Flesh and Blood (14 page)

Milo shook his head.

Salander said, "You should see it. Really funny—"

"What'd you do after shopping?"

"Came back, had some dinner, got dressed for work, came here. The next day I slept late. Till three. Why are you asking me all this? You can't seriously think ..."

"Routine questions," said Milo.

"That's so TV," said Salander. "So Jack Webb." Trying to smile, but his face had lost tone, as if someone had yanked out the bones.

"Okay, Andy," said Milo. "There are police officers at your apartment. It's going to be disruptive for a while. Legally, I don't need your permission to search, but I'd like to know that I have your cooperation."

"Sure. Of course—you mean my room too?"

"If the search does carry over to your room, would you have a problem with that?"

Salander kicked one shoe with the other. "I mean, I wouldn't want my stuff trashed, or anything."

"I'll do it myself, Andy. Make sure everything gets put back in place."

"Sure—but can I ask why, Mr. Sturgis? What does my room have to do with anything?"

"I need to be thorough."

Salander's narrow shoulders rose and fell. "I guess. Why not, I have nothing to hide. Nothing's ever going to be the same, is it? Can I go back to work now?"

"When do you get off shift?"

"Four—then I clean up."

"The officers may still be there when you arrive—you are planning to come home."

"Where else would I go? At least for now."

"For now?"

"I don't know if I can afford the place by myself. . . . Oh, God, this is just so nauseating— Did she suffer?"

"I don't have the forensic details yet."

"Who would do this?" said Salander. "What kind of twisted mind— Oh, Mr. Sturgis, I feel as if everything's unraveling."

Milo said, "Yeah, it's rough." He looked out at the traffic on Santa Monica, eyes unreadable. Then a glance at me.

I said, "Andrew, that lunch Lauren had with her mother, when she said she didn't want to be controlled? Do you have any idea what she meant?"

"No. And even when she was upset at Mrs. A, she said she knew her mother loved her."

"What about her father? Did he ever come up?"

"No, she never talked about him—refused to. Just clammed up the first time I brought him up, so I never did that again. It was pretty obvious she had no use for him."

"But she never said why."

Headshake. "There are so many reasons, though, aren't there," he said. "So many men who screw up fatherhood."

"So," I said, "you have no idea what the control issue was?"

"I just thought it was one of those family tension things, you know. I mean it's not as if she told me about any big festering Jerry Springer thing."

Salander rubbed the back of his head against the wall. "This is horrible, I hate this."

"Hate what, Andy?"

"Talking about Lauren in the past tense—thinking about her suffering. Can I get back to work?"

"The show must go on?" said Milo.

Salander froze. "That was unkind, Mr. Sturgis. I cared about her, I really did. We cared for each other, loved to hang out together, but we didn't—she didn't confide in me. Can I help it if she didn't confide? What I told the doctor about that lunch is all that I remember. She came back and looked miffed, didn't want to talk about it, and I tried to get her to open up. But she really didn't."

"What did she say—as closely as you can remember?" I said.

"Something to the effect that she'd come this far on her own and wouldn't be controlled—that's it. Come to think about it, she might not have even said controlled by Mrs. A, specifically. I just assumed that's who she was talking about, because it was Mrs. A she'd just had lunch with." He sidestepped closer to The Cloisters' front door.

"Let's get back to that research job," said Milo. "What else do you know about it?"

"Something to do with psychology—or maybe I'm assuming that, too. I'm so shook up, I don't even know what I know."

"When did the job start?"

Salander thought. "Soon after the quarter started—so maybe two, three months ago. Or maybe even before the quarter—I can't swear to anything."

"Was it a five-day-a-week job?" said Milo.

"No, it was irregular. Sometimes she'd work every day of the week, then she'd have days off. But I really wasn't paying attention to her schedule. Half the time she was up and around, I was sleeping."

"What else did she tell you about the job?"

"Just that she enjoyed it."

"Nothing else?"

"Nope."

"Did she mention who she worked for? What the project was?"

"No, just that she enjoyed it. I'm sure you can find out at the U."

"That's the problem, Andy," said Milo. "We can't seem to find any trace of her working at the U."

