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CHAPTER
8
I pushed my food aside.
Allison said, “I’d met Mary Lou a few times before. Conferences, symposia. Once we sat on a panel together. Back when I was foolish enough to sit on panels. What I remember about her most vividly are her red clothes and her smile—she always smiled, even when it didn’t seem appropriate. As if she’d been prepped by a media coach. On the panel, she had lots to say but no data to back it up. Clearly, she hadn’t prepared, was relying on charisma.”
“You’re not a fan.”
“She put me off, Alex. But I wondered if I was just jealous. Because everyone knew how well she was doing professionally. Word had it she was charging fifty percent more than the rest of us and was turning away patients. The murder was over a year ago. I was at the Western Psych Association convention in Vegas and Mary Lou was scheduled to give a talk on psychology and the media that was canceled at the last minute. I hadn’t planned to attend, but one of my friends was registered to hear her—Hal Gottlieb. That night I was having dinner with Hal and some other folks and he joked that he’d lost money at the blackjack tables and that he was going to sue Mary Lou Koppel for it. Because Mary Lou’s canceling her talk had given him free time and he’d ambled over to the casino. Then he told us she’d canceled because one of her patients had been murdered. There was a long silence; finally, someone made a crack about bad publicity, then someone else said for Mary Lou there was no such thing as bad publicity, she’d turn it to her advantage.”
“Popular gal,” I said.
“We mind-healers can be as catty as anyone. If only our patients knew.”
“Do you recall any details about the murder?”
“For some reason I remember it as a woman victim. But I could be making that up, I really can’t be sure, Alex.”
“Over a year ago.”
“Two Aprils ago—after Easter. That would make it fourteen months.”
“Nothing about a murder came up when I ran Mary Lou through the search engines,” I said. “But she started giving interviews about prison reform around that time, so maybe the crime sparked her interest.”
“Could be.”
“On some of the interviews, she was joined by one of her partners, a guy named Albin Larsen. Know
CHAPTER
8
I pushed my food aside.
Allison said, “I’d met Mary Lou a few times before. Conferences, symposia. Once we sat on a panel together. Back when I was foolish enough to sit on panels. What I remember about her most vividly are her red clothes and her smile—she always smiled, even when it didn’t seem appropriate. As if she’d been prepped by a media coach. On the panel, she had lots to say but no data to back it up. Clearly, she hadn’t prepared, was relying on charisma.”
“You’re not a fan.”
“She put me off, Alex. But I wondered if I was just jealous. Because everyone knew how well she was doing professionally. Word had it she was charging fifty percent more than the rest of us and was turning away patients. The murder was over a year ago. I was at the Western Psych Association convention in Vegas and Mary Lou was scheduled to give a talk on psychology and the media that was canceled at the last minute. I hadn’t planned to attend, but one of my friends was registered to hear her—Hal Gottlieb. That night I was having dinner with Hal and some other folks and he joked that he’d lost money at the blackjack tables and that he was going to sue Mary Lou Koppel for it. Because Mary Lou’s canceling her talk had given him free time and he’d ambled over to the casino. Then he told us she’d canceled because one of her patients had been murdered. There was a long silence; finally, someone made a crack about bad publicity, then someone else said for Mary Lou there was no such thing as bad publicity, she’d turn it to her advantage.”
“Popular gal,” I said.
“We mind-healers can be as catty as anyone. If only our patients knew.”
“Do you recall any details about the murder?”
“For some reason I remember it as a woman victim. But I could be making that up, I really can’t be sure, Alex.”
“Over a year ago.”
“Two Aprils ago—after Easter. That would make it fourteen months.”
“Nothing about a murder came up when I ran Mary Lou through the search engines,” I said. “But she started giving interviews about prison reform around that time, so maybe the crime sparked her interest.”
“Could be.”
“On some of the interviews, she was joined by one of her partners, a guy named Albin Larsen. Know
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