Those Who Trespass: A Novel of Television and Murder Page 20

  Tommy doubted that the lawyers responsible were feeling any pangs of conscience inside their lavish homes in Scarsdale and on Park Avenue. And, yes, everybody was entitled to a defense. But when an attorney is faced with overwhelming evidence that his client has murdered someone, yet still tries to free that person through legal trickery, then that lawyer becomes an accessory to murder. And if the person kills again, the lawyer should also be charged in connection with the subsequent homicide.

  Ashley asked Tommy to slow down—his words outran her fingers on the keyboard—and this was just the kind of strong stuff she needed. After a brief pause, Tommy added that, to some attorneys, money and publicity were more important than human life or justice.

  As an example, Tommy cited the guy who shot up the Long Island Rail Road, killing six people. In the beginning, the shooter was defended by William Kunstler, who actually asserted that the killings were understandable because his client had “black rage.” Kunstler said the man was angry because he believed he was being discriminated against, and asked the jury to acquit him of murdering six innocent people he had never seen before. Tommy said the whole thing made him sick.

  “What it all comes down to,” Tommy said, wrapping things up, “is the lawyer’s ability to rationalize. Raising questions of evidence in a murder case is one thing. Deliberately trying to manipulate a flawed system in order to free an obvious killer is quite another thing. Lawyers should be held responsible for the consequences of their actions just like everybody else.”

  Ashley was clearly pleased with the interview. She gently chided Tommy for being a fascist, telling him that the justice system would totally collapse if lawyers were held liable for their clients’ criminal behavior after being acquitted and set free.

  If they just shot a few of the worst lawyers outright, Tommy retorted, that might send a message to the others. Tommy signed off, happy to have perked Ashley up. He was looking forward to seeing her that evening.

  “The T-shirts are in!” Tommy looked up as Rosa Gonzalez, the homicide squad’s secretary, made the official announcement. He got up from his desk and walked over to a large brown box. In it were three deep stacks of black shirts with large white lettering which read, “This Job Is Murder.” Underneath, in smaller letters, were the words “Be Nice to Homicide Cops.” Tommy grinned and took three extra-larges for himself, three larges for some friends, and one small for Ashley. Trinkets are always effective, he thought to himself.

  Next on Tommy’s list of things to do was to call psychologist Anthony Lomanto, an old friend of his, who often testified in criminal cases for the prosecution. Lomanto was a Vietnam vet who had come back in one piece and then signed on with the NYPD. After ten years on the street, he gave it up. His wife was a wreck because of his undercover work, and his two kids wanted to see more of him. Using a family inheritance to live on, he went back to Hofstra University full time, getting a Master’s Degree in Psychology.

  Tony Lomanto was often used by the NYPD to interview borderline loonies, and to evaluate the criminal tendencies of felons who were evading capture. Lomanto wrote sharp personality profiles, giving detectives helpful psychological sketches of the most dangerous suspects. He also frequently testified for the prosecution in murder cases, debunking defense psychologists who testified for money that so and so’s violent behavior wasn’t his fault because of “you name the reason.”

  Tommy liked Tony Lomanto because he was a straight shooter who spoke in language both understandable and useful. Tommy needed to get inside the head of whoever was killing the television people. Since he knew more about Shannon Michaels than David Wayne at this point, he dialed Lomanto up and gave the psychologist every bit of information he had about Michaels, as well as his own impressions of the man. He then faxed Lomanto Shannon’s picture and résumé, asking the psychologist for a complete workup. By one in the afternoon, Tony had it done.

  “You’ve got a real problem on your hands here, Thomas,” Tony Lomanto began. Tommy already knew that, but he quickly backed off. Knowing that most shrinks loved to steer conversations in their own directions, Tommy chose not to inhibit or rush his friend. He wanted to hear everything the man had to say. The more he talked, the better.

  Tommy settled back in his chair, putting his open notebook on his lap. “Tell me about my problem, Tony, and tell me how to catch him.”

