We remained outside as Milo called in the techies, the coroner, and two black-and-whites for sentry work. In twenty minutes, the scene was bustling.

The coroner was an Asian woman who spoke little English and slipped away without conferring. The coroner’s investigator, a heavy, gray-mustachioed man named Arnold Mattingly, emerged and said, “Cho says she’s all yours, Milo.”

Milo frowned. “She’s gone?”

“She’s busier than we’ll ever be,” said Mattingly. “Lots of bodies piled up at the morgue.”

“She give you any prelim?”

“Looks like stabbed in the chest with a letter opener, shot through the head. I know you like to draw your own DB chart, but if you want a copy of mine, I’ll xerox it.”

“Thanks, Arnie. Which came first, the stabbing or the shooting?”

“Not for me to guess, and Cho isn’t talking much today.” Mattingly cupped his hand but kept his voice loud. “Her husband left her.”

“Shame,” said Milo.

“Nice lady,” said Mattingly. “It really is. Anyway, you want to know my opinion, there was mucho blood around the knife wound. Copious, as they say. And just a little tiny trickle around the bullet hole, more plasma than red stuff.”

“Her heart was pumping hard when she got stabbed.”

“If I was a betting man,” said Mattingly.

“Small-caliber gun?”

“From the looks of it. Koppel, she’s that psychologist, right?”

“You know her, Arnie?”

“My wife listens to her when she’s on the radio. Says she talks common sense. I say if it’s that common, why do people have to pay her?” He shook his head. “The wife’ll have a fit when I tell her- it’s okay to tell her, right?”

“Go for it,” said Milo. “Call the networks for all I care. Any other ideas?”

Mattingly said, “What, this is guess day?”

“It’s a crappy day. I’m open to suggestions.”

“Humble civil servant like me.” Mattingly scratched his head. “My guess would be her line of work, maybe she got on the wrong side of some crazy person.” He seemed to notice me for the first time. “That make sense, Doc?”

“Perfect sense.”

Mattingly grinned. “That’s what I love about my job. I get to make sense. Then when I get home, I’m an idiot.” He collected his gear and left.

I said, “Call the networks. Maybe this is the hook you need.”

It took a while for the techies to finish printing the house, searching for shoe imprints, blood or other body fluids in remote rooms, signs of forced entry or struggle.

No prints on the letter opener. Nothing else revelatory except for the obvious fact that the opener, antique, bone-handled, with a sterling silver shaft, had come from the desk set in Mary Lou Koppel’s home office.

When the house cleared, Milo began the demeaning rummage that murder victims undergo.

A search of the medicine cabinet in Koppel’s private bathroom produced the usual toiletries along with birth control pills, a diaphragm and condoms (“Careful gal”), OTC allergy medicine, a salve for yeast infections, Tylenol, Advil, Pepto-Bismol, and physician samples of the sleeping pill Ambien.

“All that advice for everyone else, and she has trouble sleeping,” said Milo. “Something on her mind?”

I shrugged.

Her bedroom was a cozy, soft-edged study in sage green and salmon. The quilted spread on the bed was tucked tight, the room perfectly composed.

Milo rifled through a closet filled with red and black. In dresser drawers he found sleepwear that ranged from sensible flannel to skimpy pieces from the Hustler Emporium. He held up a pair of crotchless panties in faux leopard skin.

“You don’t buy this for yourself. Wonder who her love interest is.”

At the bottom of the underwear drawer, he found a silver vibrator nestled in a velvet bag.

“All kinds of love,” he muttered.

I hadn’t liked Mary Lou Koppel much, but exposing the archaeology of her life was depressing.

We left the bedroom and headed back to the office so that Milo could sift through her papers. It didn’t take long for things to get interesting.

Like the rest of the house, the study was tidy. A squared stack of papers sat atop the dainty French revival desk, weighed down by a red crystal paperweight shaped like a rose. Just off center, next to a gilded leather blotter and below the sterling desk set from which the murder weapon had been lifted.

Milo attacked the drawers first, found Mary Lou Koppel’s financial records and tax forms and a stack of correspondence from people who’d tuned in to her media interviews and had strong opinions, pro and con.

Those he bundled together and stashed in an evidence envelope.

He said, “She declared 260 grand a year from treating patients, another 60 from public appearances and investments. Not too shabby.”

Court documents in a bottom drawer summarized a divorce twenty-two years ago.

“The husband was some guy named Edward Michael Koppel,” he said, running his finger along lines of print. “At the time the papers were filed he was a law student at the U… irreconcilable differences, splitting of assets… the marriage lasted less than two years, no kids… onward.”

He returned to the desktop, removed the rose-shaped paperweight, took hold of the paper stack.

On top was Gavin Quick’s chart.

CHAPTER 16

Thin chart.

It didn’t take Milo long to finish reading it, and when he did his jaw was tight and his shoulders were bunched.

He thrust it at me.

Mary Lou Koppel had written out a detailed intake for her treatment of Gavin Quick, but her subsequent notes were sketchy.

The intake said enough.

Gavin hadn’t come to her because of posttraumatic stress due to his accident. He’d been assigned to therapy by an Orange County judge. Alternative sentencing after being convicted four months ago of stalking a Tustin woman named Beth Gallegos.

Gallegos had been an occupational therapist at St. John’s Hospital, where she’d treated Gavin after his injury. According to Koppel’s notes, Gavin had become pathologically attached to her, leading Gallegos to transfer his care to another therapist. Gavin persisted in his attempts to date her, phoning her at home, sometimes two dozen times a night, then extending his attempts to early-morning wake-up calls in which he wept and proclaimed his love for her.

He wrote Beth Gallegos long amorous notes and mailed them with gifts of jewelry and perfume. For every day of one manic week, he had two dozen roses delivered to St. John’s.

When Beth Gallegos quit and took a job at a rehabilitation clinic in Long Beach, Gavin managed to find her, and his overtures resumed.

Knowing about his head injury, Gallegos was loath to prosecute, but when he showed up at her apartment in the middle of the night, banged on the door, and insisted she let him in, she called the police. Gavin was arrested for disturbing the peace, but the cops told Gallegos if she wanted a more serious charge, she needed to get a restraining order.

She bargained with Gavin’s parents: If he ceased, she’d drop the issue.

Gavin agreed, but a week later the phone calls started up again. Beth Gallegos obtained the order, and when Gavin violated it by waiting in the parking lot at the Long Beach clinic, he was busted for felony stalking.

Because of his accident, he was allowed to plead down to a misdemeanor harassment charge contingent upon seeking psychiatric help. His attorney requested and was granted the opportunity to suggest a therapist. With no objection from the D.A., the court assented, and Gavin was referred to Franco Gull, Ph.D.