The Nightmare Thief

The story Evan was investigating was big, strange, and wormy with holes. Trying to get the full picture was maddening—but that was typical of freelance journalism. That wasn’t why she was going to talk to a forensic psychiatrist. No, Jo Beckett had called her. Because Beckett was also investigating the death of Phelps Wylie, attorney-at-law.

Phelps Wylie had collected antiques and bought his suits at Hugo Boss. He was short, bald, and toad-mouthed, with limpid eyes. Whenever Evan saw his photo, she heard “Froggy Went A’ Courtin’.”

He had been found dead in an abandoned gold mine in the Sierras.

Wylie had disappeared from San Francisco one Saturday morning the previous April. Months later and two hundred miles away, his remains were found pinned beneath rubble in the mine, so badly decomposed that no cause of death could be determined.

The local sheriff’s department thought he got caught in a flash flood while hiking and was swept to his death. That, or he got drunk during a walkabout in the high country, stumbled on the mine, and fell into the shaft while exploring. Or he threw himself down the shaft deliberately. Basically, he took a midnight header to oblivion, and nobody knew how or why.

It was the biggest backcountry hiking death to hit the State Bar since the defense attorney’s from the Manson Family murder trial, and Evan was writing a feature story about it for California Lawyer magazine.

But the story stubbornly refused to come together. She’d felt like she was poking roadkill with a stick, coaxing it to dance. Until, out of the blue, Jo Beckett, MD, phoned and asked to meet.

That was the reason Evan parked and hiked to a coffeehouse near Fisherman’s Wharf.

Java Jones was steamy and felt lived in. The young barista had a silver nose ring, Tiggerish energy, and curls the color of the coffee she was brewing. Her name tag said tina. Bad Dogs and Bullets was playing on the stereo.

Evan approached the counter. “This sounds like a honky-tonk requiem.”

“You want something tall and strong to go with the song?”

“And hot. Make sure he can skin a bear, and looks good on a horse.”

Tina smiled. “Americano, large?”

With a gust of wind the door opened and a woman came in: early thirties, café Americano curls, subdued athleticism beneath boho-chic clothes. She waved at the young barista and scanned the place.

She couldn’t be called elfin—she was too sober. Her gaze seemed warm but guarded. Or maybe she was just analyzing the clientele.

Had to be the shrink.

“Jo?”

“Evan.” The woman extended her hand. “Thanks for coming.” Evan nodded at the barista. “You’re sisters?”

Jo smiled. “Yeah, but drink this coffee for a month and you’ll look just like us.”

She ordered an espresso containing so many shots that the mug vibrated. Evan glanced her over. So. This was the deadshrinker.

Jo looked the compleat Californian: Doc Martens and a Mickey Mouse watch, the hint of East Asian heritage a few generations back. She wore a Coptic cross on a chain around her neck. The light in her brown eyes looked both engaging and shrewd.

Evan bet that 90 percent of people who heard the words forensic psychiatrist got tongue-tied and skittish, worried that Jo was sizing them up for tics and compulsions. Because she was one of them.

Jo led her to a table by the windows. “I’m performing a psychological autopsy on Phelps Wylie. His law firm has asked me to investigate his mental state and try to determine the manner of his death.”

“And how’s that going?”

“It’s frustrating.” She sat down. “Wylie’s life contradicts every assumption the sheriffs drew about his death. He didn’t hike. Didn’t like the mountains. He did like gold, but in the form of bullion traded by his corporate clients. And he liked booze, but when it was poured into champagne flutes at the opera house.”

“Bear Grylls he wasn’t,” Evan said.

“Not by a New York mile. You know how a psychological autopsy works?”

“You examine a victim’s psychological life to figure out how he died.”

“Yes—when a death is equivocal. That is, when the police and medical examiner can’t tell whether it was natural, accidental, suicide, or homicide. When they hit a dead end, they call me to evaluate the victim’s mental state,” she said. “I’m their last resort.”

“And I’m yours.”

Jo’s expression turned piquant. “I’m aware of the irony.”

Evan paused. Her skittishness was abating, because she saw on Jo’s face the same drive and foreboding she felt herself.

“This investigation is getting to you, isn’t it?” she said.

“It’s under my skin like a tick. Tell me about Wylie. I need background, insight, some clue to Wylie’s personality and motivations, any evidence that will help me build a timeline of his final twenty-four hours.”

“Did he have a psych history?” Evan said.

“None.”

“Think his death was from natural causes?”

“What, he dropped dead picking wildflowers, in a flood channel, and got washed into that mine by a convenient downpour?”

Jo’s tone was caustic. Evan liked that. She batted down a smirk. “Do you think Wylie was murdered?” she said.

“Possibly. Do you?”

“I’d lay money on it. He was a baby barracuda, angling to reach the top of the legal food chain. He made enemies. And his friends say that before his disappearance he seemed preoccupied and brooding. The word edgy has come up more than once.”

Jo nodded. “And then there’s the car.”

Shortly after Wylie disappeared, his Mercedes turned up near the Mexican border, stripped, abandoned, and wiped clean of fingerprints.

“The gold mine is in a remote part of the Stanislaus National Forest. So maybe the car thief stumbled across the empty Merc on an isolated logging road and decided to take a five-hundred-mile joyride. But color me skeptical.”

Evan nodded. “If you determine Wylie’s state of mind, will that prove how he died?”

“Not necessarily. I don’t have a Magic Eight Ball that says murder or accident. Clients who think I can dowse for death end up disappointed.”

“Your psychological autopsy broke open the Tasia McFarland case.”

Jo’s gaze sharpened. “That case ended with the man I love shot and wounded, and the media crawling over me like scorpions. So be aware that I tread carefully when dealing with the press.”

Evan’s eyes widened. “Tread carefully? You fought a battle royale against the Creature from the Channel of the Blondes. And you took her down, live on national television. For which, by the way, I should throw confetti over you.”

Jo laughed.