“Or choose not to hear.”
Amelia’s face remained impassive.
Lamar said, “Tristan left right after we did. Did he and his mother have a discussion?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Why’d Mrs. Poulson decide all of a sudden to fly to Kentucky?”
“It wasn’t all of a sudden,” said the maid. “She flies there all the time. To see her horses.”
“Loves her horses, does she?”
“Apparently, sir.”
“You’re saying the trip was planned.”
“Yes, sir. I heard her calling the charter service five days ago.”
“So you do hear some things.”
“Depends which room I’m working, sir. I was freshening outside the study and she was using the study phone.”
“Remember the name of the charter service?”
“Don’t have to,” said Amelia. “She uses the same one all the time. New Flight.”
“Thank you,” said Lamar. “Now where can we find Tristan?”
“Don’t know, sir.”
“Sure about that?”
“More than sure, sir.”
Back in the car, they got the registration stats on Tristan Poulson’s VW and put an alert out on the car. They called New Flight Charter, were told in no uncertain terms that the company maintained strict client confidentiality and that nothing short of a warrant would change that.
“That so…well, good for you,” said Baker, hanging up with a scowl.
“What?” said Lamar.
“They fly big shots like President Clinton and Tom Brokaw, everything hush-hush.”
“Hush-hush but they tell you they fly Clinton.”
“Guess he’s beyond mere mortality. Drive, Stretch.”
On the way back to town, they got a call from Trish, the receptionist at headquarters. A Dr. Alex Delaware had phoned this morning, and then again at two. No message.
Baker said, “Guy’s probably itching to get back home.”
“Guy works with the police,” said Lamar, “you’d think he’d know he’s free to go, we can’t keep him here legally.”
“You’d think.”
“Hmm…maybe you should call him back. Or better yet, let’s drop in on him at the hotel. See if he knew Cathy Poulson in her LA days. While we’re there, we can also show Tristan’s picture around to the staff.”
“Two bad we don’t have two pictures,” said Baker. “Another with all that hair.”
“Like father, like son,” said Lamar. “It always comes down to family, doesn’t it?”
Delaware wasn’t in his room. The concierge was sure of that, the doctor had stopped by around noon to ask directions to Opryland and hadn’t returned.
No one at the Hermitage remembered ever seeing Tristan Poulson, the clean-cut, high school senior photo version. Asking people to imagine long hair and a beard produced nothing but quizzical looks.
Just as they were about to leave for a drive-through of Music Row, Delaware walked in. Spruced up, LA style: blue blazer, white polo shirt, blue jeans, brown loafers. Taking shades off his eyes, he nodded at the concierge.
“Doctor,” said Baker.
“Good, you got my message. C’mon up, I’ve got something to show you.”
As the elevator rose, Lamar said, “How was Opryland?”
Delaware said, “Tracing me, huh? It was more Disneyland than down-home but with a name like Opryland I shouldn’t have been surprised. I had lunch in that restaurant with the giant aquariums, which wasn’t bad.”
“Have a hearty seafood dinner?”
The psychologist laughed. “Steak. Any luck on Jack’s murder?”
“We’re working on it.”
Delaware worked at hiding his sympathy.
His room was the same pin-neat setup. The guitar case rested on the bed.
He opened a closet drawer, drew out some papers. Hotel fax cover sheet, over a couple of others.
“After you left, I started thinking about my sessions with Jack. Something he told me as the trip approached. Dead people don’t get confidentiality. I had my girlfriend, Robin, go through the chart and fax the relevant pages. Here you go.”
Two lined pages filled with dense, sharply slanted handwriting. Not the clearest fax. Hard to make out.
Delaware saw them squinting. “Sorry, my penmanship stinks. Would you like a summary?”
Lamar said, “That would be great, Doctor.”
“As the date got closer, Jack’s anxiety rose. That was understandable and expected. We redoubled our efforts to work on deep muscle relaxation, pinpointed the stimuli that really set off his anxiety- basically we gave it the full-court press. I thought we were doing fine but about a week ago, Jack called me in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, agitated. I told him to come over but he said he’d wait until morning. I asked if he was sure, he said he was and promised to show up at nine AM. He arrived at eleven, looking haggard. I assumed it was pre-flight jitters but he said there were other things on his mind. I encouraged him to talk about anything that bothered him. He made a joke about it- something along the lines of ‘That’s allowed? Good old-fashioned head-shrinking instead of cognitive hoochy-coo mojo mind-bending?’ ”
He sat down on the bed, touched the guitar case. “That had been an issue right from the beginning. Jack did not want psychotherapy. Said he’d had plenty of that during his various rehab stints and that the sound of his own voice bitching made him want to puke.”
“Afraid of something?” said Baker.
“Aren’t we all?” Delaware slipped off his jacket, folded it neatly, placed it on the bed. Changed his mind, got up and hung it in the closet.
He sat back down. “There’s always that possibility. What people in my business call baloney afraid of the slicer. But I take people at their word until proven otherwise and I went along with Jack not wanting to get into topics other than flying. We had a deadline approaching and I knew if Jack didn’t get on that plane, I’d never see him again. But now, he’d changed his mind and wanted to talk. I’m not saying what he told me about is profoundly relevant to your case, but I thought you should know.”
“Appreciate it,” said Baker, holding out an expectant palm.
“What Jack wanted to talk about was family,” said Delaware. “That surprised even me because Jack had always been an extremely focused and goal-oriented patient. I’m sure the stress of the upcoming flight released a barrage of unpleasant memories. He started with a brutal upbringing. Abusive father, negligent mother, both of them doctors- respectable on the outside but severe alcoholics who turned his childhood into a nightmare. He was the only child, bore the brunt of it. His memories were so traumatic that he’d seriously considered sterilization when he was in his twenties, but never followed through because he was too damn lazy and stoned and didn’t want anyone ‘cutting down there before I had enough fun.’ But I’m not sure that was it. I think a part of him did yearn for that parent-child connection. Because when he talked about not having his own family, he got extremely morose. Then he brought up something he’d done that made him smile: fathering a child with an actress who was gay and sought him out because she admired his music.”
“Melinda Raven,” said Lamar.
“So you know.”
“That’s all we know. Her name.”
“The story she put out for the media was sperm donation,” said Delaware. “The truth was, Jack and she made love. Several times until she conceived. She had a boy. Jack was not involved in his life.”
“Why not?”
“He claimed it was fear,” said Delaware. “That he’d mess the boy up. I know Jack’s image was that of a rock ’n’ roll bad boy, afraid of nothing. And he had taken some outrageous risks during the early days, but those had been fueled by drugs. At the core, he was a highly fearful man. Ruled by fear. When he brought up Owen, he looked proud. But then when he got into Owen not being a part of his life, he broke down. Then he started on a long jag about all the other children he might’ve sired. All those groupies, one-night stands, decades of random promiscuity. He made a joke about it. ‘I’m a bachelor, meaning no kids. To speak of.’ Then he broke down again. Wondering what might have been. Visualizing himself old and alone at the end of his life.”