Flesh and Blood by Jonathan Kellerman
Jonathan Kellerman has written dozens of crime novels that usually feature Dr. Alex Delaware, a child psychologist who consults with the Los Angeles Police Department to help them solve murder cases. He usually works with LAPD Detective Milo Sturgis. Dr. Delaware is in a long-term relationship with Robin who makes custom guitars for high-end clients.
Delaware gets a message from his phone service telling him that he had received a call from the mother of a patient he had seen twice. Dr. Delaware checks his files and recalls Lauren Teague was 15 years old and being rebellious to her parents, a pretty common problem. Lauren showed up for her appointment but pretty much treated it as a joke. She said that her father was a jerk and that her mother was pretty useless, again common teen complaints. She went to one more appointment and repeated her observations about her parents. That was the last time Delaware saw her.
Six years after that last appointment, Delaware saw Lauren and another young woman stripping at a bachelor party for a fellow doctor. Lauren recognized him. Dr. Delaware wonders how a smart and pretty high school girl ended up doing this for a living. He also is embarrassed that he went to a party that really was low rent in terms of the exploitive entertainment.
The next day Lauren called Delaware’s office and made an appointment. At 21 she looked about the same as she had when she was 15. She explained that she hadn’t dropped therapy. Her father didn’t want to pay for it so he opted out. Her parents divorced a few years later, with her father skipping out on child support payments. Lauren had a pretty tough upbringing as her mother moved from one bad place to another in order to survive.
Dr. Delaware tried to semi-apologize for going to the bachelor party but Lauren told him that when she was performing, she was in charge as men fantasized about her. The pay was also really good.
Four years later, Delaware is speaking with Lauren’s mother, now Jane Abbot after she remarried. She is very upset because Lauren has been missing for a week. Mother and daughter kept in touch and it was unusual for Lauren to just drop out. Jane knows that Delaware works with the police who are ignoring her concerns. She asks Alex to see if he can get the LAPD to take the case seriously. He agrees.
Delaware calls up his friend and colleague, Detective Milo Sturgis, who says he’ll look into it. It turns out that Lauren has a minor police record for getting arrested for prostitution in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, although she has been clean for four years.
Milo tracks down Lauren’s roommate, a bartender named Andrew Salander. He hasn’t seen her in several days but she has taken off before for a few days without telling him what she was doing. Andrew said that Lauren had been taking courses at the local university and doing very well. She also was involved in a psychological research project. She was financially very comfortable because she had invested well. She was always studying, with not much of a social life. Lauren and Andrew were good buddies. He was gay so he certainly wouldn't hit on her, and she liked the fact that he was a normal, stable person she could count on. Andrew did mention that Lauren had gone to lunch with her mother a few weeks earlier and had come back upset. He had no idea why.
Alex heads over to the university to see if he can figure out what research project she was doing. He did his undergraduate work there and knows a lot of people in the psych department. No one can find any projects involving Lauren. Alex speaks to a professor who had Lauren in his class who says that she was a good student.
Another professor reminds Alex of a case from a year ago that involved another young female student who disappeared suddenly, Shawna Yeager. There’s very little information in the newspapers so Alex decides to contact the reporter, Adam Green, who wrote about the disappearance. While he is reading microfilm, Alex sees an ad for a research study on human intimacy. Perhaps Lauren was involved in a study that was not affiliated with the university.
Alex goes home to Robin. She can see that he’s thinking about something so he fills her in on the case. They decide to go out for dinner. As they are having a great meal, Milo calls and tells Alex that Lauren’s body has been found. She is now a homicide victim which makes it Milo’s case.
Lauren’s body was found in a dumpster. She had been there about five days so things were messy. She had been shot in the head. Milo is thinking that usually someone close to the victim did it. He’s suspicious of Lauren’s father, who’s kind of a jerk and has some seedy things in his background.
Alex and Milo start to dig into Lauren’s past. They know that she worked as a prostitute for a local madam, Gretchen Stengel, who served time for tax evasion and now is supposedly out of the business. They also know that Lauren’s stripping partner was named Michelle, so they’ll try to track her down.
