Mercy (56 page)

Broussard’s face changed, as if he had just remembered her. He stepped back and pulled the door closed softly. “As a matter of fact, I do.” He looked at Palma, then back at Grant. “What do you want to talk to me about?”

“Bernadine Mello,” Grant said.

“Oh, my God. Christ.” Broussard was suddenly disturbed all over again, looking at Palma. “God. Poor…Listen.” He turned to Grant. “Can you give me three or four minutes in here? Can you wait in the front room?”

They turned on the light in the waiting room, and it was seven minutes before they heard the back door open and close and saw a woman bundled in a raincoat walking briskly around the side of the bungalow to the Mercedes. Palma stepped to the windows but could not get a look at her face in the dying light as she unlocked the car door, slipped inside, and in a moment was pulling away on the cinder drive. At that instant Dr. Dominick Broussard appeared in the doorway.

They sat in his office, which smelled faintly of a woman’s perfume, Broussard behind his desk, Grant and Palma in leather armchairs facing him. Broussard, calmer and sobered, acknowledged that he had heard of Bernadine Mello’s death on the noon news the day before and had read of it in the morning’s paper. He controlled his demeanor and facial expressions, but he couldn’t as easily command his voice, which grew thick and unpredictable in spite of his repeated clearing it. He told them that Bernadine had been his client for over five years, that he was consulting with her about chronic depression and a number of other things, including alcohol abuse.

“Do you have a specialty practice?” Palma asked.

“Not really,” Broussard said, clearing his throat once more. “I mean, I don’t accept clients with only certain kinds of dysfunctions, but as things have turned out over the years, I’ve developed a clientele that consists primarily of women.”

“What is your approach with your clients?” Palma asked. “Aren’t there a number of different types of psychotherapies?”

Broussard thought a moment before responding, which seemed an odd thing to Palma.

“I’m a psychodynamic psychotherapist, really,” he said helpfully, “rather than an interpersonal therapist or a humanistic therapist or a cognitive therapist or a behavioral therapist or a counselor…whatever. My therapeutic approach to psychological dysfunction is based on psychoanalytic psychology, not one of the newer…and more popular kinds of therapies available.” He looked at Palma. “Do you know anything about psychotherapy?”

“Practically nothing,” she said.

Broussard nodded, studying her. “My approach attributes neurotic, emotional, and interpersonal dysfunctions to unconscious internal conflicts…usually created in childhood. Originally, the Freudian psychoanalyst sought to reconstruct his client’s personality by eliminating these internal conflicts. This was done by helping the patient to delve into her unconscious to retrieve memories and feelings, and thereby gaining ‘insight’ into her problems.”

Broussard spoke very carefully and deliberately but with no studied thought as to what he was saying. It was clear he had done this “introduction” to his specialty before, probably to clients or prospective clients.

“The effectiveness of this approach relied a great deal on a phenomenon called ‘transference.’ As the patient becomes more comfortable with the analyst over a long period of time, the patient will begin to see the analyst in a certain light, projecting attributes onto the analyst that are actually attributes from a person in the patient’s past. These attributes will trigger inappropriate reactions from the patient and by subtle questioning the analyst leads the patient to an emotional re-education in which the patient learns more realistic perceptions and ways of behaving.”

Broussard seemed to decide to cut his spiel short.

“Anyway,” he shrugged, “it’s an arduous process. Very time-consuming…and expensive. But strict psychoanalysis is no longer the vogue, unfortunately. Few people want to invest that kind of time anymore. Recent trends are toward more short-term psychodynamic therapies focusing on a single problem rather than on an exploration of the overall personality. No probing of the unconscious, no striving for insight. Transference is still important, however, but the analyst is more confrontational. The old way adapted to new times.”

“But don’t you still have patients who prefer the longer-term approach?” Palma asked.

Broussard smiled slowly. “Yes, I do. A number of them. Bernadine Mello was one. And there are others.”

“If you read the articles in the paper about Mrs. Mello’s death,” Palma said, “then you know that the police believe she was killed by a person who has killed several other women as well.”

