by Tami Hoag
The boy looked up at her, a little bit shocked by her sudden steely attitude.
“I’m trying to help you, Dennis,” she said. “You need to do your part.”
5
Anne walked out of the room and down the hall, past a man in his pajamas talking to the fire alarm. She walked past the nurses’ station without exchanging glances with the staff she had come to know well. She needed to be alone, even if only in her head. The too-familiar pressure was building in her chest. She couldn’t get a good breath. She remembered the feeling of a hand around her throat.
She buzzed herself out the security door.
The day was sunny and quickly turning hot. Another day in paradise. Anne had grown up in Oak Knoll, far enough north and west of Los Angeles to escape the city’s uglier vices. Most of the time. She had left to attend UCLA, despite the fact that her father had been a professor at the highly respected private college in Oak Knoll—or, perhaps, because of it. She hadn’t planned on coming back, but life had had other plans for her.
She sat down on a concrete bench along the front of the building and rested her head in her hands as the emotions rocked through her. Post-traumatic stress syndrome: Not just for war veterans. Victims of violent crime suffered the same way.
The memories flashed strobelike through her mind: hands around her throat, choking her; fists punching her; feet kicking her, breaking her ribs, collapsing a lung.
Even a year after her abduction and attempted murder, the first and strongest feeling that assaulted her when she thought of what had happened was fear. Raw, primal fear. Then anger—rage, in fact. Then a profound sense of loss.
Her therapist told her to let the emotion come like a wave and wash over her, not to fight against it. The sooner she accepted the feelings, the sooner she could let go of them.
Easier said than done. The fear of drowning in that wave was strong; the sense of losing control, overwhelming; the swell of anger for what she had lost, crushing.
She tried again to take a deep breath. She felt like there were bands of steel tight around her chest.
“Hey, beautiful,” a deep, familiar voice said. A big hand brushed over her hair and rested on her shoulder. She leaned into him as he sat down next to her, turned her face toward him, her head instinctively finding the perfect spot against his shoulder.
“You look a lot like my wife,” he said softly, wrapping his arms around her. “Only my wife is always happy. I make sure of it.”
Her breath hitched in her throat as she looked up at him. “H-how did you know I n-needed you?”
He brushed a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “Well, I like to think you need me every minute of every day,” he said, his dark eyes shining.
Anne sniffed and managed a little smile. “I do.”
He leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips.
To people who didn’t know them, Anne supposed they seemed an unlikely couple. Vince, forty-nine, more than a little world-wise and world-weary, a man who had dedicated his life to understanding evil. And Anne herself, twenty-nine, a former fifth-grade teacher who had dedicated her life to understanding children.
Yet they made perfect sense to her. Even as a child, Anne had been mature beyond her years. She had never been interested in young men. Vince was mature, strong, full of integrity, a man who knew his own mind. A man who had no interest in wasting his second chance at life.
“Tough morning with the demon child?” he asked.
“Don’t say I told you so.”
Vince shook his head. “I know you have to try. I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.”
“Thank you.”
“You want to talk about it?”
She shook her head. “Same old, same old. Dennis said something ... I just needed a moment. I’ll be fine.”
He brushed her dark hair back. “Tough cookie.”
“When I have to be.”
“The point is, you don’t have to be.”
“I know,” she acknowledged and deftly changed the subject. “What did Tony call you out on so early?”
“A homicide,” he said, getting what Anne called his cop eyes—an expression that gave away nothing.
“I know that,” she said with a hint of irritation. “Was it something bad?”
Stupid question. Nobody called Vince Leone for a bar brawl that ended with one idiot breaking the skull of another idiot. He got calls in the middle of night from detectives in Budapest, FBI agents in New York, law enforcement agencies all over the world, to consult on only the most grisly, psychologically twisted cases. If Tony Mendez called before dawn, he had a big reason.
“Do you know a woman named Marissa Fordham?”
“No,” Anne said, “but the name is familiar.”
“She was an artist.”
Anne thought about it. “Oh, right. She did a poster for the Thomas Center last year. It was gorgeous.”
Marissa Fordham was dead, she realized. She would never know the woman. There would be no more beautiful artwork to help raise money for charities.
“What happened?”
“Found dead in her home by a neighbor. She and her daughter. The little girl is at Mercy General.”
“How old?”
“Four.”
“Oh my God. What—”
She started to ask the question then caught herself. Did she really want to know what some sick bastard might have done to a four-year-old child?
“It was a bad scene,” Vince conceded. He brushed her hair back again. “I needed to see you as much as you needed to see me. I knew you’d be here.”
“Was it a random thing, or do you think it was someone who knew her?”
Anne wasn’t sure which was worse, really. A random crime put everyone into a state of panic. Better if the killer was someone who had a problem with the victim. Unless that someone turned out to be somebody like Peter Crane. The serial killer next door.
“It seemed personal,” Vince said.
So had Peter Crane’s first murder ... until he committed another, and another.