Delaware and Sturgis go to tell Lauren’s mother that her daughter is dead. She is devastated. Her husband, Mel, comes in and turns everything into a joke. It turns out that he is much older than Jane - and filthy rich. He also has had a couple of strokes which have left him mentally impaired.
Jane cannot provide much new information. She vouched for Lauren’s roommate, Andrew, as being a good person. She knew that Lauren would take off for a few days or a week but said that she had no idea what had been going on. Lauren made her money modeling, according to her mother. Alex sees that Jane is lying. She knows more than she is telling.
The next interview is with Lauren’s divorced father, Lyle. He is a very unpleasant person who greets Alex and Milo with a shotgun. He lives in a rough neighborhood. Lauren’s father is shocked when he learns that Lauren is dead. His wife, Tish, comes out to see what is going on and she is taken aback when she finds out what happened to Lauren.
Lyle has had very little contact with Lauren, who blamed him for the break-up of the marriage. Lauren did come by last Christmas with presents for Lyle and Tish’s young children. Lyle does know that Lauren was not modeling - she was a high-class prostitute who made a lot of money. Lyle had to help bail her out of jail in Las Vegas.
Next, the intrepid police duo revisit Andrew Salander who almost faints when he learns what happened to his roommate, Lauren. Andrew wasn’t concerned when Lauren wasn’t home for almost a week. That wasn’t unusual; she often disappeared. He confirms that she was involved in a university research project that she enjoyed.
The detective and consultant check out Lauren’s room. She had a lot of books but no computer, which is strange for a student. They find her IRS tax returns on which she declared $50,000 income each year with various business expenses taken as deductions. Milo has tracked down Lauren’s investment advisor who confirms that she had a substantial stock portfolio that produced good dividends which might account for the annual income. Her credit card bills show that she liked expensive clothes, which would fit a profession as a high-end call girl. Alex finds the ad for the human intimacy study that the missing Shawna Yeager might have been participating in. That might have been Lauren’s research project.
Alex does some research using the phone number in the ad and finds that it is for a company called Motivational Associates. He learned that the director was Dr. Benjamin J. Dugger. That makes sense given that Lauren had written “Dr. D.” next to the phone number in the ad. Alex calls Dr. Dugger’s former employer in Chicago and learns that Dugger did esoteric studies on what makes people make certain decisions. Alex Delaware can barely understand his research.
Alex goes to the offices of Motivational Associates and sees a guy in the elevator whose briefcase has the same initials of Dr. Dugger on it. This is the boss. Alex waits for him to leave work and follows his Volvo to a church in a rough part of town. Dugger spends some time there and then drives home. Alex hasn’t learned much.
Alex interviews all of the professors who had Lauren in their classes but finds out very little. He and Detective Sturgis interview a former call girl entrepreneur, Gretchen Stengel, who once employed Lauren. They don’t get much new information. Lauren was very smart and very good at her job which was making men happy. They do get a little more information on the woman Lauren danced with at events. Michelle is her first name, but Gretchen does not know her last name is. Upon further pushing, Gretchen’s luncheon companion says that Michelle Salazar might be the person they're looking for.
They track down said Michelle in a depressing, low-rent part of town. The last time Alex saw her was four years ago at the bachelor party when she and Lauren were disrobing to the delight of many attendees. Michelle has gained thirty pounds and has lost her left arm to an infection.
She admits that she has made some bad decisions in her life. She last saw the deceased five months ago when Lauren gave her a lot of money. Lauren showed up every few months with a wad of cash for Michelle, who thought that Lauren had really gotten out of the business and was excited about school.
Milo and Alex next go to visit Dr. Dugger who might have had Lauren in a research project. Once Dugger learns that Lauren has been murdered, he almost faints.
It turns out that Motivational Associates conducts research for commercial clients on how important it is that sales employees are attractive to the potential customer. Lauren, who was very attractive and literate, was involved in many focus groups to tease out how much looks matter in buying decisions. She was also involved in one-on-one experiments on the issue. Milo and Alex think that Dr. Dugger had nothing to do with Lauren’s death.
