Darren Bordain stood up from the bent-willow bench on the other side of the door and casually put his cigarette out in a pot of his mother's geraniums.

"Mr. Bordain, I apologize-"

Bordain waved it off. "No need. I'm well aware who my mother is. I've been putting up with her for thirty-two years.

"Did she treat you like a servant?" he asked. "Don't feel special. That's how she treats everyone except celebrities, conservative politicians, and people she wants something from."

"Mr. Bordain. Cal Dixon." The sheriff offered his hand.

Bordain shook it. "Call me Darren. No need to stand on formality. I try not to be my mother's son whenever possible."

Ironically, Darren Bordain was physically the spitting image of his mother-same height, same build, same straight blond hair, same green eyes, same square jaw. Every time he looked in a mirror, he saw his mother's face.

His vintage silver Mercedes 450SL convertible was parked out by the sheriff's car. But he had been in no hurry to come in the house.

"I was just trying to work up the energy to deal with her crisis du jour."

"She's pretty upset," Dixon said. "She told you about the box?"

"Yes. She called my office and got my secretary and screamed at her until the poor girl came and got me off the golf course." He took a pack of Marlboro Lights from the pocket of his leather jacket and shook one out. "I had two holes left to play, so I'm a little late. She told me she had already called you guys, so what was I going to do?"

Comfort her, Mendez thought.

"She's concerned she might be a target," Dixon said.

"I'm sure she is," he said, lighting up. "It's all about her, isn't it?"

"You don't think anyone has it in for her?" Mendez asked.

He laughed. "I'm sure a lot of people have it in for her. She's not Miss Congeniality. But if she managed to push someone so far they would kill, why wouldn't they just kill her? Why kill Marissa?"

"Did you know Ms. Fordham?" Dixon asked.

"Sure, of course. She was the daughter my mother never had," he said sarcastically.

"She was included in your family?"

"h.e.l.l, no. A woman with an unknown past and an out-of-wedlock child? Marissa was more like a pet or a Barbie doll. Mother gave her a place to live, made a big show out of being magnanimous and a patron of the arts. But Marissa was never invited to Thanksgiving dinner."

"What was your relationship with Ms. Fordham?" Mendez asked.

"We were friends. We ran into each other at functions, had a few drinks, had a few laughs at my mother's expense."

"Were you ever involved with her romantically?"

"No. Not my type. The bohemian artist thing doesn't work for me. I'm told I have a political career to consider," he said dryly. "I should have thought about it, though. Marissa and I together would have given my mother an aneurysm."

"What about your father?" Hicks asked. "Did he have an opinion about Ms. Fordham? Or about the money your mother spent to support her?"

Bordain shook his head. "The Great Man can't be bothered with most of what goes on in my mother's life. He doesn't care what she does. He lives his own life. They're hardly ever in residence in the same house at the same time."

The front door opened then and Milo Bordain locked on her son.

"Darren, what are you doing out here? I called you nearly two hours ago."

He sighed. "Sorry, Mother. I was tied up in a meeting."

He very purposefully dropped his half-smoked cigarette on the porch floor and ground it out with the toe of a Gucci loafer.

"Duty calls, gentlemen."

30.

"Nanette Zahn died of multiple stab wounds," Vince said. "Her death was ruled-get this-a suicide. Her son, Alexander, who was twelve at the time, was taken and raised by a cousin."

"Wow," Trammell said. "Do you think the college will give me my money back?"

"Your kid's on a scholarship. You didn't pay any money," Campbell pointed out.

They had gathered in the war room for their end-of-the-day wrap-up and to regroup and make plans.

"The boy was never charged or convicted of anything," Vince went on, peering down through his reading gla.s.ses at his notes. "There was a doc.u.mented history of child abuse. The mother was severely manic-depressive. She couldn't deal with her son's condition-the investigator used the word 'autism.' She blamed the boy, ridiculed him, punished him, tormented him. She reportedly locked him in a closet for days at a time and just left him. He was put into foster care on three separate occasions, but was always returned to his mother once she went back on her medication and her moods evened out."

"What about the father?" Hamilton asked.

"The father was never in the picture," Vince said. "The mother was known to self-mutilate when she was depressed, so it isn't out of the question that she might use a knife to kill herself. But I would have expected her to cut herself, not stab herself. It's extremely rare for a woman to stab herself. She reportedly had three stab wounds to the abdomen.

"Apparently the boy was covered in blood when officers arrived and had sustained injuries consistent with a beating."

"Now we know why nothing showed up in a routine background check," Mendez said. "He doesn't have a record. But he told us he killed her. Where did you get this information?"

"I found out Zahn grew up in a suburb of Buffalo, New York," Vince said. "As it happened I worked a child abduction up there ten years ago. The lead detective on that case is their chief now. He was in a uniform at the time of Nanette Zahn's death. He actually remembered the case on account of the boy."

"What was his take on it?" Hicks asked.

"If the boy did it, it was self-defense. The kid was in a near-catatonic state when the police arrived, and stayed that way for months afterward. No one ever pressed the issue because they knew the family history, and I think they basically felt like the mother had it coming."

"Where does that leave us considering Zahn as a suspect?" Dixon asked.

"Milo Bordain said the victim complained to her about Zahn," Hicks pointed out.

"Everybody else has said she got along with him, didn't mind him hanging around," Mendez said. "I think Mrs. Bordain doesn't like Zahn. He's not her kind of people."

"Vince?" Dixon asked.

