Jonathan Kellerman - Breakdown

I said, “So are we looking at alternative placement for the boy or is the emphasis on helping her take care of him?”

“Do your thing, then tell me.”

Consulting a thin chart atop his desk, he said, “One thing in our favor: The show’s on hiatus for a couple of weeks, though they will be reading potential scripts. Meaning Zelda will be occupied full-time but under less pressure and living away from the kid until I titrate her dose.”

“She knows that?”

“She does and she knows she needs to comply or everything falls apart. The deal is I get her evened out and once you give the okay, it’s home sweet home.”

“Where’s she staying?”

“Where else? Bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel under a fake name, babysat by a nurse practitioner I respect. Two grand a night but the network’s paying because they want her situation kept under wraps so as not to jeopardize the show’s third season.”

“The boy’s at home?”

“With a production assistant from the show...” He opened the chart. “Karen Gallardo. Here, this is your copy. My preliminary notes, the address, Gallardo’s cell. Everything you need to get started but batteries not included.”

I laughed and took the chart and he walked me to the door, refilled glass in hand. Maybe he always drank this much, or maybe something about this case had gotten to him.

“Again, thanks, Alex.”

“Happy to help,” I said. “It actually sounds interesting.”

“Does it?” He clicked his tongue twice. “Like that Chinese curse? May you live in interesting times?”

During the time I’d spent in Lou’s office, San Fernando Valley dust had coated my old Seville. I headed east on Ventura Boulevard, hoping for a breeze to blow it away but got none. At an Italian place just past Sepulveda, I ate some pasta, drank some iced tea, and read Lou’s notes.

Like me, he kept his charting spare and there was little to learn beyond what he’d told me other than the bare details of Zelda Chase’s arrest. Charges dropped when the complainants, unnamed, agreed not to press, provided the offender received “counseling.”

From the justice system’s perspective, a happy ending. But “counseling” is meaningless, vulgarized by talk-show hucksters and encompassing everything from intense psychiatric treatment to the murmurings of nonlicensed “life coaches.”

What “counseling” meant in this case was the system was happy to shift responsibility for Zelda Chase’s disruptive behavior to Lou Sherman, M.D.

Lou had taken the job but he was smart enough and experienced enough to know a panacea was unlikely. Because psychosis, even clearly diagnosed, is a challenge to treat due to the fact that no one really understands what it is. Or why anti-psychotic drugs work, beyond a hazy notion of manipulating neurotransmitters — brain chemicals like serotonin and dopamine that keep the mental highway buzzing along smoothly.

Compounding the puzzle, many seriously disturbed people don’t fit into diagnostic cubbyholes as neatly as big pharma and their science-writer flunkies would have you believe.

If the brain’s Mount Everest, the plane hasn’t even landed in Nepal.

So good luck to Lou... meanwhile, there was a five-year-old child to meet.

I worked on my fusilli and downed a glass and a half of iced tea before phoning Karen Gallardo. No answer, no voicemail. Finishing my meal, I got back in the Seville, took Van Nuys to the merger with Beverly Glen, climbed up to Mulholland, and began the quick drop to my house in the foothills on the Glen’s western edge.

I was home by three, found the house sunlit and silent. Robin had left a note on my desk, plying her calligraphic artist’s hand on a scrap of my stationery.

“Darling, out with Julie for lunch, back by 2:30 or so. B’s with me.”

Julie was Juliette Charmley, a high school friend, attending a dental hygienist seminar near LAX, and B was Blanche, our little blond French bulldog. That meant an animal-friendly lunch spot, my guess a café on Old Topanga overlooking a sparkling creek. The last time Robin and I had been there, a mama coyote had been teaching two pups how to swim and the smaller sib had flashed us a death-stare.

Blanche is a mellow little thing, at first glance more monkey than wolf. But she’s still a dog and she’s grown territorial about critters in our garden and her presence could prove interesting if the coyotes showed up again.

If I was right, Robin had risked an eventful lunch. Interesting.

I cleared some mail, checked for messages, gave Karen Gallardo another try. Ten rings with no voicemail and I was about to click off when a young voice came on, breathless.

“Chase residence.”

“Ms. Gallardo?”

“Who’s this?”

I explained

She said, “Okay, yeah, they warned me you’d be calling.”

“Warned?”

“Sorry. I meant I was expecting you. Sir.”

“I promise I won’t bite,” I said.

“Pardon — oh, sure. So you’re going to want an appointment with Ovie? He’s in preschool until three-thirty, I’ll be picking him up soon, he can be pretty tired when he gets home.”

“How about tomorrow, say four p.m.?”

“Sure. But he could get more tired if it’s a long drive to your office. Where are you?”

“Let’s do it at four-thirty, to give Ovid a chance to unwind. And I’ll come to you.”

“You’ll analyze him here?” she said.

“That seems like the easiest way.”

“Um... okay, sure. What do I tell Ovie?”

“Today, don’t tell him anything. Tomorrow, after he gets home — does he usually have a snack?”

“Healthy snack,” said Karen Gallardo. “Organic crunch bar and grapes if he wants them, sometimes orange slices.”

“Give him his snack first, let him settle down, then tell him a doctor who doesn’t give shots and is a friend of his mother will be dropping by to talk to him. I’ll take it from there.”

“What if he gets upset?”

“Is he a high-strung boy?”

“No, not really.”

“If you’re relaxed, he should be fine.”

“All right...”

“How’s he doing without his mom?”

“Actually,” said Karen Gallardo, “he seems okay. Today he did say he was a little worried about her, but he didn’t cry or anything and I told him she’d be all better soon. Was that wrong? I mean saying that? This really isn’t my thing, I studied film, not psychology.”

“Sounds like you’re doing fine, Karen.”

“I hope... do I need to be here when you analyze him?”

“In the house, yes. In the room, no.”

“What room do you want to use?”

“How about we figure that out when I get there?”

“So I don’t need to set up anything.”

“Nothing, Karen. Just be there with Ovid.”

“Do you need directions?”

I’d already mapped it: Hollywood Hills, above Sunset, east of Laurel Canyon. “Got it, Karen. See you tomorrow at four-thirty.”

“He’s a nice boy — any idea when Zelda will be coming home? Ovie did ask about that.”

“Not sure yet, I’ll do my best to explain things to him.”

“Okay... will you be needing a room with a couch?”

“No, Karen.”

“And your name again, sir?”

I was in my office, thinking about what approach to take with Ovid Chase, when I heard the front door open and the voice I love proclaim, “We’re here!”

I walked to the living room where Robin, small and sleek and curvy in black jeans and charcoal T-shirt, waved and came over and kissed me. Blanche waited patiently, panting, front paws on my shins. Behind both of them, Julie Charmley, a tall freckled redhead, stood motionless and silent.