Orr gave it a moment of thought. “Not unless Andrea told someone about it.”
The comment made Tracy think of Brenda Berg, Devin Chambers, and Andrea’s counselor.
“I’d like to get Andrea’s counseling records,” she said. “I’d need a signed letter authorizing their release. Would you do that?”
“I will,” Orr said, “with one caveat.”
“Sure.”
“I see no reason why any of this has to be made public. Andrea was hurt enough in life. I don’t see any reason to hurt her after death.”
Tracy agreed.
Orr called Alan Townsend’s office, got his call service, and left a message. Toward the end of Tracy and Orr’s conversation, Townsend called back and said he could meet Tracy at his office. They set a time and Orr signed a letter authorizing the release of Andrea’s counseling records.
Tracy thanked Orr for her time, and handed her a business card as she walked Tracy to the door.
“Do you know who I would contact about her body?” Orr said. “I’d like to have Andrea buried alongside her parents.”
Tracy wrote the King County Medical Examiner’s phone number on the back of her business card. “They should be ready to release the body,” she said.
When Tracy opened her car door in the apartment complex parking lot, a blast of searing heat escaped. She waited a moment, then reached in and started the engine but did not get in. She wanted to give the air-conditioning time to do its job. While she waited for the oven to become a car, she thought again of Andrea Strickland, and of her uncle. What kind of a person would take in a young girl whose parents had died in a horrific car accident, and see it as an opportunity for his own sick and twisted sexual desires? It was another reminder that the psychopaths of the world were not always the stereotypical monsters who tortured cats in their youths and lived in solitude.
When the car had cooled, Tracy slid behind the wheel. She left the parking lot and turned on North Waterman Avenue, a four-lane street pocked with palm trees located just around the corner from the St. Bernardine Medical Center. As Tracy had found with most of Southern California, the street consisted of an odd mix of single-family homes, apartment buildings, strip malls, and commercial buildings, as if the city planners had given no consideration to zoning.
She parked on the street and approached a two-story, sand-colored stucco building. Alan Townsend’s counseling practice was located on the second floor off an outdoor staircase. The inside looked like a small two-bedroom apartment converted to an office, with the front room the waiting area. The furnishings were dated—shag carpeting, cloth-and-laminate furniture, and nondescript prints. Behind a vacant reception counter were two closed doors with nameplates. The plate on the right was empty. The plate on the left read “A. Townsend.”
Tracy slapped a bell on the counter, which emitted an obnoxious ting. Seconds later, the door on the left opened and a middle-aged man with a head of silver hair emerged wearing cargo shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops. With a skin complexion more orange than bronze, he looked just like the actor George Hamilton. Welcome to LA.
“Dr. Townsend?” Tracy said.
Townsend extended a hand and flashed a smile so bright it almost caused Tracy to put her sunglasses back on. “You must be the detective from Seattle. Come on in.” He turned his back and went into his office. “I don’t usually work Fridays so I’m operating without a receptionist. You’ll have to excuse me if I look a little disorganized.”
“I’m sorry to bother you on your day off.”
“Not a bother,” he said. “I understand the circumstances. Besides, I’ve already had a full day. Friday mornings I surf and do a little meditating. I thought I’d get some work done in an air-conditioned office while waiting out the heat. I play tennis in the evenings.”
“Surfing around here?”
“The ocean is an hour and a half. That’s why I only do it once a week and I go early. It’s exhilarating.”
“Sounds like a good day.”
“Every day we’re alive is a good day,” he said.
This guy made actors on Sesame Street seem depressed.
The back wall was a window facing east toward the San Bernardino hills. The wall to Tracy’s left was the ego wall, with framed diplomas and citations, some partially obscured by the leaves of a collection of potted ferns, cacti, palms, and a peace lily. Townsend had a modest desk beneath the diplomas. He took a seat in a leather chair, leaving Tracy to sit on a two-seat couch. On the wall beside the window was a framed quote.
WHO LOOKS OUTSIDE, DREAMS; WHO LOOKS INSIDE, AWAKES.
CARL JUNG
The room smelled of incense.
Tracy handed Townsend the signed authorization from Patricia Orr for the release of Andrea’s records, which was valid because Andrea had been a minor when she received counseling.
“I was hoping to get your impressions.”