Jonathan Kellerman - Therapy

“Not that I know,” said Milo. “Like you said, the bad guy could be another one of her patients. No idea why Newsome was in therapy?”

“I think Koppel said ‘adjustment issues.’ Something along those lines. I know she denied there was anything weird about Flora’s personality. We asked her about relationships with weirdos or bad guys, and she said Flora had never talked about that. She gave us a diagnosis- adjustment problem…”

“Adjustment disorder, anxious type?” I said.

“That sounds right. What it boiled down to was that Flora had been under stress- the pressure of her probationary year at the school, realizing she was going to be a teacher and all the responsibility that entailed. She was also having some financial difficulties because of the years she’d taken off from work to go back to school.”

“Financial difficulties,” said Milo, “but she shells out a hundred bucks every two weeks to Koppel.”

“Koppel said that was a discount rate. She’d cut her fee in half and agreed to see Flora every other week instead of weekly.”

“Doing Flora a favor.”

“Basically, yes,” said Ogden. “Koppel said once a week was usually the minimum in order to gain the benefits of therapy, but she made an exception for Flora. That true, Doctor? Is there a minimum?”

“No.”

“Well,” she said, “that was Koppel’s way of looking at it.” One of her hands rested atop the other. A big woman, but delicate, pianist’s hands. “She made a big deal about that- how she’d accommodated Flora. I remember thinking she was talking mostly about herself, not Flora.”

“Bit of an ego,” said Milo. “She does the radio talk-show circuit.”

“Does she?” said Ogden. “All I listen to is The Wave, nice smooth jazz after a day of blood and evil. You talk to her yet?”

“Dr. Delaware has.” He looked at me.

I summarized the conversation.

Ogden said, “Sounds like you got lots of nothing, too.”

“Maybe all she’s got is nothing,” said Milo. “Dr. D. wonders if maybe Koppel went a little lax on our vic- therapy-lite. In any event, we’re gonna have another go at her. The coincidence is too damn cute. Anything else we should know about Flora?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“The boyfriend was never an issue?”

“Brian Van Dyne,” said Ogden. “Teacher at the same school, couple of years older than Flora. The night of the murder he went to a Lakers game with two friends, then out to dinner, then they hit a couple of bars. Confirmation on all accounts. The friends dropped him off at his apartment in Santa Monica after 2 A.M. I never saw him as our guy, but we polygraphed him anyway and gave him a paraffin test, just to be safe. No gunshot residue on his hands, but it was invalid because too much time had passed. He passed the poly with flying colors.”

“Why didn’t you see him as the guy?” I said.

“He seemed devastated by Flora’s death, really crushed. His friends said he’d been in a great mood at the game and later. Everyone we talked to said he and Flora got along fine. All that still wouldn’t have swayed me, but with the poly? No way. Not him.”

“Did he know anything about Flora’s therapy?”

“Nope. Like Flora’s mother, he hadn’t been aware she’d been going.”

“Biweekly appointments,” I said. “Easy enough to conceal.”

“And Flora was definitely concealing. She accounted for the appointments by telling Brian Van Dyne she was going to the gym. Which was logical. She’d joined the Sports Depot on Sepulveda. Step aerobics and whatnot. Al and I interviewed the people who worked there, wondering if she’d hooked up with some gym rat- maybe a muscle-bound bad boy to counterbalance wholesome Brian. But no, she kept to herself, just went there to sweat.”

“Keeping her therapy secret,” I said.

“That doesn’t really surprise me, Doctor. When one of our colleagues here gets a recommendation to see a shrink, they either ignore it, or, if they go, they keep it tightly buttoned.”

“The stigma.”

“It’s still there. Flora was serious about Brian Van Dyne. I can understand her not wanting him- or her boss at the school- to know she was having problems.”

“How long was she dating him?”

“Half a year.”

“Not exactly open communication,” I said, “but you could be right. It does make me wonder, though, if the reason she went into treatment was more stigmatizing than work stress.”

“Some deep, dark kink in her character? Who knows? Maybe Dr. Koppel will give it up.”

Milo said, “If our case is related to yours, you coulda nailed it, Lorraine. Some lunatic seeing Koppel spotted Flora- and our boy Gavin- in the waiting room and smelled Victim.”

“Male and female vics?” said Ogden. “What about the girl who died with yours?”

“No ID yet.”

Ogden frowned. “Not a head patient?”

“Dr. Koppel denied knowing the girl,” I said.

“For what that’s worth,” said Ogden.

Milo said, “You picked up a liar-vibe?”

“Nothing that strong, but it sounds like she was evasive with both of us, and the coincidence is giving off a definite scent. Let me know after you talk to her. Anything else?”

Milo said, “Lorraine, I was figuring to reinterview some of your principals, if that’s okay with you. The mom, the boyfriend, the people Flora worked with.”

“Talk to whoever you want, the main thing is closing Flora. You know Al McKinley.”

“Good man,” said Milo.

“Smart man,” she said. “Real bulldog.” She took a deep breath. “He and I really worked this one. Combed sex-offender records, did some cross-referencing with felons who work construction. It’s scary how many bad guys are doing roofing or day labor. But it all came to nothing. I was so frustrated I found myself hoping some other DB with the same signature would show up, maybe this time there’d be some forensics to work with. Nice, huh? Wanting someone else to die. The neoprene… he uses her knife but comes prepared with plastic. We’re talking a predator. And those guys don’t just stop. Right, Doctor?”

I nodded.

Milo said, “Maybe this one didn’t.”

Canfield School occupied a block of Airdrome Avenue, three blocks south of Pico and east of Doheny. Through the chain-link fence, kids played against a backdrop of mural. Peace, love, harmony. Little kids, their faces shone with possibility.

The neighborhood was Baja Beverly Hills, a five-minute ride from Mary Lou Koppel’s office on Olympic. If Flora Newsome had driven to therapy from her apartment in Palms, the trip would have stretched longer, but not much. Twenty minutes in bad traffic.

The vice principal was a black woman named Lavinia Robson with an Ed.D. and a pleasant demeanor.

She checked our credentials, asked the right questions, got on her intercom and summoned Brian Van Dyne.

“Coffee?” she said.

“No, thanks.”

“Flora was a sweetie, we were all saddened. Is there new evidence?”

“Sorry, no, Dr. Robson. Sometimes it helps to take a fresh look.”

“That’s true in education, as well- ah, here’s Brian.

Flora Newsome’s former boyfriend was a tall, narrow-shouldered man in his midthirties with thinning blond hair and a wispy mustache the color of gruel. His complexion implied an aversion to sunshine. He wore a green shirt, khakis, a brown wool necktie, and rubber-soled walking shoes. Thick-lensed eyeglasses gave his eyes a stunned glaze. Add to that his genuine shock at our presence, and he looked like a man who’d landed on a foreign planet.

“Flora?” he said. “After all this time?” His voice was whispery, anemic.