Flesh and Blood (25 page)

His attention was elsewhere. He held two children in his lap— a plump-looking baby not more than a few months old and a two-year-old boy with a chubby face surrounded by cloud puffs of vanilla ringlets. No lounging duds for Dad—he wore a dark suit, white shirt, dark tie. The toupee was gone, and his bald head was exposed in full, iridescent glory. Older and smaller than in the official Duke shots—as captured by the paper, The Man resembled nothing but a model grandfather.

"Paternal pride" read the caption. "Magazine mogul Marc Anthony Duke relaxes with daughter Anita and her half-sibs, tykes Baxter and Sage. Only the absence of son Ben prevented the evening from being a complete family reunion."

Son Ben.

I hurried out of the microfilm room, raced to the reference stacks, found Who's Who, pulled out the most recent copy, and paged furiously to the D's.

Duke, Marc Anthony (Dugger, Marvin George) b. Apr. 15,1929.

par. George T. and Margaret L. (Baxter). m. Lenore Mancher, June 2, 1953 (dec. 1979) children:

Benjamin J., Anita C.

m. Sylvana Spring (Cheryl Soames) June 2, 1995 (div.) children: Baxter M., Sage A. ...

The rest didn't concern me.

Son Ben.

Professor Monique Lindquist's laughter rang in my ears.

The sex angle—if that's what you want from Ben Dugger . . .

Dugger dressed and drove below his means, used his father's real surname, eschewed the camera. Casting off notoriety? Rejecting what his father stood for? Both?

Now his research made sense.

The mathematics of intimacy.

Reducing sweat and libido to grids and statistics.

The anti-Duke. Sins of the fathers . . . bearing some kind of guilt—had his church visit been part of a chronic quest for absolution?

An older man. Filling the Daddy void.

When I'd learned about Gretchen's visit to his father's estate, I'd veered away from Dugger, but now I was right back where I'd started.

Maybe it hadn't been Tony Gretchen had come to see.

Shawna Yeager posing for Duke magazine. Lauren, reminding herself to call "Dr. D." to talk about intimacy. Getting a job with Dugger, spending time with him in Newport Beach coffee shops—meals Dugger claimed were no more than vocational guidance. Dugger blushing and sweating as he insisted intimacy hadn't crept into his time with Lauren. But pseudointimacy was exactly what Lauren had sold, and a man could be forgiven for failing to see the truth.

Self-delusion . . . Lauren, shot to death. Michelle, shot to death, maybe because Lauren had confided in her. Shawna, posing for someone who claimed to be working for Duke.

There had to be a syllogism floating somewhere in that tangle.

I had bad news for Milo.

19

SHORTLY AFTER FIVE P.M. he called me back.

"Official confirmation on Michelle and the boyfriend." No triumph in his voice. "His full name's Hartley Lance Flowrig. Bachelor's degree in shoplifting and burglary, mostly real dumb stuff, no violence. Maybe he and Michelle got desperate and tried to break into the wrong house. Neighborhood like theirs, that could be dangerous."

"Maybe," I said. "But guess what?"

He took the news of Ben Bugger's lineage more calmly than I expected.

"So maybe Lauren told Michelle about something Dugger would like kept private—a nasty kink, something at odds with his nice-guy image. Something that could damage him as well as his dad. Or expose the link to his dad—he seems to be doing his best to hide his family background. Once Lauren was gone, Michelle and Lance decided to profit from the information. Gretchen knew you'd get to them eventually, tipped off someone at the Duke estate."

He let out a long, low whoosh of resignation, then laughed. "Tony Duke and Dr. Ben. No way I'd have made that connection."

"That's exactly the point. I picked up some kind of sexual hang-up, and I'll bet I was right. Dugger wears frayed shirts, distances himself from his father and everything his father stands for. But maybe it's a case of protesting too much."

"Running from his own quirks ... So you're back on Junior. What about Senior?"

"Who knows?" I said. "But at this point that visit to Newport doesn't seem like a bad idea. Not that Dugger won't be prepared—he just about invited you to drop by. But throw out Shawna's name at a strategic moment and see how he reacts. And check out the staff—see if anyone looks antsy."

