A Secret Grave - Season 1

Chapter 47 - A Slice of Victor's Story

Betsy had a property that would be suitable for Victor, off the street, private, somewhat hidden. A single story house that could be used as a medical practice, that had a garden and enough rooms to see patients. If he wanted to live there, that would be possible, too. The rent: $2000 a month. Victor paid her four months in advance. 

She did an exhaustive background check on him. His finances were in order, his credit was good. He'd graduated from medical school at Tulane University in 1984, had done residencies in Houston and Chicago, had worked in a number of practices and opened and closed two or three of his own since becoming a full-fledged doctor in the late 80s. What stood out most about Victor was that he was not a particularly good businessman.With his skills he should have made a fortune, but his money was eaten up by lawsuits and paying his way out of tricky situations. No question, however, that he was well-trained and brilliant. As for his personal history, he was born in Toronto but grew up in Dallas, son of a well-to-do surgeon whose family had emigrated from Russia, and his southern, socialite, shiksa wife. 

Victor's Father

Victor's Mother

He himself never married and didn't seem to form relationships that lasted more than a few weeks or months. It was the same with business. He would open up a small clinic, run into a problem, shut it down a year or two later. It wasn't, as far as Betsy could tell, that there was anything shady about Victor or the way he practiced, but rather that he had personality issues: he could become paranoid and suspicious of people in his life and snap over what seemed like nothing – a wrong look, a misunderstood conversation, the sense that someone was trying to take advantage of him, steal his knowledge. So why, then, would Betsy run the risk of accepting him as a tenant? "He was interesting and a genius," she told me, blushing slightly. "I'd never met anyone like him before, and figured why not? He was good for the money, and frankly the house I rented him was oddly situated and always difficult to lease."
I knew she wasn't telling me the whole story. Margot had suggested Betsy was sweet on Victor, that there was some kind of understanding between the two of them. I was determined to find out what it was and so that evening, with our meal over and Clark in the next room pestering his stepmother like a five-year-old to come see something he'd discovered on his iPad, I asked her the biggest question: what did she think had become of Victor and what had happened to all his stuff?