Jonathan Kellerman - Therapy

Sam Diaz’s chair squeaked. He said, “Want another drumstick?”

“No, thanks.”

“Maybe I’ll try one of those orange bars, the vanilla half looks pretty creamy.”

On the monitor, Franco Gull ran his hands through his curls. “Okay, I sure hope so. Thanks, Albin.”

He rose to go.

“No, no, no,” said Milo. “Stay put, you idiot.”

The remaining maid collected her young charges and left.

Larsen stayed Gull with a hand on Gull’s cuff. “Let’s sit for a while, Franco.”

Gull: “Why?”

Larsen: “Enjoy the air. This beautiful park. Enjoy life.”

Gull: “You’re finished with patients for the day?”

Larsen: “I am, indeed.”

Ninety seconds. Neither of them talked.

At a hundred thirty-nine seconds, Sam Diaz said, “Approaching male. From the Roxbury side, again.”

Another figure, well in the distance, was crossing the park diagonally, from the east. Striding across the lawn, passing just north of the play area, and continuing into the shadow of the Chinese elms.

Diaz aimed the camera at him, zoomed in.

Good-sized man, broad-shouldered, barrel chest. Blue silk shirt turned teal green by the monitor, worn untucked over blue jeans.

Dark hair combed straight back. Graying mustache, but Raymond Degussa had shaved off his soul patch.

Milo said, “Bad guy, get ready for anything, Sam.”

He unsnapped his holster but didn’t remove his gun. Unlatching one of the ice-cream truck’s rear doors, he got out, closed the door quietly.

I turned back to the monitor. Gull and Larsen remained silent. Gull’s back was to Degussa as Degussa made his way over to the picnic table. Larsen saw Degussa, but didn’t react.

Then Franco Gull turned, and said, “What’s he doing here?”

No answer from Larsen.

Gull: “What’s going on, Albin- hey, let go of my sleeve, why are you holding me back, let go, what the hell’s going on-”

Degussa made a beeline for the table. Was six feet away, reaching under his shirt, when Gull broke free from Larsen’s grasp.

Larsen just sat there.

Degussa pulled out a small gun, toylike, pointed it in Gull’s direction. Probably a cheap.22, you could throw them away and buy another on the street for chump change.

Five feet from Gull, nice clean target. I thought about Jack Ruby picking off Oswald. Where was Milo?

Gull ducked and shoved Larsen in the path of Degussa’s gun and screamed, “Help!” as he dropped to the grass and rolled away. Diaz’s camera remained narrowly focused.

Degussa circled around Larsen to get a good shot at Gull. Larsen ducked, helping him along. Gull had tried to get up, but he was caught- legs stuck under the picnic bench, torso twisted.

He placed his hands atop his head, creating a useless shield.

Degussa leaned over the bench.

Aimed.

Crack. The sound of a single pair of hands clapping once.

A hole appeared on Degussa’s forehead- black tinted deep brown by the monitor, the same shade as Degussa’s customized Lincoln. His mouth dropped open. He frowned. Annoyed.

He lifted his gun arm, still trying to shoot. Let it drop. Tumbled face-first onto the table. The.22 flew out of his hands and landed on the dirt. Albin Larsen dove for it. The man could mobilize when needed.

Sam Diaz said, “Oh, man, I should be out there.”

“Where’s Milo?”

“Don’t see him- I’m calling for backup, then I’m outta here, Doc. You stay inside.”

He got on the police radio. I watched Albin Larsen bend and retrieve Degussa’s gun. Gull had freed his legs, and he swung them at Larsen, missed, sprang up, turned to run.

Larsen examined the gun, then aimed it, turning his back to the camera.

Crack. Crack. Two bursts of applause. Two holes materialized on the back of Larsen’s sport coat, within an inch of each other, just right of the center seam.

Diaz was saying, “Another one just went down, this is Code Three Plus, friend.”

Larsen straightened. Stretched his neck, as if plagued by a sudden pinch. The spot on his jacket became a brown stain. His right hand reached back, scratching an itch.

He changed his mind. Rotated, showed the camera a partial profile.

Expressionless. More dreadful applause, and something puffed in the center of Larsen’s neck. At the juncture of ruddy neck flesh with tan shirt.

Larsen reached for that, too. His arms shot out spastically and flopped to his sides.

His body lurched forward, onto the grass.

Gull was twenty feet away, staring, screaming.

Birdsongs on the speaker.

Still life on the monitor.

The Starbucks cup hadn’t even moved.

The truck’s rear door burst open, and Milo threw himself in.

Ghostly white, breathing hard. “Someone’s up there,” he panted. “Has to be one of the houses on Spalding, a backyard. Has to be a rifle, I was pinned next to the van.”

Diaz returned to the cab, slid the partition open. “Backup’s on its way. Gotta be a long-range scope. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Seconds later- seventeen seconds, according to the monitor- came the sirens.

Bennett Hacker folded easily.

Faced with a mountain of evidence compiled by Medi-Cal fraud investigator Dwight Zevonsky- a twenty-nine-year-old with the look of a hippie grad student and the manner of a grand inquisitor- the parole officer traded full disclosure for a guilty plea to fraud and grand larceny that brought him a six-year sentence in a federal prison. Out of California, under protective isolation because Hacker had once been a Barstow patrolman and former cops didn’t fare well behind bars, even those who’d befriended cons.

The scam had gone just as we’d theorized: Hacker and Degussa trolling for halfway-house residents whose names could be registered as Sentries patients. Compensating the parolees with small cash payments or drugs, or sometimes nothing at all. At first the cons showed up for sign-in sessions and one follow-up, in the unoccupied suite on the ground floor. Later even that pretext was dropped.

Later, the patient population had stretched beyond the halfway houses, with Degussa charged with finding new recruits.

“Sometimes we used dope, sometimes Ray just scared the junkies,” Hacker said. “Ray gives you a look, that can be enough.”

He smiled and smoked. Knowing he’d made a good deal. Probably working out six years of angles.

Milo and Zevonsky sat across from him in the interview room. I watched through the one-way mirror. Before being booked, Hacker’s contact lenses had been removed, and he’d been issued cheap jail eyeglasses with clear plastic frames. A size too large, they slid down his nose and made his chin appear even skimpier. The gestalt was creepy: malicious nerd in County blues.

Hacker tried to tell the story as if he wasn’t a protagonist. Degussa and “his partner” receiving two-thirds of the billings filed under Franco Gull’s name- splitting slightly over two hundred thousand dollars during a sixteen-month period.

“Ray was unhappy,” said Hacker. “He figured the others were making millions, he should be getting more.”

“What did he do about it?” said Milo.

“He was planning to talk to them about it.”

“Them,” said Zevonsky, “being…”

“The shrinks- Koppel and Larsen.”

“They were in charge.”

“It was all them. They cooked it up, came to me.”

“How’d you know them?”

“Koppel used to see me at the halfway house she owned. Checking up on my charges.”

“She came to you,” said Zevonsky.

“That’s right.”

“And your job was to…”