Next up is Adam Green, the reporter who covered student Shawna Yeager’s disappearance. At lunch, he tells Alex that the detective in charge of the case was close to retirement and did almost nothing to figure out what happened. Adam tells Alex that Shawna might have done a photo shoot for what she thought was a prestigious men’s magazine, Duke, but turned out to be a scam to blackmail her with pictures of her naked. Adam also thinks that she might have been involved with an older man, perhaps a professor at the same university Lauren had attended. Adam had seen individual prints of Shawna between the pages of a Duke magazine but she was never published in it.
Tony Duke is the owner and publisher of Duke, which features lots of pictures of attractive, unclothed young women. He is clearly modeled after Hugh Hefner and Playboy. Tony likes his women very young and beautiful and willing to be sex objects. Milo knew that Lauren had used a pay phone near where Tony Duke lived to call her mother several times in the weeks before she died. Maybe Lauren and Tony had a relationship.
Alex had been using his psychological training to analyze the case. Shawna’s father left when Shawna was very young and Lauren had a miserable relationship with her father, Lyle. Perhaps they were both drawn to a father figure, Tony, who also happened to be very wealthy.
Milo tells Alex that Michelle and her boyfriend were found shot to death and burned. That probably is connected to the investigation. They both feel guilty about that.
After Alex and Robin go out to dinner, he does some research on Tony Duke. He had been married several times but divorced his latest wife a year ago. Tony, who was in his 70’s, handed over control of his company to his daughter, Anita, who had a Columbia MBA and was doing a good job keeping the profits flowing. Alex also learns that Tony has a son, Benjamin J. Dugger. Dugger was Tony Duke’s given last name which he changed for business purposes. His kids kept Dugger, the real family name. Benjamin is the Doctor Dugger who owns Motivational Associates and who had hired Lauren to do research.
The plot thickens.
Milo and Alex had scheduled a visit to Dr. Dugger’s company to ask the staff about Lauren. No one knows anything helpful. Everyone liked her. Alex notices that all of the employees are women. That may or may not mean something. Dr. Dugger explains what he does for clients, essentially developing communications and marketing techniques that will result in more sales. He uses attractive people to interview and relate to test subjects that fit the demographics of the client’s customer base. There’s nothing sexual about it except that men and women tend to pay more attention to attractive and articulate people when listening to a sales pitch. Dr. Dugger is upset at the fact that they think he’s a suspect. As Milo and Alex leave, they see Dugger brushing tears from his eyes.
The investigators next visit Mindy Jacobus, who was the roommate of the missing Shawna Yeager a year ago when she disappeared. Mindy is clearly upset about the fact that her friend disappeared, but she hasn’t much new information. She did say that when Shawna told her that she was off to the library the night she disappeared, Mindy was perplexed because Shawna didn’t go to the library much. When asked if Shawna had a boyfriend, Mindy quickly said no, but she looked nervous. It turns out that Shawna had left school on several weekends, telling Mindy that she was going home. Mindy said that she didn’t believe that. Shawna never went home and she left for her trips really dressed up, like for a weekend date she wanted to impress. Shawna also said that she wouldn't waste time dating men her age. She preferred older, more mature fellows.
Milo and Alex visit Agnes Yeager’s apartment. She’s Shawna’s mother, and our investigators are beginning to think that the Shawna and Lauren cases are related. They talk to the building’s owner, William Perdue, and learn that Agnes left the building nine months ago after she became very ill and was taken to the hospital. She got better and was released. He did drop her belongings off at the hospital before she left but he has no idea where she is now. Perdue did say that Agnes thought that Shawna was getting too wild and hanging around with the wrong people before she disappeared.
It’s time to revisit Lauren’s mother, Jane, who knows more than she has told the investigators. When they get to her house, Milo gets suspicious. He and Alex run into the house and see Jane Abbot dead from a gunshot wound and her mentally-challenged wealthy husband, Mel, holding a gun.
