Secrets to the Grave (30 page)

He had missed this with his girls. Working long hours and traveling for the Bureau had carved him out a legendary career, but he had missed this. He would be a lucky man to get a second shot at being a father.

Not that he had written himself out of the lives of his daughters. Since his shooting they all had made an effort to stay in touch and to strengthen their relationships.

Anne had accompanied him to Virginia the past winter to meet the girls. Vince had been more than a little nervous about that. Anne was slightly closer to their ages than to his. He worried they would think he had gone off some midlife crisis deep end, taking up with a younger woman, moving to California, leaving the Bureau.

And they had at first. Amy, just sixteen, who had fewer memories of the tensions between her parents when they had been together, harbored more resentment toward him than had Emily, two years older. They still had things to work on, all three of them, but both girls had flown out for the wedding. He felt that was a good start to acceptance of his new life.

He stretched out in his big leather recliner—the Man Chair, Anne called it—in their cozy family room with its warm tan walls and cream-colored carpet. He was exhausted and still disturbed from his encounter with Zander Zahn. All that and he was going to have a nasty bruise on his cheekbone too.

Popped by a professor. The boys in the cop shop would have fun with that. Not that Zahn’s meltdown was anything to joke about.

Sighing, he closed his eyes for a few minutes in an attempt to relax his brain.

He had a lot of thoughts and theories turning over up there, and it had physically been a long day. But miraculously the pain in his head receded as he rested and used some of the breathing techniques he had learned from a chronic pain specialist. It rarely completely left him, but rather lurked in there somewhere at its lowest level, keeping him aware it could come out and nail him whenever it wanted to.

Gradually Vince came up out of the restful place his mind had been, and he became aware of the sense of being watched. When he opened his eyes he was looking into Haley’s. She stood beside the chair with her rabbit tucked under her arm.

“Hey,” Vince said.

“You were sleeping,” Haley said in her hoarse little voice.

He wondered if she would ever be rid of that reminder of being choked. At least the bruising on the exterior of her throat would eventually fade away, if not the memory.

“Do you have to take naps?” she asked.

“I like to take naps.”

“I don’t.”

“No? Why not?”

Her expression was very sober as she shook her head. “Babies take naps.”

“I’m not a baby,” Vince pointed out.

“No.” Her little mouth twisted up on one side in a funny smile. “You’re the daddy. Why don’t you have any kids?”

“Well, because Anne and I just got married. We haven’t had time to have kids yet.”

She thought about that, deciding it must be a reasonable explanation.

“Where’s Anne?”

“She had to go have a meeting with someone. She’ll be back in a little while.”

“I like Anne. She plays with me,” she said, as if she and Anne were longtime friends.

She seemed to have no reticence with strangers. But then her mother had been a very social person with a lot of friends who had come into Haley’s life on a regular basis. She had probably never had a reason to fear adults—until now. Vince wondered if that would change for her once the memories of what had happened came back to her. Probably.

“Will you play with me?” she asked.

“Sure,” Vince said. “What are we playing?”

“We’re playing you’re the daddy and I’m the little girl.”

“Okay. What do I have to do?”

“Read me and Honey-Bunny a story.”

“All right. You go pick out a book.”

She went to a basket full of toys and books Franny had brought over on loan and pulled one out, then came back and scrambled up in the chair with him, settling herself comfortably into the crook of his arm.

“Do you like to read stories?” Vince asked.

“I can’t read,” she told him. “I’m just little.”

“Does your real daddy read you stories?” He winced a little at the mental image of Anne kicking him in the shins for that.

Haley paid no attention to him as she opened the cover of the story-book.

“What about Zander?” he asked. “Does Zander ever read you stories?”

“Zander is weird,” she said without looking up.

“Weird how?”

She shrugged. “Just weird. He doesn’t like to touch anything. Isn’t that funny? Mommy says he’s fraggle.”

“What does fraggle mean?”

“I don’t know. Why does your shirt have a horse on it?” she asked, scratching at the purple Ralph Lauren logo on the black polo shirt.