  “It ain’t gonna be easy,” Tony said, lapsing into his native Brooklyn accent. “Even though he might not be your man, I believe Shannon Michaels is your classic narcissist. That is, he has an excessive love and admiration for himself. True narcissism is a rare personality disorder that’s found in only about one percent of the population, although that number rises to about fifty percent in Beverly Hills.” Tony laughed at his own joke. Tommy also laughed, but mainly because he appreciated Tony helping him out.

  “Anyway, this Michaels looks like a textbook case. Here’s a guy whose ability to function in life is based entirely on his accomplishments, or so it seems from the data you’ve supplied. He’s a man who needs attention to function. It’s food to him. He also feels that he actually deserves attention from everybody, that he’s special, that his needs are more important than the needs of other human beings. Know anybody else like that, Tommy?”

  “Just my ex-wife.” Both men laughed. Tommy was jotting down notes.

  “Most of us have elements of narcissism in our makeup, but a full-blown narcissistic personality can turn extremely dangerous if a person’s need for attention isn’t met. You see, the narcissist is preoccupied with thoughts of his own power, success, beauty, whatever. These things are always on his mind. He has no empathy for others who operate outside his ego. But here’s an interesting wrinkle. The narcissist can also be very loyal to those people who give him what he wants. He can be charming, engaging, and persuasive. If someone is giving him attention, or gratifying him, that person may receive a tremendous amount of goodwill. But if the narcissist does not continue receiving what he craves, he’ll immediately withdraw that good feeling.”

  Ashley Van Buren’s face quickly jumped into Tommy O’Malley’s mind. So that was it. Shannon Michaels was a completely different person around Ashley, probably charming the pants right off her. Tommy frowned at the thought.

  “So what you’re tellin’ me, Tony, is that Shannon Michaels can present different faces to different people?”

  “It’s more than that. He can actually be different people. He can compartmentalize his behavior. For example, if you humiliate a narcissist, he can fly into a rage, even kill you right on the spot if he has low impulse control. You see that with psychos on the street all the time. Idiots killing people because they ‘dissed’ them. But the narcissist’s rage is specifically directed. It isn’t all over the place. A few hours after he kills, the narcissist could be calmly making love to a woman who worships him.”

  “Tell me more about this rage business,” Tommy said. “I’m havin’ trouble convincing people that a big shot rich guy like Michaels could actually murder someone.”

  “It’s called righteous slaughter.”

  “What?” Tommy had never heard that term, though he thought he had heard them all. “Righteous slaughter?”

  “Yeah. If you completely humiliate a narcissist, you can ignite a bomb. If you take away his ability to get positive attention and then compound the problem by bringing negative attention to him, chances are you’ve made a mortal enemy of him. The narcissistic personality can easily become enraged and feel that he’s morally justified in retaliating against people who hurt him. He sees nothing wrong in demonizing those who bring him pain. And the bigger the humiliation, the more drastic the retaliation. Remember, the narcissist does not feel for other people. ‘If they die,’ he thinks, ‘well, they definitely deserved it.’ That’s righteous slaughter.”

  “So how does all this apply to Shannon Michaels?” Tommy asked.

  “Well, if I’m readin’ the guy’s profile right,” Tony Lomanto continued, “h
is career was the source of his feelings of omnipotence and grandiosity. His TV job gave him daily ego gratification and excitement. The narcissist needs excitement. Because Michaels was a success on television, it reinforced his opinion that he was a very special human being. He got the attention he craved, the admiration of thousands. Being on TV was like a drug to him and when it was taken away from him, he had to find a substitute drug.”

  Tommy frowned. “Which was?”

  “Planning and carrying out the executions of those people who had humiliated him. The substitute for his career in TV is his career as a workplace avenger.”

  “I don’t know whether I can buy that, Tony,” Tommy said.

  “Look at it this way. The guy gets his feelings of power and excitement by doing the executions. He gets plenty of attention because everybody is writin’ about the mystery killer. His ego is gratified because he’s gettin’ away with these crimes. He’s smarter than the cops, stronger than his enemies. And he is satiating his rage. Remember, every time he thinks about the people who wrecked his career, his fury burns. Most of us cool off after a while. The narcissist never cools off.”

