by Tami Hoag
27
“Maureen Up-chuck,” Franny said with as much disdain as he could manage and still keep his voice down. “I would call her a stupid cow, but that would be offensive to cows everywhere.”
They sat at the far end of Haley’s hospital room while the little girl slept quietly. Franny had brought tea and tea cakes from the Mad Hatter tea shop and bakery on Via Verde near the college.
“I had her nephew in my class a few years ago—right before you came back to teach,” he went on. “Thank God she, herself, hasn’t reproduced. Somebody burn the nest before that can happen!”
Anne chuckled under her breath, appreciative of the distraction from the day’s tensions. “You’re terrible.”
“I’m terrible?” he said, incredulous. “She reported me to the school board because her nephew was a weenie wagger!”
“Oh my God!” Anne covered her mouth to stifle her laughter. “How was that your fault?”
Franny was delighted, of course. “She claimed it was my ‘gay influence’ that made him do it. But the kid had a well-documented history of weenie wagging from day care on, and she knew it. He got expelled from Sunday school for whipping it out during the Christmas pageant right in front of the Virgin Mary, for God’s sake!
“She was just pissed off at me because I had told her sister her kid was going to grow up to be a pervert flasher if she didn’t make him stop it.”
“And that made her angry. Go figure,” Anne said.
“Yeah. And the next thing I know, here comes Maureen Upchuck like a charging elephant, accusing me of being gay!”
“You are gay.”
“It’s got nothing to do with my teaching abilities. Am I not a stellar teacher?”
“The best in the West.”
“Besides, she’s the biggest, fattest Lickalottapuss around.”
“She’s a what?”
Franny rolled his eyes. “You’re so out of touch, Anne Marie. What do you call a lesbian dinosaur? A Lick-a-lotta-puss.”
“Oh my God!” Anne put her hands over her face to hide her flaming blush.
Franny smiled his eyes into crescents above his apple cheeks. “Made you laugh!”
Anne shook her head, wiping the tears from her eyes. “You’re something else, Francis. What would I do without you?”
“Well, you’d be really boring.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s all right. I’m happy to be your spirit guide into modern pop culture.”
“I don’t know if ‘culture’ is the right word.”
“Anyway, she got me in trouble. She’s a bitter, vindictive bitch. She blames all normal-size people for her being as big as the freaking Good-year blimp,” he said. “Like she doesn’t buy two dozen doughnuts and a bucket of fried chicken every time she goes into Ralph’s. I’ve seen her.”
“Well, she’s plenty mad at me,” Anne said. “I jumped the chain of command.”
“You did what was best for Haley.”
“She doesn’t see it that way. Neither does Milo Bordain. She had a total meltdown. I do feel bad about that.”
“Fuck ’em,” Franny said. “What does Vince think about it?”
“He didn’t want me to do it, but he backed me up.”
“He’s just trying to protect you, sweetheart.”
“I know.”
On the bed, Haley began to stir and whimper. Anne got up and went to her, bending over and brushing the girl’s damp hair back from her face.
“You’re all right, sweetie,” she said quietly.
Haley opened her bloodred eyes and stared up at Anne.
Anne waited for the tears to come, but there were none.
“Do you remember me?”
The swollen, bruised little rosebud mouth pursed for a moment as she tried to decide whether she would answer or not. Anne offered her a sip of water through a straw. She knew from her own experience how her throat had felt after being choked.
Haley sat up and took the drink.
“Do you remember me from last night, honey?” Anne asked again.
The child nodded. “You’re the mommy,” she said in a scratchy little voice.
“My name is Anne. I’m here to help you and make sure you’re all right.”
She took that in and thought about it.
“Hi, Haley,” Franny said softly, joining Anne at the bedside.
Haley studied him for a moment. “Are you the daddy?”
“No, sweetheart. I’m Mr. Franny. Do you remember? You came to my classroom at the school for the Halloween party.”
“I was a kitty,” Haley said.
“Yes, you were. I remember. You were a very pretty kitty.”
She looked around the room and through the glass wall to the desk where people in hospital scrubs were busy reviewing charts and making notes.
“You’re in the hospital,” Anne said. “You got hurt and you were brought here so the doctors could make you feel better. Do you remember getting hurt?”
Haley shook her head, eyes cast downward. She picked at the tape that held her IV catheter in place then turned back to Anne. “Where’s my mommy?”
Pain squeezed Anne’s heart. There was no easy way to do this, but she had decided to give Haley little pieces as she asked for them. There was no point in telling her straight out that she would never see her mother again when she was feeling alone and afraid, surrounded by strangers.
“Your mommy was hurt too.”
Anne held her breath, waiting for the next question. Can I see her? Where is she?
But Haley Fordham didn’t ask. She sat quietly, eyebrows lowered as she thought it over. When she looked up at Anne, she had moved on to other needs.
“My throat hurts. Can I have Jell-O?”
“I’ll go ask,” Franny said. “I’ll bet you can. The Jell-O is very good here. Isn’t it, Anne?”
“Excellent Jell-O.”
Franny went out the door as Vince got off the elevator, laden down with a couple of duffel bags. He came into the room, eyebrows raised at the sight of Haley sitting up in bed.
