Flesh And Blood

CHAPTER 17

WONDERING IF MINDY Jacobus was also a psych major, I called Mary Lou at the department and asked her to look up Shawna’s roommate.

“That girl,” she said. “Lauren. I read about it – I’m so sorry, Dr. Delaware. That poor mother. What does this Mindy have to do with it?”

“Maybe nothing,” I said. “But you know how it is.”

“Sure – hold on.”

Several minutes later. “She’s not one of ours, so I called Letters and Science. She’s an econ major – or was. She didn’t reenroll this year. You don’t think she could also be…”

“No,” I said, feeling my heart jump. “Was any reason given for her dropping out?”

“I didn’t ask. If you can stay on, I’ll call over there again.”

“Sure.”

A longer wait, then: “Nothing ominous, Dr. Delaware. Thank God. She got married, changed her name to Grieg, but the files didn’t get put together. So we saved her some red tape. She’s only enrolled in one business class this quarter, has a job at the Med Center in public relations.”

I thanked her and hung up. Even if I reached Mindy Jacobus Grieg, what would I say to her? Fess up about your missing roommate’s secrets?

No reason for her to respond with anything other than a call to Security.

There was another reason not to confront her. I was off my game. My surveillance of Benjamin Dugger had turned out to be an amateurish fumble. Milo’d been gracious enough not to point that out, and when Dugger had confronted me, he’d steered the conversation in another direction. But no sense adding to my list of gaffes. I’d check in with the pro, see what he thought about talking to Mindy. Later. At the end of his workday, when leads had either borne fruit or dead-ended.

No way to know how Milo would react to what I’d learned about Shawna’s posing for skin shots. He was reluctant to consider her as a factor in Lauren’s death, and all I really had to fuel my suspicion was a college newshound’s hunch. But as I sat there mulling, Adam Green’s intuition refused to fade.

Maybe because it fit my own premonitions. Shawna’s venture into the skin trade firmed the linkage between her and Lauren. So did the fact that both girls had studied psychology, talked about becoming doctors. Grown up deprived in the Daddy department – in Shawna’s case literal fatherlessness, in Lauren’s a cold, hostile relationship with Lyle Teague. I’d treated enough girls in similar situations to understand where that could lead: the search for the Perfect Father.

And who better than a seemingly gentle older man like Dugger – a man with a psychology doctorate, no less – to fill the void?

Shawna’s beauty pageant appearances would have put her in front of an appreciative crowd while still in her teens. Stripping and hooking and runway modeling had done the same for Lauren. I thought of her and Michelle, youth and agility and sexuality playing to a sea of middle-aged leers.

The following day Lauren had talked about the power.

During my attempt to treat Lauren – those few, pitiful hours – she’d been uncooperative, passive-aggressive, seductive. During her final visit sullenness had erupted into outright hostility. Yet Jane claimed she’d admired me, that I’d meant a lot to her and knowing me had fueled her career choice. And Andrew Salander had backed that up.

It was precisely the ambivalence you’d expect from a girl with a father like Lyle Teague. Could I have been smarter… Then I thought of something else: Jane Teague had also found solace with an older man. Perhaps Lauren hadn’t veered as far from maternal influence as she’d thought.

Lauren and older men… Gene Dalby had thought Lauren older. She dressed older. Playing for someone sophisticated?

When Lauren had vented at me, I’d sat there and taken it. Because that was part of my job. And because my shame at being at the party still resonated. But another man – a man who’d contracted to lease Lauren’s body – might not have been so understanding if Lauren’s ambivalence had twisted into verbal abuse.

Gretchen Stengel had put it perfectly: Men paid to have it on their terms. And challenging the rules – or trying to leave the playing field – just wouldn’t do.

Lauren had never been anything but a pawn, but her bravado – I do great with tips – said she’d fooled herself into thinking she was a queen.

The way she’d died – trussed, shot in the back of the head – spelled out cold execution. The killer making it clear that he was in charge.

The hallmarks of a professional job because the killer wanted to make it look professional. Or was he the type of man who kept his hands clean and hired professionals?

Just another business deal… Superficially, it was hard to see Benjamin Dugger – he of the frayed collar, delivering goodies to children – engaging in something like that. But if the man had sexual hang-ups and money, just because he affected a professorial stance didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of the worst kind of cruelty.

Either way, someone had been there to teach Lauren a final, horrible lesson: Self-delusion was the mother’s milk of prostitution, and fantasies of control were no protection against the worst kind of sore loser.

I made the call to the West L.A. station at five P.M. Milo was away from his desk, and a detective named Princippe told me he’d gone out on a call.

“Any idea where?”

“Nope.”

I left my name, hung up, and went out for a run. When I got back the sun had set and Milo hadn’t called back. I showered and changed, and Robin phoned a few minutes later, telling me she’d gone out to Saugus to look at a rumored store of seasoned Tyrolean violin maple that had turned out to be wormed and worthless – and oak to boot.

“Now I’m stuck on the freeway,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“Guess it’s not a bad day compared to other people’s.”

“Like who?”

“You don’t know?”

“Good point,” I said.

“You all right, hon?”

“I’m fine. Want to go out or should I fix dinner?”

“Sure.”

I laughed. “Which?”

“Either. Just feed me.”

