Victims

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Shacker said, “My Catholic days,” and smiled.

  The wall to the left of the desk bore the auxiliary door that had allowed Shacker’s patient to exit into the hallway without encountering me. Next to that hung a chrome-framed cubist print of fruit and bread. Two Scandinavian leather chairs sat in front of the desk, facing each other. Shacker motioned me to one, took the other.

  He crossed a leg, tugged his trousers up, flashed argyle sock. “Over the phone I mentioned insurance lawyers. They’re the ones who sent Vita to me.”

  “Therapy was part of a settlement?”

  “Three years ago she sued her employer. The case dragged on. Finally the employer’s coverer was ready to settle but insisted upon a psych evaluation. Insurance work isn’t my usual thing but I’d treated an individual with a connection to the insurer—obviously I can’t say more—and was asked to see Vita.”

  I said, “What was the purpose of the evaluation?”

  “To see if she was malingering.”

  “She was claiming some sort of emotional damage?”

  “Supposedly she’d been bullied at work and the company hadn’t done enough to ensure a hostility-free work environment.”

  “What company are we talking about?”

  Shacker recrossed his legs. “I’m sorry, I can’t give you that, one condition of the settlement was a ban on discussion by both sides. What I can tell you is that it was an insurance company. Health insurance, to be exact. Vita worked for them as a screener.”

  “She decided who got care and who didn’t?”

  “The company would call it managing the flow of treatment requests.”

  “Was she a nurse?”

  “She’d had two years of secretarial school and her employment history consisted of nonmedical clerical positions.”

  “That qualified her to decide who got to talk to a doctor?”

  “Who got to talk to a nurse,” he said. “She was a pre-screening screener. It’s called diagnosis-specific utilization management and yes, it’s atrocious. Vita described working at a huge phone-bank, claimed she’d been provided scripts to read from. Certain conditions were to be ignored, for others she’d suggest an over-the-counter remedy. She was given a list of various call-back protocols—a week for this, a month for that. Acute conditions were to be referred to local emergency rooms, serious diagnoses were put on hold as she pretended to search for the next available nurse.”

  I said, “Telemarketing in reverse: Don’t use our product.”

  Shacker said, “This is what it’s come to. What was different about Vita was that she loved her job. Getting back at ‘weaklings’ and ‘fakers.’ ”

  I said, “That didn’t apply to her post-traumatic symptoms.”

  He smiled. “What can I tell you?”

  “What kind of bullying are we talking about?”

  “No physical intimidation, just pranks and ridicule from some of her co-workers. Vita said she complained repeatedly to her supervisors but was ignored. Her suit was for five million dollars.”

  “High-priced ridicule. What were her symptoms?”

  “Difficulty concentrating, insomnia, appetite loss, stomach problems, aches and pains. Ambiguous things unlikely to show up on a medical exam but impossible to disprove. Since the alleged root cause was emotional trauma, the health insurer’s casualty insurer wanted an official opinion as to her psychological status.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “That her claims couldn’t be validated or invalidated and that she came across as a hostile individual. I didn’t offer a diagnosis as it wasn’t requested. Had I been asked, I suppose I could’ve dug around the DSM for something that fit, but I’m not one of those therapists who feel bad behavior’s a disease.”

  “What was Vita’s bad behavior?”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “May I tell you something in utter confidence, Alex? Really, I don’t want this entered in any official record.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Thank you.” He chewed his lip, played with a sleeve. “Vita was quite possibly the least pleasant person I’ve ever met. I know we’re not supposed to judge, but let’s face it, we do. It didn’t help that she had no motivation to cooperate and regarded our profession with obvious disdain. Most of our sessions consisted of her complaining that I was wasting her time. That anyone with half a brain could see she’d suffered grievous injury. She just about came out and called me a quack. Now you tell me she’s been murdered. Was there evidence of rage? Because I can see her inciting someone’s anger past the point of no return.”