Broussard’s countenance sobered, his already swarthy complexion darkening as the sardonic smile soured to what Palma read as a faint look of distaste, rather than commiseration.

“I’ll get to the point,” Palma said. “We believe you can be helpful to us in gaining some insight ourselves, into the mind of this killer.”

Broussard’s expression was instantly brittle in the way a person’s face becomes brittle when he is caught off guard and believes he is concealing his surprise by holding his expression constant. Few people can actually accomplish this feat, and despite his extensive experience at interviewing, Broussard was not one of them. Though the change was infinitesimal and would have been difficult to describe, it was unmistakable.

Palma reached into her purse and pulled out a small notebook which she flipped open and studied a moment.

“Bernadine Mello has been your client since 1983?” She looked up from her notes.

Broussard nodded, his eyes perhaps a little wider than normal. “About that,” he managed to say. “I suppose her records are correct. I’d have to check mine.” He let them know that he had guessed how they had gotten their information.

“And Sandra Moser was your client from May to September in 1985?”

Broussard responded more slowly. “I’d have to check my notes. And for Samenov too.”

Palma felt her face flush, and her stomach went hollow. Jesus Christ. And Samenov too? She managed not to look at Grant, but she could sense, or did she only imagine she sensed, how his mind had locked onto that stunning bit of information so unexpectedly volunteered.

She looked at her notebook. “I don’t have the dates on her,” she said. “Would it be difficult for you to get them for me?”

Broussard shook his head and turned his chair to an antique Jacobean table sitting in front of the windows overlooking the sloping lawn that was now disappearing into the early darkness of evening. He flipped on a computer terminal and sat before its amber glow, tapping at the keyboard, waiting, tapping, the screen disappearing, reappearing, more tapping until he sat still a moment, and then said, “I first consulted with Dorothy Ann Samenov on February 14, 1984, and I last consulted with her on December 12, 1984.” He left the screen on and turned back to them.

Palma studied her notebook for a while, letting Broussard watch her. Then she asked, “When did you first realize that all three victims had been your clients?”

“This morning.”

“Didn’t you recognize Sandra Moser’s name in the news when she was killed?”

“Of course I did, but that was just one murder. I thought it was extraordinary that one of my clients had been killed. It’s never happened to me before. I’ve had suicides, but not homicides. So I marveled at it, followed the case, but that was all. It was one of those things that happen to people you know. I never knew about Dorothy Samenov until I saw the article in this morning’s paper. All three women’s names were mentioned. That’s when I knew.”

Palma knew that Grant was aware that Samenov’s murder had been kept out of the media except for a small mention in the police blotter one morning.

“I’m sure you’ve already anticipated me,” Palma said.

Broussard started nodding, and she went ahead. “It would help us to know what you thought about these three women. In your opinion, did they have any propensity that would have made them particularly susceptible to this kind of victimization? Do you see a red thread here?”

Broussard leaned his forearms on his desk and interlocked the fingers of his two hands and studied his thumbnails. His arms rested in a clean space in the center of the desk, an area large enough for a leather desk set, a spiral-bound appointment calendar, a telephone, a lamp, an ornate silver Victorian inkwell and pen tray which held four or five well-used ink pens. But on either side of Broussard, the desk was cluttered with dozens of variously sized figurines, some seemingly antique artifacts of clay, or bronze, or marble, or pitted iron, some of a variety of stones in deep colors of burgundy or black or cobalt or jade. All the figures were of women.

Broussard looked up, preparing to respond, and saw Palma looking at his collection. He tilted his head.

“Recognize any of them?”

“Saint Catherine,” she said.

“Oh, you were educated in a parochial school as a child?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Yes, well, the good and unfortunate Catherine. All of them women out of the mythos of many cultures and spanning many ages, ancient and modern.”

