Serena took one of his hands and kissed his fingertips. “Thank you for saying that.”
But he wasn’t sure she believed him. He wasn’t sure he believed himself.
He went to reach for her again, but somewhere on the floor mat, where her jeans were crumpled, her cell phone started ringing. Serena laughed, setting the tense moment aside, and found the phone.
Stride heard a man’s voice. Serena brightened. “Hey, Jay, hang on a second.”
She quickly covered the phone and whispered to Stride. “Jay Walling is a detective I know in Reno. Sixty years old and very dapper. Watches too many Sinatra movies.” She spoke into the phone again. “Jay, I’ve got another detective with me. I’m going to put you on speaker.”
She pushed a button and then continued, “Jay Walling, meet Jonathan Stride, and vice versa.”
“How are you, Jay?” Stride said.
“Excellent, thanks.” His voice had a smooth elegance. “So, Serena, is this the man you’re playing house with? Or did Cordy finally get arrested on a morals charge?”
Even in the darkness of the car, Stride could feel Serena flush with embarrassment.
“Nice to see the rumors have made their way across the state, Jay. Yes, Jonny and I are an item, and no, the women of Las Vegas are still not safe from Cordy. Mind if I ask who told you about us?”
“My lieutenant, actually,” Walling said. “He’s tight with Sawhill.”
“Great, just great.”
“Don’t be offended, darling. My wife will be relieved. She’s been looking for someone to fix you up with since we worked that case together last year.”
“Don’t make it sound like the impossible dream,” Serena snapped.
“Nonsense. You just have high standards. Detective Stride, my congratulations. Serena is one of my favorite people in the whole world, so treat her nice or I’ll have to have you rubbed out.”
Stride laughed, and Serena groaned. “Jay, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to have you rubbed out. Now, did you run down that receipt for me from my hit-and-run car?”
Walling chuckled. “Six Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a Sprite. At least we know your perp isn’t diabetic.”
“Funny.”
“I tracked down the store, but it was a cash sale, and the owner doesn’t remember a thing.”
“No surprise. That’s what I figured. Thanks for trying.”
“Yes, but there’s something else. I was hoping you might be able to fly up to Reno tomorrow.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Because I don’t like coincidences,” Walling said. “The same day your perp got his sugar fix in Reno, a woman got murdered on a ranch a few miles south of here. Someone cut her throat.”
NINE
Stride began to do research on MJ’s father, Walker Lane, following dozens of links on the Web from the computer in his cubicle. There was no official home page about the man, just gossipy sites that rehashed the same dry facts from his Hollywood biography and spiced up the written record with hints about his reclusive lifestyle in Canada.
There was plenty of information about Lane’s early days in the 1960s, when he was a wunderkind producer-director who struck it rich with his first self-funded film. From the beginning, he was about money, not art. Cherry Tree featured a fifteen-year-old newcomer, sort of a Hayley Mills with breasts, whose huge eyes and innocent sex appeal won over audiences, despite a lame spy story about a teenager helping George Washington win the Revolutionary War. Two more family comedies followed, both hugely successful, and Lane won a reputation as Frank Capra Lite, the boy with the golden touch. Because he hadn’t thrown in his lot with the big studios, he reaped the financial rewards himself.
Scandal dogged him, mostly because there were rumors on the set that he had been having an affair with his underaged star since their first film together. Lane denied it, but he didn’t hide his playboy ways, partying in L.A. and Vegas, and leaving a trail of photographs of himself with starlets on his arm.
Then came the big disappearance.
As far as Stride could tell, it happened in 1967. Lane left Hollywood, moved to Canada, and essentially vanished from the public eye. From a distance, he continued to build his reputation as a mover and shaker. He chose and funded a series of monster hits throughout the next three decades, deftly moving in and out of comedy and drama as public tastes changed. He never directed again, not as far as Stride could tell, but he became a huge force, a star-maker, without ever setting foot out of his estate in British Columbia. He was the executive producer behind two of the twenty highest-grossing films ever.
He became almost fanatically private. Actors and directors who met with him signed nondisclosure agreements. Like Howard Hughes, he seemed to run his empire primarily by phone. Stride couldn’t find a photograph of the man taken in the last twenty years. There were rumors of a disabling illness that left him in a wheelchair and of facial degeneration that had ravaged his once handsome, boyish looks. There were also rumors of a scandal that had driven him out of the country, but as far as Stride could tell, no one had pierced the veil and uncovered the real story.
Lane married a young actress in the early 1980s, after she interviewed for a role in a science fiction film he was bankrolling. She didn’t get the part, but she got Walker, and two years later, MJ was born. There were no public details about the relationship between Walker and his twenty-something wife, but somewhere along the line, it went badly wrong. Stride found news reports from 1990 about the woman’s suicide. There was no public memorial, no photograph of a grieving Walker Lane, and no public comment. She might as well not have existed.
Stride couldn’t find any evidence that Lane had given an interview in decades. That wasn’t a good sign. He didn’t expect the man to open up and discuss all his father-son secrets with a police detective from Las Vegas.
“You ready for your close-up?” Amanda asked, dropping into the chair squeezed inside his cube. She looked scrubbed and rested, which made him feel old. He had taken Serena to McCarran to catch an early flight to Reno, and two cups of coffee hadn’t dented the haze in his head. On the other hand, his body still had the pleasant ache from cramped, sweaty sex with Serena a few hours earlier.
“I’ll be lucky if he takes my call,” Stride said.
“He’s still a father with a dead kid. He’s got to be anxious to find out what happened.”
Stride shrugged. “Maybe. Sounds like Sawhill practically had to beg the governor to get Lane’s number. Nobody wants me to make this call.”
“Except me, because I want to hear what the big guy sounds like. So make it.”
“Let’s go in a conference room.”
They took over a small, windowless office and shut the door behind them. Stride had another cup of coffee with him, and Amanda had a cruller and a glass of orange juice. They sat down on opposite sides of the conference table, and Stride dragged the phone to him. Amanda had a yellow pad in front of her. He punched the hands-free button and dialed the number.
He expected to go through five layers of secretaries, personal assistants, and senior aides. Instead, almost immediately, the man answered his own phone.
“Walker Lane.” His voice sounded exactly like the one they had heard on the answering machine in MJ’s condo, but flat, without the emotional pleading. It was a terrible voice, as gritty as sandpaper, an old hound trying to bark like a fierce dog in its prime.
Stride couldn’t help but think of the photo he’d found of Walker Lane in the 1960s: absurdly tall, a mop of blond hair, Clark Kent glasses. Cocksure, as if he would someday own the world, which he pretty much did today. The price he’d paid was chiseled in his voice.
Stride introduced himself and Amanda. Lane didn’t sound surprised. Stride wondered if the governor had tipped him off to expect the call.