  “I’m also limited in what I can say, Bern.”

  “I see ... all right. Then that’s really all I can tell you.”

  “Could we go back to her lawsuit? What kind of pranks and ridicule did she say she’d experienced?”

  “Gluing her desk drawer shut, hiding her headset, making off with her snacks. She claimed she overheard people referring to her as the ‘Mad Cow’ and ‘Grumpy Gertie.’ ”

  “Claimed,” I said. “You think she was pouring it on.”

  “I have no doubt she wasn’t popular but all I had to go on was her self-report. The question in my mind was what role did her behavior play in provoking hostility? But figuring that out wasn’t my job. I was asked to render an opinion about her faking and couldn’t. Apparently that was enough because the settlement went through.”

  “How much of the five million did she get?”

  “I wasn’t privy to details but the lawyer said it was considerably less—under a million.”

  “Pretty nice payoff for having your drawers glued.”

  Shacker stifled a laugh that pitched his spare frame forward, as if he’d been shoved from behind. “Forgive me, this is a terrible situation. But what you just said—‘Having her drawers glued.’ I’m no Freudian, but that’s some image, no? And you could certainly describe Vita as being sealed up. In every way.”

  “No sex life?”

  “Nonexistent sex life and social life, according to her. She said she preferred it that way. Was that true or merely rationalization? I don’t know. In fact, I can’t say anything about her with confidence because I never got to see her long enough to break through the resistance. In the end, it didn’t matter: She got what she wanted. That’s the world we’re living in, Alex. Genuinely sick people encounter the likes of Vita who block their treatment and big money’s doled out for exaggerated claims because it’s cheaper to settle.”

  “What’s the name of the lawyer who represented her?”

  “I asked for official documents but never got them, had to work from a case summary provided by the casualty insurers.”

  “Why all the hush-hush?”

  “Their position was I needed to be viewed as objective in case my conclusions were called into question.”

  The regretful look in his eyes deepened. “Looking back, sure, I was used. I’ll never repeat the experience.”

  “What kind of personal information did Vita give you?”

  “Not much, taking a history was an ordeal,” he said. “I did get her to grudgingly admit to a difficult childhood. But once again, can we be sure Vita didn’t bring some of that upon herself?”

  “Cranky kid.”

  “I’ve come to appreciate the importance of temperament. We’re all dealt set hands, the key is how we play them. After observing Vita Berlin as a middle-aged woman it’s hard to imagine her as a sweet, cheerful child. But I could be wrong. Perhaps something turned her sour.”

  “Was she ever married?”

  “She admitted to an early marriage but refused to talk about it. There was one sibling, a sister, they grew up near Chicago. Vita moved to L.A. ten years ago because she hated the weather in the Midwest. But she hated L.A., too. Everyone was stupid, superficial. Anything else—oh, yes, she never had children, detested kids, called them wastes of sperm and eggs—her phrasing. So how long have you worked for the police?”

  “I’m not on payro
ll, more of an independent contractor.”

  “Sounds interesting,” said Shacker. “Seeing the dark side and all that. Though I’m not sure I could handle it. To tell the truth, I’m really not that curious about horrible things. All those terrible dyssynchronies.”

  “Me, neither,” I lied. “It’s the solution that’s gratifying.”

  “My impression is that profiling has turned out to be quite a dud.”

  “Cookbooking never works. Could I ask you a few more questions about Vita?”

  “Such as?”

  “Did she have friends or outside interests?”

  “My impression is she was somewhat of a homebody.”

  “Did you pick up any signs of substance abuse?”

  “No. Why?”

  “The police found a couple of bulk-sized whiskey bottles in her apartment. Hidden.”

  “Did they? Well, that’s humbling, Alex, I never caught that. Not that I could be expected to, given her resistance.” He looked at his watch. “If there’s nothing else—”

  “How many sessions did she have?”

  “A few—six, seven.”