"We have to keep him on the list, but he would have had to have had some kind of psychotic break to do what was done to the victim," he said. "He's not psychotic. He has plenty of issues, but he's not psychotic."

"But he may have killed a woman with a knife before," Dixon said.

"Yes."

"If Marissa Fordham had made him angry somehow, said the wrong thing and triggered a memory ..."

"It's possible."

"Talk to him again. See how he reacts when he finds out you know about his mother."

Vince nodded and jotted a couple of notes to himself while Mendez briefed the group on their conversation with Gina Kemmer.

"We should sit on her," he suggested. "She knows more than she's telling us."

Dixon nodded. "I agree. Campbell and Trammell take the first watch. I'll bring a couple of deputies in to take the second. Tony, Vince, bring her in tomorrow and have another conversation with her. Turn up the heat.

"Hamilton, what did you find in Marissa's phone records?"

"Her last call was to Gina Kemmer on the evening of the murder," Hamilton said. "Before that, there was a call to the Bordain residence, one to Mark Foster, one to the woman who runs the Acorn Gallery. Nothing really stands out as unusual. These were all people she knew and had friendships with."

"And the bank records?"

"There was a regular monthly deposit of five thousand dollars from Milo Bordain, her sponsor."

"That's sixty grand a year!" Campbell exclaimed. "s.h.i.t! I'm taking up finger painting. Bordain will be looking for a new artist to sponsor."

"There were deposits from the Acorn Gallery. She had a balance of twenty-seven thousand in her savings, three thousand, two hundred fifty-one in checking. The trust account for her daughter has over fifty grand in it."

"That's a lot of dough," Vince said.

"She had very few living expenses," Dixon said. "The Bordains own the property she lived on. She had a generous allowance."

"And if she came from money to begin with-" Hicks began.

"So far, there's nothing from Rhode Island on a Marissa Fordham," Hamilton said. "And I haven't found anything in the state of California for Marissa Fordham predating 1981. So far I'd say she didn't exist in this state before 1981."

"Milo Bordain thought she might be running from an abusive relationship," Hicks said. "She might have changed her name."

Dixon sighed and rubbed a hand across his forehead. "Great. I'll call the pathologist. We need to run her fingerprints."

"Haley was born in May 1982," Mendez said. "If Marissa came to California before September '81 then she wasn't running from the baby's father."

"What's the latest on the girl, Vince?" Dixon asked.

"She's being released from the hospital tomorrow. Brain function is normal. There may be some permanent damage to her larynx, but she can talk."

"What's she saying?"

"She doesn't remember being hurt," Vince said. "But we have to be patient. Her memory could come back over time-or it might never."

"Can we drug her or hypnotize her or something?" Campbell asked.

"You'll lose a limb trying to get to her," Vince said. "My wife will have you for lunch."

"And pick her teeth with your bones," Mendez added.

Vince grinned, ridiculously proud. "That's my girl."

"We need the info if we can get it," Dixon said.

"If Haley has information to give, Anne will get it," Vince said. "But she won't put the girl at any kind of psychological risk to do it. And that's the way it should be. So the rest of you b.u.ms better get out there and beat the bushes for a killer."

Dixon checked his watch and frowned. "I've got to talk to the press. They want me to comment on Milo Bordain's reward."

"What's your comment going to be, boss?" Campbell asked as Dixon headed for the door.

"No comment."

31.

Gina Kemmer paced around her living room like a caged animal, restless and on edge and desperately wanting out. Darkness had fallen outside. She felt as if it were pressing in against the walls of her cute little house, trying to get in and swallow her whole like a monster. She had turned on all the lights in her living room to ward it off.

She was cold and had wrapped a heavy sweater around herself, holding it tight in a manner that made it seem as if she were wearing a straitjacket. Maybe she should have been wearing a straitjacket, she thought. She felt like she might go crazy. Her life had gone crazy, no thanks to Marissa.

Every time she thought of her friend, her memory flashed to that horrible picture of Marissa butchered and b.l.o.o.d.y, lying dead on the floor. The thing was still lying on her coffee table among her more pleasant memories of times past. She needed to get rid of it. She couldn't have it there. She could imagine the blood seeping out of the photograph and running off it and spreading over the other snapshots of happier times, ruining them.

Her stomach tried to bolt again, but there was nothing left in it to throw up. She went to the kitchen and got a long-handled barbecue tongs out of a drawer. Back in the living room she inched sideways toward the coffee table, trying not to look at the photograph. Hand shaking badly, she tried to catch the corner of it with the tongs, swearing as she knocked it away.

After a couple of tries, she managed to get hold of it. She took it to the kitchen, holding it as far away from her as possible, as if it were the dead carca.s.s of a rat or a snake. In the kitchen, she threw the picture in the trash and the tongs after it, the utensil now contaminated with the evil that had been done to Marissa.

A fresh wave of tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She had never been so scared in her life.

Gina wasn't the kind of person who went looking for excitement or lived life on the edge. That had been Marissa-always the one with the big plan. That was how they had ended up in Oak Knoll: Marissa's big plan.

Sure, Gina had been glad to come along. And it had worked out fine. She loved it here. She loved the town and her home. The boutique was doing well. She was satisfied. Life could have just gone on that way forever. The only other thing she wanted was to meet a nice guy-not even a rich guy, just a nice guy.

Everything was ruined now. Marissa was dead.

She pressed a hand over her mouth and tried to swallow the crying, hiccupping, and choking on it. The local news was coming on with the story of Marissa's murder leading the broadcast. Gina grabbed the remote control and turned the sound up.