  “So, Michaels, or somebody like him, is having a great time doing this stuff?”

  “It’s not quite that simple. From what you’ve told me, Shannon Michaels is a man without a support system. He’s single, with few close friends or relatives. Nobody loves him. As a boy, he was probably abused or ignored by his father and did not have a very strong bond with either parent. His mother was out of the house working. So Michaels is the Lone Ranger. He’s distant and cold, although, again, he can be charming and warm when he wants to be. But Michaels is not the kind of guy who has a great time doin’ anything. Most of his feelings have been destroyed. That’s why he might be able to throw a woman off a balcony and propel steel into a man’s brain—without even a wince. The guy is numb and probably has been since childhood. He has anhedonia, a reduced ability to experience pleasure. He also can’t feel anybody else’s pain. The only time he feels anything at all is when his ego is getting massaged, or when somebody is attackin’ it.”

  “What about remorse?” Tommy asked.

  “Forget it. The guy has experienced what we call psychic trauma. The worst thing that could happen to him has already happened. His career blew up. I know I’m runnin’ long here, Tommy, but do you have time for a war story? It might be helpful.”

  “Sure, Tony. Take your time.”

  “Okay, in March of 1968 I was in the Marines, stationed in the central highlands of Vietnam. I was just a grunt, a ground soldier tryin’ to stay alive. I was assigned to a Marine Combined Action Platoon that was made up of thirty-five guys and a dog: eleven Marines, twenty-four ARVNs—South Vietnamese—and Buster, the German shepherd. Anyway, every few days we’d go out lookin’ for the enemy. Only we didn’t look too hard. Some villages were friendly, so we’d stay close to them. Other villages were nasty, full of Charlie. Those, we’d avoid.

  “One of the worst places was a hamlet called My Lai, and we all knew it. It was Viet Cong controlled, a good place to stay far away from, especially at night. Well, you remember what happened at My Lai. American soldiers went in there and butchered almost six hundred Vietnamese, mostly women, children and old men. And those soldiers would have killed even more except an American chopper pilot set down and ordered his crew to train their guns on the guys doin’ the killin’. The pilot would have smoked those grunts if they hadn’t allowed him to take some of the wounded kids into the chopper and fly them off to the hospital. Now, how intense is that?”

  “Geez,” was all Tommy could say.

  “A few weeks after the massacre, which was kept so quiet that the press didn’t find out for months, I’m at this firebase near My Lai. These grunts from the American Division’s Charlie Company, the platoon involved at My Lai, were there drinkin’ beer. They start talkin’ about what they did in the village. I hadn’t heard anything about it. So I’m listening to these sons of bitches describin’ how they blew apart these unarmed people, babies included.

  “Finally, I got really pissed off. I mean I just snapped. I screamed at them: ‘What is this shit?’ They start screamin’ back, cursing me out, saying people from the village were helpin’ Charlie. He was killing us, so, in effect, the villagers themselves were killing us. Emotion was flying all over the place. These guys had seen their friends blown apart by booby traps. One guy in their platoon had his balls blown off. I thought they might even smoke me before some lieutenant came in and cooled things down.

  “Anyway, bottom line, these guys had no remorse whatsoever. They wound up screamin’ that the slants at My Lai got what they deserved. I couldn’t believe it. Years later, when I went back to school, I learned that they were experiencing ‘psychic trauma.’ These American soldiers became animals because of what they had seen and experienced. Not an excuse for their behavior, just an explanation.”

  “So you think Shannon Michaels is traumatized?” The psychologist could hear the skepticism in Tommy’s question.

  “I think the guy took a major blow to the psyche. That, combined with his personality disorder, could have made him a killer.”

  Tommy leaned forward, putting his elbows on his desk, cradling the phone in his hands. Rosa, the secretary, was waving at him. “Can you hold for a minute, Tony? I’ll be right back.”

  “Jackson on line two for you, Tommy. He’s calling from California and says it’s important.”

  Tommy punched the phone button. “Livin’ it up out there, you swine?”