“This is a good sign,” he said.
Haley looked up at him. “Are you the daddy?”
“I’m Vince,” he said, bending down to her level. “And you’re Haley. And I have something I think you’re going to be very happy to see.”
From out of one of the duffel bags he pulled a floppy-eared, much-loved velveteen rabbit.
The little girl’s face lit up. “Honey-Bunny!”
Vince handed her the toy and looked at Anne. “Has she said anything?”
“She doesn’t remember getting hurt.”
“Did you ask—”
“I’m not going to push,” she warned.
“I know. I know. I was hoping for what the attorneys call an excited utterance.”
“Hmm. No. No excited utterances,” she said as he deposited the duffel bags on one of the chairs and helped himself to a Russian tea cake on the tray. “Will you be in trouble for taking evidence from a crime scene?”
“The CSIs already took everything they thought might be significant. Thank God the rabbit didn’t look suspicious,” he said, nodding at Haley, who had curled up with her old friend and was looking decidedly sleepy again, a thumb inching toward her mouth.
“She’s so precious,” Anne said quietly. “I feel so bad for her.
“I was twenty-three when I lost my mother,” she said. “I was devastated, but at least I have a lot of memories to look back on. She was there for every significant event of my life: my first day of school, Brownies, school plays, my first date, the first breakup, going off to college.
“Haley won’t have that. I can’t imagine being that young, that small and vulnerable, and not having anyone.”
Vince slipped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “She has you.”
“For now.”
Anne gave a long sigh, leaning into her husband’s solid warmth. She watched the little girl’s eyes flutte
r closed, her impossibly long eyelashes curling against her cheek, and marveled at how quickly she had become attached to Haley Fordham. She would have to be careful not to pass the point of no return. Their paths were crossing now for a reason, and they would eventually go their separate ways—after they had finished helping each other.
She was already dreading that day.
A deputy came to the door and knocked hesitantly on the glass.
“Mr. Leone? I have a message from Detective Mendez. He said to tell you we found the breasts.”
28
The two orbs of flesh in the box had ceased to resemble breasts. The skin was turning black and slimy, and was slipping off in places. The nipples had shriveled and hardened like old raisins. The fatty tissue had become gelatinous. The smell was horrific.
“The mailman brought this?” Mendez asked. “What the hell did he think was in it? Rotten fish?”
Milo Bordain nearly gagged. She sat on an old bent-willow settee on the porch of her sprawling ranch house. She didn’t seem nearly as formidable after losing her lunch in the rosebushes.
Her face was pale and waxy, and she was sweating, despite the chill coming on now as the sun slipped behind the mountains at the backside of the ranch.
The box sat on a footstool a few feet away. Mendez crouched down to examine the postmark.
“Lompoc,” he said. “Mailed on Monday.”
It was now Wednesday. The pathologist had estimated Marissa Fordham’s death as having taken place sometime on Sunday.
“I guess we can add severed body parts to the list of things that should be thrown out after three days,” he said to Hicks.
“Fish, houseguests, and rotting human flesh,” Hicks said.
Mendez glanced back at Mrs. Bordain to be sure she was out of earshot. She had gone to the far end of the long porch to be sick again.
The average citizen didn’t appreciate cop humor. Not that there was anything funny about the situation. It was just a way of releasing the tension that built doing a sometimes-grim job.
“No return address,” he said, standing.
“Why send them to her?”
“She supported Marissa Fordham.”
“Our killer is a demented art critic?”
Mendez shrugged. “Everybody’s got something to say.”
The sheriff’s car pulled up the driveway and Dixon got out.
“We’re not good enough for the grand dame?” Mendez asked as their boss joined them.
“That’s right,” Dixon said. “Only the top of the food chain for Mrs. Bordain.”
“I wouldn’t mention food to her right now,” Mendez said. “She’s pretty shaken up.”
“The box was sent from Lompoc,” Hicks said. “No return address.”
Dixon’s face twisted as he leaned over the box for a look. “Glad I’m not the one taking that to Santa Barbara for the pathologist.”
“Don’t look at me,” Mendez said. “I just bought this jacket. I’m not spending an hour in a car with that smell.”
“Relax. I can’t spare you for running errands,” Dixon said as a pair of crime-scene techs came onto the porch.
“The box is evidence,” he told them. “The contents have to go to the morgue in Santa Barbara. The pathologist is expecting you.”
“Cal, thank you for coming.”
Milo Bordain had collected herself. She came as far as the front door, staying well back from the view and the smell of the box. The pastiness had passed out of her system along with her stomach contents. Ashen best described her now. She was still visibly shaking.
“I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this, Mrs. Bordain,” Dixon said. “You saw the mailman leave the box?”
“He brought it to the door along with the rest of my mail. I sat down here to open it.” She closed her eyes and shook her head at the memory. “Oh my God. It was ... I’ve never seen ...”
“You should sit down, ma’am,” Mendez suggested.
“No, no. I can’t stay out here with that box,” she said, waving a hand. “I can’t stand it. That’s part of Marissa. Someone did that to her. It’s sick!”
