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He said, “She got brought up on charges and isstilldoing it? Unbelievable.”
“Lame try,” I said. “It didn’t work.”
“Didn’t work out so well for the patient she stole, either. She ended up hospitalized with a serious seizure. Finally came back to me. Not the way I like to be right.”
—
Per Shel’s answering service, he was out of the office for a week. That sounded like one of his infrequent vacations. I requested a call-back but didn’t frame it as an emergency.
Twenty minutes later, my service patched him in. His voice reverbed a bit, as if directed through a tunnel.
“Alex. What’s up?”
“Remember Cordelia Gannett?”
“How could I forget?” he said. “What, now she’s claiming to be a dentist and doing relationship therapy for gum disease?”
“She’s not doing anything, Shel. She was murdered this morning.”
Silence. “You’re kidding me—obviously, you’re not. Shit, what happened?”
“Unclear,” I said. “The detective in charge—the one I told you about—”
“The guy who entices you into all the nasty stuff.”
“Yup. I told him about my courtroom experience and what she’d done to you. He asked me to call you and find out if you ever dug up anything else on her.”
“No, just the license scam.” He laughed. “Hope that doesn’t make me a suspect. Tell your friend I couldn’t have done it because I’m inRome. Just had an amazing dinner in the Ghetto, they fry everything, kind of an Italian tempura.”
“Have fun.”
“Oh, I am. Sandra’s here along with Bonnie and John and the grandkids. Kaylie’s twelve and loves Renaissance art. She old enough to be my alibi witness?”
“No doubt.”
“Seriously, Alex, this is crazy. You think it had something to do with Gannett’s ethics? The lack of?”
I said, “Could be. Do you know of anyone else whose patients she monkeyed with?”
“No, but it doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility, once you’re amoral, you’re amoral. You know me, Alex. Not exactly an excitable boy but what she didreallyannoyed me. Guess if she did that to the wrong person…hold on…Sandy’s calling me over for something…restaurant’s got a TV, Bocelli’s on the tube, got to run.”
—
I phoned the psych board. Lots of robotic voicemail followed by a bored-sounding, robotic human. Complaints against licensed psychologists were kept on record but unlicensed practitioners were handled by another office at the board of consumer affairs, he wasn’t sure which one.
It took me a while to connect to the right person. Right, but not informative. Once cases were disposed of, they were disposed of.
I said, “To save trees?”
The woman on the other end said, “I have no idea.”
Click.
I got on the Web, plugged in Cordelia Gannett’s name, and watched the screen fill.
The first thing I looked for was another misrepresentation charge or a complaint by a doctor or a patient.
Zero. Just a hyperactive social network presence. Good place to dig.
