Lethal Fetish

by Jeffrey Alan Lockwood

  “At least you’re an attentive student, Mr. Riley. Yes, they exhibited a classic case of delusory parasitosis combined with folie à deux.”

  “Slow down. I assume that delusory parasitosis is the mistaken belief that you’re infested with fleas, or lice or some other vermin. I’ve seen mild versions of this, usually among women. They feel some tingling sensation and attribute it to tiny insects. The trade journals refer to an outbreak of delusions as ‘mass hysteria.’” I thought back to having treated a swank office with a smelly placebo to break the cycle of itching among the staff. My guess is that a professional psychologist wouldn’t approve of my amateur tactics. But they worked—and I didn’t charge $50 an hour to murmur “uh, huh” while the secretaries scratched.

  “That’s right, although ‘hysteria’ is an anachronistic term that denigrates women and you and your colleagues should avoid using it. And, by all means, you should direct individuals in these cases to a professional.”

  “Of course,” I lied. Nutty people don’t generally want to pay big bucks to have a shrink tell them they’re nuts. “But what about this other condition?”

  “Folie à deux.”

  “Meaning an irrational passion for French companionship?”

  “Meaning ‘madness of two’ or what the grandson called a shared psychosis. It’s a relatively rare disorder in which one person transmits a delusion to the other through fervent repetition. And then the pair mutually reinforces the mistaken belief. The syndrome was identified by a pair of French psychiatrists in the 19th century. Hence, it’s also called Lasègue-Falret Syndrome.”

  Her French sounded fluent to me, but I’d mispronounced ‘lingerie’ for years, as I learned when shopping for Nina at Victoria’s Secret—one of San Francisco’s gifts to the world. A temptress salesgirl corrected me. I can’t remember exactly how she said it, although I recall spending nearly twenty bucks on a black satin camisole. Dr. Chen brought me back from my lecherous reverie.

  “Let me ask you a few questions to test my interpretation of their condition.”

  “Sure,” I said, washing down a bite of barbequed pork with the green tea, which made for an interesting combination of tangy and bitter flavors.

  “Was there an infestation in the house before the delusions began?” she asked, gracefully lifting a bite of broccoli and oyster sauce with her chopsticks.

  “The family dog had fleas awhile back, but we treated him and the carpets.”

  “I don’t doubt the efficacy of your work, Mr. Riley. I assume that you’re competent in the spraying of chemicals. I asked because in many cases an actual infestation sets the stage for delusory parasitosis. Now then, did the couple collect samples from their bodies in an effort to prove the presence of insects?”

  “Two for two, doc. The man had quite an inventory of ziplock baggies filled with hair and skin scrapings.”

  “Psychologists used to refer to this symptom as the ‘matchbox sign’ but maybe we should update this to the ‘baggie sign.’ Next question. Did they see jumping black bugs?” she asked while polishing off the broccoli and moving on to the bok choy. The garlic smelled fabulous and I wondered if I should’ve ordered another dish.

  “Their grandson said they referred to little black bugs, but nothing about jumping. The couple was convinced the insects were burrowing under their skin,” I said, shoving the last corner of the pork bun into my mouth.

  “Good enough. And finally, I gather that their belief was rather unshakable—that negative diagnoses and failure of others to see the insects did little to dissuade them.”

  “According to the grandson, they didn’t believe their own physician, and they weren’t fazed when others couldn’t affirm their condition. They just used more and stronger treatments until ...”

  “Until they accidently poisoned themselves in an effort to relieve their suffering,” she said. “There’s no reason to infer anything sexual, as your police detective proposed, nor would I suspect murder or suicide. It sounds to me like a tragic ending to a case of severe mental illness. But I can’t make a formal diagnosis based on secondhand information.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “It would be like my listening to a person complain about itchy, red bumps on their ankles and identifying a flea infestation—which would be a good guess, but nothing to stake my reputation on.”

  “Perhaps something of that sort,” she said, with the dismissive tone that professors, lawyers, and doctors reserve for students, cops, and nurses—or exterminators.

