, with his belly slung over the waistband, and a T-shirt advertising Hobie surfboards.
At his side was a black Labrador with big, inquisitive eyes.
“Charlotte,” Dr. Closterman said by way of introduction.
Valet was usually shy around other dogs, but let off his leash, he immediately went nose-to-nose with Charlotte, tail wagging. They circled each other, sniffing, where after the Labrador raced across the foyer and up the stairs, and Valet bounded wildly after her.
“It’s all right,” Roy Closterman said. “They can’t knock over anything that hasn’t been knocked over before.”
The physician offered to take their coats, but they held on to them because Dusty was carrying the Colt in one pocket.
In the kitchen, from a large pot of spaghetti sauce rose the mouthwatering fragrance of cooking meatballs and sausages.
Closterman offered a drink to Dusty, coffee to Martie — “unless you’ve taken no more Valium” — and poured coffees at their request.
They sat at the highly polished pine table while the physician seeded and sliced several plump yellow peppers.
“I was going to feel you out a little bit,” Closterman said, “before deciding how frank to be with you. But I’ve decided, what the hell, no reason to be coy. I admired your father immensely, Martie, and if you’re anything like him, which I believe you are, then I know I can rely on your discretion.”
“Thank you.”
“Ahriman,” Closterman said, “is a narcissistic asshole. That’s not opinion. It’s such a provable fact, they should be required by law to include it in the author’s bio on his book jackets.”
He glanced up from the peppers to see if he had shocked them — and smiled when he saw they were not recoiling. With his white hair, jowls, extra chins, dewlaps, and smile, he was a beardless Santa.
“Have you read any of his books?” he asked.
“No,” Dusty said. “Just glanced at the one you sent.”
“Worse than the usual pop-psych shit.
“Do you think he’s capable of
“Capable? It wouldn’t surprise me if half of what he cures are conditions he created in the first place.”
The implications of that response were, to Dusty, breathtaking. “We think Martie’s friend, the one we mentioned this morning —”
“The agoraphobic.”
“Her name was Susan Jagger,” Martie said. “I’ve known her since we were ten. She killed herself last night.”
Martie shocked the physician as the physician had not succeeded in shocking them. He put down the knife and turned away from the yellow peppers, wiping his hands on a small towel. “Your friend.”
“We found her body this afternoon,” Dusty elaborated.
Closterman sat at the table and took one of Martie’s hands in both of his. “And you thought she was getting better.”
“That’s what Dr. Ahriman told me yesterday.” Dusty said, “We have reason to think that Martie’s autophobia — as we now know it’s called — isn’t naturally occurring.”
“I went with Susan to his office twice a week for a year,” she explained. “And I’ve begun to discover… odd memory lapses.”
Sun-seared, wind burnt, with permanent dashes of red in the corners, the doctor’s eyes were nevertheless more kind than damaged. He turned Martie’s hand over in his and studied her palm. “Here’s everything important I can tell you about the slick son of a bitch.”
He was interrupted when Charlotte raced into the kitchen with a ball in her mouth, Valet on her heels. The dogs slid on the tile floor and shot out of the room as pell-mell as they had entered.
Closterman said, “Toilet training aside, dogs can teach us more than we can teach them. Anyway, I do a little pro bono work. I’m no saint. Lots of doctors do more. My volunteer work involves abused children. I was battered as a child. Didn’t scar me. I could waste time hating the guilty… or leave them to the law and to God, and use my energy to help the innocent. Anyway… remember the Ornwahl case?”
The Ornwahl family had operated a popular preschool in Laguna Beach for over twenty years. Every opening in their classrooms led to heated competition among parents of potential enrollees.
Two years ago, the mother of a five-year-old preschooler filed a complaint with the police, accusing members of the Ornwahl family of sexually abusing her daughter, and claiming that other children had been used in group sex and satanic rituals. In the hysteria that ensued, other parents of Ornwahl students interpreted every oddity in their kids’ behavior as an alarming emotional reaction to abuse.
