Chapter Thirteen

THOUGH HE STILL doubted their importance, Chris returned with the files for the two missing patients. We then returned to the conference table, all three of us this time, and continued our review.

The missing patients, Harold Reed and Mary Dhillon, were different in almost every respect. Forty-five years old, Harold Reed worked as a New Orleans mailman, the latest in a series of five jobs he’d held within the last nine years. Reed had been diagnosed with adult oppositional defiance disorder, and his current supervisor described him as combative and defensive, asserting, “If I weren’t so short on staff, I’d have fired his ass a long time ago.” Mr. Reed was also divorced and behind on alimony payments to his ex-wife.

“This guy likely ran off on his own,” Chris said, “for reasons having nothing to do with our investigation. With everything else I’ve got to deal with, I’m not going to spend a lot of time chasing after a guy who’s just trying to skip out on alimony.”

It was a hard point to argue, so we moved to Mary Dhillon. Mary was thirty-six years old and diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Joseph Heller once wrote, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” I wondered if that might be relevant in this case.

Until her disappearance, Mary had spent most of her life living with her parents in a single-family home on Laurel Street in the Garden District of New Orleans. According to Chris, the district was once home to a number of southern plantations. While many old-style mansions were still in the area, smaller homes like the Dhillon’s had become increasingly more common.

Mary’s parents, Libby and Ash Dhillon, reported her missing on February 19th. According to her father, Mary had taken her car to run errands that morning and never returned home. Police later found Mary’s car, a 2012 Subaru Impreza, in the parking lot of an Alvin’s grocery store. There were no groceries in Mary’s trunk, and the police couldn’t find anyone who’d saw Mary in the store that day.

Mary had been receiving psychiatric care ever since her diagnosis as a paranoid schizophrenic at age twenty-two. The diagnosis had been made shortly after Mary graduated from college. She began psychiatric care with another physician before being referred to Dr. Grieve for continuing treatment.

The police suspected that Mary had run away. Though she’d never run off before, her parents said she’d become increasingly agitated in the few months before her disappearance. Prior to that period, Mary’s parents had been satisfied with her progress. According to her father, Mary was very diligent in sticking to the medication regimen prescribed by Dr. Grieve.

Given her diagnosis, the police began their investigation immediately after Mary’s disappearance. Their search took on an increased level of intensity once Dr. Grieve’s connection to the four murder cases became known.

Beyond the Dhillon’s neighbors and friends, police interviewed staff from the veterinary shelter where Mary volunteered. According to staff at the shelter, Mary was exceptional at caring for their animals. Her ability to interact with clients was limited, but the shelter’s sole veterinarian reported improvement in that area as well.

Mary didn’t have a paying job, but she did have a credit card under her parent’s account, which was still being monitored. The police had tracked no activity since the time of Mary’s disappearance.

Her parents, hoping to encourage her independence, also paid Mary a small, fifty-dollar-per-week allowance, contingent on completing certain chores. Mary’s mother told police that Mary particularly loved working in the Dhillon’s small garden. Gardening was the only activity Mary found truly relaxing, other than her work with animals.

We didn’t finish reviewing Mary’s file until after four o’clock. Even though reviewing the case notes was a necessary first step, Hannah and I were eager to get back out in the field. We asked Chris if we could speak with Mary’s parents.

“I’m okay with that,” he said, “but I’m still not sure what that will tell us.”

“You have to remember Mary is paranoid,” I said. “Paranoids are defensive, always watching for any situation that might present a danger. If we can find Mary, I want her to tell us what made her run off the way she did. It might be a pending alien invasion, but she could have picked up on something very real that spooked her enough she felt running was her only option.”

“You can talk to them,” Chris said, “as long as I go with you. With you both being new in town, you might want me to drive anyway.”

Chris called the Dhillons to make sure they were home. After being told they would be happy to see us, we drove to their residence in the same car Chris had used to pick us up from the airport. On the way to the Garden District, I discovered three key “rules of the road” when driving in New Orleans.

The first involved traffic lights. From what I observed, New Orleans’ drivers viewed traffic signals more as annoyances to be bypassed than legal arbiters governing their right of way. In the half-hour trip to the Dhillon’s, I counted at least three instances when cars almost clipped our own as we drove through an intersection.

Chris noticed my concern, though he appeared unruffled. “You drive here awhile, and you learn to follow the five-second rule. If you’re at an intersection, you wait at least five seconds after the light turns green before pulling out into traffic. I can’t tell you how many accidents I’ve avoided that way.”

