Jonathan Kellerman - Flesh And Blood

Unless Salander wasn’t as familiar with her wardrobe as he claimed and she had packed something. Tossed casual clothes into a bag.

Research… A project at my alma mater, a psych major, so probably a psych job. At the very department from which I’d obtained my union card.

I headed west on Wilshire, caught snail traffic at Crescent Heights – an orange-vested Caltrans crew, stupidest agency in the state, taking petty-fascist satisfaction in blocking off two lanes. I sat, idling along with the Seville, rolled a foot or two, sat some more, finally got past La Cienega. Unmindful of the noise and the dirt. New focus: yearning to feel useful.

I REACHED THE city-sized campus of the U just after four-thirty. More people were leaving than arriving, and the first two parking lots I tried were being retrofitted for something. University officials gripe about budget constraints, but the jackhammers are always working overtime. It’s a boom time for L.A., might endure till the next time the earth shrugs.

It was nearly five P.M. when I hurried up the stairs to the psych building, hoping someone would be around. The cement-and-stucco waffle had been repainted: from off-white to a golden beige with chartreuse overtones. Uncommonly bright for a place devoted to the joys of artificial intelligence and compelling brain-lesioned rats to race through ever more Machiavellian mazes. Maybe boom times hadn’t loosened up grant money and the new hue was an attempt to connote warmth and availability. If so, eight stories of Skinner-box architecture said forget it.

By the time I entered the main office, half the lights were out and only one secretary remained, locking up. But the right secretary – a plump, ginger-haired young woman named Mary Lou Whiteacre, whose five-year-old son I’d treated last year.

Brandon Whiteacre was a nice little boy, soft and artistic, with his mother’s coloring and scared-bunny eyes. A freeway pileup had shattered his grandmother’s hip and sent him to the hospital for observation. Brandon had escaped with nothing broken other than his confidence, and soon he began wetting his bed and waking up screaming. Mary Lou got my name from the alumni referral list, but the department wasn’t picking up the tab. She was reeling from the crash and still chafing under the financial hardships imposed by a three-year-old divorce. Her HMO offered the usual cruelty. I treated Brandon for free.

My footsteps made her look up, and though she smiled she seemed momentarily frightened, as if I’d come to revoke her son’s recovery.

“Dr. Delaware.”

“Hi, Mary Lou. How’s everything?”

The red hair was a flyaway frizz that she patted down. “Brandon’s doing great – I probably should have called you to tell you.” She approached the counter. “Thanks so much for your help, Dr. Delaware.”

“My pleasure. How’s your mom?”

She frowned. “Her hip’s taking a long time to heal, and the other driver’s being a butt – denying responsibility. We finally got ourselves a lawyer, but everything just drags out. So what brings you here?”

“I’m trying to locate a student who was involved in research.”

“A grad student?”

“Undergrad. I assume you have a record of ongoing projects.”

“Well,” she said, “that’s generally not public information, but I’m sure you’ve got a good reason…”

“This girl’s gone missing for a week, Mary Lou. The police can’t do much, and her mother’s frantic.”

“Oh, no – but it’s midquarter break. Students take off.”

“She didn’t tell her mother or her roommate, though she did say she’d continue to come here even during the break, to do research. So maybe the job took her out of town. A conference, or some kind of fieldwork.”

“She didn’t tell her mom anything?”

“Not a word.”

She crossed the room to a wall of file cabinets. Same golden beige. The outcome of someone’s experiment on color perception? Out came a two-inch-thick computer printout that she laid on a desk and flipped through. “What’s her name?”

“Lauren Teague.”

She searched, shook her head. “No one by that name registered with personnel on any federal or state grants – let’s see about private foundations.” Another flip. She looked up, with the same worried expression I’d seen on her first visit to my office. Psychology’s code of ethics forbids bartering with a patient. I’d traded something with her, wondered if I’d stepped over the line.

“Nothing.”

“Maybe there’s a misunderstanding,” I said. “Thanks.”

She crossed her mouth with an index finger. “Wait a second – when it’s part-time work, sometimes the professors hire out through one of those employee management firms. It avoids having to pay benefits.”

Another cabinet, another printout. “Nope, no Lauren Teague. Doesn’t look as if she’s working here, Dr. Delaware. You’re sure the study was in psychology? Some of the other departments have behavioral science grants – sociology, biology?”

“I assumed psychology, but you could be right,” I said.

“Let me call over to the administration building, see what the central employee files turn up.” Glance at the wall clock. “Maybe I can catch someone.”

“I really appreciate this, Mary Lou.”

“Don’t even think about it,” she said, as she dialed. “I’m a mom.”

No job listing anywhere on campus. Mary Lou looked embarrassed – an honest person confronting a lie.

“But,” she said, “they do have her enrolled. Junior psych major, transferred from Santa Monica College. Tell you what – I’ll pull our copy of her transcript. I can’t give you her grades, but I will tell you which professors she took classes from. Maybe they know something.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Hey,” she said, “we’re not even close to even in the thank-you department… Okay, here we go: This past quarter she took a full load – four psych courses: Introductory Learning Theory with Professor Hall, Perception with Professor de Maartens, Developmental with Ronninger, Intro Social Psych with Dalby.”

“Gene Dalby?”

“Uh-huh.”

“We were classmates,” I said. “Didn’t know he switched from clinical practice to teaching Social.”

“He came on full-time a couple of years ago. Good guy, one of the less pompous ones. Even though he drives a Jag.” Her eyes rounded and she pretended to slap her wrist. “Forget I said that.” She began to return the transcript to the drawer.

“Lauren told her mother she got straight A’s.”

“Like I said, Dr. Delaware, grades are confidential.” Her eyes dropped to the paper. Tiny smile. “But if I was her mother I’d be proud. Smart girl like that, I’m sure there’s an explanation. Here, let me write those professors’ names down for you. Ronninger’s on sabbatical, but the others are teaching all year. By this time I doubt they’re in, but good luck.”

“Thanks. You’d make a good detective.”

“Me?” she said. “Never. I don’t like surprises.”

She locked up, and I walked her through the lobby, both our footsteps echoing on black terrazzo. When she was gone I strode back to the elevators and read the directory. Simon de Maartens’s office was on the fifth floor, Stephen Z. Hall’s and Gene R. Dalby’s on the sixth.

I pushed the button and waited and thought about Lauren’s lie to Andrew Salander. No research job. Probably covering for her real employment. Stripping, hooking, both. Resuming her old ways. Or she’d never stopped.

Runway modeling. Another lie? Or maybe gigs at the Fashion Mart were just another way to cash in on her looks.

Smart kid, but enrollment in college and good grades weren’t contradictory to plying the flesh trade. Back when Lauren had worked for Gretchen Stengel, the Westside Madam had employed several college girls. Beautiful young women making easy money – big money. Someone able to compartmentalize and rationalize would find the logic unassailable: Why give up five-hundred-dollar tricks for a six-buck-an-hour part-time bottle-washing gig without benefits?