The Clinic Read Online Free PDF Page A

time to flip her over and place her on her stomach. That’s why I got interested when you said orchestrated. Think of it, you’re standing there on the street, just killed someone. You take the time to do something like that? Tome it says crime of passion but carried out in a calculated manner.”
    “Cold rage,” I said. “Criminal intimacy—someone she knew?”
    “Which is exactly why I’m interested in Hubby.”
    “But for someone like her, intimacy could mean something totally different. Her book tour took her out in front of millions of people. She could have triggered rage in any of them. Even a delusional rage. Someone who didn’t like the way she signed a book, someone who watched her on TV and related to it pathologically. Fame’s like stripping in a dark theater, Milo. You never know who’s out there.”
    He was silent for a few moments.
    Page 17

    “Gee, thanks for expanding my suspect list to infinity. . . . Here’s something that never made it into the papers: Her routine was to take a half-hour to one-hour walk every night, around the same time. Ten-thirty, eleven. Usually she walked with her dog—a Rottweiler—but that day it came down with serious stomach problems and spent the night at the vet’s. Convenient, huh?”
    “Poisoned?”
    “I called the vet this morning and he said he never worked the dog up ’cause it got better by morning, but the symptoms could have been consistent with eating something nasty. On the other hand, he said dogs eat garbage all the time.”
    “Did this one?”
    “Not that he knew. And it’s too late now to run tests. Something else Paz and Fellows never thought to ask about.”
    “Poisoning the dog,” I said. “Someone watching her for a while, learning her habits.”
    “Or someone who already knew them. Wouldn’t a husband fit perfectly into this love-sex-revenge orchestration thing? Someone who’d been cuckolded?”
    “Had this husband been cuckolded?”
    “Don’t know. But assume yes. And if Seacrest was smarter than the average betrayed husband, colder, what better way to deflect suspicion than make it look like a street crime?”
    “But we’re talking a middle-aged history professor with no record of domestic violence. No violence, period.”
    “There’s always a first time,” he said.
    “Any idea how he dealt with her fame?”
    “No. Like I said, he’s not helpful.”
    “It could have been a rough spot in their relationship: He was older, possibly more prominent academically til she wrote the book. And maybe he didn’t take well to being discussed on TV.
    Though on the tapes I saw she talked about him fondly.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “ “Philip’s attuned to a woman’s needs but he’s the rare exception.’ A little patronizing, maybe?”
    “Another thing,” I said. “I never heard any feminist outcry about her death, or the fact that it hadn’t been solved. Maybe because she wasn’t affiliated with any feminist groups—at least I didn’t see any listed in her resume.”
    “True,” he said. “A loner?”
    “She did the usual committee things, joined academic societies. But nothing political. Despite the tone of the book. And speaking of the resume, one thing caught my eye: She chaired something called the Interpersonal Conduct Committee. It sounds like it might have something Page 18

    to do with sexual harassment—maybe handling complaints by students against faculty. Which could have been another source of controversy. What if she put someone’s career in jeopardy?”
    “Interpersonal conduct. I never noticed that.”
    “It was just a notation at the end.”
    “Thanks for paying attention. Yeah, that sounds interesting. Want to do me a favor and check it out on campus? The department head hasn’t returned my calls since the first time I spoke to him.”
    “Ed Gabelle?”
    “Yeah, what’s he like?”
    “A politician,” I said. “Sure, I’ll ask.”
    “Thanks. Now let me tell you what getsme about