Berns smiled again, then continued. “Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. But to answer your question, there are exculpatory psychological diseases. Manic depressive psychosis, for one. Paranoid schizophrenia, for another.”
“Schizophrenia, huh?” I thought back, recalling several terms I’d seen while scanning Carns’s medical files. “Satanic delusions, florid psychotic episodes, periods of fugal amnesia covering days and weeks… that kinda stuff?”
Berns nodded. “How do you happen to know those terms?”
“I read them somewhere,” I answered evasively. “So if somebody wanted to fake a case of schizophrenia, he could?”
“Maybe. As yet, there are no conclusive physical tests to support a diagnosis of schizophrenia, but faking it would be difficult. For someone to do it, he’d have to be a consummate actor, as well as being extremely knowledgeable about the disease and a wide spectrum of associated psychological tests.”
I remembered the psychology books I had seen in Carns’s office. “But it’s possible?”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Berns conceded. “We psychiatrists like to think we’re above being fooled, but it happens. But even if someone could pull it off, most courts view a criminal’s postarrest development of a mental illness just a little too convenient.”
“Right. So let me pose a hypothetical situation here. Suppose a criminal wanted to create a psychological backdoor for himself, an escape hatch in case he got caught at some future time. He buys the right books and bones up on a mental illness that can’t be disproved by physical testing. Paranoid schizophrenia, say. He goes to a few clinics and perfects his act, then gets some outpatient treatment-maybe even takes medication for a couple of years.”
“He wouldn’t even have to take the pills,” mused Berns, anticipating my line of reasoning. “They’d probably put him on something like Haldol. Most outpatient clinics don’t do blood-level monitoring on those types of drugs.”
“Fine,” I said. “Okay, let’s take it a step further. Our man stops getting treatment, but now he’s on record as being a psycho. Years later he’s arrested for something serious-murder, say-and he goes for an insanity defense. Unlike most scumbags who try to avoid first degree murder charges and a death penalty sentence by going the nut-cake route, our man’s got a medical history. He’s been off his medication for years, and the poor guy just couldn’t help himself. What’re his chances of skating?”
Berns stroked his chin pensively. “A lot better than without a prior history. Something like that could make a huge difference.”
“He could pull it off?”
“Maybe. With a longstanding record of mental illness, a slick lawyer, and the right jury-he might.”
50
Tuesday afternoon, having decided to spend New Year’s Eve at home, Victor Carns made an unsettling discovery, one that changed everything. He had just returned from a record store in Mission Viejo, where he’d purchased a Glen Gould disk and two Yo Yo Ma recordings. As he climbed from the cockpit of his Lamborghini, he dropped his keys. Bending to retrieve them, he spotted the antenna wire hidden behind his back left wheel. Less than an inch was exposed, but it was well defined in the backlight from across the garage. With a feeling of horror, Carns got down on his hands and knees. He looked under the frame. It was a transmitter.
They had found him.
But how?
He was sure he had escaped the police trap in Sherman Oaks without being followed.
What, then? The health clubs? The stolen license plates? The DMV trace? Lauren Van Owen?
Again, as he had repeatedly since learning that the blond newscaster had survived, he berated himself for not taking the time to dispose of her properly before fleeing her West LA condo. On the other hand, that the authorities hadn’t already come for him was proof she hadn’t managed to get a clear look at him-even when he’d held the phone to her mouth so she could speak with Kane. Nevertheless, leaving her alive was another unaccustomed error, one that disturbed and angered him. And once more, Kane had been involved.
Shaken, Carns rose to his knees. He left the matchbox-sized tracking device in place, fearing if he touched it, the police might be able to tell. Something like that might force their hand.
Think!
Mind racing, Carns pondered his situation.
Somehow they’d found him. But again, if they had enough for an arrest, or even grounds to search his estate, they would have already come.
Maybe they weren’t sure.
No, Carns decided, fighting a wave of panic. They knew. Maybe they couldn’t prove it, but they knew.
It didn’t matter how they had discovered him; what mattered now was what would follow. Music discs forgotten on the garage floor, Carns hurried into the house. His ankle still throbbed from that terrible night in Sherman Oaks, and he favored it as he moved from window to window. Staying well back from the glass, he searched the areas surrounding his estate.
There. The Southern California Edison truck at the bottom of the hill.
They had a work tent over a manhole at the intersection. Carns had noticed it early Saturday morning but hadn’t given it a second thought. Looking closer, he noted that the orange ventilation hose, a normal precaution for underground vaults where men are working, was conspicuously missing.
Proceeding through his house, Carns peeked out every window. Though he couldn’t spot them, he knew there had to be others. He considered calling the electric company regarding the street repair, just to be sure. He decided against it. The police were probably listening on his phone.
Think!
He had left nothing incriminating at the murder scenes. And with the exception of Lauren Van Owen, there had been no witnesses. That left whatever was in his house. And the cars.
There was little he could do now about the van and the Toyota. Maybe later, when things settled down. In the meantime, Carns assured himself, no one would find them or the articles they contained. He had leased the self-service garage under a false name, retrieved the vehicles only at night, and the storage rental fee was paid two years in advance.
The house, then.
Carns spent the next several hours disposing of all his mementos: tapes, slides, videos, clothing. Even the scrapbooks. He blanked the video and audio tapes with a bulk erasing magnet, then burned them in the living room fireplace, sending clouds of smoke billowing up the chimney. His digital recordings and slide collection followed. The women’s clothing proved the most difficult, requiring him to scissor the larger garments into pieces before piling them on the gas-fed blaze.
The prophylactics, he flushed down the toilet.
Ever since discovering the transmitter hidden on his car, Carns had felt a headache building. Before leaving the bathroom, he opened the medicine chest and took two Imitrex tablets. As he washed them down with a glass of water, he did a mental inventory of anything remaining that might tie him to the murders. He had worn newly purchased clothes for each adventure, disposing of them afterward. The mementos from the basement were gone. A box of latex gloves, the spectrum analyzer, and a few playthings from earlier games were still in the storage garage, along with the cars. Nothing to directly link him to the murders, but in aggregate, a breach in his defense.
Anything else?
The books!
Carns hurried to his office and stripped the hardback covers from his crime and psychology texts. He fed the pages, along with research he had done on numerous victims, through a document shredder. The covers and shredded paper went into the fire. Thirty minutes later nothing remained.
Satisfied he could do no more, Carns limped to his living room bar and poured a large glass of Scotch. He