  “What I don’t get is how they seemed so normal before all of this. Even during their meltdown they managed a major business and had a social life, at least for a while.”

  “People are surprisingly skilled at hiding mental illness. They compensate for their condition in various ways. We celebrate uniqueness, but only as long as it doesn’t make us uncomfortable. There is such shame in our society for being abnormal in any way.” She slowly shook her head. “If I’ve learned one thing as a therapist, it’s that you can’t infer what’s going on inside a person’s mind from what you see on the outside.” I chuckled as the waitress came to clear our dishes and leave the check.

  “You find that observation amusing, Mr. Riley?”

  “Not at all. I’m laughing in agreement. Actually, I’m thinking back to last night when I was listening to Rigoletto.”

  “You enjoy opera?” she said, unable to disguise her surprise.

  “I do indeed. Remember, Dr. Chen, you said that one ought not to judge a book by its cover. Even an exterminator can enjoy some of the finer things.”

  “Touché, Mr. Riley. Now, you were saying?” I sipped my tea and savored her near apology, which I knew was petty. But sometimes petty feels good.

  “Rigoletto is a hunchbacked jester who acts with clownish frivolity. But inside, he’s tormented and wants nothing more than to protect his beautiful daughter.”

  “Intriguing. But my tastes don’t extend to opera. Is there some music from this one that I might recognize?”

  “You’d know the aria sung by the Duke, ‘La donna è mobile,’” which a lingerie salesgirl would presumably pronounce correctly. I hummed the music while paying for lunch and leaving a generous tip for good service and a tight dress.

  “Ah, that reminds me of the cancan song. The one that goes, ta-ra-ra boom-de-aye,” she said.

  “So your tastes reach to dancehall music.” Dr. Chen acknowledged my insolence with a half-smile and dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin, a gesture which somehow reasserted her status. We rose, shook hands, and parted with a strange sort of mutual respect. She was smart and successful. Me, less so but holding my own.

  ~||~

  I spent the afternoon working on a problem no shrink could’ve diagnosed. A taxi company in Mission Bay had found the seats and wiring in their cabs were being gnawed. A smattering of mouse turds identified the culprits, but finding the little beggars was more of a challenge. Turned out that the furry freeloaders were hauling upholstery stuffing from the cars to build comfy nests behind the stove and refrigerator in the break room next to the garage. The appliances provided a warm, dry home along with a daily allotment of crumbs from the cabbies. A few strategically located traps were sure to solve that problem.

  And then down to a row of warehouses at Pier 80, to meet with Larry and Dennis so we could check on a major rat control project. They’d spent the day swapping out the nutritious and delicious bait we’d used to convince the suspicious rodents of our pure intentions, for a lethal chow laced with zinc phosphide and warfarin.

  Successful exterminators and investigators know a great deal about bait and switch.

  CHAPTER 9

  After a few hours of crawling around garages and warehouses, a shower and change of clothes was in order before dinner. A blast of scalding water on a cold day can be transformative. In light of my picking up Nina for dinner at her folks’ restaurant and my hoping the evening might have an intimate ending, I opted for a dapper look.
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  Last fall, I’d bought a Donegal Tweed jacket in charcoal gray with understated flecks of color. It was my way of celebrating a lucrative pigeon control contract for Pier 39, the tourist mecca of Fisherman’s Wharf where the merchants have plenty of money and the customers have no tolerance for bird shit. Harris Tweed is perennially popular, but County Donegal is just across the bay from County Sligo, the homeland of my parents—along with William Butler Yeats, as I was often reminded.

  With a heather shirt and black slacks, a close shave and a splash of cologne, I was positively dashing—in my own estimation. However, the Riley spell was arguably broken by picking up Nina in my sea green, two-tone (three if you include the rust spots) 1970 Ford F-100. She runs like a top. And like Dr. Chen said, you can’t know what’s happening under the hood by just looking at the body.

