“With his money,” said Lamar, “if he sired kids, you’d think at least some of the women would’ve filed paternity suits.”
“I told him exactly that. He said a few had tried but they’d all turned out to be liars. What concerned him were the honest women too kind to exploit him. Or women who simply didn’t know. His phrasing was ‘I rained sperm on the world, it had to sprout somewhere.’ ”
“Why wouldn’t women know?”
Delaware ran his fingers through his curls. “At the height of Jack’s career, he spent a lot of time in a haze that included group sex, orgies, just about anything you can imagine.”
“He partied hearty and now he’s worrying about unknown kids?” said Baker.
“He was an old man,” said the psychologist. “Getting closer to mortality can turn you inward.”
Same phrase Sheralyn had used about Tristan.
Father and son…
Delaware said, “What I’m saying is that the issue of family- not having a family- was on Jack’s mind as the trip approached. And something else he told me- something I really didn’t appreciate at the time- makes me wonder if the trip was really about family.”
Lamar hid his enthusiasm. “The story was he was coming out here for the Songbird benefit.”
“Yes, it was, but you know guys like me.” Small smile. “Always looking for hidden meaning.”
“What’s the thing he told you?”
“The day after he poured out his heart, he came in looking great. Standing straighter, walking taller, clear-eyed. I said he seemed like a man with a mission. He laughed and said I was right on. He was ready to fly, ready for anything God or Odin or Allah or whoever was in charge was going to toss his way. ‘Gonna sing my guts out, Doc. Gonna reclaim my biology.’ That’s the part I overlooked when I first talked to you. ‘Biology.’ I thought he was relating it to ‘guts.’ Joking around, that was Jack’s style. He made light of things that frightened him until they got to a level where they overwhelmed him.”
“Reclaiming his biology,” said Baker. “A paternity thing?”
“The day before, all he could talk about was paternity. I should’ve made the connection.”
“And you’re thinking that’s relevant because…”
“I’m no homicide expert,” said Delaware. “But I’ve seen a few crime scenes. The paper said Jack was stabbed and a knife can be an intimate weapon. You need to get up close and personal when you use one. If you tell me Jack was robbed, I’ll change my mind. If he wasn’t, I’ll continue to wonder if he was cut by someone he knew. Given his remark about biology, how resolute he looked before we left, I’ll also wonder if he chose Nashville for his maiden voyage- chose that particular benefit, when there are so many others- because he wanted to be here for a personal reason. And ended up dying because of it.”
Neither detective spoke.
Delaware said, “If I’ve wasted your time, sorry. I wouldn’t have felt right if I didn’t tell you.”
Baker said, “We appreciate it, Doctor.” Leaning over and taking the fax. “Do you know a woman named Cathy Poulson?”
“Sorry, no.”
“No curiosity about why I asked?”
“I’ve learned to modulate my curiosity. But sure, who is she?”
“Old girlfriend of Jack’s. Hung out with him in LA, maybe thirty years ago.”
“Thirty years ago, I was a kid in Missouri.”
“The thing is,” said Lamar, “she also hooked up with him nineteen and a half years ago.”
Delaware studied them. “That’s a precise time frame. You know because it was punctuated by a specific event.”
Baker looked at Lamar. Lamar nodded.
“Blessed event,” said Baker.
“Another kid,” said the psychologist. “One of the women Jack wondered about. She lives here?”
“Yes, sir. But for now, we’re asking you to respect confidentiality. Even though dead people don’t get any.”
“Of course. Boy or girl?”
“Boy.” They showed him Tristan’s picture.
He said, “Oh, man, he looks just like a young Jack.”
“He writes songs,” said Lamar. “Or thinks he does.”
Delaware said, “Meaning a reunion could have involved an audition?”
“Maybe not a happy one.” Baker removed a folded photocopy of the song from his pad.
Delaware read the lyrics. “I see what you mean. You found this on Jack’s person?”
“In his room. How would Jack react to something like this?”
Delaware thought. “Hard to say. I guess it would depend on his state of mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like I told you, Jack could be moody.”
“You’re not the only person to tell us that,” Baker answered.
“He might even have had a borderline mood disorder. He could shift from amiable to downright vicious pretty quickly. I only saw his angry side a couple of times in therapy, and it wasn’t severe. Flashes of irritation, mostly at the beginning when he was ambivalent when I probed too deeply. As I told you the first time, he was mostly amiable.”
“When he decided he really needed you to get on that plane with him, he behaved himself.”
“Could be,” said Delaware.
“So he never got violent with you?”
“No, nothing like that. My hope was that if Jack stuck around long enough to see concrete results- once he was able to imagine himself nearing an airport without getting sick to his stomach- he’d level out emotionally. And that’s exactly what happened. Except for that night he called me, what I mostly saw was the charming side.”
“But that other side didn’t disappear,” said Lamar. “He just held himself in check.”
“It’s possible.”
“So someone catches him in the wrong mood, shows him crappy music, he could’ve turned nasty.”
Delaware nodded.
Baker said, “Do that with a kid- a kid you never acknowledged and just met- and things could turn downright ugly.”
Delaware looked at Tristan’s photo. “He’s your primary suspect?”
“He’s looking good for it but we’ve got no evidence.” Lamar smiled. “Just psychology.”
Baker said, “First we have to find him, so we’d better be doing our job. Thanks for doing yours, Doc. You can head home, now. We need you, we’ll phone you.”
Delaware handed the photo back. “Hope it’s not him.”
“Why?”
“It’s tough when they’re young.”
12
Back in the car, Lamar said, “Smart guy.”
Baker said, “That’s what the LA Loo said.”
“What’d you think about his theory?”
“I’m getting that warm, fuzzy feeling, like when everything starts fitting together. Let’s find the kid.”
“That’s the plan.”
They cruised up and down Sixteenth, then tried the neighboring streets, searching for the green Beetle, or a big hulking hippie-type with long hair and beard. Or maybe Tristan Poulson had switched back to the clean-cut version.
A couple of prospects turned out to be garden-variety homeless dudes. One of them panhandled and Lamar handed him a buck.
“Father Teresa,” said Baker.
“Got to give to get back. Where, now?”
“Drive.”
A canvass of the city core turned up nothing.
Baker said, “These are rich people, they lie with more style.”
“Meaning he could be in Kentucky, no matter what the maid said.”
“Or in that guest house, the Bug stashed in the garage. Did you notice they’ve got five of ’em? Garages.”
“Didn’t,” said Lamar. “One thing for sure, his mama lied. That big speech about how far away he was in Brown, how much she missed him. That was just one big misdirect…same thing as taking his pictures off the mantel before we showed up.”