Flesh And Blood

“We – Yes.”

“How do people react to being fooled, Doctor?”

“It’s no problem,” said Dugger. “We pay them well and they’re good-natured.”

“No one gets irate?” said Milo. “No one who might want to take it out on Lauren?”

“No, of course not,” said Dugger. “You can’t be serious… Yes, I suppose you are. No, Detective, we’ve never had that kind of problem. We pretest our subjects, take only psychologically balanced people.”

“No weirdos even though it’s a psychology experiment.”

“I don’t deal with abnormal psychology.”

Milo said, “The client doesn’t want nutcases.”

Dugger scooted forward. “We’re not talking about anything strange here, Detective. This is quantitative marketing research.”

“Nothing sexy,” said Milo.

Dugger colored. “Nothing controversial. That’s the point, in marketing research one tries to establish norms, to define the typical. Deviance is our enemy. Nothing Lauren did for us could possibly have led to her death. Besides, her identity was always kept confidential.”

“But the subjects found out she’d fooled them.”

“Yes, but Lauren’s name and personal information were always kept confidential.” His chin quaked. “I can’t believe she’s… gone.”

“Tell me more about the study, sir.”

“Nothing about it could possibly be important to you.”

“Sir, this is a homicide investigation, and I need to know about the victim’s activities.”

The word victim made Dugger wince. His forehead was sweating, and he wiped it with his sleeve.

“Lauren,” he said. “It’s so… This is horrible, this is just horrible.” He shifted in his chair, played with his glasses. Stared at me and his eyes slitted. “The study Lauren’s been working on involves the geometry of personal space. How people configure themselves in various interpersonal situations. For example, if the client was a cosmetics company, they might want to know about the geometry of comfort zones.”

“How close people get to each other,” said Milo.

“How close people get to each other when they’re in varying social situations. How people approach each other.”

“Men and women?”

“Men and women, women and women, men and men, the influences of age, culture, distraction, physical attractiveness. That’s where Lauren fit in. She was very beautiful, and she served as our attractiveness confederate.”

“You wanted to know if guys got closer to good-looking as opposed to ugly women?”

“It’s not that simple.” Dugger smiled weakly. “Yes, I suppose that’s basically it.”

“How’d you come to hire Lauren, sir?”

“She answered an ad in the campus paper at the university. The ad was actually soliciting subjects – we were going to use a modeling agency to get confederates – but when we saw Lauren, we realized she might fit.”

“We?”

“My staff and I.” Dugger looked pained. The sky behind him dimmed, turning the ocean black, graying his face.

“Because of her looks,” said Milo.

“Not just her looks,” said Dugger. “It was also her bearing and her intelligence. She was – so bright. The experiment involves following complex sets of instructions that change from situation to situation.”

“Instructions about what?”

“Where to position oneself in a room, duration of pose, what to say, what not to say, nonverbal cues. There’s some scripting involved – if the subject says one thing, you say another. When not to talk. We use a special room with grid sensors in the floor that are tied in with our computers, so we can track placement and movement directly-” Dugger stopped. “You don’t want to hear this.”

“Actually, we do,” said Milo.

“That’s it, really. Lauren was attractive, extremely bright, able to follow directions, motivated, punctual.” Dugger’s glance wandered to the ceiling, then lowered. His right hand slid over its mate, and both his knees began bouncing.

“Motivated how?”

“She expressed an interest in psychology. Was considering a career in psychology.”

“She talked to you about that.”

“It came up during the screening interview,” said Dugger. Another quick glance upward. A man with Dugger’s training might have known, intellectually, about the telltale signs of evasion, but it didn’t stop him. His knees bounced faster, and sweat beaded his upper lip.

Milo wrote something down, kept his eyes on his pad. “So basically, you placed Lauren in this computerized room and measured how guys reacted to her.”

“Yes.”

“For how long were she and the subjects in the room?”

“That’s one of the things we vary. Duration, temperature, music, dress.”

“Dress? She wore costumes?”

“Not costumes,” said Dugger. “Different outfits. Varying colors, styles. In Lauren’s case, she brought her own clothes, from which we selected what she wore.”

“Lauren’s case?”

“It was actually Lauren’s idea. She said she had an extensive wardrobe, suggested we might make good use of it.”

“Creative,” said Milo.

“As I said, she was motivated. Punctual, absolutely reliable, terrific with details. Plus she had the perspective of a researcher – intensely curious. So many people say they want to become psychologists because they have some ambiguous notion about helping people. Which is good, nothing wrong with that. But Lauren went beyond that. She was extremely keen-minded and analytical. Had a very good sense of herself – socially poised, much more mature than other students we’d worked with.”

“Sounds like you came to know her quite well.”

“She worked with us for four months.”

“Since the summer.”

“Yes, late July. We ran the ad during the summer sessions.”

But Lauren hadn’t been registered for the summer session. I kept silent.

“Mature,” said Milo. “Then again, she was older than most students.”

“Yes, she was, but even so.”

“Four months… Full-time, every day?”

“Her work schedule was flexible. We run studies when we get enough subjects. Generally, I’d say it worked out to half-time – sometimes more, sometimes less.” Dugger wiped his lip with the back of his hand. His knees were still. Dealing with details had calmed him.

“How’d you reach her when you wanted her to come in?”

“We issued her a beeper.”

“When’s the last time you beeped her?”

“That I couldn’t tell you. However, if you call the Newport office tomorrow, I’ll make sure her time cards are available.”

“Why Newport and not Brentwood?”

“The Brentwood office is new, not operational yet.”

“So you beeped Lauren and she drove down to Newport.”

“Yes.”

“How many other confederates are you using in this particular experiment?”

“Two other women and one man. None of them has met each other. None knew Lauren. We do that for