Salander's mouth dropped open. "How can that be? I'm sure it's some mistake—she definitely told me it was on campus. That I do remember."

"Well," said Milo.

"Why would she make up something like that?"

"Good question, Andy."

"My . . . You think the job had something to do with ..."

"I'm not saying anything, Andy. But when people don't tell the truth ..."

"Oh, Lauren," said Salander. He put his back to the wall of the building, cupped his hand over his eyes. "Oh, my."

"What is it?" said Milo.

"I'm all alone now."

During the drive to Hauser and Sixth, Milo ran Salander's name through the files. One traffic ticket last year, no wants or warrants, no criminal record. Milo closed his eyes, and I realized how numb I felt— deadened and tired and marginal. We cruised the rest of the way in silence, gliding through city streets stripped of light and humanity.

Two squad cars and a crime-scene van were parked outside Lauren's building. A uniform guarded the entrance. Another was stationed upstairs. Someone had opened the door to apartment 4. Inside the living room a young black woman kneeled and dusted and scraped.

"Loretta," said Milo.

"Morning, Milo."

"Yeah, guess it is. Anything?"

"Lots of prints, as usual. So far, no blood, and the only semen's on the roommate's sheets. Nothing looks disturbed."

"The roommate," said Milo.

"Did both bedrooms," said the tech. "Was that okay?"

"Perfect."

"Nothing's perfect," said Loretta. "Not even me."

We entered Salander's room first. Midnight blue velvet walls and shabby-looking tapestry drapes turned the stingy space gloomy. A black iron queen-sized bed canopied by billows of what looked like cheesecloth took up most of the floor. A fake Persian rug left only a foot-wide border of scuffed board. Lining the ceiling were more of the gilded moldings I'd seen in the living room. A small TV and VCR perched atop a pale blue bureau decoupaged with pink cabbage roses. Replicas of Russian icons and filigreed crucifixes hung on the wall along with a white-framed photo of Salander and a stolid-looking couple in their fifties. At the bottom of the frame, someone had written in black marker: "Mom and Dad, Bloomington, Ind. 'The Olde Country.'"In the top drawer of the bureau, Milo found neatly folded clothing, tissues and eyedrops, a box of disposable contact lenses, six packets of condoms, and a passbook from Washington Mutual Bank.

"Four hundred bucks," he said, flipping pages. "Little Andy's highest balance for the year is fifteen hundred." He ran through the book several times. "Every two weeks he deposits nine hundred—gotta be his take home. On the fifteenth, he withdraws six hundred—the rent—spends around eight or so. Leaving a hundred or so in savings, but it looks like he eventually spends that too."

"Tight budget," I said. "He will have trouble making the rent by himself."

He frowned and replaced the bankbook. "Giving him a legit reason to cut out."

"You're worried about him? I noticed you did ask him about time and place."

"No specific reason to worry," he said. "But no reason not to either. He's the last person to see her alive, and that's always interesting."

Opening the closet door, he ran his hands over pressed jeans and khakis, two pairs of black slacks, several blue button-down shirts like the one Salander wore at the bar, a black leather jacket. Black oxfords, brown loafers, Nikes, and one pair of tan demiboots on the floor. Nothing on the top shelf. Plenty of empty space.

"Okay," said Milo. "On to the main event."

Lauren's room was larger than Salander's by half. Bare oak floors, walls painted the palest of yellows, and a low, narrow single bed with no headboard increased the feeling of space. Her dresser was a white, three-drawer affair. Flanking it on each side were low teak bookcases with the slightly askew stance of self-assembly. Hardback books filled every shelf.

Next to the bed was a matching teak desk with a built-in file drawer. Milo began there, and it didn't take long to find what he was looking for.

"Smith Barney brokerage account. Out of town—Seattle."

"Wanting things private?" I said. Thinking: Lauren had thrived on secrets. Kept everything segmented.

He turned pages, ran his finger down columns. "She kept some loose cash in a money market, the rest is in high-yield mutual funds. . . . Well, well, well, look at this: quite a different league from little Andy. She's putaway three hundred forty thousand dollars and some change in ... a little over four years. . . . First deposit is a hundred grand, four years ago, December. . . . Then fifty a year for the next three — last one was three weeks ago. Nice and steady — wonder where it came from."

