When the Bough Breaks (11 page)

It was ugly. A thick, raw red scar the size of a fat worm. A worm that had burrowed under her scalp and settled there. The skin around it was livid and lumpy, showing the results of bad surgery, devoid of hair.

“Now you know why I cover it!” she cried. “
He
did that to me! With a
chain
! Ronnie Lee Quinn.” She spat out the name. “A crazy, evil bastard. That’s the Daddy Daddy she’s cryin’ out for! That scum!”

“Now, now,” said Towle. He turned to us. “Do you gentlemen have anything more to discuss with Mrs. Quinn?”

“No, Doctor,” said Milo and turned to leave. He took hold of my arm to guide me out. But I had something to say.

“Tell her, Doctor. Tell her those were not seizures. They were night terrors and they’ll go away by themselves if you keep her calm. Tell
her there’ll be no need for phenobarbitol or Dilantin or Tofranil.”

Towle continued to pat her shoulder.

“Thank you for your professional opinion, Doctor. I’ll manage this case as I see fit.”

I stood there rooted.

“Come on, Alex.” Milo eased me out the door.

The parking lot of the apartment complex was crammed full of Mercedes, Porsches, Alfa Romeo’s and Datsun Z’s. Milo’s Fiat, parked in front of a hydrant, looked sadly out of place, like a cripple at a track meet. We sat in it, glum.

“What a mess,” he said.

“The bastard.”

“For a minute I thought you were going to hit him.” He chuckled.

“It was tempting. The bastard.”

“It looked like he was baiting you. I thought you guys got along.”

“On his terms. On an intellectual level we were good old boys. When things fell apart he had to find a scapegoat. He’s an egomaniac.
Doctor
is omnipotent.
Doctor
can fix anything. Did you see how she worshipped him, the goddamned Great White Father? Probably slit the kid’s wrists if he told her to.”

“You’re worried about the kid, aren’t you?”

“You’re damn right I am. You know exactly what he’s going to do, don’t you—more dope. She’ll be a total space cadet in two days.”

Milo chewed on his lip. After a few minutes he said:

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it. I’m sorry I pulled you into it in the first place.”

“Forget it. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Nah, it was. I’ve been lazy, trying for an instant miracle on this Handler mess. Been avoiding the old wear-down-the-shoe leather routine. Question Handler’s associates, get the list of known bad guys with razor-happy fingers from the computer and plod through it. Go through Handler’s files. The whole thing was iffy in the first place, a seven-year-old kid.”

“She could have turned out to be a good witness.”

“Is it ever that easy?” He started up the engine, after three attempts. “Sorry for ruining your night.”

“You didn’t. He did.”

“Forget him, Alex. Assholes are like weeds—a bitch to get rid of and when you do, another one grows back in the same place. That’s what I’ve been doing for eight years—pouring weed-killer and watching them grow back faster than I can clear them away.”

He sounded weary and looked old.

I got out of the car and leaned in through the window.

“See you tomorrow.”

“What?”

“The files. We have to go through Handler’s files. I’ll be able to tell faster than you will which ones were dangerous.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. I’m carrying around a huge Zeigarnik.”

“A what?”

“Zeigarnik. She was a Russian psychologist who discovered that people develop tension for unfinished business. They named it after her. The Zeigarnik effect. Like most overachievers I’ve got a big one.”

He looked at me like I was talking nonsense.

“Uh-huh. Right. And this Zeigarnik is big enough for you to let it intrude upon the mellow life?”

“What the hell, life was getting boring.” I slapped him on the back.

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged. “Regards to Robin.”

“You give regards to your doctor.”

“If he’s still there when I get back. This middle-of-the-night stuff is testing that relationship.” He scratched at the corner of his eye and scowled.

“I’m sure he’ll put up with it, Milo.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“If he’s crazy enough to go for you in the first place, he’s crazy enough to stick with you.”

“That’s very reassuring, pal.” He ground the Fiat into first and sped away.

9

A
T THE TIME
of his murder, Morton Handler had been in practice as a psychiatrist for a little under fifteen years. During that period he had consulted on or treated over two thousand patients. The records of these individuals were stored in manila folders and packed, one hundred and fifty to a box, in cardboard cartons that were taped shut and stamped with the L.A.P.D. seal.

