Flesh and Blood (22 page)

We drove up Ocean. Night had settled in, streetlights were hazed, the ocean was reduced to a slash of reflection.

"He blushed the first time you used the word sexy, and he was sweating," I said. "Did plenty of his own eye calisthenics, mostly when you suggested something personal between him and Lauren."

"Yeah, but he looked genuinely shocked when he found out Lauren was dead."

"Yes, he did," I admitted. "I thought he was going to fall down. Still, that's a strong reaction for an employer, wouldn't you say?"

He guided the wheel with one finger. "So maybe he was screwing her—or wanted to. Doesn't mean he killed her."

"True. Then again, he could be characterized as an intellectual with bucks—nice penthouse. Be interesting to get a look at his bankbook, see if there are any withdrawals that match Lauren's deposits."

"No way to do that," he said. "Not at this point. The guy's not even close to warrant material—at this point he's done nothing to even justify a reinterview. But after I have a look at Lauren's time cards tomorrow, I'll check out some of those coffee shops he mentioned. If anyone saw hanky-panky between him and Lauren, I'll start talking to the D.A."

"Want me there?"He chewed his cheek. "No, I think I'd better do this alone. Got to be careful procedurally."

"He doesn't like me."

"Well," he said, smiling, "I don't know how anyone couldn't likeyou, but right now I'm shining in comparison. Let me ask you about that experiment of his. Sound kosher?"

"Hard to say. I wonder who his client is."

"What if Lauren did get to know one of the subjects—put two people in a room and who knows what can happen. Or suppose a subject got turned on to her, decided to pursue it, and it turned ugly."

"Or what you suggested: A subject found out he'd been conned, didn't like that one bit. He claims confidentiality, but how hard would it be for a guy to sit and wait for Lauren to come out."

"I'd love to have his subject list, but unless he decides to cooperate voluntarily, forget it. Maybe I'll appeal to his sense of morality—he strikes me as someone who likes to think of himself as upstanding, buying stuff for poor kids. He's already been tenderized—maybe he'll bleed some."

He turned right on Wilshire, cruised past the Third Street Promenade, glanced at shoppers strolling, panhandlers trolling.

"What about his ex-wife?" I said. "If anyone's gonna debeatify him, who better?"

He smiled. "You want to knock him off his pedestal."

"Maybe I do," I said. "I guess something about him bugs me—too good to be true."

"Tsk, tsk, such cynicism."

"Comes from spending too much time with you."

"About time you learned," he said.

Lauren's murder rated three back-page Metro paragraphs in the next morning's Times. The story listed her as a student.

I'd woken up thinking Benjamin Dugger. And Shawna Yeager.

The fact that Dugger's intimacy ad had run during the weeks before both women's disappearances— Milo was right about there being no logical connection, but rationality was his province; I was free to be foolish.

I turned it over for a while, decided to look for Adam Green, the student journalist who'd covered Shawna's story.

Back to the phone book, the four Green, Adams. In 310; Lord knewhow many others existed in the panoply of area codes that blanketed L.A. I began calling, got two wrong numbers, a disconnected line, then a phone message that sounded promising:

"This is Adam Green. I may be out seeking inspiration or slaving away at my word processor or just pursuing pleasure. Either way, if you don't think life sucks, leave a message."

Nasal baritone. Boy to man.

I said, "Mr. Green, this is Alex Delaware. I'm a psychologist working with the L.A. Police Department and would like to talk to you about Shawna Yeag—"

"This is Adam. Shawna? You've got to be kidding."

"No, I'm not."

"They're reopening Shawna? Unreal. Did something happen—did they finally find her?"

"No," I said. "Nothing that dramatic. Her name came up during another investigation."

"Investigation of what?"

"Are you still a journalist, Mr. Green?"

Laughter. "A journalist? As in working for the Cub"! No, I graduated. I'm a freelance write— Scratch that, that's pretentious, I write ad copy. 'Golden Dewdrops, an organic breath of morning freshness.' Half of that was mine."

"Which half?"

"You don't want to know— So what's up with Shawna? What's this other investigation all about?"

"Sorry, I can't get into that," I said. "But—"

"But I'm supposed to talk to you." He laughed again. "Psychologist, huh? What is this, some kind of FBI profiling thing? Doing a special for A & E?"