The police come and take the incoherent Mel Abbott away. Milo sees it as an open-and-shut murder but Alex isn’t so sure. Jane was a very experienced caregiver and would not have allowed Mel, who had tons of issues, to go anywhere near a weapon. Milo and Alex try to figure out who would inherit Mel’s multi-million-dollar estate when he dies, which with his bad health and multiple strokes, will probably be soon. It’s confusing, but Lauren’s father, Lyle, might be in line to get money. Now he’s a suspect.
When they go to Lyle’s house, his wife, Tish, tells them that her husband is off hunting for a few days, something he does regularly. They ask Tish some questions about Lauren. It's clear that Lyle’s second wife couldn’t stand Lauren, even though Lauren brought presents for the kids several times a year. Tish saw Lauren as a manipulative hooker who thought that she was better than everyone else. At least Alex and Milo learn that Lyle has lots of guns.
Alex heads home to an uneventful evening. Robin is beginning to worry. Since so many people have been murdered, Alex might be next. He tries to reassure her but she's not happy.
Alex can’t sleep, so a bit after midnight he decides to drive by Dr. Ben Dugger’s high-rise condo.Dugger drives off and Alex follows, to the airport as it turns out. Dugger is meeting someone, a sharply dressed man with very expensive luggage. They go into a restaurant, Brooklyn Pizza Guys, to chat. Alex goes to an all-night drug store and buys a cheap camera, returns, and surreptitiously photographs the diners. Alex follows them when they leave and head over to Ben Dugger’s father’s estate, the Duke residence. Alex thinks that the guy in the expensive suit may be a hit man who killed Lauren and perhaps Shawna.
Alex tells Milo about his nocturnal surveillance, and Milo tells Alex that the gun that killed Jane Abbott was registered to Lauren. No one can figure out how crazy Mel Abbott got the gun and killed his wife, but the adventure continues.
Alex gives Milo the pictures he took of the mystery man that Ben Dugger picked up at the airport. Milo will give them to people in the police department’s intelligence unit to find out who he is.
Alex wants to observe Tony Duke’s seaside estate so he rents a kayak and paddles away. He spends some time looking at the mansion and sees nothing of interest. As he heads to shore, he sees a woman screaming on the beach. Her young son is floundering in the water. Alex, who is a scuba diver and surfer, jumps into the water and grabs the kid who is thrashing about. Surfer Delaware brings the boy to his mother who happens to be Cheryl, who was recently divorced by Tony Duke. She apparently hangs around the estate with the two kids he fathered.
Cheryl invites Alex to the house. Since he is there to find out stuff about Tony Duke who owns the house, he graciously accepts the invitation. Alex gets into the funicular, a type of conveyance that brings them from the beach to the house. Cheryl flirts with him as they approach the house.
Tony Duke’s daughter, Anita is there along with another guy. Although Tony and Cheryl are divorced, she still lives in a cottage on the estate so that Tony can see his kids. Cheryl introduces Alex to Anita and Kent Irving who is the projects manager for Duke Enterprises which is doing a lot of local real estate development. Cheryl says that Alex helped her son, Baxter, get out of a water emergency. Things get a bit tense when Alex refuses to take a $100 reward for saving Baxter, but he leaves.
Alex goes to his car and watches the Duke house. He sees Cheryl driving off and follows her. She goes shopping. He sits down at an outdoor coffee shop where she goes after buying stuff and orchestrates running into her. She does some serious flirting as they talk.
Alex learns a lot. The guy he met, Kent, is Anita’s husband. Cheryl was a dancer at a gentlemen's club. She answered an ad to become involved in psychological research and ended up working with Ben Dugger, Tony Duke’s son. Eventually she met Tony and they were married for a few years, during which she had two children.
Alex finds out that Kent, Anita’s husband, was in the modeling industry before coming to work for Tony. That is a connection to Lauren who did modeling as well as hooking.