  I don’t know what Nina was thinking about the evening when she came out of her apartment, but I hoped it matched her exterior. Her hair was silky black with a few strands of gray appropriate for a mature woman, and her lips had touch of gloss, enough to pass along a hint of fruit when we kissed. She was wearing the outfit my mother had given her for Christmas. Nina looked sumptuous in an Aran jumper (my mother never having accepted the Americanism of ‘sweater’ as she thought it sounded like gym clothes) hand-knit in black wool with a cable pattern. It was pleasingly snug in all the right places and invitingly roomy in the others. I wondered if my gift of the satin camisole was hiding underneath. She had on a wool skirt in the Sligo tartan—a cobalt background with faint maroon and mustard striping—that stretched across her posterior to create the perfect balance of taste and temptation. No wonder County Sligo’s motto is “land of heart’s desire.”

  What didn’t please me was the location of her apartment at the edge of the Tenderloin. But looking after mentally handicapped adults at St. Teresa’s wasn’t financially lucrative. The rent in her neighborhood was affordable, as evidenced by the recent swarm of Asian immigrants who crammed entire families into studio apartments. However, they worked damned hard and the Vietnamese made great coffee and croissants, so there was much to admire. But the long lines of homeless men at Saint Anthony’s Dining Hall felt strange as young millionaires worked a half mile away in the Financial District.

  ~||~

  We parked in a “Reserved” spot at Cabrera’s—the best Spanish restaurant in San Francisco, a couple blocks from Telegraph Hill and the gleaming monolith of Coit Tower. The dignified hostess at the front podium abandoned all decorum and rushed to embrace Nina. I got a polite smile and an approving nod. As we made our way to the kitchen past the tables, I noticed the white linens had been replaced with burgundy tablecloths which gave the place warm ambiance on a damp night.

  Nina’s father welcomed me with a rock-hard handshake, and her mother gave me a long hug and an approving peck on the cheek. He’d put on a few pounds over the last year, but they only added to his aura of Old World pride. Her mother was as beautiful as ever, with long, braided hair and onyx eyes avowing her Indian heritage. Among the Cabreras there were kisses all around.

  “Tonight,” her father declared, “I have had my chef prepare pulpo á feira, a special dish in honor of familial roots. Or at least our Spanish and Irish ancestries.” Nina’s mother nodded and smiled at his recognition that her Native American heritage was acknowledged as missing. “It’s been very popular among our customers, but I’ve reserved portions for my lovely daughter and her handsome novio.”

  He went on to explain with great enthusiasm that northwest Spain contains the region of Galicia, where people speak a Celtic dialect and play the bagpipes in a lush landscape reminiscent of Ireland. And yes, the Irish as well as the Scots have bagpipes. My countrymen’s instrument includes the intelligent feature of a bellows under the arm to inflate the bag so we needn’t destroy brain cells by huffing and puffing like our hard-drinking, good-hearted cousins.

  Being on the coast, Galicia is famous for its seafood. The chef had slowly boiled an adult octopus—not one of those little things served as appetizers—until tender, then snipped the purple tentacles into medallions, which were garnished with olive oil and smoked paprika. Slices of the tentacles were prepared with boiled potatoes and a decadent sauce. The meal was complemented with a salad of orange and fennel, a loaf of crusty bread and a bottle of Albariño from Rías Baixas in Galicia for me and mineral water for Nina.

  The food was nearly as pleasing as my dinner companion. She was keenly interested in what had led me to contact Dr. Chen, so I told her the story of the Linfords and what their strange demise might mean for the future of Goat Hill Extermination. I could tell she was worried, but I assured her everything was beginning to make sense, while omitting that I was perplexed by Lane Linford, the chicken mites, and delusory parasitosis which amounted to most everything.

  “So, what about the start of your week?” I asked, mopping up some of the olive oil with a hunk of bread.

  “It seems that nobody’s Monday went well,” she said while crunching a piece of fennel. “Petey, the street kid who had been coming by the daycare, hasn’t shown up for a week.” Nina had described him as being oddly silent around adults and way too naïve to make it for long on his own.

  “Is Tommy worried?” My brother was terribly empathetic to other, vulnerable people.

  “Both Tommy and Karsa were asking about Petey. They treated him like a big brother.”

