Fatal Obsession

by Stephen Greenleaf

  “That’s the one. A real jewel, that boy. But Usser and his pal Lonborg—he’s the shrink Usser uses—convinced the jury that Nifton was so upset when the girl wouldn’t pay any attention to him it created a ‘transient situational disturbance’ that rendered him incapable of conforming his conduct to the law. I didn’t want Usser in on it with me, to be honest, but the local civil liberties group was footing the bill and they insisted, so I brought Larry in and I must say he did a hell of a job. After the verdict they sent Nifton to Napa State Hospital and six months later he made a PC 1026.2 showing that he was no longer a danger to himself or to others and now he’s roaming loose out there somewhere, probably trying to convince some other sweet thing to let him in her pants.”

  “You’ve got a real cheery practice, Jake.”

  “Yeah, and guys like Usser make it worse. I go in there and try to make the jury understand what it was like, what the pressures were that drove my man to do what he did. And usually they can understand it. Hell, they have pressures too. They’ve all thought of blowing somebody’s brains out at one time or another, smashing someone in the face, lashing out in one way or another. That’s all murder is, usually. Lashing out. Getting rid of whoever it is that’s driving you crazy. So okay. I’ve got my jury relating to slipping over the edge, to losing control, to doing something they wouldn’t have done in ordinary circumstances. Then Usser and his buddy Lonborg come along, and start talking about ‘transient situational disturbances’ and ‘psychomotor varients’ and ‘dysthymic disorders’ and ‘unipolar depressive reactions’ and ‘disassociative states,’ and the jurors’ eyes glaze over and I can’t tell what the fuck they’re going to do except get pissed off that all these eminent psychiatrists can’t seem to agree on anything. So I try to avoid Usser and his ilk when I can. When I can’t, I make sure he knows I’m in the case to win, not to make the papers or the law reviews, not to reform the world or even California. We get along, I guess. Haven’t seen him since his wife got killed.”

  “Know her at all?”

  “Just to say hello to. Lovely. Sharp as a tack, I heard. Come to think of it, she called me not too long ago. She ran some crisis intervention thing. Wanted me to contribute, since my clients have been known to precipitate a few crises in their day. I told her the only charity I support is Uncle Sam, and him I support both reluctantly and minimally, thanks to my accountant.”

  I left Jake Hattie to his memories and his practice and went back to the office and called the only person I knew in the Alameda County District Attorney’s office. Her name was Rhonda Stein. She was fifty-plus and had been a prosecutor since her husband ran out on her two decades before and she had to find work that would pay her kids’ way through school. Five years ago I’d testified for the defense in one of her cases, and it was complicated enough that I felt sure she’d remember me.

  “Haven’t seen you since that embezzlement thing,” she said after I told her who I was.

  “I don’t get over to the East Bay much. How’s it going with you?”

  “Oh, overworked and underpaid, I guess. Or maybe it’s vice versa. I’m too old to keep track anymore.” Her laugh was dry and brief. I guessed it wasn’t one of her better days.

  “I’m calling about the Renzel case, Rhonda. Dianne Renzel, married to Lawrence Usser, professor at the Berkeley Law School. Killed in Berkeley last month. You know it?”

  “Sure. Some. A real grisly one. Nightmare material.”

  “Can you tell me who’s handling it for the cops? And maybe put in a good word for me between now and tomorrow, so he won’t throw me out of town when I start asking questions?”

  She paused. “Well, I can put in a good word, but I can’t guarantee it’ll take. Bart Kinn is not a graduate of Dale Carnegie.”

  “That the cop?”

  “Right. Detective lieutenant Berkeley P.D. Good officer, but a loner. Got a stare like Darth Vader and he hasn’t got much use for female prosecutors, as he’s told me more than once. I’d guess private eyes will get the same reaction.”

  “Who’s handling it on your end?”

  “Not much to handle at this stage, but Howard Gable’s got the file.”

  “Good man?”

  “Good lawyer,” Rhonda said.

  “And?”

