by Tami Hoag
Frustrated, Mendez said, “So you met a client for dinner tonight. Who?”
“That’s confidential.”
“Where?”
“In Malibu. At a private home.”
“Convenient. That explains how you can be just getting home at four in the morning. No closing time. Long drive.”
“You know, Detective, I don’t have to answer your questions at all,” he pointed out.
“No,” Mendez said. “Is that the tack you take with Sara too? You don’t need to answer her questions?”
“She stopped asking.”
Heat burned through Mendez like a flash fire. He stepped closer, leaning his hands on the top of the car door on either side of Steve Morgan. “You’re a bastard.”
“Yeah,” Morgan said without humor. “I am.”
Mendez leaned in closer. “Is this where you try to make me feel sorry for you because your mother was a junkie whore and you had it so bad you just can’t help being the way you are?”
He got his wish. Steve Morgan came with a right that connected hard into his mouth, busting his lip from the outside with knuckles and from the inside with his own teeth. He staggered sideways.
“Fuck you, Mendez!” Morgan said, coming away from the car, pulling his arm back for a second shot.
Mendez came up into his boxing stance, blocked the second punch and hit Morgan with two hard jabs in the face. Blood gushed from Morgan’s nose.
He stumbled back into the side of his car and bounced forward again, swinging too hard, too soon. Mendez grabbed the man’s fist, stepped to the side, and twisted his arm up behind his back. Using Morgan’s own momentum, Mendez swung him around and slammed him across the hood of the Trans Am.
Dogs all around the neighborhood started barking. A light came on across the street.
Mendez cuffed one wrist then the other behind Steve Morgan’s back, then turned and spat a mouthful of blood across the hood of the car.
“Thanks, man. You just gave me an early Christmas present,” he said.
He pulled Morgan up off the car hood and marched him toward the Taurus at the curb.
“Steve Morgan, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent ...”
39
“Did you have it coming?” Vince asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
“Hell, yeah.”
Mendez tried to grin with only partial success. He had come up to the ICU straight from the ER. A little centipede line of fresh stitches knitted his swollen upper lip on the left side. Lidocaine still had a firm hold on that side of his face.
Vince had to laugh. “You look like a freaking half-wit, Detective Frankenstein. What the hell happened to you?”
They sat down at a corner table in the otherwise-empty ICU family lounge.
“I had a little run-in with Steve Morgan,” Mendez said, talking out the right side of his mouth. “Turns out he has a temper.”
Vince raised his eyebrows. “What triggered that?”
“I guess it was something I said.”
“Like what? Your mother was a junkie whore?”
“How’d you know?”
“You said that to him?” Vince laughed.
“Yeah. I said a whole lot of other shit before that, but he didn’t turn a hair. That one—he went off like the fucking Raging Bull.”
Vince felt a surge of pride. “That’s my boy! You wanted to find his hot button and you did. I hope you gave a good accounting of yourself in that fight, young man.”
“He came after me. I had to protect myself. I might have broken his nose, and the one eye was swollen shut. He’s still downstairs getting patched up. I left a deputy with him.”
“Has Cal heard about this yet?” The sheepish look told Vince the answer was no. “He’ll have your ass.”
“I was defending myself!”
“You—an ex-marine, Golden Gloves boxing champion—versus a lawyer.”
“Hey, he had a hell of a swing!” Mendez protested. “He golfs and plays tennis.”
“He’s gonna sue your ass.”
“He assaulted a law enforcement officer.”
“You called his mother a whore.”
“Did I? I don’t remember. Too bad he doesn’t have any witnesses to testify to that.”
“Let’s back this up, Rocky,” Vince said as the red flags started popping up in his head. “What were you doing in his face in the first place at O-dark-thirty in the morning?”
Mendez glanced down for just a second before he started his story. And he glanced down several times more as he told about going to the Morgan house and talking with Sara Morgan.
He wasn’t lying. Mendez was as straight an arrow as arrows could be. But he was trying to be evasive about something. Sara Morgan.
“Did you ask her how long she’d been friends with Marissa Fordham?” Vince asked.
The glance down.
“No. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I wasn’t going to push her over the edge.”
“Uh-huh. Very chivalrous of you.”
“What? I was supposed to browbeat her?”
Anger.
“There was no point in it,” Mendez said. “She doesn’t have it in her to kill someone. Besides, she’s going to divorce the husband. That ends her suffering regarding his infidelities.”
Denial. Rationalization.
Vince nodded.
Half a scowl. “Don’t give me that look.”
“What look is that?” he asked.
“You smug bastard,” Mendez complained. “Don’t you sit there and psychoanalyze me.”
“Well, I wouldn’t,” Vince said, amused. “But it’s just so easy.”
“Say it, then.”
“Say what?”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Oh, yeah,” Vince said, chuckling.
“So I’m attracted to her,” Mendez admitted. “So what? What guy wouldn’t be? She’s gorgeous and talented—”
“And needs a champion—”
“I kept everything very professional. Nothing inappropriate happened.”
“Of course not.”
“I mean it!”