  “The kid was something like nineteen, right? That would’ve made the two guys more like father figures,” I said, sipping from my third glass of the Albariño and reminding myself that falling asleep on Nina’s couch would be bad form.

  “Their chronological ages are mixed up with their developmental ages. But the trio has fun whenever Petey shows up. They carry on with three-man touch football, trying to get Father Griesmaier to play quarterback.”

  “There’s no sense contacting the police. The kid’s out there somewhere, but the cops won’t look for him if he’s not wanted.” I immediately regretted putting it that way.

  “He is wanted, at least by Tommy, Karsa, me and the others at the daycare.”

  “Sorry, that’s not what I meant. I presume there are no wants or warrants in the legal system. But it could be worth calling Social Services. You said that Petey had a heart-shaped birthmark on his cheek. They might recognize him and let you know if he’s tapping into their programs.”

  “I know you didn’t mean he was disposable,” she said reaching across the table to give my hand a gentle squeeze. “It’s just that people push aside anyone who’s different. I get angry with the looks and comments Tommy gets about how he walks and talks.”

  The chef came by the table and rescued our conversation. He asked about our meal and Nina raved, deservedly. I teased him that while the food was exquisitely refined, I’d been craving blackened octopus. From a previous visit, I knew the chef was aggravated by the fad of Cajun cooking, but it was fun to inflame his Latin ire. My comment triggered an animated exposition on the culinary shortcomings of scorching seafood. He concluded by raising his face to heaven and pleading with the Almighty to explain to His lowly servant if burning food to a crisp made sinners happy by preparing them to enter the fires of hell. Then he shook a scolding finger at me and lifted Nina’s hand from the tabletop, bent deeply and delivered an adoring kiss. She was beloved by the entire restaurant staff from hostess, to chef, to owners. For two glorious hours, everything seemed right with the world.

  ~||~

  The rain picked up on the way to Nina’s. Being a gallant sort of fellow, I dropped her off in front of the building and drove around the back to an alley that functioned as a parking lot, as long as you pulled in far enough for the garbage trucks to pass. She’d suggested coming up for a cup of mint tea which was our favorite nightcap and meant an invitation to stay until morning. We kept separate places because she liked her space and I needed mine. The appearance of propriety also pleased her father and my mother. Mrs. Cabrera seemed utterly at ease wit
h sensuality and didn’t need the illusion of her daughter being chaste.

  As I came around the corner of the building, I saw Nina had been stopped at the ground floor. I’d noticed the guy before and he emanated a creepiness that Nina discounted by saying, “Tim struggles with boundaries.” His close-cropped hair was flattened against his high forehead, and he looked haggard with a day’s growth of beard and bloodshot eyes. The fatigue jacket was consistent with his claim of being a Vietnam vet, as if that excused his leering. Larry had been through horrible shit in Nam and didn’t come back with a need to accost women. Nina’s work primed her to interpret abnormality in charitable terms. My time in the city had taught me that there are a million ways of being messed up, but what matters is how a person plays the cards they’re dealt. And Tim was playing his hand way too close to Nina.

  With the patter of the rain, he didn’t hear me coming from behind as he cornered Nina at the foot of the staircase. He was muttering something about having, “some ’ludes and Wild Turkey we could share.” Nina and I had both been cops back in the day, although she’d been promoted into the big time and I’d been kicked off the force. I knew she could handle herself, but that wasn’t the issue. This creep triggered my protective instincts. If that’s sexist, then too bad.

  I grabbed him by the collar with one hand and latched onto his wrist with the other, yanking his arm behind his back and upward to inflict a memorable lesson in avoidance. He yelped and struggled until I pulled his hand up to his shoulder blade and the pain froze him.

  Nina stepped back and said, “Don’t hurt him, Riley. He wasn’t going to do anything.”

  “I won’t dislocate his shoulder, this time,” I said lifting his hand another inch which brought him up to his toes with an audible wince. “If you’ll go up to the apartment Nina, then Tim and I will have a brief chat.” She looked both upset and relieved.