Victims

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “You know he appreciated that because—”

  “He thanked me.”

  “When?”

  “When I told him I was leaving.”

  “How old was he, then?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Two years in Specialized.”

  “In Specialized technically,” he said. “But for all purposes, he had his own private ward. He thanked me, Dr. Delaware. He’d have no reason to harm me.”

  “That assumes rationality on his part.”

  “Do you have some concrete evidence that I’m in peril, Dr. Delaware?”

  “We’re talking about a highly disturbed—”

  He smirked. “You’re trying to fish out information.”

  “This isn’t about you,” I said. “He needs to be stopped. Give me a name.”

  I’d raised my voice, put some steel into it. For no obvious reason Cahane brightened. “Alex, would you be so kind as to check my bathroom? I believe I’ve left my glasses there and I’d like to spend a pleasant afternoon with Spinoza and Leibniz. Rationality and all that.”

  “First tell me—”

  “Young man,” he said. “I don’t like being out of focus. Help restore some visual coherence and perhaps we’ll chat further.”

  I passed through the doorway to the lav. The space was cramped, white tiles crisscrossed by grubby grout. A threadbare gray towel hung from a pebbled glass shower door. The smell was bay rum, cheap soap, faulty plumbing.

  No eyeglasses anywhere.

  Something white and peaked sat atop the toilet tank.

  Piece of paper folded, origami-style, the folds uneven, the flaps wrinkled by unsteady hands. Some sort of small squat animal.

  Serrated edges said the paper had been ripped from a spiral notebook. I spotted the book in a ragged wicker basket to the left of the commode, along with a tract on philosophy and several old copies of Smithsonian.

  Every page of the notebook was blank.

  I unfolded. Black ballpoint block printing centered the page, made ragged by several hesitation breaks.

  GRANT HUGGLER

  (The Curious Boy)

  I hurried back to Cahane’s living room, note in hand. The big leather chair was empty. Cahane was nowhere in sight.

  To the left of the bathroom was a closed door.

  I knocked.

  No answer.

  “Dr. Cahane?”

  “I need to sleep.”

  I turned the knob. Locked. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  “I need to sleep.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I need to sleep.”

  CHAPTER

  31

  Alex Shimoff’s second drawing aired on the six o’clock news. A bored talking-head noted the suspect’s “winter coat” and a possible history of “thyroid issues.” Total broadcast time: thirty-two seconds.

  I froze the frame. This sketch was lifelike, the broad face impassive.

  This was the man I’d seen huddled in a corner booth at Bijou, inches from a group of moms and tots.

  Robin said, “He looks blank. Like something’s missing. Or maybe Shimoff didn’t have enough to work with.”

  “He did.”

  She looked at me. I’d already told her some of what Cahane had related. Took it no further.

  Blanche studied each of us. We sat there.

  Robin said, “Eleven years old,” and walked out of the room.

  Milo’d been off the radar all day but he phoned about an hour after the broadcast. My searches using Grant Huggler’s name had proved fruitless.

  He said, “Catch it? Big improvement, no? His Exaltedness pulled strings because ‘shit needs turning over so it won’t stink worse than it already is.’ Anyway, we’ve got a piece of fine art, even Shimoff’s satisfied. The tip lines just started to light up, so far it’s fewer than we got the first time, maybe Joe Public’s played out. But Moe caught one worth looking into. Anonymous female caller says a guy fitting Shearling’s description received his thyroid prescription at a clinic in Hollywood, she hung up when Reed asked her which one. A place in Hollywood fits a guy on the streets and puts him in proximity to Lem Eccles. All the clinics Petra called are closed until tomorrow, she’ll follow up and if God’s feeling generous we’ll get a name.”

  “God loves you,” I said. “His name’s Grant Huggler.”

  “What?”

  I recapped the meeting with Cahane.

  He said, “He leaves it for you to find in the damn bathroom? What was that, pretending he wasn’t actually a snitch?”

  “He left it folded like origami. Setting up a little production but distancing himself from it. He’s a complicated guy, spends a lot of energy on self-justification.”