“I know you do, Tony,” Vince said, serious now. “You’re an honorable man. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with wanting to stand up for a woman—even if she doesn’t belong to you. I mean, really, that’s how it ought to be. I just don’t want to see you blur a line here.”
“Oh, you mean like you didn’t?” Mendez said sarcastically.
“Anne wasn’t a person of interest—”
“Sara couldn’t—”
Vince held up a finger to stop him. “Listen to me. Anne wasn’t a witness. She wasn’t a suspect. Her involvement in the case—while crucial—was peripheral when we first got together. Then she became a victim. Now Crane’s attorneys are trying to get evidence thrown out, claiming I planted it because Anne and I were involved.”
“The hell!” Mendez said.
“It’s true. They want that tube of superglue excluded. Thank God it’s not that important to Anne’s case. But if they can get it excluded now, chances are our side doesn’t get it back in later. If Crane goes to trial on any of the See-No-Evil cases, and the prosecution wants to establish a pattern of behavior ...”
“Shit.”
“Now back to you, Junior,” Vince said. “Don’t get me wrong, I like Sara, Anne likes Sara. But if Steve Morgan was having an affair with Marissa Fordham, then Sara had a motive and she has to be considered a person of interest. Even if she wasn’t, Steve Morgan is certainly someone we have to take a look at. You can’t get involved with Sara.”
“I wouldn’t,” Mendez said, frowning with the working side of his mouth. “She’s a married woman.”
“Barely,” Vince said. “It sounds to me like psychologically she’s practically divorced. She’s wounded and frightened and needy. You gave her a shoulder to cry on. Tell me you didn’t come this close to kissing her last night.”
The glance down.
“It’s a slippery slope, kid. Stay off it until there’s an all-clear. Then—when she leaves that asshole—go for it. Fall in love. Get married. Anne and my kids are going to need playmates.”
“Very funny,” Mendez said. “What’s going on with Anne and the little girl?”
“I’m taking them home this morning before the reporters crawl out of their rat holes,” he said.
He didn’t have a good feeling about it. He was still worried not only about Haley—and therefore Anne—being a target, but for Anne’s level of attachment to the child. What happened when they found a relative and Haley had to be handed over? Nothing good in terms of Anne’s emotional health. As good as it might be for her to help the little girl through this ordeal, there would be an end to it, and that was going to be hard.
“You had to let her do it, Vince,” Mendez said.
Vince frowned. “Now who’s reading whose mind?”
“You’ve taught me well, Old Man. Has the girl said anything?”
“No, but it’s in there. Last night she drew a picture for Anne with a scary-looking figure in it. ‘Bad Monster,’ she called it.”
“That’s not much to go on,” Mendez said. “We can’t put out an APB for Bad Monster.”
“Your witness is four.”
“This case stinks, so far. My witness is four, I’ve got to deal with an autistic hoarder who murdered his mother. It looks like the victim’s best friend took it on the lam—”
“What?” Vince said, coming to attention.
“Gina Kemmer is missing. In the couple of hours we weren’t watching her, she took off.”
“I don’t like that. There’s no sign of her?”
Mendez shook his head. “We’ve got a BOLO out on her and her car.”
“Get in her house.”
“I wanted to do that last night, but it was too soon. I wasn’t going to get a warrant based on nothing but the fact that she wasn’t home.”
“That was last night when maybe she was just out to dinner,” Vince said. “She’s still gone this morning. Now it’s a possible kidnapping. Go to ADA Worth and fight for it. We know you’re good in a fight.”
“She scares me more than Steve Morgan does,” Mendez joked, getting up.
“Page me when you get the warrant. I want to be there.”
Mendez gave him a mock salute and headed out the door.
Vince dumped the last of his coffee in the trash and headed back to Haley’s room. It was time to take his temporary family home.
40
“Where are we going?” Haley asked in her scratchy little sleepy voice.
Anne had awakened her before they left the hospital room, not wanting her to wake up in a panic in a strange place. They had forgotten about needing a child safety seat. Anne held the little girl on her lap and buckled them both in together for the short drive home.
Haley rubbed her eyes now and looked around as they drove out of the parking garage.
“We’re going to the house where Vince and I live,” Anne said. “Remember? You’re going to stay with us for a while.”
“How will my mommy find me?”
The question made Anne flinch inwardly. It wasn’t in her to lie, but neither was it time to tell Haley the full terrible truth.
“Your mommy got hurt really badly at the same time you did, sweetheart,” Anne said carefully. “Do you remember I told you that?”
Haley didn’t answer. She looked out the window at the tree-lined street and changed her line of questioning. “Do you have aminals at your house?”
“No, we don’t,” Anne said.
“I have kitties and chickens at my house.” She twisted around on Anne’s lap and looked up at Vince. “Can my kitties come and live in your house?”
“Hmmm ... we’ll have to see about that,” Vince said.
“Uh-oh.”
“We’ve already had this conversation,” Anne said. “Haley told me when her mommy says ‘we’ll see’ that means no.”
“What about your daddy?” Vince asked. “What does he say?”
