by Joseph Badal
“I really loved that gal. So I had the attorneys make the changes in my will and cancel the pre-nup. Wrote out my sons entirely. Six months later, she files for divorce.”
“It sounds like you did all right for yourself,” Susan said. “No disrespect intended, Mr. Wainwright, but this sure isn’t the high-rent district.”
Wainwright snorted, then had another coughing fit. “There’s more to the story. I found out later that my finance guy, Fred Gibson, had cooked the books at the dealership. Sold cars out of trust. You know, forged titles and sold cars the bank thought it had as collateral against our credit line. You see, Vickie Jean was screwing Gibson.” Wainwright showed a broad smile, as though he admired his former wife’s creative venality.
“When Vickie Jean wrapped her legs around you, you might as well forget everything else in your life. She could twist you every which way to Sunday. And it wasn’t just because she was so beautiful. I figured it out late in our marriage. She used sex for manipulation. She made you feel like you were a god and she was your sex slave.” He smiled again for a moment as though he remembered things that Victoria had done to him in bed. Then he said, “That poor schnook Gibson was dog meat the first time he tasted what Vickie Jean had to offer.”
He smiled yet again, but Barbara saw a flash of what looked like despair in his eyes.
“So, when GM found out about the fraud, they pulled the dealership from me. The finance guy lost his wife and went to jail. Vickie Jean walked away free as a bird. That’s when she filed for divorce. She’d orchestrated the whole thing from behind the scenes and had never left a fingerprint on anything. Beautiful, sexy, and smart. She got the house and just about everything else I owned. Walked away with a few million.”
“And you, sir?” Susan asked.
“Me, I lost my sons—they don’t want nothin’ to do with me anymore. I took up drinking as a profession after Vickie Jean left me. Got a few rental houses, free and clear, you know, that pay me a couple grand a month.” He suddenly beamed at them. “You know how I spend my time around here when I’m not watching Netflix or arguing with the neighbor bitch about my barking dog?”
“How, sir?” Susan asked.
“I think about the good times with Vickie Jean. Life was never better, before or after, than it was with that little gal.” After a beat, he added, “She has bigger balls than most men. I sure do miss her!
“You know what she said to me when I asked her why she did it? You know, cheatin’ on me, stealin’ from the dealership.”
“What was that, sir?” Susan said.
He chuckled again and wagged his head. “She said, ‘You were ripe for the pickin’, Julius. I just couldn’t help myself.’ ”
He looked from Barbara to Susan, and back again to Barbara. “So, why you gals asking all these questions about Vickie Jean and me? This about the lawsuit over that teenage girl? Some private investigator fella called on me a while back and said Vickie Jean and her latest husband wanted to adopt some teenage girl.” He laughed. “She was always up to something. Can you imagine? Who would want to adopt a teenager?”
“You don’t watch the news?” Barbara asked.
“Don’t have time for that crap,” Wainwright said. “Don’t read the papers either, ‘cept for the sports section. They’re chopping down perfectly good trees to put out a perfectly awful newspaper in this town. But I do love my Netflix. Been watchin’ that Breaking Bad series. What a hoot! You know they filmed that show right here in River City?”
Barbara nodded. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mr. Wainwright. Victoria Comstock was murdered.”
Wainwright’s face crumpled. His eyes watered and he hugged himself as though he was suddenly cold. “Aw, hell,” he said. “Goddammit to hell!”
CHAPTER 15
On the way back to headquarters, Susan sensed that Barbara was in no mood for conversation. Susan mirrored her mood and didn’t speak until they were close to downtown.
“Jeez!” Susan shivered. “I feel like I did when I first saw The Exorcist.”
“It’s the presence of evil,” Barbara said. “I can’t believe the Vickie Jean we’re coming to know was the same person on that DVD at the Comstock’s. She looked like an angel.”
“Lucifer was an angel once.”
Barbara just nodded. “Who’s next?” she asked.
