“The answer is yes, Doctor. I didn’t mention it the first time because… because I was so stunned when you all dropped in. I’ve been thinking about calling, but talking about that kind of thing is hard. I won’t pretend Lurlene and I were close, but she was my child. Imagining what happened to her hurts me terribly.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Any progress?”
“Not so far.”
“But you’ve got other victims who… oh, Lord… Lurlene’s time on the streets, part of me has been waiting for this.” Thin, square shoulders rose and fell. Her hands shook. “Did she like being hurt? When she was a child, just the opposite, Lurlene was the one hitting other people and getting in trouble over it. I kept telling her being big meant she needed to be doubly responsible.” Frown. “It wasn’t until later, when I realized what a problem her weight was, that I knew I’d said exactly the wrong thing… did she like being hurt… apparently, yes. I’m talking about later, when she was out of the house. Working.”
She grabbed for a hankie, stanched a sudden burst of tears. “As if that’s a job.”
Clearing her throat, she put steel in her voice: “A couple of times when she came by-for money-I noticed bruises. Here. Here.” Fingering both sides of her own neck. “At first I wasn’t sure they were bruises. Lurlene was dark, took after her father. And the first time she was trying to cover it, wearing a scarf. Which is exactly why I
Wincing. “Hard, not just a love pat. But I can be as pigheaded as she can and I persisted and she got terribly angry and ripped it off-the scarf-and said, ‘Happy?’
“I said, ‘I’m not happy if someone hurt you, Lurlene.’ She said, ‘No one hurt me in any way I don’t want to be hurt.’ Then she smirked. I was appalled and that amused her. She rolled up her sleeves and I said here it comes, she’ll show off her needle marks, what else does this girl have planned to disappoint me? But instead, she displayed more bruises on her wrists. I was repelled and turned away and that fueled her up. She told me people were willing to pay for extras and she had the confidence to handle anything. So of course, I got preachy. Told her dangerous ways led to-why bore you? She laughed at me and left.”
Smiling. “That’s the whole of it, sir.”
I said, “You’ve been through a lot.”
“My other girls are doing well. May I pour you more coffee?”
“Laura, too, now it’s a hat trick,” said Milo.
I’d pulled up to the station just as he stepped out the front door and began walking.
“All this exercise,” I said. “I’m starting to worry about you.”
“Afternoon constitutional at a non-aerobic pace,” he said. “Walls tend to close in when I’m feeling useless. You probably jogged five miles this morning.”
We passed the same houses and apartments. This time the sky stayed gray and the air was soupy and lazy.
He said, “Airport cops found the Vanders’ Lexus in the LAX longterm lot, but we can’t find evidence Huck flew anywhere.”
“Oldest trick in the book.”
“Young Moses and I have been canvassing nearby hotels and motels anyway. Same for fancy places from S.F. to Santa Barbara, looking for the Vanders. We also tried private charters. Zippo on all counts. This is smelling like a wild man on a rampage and he’s long gone.”
“Four sadistic sexual murders, playing with the bones of three victims,” I said. “Then Duboff, then the Vanders? Hard to see a theme there.”
“Does there need to be?” he said. “That asshole in Kansas killed women, men, kids, whoever he found in the house. Same for Ramirez, Zodiac, blah blah blah.”
“In those cases the males were collateral damage.”
“The same could be true here. How about this for a theoretical: Huck works for the Vanders for three years, develops a letch for Nadine. Before he can have his way with her, he needs to get rid of Hubby and Kid.”
“He manages to get them back from Asia?”
“He lied about something that got them back. These guys, it’s all about control, right? Can you think of a better power trip than moving rich folk around like chess pieces? We come nosing around about Selena, he figures it’s only a matter of time, so he splits.”
I thought about that. “A family emergency might’ve worked as ruse. Simone’s been hurt, or she’s sick. Simon and Nadine trusted Huck, no reason to verify. But how does Duboff fit in?”
“When we nab Huck, we’ll find out. Let’s face it, Alex, when you cut through all the bullshit, this ain’t a whodunit. We had the prime suspect in our sights right off the bat-he had good reason to sweat.”
Ten steps later: “God only knows what Huck was doing all those under-the-radar years before the Vanders took him in. So, of course, he repays them in a metaphysically consistent manner.”
“No good deed,” I said.
“I’m amending it,” he said. “No good deed goes un-tied-up and bloodied and degraded and dumped like garbage.”
“Too long for a bumper sticker.”
CHAPTER 27
Limited TV exposure brought in thirty-four sightings of Ed-ward T. Huckstadter aka Travis Huck.
Milo and Moe Reed spent two days chasing air.
A man who’d worked at the Youth Authority when Huck was in custody informed Reed that Huck had “given him the willies. Always crybabying about something, but those eyes of his…”
“Mean?” said Reed.
“Crafty, you know? Like when they’re plotting something. I woulda never let him out.”
“He do anything bad while he was in?”
“Not that I remember, but so what, I was right. Those types get all coiled up and wait like snakes.”
Huck’s name didn’t show up on the passenger logs of trains and buses leaving L.A., but a Metro ticket paid for in cash would’ve provided easy escape. After some lawyerly hedging, Buddy Weir consented to have the Vanders’ Lexus examined at the LAPD motor lab.
“But please, Lieutenant, no damage. I don’t want Simon and Nadine returning home to that kind of thing.”
No one was paying attention to Silford Duboff’s murder, but I couldn’t let go of it. I called Alma Reynolds, listened to the phone ring.
No voice mail, and she’d bragged about no cell for her or “Sil.” Maybe no computer or TV either; I wondered if she’d heard about the search for Travis Huck.
She’d retired from teaching college, hadn’t mentioned another job. I called Milo to see if the file contained a work number. He was over at the airport, re-scanning departure records, and I spoke to Moe Reed.
He said, “Let me check… here it is, doctor’s office, West L.A. What are you figuring she can tell you?”
“Probably nothing.”
“You do this a lot, huh? Helping out.”
“When he asks.”
“He ask you to check Reynolds?”
“Sometimes I improvise.”
“Yeah,” said Reed. “He told me that.”
Given Alma Reynolds’s lifestyle, my bet was on some sort of holistic practice for her employer. But her boss