“That’s a symbol for the company that made it,” he said.
Fraggle?
What the heck was fraggle?

“I like horses,” Haley said. “I’m gonna get a pony when I’m five.” She held up her small hand, fingers splayed wide to show him she knew how much five was.

Fraggle? Fragile
?

“Did your mommy say fragile?”

Haley nodded. “Fraggle. What does that mean?”

“When someone is fragile it’s easy to upset them or hurt their feelings.”

Haley had already lost interest in the subject and was turning the pages of the book.

“Does Zander ever scare you, honey?” Vince asked.

She frowned but didn’t answer. “Do you know Zander?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Isn’t he weird?”

“Yeah, I’d have to say so,” Vince admitted.

“Read the story!” Haley said impatiently.

“Does your mommy read you stories?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes she makes up stories. She makes me books sometimes and paints the pictures in them.”

“That’s very special,” Vince said. “Are you missing your mommy?”

A faraway look came into her eyes and she said nothing for a moment. Finally, she said quietly, “My mommy fell down and got hurt.”

“I know,” Vince said softly. Anne was going to kill him. “Were you there when your mommy got hurt, sweetheart?”

Tears welled up. Vince held his breath.

“You’re not playing right!” Haley insisted, lower lip quivering. “You’re the daddy! You have to read the story!”

“Okay. All right, honey. Don’t cry.”

He could only imagine the consequences if Anne came home and Haley told her he had made her cry.

She settled in against him as Vince turned to the first page of the book, her body tense at first, as if she were still trying to ward off the bad feelings he had stirred up with his questions. But as he began to read the story about a princess who wanted to be a fairy, he felt her let go. Before he had read three pages she was asleep, dreaming of a place where bad things couldn’t happen, he hoped.

49

“There’s no sign of Gina Kemmer, no sign of her car,” Hicks said. “One neighbor said she saw her leave her house sometime between five and six o’clock last night. She was alone. She didn’t have a suitcase. Everything looked normal.”

Back in the war room for the end of the day, someone had ordered pizza and sodas. Chicago-style pizza. That meant Vince had put the call in. Mendez was glad. He was starving. He couldn’t remember the last meal he’d had—or decent night’s sleep for that matter.

They sat on all sides of the long table eating like they would never see food again. The room was filled with the aroma of herbs and tomato sauce—almost, but not quite drowning out the smell of frustration.

“If she left town of her own accord, she did it without taking so much as a change of clothes or a makeup bag,” he said. “What woman does that?”

“None,” Dixon said. “If she was snatched from the supermarket parking lot, her car would still be there. If she went to stay with a friend, her car would be parked on the street or in a driveway.”

“She could have gone off the road into a canyon,” Hamilton suggested. “Or just plain got out of town. Maybe she has a friend in Santa Barbara or someplace else.”

“Or somebody has her,” Trammell said.

“Or she’s dead,” Mendez said. “To me this strengthens the blackmail angle.”

“Even if there was no blackmail,” Hicks said, “Gina probably knows something someone doesn’t want her to.”

“What do her bank records look like?” Dixon asked, swiping a napkin across his chin to catch a dribble of tomato sauce.

“She has her accounts at Wells Fargo, same as Marissa Fordham,” Hamilton said. “The only odd thing is every month she deposits a check for a grand from Marissa Fordham.”

“Payoff?” Dixon said. “Or was Marissa just a generous friend sharing her good fortune?”

“A payoff could give Kemmer a motive,” Campbell said. “If the generous friend tried to cut her off.”

Mendez shook his head. “You had to see this girl yesterday. She was a nervous wreck. She’d never have the
cojones
to stab anyone, let alone do what was done to her best friend. And then put those breasts in a box and send them to Milo Bordain? She couldn’t even look at a crime-scene photo without puking.”

“Do we have her phone records?” Dixon asked.

Hamilton shook his head. “Not yet.”

“What have we found out about Marissa Fordham’s alias?” Mendez asked.

“Melissa Fabriano?” Hamilton shook his head as he consulted his notes. “Nothing. No criminal record in the state of California. I went back to the authorities in Rhode Island—on the off chance she really was from there. They didn’t have anything on that name.”

