City of the Dead (Alex Delaware, #37)(20)

She folded her hands in her lap. “And that, Alan—Alex—is my experience with Cordelia.”

“Onetime deal,” I said.

“No, actually I saw her once more. A party, don’t ask me where or when, I was…chemical. That time, we didn’t talk but she caught my eye and gave me that same I’m-going-to-help-you smile. A week later, I’m talking to my idiot manager and he says, ‘Good for you, girl, you found someone to express yourself to.’ I say what are you talking about? He says, this chick Zak fucked, she’s a shrink, is all over Facebook saying you’re BFFs. I go nuts and order him to get her to stop. He says sure, later he tells me the BFF part is gone but he couldn’t stop her from listing me as a plain friend. But I shouldn’t worry, no one takes that shit seriously. Now you’re here asking me about her. So I’m still on her friends list.”

“You are indeed.”

“Internet’s like an STD you can’t cure.” Pitching forward on the bench, she broke into untrammeled laughter.

Nice sound, at first. Then it lasted too long and turned unsettling.

When she finally stopped, I said, “Your instincts were good. She wasn’t a psychologist.”

“No? Then what?”

“She took a correspondence course, got busted for practicing without a license, and switched to calling herself a relationship expert.”

“Little Ms. Bullshit,” she said. “But like I said, Dr. Alex, I’ve found most of the real shrinks to be worthless. No offense.” More laughter. “I guess that is kind of offensive.”

I smiled.

Mary Blank rocked for a few seconds, then smiled. “You’re not the touchy type, huh?”

A childhood spent escaping a violent drunk father can put some layers of numb on you.

I shook my head.

She said, “Yeah, good-looking guys don’t need to be touchy, people touch you anyway. But that doesn’t stop some of them from taking advantage.”

We sat in silence for a few moments. She made no effort to leave.

I said, “Anything else you can tell me about her would be helpful.”

“That’s all I know, Joe. A murder, huh? If it was me, I’d look for someone she really annoyed because I sure found her a pain.”

“Makes sense.”

“Nice to know I can do that,” she said. “Make sense. Sorry for that crack about shrinks, I’m sure you’re a good one.” She frowned. “Don’t like myself when I get rude.”

“Iowa,” I said.

“You nailed it, Good Looking. Roots run deep.”





CHAPTER


    11


I offered to drive her home.

She said, “No, thanks. I’m not far and I like walking. Say hi to your girlfriend, she’s got golden hands.”

I watched her plod away, hands stuffed in the pockets of her tracksuit. Ring concealed.

Moments later, a young mother entered the park with a three-year-old boy. A glance at the broken swing, then me. She left.

I made my own exit, phoned Milo from the Seville.

He said, “I just got Cordi’s mom’s name from her birth records. Our gal was born as Carol Ann thirty-five years ago. County Hospital, mommy’s Renata Gannett, no daddy listed.”

I said, “County could mean tough times financially. How old was Renata?”

“Let me check…seventeen. Teenage unwed mother, good call, Alex. No silver spoon for our gal, I’m feeling a little warmer and fuzzier about her. Haven’t come across any current listing for Mom so she could be deceased. The good news is prelim from the lab is due later today and, God bless, Basia’s got the case. So what’s up?”

I said, “I just talked to someone who met Gannett when she was claiming to be a psychologist.”

I related the backstage encounter with Mare Nostrum and our chat moments ago.

He said, “Called her a cult bitch, huh? She got touchy-feely with a total stranger.”

“To me it sounds as if she was trying to be hypnoidal.”

“What’s that, hypnosis-lite?”

“Basically,” I said. “There’s no formal induction or trance. You use eye contact and rhythmic speech to relax the patient and make them more amenable to suggestion.”

“What about the touching?”

“Sometimes there’s a reassuring pat on the back but jumping around from spot to spot isn’t part of it.”

“She overdid it,” he said. “Manipulating eyes and speech is kosher?”

“If the patient’s informed. There’s nothing exotic about it, Big Guy. All sorts of relaxation techniques can be helpful in therapy. But subterfuge isn’t. In Gannett’s case, sounds like she was told Mare Nostrum was vulnerable and decided to make mind-game play for new business. She had no formal training so my guess is she read about hypnoidal approaches. But like anything else, it takes training.”

“It wasn’t effective with that subject but could’ve worked with others.”

“It’s possible.”

“She took advantage of impressionable people.”

“Vulnerable people,” I said. “And if circumstances changed, that could backfire. Someone starting off compliant then feeling they’d been taken advantage of and growing resentful. I’m not saying that has anything to do with the murder, but anytime you manipulate people, you run a risk. What Mary Blank told me, combined with everything else we know about Gannett, paints a picture of someone ambitious, slick, and way over her head.”