Milo brought these boxes to my house, assisted by a slight, balding, black detective named Delano Hardy. Huffing and wheezing, they loaded the cartons in my dining room. Soon it looked as if I was either moving in or moving out.

“It’s not as bad as it seems,” Milo assured me. “You won’t have to go through all of them. Right, Del?”

Hardy lit a cigarette and nodded assent.

“We’ve done some preliminary screening,” he said. “We eliminated anyone known to be deceased. We figured they’d be low probability suspects.”

The two of them laughed. Dark detective laughs.

“And the coroner’s report,” he continued, “says Handler and the girl were cut by someone with a lot of muscle. The throat wound on him went clear back to the spine on the first try.”

“Which means,” I interrupted, “a man.”

“Could be one hell of a tough lady,” laughed Hardy, “but we’re betting on a male.”

“There are six hundred male patients,” added Milo. “Those four boxes over there.”

“Also,” said Hardy, “we brought you a little present.”

He gave me a small package wrapped in green and red Christmas
paper with a bugle and holly wreath pattern on it. It was tied with red ribbon.

“Couldn’t find any other paper,” Hardy explained.

“We hope you like it,” added Milo. I began to feel as if I were the audience for a salt-and-pepper comedy team. A curious transformation had come over Milo. In the presence of another detective he had distanced himself from me and adopted the tough-wiseacre banter of the veteran cop.

I unwrapped the box and opened it. Inside, on a bed of cotton, was a plastic-coated L.A.P.D. identification badge. It bore a picture of me like the one on my driver’s license, with that strange, frozen look that all official photos seem to have. Under the picture was my signature, also from my license, my name printed out, my degree and the title “Special Consultant.” Life imitates art …

“I’m touched.”

“Put it on,” said Milo. “Make it official.”

The badge wasn’t unlike the one I had worn at Western Pediatric. It came with a clasp. I affixed it to my shirt collar.

“Very attractive,” said Hardy. “That and ten cents might get you a local phone call.” He reached into his jacket and drew out a folded piece of paper. “Now, if you’ll just read and sign this.” He held out a pen.

I read it, all small print.

“This says you don’t have to pay me.”

“Right,” said Hardy with mock sadness. “And if you get a paper cut looking over the files you can’t sue the department.”

“It makes the brass happy, Alex,” said Milo.

I shrugged and signed.

“Now,” said Hardy, “you’re an official consultant to the Los Angeles Police Department.” He folded the paper and slipped it back in his pocket. “Just like the rooster who was jumping the bones of all the hens in the henhouse. So they castrated him and turned him into a consultant.”

“That’s very flattering, Del.”

“Any friend of Milo and all that.”

Milo, meanwhile, was opening the sealed cartons with a Swiss Army knife. He took out files in dozens and made neat little piles that covered the dining-room table.

“These are alphabetized, Alex. You can go through them and pull out the weird ones.”

He finished setting things up and he and Hardy got ready to go.

“Del and I will be talking to bad guys off the NCIC printout.”

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” said Hardy. He cracked his
knuckles and looked for a place to put out his cigarette, which was smoked down to the filter.

“Toss it in the sink.”

He left to do so.

When we were alone Milo said: “I really appreciate this, Alex. Don’t drive yourself—don’t try to get it all done today.”

“I’ll do as many as I can before the eyes start to blur.”

“Right. We’ll call you a couple of times today. To see if you’ve got anything we can pick up while we’re on the road.”

Hardy came back straightening his tie. He was dapper in a three-piece navy worsted suit, white shirt, blood-red tie, shiny black calfskin loafers. Next to him Milo looked more shopworn than ever in his sagging trousers and lifeless tweed sport coat.

“You ready, my man?” Hardy asked.

“Ready.”

“Onward.”

When they were gone I put a Linda Ronstadt record on the turntable. To the accompaniment of “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me,” I started to consult.

Eighty percent of the male patients in the files fell into two categories: affluent executive types referred by their internists due to a variety of stress-related symptoms—angina, impotence, abdominal pain, chronic headaches, insomnia, skin rashes of unknown origins—and depressed men of all ages. I reviewed these and put aside the remaining 20 percent for more detailed perusal.

