Mahler met Bennett’s eyes without answering. Then he announced for the recording that the interview had ended. He nodded at Frames, and as the two men left the room, Mahler looked back. Stricker had his arm around Bennett’s shoulder and was leaning close to whisper.

Chapter Twenty

(i)

(WEDNESDAY, 8:05 P.M.)

Mahler sat in a leather chair and watched Dr. Jeffrey Bittner slowly roll a black pen between his fingers. The doctor’s office was a dark, high-ceilinged room on the second floor of a downtown Victorian.

“I don’t know what I can tell you,” Bittner said, “other than to confirm that Elise Durand was a patient in my psychiatric practice for some time.”

Bittner was middle-aged, with gray hair and a weighed-down look. The bags under his eyes and the paunch falling over his waistline suggested that he was subject to more than the usual gravity.

Mahler shrugged. “I understand, but since we’re in the middle of a homicide investigation, I’d appreciate anything you can tell me.”

Bittner looked at his pen. “You know, of course, that by California state law, patient confidentiality extends post-mortem. Besides, I’m not sure how information about the victim is going to help you identify the person responsible for her death.”

“We’re following a number of lines of investigation, and there’s a chance she wasn’t just in the wrong place at the wrong time, that her murder was…more deliberate. Anything you can tell me about her state of mind or who she might have spent time with would be useful.”

Bittner looked thoughtful. “Of all my patients, Elise worked the hardest to heal herself. For her sake, I’d like to help you. Maybe I can talk in a general way. Are you familiar with bipolar spectrum disorder, or BSD?”

Mahler nodded. “Is that what used to be called manic depression?”

“It’s now thought that the disorder involves more than two alternating conditions. Patients may suffer more symptoms of mania than depression, or vice versa, or may experience other psychotic behaviors between episodes. One subset of BSD is called Bipolar I, which involves one or more episodes of mania and one or more episodes of depression. Let’s imagine an individual with this condition.”

Bittner waited to see Mahler’s look of assent. “The condition typically arises in adolescence. The manic episodes usually start just as feeling pumped up or having racing thoughts, then develop into all-out mania with impulsive behaviors and frenetic activity. Sometimes hallucinations. These periods are replaced by depressive intervals in which the individual loses appetite, is unable to sleep, and has thoughts of suicide. But it’s not a simple back-and-forth. Manic episodes can last for two minutes or a week, and the individual can experience a dozen different types of mania.”

Mahler made notes in a small pad on his lap. “How do you treat it?”