"No, I really am working with LAPD. I was reviewing Shawna's case and came across your coverage in the Cub. You were more thorough than anyone else and—"

"Now you're butt-kissing. Yeah, I was good, wasn't I? Not that there was much competition. No one else seemed to give a damn. Too bad Shawna's dad wasn't a senator."

"Big-time apathy?"

"I won't say that, but it wasn't exactly a task force offensive either. Theunicops did their thing, but they're no geniuses. And the guy LAPD assigned was an old fart—Riley."

"Leo Riley."

"Yeah. Ready to retire—I always felt he was phoning it in."

"Where'd you get the material for your coverage?"

"Hung around the unicop station—mostly watched them work the phones and tack up flyers. When I bugged them, they treated me like a pain-in-the-ass kid—which I was, but so what, I was still covering it. I got the distinct feeling I was the only one making a deal out of it. Except for Mrs. Yeager, of course—Shawna's mother. Not that it did her much good—they shined her on too. Finally, she started complaining, and some dean and the head unicop met with her and told her they were really on it. She didn't think much of Riley either."

He paused. "I think Shawna's dead—I think she was dead soon after she disappeared."

"Why do you say that?"

"It's just a feeling I have. If she was alive, why wouldn't she have turned up by now?"

"Could we talk about this face-to-face?" I said. "Breakfast, lunch, or whatever?"

"LAPD's buying?"

"I'm buying."

"Cool," he said. "Sure, my screen's blank, anyway—can't gear myself up for a go at 'Ginkoba Ginger Gumdrops.' Let's see, what time is it— ten. Make it brunch, eleven. I'm over in Baja Beverly Hills—Edris and Pico, east of Century City. There's a Noah's Bagel right down the block—nope, too dinky. How about the kosher deli on Pico near Robert-son?"

"Sure, I know the place."

"Or maybe I should go for something even pricier."

"The deli's fine."

"Yada yada," he said. "Maybe I'll get an extra sandwich to go."

I arrived ten minutes early, secured a rear booth, and nibbled sour pickles while I waited. The deli was clean and quiet. Two elderly couples bent over soup, one young, bewigged Orthodox Jewish mother corralled five kids under the age of seven, and a Mexican weight lifter in bicycle tightsand a sleeveless sweatshirt trained on chopped liver and a rye heel and a pitcher of iced tea.

Adam Green showed up at 11:05. He was a tall, lanky, dark-haired kid wearing a black V-neck sweater over a white T-shirt, and regular-cut blue jeans that transformed to easy-fit baggy on his ectomorphic frame. Size-thirteen sneakers, gangly limbs, a face that would've been teen-idol handsome but for not quite enough chin. His hair was short and curly, and his sideburns dropped an inch lower than Milo's. A tiny gold hoop pierced his left eyebrow. He spotted me immediately, plopped down hard, and grabbed a pickle.

"Killer traffic. This city is starting to entropize." He bit down, chewed,

grinned.

"L.A. native?" I asked.

"Third generation. My grandfather remembers horses in Boyle Heights and vineyards on Robertson." Finishing the pickle, he lifted a mustard jar, rolled it between his palms. "Okay, now that we're auld acquaintances, let's cut to the chase: What's really up with Shawna?"

"Just what I told you."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Another investigation. But why? 'Cause some other girl dropped off the face of the earth?"

"Something like that," I said.

"Something like that. ... I always thought it would make a good book, Shawna's story. Death of a Beauty Queen—something like that. You'd need an ending, though."

A waitress came over. I ordered a burger and a Coke, and Green asked for a triple-decker pastrami-turkey-corned beef deluxe with extra mayo and a large root beer.

"And to go?" I said.

He showed lots of teeth and slapped his back against the booth. "Don't think you're safe yet."

When we were alone again, he looked ready to ask another question, but I got there first. "So you think Shawna was dead soon after she went missing?"

"Actually, at first I thought she'd gone off with a guy or something. You know—a fling. Then when she didn't show up, I thought she was dead. Am I right?"

"Why a fling?"

"'Cause people do that. Am I right about her probably being dead?"

"Could be," I said. "Did you learn anything about Shawna that you didn't put in your articles?"

He didn't answer, had another go at the mustard jar.

"What?" I said.