I knew nothing about what kind of psychiatrist Morton Handler had been when I started, but after several hours of reviewing his charts I began to build an image of him—one that was far from saintly.

His therapy session notes were sketchy, careless, and so ambiguous as to be meaningless. It was impossible to know from reading them what he had done during those countless forty-five-minute hours. There was scant mention of treatment plans, prognoses, stress histories—anything that could be considered medically or psychologically relevant. This shoddiness was most evident in notes taken during the last five or six years of his life.

His financial records, on the other hand, were meticulous and detailed. His fees were high, his form letters to debtors strongly worded.

Though during the last few years he had done less talking and more prescribing, the rate at which he ordered medication wasn’t unusual. Unlike Towle, he didn’t appear to be a pusher. But he wasn’t much of a therapist, either.

What really bothered me was his tendency, again more common during later years, to inject snide comments into the notes. These, which he didn’t even bother to couch in jargon, were nothing more than
sarcastic put-downs of his patients. “Likes to alternately whimper and simper” was the description of one older man with a mood disorder. “Unlikely to be capable of anything constructive” was his pronouncement on another. “Wants therapy as camouflage for a boring, meaningless life.” “A real washout.” And so on.

By late afternoon my psychological autopsy of Handler was complete. He was a burnout, one of the legions of worker ants who had grown to hate his chosen profession. He might have cared at one time—the early files were decent, if not inspired—but he hadn’t by the end. Nevertheless, he had kept it up, day after day, session after session, unwilling to give up the six-figure income and the perquisites of prosperity.

I wondered how he had occupied his time as his patients poured out their inner tormoil. Did he daydream? Engage in fantasies (sexual? financial? sadistic?)? Plan the evening’s dinner menu? Do mental arithmetic? Count sheep? Compute how many manic depressives could dance on the head of a pin?

Whatever it had been, it hadn’t included really listening to the human beings who sat before him believing he cared.

It made me think of the old joke, the one about the two shrinks who meet on the elevator at the end of the day. One of them is young, a novice, and he is clearly bedraggled—tie askew, hair messed, fraught with fatigue. He turns and notices that the other, a seasoned veteran, is totally composed—tan, fit, every hair in place, a fresh carnation stuck jauntily in his lapel.

“Doctor,” beseeches the young one, “please tell me how you do it?”

“Do what, my son?”

“Sit, hour after hour, day after day, listening to people’s problems without letting it get to you.”

“Who listens?” replies the guru.

Funny. Unless you were shelling out ninety bucks a session to Morton Handler and getting a covert assessment as a simpering whimperer for your money.

Had one of the subjects of his nasty prose somehow discovered the sham and murdered him? It was difficult to imagine someone engaging in the kind of butchery that had been visited upon Handler and his girlfriend in order to avenge a peeve of that kind. But you never knew. Rage was a tricky thing; sometimes it lay dormant for years, only to be triggered by a seemingly trivial stimulus. People had been ripped apart over a nudged car bumper.

Still I found it hard to believe that the depressives and psychosomaticizers whose files I had reviewed were the stuff of which midnight skulkers were fashioned. What I really didn’t want to believe was that there were two thousand potential suspects to deal with.

It was close to five. I pulled a Coors out of the refrigerator, took it out to the balcony and lay down on a lounge, my feet propped up on the guardrail. I drank and watched the sun dip beneath the tops of the trees. Someone in the neighborhood was playing punk rock. Strangely enough it didn’t seem discordant.

At five-thirty Robin called.

“Hi, hon. You want to come over?
Key Largo’s
on tonight.”

“Sure,” I said. “Should I pick up anything to eat?”

She thought a moment.

“How about chili dogs? And beer.”

“I’ve got a head start on the beer.” Three squashed Coors empties sat on the kitchen counter.

“Give me time to catch up, love. See you around seven.”

I hadn’t heard from Milo since one-thirty. He’d called in from Bellflower, just about to interrogate a guy who’d assaulted seven women with a screwdriver. Very little similarity to the Handler case but you had to work with what you had.