Jonathan Kellerman - Therapy

I said, “Anything new on Koppel?”

“Oh. Hi. Coroner estimates time of death some time last night or early morning. No forced entry, no reports of strange vehicles in the neighborhood.”

“What about the gunshot?”

“The neighbors to the north are in Europe. To the south is a woman in her nineties under the care of a nurse. The nurse hears fine, but they both sleep in the old lady’s room, and there’s a humidifier and an air filter blowing, which blocks out anything short of a nuclear blast.” He laughed. “It’s like the gods are conspiring. You have any fresh insights?”

Before I could answer, a tall, red-haired man in his late twenties knocked on the door frame. He wore a four-button gray suit, dark blue shirt, dark blue tie. Doc Martens on his feet. His hair was cut short, and freckles speckled his brow and cheeks. He was loose-limbed and built like a point guard, had the rounded, baby-faced look you see on some redheads.

“Hey,” said Milo.

“Lieutenant.” Small salute.

“Alex, this is Detective Sean Binchy. Sean, Dr. Alex Delaware, our psych consultant.”

Binchy remained in the doorway and extended his hand. The room was small enough for us to shake that way.

“Sean’s gonna be helping me on Koppel.” To Binchy: “Any news on her family?”

“Both parents are dead, Lieut. I found an aunt in Fairfield, Connecticut, but she hadn’t seen Dr. Koppel in years. Quote-unquote: ‘After Mary Lou moved to California, she wanted nothing to do with any of us.’ She did say the family would probably pay for the funeral, send them the bill.”

“No one’s coming out?”

Sean Binchy shook his head. “They’re pretty much detached from her. Kind of sad. In terms of the ex-husband, he’s here. In L.A. I mean. But he’s not a lawyer. He’s into real estate.” He pulled out a notepad. “Encino. I left a message, but so far he hasn’t gotten back. I thought I’d do more on the neighborhood canvass near Dr. Koppel’s house, then try again.”

“Sounds good,” said Milo.

“Anything else you need, Lieut?”

“No, finishing the canvass is a good idea. Still nothing from the neighbors?”

“Sorry, no,” said Binchy. “Seems like it was a quiet night in Cheviot Hills.”

“Okay, Sean. Thanks. Sayonara .”

“See you, Loot. Nice to meet you, Doc.”

When Binchy was gone, Milo said, “His former occupation was, get this: bass player in a ska band. Then he got born-again and decided being a cop was the way he’d serve the Lord. He cut his hair and let his pierces close up and scored in the top ten percent of his academy class. This is the new blue generation.”

“He seems like a nice kid,” I said.

“He’s smart enough, maybe a little on the concrete side- A to B to C. We’ll see if he learns how to be creative.” He grinned. “ ‘Loot.’ Too much TV… so far he hasn’t brought up the born-again stuff, but I can’t help feel one day he’s going to try to save me. Bottom line is I can’t juggle Gavin and the blonde and Koppel all by myself, and he’s a good worker ant… so, any thoughts since yesterday?”

“Koppel brought Gavin’s chart home, had it at the top of her stack,” I said. “She brushed off two murders in her practice as a statistical quirk, but it bothered her, and she went back to review her notes. The fact that Newsome’s chart wasn’t there means she was probably telling the truth about shredding it.”

“Not a lot of notes on Gavin to review.”

“Maybe the intake was enough. In it, she detailed Gavin’s legal problems. What if she tied his murder to the Gallegos stalking? Came up with a suspect, voiced her suspicions to someone, and got killed for her efforts?”

“She voiced her suspicion directly to the bad guy? She’d be stupid enough to confront him?”

“She might have if he was her patient,” I said. “If she suspected someone in her caseload, she’d be reluctant to violate confidentiality and go straight to you.”

“Back to the nut-in-the-waiting-room theory.”

“It’s also possible that she wasn’t sure, just suspicious. So she discussed it with him.”

“Foolhardy,” he said.

“Therapy’s a lopsided relationship. Despite all the talk of a partnership, the patient’s needy and dependent, and the therapist has wisdom to grant. It’s easy to overestimate your personal power. Mary Lou was a strong personality to begin with. And she got caught up in the media game, convinced herself she was an expert on everything. Maybe she got overconfident, felt she could convince him to give himself up.”

“Talk about an ego trip, if she succeeded.”

“Psychologist solves multiple murders,” I said. “Talk about public relations.”

He thought about that for a long time. “One of her patients is a very bad guy.”

“No forced entry,” I said. “Someone she knew and let into the house. It’s worth looking into.”

“I can’t get hold of her patient records.”

“Her partners might know something.”

“They’re shrinks, too, Alex. Same confidentiality restriction.”

“I’m not sure of the legal issues; but if the bad guy isn’t officially their patient, they might be okay talking about him in general terms.”

“Sounds like legal precedent to me,” he said. “What the hell, it’s worth a shot.” He phoned information, got numbers for Drs. Larsen and Gull, and left messages to call him.

I said, “How’s it going with the prints from Koppel’s house?”

“There are so damn many, the print guys are figuring at least a week. One thing they did tell me: not a single print near the body. At least a ten-foot radius had been wiped clean. A psych patient who’s meticulous. Not an overt nutcase, right?”

“Not even close to nuts,” I said.

He flipped open the murder book that had been opened on Mary Lou Koppel. “Ballistics faxed a report this morning. The.22 used to shoot her was similar but not identical to either the Gavin Quick or the Flora Newsome guns. Even discounting Flora, we’ve got two separate weapons for two murders. This is some guy with easy access to cheapies, knows his way around the street.”

“An experienced con,” I said. “The kind Flora Newsome could’ve met on the job.”

“Would a guy like that go into therapy?”

“If he had to. Look at Gavin Quick.”

His eyes widened. “Alternative sentencing. Someone who had to get shrunk. And that gives me a way to get around the goddamn confidentiality. Go through court records, see if any judges assigned any other patients to Koppel.”

He slumped. “Huge job.”

“Narrow it down to a year or two and put your worker ant on it.”

“I will,” he said. “I will definitely do that. It’s also time to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Quick again, find out about their boy’s problem, if he harassed anyone else. So far all I get is their answering machine. I called the D.A. who prosecuted Gavin and the defense attorney. No help at all from them, just another case. I also recontacted Gavin’s two friends from the accident, and they had no idea he stalked Beth Gallegos or anyone else. On the intake Koppel did for the court, she said Gavin’s obsession could be related to brain damage. What do you think?”

“Another form of obsessive behavior,” I said. “Sure, it could be consistent with a prefrontal injury. The other thing to consider is that the vindictive boyfriend wasn’t the blonde’s. He’s Beth Gallegos’s beau. What if Gavin broke the terms of his probation and resumed stalking?”

“So the guy stalks Gavin in return, offs him and the blonde? And Koppel?”

“No accounting for passion,” I said.

“Okay,” he said, “let’s visit the object of Gavin’s passion.”