Milo and I stood. A second later, Paprock rose, too. He was medium-sized, slightly round-backed, almost dainty.

He patted his chest, removed the aspirin bottle from his breast pocket and passed it from hand to hand. Walking around the desk, he pushed the door open and held it for us. No sign of John Allbright or anyone else. Paprock walked us through the showroom, touching the flanks of a gold Eldorado in passing.

“Whyncha buy a car, as long as you're here?” he said. Then he colored through his tan and stopped.

Milo held out his hand.

Paprock shook it, then mine.

We thanked him again for his time.

“Look,” he said, “what I said before—about not wanting to know? That was bullshit. I still think about her. I got married again, it lasted three months, my kids hated the bitch. Myra was . . . special. The kids, someday they're gonna have to know. I'll handle it. I can handle it. You find something, you tell me, okay? You find anything, you tell me.”

I headed for Coldwater Canyon and the drive back to the city.

“Public school near Santa Barbara,” I said. “Lousy pay, so maybe she moonlighted at a local private place.”

“A reasonable assumption,” said Milo. He lowered the Seville's passenger window, lit up a bad cigar, and blew smoke out at the hot valley air. The city was digging up Ventura Boulevard and sawhorses blocked one lane. Bad traffic usually made Milo curse. This time he kept quiet, puffing and thinking.

I said, “Shipler was a school janitor. Maybe he worked at de Bosch's school, too. That could be our connection: they were both staffers, not patients.”

“Twenty years ago. . . . Wonder how long the school district keeps records. I'll check, see if Shipler transferred down from Santa Barbara.”

“More reasons for me to drive up there,” I said.

“When are you doing it?”

“Tomorrow. Robin can't make it—all for the best. Between trying to find remnants of the school and looking for Wilbert Harrison in Ojai, it won't be a pleasure trip.”

“Those other guys—the therapists at the symposium—they worked at the school, too, right?”

“Harrison and Lerner did. But not Rosenblatt—he trained with de Bosch in England. I'm not sure about Stoumen, but he was a contemporary of de Bosch, and Katarina asked him to speak, so there was probably some kind of relationship.”

“So, one way or the other, it all boils down to de Bosch. . . . Anyone seen as being close to him is fair game for this nut. . . . Bad love—destroying a kid's sense of trust, huh?”

“That's the concept.”

I reached Coldwater and started the climb. He drew on his cigar and said, “Paprock was right about his wife. You saw the pictures—she was taken apart.”

“Poor guy,” I said. “Walking wounded.”