Her license was bona fide, and the state board listed no disciplinary actions against her. I’d been right about her lacking any training or certification in neuropsychology.
Her name pulled up 432 hits on the computer, all excerpts from interviews she’d given on various TV and radio shows. A closer look revealed lots of repetition; it cooked down to three dozen actual references.
Mary Lou Koppel had spoken with great confidence about communication barriers between men and women, gender identity, eating disorders, weight loss strategies, corporate problem solving, midlife crisis, adoption, learning disabilities, autism, puberty, adolescent rebellion, premenstrual syndrome, menopause, panic disorder, phobias, chronic depression, posttraumatic stress, sexism, racism, ageism, sizeism.
One topic that had held her interest was prison reform. She’d given eight radio interviews last year in which she decried the shift from rehabilitation to punishment. In two of the talks, she’d been joined by a man named Albin Larsen, listed as a psychologist and human rights worker.
The photos I found showed a pleasant-looking woman with short, shagged caramel hair. Her face was round with chipmunk cheeks and terminated in a sharp little off-center chin. Her neck was graceful but starting to loosen. Crisp, dark eyes. Wide, determined mouth. Gorgeous teeth, but her smile seemed posed. In every picture she wore red.
Now I knew whom to look for.
*
I left for her office the next morning at eleven-forty-five, figuring my best bet was to catch her during her lunch break. Her office was in Beverly Hills but not Bedford Drive’s Couch Row or any of the other fashionable streets where high-priced therapists congregated.
Dr. Mary Lou Koppel plied her trade in a two-story building on Olympic Boulevard and Palm Drive—a mixed-use stretch near the glitzy city’s southern border. Down the block were an auto-painting franchise and a private school housed in what had once been a residential duplex. Beyond those sat a florist and a pharmacy advertising discounts for seniors. Traffic on Olympic was nonstop and freeway-deafening.
Koppel’s building had a windowless front, with brick facing painted the color of wet sand. No identifying marks other than black plastic address numerals too small to read from across the street. The front door was locked, and a sign said to enter through the rear. Behind the structures was a six-space parking lot backed by an alley. Three slots marked RESERVED were occupied by small, dark Mercedes sedans, not unlike Jerry Quick’s.
I fed a meter on Palm and made my way over.
The ground floor was a long, dim, red-carpeted corridor that ran along the east side of the building and had the popcorn smell of a theater lobby. One occupant: an outfit called Charitable Planning. An arrow painted on the wall directed me to the stairway and when I got there faux-bronze letters specified what awaited me on the second story.
PACIFICA-WEST PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES
Upstairs was pewter-colored industrial carpeting, blue-gray walls, better lighting. Unlike the first floor, no long hallway. Progress was halted by a perpendicular wall set ten feet in. A single door was marked RECEPTION.
Inside was a large unoccupied waiting room set up with blue tweed chairs and coffee tables stacked with magazines. No reception window, just a door and three signs. FRANCO R. GULL, PH.D., MARY LOU KOPPEL, PH.D., ALBIN A. LARSEN, PH.D.
Larsen was the human rights activist with whom Koppel had shared some of her prison reform interviews. Feeding two practices for the price of one.
Next to each sign was a call button and a tiny, faceted bulb. A sign instructed patients to announce themselves with a button push. A clear light meant the doctor was free, red signified Occupied.
Gull’s and Larsen’s lights were red, Koppel’s wasn’t. I announced myself.
*
A few moments later, the blank door opened, and Mary Lou Koppel stood there wearing a red short-sleeved cashmere top over white linen pants and red shoes. In person, her dark eyes were nearly black. Clear and bright and inquisitive, and all over me. Her hair was tinted lighter than in the photos, she’d put on a few wrinkles, her bare arms were soft, freckled, plumper than the rest of her. Yellow diamond cocktail ring on her right index finger. Big canary-colored stone, surrounded by tiny sapphires. No wedding band.