“I’m on my way to the hospital to see about the little girl,” he said. “I just wanted to stop and see you first.”
To check on her. The victim wasn’t the only one to suffer the aftereffects of crime. What had happened to her had left its mark on Vince, as well. He had shown up at her house within an hour of her abduction. If only he had gotten there earlier. If only he had figured out the puzzle sooner. He was one of the top men in his field in the entire world. How could he not have prevented it from happening?
All these thoughts had plagued him in the year since. As a result, he kept close tabs on her, made sure he knew where she was going and whom she was seeing. He still didn’t like having her out of his sight.
They were both damaged. Fortunately, they had each other to confide in and support as they worked through the aftermath. Not all victims were so lucky to have that shared understanding with someone close to them.
Anne slipped her arms around her husband and hugged him tight for a moment. Vince held her and kissed the top of her head.
“I should go back inside,” she said. “I’m adding to Dennis’s abandonment issues.”
“I have to get on with it too.”
Neither of them moved.
“What’s the rest of your day?” Vince asked.
“I have a class at one thirty, then an appointment with the ADA. I’m meeting Franny for a glass of wine at Piazza Fontana. I’ll be home by six thirty.”
“Me too, then,” he said. He brushed his lips across the shell of her ear. “And after dinner, I am going to make such sweet love to you, Mrs. Leone ... Remember that the next time you start to feel a little tense.”
Anne smiled up at him. “Do you know how much I love you?”
He shook his head, a grin tugging up one corner of his mouth. “I think you’ll have to show me later.”
“That’s a promise.”
Vince walked her back to
the front door of the hospital and kissed her good-bye. Anne watched him walk back to his car, then went back inside, ready to face Dennis Farman for Round Two.
6
Mendez was on his fifth cup of coffee by the time the hearse crept down the long driveway with the body of Marissa Fordham inside. It was after ten. He had been on the scene more than three hours.
Dixon had overseen the processing, asking for extra photographs, video of every room of the house. It wasn’t his habit to take over a scene, but for something like this there was no question. He had worked homicide for the LA County Sheriff’s Office for years. He had run more homicides than Mendez hoped to ever see.
The struggle between victim and perpetrator appeared to have started in Marissa Fordham’s bedroom, where lamps had been toppled, furniture shoved around and tipped over. Dresser drawers had been pulled open, the contents vomited out onto the floor.
A large bloodstain dyed the flowered sheets of the bed. Cast-off blood stippled the ceiling, indicating the viciousness of the stabbing.
Some of the dresser contents had fallen on top of blood streaked on the floor.
“He came back and looked for something,” Dixon muttered, directing the deputy with the camera to get a close shot.
“Hell of a vicious attack for a robbery,” Bill Hicks commented.
“He killed her first,” Mendez said. “Anything that happened next was an afterthought. He took too much time with the body for the murder not to have been his priority.”
“And he left the jewelry,” Dixon said, pointing at some expensive-looking pieces casually strewn across the top of the dresser. “He was looking for something in particular.”
“I wonder if he found it,” Hicks said.
“I don’t know, but he cleaned himself up before he looked for it. There’s no blood on the stuff that came out of the drawers. He washed up before he looked.”
“That’s cold, man,” Mendez said. “The little girl was laying in there half dead while he was cleaning up, having a look around.”
“He probably thought she was dead. No witness, no hurry to leave.”
Dixon gave the directive to clean out all the drain traps in the bathrooms and kitchen, in case they might yield some trace evidence that might later be matched to a suspect.
Mendez believed someday the DNA markers of convicted felons would be stored in a giant database available to law enforcement agencies all over the country. They would have only to run DNA on a hair left behind at the scene, a drop of the killer’s blood, a piece of skin, and a search of the database would give them the name of their perp.
Unfortunately, it was 1986 and that day was still a long way off. For now, they would collect evidence and hang on to it, hoping they would be able to match it to a suspect when they had one.
Somehow, the victim had made it out of the bedroom. The trail of blood and overturned chairs and lamps was easy to follow.
Mendez couldn’t help but picture it in his mind: Marissa Fordham, bleeding profusely as she tried to get away. Her hands had been covered in blood, as if she had tried desperately to stem the gushing from her wounds. Her heart would have been pounding. She would have been choking on panic.
Where had her child been during all of this? Had the little girl seen it happen? Had she been roused from her own bed by the commotion? Had she stumbled, sleepy eyed, out of her own bedroom to witness her mother fighting for her life?
Hell of a thing for a little kid to have to see.
At last check with the hospital, the child was still alive.
What kind of witness would she make?
The 911 operator had reported the call to Dixon. “My daddy hurt my mommy.”
If it was that simple, they had only to go in search of the child’s father. Maybe Zander Zahn didn’t know who that was, but someone would. Women didn’t keep secrets like that. Marissa Fordham would have confided in a girlfriend. They just had to find out who her friends were.
The deputy who had been first on the scene came in through the kitchen door, looking to Mendez.