Anne glared at her husband over the top of the little girl’s head and mouthed, Don’t push.
“The daddies say lots of things,” Haley answered cryptically.
The daddies, plural. Her quick burst of anger pushed aside, she thought about what she had been told of Marissa Fordham’s life: single mother, free spirit, dated casually. Had Haley—fatherless—attached the label of “Daddy” to all of her mother’s male friends in the hopes that it might stick to one?
Vince was thinking the same thing.
“How many daddies do you know, Haley?” he asked, one eye on the road, one on the child.
Haley shrugged and made a little face, unhappy with the question.
In the hospital she had asked Vince if he was the daddy. She had asked Franny the same thing.
“Do you have a special daddy?” Anne asked.
No answer, but the somber expression on her face made Anne think she was looking back on a memory she wasn’t ready to share.
“Is that your house?” Haley asked as Vince turned in the driveway.
“Yep.”
Anne smiled, looking up at the old white stucco Mediterranean she and Vince had chosen to make their home. It was a solid, substantial house that had commanded its spot on that street since the late twenties. A tasteful renovation had brought the house up to modern standards without compromising its character.
She loved her house. It was welcoming and sheltering and safe, with none of the oppressive memories her childhood home had contained from her parents’ long unhappy marriage.
Vince led the way to the front door, laden down with duffel bags. Anne carried Haley, who was still a bit weak from her ordeal. Haley looked around with a critical eye, taking in the curved staircase with a glimpse of family room to one side and dining room to the other.
“Does your house have monsters?” she asked.
“No, honey. No monsters,” Anne said. “This is a safe house. No monsters will get you here.”
The little girl put her head on Anne’s shoulder, a thumb inching toward her mouth. “I’m tired.”
Anne carried her upstairs to the small guest room nearest the master. The room she had already pegged for a nursery. The walls were painted the softest blue. The double bed was too big for a toddler, but would hopefully give Haley the feeling of being on her own little island of safety with her stuffed animals.
She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.
Anne tucked her in and brushed a hand tenderly over her mop of dark curls. When she turned, Vince was smiling at her tenderly.
“You’re a natural at that,” he said softly, slipping his arms around her.
Anne hugged him back. “She’ll be out for a while. Want some breakfast?”
He nuzzled her neck and growled. “I want you for breakfast.”
“You’ll have to settle for scrambled eggs,” she said, ducking away.
They went downstairs to the kitchen and Anne set about the task of making eggs while Vince made coffee. She loved being domestic with him. They had a nice working rhythm together, as if they had been a team for years instead of months.
“What’s going on with the investigation?” she asked.
“They’re still digging for background on the victim. I have a feeling there was a lot more to her than met the eye,” he said. “She claimed she was from Rhode Island, but there’s no trace of her ever having been there. And records of her here in California only go back to 1981.”
“Haley was born in 1982,” Anne said.
“Yeah. So was Marissa Fordham invented for the sole purpose of being Haley’s mother? Who was she before that? And so far no clue to who her father is. And the one person I think can tell us that has gone missing.”
“Voluntarily?” she asked cautiously, a low-watt current of unease going through her.
“I don’t know. It appears that way,” Vince said. “
But I admit I don’t have a good feeling about it. I think these two gals could have been in something together and it got one of them killed.”
“And the other one is missing.”
“Ask Haley about her. See if you can get any impressions. Her name is Gina Kemmer. I think she and Marissa go way back.”
“All right.”
They sat at the table in the breakfast room overlooking the backyard. Anne picked at her food, anxiety chewing at the ends of her nerves. Their yard was boxed in by tall privet hedges, but no fence. A woman was missing. The only witness to a murder was upstairs sleeping ...
Her heart was beating a little too fast.
“Do you want the deputy in the house?”
“No,” she whispered, angry with herself for letting the fear creep in.
“Nervous?” Vince asked.
“Don’t say I told you so.”
“I won’t,” he said. “Eat your eggs, Mrs. Leone. I need you strong and healthy to bear my children.”
They both smiled at that.
Vince’s pager came to life beside his coffee mug. He checked the readout.
“Tony. I’ve got to go.”
41
“We can go in and make sure she’s not dead on the floor,” Mendez said. “But we can’t take anything—unless we’ve got an obvious crime scene—and then Worth wants me to call her so she can come and make sure I’m not lying.”
“That’s better than nothing,” Vince said. “She’s going to dot every i and cross every t in ink. She’s good. She’s careful.”
The three of them—Hicks, Mendez, and Vince—went into Gina Kemmer’s cute little Tudor house with gloves on and paper booties over their shoes. Just in case. Nothing seemed out of place. There were no signs of forced entry or of there having been a struggle in the house.
Someone had cleaned up the broken plant pot and the vomit in the living room. The snapshots that had been lying loose on the coffee table had been put away.
Vince had wanted another look at them. He would have liked to have put them up on a wall and just stare at them, waiting for that one certain something to pop out at him. He had wanted to study the two women—their faces, their body language, how they related to each other. He had wanted to find a date on the back of one of those snapshots that predated 1982.