21

There seemed little doubt that Myra Evans and Myra Paprock were the same person. And that her murder and the deaths of others were related to de Bosch and his school.

Silk. Merino.

The conference putting someone in touch with his problems… some sort of trauma.

Bad love.

Taken apart.

A child's voice chanting.

I felt a sudden stab of panic about leaving Robin alone, stopped in the center of Ojai, and called her from a pay phone. No answer. The Benedict number had been channeled through my answering service, and on the fifth ring an operator picked up.

I asked her if Robin had left word where she was going.

"No, she didn't, doctor. Would you like your messages?"

"Please."

"Just one, actually, from a Mr. Sturgis. He called to say Van Nuys will be getting to your tape soon- got a broken stereo, Dr. Delaware?"

"Nothing that simple," I said.

"Well, you know how it is, doctor. They keep making things more complicated so people have to feel stupid."

• • •

I picked up 150 a few miles out of town and headed northwest on two curving lanes. Lake Casitas meandered parallel to the highway, massive and gray under a listless sun. The land side was mostly avocado groves, gold tipped with new growth. Halfway to Santa Barbara, the road reconnected with 101 and I traveled the last twelve miles at freeway speed.

I kept thinking about what Harrison had told me about de Bosch's racism and wondered what I'd tell Katarina when I found her, how I'd approach her.

I got off the highway without an answer, bought gas, and called the number Harrison had given me. No answer. Deciding to delay confrontation for a while, I looked through my Thomas Guide for the site where the Corrective School had once been. Near the border with Montecito, several miles closer than Shoreline Drive- an omen.

It turned out to be a straight, shady street lined with gated properties. The eucalyptus here grew huge, but the trees looked dried out, almost dessicated. Despite the fire risk, shake roofs were in abundance. So were Mercedes.

The exact address corresponded to a new-looking tract behind high stone walls. A sign advertised six custom homes. What I could see of them was massive and cream colored.

Across the way was a pink and brown Tudor mansion with a sign out in front that said THE BANCROFT SCHOOL. A semicircular gravel drive girdled the building. A black Lincoln was parked under a spreading live oak.

A man got out of the car. Midsixties- old enough to remember. I drove across the road, pulled up next to his driver's side, and lowered my window.

His expression wasn't friendly. He was big and powerful looking, dressed in tweeds and a light blue sweater vest despite the heat, and he had very white, very straight hair and knocked-about features. A leather briefcase- an old one with a brass clasp- dangled from one hand. The leather had been freshly oiled- I could smell it. Several pens were clasped to his breast pocket. He looked the Seville over with narrow, dark eyes, then had a go at my face.

"Excuse me," I said, "was the Corrective School once across the street?"

Scowl. "That's right." He turned to leave.

"How long has it been gone?"

"Quite a while. Why?"

"I just had a few questions about it."

He put his briefcase down and peered into the car. "Are you an… alumnus?"

"No."

He looked relieved.

"Do alumni come back frequently?" I said.

"No, not frequently, but… you do know what kind of school it was."

"Troubled children."

"A bad lot. We were never happy with it- we were here first, you know. My father broke ground thirty years before they came."

"Really."

"We were here before most of the houses. This was all agricultural back then."

"Did the students from the Corrective School cause problems?"

"And what's your interest in that?"

"I'm a psychologist," I said, and gave him a card. "I'm doing some consulting to the Los Angeles Police Department, and there's some evidence one of the alumni is involved in something unpleasant."

"Something unpleasant. Well, that's not much of a surprise, is it?" He scowled again. His eyebrows were bushy, low-set, and still dark, giving him a look of perpetual annoyance. "What kind of unpleasantness?"

"I'm sorry but I can't go into detail- is it Mr. Bancroft?"

"It certainly is." He produced a card of his own, white, heavy stock, a heraldic shield in one corner.

The Bancroft School

Est. 1933 by Col. C. H. Bancroft (Ret.)

"Building Scholarship and Character"

Condon H. Bancroft, Jr., B.A., M.A., Headmaster

"By unpleasant do you mean criminal?" he said.

"It's possible."

He gave a knowing nod.

I said, "Why did the place close down?"

"He died- the Frenchman- and no one was left to run it. It's an art, education."

"Didn't he have a daughter?"

His eyebrows arched. "She offered me the place, but I turned her down. Error on my part- I should have done it for the land alone. Now they've come and built those." He cast a glare at the stone wall.

"They?"

"Some sort of foreign group. Asians, of course. She offered me all of it, lock, stock. But she wanted an outlandish amount of money and refused to negotiate. For them, money's no object."

"She's still here in town, isn't she?"

"She's in Santa Barbara," he said.

I wondered where he thought he was, then I answered my own question: Montecito wannabee.

"This unpleasantness," he said. "It isn't anything that would- impinge upon my school, is it? I don't want publicity, the police traipsing around."

"Did de Bosch's students ever impinge?"

"No, because I made sure they didn't. For all practical purposes, this property line was as impermeable as the Berlin Wall." He drew a line in the gravel with the toe of one wingtip. "Some of them had been to reform school. Fire setters, bullies, truants- all sorts of miscreants."

"Must have been difficult being this close."

"No, it wasn't difficult," he reprimanded. "If they chanced to wander, I sent them hopping right back."

"So you never had any problems?"

"Noise was a problem. There was always too much noise. The only untoward thing occurred after they were gone. One of them showed up and made quite a nuisance of himself." Smile. "His condition didn't speak well of the Frenchman's methods."

"What condition was that?"

"A tramp," he said. "Unwashed, uncombed, high on drugs- his eyes had that look."

"How do you know he was an alumnus?"

"Because he told me he was. Said it in those words: "I'm an alumnus.' As if that should have impressed me."

"How long ago was this?"

"Quite a while- let's see, I was interviewing the Crummer boy. The youngest one, and he applied around… ten years ago."

"And how old was this tramp?"

"Twenties. A real churl. He barged right into my office, past my secretary. I was interviewing young Crummer and his parents- a fine family, the elder boys had attended Bancroft quite successfully. The scene he created dissuaded them from sending the youngest lad here."

"What did he want?"

"Where was the school? What had happened to it? Raising his voice and creating a scene- poor Mrs. Crummer. I thought I'd have to call the police, but I was finally able to convince him to leave by telling him the Frenchman was long dead."

"That satisfied him?"

The eyebrows dipped. "I don't know what it did to him but he left. Lucky for him- I'd had my fill." A big fist shook. "He was insane- must have been on drugs."

"Can you describe him?"

"Dirty, uncombed- what's the difference? And he didn't have a car, he walked away on foot- I watched him. Probably on his way to the highway. God help anyone who picked him up."