“So the vic had no criminal record on either of her names,” Trammell said.

“Not that I’ve found so far.”

“Why would a person with no criminal record need an alias?”

“She had to be hiding from somebody,” Mendez said. “If not the baby’s father, who?”

Nobody had an answer for that.

“Damn, this job’s a lot harder than it looks,” Campbell complained, breaking the tension with a laugh.

“What about Gina Kemmer?” Trammell asked. “Is that her real name? Does she have a record somewhere? If the two of them go back some years, maybe that’s how we find out about our vic.”

“I’ll see what I can find out,” Hamilton said. He looked to Dixon. “When are we going to get computers?”

“When they become necessary and free,” Dixon said. “There’s nothing wrong with your ear and your finger. Use the damn phone.”

“Speaking of phones,” Vince said. “Any hot tips on the reward line?”

“Oh, yeah,” Campbell said. “There are at least five women in the county who believe the killer was their ex-husband, ex-boyfriend, ex- married lover.”

“A psychic called to say she would find Marissa’s killer for us if we would only pay her the reward up front,” Trammell said.

“If she was really psychic, she would have known better than to call,” Dixon said.

“It’s a big waste of time, but Mrs. Bordain got one of her civic groups to man the phones,” Hamilton said. “It’s not costing us anything in man hours—unless we get a lead that’s worth chasing down.”

“Anything from any of Ms. Fordham’s gentlemen friends?” Dixon asked.

“Most of them had alibis for the night of the murder,” Campbell said.

“Who doesn’t?”

“Mark Foster was home alone. Bob Copetti was out of town—we haven’t corroborated that yet.”

“Steve Morgan was allegedly out of town,” Mendez said. “Has anyone followed up on that?”

No one had.

“What about Darren Bordain?” Vince asked. “He knew the victim and Gina Kemmer.”

“What’s his motive supposed to be?” Dixon asked.

Vince shrugged. “Maybe he’s Haley’s father. Or maybe he resented Marissa for her relationship with his mother.”

Dixon tried to dismiss the idea. “Darren Bordain is the golden child of that family. He’s had everything he ever wanted handed to him—an education, a career. He’s being groomed for the political arena.”

“I doubt any of that comes without strings attached,” Vince said. He looked to Hicks and Mendez. “You said he made some wisecrack about he should have had a fling with Marissa.”

“Yeah,” Mendez said. “He was on the sarcastic side when he talked about his mother, but ...”

“But what?” Vince asked. “He’s too smooth? Too good-looking? Too privileged?”

Mendez thought about it carefully. He did know better than to be fooled by appearances. “No. That’s just a big leap from resenting your mother to cutting a woman’s breasts off and sending them to Mom in the mail. I just didn’t get that vibe from him.”

“There’s a reason vibes aren’t admissible in court,” Vince said. “He should get a good look like every other guy who knew the victim. Don’t you think so, Cal?”

Dixon raked a hand back through his silver hair and sighed, no doubt weighing the cons of having Milo Bordain coming down on his head.

“Bring him in for a conversation,” he said. “But don’t make a big deal about it. Very low-key. Tell him we’re trying to build a more extensive picture of Marissa’s life and a timeline leading up to her death. We want to know who saw her when, who spoke to her, who has a solid alibi so we can eliminate those people from the suspect list.”

“That’s not a bad idea anyway,” Mendez said. “Let’s follow all the way through on that. We’ve got Steve Morgan in jail already. Let’s bring him over.”

Dixon gave him the eagle eye. “We do
not
have Steve Morgan in jail.”

“He assaulted me!” Mendez said, pointing to his fat stitched lip.

“You broke his nose and damn near fractured his eye socket. He wanted to file harassment and assault charges. I talked him out of it.”

“You talked a lawyer out of filing charges?” Trammell said. “You’re the man, boss.”

“He admitted to hitting you first,” Dixon said to Mendez.

“So he’s a cheat but not always a liar,” Mendez said. “Good to know he has something going for him. We should still bring him in to talk.”