Jonathan Kellerman: Victims

She’s a tough-minded expert pathologist with a wealth of experience.

Then again, everyone engages in wishful thinking.

The pizza boxes found in the tunnel match those used by only one restaurant between Santa Barbara and Malibu, a stand in Oxnard just off Highway 1, catering to the motor trade. No one working there is aware of any pilferage. A teenage girl on-site during weekend evenings is almost certain a pleasant man resembling James Harrie was an occasional customer.

An A-student taking a full load of advanced placement courses, she’s nearly as confident about his order.

Same thing each time: small plain cheese pie, large pepperoni and mushrooms.

Grant Huggler awaits trial at Starkweather State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He is a model patient and has defied easy diagnosis. His public defender and deputy D.A. John Nguyen have separately indicated their intention to call me as an expert witness should the case go to trial. I’ve communicated my reluctance to both of them. They haven’t pushed. But they’re lawyers, haven’t backed off, either.

I can live with the uncertainty.

Milo has never mentioned what happened in the field. He has asked me-twice, because he’s been more absentminded than usual-if I think Huggler will ever make it into a courtroom or remain stashed in his isolation room.

“Or even shipped off to another loony bin. Maybe Kansas, huh? We owe them.”

Both times I told him I wasn’t feeling like a gambling man.

I’ve been a little edgy, though I think I’ve been handling it pretty well with Robin and Blanche, saying and doing the right things, playacting a normal life.

For the most part, the dreams have stopped. I do think about the eyes, the four girls whose bodies haven’t been found. Louis Wainright, Joanne Morton.

Belle Quigg was offered Louie but she demurred, telling Milo it was all she could do to make it through each day.

Louie and Ned were adopted by a family from Ojai, a Mormon clan with twelve kids and a long, honorable history of caring for old, ill castaway pets. I hear that both dogs have fattened up and once in a while, Ned’s got the energy to play.

I’ve turned down several patient referrals, have increased my running time, spend more time listening to music, everything from Steve Vai to Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6.

Every day I go into my office, close the door, pretend to work. Mostly I sit at my desk thinking, then trying not to.

I’ve contemplated recapturing my self-hypnosis chops. Or learning some new form of meditation that might succeed at emptying my head.

I think about meeting the parents of the four girls whose bodies haven’t been found. Saying something to Dr. Louis Wainright’s two adult kids.

No one has inquired about Wainright’s nurse, Joanne Morton, and that bothers me more than it should.

I wonder about what created Grant Huggler. James Harrie.

At this point, I’m not sure I want answers.