Jonathan Kellerman: Breakdown

Noise was everywhere. To avoid it, Tina figured you had to die.

When she and Harry lived in Manhattan, the nerve-scraping clangor of garbage trucks and delivery vans had served as early-morning alarm clocks. Waking up to the din was jarring and souring for Tina but useful for Harry because he slept like a drunk and had to be on the subway by seven.

Here in L.A., nestled in the alleged luxe of upper Bel Air, mornings were quiet. Until they weren’t: the house groaning and creaking randomly, scolding reminders that they’d traded New York bedrock for the traitorous sand of earthquake country.

Of course, Harry barely noticed. The jolts to Tina’s nervous system made her feel like shedding her skin.

L.A. evenings were “left-coast mellow” for him, crushingly still for her. She yearned for the rumble of a late-night bus, the drone of human voices rendered unintelligible at the seventeenth floor, the farting aggression of taxi-horns.

Anything to remind her that other people existed beyond the confines of her personal space. After two months of living on a ridge of soft dirt straddling L.A. the thick, almost slimy stillness was threatening to smother her.

When the creaks and groans weren’t freaking her out.

Officially, neighbors existed. The place Harry’s firm had leased for them (“midcentury delight,” in reality a bland ranch house) was bordered by similar structures. But each was vacant due to traveling owners: a wire service editor currently working in Greece, a merry widow enjoying a round-the-world cruise.

Tina knew those details because the rental agent had informed her how lucky she was to have peace and quiet.

Quiet could only be peaceful if it wasn’t polluted by loneliness and unpredictability.

Evenings when Harry worked late proved unnerving.

Even when he was home for dinner, there was bedtime to deal with, the dreaded moment when bedroom lamps were switched off and Harry was snoozing within seconds. Leaving Tina flat on her back, wondering if tonight she’d finally be able to get some rest.

It wasn’t only the groans and creaks. There was the matter of the animals.

If she didn’t set her white noise machine loud enough, scurries and rustles from the vest-pocket backyard dried her mouth, chilled her skin, and revved up her heart.

If she set the machine whooshing too fiercely, she veered into migraine territory.

Harry, sprawled across the mattress and sawing wood, remained oblivious to her stress. Tina figured he could snore through Armageddon.

Mr. Mellow and High-Strung Babe.

He called her that, good-naturedly. Insisted her overactive nervous system made her hot in bed. Tina had her doubts about that but why argue? She knew she was high-maintenance, it was all a matter of wiring.

More than once, startled awake by what had to be a wild beast or a serial killer out in the garden, she’d elbowed the poor guy awake and insisted he check. Drowsy but chuckling, he always complied, finding nothing. One night, especially weary, he said maybe she should try meditation. Or medication. Tina’s reaction to that wisdom disabused him of further advice.

Then came that night, when even Harry’s eyes widened as he heard the chittering. Parting the bedroom drapes, he watched, astonished, as a family of raccoons enjoyed the lap pool.

Mommy, Daddy, and three babies. Diving in gleefully, scampering out to shake off their fur, hurrying back for repeat plunges.

Five of them! Polluting the water with rabies germs and God knew what.

Harry had been fascinated by the spectacle; grinning, he watched. Tina, repelled, had insisted he pound the glass until the intruders fled. Which took a while; the raccoons, cheeky bastards, showed no fear, only sullen resentment.

The following morning Tina phoned Animal Control and received a lecture about human invasion of habitat; apparently raccoons had inalienable rights, too.

So four nights later when she heard sounds from the garden, she gritted her teeth and let Harry sleep through it. But after he left for work, she checked and found trampled vegetation and a pile of grape-sized pellets, a production she Internet-identified as deer scat.

She supposed Bambi foraging out back wasn’t terrible... but what if a mountain lion or a coyote had a yen for venison and came back to... OMG, who knew Bel Air meant Wild Kingdom?

From that point on, Tina began using earplugs in addition to the white noise machine and though they caused her to wake up with a sore jaw, she figured she’d finally happened upon an optimal solution.

Wrong, again.

This was a new level of noise, way louder and weirder than the raccoons. An agitated creature? Or worse: angry.

Definitely something out there, thrashing. Now moaning. Now what sounded like the impact of a paw or a claw on hardscape. An animal tantrum, loud enough to pierce the machine and the plugs. How could Harry sleep through it?

Tina wished she had the courage to have a look herself. Inform him, over breakfast, that she’d made a breakthrough, no need to baby her anymore, she was adapting.

Maybe she’d even start looking for a job soon.

But not tonight, this — horrid symphony — and there it was again, the bumping.

Something injured? Or out to injure? Did coyotes sound like this? She had no idea... she nudged Harry with her little toe. He gulped air, turned over, yanked the covers over his head.

To hell with it, she would see for herself.

Bump. Wail. Now a high-pitched cry. Heart racing, chest hurting, but feeling oddly purposeful, Tina bounded out of bed, not even trying to be subtle or quiet because down deep she hoped Harry would wake up and come to her rescue.

But he just rolled over again, snored louder.

Not loud enough to blot out the terrible noise outside.

Scratch scratch scratch. What sounded like slithering. Then a... whimper? Two creatures? A victim and a predator?

Dreading what she’d see, Tina forced herself to fold back the drapes and squint.

No need to focus, there it was, obvious and horrifying, crouched in the left-hand corner of the garden.

Head down, gasping and crying out as it pawed soil, spewing clumps and leaves and dust.

No way it could’ve spotted Tina but suddenly its head rose and it locked eyes with her.

A glint of madness — a terrible meld of terror and rage.

It screamed.

A duet; Tina was screaming, too.

Psychologists and psychiatrists often rely on voicemail for receiving messages. I use an answering service because if anyone should be offering a live human voice to someone in need, it’s a therapist.

On a cloudy morning at ten a.m., I got a call from one of the service operators, a new one named Bradley.

“Dr. Delaware, I’ve got Doyle Maslow on the line.”

“Don’t know him.”

“Her, sir, and sounds as if she knows you. She said it’s a mental health crisis type of thing.”

“Is she the one in crisis?”

“She didn’t say, Doctor.”

“Put her on.”

“Good, sir.”

A husky young female voice said, “Dr. Alexander Delaware? This is Kristin Doyle-Maslow, mental health specialist with the Los Angeles County Behavioral and Affective Re-Integration and Services Project.”

New one on me but the county sprouts programs like a hydra grows heads.

I said, “I’m not familiar—”

“You wouldn’t be. We’re funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, learn about us on our website. LACBAR-I-SP.net. I’m calling about a patient of yours. Zelda Chase.”