“That seems reasonable,” I said.

“You’re not getting into anything iffy, are you?”

“No. Why should I?”

“Good question.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” she said. But there was something other than affection in her voice.

I was grilling steaks and feeling quite useful when the phone rang again and Milo said, “What’s up?”

“Anything new on Dugger?”

“Talked to his ex-wife,” he said, sounding rushed. “Located her in Baltimore – English professor at Hopkins. And guess what: She loves the guy. Not romantically. As a person. ‘Ben’s a terrific person.’ No serious personality defects that she was willing to divulge.”

“Why’d they divorce?”

“‘We grew in separate directions.’”

“Sexually?” I said.

“I didn’t ask, Professor Freud,” he said with exaggerated patience. “It wasn’t appropriate. Bottom line: She was amused that the police would be interested in him.”

“He probably alerted her to the fact that you’d be calling.”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t think he did. She sounded genuinely surprised. Anyway, something else just came up. Citywide homicide sheets came in this afternoon, and a downtown case caught my eye. Two bodies left in an alley near Alameda late last night or during the early morning, the industrial area east of downtown. Man and a woman, shot in the head, then doused with lighter fluid and torched. The woman had only one arm. The right one. At first they thought it was burned off, but the bodies hadn’t burned long enough to do that.”

“Michelle.”

He kept reciting: “Coroner says an old amputation, they’re trying to roll prints off what’s left of the right hand, but whatever skin hasn’t been broiled is sloughed and messed up and it doesn’t look promising. Hopefully, she’s got a dentist.”

“The day after we talked to her.”

“Same thing vis-à-vis prints on the male, but they did find some scorched blond hairs. White male, six foot or so.”

“The junkie she lived with,” I said. “Lance.”

“I asked Ramparts Narcotics to pull up users named Lance. Hopefully I’ll have something soon.”

“You’re talking as if there’s a doubt,” I said.

Silence. “It’s them, and now I’m wondering if my visit signed their death warrant.” Using the singular. Shouldering the blame.

“Someone who didn’t like Michelle talking about Lauren?”

“On the other hand, a girl like Michelle could’ve been into anything. That place she lived, dope was flowing in and out, those tough guys next door. Or someone was watching her apartment, made me for what I am, figured Michelle had squealed. I wouldn’t have noticed – I wasn’t looking out for surveillance.”

I said, “Gretchen knew you were looking for Michelle. She gave you nothing, but Ingrid came up with Michelle’s last name. It’s not a stretch to think Ingrid told Gretchen.”

“Yeah,” he said, with forced calm. “The possibility occurred to me, so I called in a favor, asked one of the other detectives in the office to keep an eye on Gretchen’s movements for the next day or so. So far, it hasn’t come to much. She had a late lunch at the same place, again with Ingrid, went back to her boutique, stayed till three, then got in her little Porsche Boxter and drove to the beach-”

“Dugger’s place?”

“No, no, hold on. She bypassed Santa Monica completely, took Sunset straight to PCH, broke the speed limit all the way to Malibu, turned off at Paradise Cove. One of those big gated estates that front the highway. The top was down on the Boxter, the whole time she was gabbing on the cell phone, looking carefree. Even when she was waiting at the gate she was yapping. It didn’t take long for her to get buzzed in. And my guy didn’t need a map to know where he was. He’d worked security for a party there several times. The Duke estate – the palace Tony Duke built on mammaries. Talk about your Silicone Valley. Apparently Duke hires off-duty cops all the time. Contributes to the police benevolent fund, part of the whole respectability thing. I guess it’s no surprise Gretchen would know Duke. Back when she was riding high, she was on every A party list.”

“Tony Duke,” I said. “Maybe there’s more to it.” I told him what I’d learned from Adam Green.

“You’ve been busy too,” he said evenly.

“I didn’t see the harm.”

“No harm done,” he said. “All this kid saw was some skin shots, he doesn’t know they were for Duke.”

“Shots hidden in an issue of Duke. Tony Duke has a thing for young blondes, doesn’t he? Both Shawna and Lauren fit that bill.”

“I’m sure Tony Duke has blondes lining up to be Treat of the Month, but his rep is for screwing them, not killing them. And why would he go for a call girl like Lauren?”

“No accounting for taste,” I said.

“I suppose, but some college kid’s screenplay fantasies and Gretchen taking a drive to Malibu doesn’t exactly get my heart beating.”

“Malibu’s where Lauren placed those calls to the pay phone.”

“Exactly. You see Tony leaving Xanadu to take calls at a gas station?”

“Can you tolerate more hypotheses?”

“Sure, hit me.”

I gave him my older-man theory, rambled about power and dominance, the vulnerability that Shawna and Lauren might’ve shared.

“Tony Duke,” I ended. “Talk about an older man.”

“So you’re trading Dr. Dugger for the Sultan of Skin?”

“I adapt to changing circumstance. Fifty plus thousand in Lauren’s account would be chump change for Duke. He’d also have a good reason to want her laptop.”

Milo didn’t reply. In the background a siren wail climbed like a slide trombone solo, then dopplered into silence.

“Tony Duke,” he finally said. “Christ, I hope you’re wrong. That’s just what I need.”

“What’s that?”

“Big game, small gun.”