“To the last penny,” I said.
I left them standing on the sidewalk and drove the five blocks to the office of Geoffrey Green, Psychiatrist. I made it with ten minutes to spare.
There was a space in front of Carigulo’s Restaurant between a green Saab and a blue Rolls-Royce. The Rolls had a For Sale sign in the window.
The narrow passageway between Golden Fleece Antiques and Robintine’s Fine Oriental Rugs and Carpets led to a brightly tiled, small, open courtyard with a bubbling fountain in the center. To the right of the fountain was a large wooden door with a golden handle. The sign next to the door said FERGUS amp; SONS. I wondered what Fergus and his sons did and how they paid the rent. To the left of the fountain was a similar door marked GEOFFREY GREEN, M.D., PH.D. I opened the door and found myself in a carpeted waiting room twice the size of the two rooms I worked and lived in. A sliding glass window stood open in front of me. I told the matronly receptionist who I was and she asked me to have a seat. The only other person in the large green-carpeted waiting room was a nervous young woman, about twenty, who hadn’t done much to look her best. Her hair was short and dark. Her brown skirt didn’t really go with her gray blouse. She ruffled through a magazine, looked up at the clock on the wall and over at a tank of colorful tropical fish and then back at her magazine. I was halfway through an article about Clint Eastwood in Entertainment magazine when Green’s office door opened and he stepped out. There was no one with him. If he had a patient, the patient had gone discreetly out another door.
Geoffrey Green was in his late thirties. He wore a dark suit, had dark hair and was ruggedly good-looking. I’d bet he climbed mountains or skied when he wasn’t tending to his patients.
“I’ll be with you in a few minutes, Dorothy,” he said to the nervous woman, who nodded, frowning.
“Mr. Fonesca?” he said, looking at me. “Please come in.”
I followed him into his office. He opened his drapes and let in the sun and a view of a very small, lush garden and a colorful tiled wall.
The office wasn’t large compared to the waiting room, but it would do. There was a desk, a chair, a small sofa and two armchairs. The colors were all subdued blues with a touch of gold. A painting on the wall showed a woman standing on a hill looking into a valley beyond the ruins of a castle. Her face wasn’t visible.
“Like it?” Green asked, sitting behind his desk and offering me the choice of couch or one of the chairs. I took a chair.
“The painting? Yes,” I said.
“One of my patients did it,” he said. “An artist. A man. We spent a lot of time talking about that painting.”
“It’s…” I said.
“Gothic, haunting,” he said. “Yes.”
“I was going to say melancholy.”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Mr. Fonesca, but I’m going to have to get right to your questions. I have a patient waiting.”
“I understand. Melanie Lennell Sebastian…”
“I can’t give you any information about why she was seeing me or what was said,” he said softly.
“What can you tell me about her?”
He sat back, picked up a well-sharpened pencil, put it down, looked out the window and made a decision.
“Melanie Sebastian is a remarkable woman,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “She’s been through a great deal in her life. The town where she grew up-”
“Ogden, Utah,” I said.
“Ogden, Utah,” he repeated. “Her mother was sick, recurrent brain tumors from what I understand. Melanie took care of her. Every day from the time she was about ten she came home and relieved her father, who worked evenings. I think he was a carpenter. Melanie just took care of her mother, didn’t play with other children much, just read and took care of her bedridden mother. When she was fourteen, her father had a heart attack and had to retire. Melanie went to work in a restaurant waiting tables after school till ten at night. No boyfriends. No close friends. It was Melanie’s idea to move to Florida with her father and mother. They moved to Gainesville while she earned her degree while continuing to work. Then, about four years ago, just after her parents died within a week of each other, she met Carl Sebastian.”
“And what’s she like?”
“Complicated,” he said, playing with his pencil. “Dedicated herself to her husband and to helping children. She worked long hours for not much pay at a Catholic agency. She fought the system, the courts, the psychiatrists, to save children. When Melanie Sebastian gives her love, she gives it with a conviction, compassion and ferocity I’ve never seen before.”
“You know this from experience?”
“I know it from observation. I’ve told you more than I probably should.”
“You haven’t told me why she was seeing you and what you make of the story of Melanie Sebastian you just told me,” I said.
“And I won’t,” he said, putting down the pencil and looking at me.
“Do you know where Mrs. Sebastian is?”
“No.”
The answer had come slowly.
“Any ideas?”
“Maybe.”
“Want to share them with me?”
He didn’t answer.
“This one may get me kicked out, but we’re both in a hurry,” I said. “Mr. Sebastian thinks you and his wife were having an affair.”
Green cocked his head and looked interested.
“You’ve already more than hinted at that. And if we were having an affair?”
“Or are,” I amended. “Well, it might suggest that she would come to you. Her husband just wants to talk to her.”
“And you just want to find her for him?”
“That’s it,” I said.
“First,” he said, getting up from his desk chair, “I am not and have not been having an affair with Melanie, Mrs. Sebastian. In fact, Mr. Fonesca, I can offer more than ample evidence that I am gay. It’s a relatively open secret, which, in fact, hasn’t hurt my practice at all. I get the gay clients, men and women, and I get women who feel more comfortable talking to me than they would a straight male or female. I don’t get many straight men.”
“You can somehow prove that?” I asked. “Or do I just take your word?”
“The truth is,” he said, looking at his watch, “I don’t have the time to prove it nor the desire, but I’m sure if you ask in the right circles, you’ll get the confirmation you need.”
The chair was comfortable. I was tempted to lean back.
“Okay, let’s say you’re gay.”
“Let’s say.”
“You could still be a friend of Melanie Sebastian. She was, or still is, a patient. She might be inclined to confide in you.”
“She might,” he said, standing up and smiling. “In which case, I couldn’t tell you.”
“Dilemma,” I said.
“It would appear.”
“I told Sebastian that when I found her I wouldn’t tell him where she was if she didn’t want to be found. When I find her, I’ll do my best to persuade her to talk to her husband or tell me why she won’t.”
“When,” he said. “Not if. You don’t look like a terribly confident man, Mr. Fonesca.”
“About most things I’m not. About finding people, I am.”
“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said, checking his watch again.
“If she gets in touch with you, please give her my card or my number. I just want to talk.”
He took the card and gave me a sympathetic smile.
“May I ask a somewhat personal question, Mr. Fonesca?”
“I don’t think I’m your type, Doctor.”
He chuckled. It sounded sincere.
“No, I’ve seen a great many people with severe depression. I’ve learned to recognize some of the signs, and-”
“I’ve already got a shrink,” I said. “And I couldn’t afford your rates.”
“How do you know?”
“Friend told me,” I said. “Besides, I’m straight. You don’t take straight males.”
“I said I don’t get many of them. I didn’t say I turned them away. Normally when a patient leaves I ask them to go out that door so patients don’t run into each other, but since Dorothy has already seen you-”
“And I’m not a patient.”