  “Is he a reliable guy?”

  “I believe what he told me.”

  “Grant Huggler,” he said. “Eleven years old a quarter century ago makes him thirty-six, which fits our witness reports. Can’t be too many with that name, I’m plugging him in now—well looky here, male Cauc, six feet, two thirty-six, picked up five years ago in Morro Bay for trespassing, possible intent to commit burglary ... a doctor’s office, that probably means they nabbed him just as he broke in to score dope ... which fits with a street guy with psych issues ... no prison sentence, he got pled down to jail time served ... here’s the mug shot. Long hair, scruffy beard but the face behind all that pelt looks kinda chubby ... talk about weird eyes. Dead, like he’s staring into the Great Abyss.”

  “No busts before then?”

  “Nope, that’s it. Not much of a criminal history for someone who’s now a serial gutter.”

  I said, “Morro Bay’s not far from Atascadero, which is one of the places dangerous patients were transferred when V-State shut down. A first offense five years ago could mean he was locked up until then. If so, he’s been incarcerated for twenty years.”

  “Plenty of time to stew.”

  “And to fantasize.”

  “He’d be treated with meds, right?”

  “Possibly.”

  “I’m asking that because if it was dope he was after, maybe he got hooked on something, tried to boost from a doctor’s office. Though once he got out, wouldn’t he be sent to some kind of outpatient facility where he could score legally?”

  “That assumes he’d show up,” I said. “And few patients crave psychotropics, something recreational would be more likely. I’m betting he was noncompliant about aftercare, if for no other reason than he’d want to avoid waiting rooms.”

  “Little medical phobia, huh? Yeah, getting your neck sliced for no reason can do that to you—so maybe he was trying to swipe thyroid meds because he hated waiting rooms.”

  “Anxiety about medical settings could explain being so tense in Glenda Usfel’s scan room. Toss in some hormonal irritability, add Usfel’s aggressive nature, and you’d have a volatile situation. But he didn’t react impulsively, just the opposite. He bided his time, planned, stalked her, took action. I suppose spending most of your life in a highly structured environment could instill patience and an interesting sense of focus.”

  “Losing an organ he didn’t have to lose,” he said. “Doing that to a kid. Barbaric. Now he’s out, practicing his own brand of surgery.”

  “Avenging old wrongs and some new ones,” I said. “I’d like to know the name of the surgeon who operated on him. All Cahane remembered was that the office was in Camarillo.”

  “Another victim before he got to L.A.? No similars have shown up anywhere.”

  “One person who did meet an interesting end was the psychologist who orchestrated the thyroidectomy. When Cahane got back, he lost no time firing him and the following day he dropped dead in the hospital parking lot. Apparent heart attack. Sound familiar?”

  “Lem Eccles’s wife—Rosetta. Oh, Jesus. Eccles was nuts but not wrong?”

  “There’s more, Big Guy. The psychologist’s name was Bernhard Shacker.”

  “Same as the guy who analyzed Vita fo
r Well-Start? What the hell’s going on? Some sort of identity theft?”

  “Has to be,” I said. “The man I spoke to was in his late forties and the real Shacker was nearly eighty when he keeled over. The real Shacker was Belgian and the diploma I saw in that office was from a university in Belgium. When Shacker—the guy calling himself Shacker—saw me looking at it, he said something about his Catholic phase. Photoshopping fancy-looking paper isn’t any big deal.”

  “A scamster making it in B.H.?”

  “I’m wondering if his transgressions go beyond practicing without a license. Because pulling off the murders would be a lot easier with two people involved.”

  “Where’d that come from?”

  “Eccles’s fear of a guard at V-State. Huggler may be your prototypical odd loner but that doesn’t preclude someone from gaining his trust. Someone he met while at V-State.”

  “Another lunatic?” he said. “Working as a guard? Now he’s palming himself off as a shrink? Good Lord.”