  “Do you have her chart here?”

  “The insurance company took possession of all records.”

  His desk phone rang. He went over and picked it up. “Dr. Shacker ... oh, hi ... well, I could squeeze you in today if that would work ... yes, of course, it’s my pleasure, we’ll go over all of that once you’re here.”

  Hanging up, he said, “There’s one more thing, Alex. I probably shouldn’t be telling you, but I will. She mentioned the name of one of the people who’d harassed her. Samantha, no last name. Might that help?”

  “It might. Thanks.”

  “No problem. Now back to doing what we were trained for, eh? Nice to meet you, Alex.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  Walking to the Seville, I thought about the question mark in the pizza box. An old case I’d forgotten.

  Milo had assumed a taunt but maybe a question really had been posed. I called his office. He said, “You get an appointment with that shrink?”

  “Just finished meeting with him.” I summed up.

  “Post-traumatic hoohah and a bully named Samantha? It’s a start, thank you, Doctor.”

  “Unfortunately, Shacker’s bound by a confidentiality clause, couldn’t tell me what company Vita worked for.”

  He said, “Well-Start Health Management and Assurance. ‘Your well-being is where we start.’ ”

  “Oh.”

  “Found some of her papers tucked in a kitchen cabinet, including five years of tax returns. She spent two of them at Well-Start, did temp office jobs before that, averaged around thirty G a year. Last year she deposited five hundred eighty-three G in a brokerage account, which threw me, but now it makes sense: a fat, onetime settlement. The money’s been sitting in preferred stock paying around six percent interest. A little over thirty-three G a year, so she was getting paid more not to work.”

  I said, “It sounds like a job she could’ve enjoyed.”

  He said, “The chance to torment people every day? Fits what we know about her. I’m gonna try and find this Samantha, work my way through everyone Vita accused of harassing her. Meanwhile Reed and Binchy are visiting every damn pizza joint in a ten-mile radius, see if they can find someone who uses those boxes. I put in a call to the manufacturer, maybe they ship to private parties as well and I’ll get lucky and they’ll find some weirdo put in an order. Any other insights?”

  “That question mark,” I said. “I’m not sure it was a taunt.”

  “What then?”

  “Maybe our bad guy was referring to himself: I’m curious.”

  “About what?”

  “The mysteries of the human body.”

  “A do-it-yourself anatomy lesson? Seemed more to me like abusing the victim.”

  “Could be.”

  “You really see this as mining for gore?”

  “The way everything was ordered, the meticulous cleanup reminded me of a patient I saw years ago, when I was a postdoc. Ten-year-old boy, extremely bright, polite, well behaved. No problems at all other than some pretty freaky cruelty to animals. Sadistic psychopaths often start by torturing small critters but this kid didn’t seem to derive any pleasure from dominance or inflicting pain. He’d capture mice and squirrels in humane traps, hold gasoline-soaked rags over their noses till they died, make sure never to bruise them. ‘I hold them just hard enough,’ he told me. ‘I never hurt them, that would be wrong.’ Their death throes bothered him. He shuddered when I asked him about it. But he viewed his hobby as a legitimate science experiment. He dissected meticulously, removed every organ, studied, sketched. Both parents worked full-time, had no idea. His babysitter found him conducting surgery behind the garage and freaked out. As did Mom and Dad. The adult reactions frightened him and he refused to talk about anything he’d done so they sent him to Langley Porter and I got the case. Eventually I got him to talk, but it took months. He really didn’t understand what the fuss was about. He’d been taught that curiosity was a good thing and he was curious about what made animals ‘work.’ Dad was a physicist, Mom a microbiologist, science was the family religion, how was he any different from them? The truth was, both parents had odd personalities—what would now be called Asperger spectrum—and Kevin really wasn’t much different.”

  “What’d you do with him?”