  Jackson Davis snorted. “Doin’ your leg work, man. But I got something very interesting.”

  “And I got Tony Lomanto on the other line. Can you call me back in fifteen minutes?”

  “You’re cuttin’ into my beach time, pal.”

  “You know, Jack, Baywatch could use a brother or two in the cast. You could kick sand in that Hasselhoff’s face all day and chase Pamela Lee around the lifeguard stand. Not a bad life.” O’Malley laughed. So did Jackson.

  “I’ll talk to you in thirty minutes.” Jackson Davis hung up. Tommy came back on line one.

  “Sorry, Tony. You okay?”

  “Havin’ a blast, Tommy.”

  “I owe you a steak at Gallagher’s. One last question: Say the killer is Michaels. How the hell am I gonna catch him?”

  “Let’s look at it scientifically,” Tony Lomanto began. “I believe Shannon Michaels, if he is the killer, is enjoyin’ the game—or at least as much as he can enjoy anything. He’s plannin’ things very carefully and carryin’ the murders out like a professional. But he could very well make a mental mistake. He could get drunk on feelings of invincibility, falsely believin’ that his past success makes him invulnerable. That could lead to a bad decision on his part. However, if you do corner this guy, Thomas, be careful. He’ll come at you like a starvin’ animal.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” said Tommy, sounding a bit too macho for the psychologist.

  “Tommy, you might want to rethink that,” said Lomanto, using the diplomatic-speak common to therapists. “As I told you, I think Michaels is excited by what he’s doing. He likes the mental challenge. He likes beatin’ you. That’s why he agreed to speak with you when most psychos would have run. But he has a weak point. You can goad him, prey on his vanity. If you can enrage him, he might give you the opening you need. But as you know, that’s a dangerous strategy. You might survive, but the guy could hurt others around you.”

  Tommy grunted but didn’t say anything. The truth was he would love to go hand to hand with Shannon Michaels.

  “Otherwise,” Tony Lomanto said, “only a person close to him could provide you with the evidence you need. And there’s nobody close to him, right?”

  Tommy paused and said, “There may be one person.” The sadness in the detective’s voice was immediately noted by his friend. “We’ll see how it shakes out. I really appreciate this, Tony. You gave me a lot to think about. Let me know if I can ev
er return the favor.”

  “I like my steaks rare and expensive.”

  Tommy laughed. “Just the opposite of my personality profile. Common and cheap.”

  For David Wayne, it had been a long ride back to New York from Baltimore. After five days of drinking and playing bad blackjack in Atlantic City, he had gone south to visit an old girlfriend in Baltimore. He’d intended to stay just a few days, but things went well—very well. Perhaps because she had left her husband a few months earlier, she nearly killed Wayne in the sack. And could this woman drink! Wayne had known her when she was in the writer’s pool at GNN, and they had gone out a few times. Back then, however, the slender woman had been kind of shy. Not anymore. Wayne extended his visit by ten days, and, during that time, the topic of Costello and Ross came up quite often. Glasses in their name were frequently raised.

  Wayne rode the elevator down from his apartment and strode into his apartment building’s lobby. He barely nodded at the doorman, Orlando Soto, so lost was he in thoughts of having a cold beer or two.

  Orlando was surprised to see David Wayne. The powerful-looking man had been away from New York for a long time. “Good afternoon, Mr. Wayne. How was your trip?”

  “Fine, Orlando, just got back in late last night.”

  “Good to see you again, sir,” said Orlando, as David Wayne walked out the revolving door and onto the sidewalk. The doorman then removed a card from his front jacket pocket, picked up the phone, and dialed Tommy O’Malley’s private number.

  The article in Broadcasting and Cable Magazine described the upcoming convention of the Radio and Television News Directors Association, the RTNDA, in great detail. It would be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the Marriott Hotel, the week of December twelfth. GNN anchorman Lyle Fleming would be the featured guest speaker at the gala dinner on Tuesday evening. After reading the short piece, Shannon Michaels picked up the phone and dialed information, asking for the number of the Marriott Hotel.