Alex updates Milo on what he found out. Milo tells Alex that Lauren’s roommate, Andy, has suddenly split, despite promising that he’d stick around for the investigation. No one knows where he is. The landlord says that Andy had a boyfriend who worked for the William Morris agency. Milo will find him.
Alex is beginning to think that Tony Duke isn’t involved in Lauren’s death or Shawna’s disappearance. He hasn’t been seen in public in many months and seems to have receded into the background. He’s starting to have suspicions about Tony’s daughter, Anita, and her husband, Kent, but he has no evidence. He also thinks that Dr. Dugger’s Motivational Associates is involved. The company finds attractive young blonds to use in its research. Tony Dukes’ former wife, Cheryl, worked there as did Lauren.
Milo finds out where Andy’s boyfriend, Justin Lemoyne lives. The intrepid investigators go to his house but he’s not there. A neighbor says that he took off with another guy. They both took luggage so it looks like they’re skipping town.
LAPD intelligence identified the well-dressed man who Dr. Dugger picked up at the airport and brought to Tony Duke’s property. He is not a mafia hit man as Alex surmised. He is Dr. Rene Maccaferri, a renowned cancer specialist. It looks like Tony Duke is ill, which explains why he dropped out of sight.
Alex goes home to see Robin but she’s not there. Lately she’s been gone a lot and they haven’t seen much of each other. He’s a bit worried because he’s been ignoring her lately, but he’s not worried that she may be having an affair. They have a pretty serious relationship.
Alex drives over to the house where Andy Salander’s boyfriend, Justin, lives and spots the boyfriend's red Mercedes driving away. The chase is on. Alex follows the car to a motel and calls Milo. They knock on the door where the men are and interview Andy.
Justin threatens to have his lawyer sue LAPD for harassment. Milo says that activity would make a big splash in the newspapers and scandal sheets which would not be helpful to Justin’s aspiring career as a screenwriter. All Milo wants is the truth.
Andy decides to come clean. He wondered where Lauren got her money since she did some modeling and the research project for income. She had very expensive taste in clothes. One day, Andy looked over her shoulder and saw that she had a lot of money in stocks. He knew she didn't come from wealth.
Lauren had been estranged from her mother for years. About a year earlier, they reconnected and had lunch regularly. Lauren’s mother, Jane, explained that Lyle wasn’t Lauren’s biological father. Jane had been a flight attendant in Tony Duke’s charter jet flights. One thing led to another and she became pregnant. Jane never told Lyle.
Duke sent Jane generous sums of money, $50,000 of which ended up each year with Lauren. Against her mother’s advice, Lauren decided it was time to meet her real father. She created a detailed Duke family tree and knew that Dr. Ben Dugger was Tony’s son. Since she was studying psychology, she had heard of Dugger and seen his ads for Motivational Research. She got the job there to get closer to the Duke family.
Cheryl had given Alex her cell phone number so he called her and set up a meeting (really a date) on the beach near the Duke estate. They walk on the sand and Cheryl pulls off her blouse and really comes on to Alex. He is here to find evidence, not cheat on Robin, so he declines what she is offering.
Just when Alex is starting to relax, Kent Irving, the husband of Tony Duke’s daughter, Anita, calls out. Cheryl fakes crying and says that Alex was about to rape her. It was all a setup to get Alex out of the way.
Kent has a pistol and there’s no doubt he’ll use it on Alex who tells him that the police know where he is, a complete bluff that no one buys.
Cheryl is calling Kent intimate nicknames. Cheryl clearly thinks that she will end up with Kent, a nutty idea. Alex tells Cheryl that will not happen and that she is being used. Cheryl gets angry and wants the gun so she can kill Alex, just like she did Lauren after befriending her.
One mystery solved.
Kent is getting irritated at Cheryl's blabbering and starts wrenching her arm. She cries out. Alex keeps talking. That’s all he can do. He tells Cheryl that she and her two children will be killed soon because they are loose ends, and, with the kids dead, there’s more money for Anita and Kent when Duke dies.
Cheryl still wants to shoot Alex. Kent kisses the tip of her nose, pushes her away, and shoots her twice in the face.