I do great with tips.

He opened another drawer. "Let's see if she keeps her tax returns here. Be interesting to know how she categorized her employment."

He found a paper-clipped stack of Visa Gold receipts that he examined as I looked over his shoulder.

Six months' worth of records. Lauren had charged only a handful of purchases each month: supermarkets and gas stations, the campus bookstore at the U. And bills from Neiman-Marcus and several designer boutiques that amounted to 90 percent of her expenditures.

Dressing for the job . . .

No motel or hotel charges. That made sense if she'd paid cash to avoid leaving a trail. Or if someone else had paid for her time and lodgings.

The bottom dresser drawer yielded another stapled sheaf. "Here we go," he said, "tucked in with the cashmere sweaters. Four years of short forms . . . Looks like she prepared them herself. Nothing before that — everything started when she was twenty-one."

He scanned the IRS paper. "She called herself a 'self-employed photographic model and student,' took deductions for car expenses, books, and clothing. . . . That's about it. ... No student loans, no medical writeoffs ... no mention of any research gig either. . . . Every year for the past four, she reported fifty thousand gross, deducted it down to thirty-four net."

"Fifty thousand a year coming in," I said, "and she manages to invest every penny?"

"Yeah — cute, isn't it." He moved to the closet, opened a door on a tightly stacked assortment of silk dresses and blouses, pantsuits in a wide array of colors, leather and suede jackets. Two fur coats, one short and silver, the other full-length and black. Thirty or so pairs of shoes.

"Versace," he said, squinting at a label. "Vestimenta, Dries Van Noten, Moschino — 'arctic silver fox' from Neiman . . . and this black thing is . . ." He peeled back the long coat's lapel. "Real mink. From Mouton on Beverly Drive — hand me back those Visa receipts. . . . The average is agrand or so a month on threads—that's less than one of these suits, so she had to be spending more, had cash she didn't declare."

He closed the closet door. "Okay, add tax evasion to her hobby list. . . . Over three hundred grand saved up by age twenty-five. Like Momma said, she took care of herself."

"That first hundred plus the three fifty-thousand deposits is two fifty," I said. "Where'd the rest come from, stock appreciation?"

He returned to the brokerage papers, trailed his finger to a bottom line. "Yup, ninety thou five hundred and two worth of 'long-term capital appreciation.' Looks like our girl played the skin game and rode the bull market."

"That would explain the lie about having a job at the U," I said, feeling a sad, insistent gnawing in my gut. "When she was arrested in Reno at nineteen, she called her father for bail money, claimed she was broke. Two years later, she deposited a hundred thousand."

"Working hard," he said. "The American way. She didn't call Mom because Mom was poor."

"That and she might've cared enough about Jane to keep secrets." I took the brokerage packet from him, stared at zeros. "The first hundred was probably money she saved up. When she turned twenty-one, she decided to invest. I wonder if it came from multiple clients or just a few high rollers."

"What makes you wonder?"

"A long-term client could be the reason she didn't take her own car on Sunday. Someone sent one for her."

"Interesting," Milo said. "When the sun comes up, I'll check with taxi companies and livery services. Gonna also have to canvass the neighborhood, see if anyone saw her getting into a car. If she was hooking up with some pooh-bah who wanted it hush-hush, he wouldn't have had her wait right in front of her apartment. But maybe she didn't walk too far." He whipped out his pad, scrawled furiously.

"Something else," I said. "Being in a cash business—wanting cash handy for expenditures—she could've been carrying a lot of money in her purse."

He looked up. "A high-stakes mugging?"

"It's possible, isn't it?"

"I suppose. ... In any event, the money stink has now grown putrid." He placed the tax returns atop the desk. Nothing but papers on the desk. That made me wonder about something else.

"Where's her computer?" I said.

"Who said she had one?"

"She was a student. Every college kid has a computer, and Lauren was an A student."

He gave the dresser drawers another shuffle, found a pocket calculator, grunted disgustedly. Returning to the closet, he searched the corners and the shelves. "Nada. So maybe she was storing data someone wanted. As in trick book. As in a pooh-bah with a good reason to value his privacy."