Susan pulled Navarro’s list from the manila envelope. “Fred and Janet Gibson,” she said. “You notice there are no Hispanic names on this list?”
Barbara scrunched up her face. “No-o-o,” she said, “I hadn’t noticed. And, pray tell, what possible relevance could that have in this case?”
Susan chuckled. “Maybe if Victoria had found a good, hot Latin lover, she wouldn’t have had to bounce from man to man.”
“You mean, someone like your Manny?”
Susan groaned. “That was low, partner. True, but low.”
Once they were back in the office, Susan and Barbara found Lieutenant Salas was in, despite it being Sunday. They brought him up-to-date on the case and then went to their desks. They studied Shawn Navarro’s file again. They matched the list of names against Navarro’s written reports. He’d included addresses for the people he’d listed along with sketchy background information on each of them. All the people on Navarro’s list—at least the ones who were still alive—lived in New Mexico. But almost all had moved away from Albuquerque. Maybe to escape traumatic memories, Susan thought.
Fred and Janet Gibson divorced in 2001, after his conviction for embezzlement at Julius Wainwright’s car dealership. He moved to Santa Fe after his release from prison and now owned Coyote Trails Used Cars. Janet Gibson moved to Cedar Crest, on the east side of the Sandia Mountains, where she taught second-graders at a public school.
Robert Jameson now lived in Gallup with two teenage sons and was president of a bank he owned.
Dr. Seth Horton was still active in his cardiology practice. His former wife, Patience, lived in a long-term care facility. Her emotional condition prevented her from living on her own. According to Navarro’s report, Horton visited his former wife every day.
Barbara and Susan split the task of calling each of the people Navarro had listed. They scheduled appointments with all of them, except Patience Horton, over the next three days.
“Anyone on your list express regrets about Victoria Comstock’s murder?” Susan asked after they had made all the calls.
“Not a one,” Barbara said. “In fact, a couple sounded downright delighted.”
“Going to be tough to find the perp in this case,” Susan said. “Too damned many people wanted her dead.”
Barbara tapped Navarro’s list. “Yeah, and these are only the ones we know about.”
She yanked out her bottom desk drawer and propped her feet on it. “I think I’ll finish up my shift down at the medical school library,” she said as she rocked back in her chair, her hands behind her head. “I have some research to do.”
“On what?” Susan asked.
“On borderline personalities.”
“You think that’ll help you better understand Victoria?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” Barbara said. “I figure it can’t hurt.”
“What can’t hurt?” Lieutenant Rudy Salas said in his squeaky voice as he stepped out of his office.
Barbara dropped her feet to the floor and swung around to face him. “Research about borderline personalities. Looks like Victoria Comstock was—”
“Yeah, I know,” Salas said. He dropped a slip of paper on Barbara’s desk. “Her shrink just called. Thought he might be able to help. Guy sounded all torn up about the Comstock woman’s death. Said he’d be happy to talk with us. Maybe he can save you some research time.”
“That’s a switch, a doc who wants to share patient information with the cops,” Susan said.
“He called today?” Barbara asked incredulously. “On a Sunday?”
“You take it when you can get it, Lassiter,” Salas said. �
�Besides, you’re working on Sunday. Give the guy a call.” He reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a folded document and handed it to Barbara. “Court order for Comstock’s medical records. I thought you might need it, just in case.” He touched his forehead in a half-hearted salute and walked away.
Susan turned toward Barbara and noticed a question on her face.
“What?” Susan asked.
“Nothing,” Barbara said. “I’m waiting for you to tell me that Salas is sweet on me.”
“I’m trying to figure how a guy with such a beer belly can have such a tight ass,” Susan said. “It just ain’t fair. I’ll bet Salas never exercises, yet he has buns of steel. I gotta do ten hours a week on a stair machine just to ward off the fat.”
Barbara shook her head while she reached for her desk phone. “I think I’ll call the shrink,” she said. “You need help.”
