Jonathan Kellerman - Flesh And Blood

“Just thought I’d mention it.”

“I’ll keep it in mind if nothing else turns up on Lauren. Meanwhile, I’ve got uniforms headed over to her apartment to secure the premises and keep an eye on the roommate. Got a name on her?”

“Him. Andrew Salander. Mid-twenties. Tends bar at The Cloisters.”

“The Cloisters,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Short, skinny, pale kid with tattoos?”

“That’s him.”

“Andy.” His smile was uneasy. “Claims to fix a mean martini.”

“He doesn’t?”

“Hell if I know – I hate martinis.” He frowned. “So she roomed with Andy. Any idea how long?”

“He told me about six months. Said he’d been living downstairs in the same building, couldn’t make the rent and Lauren invited him to share.”

“Interesting.” Turning the green eyes on me. “What do you think of that? Her living with him.”

“Maybe she considered him safe.”

“Maybe he was.”

“You know something about him that makes you doubt it?”

“No,” he said. “A little too chatty for my taste, but he always seemed like a nice kid. Then again, his roomie got killed. We’ll just have to see.” He shifted in the seat. “Meanwhile, the fun part of the job: notifying Mom.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“I know you will,” he said. “I wasn’t even thinking of talking you out of it.”

“Sherman Oaks,” he said from the passenger seat.

We’d swapped the unmarked for the Seville, and I was driving north on Sepulveda. I jumped onto the 405 north on-ramp, veered to the fast lane, pushed the car up to eighty-five.

Years ago the freeway would’ve been a clear sail at this hour. Tonight I had plenty of company, mostly big trucks lumbering and small cars rushing… The nerve to get in my way. I had big plans – Jane Abbot’s life to ruin.

I wondered if she was home yet. Or would we find the addled husband, alone? From mean old Lyle to that. Marital luck didn’t seem to be her specialty.

If she was home, what would I say – how would I tell her?

“Devana Terrace,” said Milo, reciting the address he’d gotten from Motor Vehicles. “South of Ventura Boulevard.”

I knew the neighborhood. Nice. Whatever his mental state, Jane Abbot’s second husband had provided well. Remembering his feeble voice, I wondered what she’d settled for.

“The Valley,” I said. “Lauren’s father took her to a miniature golf course in the Valley the day he terminated therapy.” I told him about Lyle Teague’s deception.

“Nice man,” he said. “You trying to tell me something about him?”

“No. Lauren denied abuse.”

“But you were concerned enough to ask her.”

“There was a seductive quality to his behavior. Lauren alluded to it herself – the time she came back to see me. She said it sounded as if he’d been jealous of her time with me. But she was very clear about there being no molestation.”

“Protesting too much?” he said.

“Who knows? I didn’t have time to find out.”

He grunted, stretched his long legs. “So after Daddy killed therapy, you saw her only that once?”

“I’m still not sure why she originally made the appointment, but she ended up unloading on me. Maybe that’s all she wanted.”

He was quiet for a while. I put on more speed and he laughed nervously and I slowed to eighty. He said, “From acting-out teenybopper to stripping and doing tricks. Lots of girls in the skin trade have abuse in their backgrounds.” Another laugh. “Who the hell am I lecturing to?”

“If her father did abuse her, he’s sure not going to admit it now.”

“Let’s see how he reacts to all this – and sooner, rather than later. He may be a schmuck, but as her parent he also merits notification.”

“If you can find him.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“He walked out on Lauren and her mother years ago, remarried. Sometimes men who run, run far.”

He whipped out the cell phone. “Lyle Teague?”

“He’d be about fifty.”

He began punching numbers. The fast lane was clear for a mile or so, and I sped up once more. Milo said, “Have mercy on my colon, Dr. Daytona,” and again I eased up on the gas pedal.

A moment later he had Lyle Teague’s address. “Reseda. Looks like everyone’s in the Valley.”

“Lauren lived in the city.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe no coincidence. Distancing herself from Mom and Dad.”

“Or she wanted to be closer to the U.”

“Then why didn’t she live on the Westside?”

“More bang for her rental buck,” I said.

“Speaking of which,” he said, “any idea how she made the rent?”

“She told Salander investments, never got specific.”

“A student with investments,” he said. “Tell me everything you know about her, Alex. Right from the beginning. The long version.”

Death ends confidentiality. Freed from that hurdle, I spilled. Not much confidentiality to honor anyway. Therapy with Lauren had amounted to so little, and the retelling drove home how little I’d accomplished. When I got to Phil Harnsberger’s party, my voice grew louder, faster. Milo kept his eyes on his pad, looked up only when the Ventura Freeway appeared and I forgot to veer to the right. Realizing my error, I asserted myself across three lanes as he sat up and gripped the armrest. Managing to bounce onto the eastbound off-ramp, I tortured my shock absorbers, drove for another couple of miles, exited at Van Nuys, found the south end of the Valley comfortingly quiet.

He said, “Well, that got my heart rate up. No need for the treadmill.”

“When’s the last time you saw the inside of a gym?”

“Sometime in the Pleistocene era. Me and all the other Neanderthals, pumping chunks of granite.”

I stayed on Van Nuys, reached Valley Vista, turned left, found Devana Terrace, and cruised slowly, looking for Jane Abbot’s address.

Dark street. Pretty street. I finished the account of Lauren’s strip, the recognition that had passed between us like a virus.

Milo wanted nothing to do with the confessor role, waved his pen, said, “Remember the other girl’s name?”

“Michelle.”

“Michelle what?”

“Lauren never said.”

“Same age as Lauren?”

“Approximately. Around the same height, too. Dark-haired, maybe Latin.”

“Blonde and brunette,” he said, and I knew what he was thinking: Someone ordering a matched pair for the evening.

After I’d left, how far had Lauren and Michelle taken things?

He said, “Anyone mention the name of the company they worked for?”

“No. And even if you find the guys who organized the party, I doubt they’ll admit to anything. We’re talking medical school professors and financial types, and this was four years ago.”

“Four years ago would be right around the time Lauren was working for Gretchen Stengel. So maybe Gretchen had a party-rental sideline.”

“Where is Gretchen?”

“Don’t know. She served a couple of years for money laundering and tax evasion, but your guess is as good as mine.” He closed his pad. “Investments… So maybe Lauren stayed in the game. Be interesting if she and Michelle maintained a relationship.”

“Andrew Salander said Lauren didn’t have any friends.”

“Maybe there were things Lauren didn’t tell Andrew. Or he didn’t tell you.”

“That could very well be,” I said. Thinking: Lauren lied about the research job, so she’d probably erected other barriers. Constructing her own confidentiality.

Now all her secrets were trash.

THE HOUSE WAS too easy to find.

Two-story white colonial at the end of the block, almost grand behind black stripes of iron fencing, so brightened by high-voltage spots that it seemed to inhabit its own private daylight. Mullioned windows, green shutters, semicircular driveway, two gates, one marked ENTRY. Milo tightened the knot of his tie as I parked. We got out and walked toward the entrance gate. The night seemed drained of life force, or maybe it was the task at hand.