  “Maybe a little ambitious. Maybe a little more concerned with his won-lost record than he ought to be. Maybe a little too eager to send kids to jail. But if he files a charge he usually makes it stick. I guess that’s all we can ask.”

  “You can ask a hell of a lot more than that and you know it, Rhonda. You’ve been giving more than that for years.”

  Her voice sounded tired and betrayed. “Yeah. Maybe. Anyway, as far as I know, nothing’s broken on the case, but then Howard and Kinn both play it close to the vest. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’ve got my own corpses to worry about. Who’s your client, anyway?”

  “Off the record?”

  “Sure.”

  “The dead woman’s parents.”

  “Good. I’ve seen the pictures, Marsh. He really did a number on her.”

  “Any physical evidence at all?”

  “Nothing that points in any direction. She was nude, ready for sex or ready for bed, they’re not sure. No sign of forced entry, no sign of a struggle. They’re guessing she knew the guy, and maybe had a thing going with him on the side, but I don’t think they’ve nailed that down yet. The husband took it hard; Howard still has to hold his hand once in a while. That’s about all I know.”

  “Thanks, Rhonda. If they zero in on anyone, I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a call.”

  “Okay.”

  “And let me know when I can take you to Spengers for some abalone.”

  “Spengers. Jesus, I haven’t been there for years.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  “Right. Soon. But I warn you, abalone goes for more than gold these days.”

  “Hey. It’s only money. I’ve got more of it than I can use.”

  Rhonda laughed. “And I’ve got Paul Newman waiting for me in my apartment.”

  THREE

  On Friday morning I called the Berkeley Law School, only to learn that Lawrence Usser was teaching a class and unavailable. A woman with a breathy, anxious voice advised me to call again in an hour. Next I called the Berkeley Police Department. Bart Kinn wasn’t in, either. No one seemed to know where he was or when he’d be back. This time a gruff, captious officer didn’t give me any advice at all beyond the implied suggestion that I was a nuisance.

  I called the law school again at eleven. I told the ethereal voice who I was and mentioned the Renzels and sounded official or at least officious. After a long wait and some background mumblings, Lawrence Usser came on the line.

  His voice was abrupt, dismissive, strained, as though he’d just finished a long argument with an unreasonably stubborn adversary. I started to repeat the information I’d given his secretary, but he stopped me after three words. “I know who you are and what you want. Ingrid called me at home last night.” He paused, then spoke before I could ask a question. “I’ll be frank with you, Mr. Tanner. I tried to convince her to forget about it, to inform you your services weren’t required.”

  “I take it she didn’t accept your advice.”

  “No. She didn’t.”

  Usser sounded both unnerved and saddened by the fact. His voice cracked briefly, like an adolescent’s. “Can I meet you somewhere today?” I asked. “For half an hour? I can be at the law school any time. Or wherever.”

  Usser hesitated. “I’m very busy. There’s … Oh, hell. I might as well get it over with. I can just see Gunther’s scowl if he learned I refused to see you. Let me check my calendar. Christ, I have students coming in, and a curriculum meeting, an adviser’s conference at the law review.… Okay. Let’s do this. Can you be over here in an hour?”

  “Sure.”

  “I have to go over to the north side of campus on some personal busine
ss. You know the Shattuck Commons building?”

  “I know the street, not the building.”

  “You can’t miss it. Take Shattuck north from University until it begins to veer left. There’ll be a triangular building on your right. It’s fairly new. Pennants on top, a pasta shop on the ground floor. It’s a block past Chez Panisse, if you know where that is.”

  “Nope. Sorry.”

  Usser seemed annoyed by my ignorance of the wellspring of nouvelle cuisine. “Well, there’s a Bill’s Drugs there,” he went on, still exasperated. “And a Safeway. So you shouldn’t have any trouble. I’ll be having lunch at Rosenthal’s Deli. That’s in the little shopping area just south of the Shattuck Commons. Meet me there at noon. I can give you thirty minutes, if you have to have them.”