New Orleans city planners, perhaps after a visit to one of the city’s drive-through daiquiri franchises, had also virtually eliminated left turns on city streets. While driving on one of the city’s major thoroughfares, we passed street after street with No Left Turn signs. Hannah asked Chris what a driver should do if he needed to go left.

“This is the Big Easy,” Chris said with a laugh. “Sometimes you need to go the wrong way to end up the right way. You’ll see in just a second.”

A few blocks down, he took a sharp right on a road called, for some unknown reason, Midget Street. Midget Street was actually rather wide, and Chris executed an abrupt U-turn to get us heading back the way we’d come.

He laughed one more time. “That, my friends, is a New Orleans left turn. The trick is finding a street that isn’t one-way. As you probably also noticed, that isn’t easy in New Orleans.”

The last rule, I discovered, was a corollary to the first—there were no true speed limits in New Orleans; there were simply speed suggestions. As we continued to our destination, cars moved at a pace that would have made drivers on the German autobahn quake with fear.

I turned to Hannah and saw something that looked like envy on her face. “The way you drive, you’d fit right in.”

“I like moving fast. I won’t apologize for that.” She noticed my smile and gave me a quick poke.

If Chris saw, he was smart enough not to show it. Instead, he kept on driving, and after a few more narrow, one-way streets, we finally managed to reach our destination.

We pulled into the Dhillon’s driveway just as I was promising God I would never again complain about the Cleveland freeways. I knew I’d break that one eventually, but I was sincere at the time.

The Dhillons came out to meet us when we were still in their driveway. Libby Dhillon, Mary’s mother, was a short, gray-haired woman who still wore her hair in a ponytail. With her long, hippie dress, I could almost imagine her as an aging den mother in a 1960s commune.

Mary’s father, Ash Dhillon, was significantly taller than his wife. He had silver hair, a beard, and the dignified, intellectual look of a college professor. He walked with his arm around his wife’s waist, and I couldn’t tell if that was for her comfort or his. After introducing themselves, the Dhillons invited us inside

The police report on Mary Dhillon’s disappearance described their house as “a small single-family home.” While smaller than some of the other homes on Laurel Street, that description didn’t do it justice. Two stories high with verandas on both levels, the yard was beautifully maintained. To my non-Southern eye, it resembled a traditional Southern mansion done in miniature. It fit in well with its larger Garden District neighbors.

In contrast to the exterior’s old-Southern facade, the home’s inside looked like the display floor of an Ikea store—never my favorite furniture, but I probably wasn’t the best judge. After apologizing for not having cleaned recently, Libby Dhillon invited us into their living room and asked us to sit. Hannah squeezed in next to Chris on the modern-style leather couch, and I chose the only older piece of furniture in the room, a rocker that reminded me of the Amish-made one my mother used when sewing.

The preliminaries finished, Chris took the lead. After thanking the Dhillons for agreeing to meet with us, he introduced Hannah and me as Cleveland investigators looking into whether the murders tied to Dr. Grieve’s practice were related to similar crimes in our city. With that lead-in, Hannah began our questioning.

“Mr. and Mrs. Dhillon, the police report said Mary had never previously run away from home. Did she have any experience living on her own?”

“Shortly after Mary was diagnosed,” Libby responded, “we leased her a small apartment in a complex just a few streets from here. Her psychiatrist at the time felt a degree of independence might help Mary with the adjustment process, but in hindsight, it was probably too soon. Mary had several conflicts with her neighbors. After she accused one of stealing her newspaper, things got…violent, and the building manager said he would need to terminate our daughter’s lease. Since then, Mary has lived in one of the extra bedrooms in our home.”

I asked them to describe Mary’s behavior before she disappeared.

“You’re talking about two different periods,” Mary’s father said. “Mary disappeared in February. If you asked me about her behavior six months before that date, I’d have said she was as good as I’ve seen her in a long time, definitely more relaxed. I even remember looking out the front window in August and seeing her talking to one of our neighbors, an eighty-year-old man who lives across the street. That was unusual because Mary was smiling. That was not her normal reaction when speaking with people she didn’t know well.”

“Things started to change around Thanksgiving,” Libby added. “In late November, Mary started to get testy all over again. She began sniping at Ash and myself, and she refused to run errands. In the past, Mary always liked doing those things. Her mood got even worse in the two or three weeks before she disappeared. Her paranoia was as bad as it’s ever been.”

“Can you clarify that?” I asked. “What kinds of things was she saying?”

“Mary started to think people were watching her almost everywhere she went. It got to the point where she would hardly go outside. That’s why I was happy when she agreed to go to the store the day she disappeared. I thought it was a sign she might be getting better.”

“Tell me, Mrs. Dhillon,” Hannah said, “about Mary’s visits to Dr. Grieve’s office. Did she have any specific complaints about him or any of her fellow patients?”

