Jonathan Kellerman - Victims

“Has to be,” I said. “The man I spoke to was in his late forties and the real Shacker was nearly eighty when he keeled over. The real Shacker was Belgian and the diploma I saw in that office was from a university in Belgium. When Shacker-the guy calling himself Shacker-saw me looking at it, he said something about his Catholic phase. Photoshopping fancy-looking paper isn’t any big deal.”

“A scamster making it in B.H.?”

“I’m wondering if his transgressions go beyond practicing without a license. Because pulling off the murders would be a lot easier with two people involved.”

“Where’d that come from?”

“Eccles’s fear of a guard at V-State. Huggler may be your prototypical odd loner but that doesn’t preclude someone from gaining his trust. Someone he met while at V-State.”

“Another lunatic?” he said. “Working as a guard? Now he’s palming himself off as a shrink? Good Lord.”

“Faking it would be a lot easier for someone who’d worked on psych wards long enough to soak up the terminology. Eccles was confined at V-State the same time as Huggler. Maybe in Specialized Care because he’d gotten overly aggressive with a judge. There’s no reason to think he didn’t continue being his usual combative, obnoxious self. That got him on a guard’s bad side. But the guard was too clever to face off against Eccles, took it out on Eccles’s only visitor. The woman Eccles considered his wife. She really was poisoned and when he got away with it, he did the same to Bernhard Shacker.”

“Get on my bad side, you die,” he said. “Another touchy one?”

“Common ground for a relationship. Cahane described Huggler as cooperative, compliant. Even so, his recreational time was supervised. For his safety. That meant being supervised by a guard whenever he left his room. What if it was the same guard each time and a bond developed? The man passing himself off as Shacker would’ve been in his twenties back then, perfect age to be a mentor to an isolated adolescent. The bond was solidified forever when he eliminated the man who’d robbed Huggler of a vital organ. And the bond could’ve remained strong enough for the mentor to travel with Huggler-seeking out a job at Atascadero when Huggler got transferred there.”

“And now they’re traveling together.”

“For at least five years,” I said. “If that’s the case, Huggler’s not crashing on the street. He’s living securely with his self-appointed guardian. Who’s making a nice living in a Beverly Hills office. And who could be sending Huggler to inflict his particular brand of curiosity upon those who’ve gotten on his nerves. Case in point, Vita. Huggler witnessed her tormenting the Banforth family but I don’t see him as out for truth and justice. More likely he was already at Bijou because he’d been stalking Vita for a while. And the reason for that was Vita had offended Fake Dr. Shacker. I know that because he told me she’d just about come out and called him a quack, no one had ever treated him that way. He was bothered. It was the only time he dropped his professional guard.”

“Doing her mean thing,” he said. “No pity from Pitty. Hold on.” Click click. “No Shacker or Pitty in the files… not at DMV, either… all I’m finding is the office address on Bedford.”

I said, “Let’s work out a plan tonight, bop over there tomorrow.”

“Analyze the analyst,” he said. “He’s that dangerous, we should bring an army.”

“I figured I’d talk to him, you’d be there for backup.”

“What’s your angle?”

“Does he remember anything else about Vita? If it feels right, I’ll probe deeper about the quack issue. If not, I’ll bring up additional victims, did he have any theories? Get people talking, they make mistakes.”

“Let me call Petra, see what she thinks.”

Six minutes later:

“Poor kid was having some face-time with her lovey-dove at L’Oise in Brentwood. Not far from your place, you mind hosting us in say an hour?”

“No prob.”

“Check with Robin.”

“She’ll be fine with it.”

“How do you know?”

“She loves you.”

“Rare lapse of taste on her part,” he said. “An hour.”

Petra rang the bell, white paper bag in hand. She had on a sleeveless navy silk sheath, red sandals with heels, strategic pearls, darker-than-usual lipstick. First time I’d seen her in a dress.

Robin said, “Date night interrupted?”

“Woman plans, God laughs.”

Petra bent to pet Blanche. Blanche rolled on her back, earned a massage.

Petra said, “We made it through the first course, I took dessert to go.”

I said, “Want some coffee?”

“Strong, if you don’t mind.”

I brewed Kenyan, kicking up the octane. Robin and Petra settled at the table and Petra pulled plastic-topped boxes out of the bag. Assortment of cookies, four slabs of chocolate cake.

Robin said, “That’s more like catering.”

“I brought for everyone, seeing as you guys are donating home and hearth to the dark side.”

A heavy hand pounded the door.

Milo trudged in bearing a brown bag, greasy, flecked with powdered sugar. He scowled. “Who mugged a pastry chef?”

Robin sniffed the air. “This Magi brings churros?”

“It seemed like a good idea.” His eyes fixed on the chocolate cake.

“Flourless,” said Petra.

“Got nothing against flour, but why not?”

He put the churros aside, was ingesting cake before his haunches met his chair. Blanche waddled over and nuzzled his ankle. He said, “Yeah, yeah,” and conceded a rub behind her ear. She purred like a cat. “Yeah, yeah, again.”

Robin took her cup and headed for the back door. Blanche followed. “Good luck.”

No one invited her to stay. They like her.

Petra said, “This fake psychologist is Huggler’s confederate, as well as the Pitty character Eccles claimed was stalking him?”

Milo said, “Working assumption, kid, but it feels right. He steals one identity, why not another? Can’t find any ‘Pitty’ in the file, so maybe it’s a nickname. Or Eccles was totally delusional and we’re wrong.”

She turned to me. “How did fake-o come across when you talked to him?”

“Pleasant, professional, the right paper on the wall. The only time he stepped out of the role was when he complained that Vita had implied he was a quack. At the time, I took it as collegial banter.”

“Looks like she was right. Sometimes I wonder if those nasty people don’t have special insights. Maybe because they see everyone as a threat.”

Milo said, “But look what happens after they get elected.”

“Good point.” She turned to me. “You see Vita insulting him as the reason she got killed?”

I nodded. “His trigger, Huggler’s fun. We have two people working in concert, with layers of pathology building on each other. I’m not sure either of them understands it fully. At the base is Huggler’s fascination with human plumbing and no, I can’t tell you how that developed. It’s normal for children to wonder how their bodies work and kids who hold on to that curiosity sometimes channel it professionally-become mechanics, engineers, anatomists, surgeons. For a few, interest grows to obsession and gets tangled up with sexuality in a really bad way.”

She said, “Dahmer, Nilsen, Gein.”

“All of whom were described as odd children but none of whom had especially horrific childhoods,” I said. “Huggler killing his mother at eleven suggests a less-than-optimal upbringing, but it doesn’t come close to explaining the act. Whatever the reason, something short-circuited in his brain and he began pairing sexual gratification with plunging his hands into visceral muck. Being locked up for most of his life made him a prime target for observation and I’m betting one of his sharpest and most frequent observers wasn’t a doctor. It was a young man working a low-status job. Someone who’d never be invited to staff meetings but craved authority and had the time to pick up all sorts of interesting things.”