  Usser cut the connection before I could get a head start on my questions, leaving me as empty as a law student after an encounter with the Socratic method. I thought for a minute, then decided to get to Berkeley a little early. Lawrence Usser had some personal business to attend to. I thought I’d try to find out what it was.

  I got there in twenty minutes, across the bridge, up the Nimitz, off on University Avenue, left on Shattuck. I found a parking place just south of the triangular building Usser had described, the one with flags on top and a weather vane in the form of an eagle, and got out and stretched my legs and looked around. What I saw were restaurants, bakeries, chocolate shops, meat markets, delicatessens—an array of enterprises devoted exclusively to stuffing the alimentary canal.

  Berkeley has changed a lot since 1964. Food has replaced politics and sex as the major focus of both energy and ideology, and this area of the city was known as the “gourmet ghetto” because of its dependence on the new infatuation. Just for kicks I strolled down the street until I came to Chez Panisse. The menu was posted at the door. Vegetable soup, pan-fried quail breasts, walnut soufflé. Forty dollars per person, corkage not included. Feeling barbaric and amazed, I walked back to the Shattuck Commons, browsed in the bakery and bought some muffins for the morning, then meandered through the arcade until I found the nook that sheltered the building directory.

  Most of the listings were retail businesses—toy store, shoe repair, copy service, travel agency. But there was one professional office and it belonged to A. Adam Lonborg, M.D. His specialty was psychiatry and he was the man Jake Hattie had mentioned as being an expert witness for Usser in one of the trials they had worked on together. I ambled back to my car, stowed the muffins, bought the new Ross Thomas novel at Black Oak Books, then went into Rosenthal’s and asked for a table for two. They showed me to a booth beneath a poster advertising a public meeting to express sympathy with the Russian revolutionaries. Since it was Berkeley I checked to make sure the date was 1917 and not last week.

  I was on Chapter 3 and my second Dr. Brown’s strawberry soda when I heard my name. “Tanner? I’m Larry Usser.”

  He was tall and dark and delicately handsome; thin, precisely dressed, with wire-rim glasses and a grimly searching stare, as though he suspected me of stealing something from him. His cheeks were hollowed, his flesh sallow, his black curls tousled, suggesting he habitually warred with them. Behind the round rims of his eyeglasses his eyes were squeezed into a squint, as though he bore up under a congenital affliction. I was reminded of pictures of Mahler, taken at the height of both his genius and his torment, superficially stern, fundamentally fragile. I stood up and shook his narrow hand, then looked from Usser to the man who stood beside him.

  “This is Adam Lonborg,” Usser said. “A friend. Do you mind if he joins us?”

  “Not at all.”

  Usser’s failure to mention Lonborg’s profession interested me, as did the electricity that seemed to pass between the two men. Whatever its source, Lonborg was clearly the primary beneficiary of the current. He was forty, probably; blond, blatantly athletic even discounting the gaudy exercise suit he was wearing, as cheerful as if they gave out prizes for it. If Usser was annoyed at having to meet with me, Lonborg was extravagantly amused. His smile stayed long enough to descend from fellowship toward insult.

  We squeezed into the booth and placed our lunch orders. The two of them sat across from me, looking like a losing coach and the star performer he was counting on to bring him out of it. Oddly, Lonborg was the first to speak, Usser’s thoughts clearly unformed or in disarray. “Is it that you feel the police are unequal to their task, Mr. Tanner?” Lonborg began with a studied nonchalance. “Is that why you have inserted yourself into this matter?”

  When I could ignore the scorn, I answered him. “I haven’t inserted myself into anything but this booth. I’ve been asked to help. And what I feel isn’t the question, is it? What my client might feel would be more pertinent, and what my client knows is the most pertinent thing of all—that the police have not made an arrest in the case as yet. So I don’t see why you or anyone else would object to another pair of eyes and ears and legs joining the search for Ms. Renzel’s killer.”

  I glanced at Usser to gauge his attitude. His eyes were lowered and his hands fiddled with the wine list without opening it. His forehead shone with sweat though the room was only tepid. He might not have heard a word I’d said, or he might have heard them all and been infuriated.