“There’s a woman here who had an appointment with the victim.” Mendez followed him outside and around to the front yard of the little ranch house.
The local media had come to camp out shortly after Vince had gotten there. A TV news van had arrived from Santa Barbara before nine. Bad news traveled fast.
The deputies had kept them at a respectful distance down at the end of the driveway. A lone blue Chrysler minivan had been allowed to pass. The woman sitting behind the wheel stared at Mendez now as he approached her door.
Sara Morgan.
He recognized her instantly. The cornflower blue eyes, the tousled mermaid’s mane of blond hair. Her daughter, Wendy, had been one of four children to stumble upon the body of murder victim Lisa Warwick the year before.
She watched him approach, her expression guarded. Her window was open. He guessed she probably wanted to close it, turn the car around, and leave.
“Mrs. Morgan.”
She remained in the car. “What’s going on? Has something happened? Is Marissa here? Is she all right?”
“You had an appointment with Ms. Fordham?” he asked. “What kind of an appointment?”
“Where is Marissa?” she demanded, annoyed and frightened. “You can answer my question first, Detective.”
“Ms. Fordham is deceased,” he said bluntly, and watched the color drain from her face.
“Was there an accident?” she asked in a thin voice, her hands clenching and unclenching on the steering wheel. “Did she have an accident?”
“No, ma’am,” Mendez said.
Sara Morgan looked past him toward the house, murmuring, “Oh my God. Oh God.”
Tears magnified her eyes.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Mendez said.
“What about Haley? Where’s Haley?”
“She’s been taken to the hospital.”
“Oh my God.” Two big crystalline tears spilled over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks. She had begun to tremble.
“How did you know Ms. Fordham?” Mendez asked. “Were you friends?”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she murmured, her focus still on the house.
“The deputy told me you had an appointment. What kind of appointment?”
“What?” she asked, coming back to him as if she were a little startled to see him, to hear him speak.
“Your appointment was for what?”
“Marissa is—was—teaching me to paint on silk,” she said, struggling with the change of verb tense as if it were something surprising and bitter in her mouth. “She’s an extraordinary artist. Was.”
“You teach art, don’t you?” Mendez asked.
She shook her head dismissively. “Community Ed. It’s nothing. Marissa ... Oh my God. She’s dead. Why would somebody do that? Who could have done that?”
“How well did you know her?” Mendez asked.
Sara Morgan shrugged. “I don’t know. We were friends—friendly—casual friends.”
“Do you know if she was seeing anyone?”
“No. I wouldn’t know that. We never talked about anything like that.”
“You don’t know anything about the little girl’s father?”
She seemed annoyed he would ask. “No, of course not.
“I would really like just to leave now, Detective,” she said. “I’m sure I can’t help you. I would like just to go home. This is very ... I don’t even know what to say.”
Mendez ignored what Sara Morgan wanted. “I didn’t see a studio in the house. Where did she do her work?”
“The studio is in the old barn.”
“Would you show me?”
“It’s right there. Behind the house. You don’t need me,” she argued.
“You might be able to tell if something is missing.”
“Missing?” she asked. “You think someone came to rob her? You think she was killed because someone wanted to steal her art?”
she said, becoming more agitated. “That’s crazy.”
“Can you think of another reason someone would want her dead?”
“Of course not!” she snapped, slapping the steering wheel in frustration. She had gauze around her hand and blue Smurf Band-Aids on three fingers. “How could I possibly know that?”
Several more tears squeezed over the edges of her lashes. Mendez took in her reactions, feeling bad for her. She had just lost a friend. He couldn’t blame her for being upset.
“Can you show me the studio, please?” he asked again.
She wanted to say no, but in the end turned her car off, resigned. Mendez opened her door for her.
They walked together beneath the pepper trees toward the barn. Sara Morgan was in bib overalls streaked with paint, splotches of yellow, swipes of red. It wasn’t hard to imagine her with paint on her hands, on her chin, on the tip of her pert nose. And it would look good on her, he thought. Even though the morning had turned warm, she hugged herself hard, as if she were freezing and trying to stop the shivers.
“What happened to your hands?” he asked, noting that the fingers on her right hand sported a couple of Smurf Band-Aids as well.
“I’m working on a multimedia piece that includes wire and metal as part of it,” she said. “It’s difficult to work with, but I don’t like to wear gloves.”
“Suffering for your art?”
She made a little sound that might have been impatience or sarcastic humor.
“How is Wendy doing?”
She frowned down at the ground and her old Keds tennis shoes. “She’s having a hard time. She still has nightmares about finding that body in the park and about Dennis Farman trying to hurt her. She misses Tommy. She thinks you should be looking for him.”
“We are,” he said. “Trying to, anyway. We just don’t have a clue where to look. Janet Crane hasn’t contacted anyone—or the relatives aren’t talking if she has. There’s no trail to follow. We just don’t have anything to work with.”
“I guess if I found out my husband was a serial killer I would take my child and disappear too.”