He blew out air. "It's like this. Her mom was a nice person. Basic—as in countrified. I don't think she'd been to L.A. in years—she kept talking about how noisy it was. So here she was, someone who'd grown up in this hick town, raised a daughter all by herself. Shawna's dad died when she was little—some kind of trucker. Just like a country song. And the daughter turns out to be gorgeous, goes on to become a beauty queen."

"Miss Olive."

"Shawna's idea—entering pageants. Her mom never pushed her—at least that's what she said, and I believe her. There was something about Mrs. Yeager. Straight. Salt of the earth. She supported herself and Shawna waiting tables and cleaning houses. They lived in a mobile home. Shawna was her main source of pride, then Shawna wins that Olive thing, announces she hates Santo Leon, is going up to L.A. to study at the U. Mrs. Yeager lets her go, but she worries all the time. About L.A., the crime. Then it happens—her worst nightmare comes true. I mean, can you think of anything worse?"

I shook my head.

He said, "Mrs. Yeager was destroyed—completely. It was pathetic. She comes up here by herself, no money, not a clue as to what things are like. The U— Just the size of it scared her. She hadn't made any plans to stay anywhere, ended up in a crappy motel. Near Alvarado, for God's sake. She was taking two-hour bus rides to Westwood, taking her life in her hands walking around MacArthur Park at night. No one's giving her guidance, no one's giving her the time of day. Finally, she gets her purse snatched and the U puts her in a dorm room. But still, no one's really paying her any attention. I was the only one."

He frowned. "To be honest, I went after the story in the beginning because I thought it was a cool human-interest hook. Then, after I met Mrs. Yeager, I forgot about that— Mostly I sat there while she cried. It kind of soured me on journalism."

He put the mustard jar down, finished his pickle, snagged another.

"You liked Mrs. Yeager," I said. "That's why you didn't answer myquestion about material you kept out of your articles. You'd hate to do anything that compounded her grief."

"The point is, what good is it gonna do? If no one's found Shawna yet, she's probably never going to be found. You're doing some profile thing to collect data, whatever reason, but you probably don't care either. So what's the point? Why add to Mrs. Yeager's misery?"

"It might help solve another case," I said. "Maybe Shawna's too."

He chewed noisily, lowered his head.

"It might, Mr. Green."

No answer.

"What did you find out about Shawna?" I said. "It won't be released publicly unless lives are at stake."

He looked up. "Lives at stake. Sounds ominous." His eyes were bright blue, charged with curiosity. "Hey, here comes the grub."

The waitress brought our sandwiches. My burger was good, and I ate half before putting it down. Adam Green's order was a massive thing dripping with cold cuts and coleslaw, and he chomped furiously.

"I still don't see why I should tell you anything," he finally said.

"It's the right thing to do."

"So you say."

"Yes, I do."

He wiped his lips, held the sandwich like a shield. "Look, I need something out of this. If anything gets resolved—what happened to Shawna, or the other case you're working on—I need to know before any of the media. 'Cause maybe I should write a book. Or at least an article for a magazine." He wiped his mouth. "The truth is, it stayed with me— Shawna. She was so gorgeous, smart, had everything going for her—here she was, just a few years younger than me, and then it was all over for her. I've got a sister her age."

"At the U?"

"No, Brown." He placed what was left of his sandwich on his plate, reverentially, like an offering. "We're talking great story elements here. If it's not a book, it could be a screenplay. You learn something, I've got to know. Deal?"

"If the case resolves, you'll be the first writer to know."

"That sounds kind of ambiguous."

"It's not," I said, without taking my eyes off him. He tried for impassive, fell way short. Just a kid. I felt exploitative, told myself he was over twenty-one, had come here voluntarily, was trying his own wheel-and-deal.

"Okay, okay," he said. "It's no big thing anyway. The basic point is that Shawna might not have been such an innocent farm girl."

He took another giant gulp of sandwich, washed it down with root beer. I waited.

"Shawna—and this isn't fact, it's just my assumption, that's why I never published it, along with not wanting to hurt Mrs. Yeager. Also, I did tell Riley and the unicops and they ignored me. The fact that you're here tells me they never even bothered to put it in their file. Because obviously if they did, you'd have read it."

"What did you learn, Adam?"

"Okay," he said. "Shawna might've posed nude. Done a photo shoot for Duke magazine—or what she thought was a shoot for Duke magazine, 'cause I think it might've been a scam."