  “Faking it would be a lot easier for someone who’d worked on psych wards long enough to soak up the terminology. Eccles was confined at V-State the same time as Huggler. Maybe in Specialized Care because he’d gotten overly aggressive with a judge. There’s no reason to think he didn’t continue being his usual combative, obnoxious self. That got him on a guard’s bad side. But the guard was too clever to face off against Eccles, took it out on Eccles’s only visitor. The woman Eccles considered his wife. She really was poisoned and when he got away with it, he did the same to Bernhard Shacker.”

  “Get on my bad side, you die,” he said. “Another touchy one?”

  “Common ground for a relationship. Cahane described Huggler as cooperative, compliant. Even so, his recreational time was supervised. For his safety. That meant being supervised by a guard whenever he left his room. What if it was the same guard each time and a bond developed? The man passing himself off as Shacker would’ve been in his twenties back then, perfect age to be a mentor to an isolated adolescent. The bond was solidified forever when he eliminated the man who’d robbed Huggler of a vital organ. And the bond could’ve remained strong enough for the mentor to travel with Huggler—seeking out a job at Atascadero when Huggler got transferred there.”

  “And now they’re traveling together.”

  “For at least five years,” I said. “If that’s the case, Huggler’s not crashing on the street. He’s living securely with his self-appointed guardian. Who’s making a nice living in a Beverly Hills office. And who could be sending Huggler to inflict his particular brand of curiosity upon those who’ve gotten on his nerves. Case in point, Vita. Huggler witnessed her tormenting the Banforth family but I don’t see him as out for truth and justice. More likely he was already at Bijou because he’d been stalking Vita for a while. And the reason for that was Vita had offended Fake Dr. Shacker. I know that because he told me she’d just about come out and called him a quack, no one had ever treated him that way. He was bothered. It was the only time he dropped his professional guard.”

  “Doing her mean thing,” he said. “No pity from Pitty. Hold on.” Click click. “No Shacker or Pitty in the files ... not at DMV, either ... all I’m finding is the office address on Bedford.”

  I said, “Let’s work out a plan tonight, bop over there tomorrow.”

  “Analyze the analyst,” he said. “He’s that dangerous, we should bring an army.”

  “I figured I’d talk to him, you’d be there for backup.”

  “What’s your angle?”

  “Does he remember anything else about Vita? If it feels right, I’ll probe deeper about the quack issue. If not, I’ll bring up additional victims, did he have any theories? Get people talking, they make mistakes.”

  “Let me call Petra, see what she thinks.”

  Six minutes later:

  “Poor kid was having some face-time with her lovey-dove at L’Oise in Brentwood. Not far from your place, you mind hosting us in say an hour?”

  “No prob.”

  “Check with Robin.”

  “She’ll be fine with it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She loves you.”

  “Rare lapse of taste on her part,” he said. “An hour.”

  CHAPTER

  32

  Petra rang the bell, white paper bag in hand. She had on a sleeveless navy silk sheath, red sandals with heels, strategic pearls, darker-than-usual lipstick. First time I’d seen her in a dress.

  Robin said, “Date night interrupted?”

  “Woman plans, God laughs.”

  Petra bent to pet Blanche. Blanche rolled on her back, earned a massage.

  Petra said, “We made it through the first course, I took dessert to go.”

  I said, “Want some coffee?”

  “Strong, if you don’t mind.”

  I brewed Kenyan, kicking up the octane. Robin and Petra settled at the table and Petra pulled plastic-topped boxes out of the bag. Assortment of cookies, four slabs of chocolate cake.

  Robin said, “That’s more like catering.”

  “I brought for everyone, seeing as you guys are donating home and hearth to the dark side.”

  A heavy hand pounded the door.

  Milo trudged in bearing a brown bag, greasy, flecked with powdered sugar. He scowled. “Who mugged a pastry chef?”

  Robin sniffed the air. “This Magi brings churros?”

  “It seemed like a good idea.” His eyes fixed on the chocolate cake.

  “Flourless,” said Petra.

  “Got nothing against flour, but why not?”

  He put the churros aside, was ingesting cake before his haunches met his chair. Blanche waddled over and nuzzled his ankle. He said, “Yeah, yeah,” and conceded a rub behind her ear. She purred like a cat. “Yeah, yeah, again.”