  “I arranged for anatomy lessons from one of the pathology fellows, had his parents buy him books on the subject, and got him to pledge to limit his interest to reading. He agreed reluctantly but let me know that once he was old enough to take biology with a lab he’d be doing the same exact thing and everyone would think he was smart.”

  “Maybe we should find out what happened to this little genius.”

  “What happened to him is when he was seventeen he went hiking in the Sierras looking for specimens, fell off a cliff, and died. His mother thought I deserved to know because I was one of the few people Kevin talked about with any positivity.”

  “So maybe I’ve got myself a Kevinoid who never got help.”

  “A grown-up Kevinoid still stuck in a childhood that could range from eccentric to highly disordered. The urges are durable and now he’s got the maturity and the physical strength to pull off a grand expedition. The precision I saw suggests he’s done it before, but I haven’t been able to find anything similar. So maybe up until this point he’s adopted the optimal strategy: hide or get rid of the body.”

  “Why switch to show-and-tell with Vita?”

  “He’s bored, needs a bigger thrill. Or the killing had to do with Vita, specifically. If you can find the ex-husband or the sister, they might shed some light on it.”

  He said, “Sure, but first let’s see what mean ol’ Samantha has to say for herself.”

  Armed with the fact that Vita had worked for Well-Start, finding her tormentor was easy.

  During the time it took Robin to shower, I pulled up several photos on the company’s employee website, including a group shot, from last year’s “Quality Control Department” Christmas party.

  Twenty-two unremarkable human beings who got paid to make life difficult for sick people. Not a set of horns in sight. No evidence of guilt eroding holiday spirit.

  Samantha Pelleter was chairperson of the Celebration Committee and she appeared in three photos.

  Short, pudgy, fortyish, blond. Mile-wide grin.

  Being elected or appointed chairperson implied she had leadership qualities and that wasn’t at odds with her playing a dominant role in any harassment. But no way was she big enough to overpower a woman as substantial as Vita.

  Leadership could also mean subordinates.

  I called Milo again. He said, “Just found her myself, meeting her tomorrow at eleven. I’m assuming you don’t want to miss the fun?”

  “Where’s it happening?”

  “Her place, she’s on reduced hours due to budget issues. Sounded scared w
itless about being contacted by the police but didn’t put up a fuss. As to her curiosity level, we’ll see. Meanwhile, mine’s spiking out of control.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  He picked me up the following morning. “Got your ear-plugs? She lives right near the airport, I’m talking flight-path hell. This is probably why.”

  He handed me two sheets of paper. The first contained Samantha Pelleter’s credit report. Two bankruptcies in the last ten years, a foreclosed house in San Fernando, a slew of confiscated credit cards. The second page bore his handwritten notes: Pelleter had no criminal record, owned no property. County records pulled up a divorce six months prior to losing her home.

  “Her title’s a mouthful,” he said. “Qualification consultant. Looks like that and chairing the company party supplied more ego dollars than the real stuff. This is a lady on the downslide and I’m wondering if that’s related to some sort of serious mental problem.”

  “I found a picture of her. She’s small.”

  “I know, got her stats. So she’s got a large friend. Maybe someone else at Well-Start who Vita accused.”

  “A revenge killing?”

  “Talk about a classic motive.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You don’t think so.”

  “Don’t know enough to think.”

  He laughed. “Like the engine ever stops running.”

  Samantha Pelleter lived in a two-story, block-wide apartment building within walking distance of Sepulveda Boulevard. Aging stucco was the color of freezer-burned chicken. Incoming planes descended at angles that seemed too acute, casting terrible shadows, turning conversation moot. The air smelled of jet fuel. Not a tree in sight.

  Pelleter lived in a ground-floor flat on the west end of the complex. The half-second lapse between buzzer-push and open door said she’d been waiting for us. From the look in her eyes and a freshly gnawed thumbnail, not a relaxed wait.

  Milo introduced himself.

  She said, “Sure, sure, come in. Please.”