Alex tells Kent that he is a prime suspect in the murders but Kent shrugs it off. As he’s about to kill Alex, Ben Dugger yells and asks him what he’s doing. Kent looks back at Ben. Alex rushes Kent who gets off a few shots, one hitting Ben. Alex puts his martial arts skills to use and pummels the chubby Kent into unconsciousness.
Three days later, Alex meets with Ben who is recovering at his father’s home. Alex apologizes for thinking that Ben might be a suspect, but Ben points out that Alex saved his life that night. The bullet had hit the femoral artery in his thigh. Ben would have bled to death in minutes without Alex putting a tourniquet on his leg.
Ben turns out to be a very good person who regularly brings toys to a church to distribute to needy kids and donates 15% of his trust fund each year to charity. Alex feels awful that he thought he might be a murderer.
Lots of bad things have happened to Ben. He lost his half-sister, Lauren, who he was just getting to know as they were working to introduce Lauren to her father, Tony. Dad is dying of cancer, another burden for Ben. Kent Irving, his brother-in-law, turns out to be a psychopath who killed Lauren’s mother, Jane, Michelle and her boyfriend, and Cheryl. He was planning on killing Alex and Cheryl’s two kids so that his wife (Tony Duke’s daughter) would inherit more of the estate.
Alex wants to figure out what happened to Shawna Yeager, the woman who disappeared a year earlier. Alex tracks down Shawna’s mother, Agnes, who tells him what Shawna was like. Growing up was rough. Her father died when she was a baby and her mother had no college education which limited her employment options. Shawna was smart and had done very well at the university but had a wild streak. She thought that men her age were immature so she preferred older guys. Agnes has no hope that Shawna is alive. She just wants to find her body and bury her so she can visit the grave.
Alex goes to visit Gene Dalby, one of the professors who had Shawna in his class. When visiting Shawna’s mother, Alex had seen a picture of Shawna’s father, who looked just like Dr. Dalby. Alex gets Dalby to admit that he had an affair with Shawna. She was wild and unlike any woman he had ever met, including his wife. Shawna liked to pose nude for men’s magazines, including doing fairly heavy pornography. While they were parking in the Hollywood Hills, she showed Dr. Dalby some of her wilder pictures and teased him about not being as manly as some of the studs she was pictured with. They yelled at each other and she ran away from the car. He chased her and Shawna fell and hit her head. She was dead. Dalby got some plastic tape and buried her.
Dalby tells Alex where Shawna is buried. Alex calls the police who arrest the professor for contributing to Shawna’s death. Finally, Alex calls Shawna’s mother and tells her that the police have found her daughter’s body. She has some closure.
Bob’s Take
These books are classic police procedurals. Milo and Alex paint by the numbers in terms of investigating cases. Many of the people they interview and the investigations they make don’t end up helping solve the case. They run into a lot of dead ends. The reader learns that a lot of being a detective is routine drudgery.
Milo is gay, one of the first openly gay major characters in a series. He eats too much junk food, is overweight, and is a sloppy dresser, often having food stains on his ties. His significant other is a surgeon who is the exact opposite - attractive, sharp dresser, always watching what he eats. They are an interesting couple.
Jonathan Kellerman has written over three dozen books since the mid-1980s, most of which feature Milo and Alex. He has sold millions of mysteries. James Patterson cranks out more books, but he doesn’t really write most of them.
Alex and Robin are too good to be true, almost precious. They have a cute dog, live in a great house in a nice LA neighborhood, and have a koi fish pond. They both are successful professionals. She has a dream job of making custom guitars for wealthy musicians. They dine out frequently and have a great sex life. What’s not to be jealous of? They are a bit too good to be real.
Alex has initiative. He went out at midnight to Ben Dugger’s house and saw him taking off in his car. Alex trailed him and ended up getting important information that Ben was picking up a cancer specialist and bringing him to his father. Alex rented a kayak to check out Tony Duke’s family and ended up breaking the case. More often than not, following his hunches leads to valuable information. That usually doesn’t happen in real police investigations.