“Mary did criticize Dr. Grieve, but it was an odd complaint. Even when she first started seeing him, she always called him slick. She said Grieve reminded her of one of those televangelists. Before Mary disappeared, she moved from calling him slick to calling him two-faced. She said he never kept his promises. When I asked Mary what promises she meant, she stopped talking altogether. She said a few of the other patients struck her as creepy. I don’t remember her mentioning anyone specifically.”

“Actually, I do,” her husband said. “It was sometime last year, probably September or October. Mary came home and said Dr. Grieve asked if she’d be willing to attend a group session with one of his other patients. Grieve told her the session was about trust. Mary and the other patient were allowed to ask questions about each other’s condition. She said the session got too intense, and she complained to Dr. Grieve when it was over. According to Mary, Grieve said it was just an experiment.”

Now we were getting somewhere. I leaned closer. “Did Mary ever give you a name or describe the other patient in any way?”

“Unfortunately, that was as descriptive as she got.”

Chris turned to Mrs. Dhillon. “The last time we spoke, you said Mary didn’t have any friends. What about the other volunteers at the animal shelter?”

“I don’t know if I’d call them friends, exactly. It’s not like Mary ever hung around or talked with anyone after work. That being said, she was probably more attached to the people at the shelter than anyone else in her life. You have to understand how much Mary loved those animals. Dogs, cats, you name it. Anyone who helped care for them was at least a little okay in her book. For Mary, that was her version of trust.”

None of us had any more questions, so we asked if we could see Mary’s room.

Located on the second floor of the Dhillon home, Mary’s bedroom was small and notable for its lack of decoration. There were a few pictures of Mary at various stages of her life: her high school graduation, her prom, and two more recent photos likely taken at the animal shelter. Chris and Hannah asked the Dhillons if they could look through Mary’s closet and her dresser—other than a queen-sized bed, the dresser was the only piece of furniture in the room.

While the others looked through Mary’s closet, I concentrated on the pictures. Mary’s police file contained a small photo of her, but it didn’t do her justice. The real Mary was tall, very pretty and very blonde—your classic southern belle. Wearing a plain dress with no jewelry, she easily outshone the other girls in her prom photo. That thought led me back to her picture taken at the animal shelter. It was the only photo in which Mary was wearing jewelry, an unusually colored green-and-orange pendant necklace that appeared to be a golden retriever. Libby Dhillon saw where I was looking and guessed at my thoughts.

“I thought the pendant was unusual, to say the least, but Mary insisted on wearing it. She said she received it as a Christmas gift from one of the people she worked with.”

I went back to the pictures and noticed something else. Mary was undoubtedly a beautiful woman, but there was something brittle in her appearance. It was a look you see in some Hollywood actresses, a gaze that said, “I’m beautiful, but you wouldn’t want to spend any time with me.”

Turning again to Mrs. Dhillon, I said, “Mary is certainly very pretty. Did she go out on dates? I imagine there was no shortage of male suitors.”

She smiled, if only briefly. “The South is getting to you, Mr. Luvello. Male suitors? The next thing you know, you’ll be talking about gentleman callers. The truth is, Mary didn’t go out on many dates. As you guessed, that was not due to a lack of interested men. Mary was just very…clinical when it came to dating.”

“What do you mean by clinical?”

“Mary would date if she had a reason to date. If she wanted to see a specific movie or attend a concert, she would then agree to a date. Mary would never go out just because she liked a boy. We encouraged her to date more, but she was never very interested. Unlike most girls, I don’t ever remember a time when Mary had a crush or any sort of romantic interest in a boy.”

We finished going through Mary’s bedroom and thanked the Dhillons for their time. As we were leaving, Libby Dhillon stopped us with a question.

“Detectives, our daughter has been missing for four months. Do you think Mary is still alive?”

“The most honest answer I can give you,” Chris responded, “is that we’re proceeding as if she is. I know you’re aware of the deaths associated with Dr. Grieve’s practice. If you’re looking for hope, I would think of something I was reminded of earlier today—in every one of those murder cases, the killer made no attempt to hide his crimes. Given that, our assumption is your daughter may have run off. We don’t know where, but we’re going to keep looking until we find out.”

After saying goodbye and promising to keep the Dhillons updated, the three of us went back to Chris’s car. It was now six-thirty, so Hannah asked Chris if he would drop us off at our hotel.

En route, we talked about our plans for the next day. We’d arrived in New Orleans on Monday, and our return trip home was scheduled for Wednesday morning. That gave us just one more day to come up with any information linking these murders to the ones in Cleveland. I still thought Mary Dhillon was our best lead, and we agreed to start the following day by talking to the staff at the animal shelter.