CHAPTER 16
Dr. Nathan Stein’s offices were in a medical building just off the Wyoming Avenue exit from Interstate 40, on the Kaseman Presbyterian Hospital campus. The building was sandwiched between the freeway and a hospital.
It was nearing 6 p.m. when Barbara pulled into the lot next to the medical building, but Dr. Stein had told Barbara when she called that he would be there for hours to catch up on paperwork. Susan had gone to meet with her husband, Manny, at an uptown restaurant. Another attempt at reconciliation.
Stein’s reception area and private office were upscale, with expensive-looking oil paintings, oriental carpets, damask-covered chairs and sofas, and a mahogany desk and end tables. He appeared to be doing well in the head shrink business, Barbara thought as she looked through an open door to the inner office. She knocked on the door and waved at a fiftyish, good-looking man. He had straight gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, a mostly-black beard, and reading glasses perched on the end of a straight nose. He was a leaner version of the actor Alec Baldwin. He sat behind a desk, a file spread open in front of him.
“Dr. Stein?” she said.
“Detective Lassiter?” the man answered as he rose from his chair.
“That’s right,” Barbara said. She stepped forward to shake his hand. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice. And on a Sunday.”
“Quite all right,” Stein said. He motioned her to a chair in front of his desk. “Sundays are the only time I have to catch up on paperwork. Besides, I figured time was of the essence.”
Barbara nodded and sat down. She quickly glanced around the office. Stein had excellent taste, she thought. The office was like something out of an interior-decorating magazine. Expensive furniture and accessories, no dust, no litter. No loose papers. Everything arranged in a way that pleased the eye.
She looked closely at Stein and thought he might be younger than she had first thought. She’d been fooled by his gray hair. She now guessed he was in his early forties. He had mahogany-brown, penetrating eyes and thick, dark brows. His face was unlined and his hands appeared strong and youthful. His white Polo shirt, collar open and raised, fit as though it had been tailored personally for him, and he had a torso that evidenced bodybuilding. Barbara wondered if the good doctor had a large female clientele. “Lieutenant Salas said you had some information for us.”
“I need to make it clear, before we get into this, all client information in Mrs. Comstock’s file will have to remain confidential. I’m sure you understand. Names of other people . . . that sort of thing.”
“Of course,” she said, holding back on the court order in her purse until she really needed it. “Maybe you could tell me why Mrs. Comstock was a patient.”
Stein cleared his throat, folded his arms across his chest. “That’s confi—”
“Come on, Doctor Stein. The woman’s dead and I’m trying to solve her murder. I only ask because I need background information.”
Stein nodded. “She was as classic a case of borderline personality disorder as I have ever encountered. She exhibited all of its common characteristics: Emotional instability, episodes of dangerous and reckless behavior, chronic feelings of emptiness, an unstable self-image, self-mutilation, suicidality, uncontrollable rage, sexual acting out, paranoia. Her behavior was unpredictable, dangerous, and her relationships with others were volatile and manipulative.”
“Doctor, I’ve talked with two of her husbands. The first was successful, capable, and rich, at least before Victoria and her lover embezzled money from him, and she then divorced him. The latest husband, Maxwell Comstock, is all of those things, and more. Why would two such dynamic men tolerate a person like Victoria?”
“Ah, but there’s the irony of it all. First of all, Victoria was one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met. There was a seductive, animal magnetism about her that attracted men. She was a pheromone engine that drove men crazy.”
Barbara noticed a dreamy-eyed look appear on Stein’s face. She made a mental note to discuss it with Susan.
Stein continued. “She was able to subordinate, in the beginning stages of a relationship, the deviant side of her personality. The attention she would receive from a man in the first months of a relationship fed her self-image needs. As a result, she felt good about herself and displayed her stable side. And her good side was as good as it gets.” He turned his chair a few degrees and stared out the office window. He seemed to have lost his train of thought. Finally, he twisted back toward Barbara and made a gesture with his hands as though to apologize for the pause.