  Robin took her cup and headed for the back door. Blanche followed. “Good luck.”

  No one invited her to stay. They like her.

  Petra said, “This fake psychologist is Huggler’s confederate, as well as the Pitty character Eccles claimed was stalking him?”

  Milo said, “Working assumption, kid, but it feels right. He steals one identity, why not another? Can’t find any ‘Pitty’ in the file, so maybe it’s a nickname. Or Eccles was totally delusional and we’re wrong.”

  She turned to me. “How did fake-o come across when you talked to him?”

  “Pleasant, professional, the right paper on the wall. The only time he stepped out of the role was when he complained that Vita had implied he was a quack. At the time, I took it as collegial banter.”

  “Looks like she was right. Sometimes I wonder if those nasty people don’t have special insights. Maybe because they see everyone as a threat.”

  Milo said, “But look what happens after they get elected.”

  “Good point.” She turned to me. “You see Vita insulting him as the reason she got killed?”

  I nodded. “His trigger, Huggler’s fun. We have two people working in concert, with layers of pathology building on each other. I’m not sure either of them understands it fully. At the base is Huggler’s fascination with human plumbing and no, I can’t tell you how that developed. It’s normal for children to wonder how their bodies work and kids who hold on to that curiosity sometimes channel it professionally—become mechanics, engineers, anatomists, surgeons. For a few, interest grows to obsession and gets tangled up with sexuality in a really bad way.”

  She said, “Dahmer, Nilsen, Gein.”

  “All of whom were described as odd children but none of whom had especially horrific childhoods,” I said. “Huggler killing his mother at eleven suggests a less-than-optimal upbringing, but it doesn’t come close to explaining the act. Whatever the reason, something short-circuited in his brain and he began pairing sexual gratification with plunging his hands into visceral muck. Being locked up for most of his life made him a prime target for observation and I’m betting one of his sharpest and most frequent observers wasn’
t a doctor. It was a young man working a low-status job. Someone who’d never be invited to staff meetings but craved authority and had the time to pick up all sorts of interesting things.”

  “Doctors come and go,” she said, “but guards stay on the ward for eight-hour shifts.”

  “And this guard’s ability to sniff out depravity could’ve been fine-tuned because he could relate to it on a personal level.”

  “His own kinks.”

  Milo said, “Psychopath pheromones. One beast smells another.”

  I said, “Pitty, or whatever his name really is, studied Huggler long enough to become a Huggler scholar. He befriended the boy and a mentor-trainee relationship developed. The boy had finally met someone who appreciated his urges instead of condemning them. Maybe it was Pitty who caught small animals for Huggler to play with.”

  “What was the payoff for him?”

  “Adulation, subservience, or maybe just having someone like himself to relate to. Given Huggler’s age and his apparent adjustment, there was a good chance he’d get out when he became an adult. Then Marlon Quigg ruined everything by exercising his own powers of observation, Huggler was subjected to unnecessary surgery and got put in Specialized Care. If I’m right about his only being out for five or so years, he was shipped off to another hospital, probably Atascadero, and got thoroughly institutionalized. A relationship with someone who claimed to care about him would’ve been his only link to reality.”

  “Pitty moves with him, Pitty’s reality becomes his?” said Petra. She shook her head. “That surgery, talk about institutional abuse. I guess you could see a tit-for-tat: They cut his neck, he breaks other people’s necks. But then why haven’t we seen any throat-slashing? Wouldn’t that be a more direct symbolic revenge?”

  “I could theorize for you all day—maybe he chose to avoid slashing because it cut too close to home. So to speak. The truth is we may never know what’s been stoking Huggler’s engine.”

  Milo said, “V-State closes, mentor follows mentee, mentee finally gets out, mentor turns him into a lethal weapon. That’s your layer two?”

  I nodded. “A weapon aimed at people who anger each or both of them. Pitty might not want to soil his own hands but if he’s the brittle, power-craving narcissist I think he is, he’d crave payback for slights the rest of us would shrug off.”