  “My reason for opposing your participation,” Lonborg was saying, “is simply that reviewing the events of that evening still another time will be very traumatic for Larry. He’s only now beginning to adapt to his new reality, to manage his depression rather than yielding to it. Another grilling might set him back, perhaps permanently. I’m sure you can appreciate that. I’m trying to spare him a needless journey through the past. I’m sure you’ve encountered similar objections over the course of your … career, Mr. Tanner.”

  I met Lonborg’s sassy grin with one of my own. “Yep. I sure have. But I’ve managed to track down a killer or two in my time, and each time I did do you know what? The victim’s family was relieved as hell to have the case over and done with. So it could finally become history, something that had happened, not something that was still happening. I’m sure you’ve experienced similar reactions during the course of your career, Doctor.”

  Lonborg raised his thin blond brows, then glanced at Usser, then back at me. “You know who I am.”

  “Only by name and reputation. You’ve testified for the defense in some of Professor Usser’s cases, haven’t you?”

  “In all of them, actually.”

  “Are you treating Professor Usser? Is that why he met with you this morning?”

  Lonborg glanced at Usser once again, then held up a hand to silence him when Usser shook his head and started to speak. “That sort of information is totally confidential, Mr. Tanner,” Lonborg cautioned.

  “The fact of the psychotherapist-patient relationship is not confidential, Doctor. Not the last time I checked the law books.”

  Lonborg twisted his lips into the neighborhood of a sneer. “You seem to know your law, Mr. Tanner. Are all … investigators … amateur attorneys?”

  “Some are and some aren’t and some are professional, card-carrying members of the bar. Like me, for instance.”

  Lonborg bowed in mock respect. “Really? I’m impressed.”

  “No, you’re not. You haven’t been impressed since the day you bought your first couch.”

  “Oh, couches aren’t considered therapeutically effective anymore, Mr. Tanner. There are several monographs on the subject if you care to consult them. It’s felt such artificiality is contraindicated in its stimulation of transference.”

  “So what’s the latest?” I asked, looking over his outfit. “Short pants?”

  Lonborg clearly wanted to continue our little game, but Usser spoke for the first time since we’d sat down. “What do you want from me?” The question was resigned, agonized, reluctant. Lonborg started to object, but something in Usser’s anguished eyes made him yield.

  I cleared Lonborg from my mind, though not without difficulty, and turned my at
tention to Usser. He awaited my question the way he would have awaited the results of a biopsy. Clearly the man remained haunted by his wife’s death, was leery of opening himself up to it. I decided to concentrate not on the murder but the murderer.

  “It’s been a month since your wife was killed, Mr. Usser. You must have thought about it a lot in that time.”

  Usser’s eyes fell shut. “I have thought of little else. You can’t possibly imagine what—” He forced himself to stop, to refrain from stirring the sediment of his grief. From the lines that streaked his face the effort took all his will. “Go on,” he instructed finally.

  “What I mean is, you must have thought a lot about who might have done it.”

  “Of course.”

  “What did you decide, if anything?”

  “A dope addict,” he said simply. “A junkie.”

  I nodded. “That was my first thought too. But let’s put that possibility aside for a minute. If not a junkie, then who?”

  His answer was a mumble, urged between clenched teeth. I told him I hadn’t heard him.

  “A madman,” he repeated.

  I hesitated, an idea forming as I took a sip of Dr. Brown’s. “Are you thinking of someone in particular?”

  Usser frowned, confused by my question or perhaps afraid of it. “What do you mean? There are many deranged persons in the world. The streets of Berkeley are full of them. The policy of the current experts in the field is to force these poor people to exhibit their illness in public whether they want to or not. Which merely makes them frightened of themselves as well as of the world they live in. I have no idea which one might have wandered into my house that night, pursuant to God knows what compulsion.”

  “I was just thinking,” I continued calmly. “You’ve represented a lot of people that were unbalanced under almost any definition of the term. Maybe one of them might have a score to settle with you, or thought he did. Maybe he picked this way to do it.”

  “But who? I win almost all my cases.”