"Shawna," he said. "Who might've posed for Duke"

"Or someone she believed was working for Duke. What if Dugger only used his connections once in a while—to attract young, gorgeous blondes. Not a bad ploy at all, especially when he had a genuine link to back it up, could throw in a visit to the estate. And maybe he scammed Lauren too. Despite her years on the street, she could've been seduced by big bucks. Maybe those calls to Malibu were hooking up with Junior, his not wanting her to call him at either his home or Daddy's. Someone as nondescript as Dugger could've used that phone booth without being noticed."

"A rich kid," he said. "Pretending to be regular folks . . . Okay, let's do Newport tomorrow. I love Orange County—how can you not dig a place that names its airport after John Wayne?"

"Sure you want me along?" I said. "To Dugger I'm the bad cop."

"Exactly."

At nine A.M. Milo rolled onto my property. I had my keys out and headed toward the Seville.

"No," he said, slapping the driver's door of the unmarked, "we'll take the Ferrari. I want this to look official. Hence the tie—excellent choice, by the way. Nice power stripes—Italian?"

I checked the label. "So it says." I regarded the blue polyester ribbon riding his paunch. "Where's yours from?"

"The Planet Vulgaro." He tugged at the knot, licked his pinkie, pretended to slick his hair. "Spiffed and ready for action. What a team."

As he drove past the gateposts I said, "You tell Dugger we were com-ing?"

He nodded. "Mr. Cooperative. Sounds a little depressed, though. I seem to have that effect on people."

When we reached Sunset I said, "Leo Riley."

"What about him?"

"How would you rate him on the ace detective scale?"

"Average. Why?"

"Adam Green had the feeling Riley was phoning in the investigation on Shawna, just biding his time till retirement. Then again, he's kind of a mouthy kid and had nothing to offer Riley but guesses about an affair with a professor."

"Leo ... I called him a few days ago—he's living out in Coachella. Because I did look up the Yeager file, and there's not much in it. Left a message—he hasn't called me back."

"Not much in the file because there wasn't much to know—or was Green right about Riley?"

"Maybe both," he said. "No, Leo was no workaholic. . . . Still, there wasn't much to go on. She told her roommate she was going to the library and never came back. Like I told you before, Leo figured it for a psycho sex thing, and I can't say I argued with him. He even made some crack about it turning into a serial killer, and by that time he'd be playing golf in the desert and growing skin cancer. Let's see what he says when he does call back. Meanwhile, I've been thinking about Gretchen's trip to Duke's place. What do you think—collecting for services rendered?"

"Gretchen's never been picky about what she sells."

"Something else," he said. "What Salander said—the whole deal about Lauren not wanting to be controlled by her mom. During the notification interview Jane Abbot did all the right things grief-wise. But basically she gave us nothing. Usually the family throws something at you—wild guesses, suspicions, useless stuff, sometimes a real lead. Jane cried a lot, but there was none of that from her. So I called her last night, left a message." His eyes shifted toward me. "She still hasn't gotten back to me. Which leads me to the fact that she hasn't called me once since the notification. That is also not typical, Alex. Your usual middle-class homicide, I get bombarded with messages: what progress has been made, how soon's the autopsy gonna be over, when can we claim the body, have a funeral. Generally, my problem is playing shrink and clerk and still trying to do my job. This lady—not only doesn't she get in touch on her own, she doesn't take the time to call back.'"

"Meaning?"

"Meaning is there anything more I should know about her?"

"No," I said. "I barely knew her. Barely knew Lauren."

He gave a cold smile. "And look where that got you."

"The price of fame."

"Yeah— Alex, I guess what I'm saying is there's something about Jane—like maybe she knows something she isn't letting on. The Duke angle's nice and juicy, but what if this all traces back in some way to Lau-ren's family—Jane, that asshole dad, whatever. I did some checking on oP Lyle. Couple of DUI's, but that's it. Still, you know better than anyone, this was not one happy family. Is there anything I should be looking at?"

I thought about that as Sunset sloped upward and the 405 on-ramp appeared. Milo pushed down harder on the accelerator, and the unmarked kicked, shuddered, and jammed into high gear.

"Maybe Jane hasn't called back because she's gone into seclusion," I said.

"With Mel? Where? They both check into some rest home? So that's my answer, huh? Don't waste my time in the Valley."

"I can't think of anything."

"Fair enough." His hands were white around the wheel as he sped onto the freeway, narrowly passing a Jaguar sedan and eliciting angry honks. "Fuck you too," he told the rearview mirror. "Alex, let's say there is no big family issue. But what if Lauren got hold of juicy info on Dug-ger or Duke or whoever and passed it along to Jane? Maybe Jane reacted strongly—told her to keep her mouth shut, whatever, and that was the control thing Lauren talked about to Salander."