“But, when the relationship became . . . comfortable, so to speak, when the man didn’t focus one hundred percent of his time and attention on her, or when she had everything she wanted from him, Victoria’s dark side would emerge. I could always tell the status of her relationships in our sessions. At the start of a relationship, she’d come in no more than once a month and would spend our sessions boasting of her new lover or husband, or even a new girlfriend. She had created a delusional state where everything was perfect, demonstrating for my benefit that her life was functional, as though to prove she didn’t need me.”
“That seems . . . odd,” Barbara said.
“In the safe environment of a therapist’s office, the patient is meant to form a close relationship with the therapist, one of trust and dependence. It is from this place of trust and necessary vulnerability that the healing therapeutic work can occur. For someone with Victoria’s issues, getting her self-esteem needs met through the drama of a new relationship was easier. She also used it to push away from me, which made her feel less emotionally vulnerable. Then, as her relationships changed, she’d come in at least once a week. Sometimes two or three times a week. Those visits were disturbing. She couldn’t sit still. While she paced the office, she would sob, rage, threaten, scratch at her arms until they bled.”
“You said ‘threaten?’ Threaten who?”
“Lovers, husbands, friends, contractors working on her house, a waitress, a sales clerk, me, herself.”
“Herself?”
“Oh, yes. Victoria threatened to commit suicide on dozens of occasions. The drama, the self-harming threats were all part of the manipulation process. When she threatened to take her own life she was able to get a predictable response from others. Don’t misunderstand; the suicidal ideation was real, as real as her need to manipulate.”
Barbara rubbed her forehead. “I still don’t get it,” she said. “Why would people put up with it?”
“Why do battered wives stay with abusive husbands? Why do female employees put up with sexual harassment from their co-workers and bosses? There is fear of some kind, or confusion—maybe they’ve misread the situation, or hope things will go back to the way they were before. But, more than that, a person with borderline personality disorder can become obsessed with a relationship. Almost addicted to the adrenalized thrill of unpredictability and danger.”
“Unlike the battered wives I’ve encountered,” Barbara said, “Victoria’s husbands weren’t shrinking violets. And they weren’t financially dependent on her. Just the op
posite.”
Stein smiled. “Victoria had a sixth sense. She seemed to know when she’d pushed someone to the edge. That’s when she attacked.”
“How do you mean ‘attacked’?”
Stein visibly swallowed. His face reddened. “This is off the record, Detective. What I’m about to tell you can’t go any further. You understand?”
Barbara hesitated. “I can promise only that I won’t repeat whatever it is you are about to tell me unless it becomes critical to the investigation of Mrs. Comstock’s murder.”
Stein paused as though he was considering her response. Then he nodded. “Okay.” He leaned forward. “Victoria would blame everything on her partners. She would rage that they had betrayed her, that they didn’t appreciate her. Then she would swear revenge against them. She relished telling me in detail how she planned to make them pay. And, as it turned out, these were not idle threats. I didn’t believe her at first when she told me what she had done to her first husband years ago, how she had taken everything he had and left him nearly penniless, how she had manipulated his finance manager into stealing from the car dealership. It wasn’t until after a certain incident that I decided to contact her former husband and learned everything Victoria had told me was true.”
“A certain incident?”
“It involved a woman, one of the most vulnerable patients I’ve ever had. Sexually abused as a child by her father, emotionally abused by her husband. She was guileless, insecure, and lacked a single ounce of self-confidence. The perfect target of opportunity for Victoria. The woman’s husband was a trust fund baby from New York City. He had more money than anyone could spend in their lifetime, but made his wife beg for every dime he gave her. The only thing he lavished on his wife were insults. Victoria met her in my reception area when there was some confusion on the other woman’s part about her appointment time. That ten minutes in my reception area was enough time for Victoria to size up the woman, learn about her relationship with her husband, and discover how much money the husband had. I didn’t find out about Victoria’s plans for this couple until the damage had already been done.
