Jonathan Kellerman - When The Bough Breaks

He looked at me like I was talking nonsense.

"Uh - huh. Right. And this Zeigarnik is big enough for you to let it intrude upon the mellow life?"

"What the hell, life was getting boring." I slapped him on the back.

"Suit yourself." He shrugged. "Regards to Robin."

"You give regards to your doctor."

"If he's still there when I get back. This middle - of the - night stuff is testing that relationship." He scratched at the corner of his eye and scowled.

"I'm sure he'll put up with it, Milo."

"Oh yeah? Why's that?"

"If he's crazy enough to go for you in the first place, he's crazy enough to stick with you."

"That's very reassuring, pal." He ground the Fiat into first and sped away.

At the time of his murder, Morton Handler had been in practice as a psychiatrist for a little under fifteen years. During that period he had consulted on or treated over two thousand patients. The records of these individuals were stored in manila folders and packed, one hundred and fifty to a box, in cardboard cartons that were taped shut and stamped with the LAPD. seal.

Milo brought these boxes to my house, assisted by a slight, balding, black detective named Delano Hardy. Huffing and wheezing, they loaded the cartons in my dining room. Soon it looked as if I was either moving in or moving out.

"It's not as bad as it seems," Milo assured me. "You won't have to go through all of them. Right, Del?"

Hardy lit a cigarette and nodded assent.

"We've done some preliminary screening," he said. "We eliminated anyone known to be deceased. We figured they'd be low probability suspects."

The two of them laughed. Dark detective laughs.

"And the coroner's report," he continued, "says Handler and the girl were cut by someone with a lot of muscle. The throat wound on him went clear back to the spine on the first try."

"Which means," I interrupted, "a man."

"Could be one hell of a tough lady," laughed Hardy, "but we're betting on a male."

"There are six hundred male patients," added Milo. "Those four boxes over there."

"Also," said Hardy, "we brought you a little present."

He gave me a small package wrapped in green and red Christmas paper with a bugle and holly wreath pattern on it. It was tied with red ribbon.

"Couldn't find any other paper," Hardy explained.

"We hope you like it," added Milo. I began to feel as if I were the audience for a salt - and - pepper comedy team. A curious transformation had come over Milo. In the presence of another detective he had distanced himself from me and adopted the tough - wiseacre banter of the veteran cop.

I unwrapped the box and opened it. Inside, on a bed of cotton, was a plastic - coated LAPD. identification badge. It bore a picture of me like the one on my driver's license, with that strange, frozen look that all official photos seem to have. Under the picture was my signature, also from my license, my name printed out, my degree and the title "Special Consultant." Life imitates art…

"I'm touched."

"Put it on," said Milo. "Make it official."

The badge wasn't unlike the one I had worn at Western Pediatric. It came with a clasp. I affixed it to my shirt collar.

"Very attractive," said Hardy. "That and ten cents might get you a local phone call." He reached into his jacket and drew out a folded piece of paper. "Now, if you'll just read and sign this." He held out a pen.

I read it, all small print.

"This says you don't have to pay me."

"Right," said Hardy with mock sadness. "And if you get a paper cut looking over the files you can't sue the department."

"It makes the brass happy, Alex," said Milo.

I shrugged and signed.

"Now," said Hardy, "you're an official consultant to the Los Angeles Police Department." He folded the paper and slipped it back in his pocket. "Just like the rooster who was jumping the bones of all the hens in the henhouse. So they castrated him and turned him into a consultant."

"That's very flattering, Del."

"Any friend of Milo and all that."

Milo, meanwhile, was opening the sealed cartons with a Swiss Army knife. He took out files in dozens and made neat little piles that covered the dining - room table.

"These are alphabetized, Alex. You can go through them and pull out the weird ones."

He finished setting things up and he and Hardy got ready to go.

"Del and I will be talking to bad guys off the NCIC printout."

"We've got our work cut out for us," said Hardy. He cracked his knuckles and looked for a place to put out his cigarette, which was smoked down to the filter.

"Toss it in the sink."

He left to do so.

When we were alone Milo said: "I really appreciate this, Alex. Don't drive yourself - don't try to get it all done today."

"I'll do as many as I can before the eyes start to blur."

"Right. We'll call you a couple of times today. To see if you've got anything we can pick up while we're on the road."

Hardy came back straightening his tie. He was dapper in a three - piece navy worsted suit, white shirt, blood - red tie, shiny black calfskin loafers. Next to him Milo looked more shopworn than ever in his sagging trousers and lifeless tweed sport coat.

"You ready, my man?" Hardy asked.

"Ready."

"Onward."

When they were gone I put a Linda Ronstadt record on the turntable. To the accompaniment of "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me," I started to consult.

Eighty percent of the male patients in the files fell into two categories: affluent executive types referred by their internists due to a variety of stress - related symptoms - angina, impotence, abdominal pain, chronic headaches, insomnia, skin rashes of unknown origins - and depressed men of all ages. I reviewed these and put aside the remaining 20 percent for more detailed perusal.

I knew nothing about what kind of psychiatrist Morton Handler had been when I started, but after several hours of reviewing his charts I began to build an image of him - one that was far from saintly.

His therapy session notes were sketchy, careless, and so ambiguous as to be meaningless. It was impossible to know from reading them what he had done during those countless forty - five - minute hours. There was scant mention of treatment plans, prognoses, stress histories - anything that could be considered medically or psychologically relevant. This shoddiness was most evident in notes taken during the last five or six years of his life.

His financial records, on the other hand, were meticulous and detailed. His fees were high, his form letters to debtors strongly worded.

Though during the last few years he had done less talking and more prescribing, the rate at which he ordered medication wasn't unusual. Unlike Towle, he didn't appear to be a pusher. But he wasn't much of a therapist, either.

What really bothered me was his tendency, again more common during later years, to inject snide comments into the notes. These, which he didn't even bother to couch in jargon, were nothing more than sarcastic put - downs of his patients. "Likes to alternately whimper and simper" was the description of one older man with a mood disorder. "Unlikely to be capable of anything constructive" was his pronouncement on another. "Wants therapy as camouflage for a boring, meaningless life." "A real washout." And so on.

By late afternoon my psychological autopsy of Handler was complete. He was a burnout, one of the legions of worker ants who had grown to hate his chosen profession. He might have cared at one time - the early files were decent, if not inspired - but he hadn't by the end. Nevertheless, he had kept it up, day after day, session after session, unwilling to give up the six figure income and the perquisites of prosperity.

I wondered how he had occupied his time as his patients poured out their inner turmoil. Did he daydream? Engage in fantasies (sexual? financial? sadistic?)? Plan the evening's dinner menu? Do mental arithmetic? Count sheep? Compute how many manic depressives could dance on the head of a pin?