Chris let us off in front of the hotel and agreed to pick us up at 8:00 a.m. Now on our own, Hannah and I set off to find someplace to eat. Fortunately, there was a Cajun place just across the street advertising “traditional” jambalaya and cochon de lait, the latter only available on certain days and times.

We weren’t too worried about the cochon de lait since neither of us had any idea what that was. The jambalaya, however, was appealing. I had made it out of a box a couple of times and liked it. The real stuff turned out to be even better, and Hannah and I both finished the large helpings the waiter brought to our table.

Despite our lack of progress, I was in an upbeat mood. Before going back to our room, Hannah and I stopped at a religious store next door to our hotel so I could get a gift for Father Lawrence. As the Jesuits were paying for my plane tickets, I figured I owed Father something. I found an item I was sure he wouldn’t already have, and we made our way back to the hotel.

My mood changed after we reached our room. As soon as we closed the door, Hannah said we needed to talk.

Everything I knew about male-female interactions had come from John, the equivalent of getting relationship advice in a boy’s high school locker room. Despite my inexperience, however, I knew “we need to talk” was female code for “you’re in trouble.” Even with that, Hannah still managed to catch me by surprise.

“We’ve only been together for about a week, and I never expected things to move quite this fast. Maybe I’ve been responsible for that, but you were so unsure of yourself I thought I needed to take the lead. In any case, I think there’s something you should know about me before we go any further.”

“Let me guess. You’ve got an ex-husband and five kids you’re hiding out somewhere.”

At the stricken look on her face, I realized what I’d stumbled onto.

“I take it you don’t have five kids.”

“I don’t even have one.”

“So, you’re divorced. A lot of people are. I wouldn’t have guessed, but it’s not the end of the world.”

She continued giving me the same look, which meant confession time wasn’t quite done.

“I’m going to stop babbling and let you finish.”

“That would be nice. The other thing wrong with your guess was the ‘ex’ part.”

“You’re still married?”

“Technically, I guess I am.”

“Being technically married is like being technically pregnant. You either are, or you’re not.”

Now she was annoyed. “I knew you’d react this way. Despite all your jokes about the Church, you’re still the good Catholic boy at heart. Here’s the situation. The marriage happened three years ago. He was a surgical resident, and I was a beat cop. When I became a detective, we were lucky to see each other for even one hour on any given day.

“We still tried to make it work, or at least I did. About six months ago, just before I received my detective’s shield, I found out he was seeing another resident on the side. Can you believe the idiot lived with a cop and had his girlfriend send text messages to his phone? No one that stupid should be anywhere near an operating room. Do you want to know how I knew I was no longer in love? When I found out, I actually felt relieved. All I could think was, ‘perfect grounds for a divorce.’ I filed the papers almost immediately, and he’s not contesting. My lawyer tells me things should be finalized in about a month.”

She saw my hesitation and added, “I thought you should know. Are you okay with this?”

“After our first night, you said we need to take things slow and not overthink everything. I don’t think this changes that. I am curious about one thing. Do you really think I’m a good Catholic? I should have you repeat that to my brother.”

“Out of everything I said, you picked that to ask about? I do think you’re a good Catholic in your own weirdly unique way. Trying to corrupt you is half the fun of our relationship.”

Over the next two hours, we brought each other much further down that long road to corruption. People say sex in a relationship gets stale over time. That might or might not be true long-term, but I could safely say Hannah and I had yet to reach that point. We started on the queen-sized bed in the center of our room and moved to the hotel shower, a rather cramped area that suited us just fine. After the shower, we moved back to the bed again. It was long; it was glorious, and most of all, it was fun. On more than one occasion, my mother told me I needed to get more enjoyment out of life. While I don’t think she pictured a married woman in a hotel room, she couldn’t have been more right.

As we lay exhausted on the bed, I brought up an even touchier subject.

“How did your mom and dad react to the news of your divorce?” I knew from her piercing look there’d be no more fun that evening.

“How did they react? My mother tried to get me to stay with the asshole. I told her to screw that. Just because she stayed with my father after he messed around doesn’t mean I’m going to make the same mistake. I couldn’t believe she thought I’d have so little self-respect.”

I quickly agreed. I did so in part because Hannah was right, but I was also afraid for my life if I even hinted otherwise. That was our last exchange of the evening, and we eventually fell asleep.

I experienced no more traumatic dreams, though I did remember something about a race car. The car was traveling clockwise around an oval racetrack. The speedometer was close to two hundred miles per hour, and Chris, the driver, kept saying, “Don’t worry, there are no left turns.”