She turned and went into the house. Dixon followed her. Hicks and Mendez followed.
“I feel ill,” Bordain said. “I have to make some tea.”
They followed her through a great room that looked like something out of Bonanza to a huge kitchen outfitted with commercial appliances. She went about the business of filling a teakettle and putting it on the stove to heat. When she turned around and saw Mendez and Hicks, one eyebrow sketched upward in disapproval.
“I thought we would talk about this privately, Cal,” she said to the sheriff.
“Detective Mendez is my lead investigator on the case. Detective Hicks is his partner.”
“I thought you were handling the case personally.”
“It has my full focus, but an investigation like this is always a team effort.”
She didn’t seem to like that answer. She wanted the sheriff’s undivided attention.
“This is quite a place you have, Mrs. Bordain,” Hicks said. “Is it a working ranch?”
“Yes. We raise exotic cattle—Highland cattle. And of course we have a few horses—pure Spanish Andalusians—and some interesting types of chickens.”
Even the animals on her ranch had designer labels.
She was dressed to go riding in tan jodhpurs and tall boots, and a butter-soft suede jacket that probably would have cost Mendez two weeks’ pay. A beautifully patterned silk scarf was wound around her throat into an elaborate cravat inside the open collar of her crisp white blouse. She wore kid gloves so thin and fine she didn’t bother taking them off.
The boots didn’t look like they had ever seen the inside of a barn or stepped into a stirrup.
“Do you know anyone in Lompoc, Mrs. Bordain?” he asked.
“No.”
Lompoc didn’t have the right zip code for the Bordains, who had a mansion in posh Montecito on the coast adjacent to Santa Barbara, and a condo on the Wilshire Corridor in Los Angeles.
“The box was postmarked Lompoc.”
A city roughly the same size as Oak Knoll, Lompoc was north and west of Santa Barbara. Its biggest claim to fame in Mendez’s book was the federal penitentiary.
“You’ll get fingerprints from the box, won’t you?” Bordain asked.
“If we’re lucky,” he said. “Mrs. Bordain, do you have any idea why the killer would send that box to you?”
“No! My God! Of course not! I don’t understand any of this! Why would anyone kill Marissa? She was like a daughter to me. And why send that—that thing to me?”
“Maybe that is why,” Mendez said. “She was like a daughter to you. Could someone have been jealous of her or angry that you supported her?”
“I suppose so,” she said. “I get a lot of requests from people who want someone to pay their way for something.”
“You get letters?”
“Yes. I have one of Bruce’s secretaries deal with them.”
“We’ll need to see those letters, if possible,” Dixon said. “In case somebody’s holding a grudge.”
The kettle whistled and she jumped as if she’d been shot. Hands shaking, she made her tea with a teabag, and the scent of peppermint filled the air on a cloud of steam. The cup rattled against the saucer as she took it to the kitchen table and sat down.
“This is such a nightmare,” she said. “I’d just gotten back from the meeting about Haley when the mail came. I was already upset. I’m filing the paperwork to become her foster parent. That woman from Child Protective Services is coming tomorrow to see the house. Haley should be with people she knows, people who care about her.
“What must she be thinking?” she said. “She has to be terrified, surrounded by strangers. Has she said anything about what happened?”
“Not so far,” Dixon said. “She was unconscious for some time. She may never remember anything.”
Bordain sighed. �
�I hope so, for her sake. Poor little thing.”
“If she remembers and can give us a name or a clue,” Mendez said, “we can catch Ms. Fordham’s killer. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Of course, but Haley is only four years old. Would she have to testify in court? Is a four-year-old child considered a credible witness?”
“I had a case in LA County years ago,” Dixon said. “A triple homicide—a mother and two children. The only person left alive was a twenty-two-month-old baby.
“The killers let him live because they didn’t think he was able to talk,” he said. “Turned out they were wrong. He was perfectly able to speak, he just didn’t speak to strangers.
“He had heard their names. He had seen the whole thing go down. He didn’t testify in court. We had to corroborate what he told us through a third party. But that baby solved the crime. Haley could do the same thing.”
“And be traumatized all over again,” Bordain said. “She’ll never be normal. People will always look at her as the girl whose mother was murdered, the girl who was left for dead. She’ll have to live with this for the rest of her life.”
“Anne Leone will help her through it,” Dixon said.
Bordain frowned. “I don’t like that woman. She’s very bossy and manipulative.”
“I know Anne quite well,” Dixon said. “She’s a fierce advocate for children. Haley couldn’t be in better hands.”
“She would be in good hands here,” Bordain argued, “and be with people she knows.”
“Mrs. Bordain,” Mendez jumped in. “How did you meet Ms. Fordham?”
She huffed a sigh, not happy to let go of the subject of Haley.
“I met Marissa at the art fair in ’82,” she said at last. “I was one of the judges. I thought her work was extraordinary. So luminous, so full of joy.”
“And you decided to sponsor her? Just like that?”
“I have an eye for talent,” she said. “I introduced Marissa to the people from the Acorn Gallery. They agreed to represent her art here and at their gallery in Montecito. I persuaded Marissa to put down roots here. Haley was just a baby. They needed a home.”