"Lauren had been out of the house for years," I said. "Had just reconnected with Jane. Their relationship was still thawing. That doesn't mesh with her confiding something explosive, but maybe. When times get rough sometimes the chicks return to roost."

"So maybe Jane hasn't been in touch with me because she's scared. Has an idea what led to Lauren's death and is worried it could be dangerous for her too. That would be enough to get her to hold back on a lead to Lauren's murder— I know, I know, now it's me who's hypothesizing. But when I'm finished with Dugger, I definitely want another try at her."

"Makes sense," I said.

He grinned fiercely. "Makes no sense evidence-wise, but thanks for theemotional validation. I'm flopping around like a fish on the pier— I know you like Dugger, but he just doesn't bother me. I don't pick up any guilt vibe. Sure, he reacted strongly to the news of Lauren's death, but my immediate impression was it was just that: news. Okay, he was sweating, and maybe he and Lauren were doing the dirty— Let's see if any of those Newport restaurants remember serious smooching. But still, he doesn't give off any of that fear-hormone stink. He's depressed, not spooked. . . . What the hell, he could be a primary psychopath—hog-tied her, shot her, dumped her, and ate a candy bar afterward, and I'm being played like a cheap harmonica. Have you seen anything that points to that level of disturbance? I mean, you should've heard the ex-wife—ready to beatify the guy."

"Psychopaths don't get anxious, but they do get depressed. Let's take a closer look at him today."

Milo frowned, rubbed his face. "Sure. What the hell, at least we'll get another trip to the beach."

Just before LAX the freeway clogged. We rolled slowly toward El Segundo, and when the clog gave way Milo said, "What do you think Tony Duke's worth—couple of hundred million?"

"The magazine's not what it used to be," I said, "but sure, that wouldn't surprise me. Why do you ask?"

"I was just thinking. Big stakes if something Dugger did do placed the old man in jeopardy. As in sexual violence. 'Cause Duke's image is good, clean licentiousness, right?"

A few miles later: "Think about it, Alex: John Wayne Airport. . . . The guy spent World War II on the Warner's lot and he's a combat hero. . . . Welcome to the land of illusion."

"Maybe that's why Dugger likes it here."

Newport Beach sits forty miles south of L.A. Milo violated as many traffic laws as he could think of, but the LAX slowdown turned the trip into a full hour. Exiting at the 55 south, he stayed on the highway as it became Newport Boulevard, sped past miles of basic SoCal strip mall and some spanking new shopping centers with all the charm of theme parks on Prozac. The first evidence of maritime influence—boat brokers—appeared as we switched to Balboa, and soon I was seeing lots of anchor motifs, restaurants claiming FRESH FISH! and HAPPY HOUR! and people dressed for the beach. A silvery winter sky said the sand would be gray and cool, but there was no shortage of bare skin. I opened the window. Ten degrees warmer than L.A. Salt smell, clean and fresh. Between this and Santa Monica, Ben Dugger's lungs would have to be pink and pretty.

A few blocks later Balboa turned narrow and residential: beautifully landscaped two-story homes lining both sides of the boulevard, beach view to the west, marina vista across the street. A turn onto Balboa East took us past more sparkling windows, bougainvillea flowing from railings, Porsches and Lexuses and Range Rovers lolling in cobbled driveways. Then a two-block, low-profile commercial stretch appeared, and Milo said, "Should be right around here."

The shop fronts were shaded by multicolored awnings. More shade from street trees, immaculate sidewalks, easy parking, bird chirps, the merest drumbeat of the tide rolling in lazily. Cafes, chiropractors, wine merchants, beachwear boutiques, a dry cleaner. The address Dugger had given for Motivational Associates matched a one-story, seafoam green stucco structure near the corner of Balboa East and A Street. No signage, just a teak door and two draped windows. The immediate neighbors were a dress shop with a window full of chiffon and a storefront eatery labeled simply CHINESE RESTAURANT! Behind the glass front of the cafe, an Asian man played the deep fryers at warp speed as the woman next to him chopped with a cleaver. The aroma of egg rolls mingled with Pacific brine.

We parked, got out, and Milo knocked on the teak door. The wood was highly varnished, like a boat's deck; with so many coats laid on the thump barely resonated. Ben Dugger opened and said, "You made good time."