Broussard looked at Grant and then back at Palma. He reached out and touched a marble figure. “This is multibreasted Artemis of Ephesus, Queen of Heaven, the Great Goddess, worshiped by Asia and all the world.” He touched the one Palma had recognized. “Your stoic Saint Catherine, gazing placidly into eternity through the spokes of a wheel of fiery veined stone.” His finger moved. “A bronze Leda curling her hips to embrace with her heavy thighs the massive feathered body of the swan-Zeus, conceiving in the shudder of her passion yet another woman whose legendary beauty would launch a thousand ships. Here, a pale marble Psyche embracing bisexual Eros; that black one, thin-waisted and heavy-busted Parvati bride of Shiva, Daughter of Heaven, she of the incomparably graceful hips; and squatting beside her there is a steatite Tlazolteotl, Mother Goddess of the Aztecs, whose grimacing face portrays the pain of childbirth and whose parted knees and gaping vagina reveal the emerging head and arms of an offspring race.”

He stopped, bringing his arm back to rest with the other one on the desk in front of him. The collection was a melange of color and texture and material and form, female archetypes of the graceful and the vulgar, of the proud and the humble, of the beatific and the Satanic.

“I get positively poetic about them,” he said with a smirk. “I’ve been collecting them since I was in college. A lifetime of women.

“Two things,” he said abruptly, his dusky forehead wrinkling as he looked up at her. “I realize that I’m a common denominator here, and by virtue of my association with these women I’m in something of a compromised position. I’ll check my calendar, but I may not be able to give you alibis for all the nights…if any. Also…I rather suspect that by now Bernadine’s husband must have made you aware that my relationship with her…exceeds that of doctor-client. I know that puts my career in jeopardy should you wish to pursue it as a breach of professional ethics.”

Broussard sat back in his chair and looked at each of them in turn with eyes unafraid of meeting theirs. He shook his head.

“But it wasn’t.” Thinking, he shifted his eyes to the icons. “I won’t say I loved her. It was too complicated. I don’t know that I could call it that, but it was…enduring. Over five years, through three husbands. I collected a fee, yes. For a time I didn’t, a year and a half. But I continued seeing her three times a week, and she continued analysis. Then one day she started paying me again because she said I was earning it, regardless of our relationship.” He smiled sadly and looked up at Palma. “And she was right; I was. Anyway, Bernadine had a cavalier attitude toward both sex and money, which was well enough, I suppose. She had a huge reserve of both.”

Broussard stopped for their reaction.

“We’re interested in the homicides,” Grant said, implying that right now they weren’t concerned with the fine lines of Broussard’s professional ethics. Broussard slowly nodded, perhaps evaluating Grant’s response insofar as it affected his role and what he might say.

“I can give you some other common denominators besides myself,” he said. “But I’d urge you to keep in mind that while women who seek psychiatric counsel may present broad symptomatic similarities, their histories can be dramatically varied. And there’s no accounting for the quirks of individuality. One, above all, should be cautious about extrapolating from generalities.”

45

“A
ll three women had an assortment of anxiety-based disorders—panic attacks, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorders,” Broussard said, jerking his chin a little to make his neck more comfortable in the starched white collar of his shirt. Even on a Saturday consultation he had worn a tie, albeit a casual one of russet linen that caught the same highlights in his linen trousers. “They suffered from mood disorders—sadness, discouragement, pessimism, hopelessness. They were victims of childhood sexual abuse. They were bisexual.” He paused. “I, uh, on this latter point…I didn’t know about Bernadine’s bisexuality until quite recently. And it was latent. She was seduced on one occasion by a college roommate. According to her, and I have no reason to disbelieve her, it didn’t happen again until recently, when she met a woman in a service station. The woman approached her without introducing herself, later contacted her. They met and an affair began. A rather serious affair, I think.”

“How recently?” Palma asked.

“Maybe three or four weeks ago.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I can go back to my notes if you want.”

“We might have you do that later,” Palma said. “How about the other two women?”

“Samenov, bisexual since her university years. Moser’s first experience was after college, as a young career woman, and continued through sporadic affairs on into her marriage.”

“Was there anything unusual about their sexuality, other than their being bisexual?”

“Bernadine’s…enthusiasm…was noteworthy. I don’t think she was, in the clinical sense, nymphomaniacal, but she was addicted to sex. She thought it was the only way people showed love for each other. Nonerotic love was not a concept she understood.