Secrets To The Grave Part 18

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 cla.s.sroom 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 gla.s.s 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? 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 G.o.d 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 flutter 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 pa.s.s 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 gla.s.s.

"Mr. Leone? I have a message from Detective Mendez. He said to tell you we found the b.r.e.a.s.t.s."

28.

The two orbs of flesh in the box had ceased to resemble b.r.e.a.s.t.s. 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 h.e.l.l 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d. 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 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. 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 b.u.t.ter-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?"