Secrets To The Grave Part 48

"He has a volatile temper," Mendez said, his frustration beginning to show. "Maybe he just snapped. Maybe she called his mother a junkie wh.o.r.e."

"That'll get you punched in the kisser. We know that for a fact," Vince said. "Morgan is a complicated guy. And he's undergone a dramatic change in his personality in the last year. That's a red flag. He's become self-destructive in his relationships for a reason."

"He was sleeping with two women who were both murdered," Mendez said. "That tells me either he killed one or both of them, or he didn't stop somebody else from killing them. If that was me, I would feel responsible either way."

Mendez and his White Knight Syndrome. But was Steve Morgan really so different? Vince wondered. If his motives for helping disadvantaged women had been altruistic all along, then he was no different in that respect. He came to the rescue. His wife had gotten left out of the process because he didn't see her as needing saving-or being sympathetic to his cause, for that matter. Sara was jealous of the time he donated to others.

"Peter Crane was his friend," Vince said. "Lisa Warwick was his lover. He probably thinks he should have been able to prevent what happened, but he didn't.

"Now-if he was seeing Marissa-Marissa is dead too. Let's say he didn't kill her. He sinks deeper into self-destruction. He picks a fight with a cop. He picks a fight with his wife, he tries to scare her off, letting her think he might be a murderer. Ultimately, to punish himself."

"I still don't think we can rule him out," Dixon said.

"No," Vince agreed. "You can't rule him out. Not until we know where he was the night she was killed. Or where he was when Gina went missing."

"I'll tell you where he was when Gina went missing," Mendez said. "He was AWOL. Bill and I were trying to track him down. He told his wife he was working late, but he wasn't at his office. He told me later that he was having dinner with a client in Malibu. I'd say he pulled that out of his a.s.s. He didn't show up at home until the middle of the night. I was there waiting for him."

"What about Bordain?" Dixon asked.

"He doesn't account for every minute of every day," Hicks said.

"Meaning he doesn't have an alibi."

"I would say so."

"Mark Foster?"

"We were talking to him early that evening," Hicks said. "Then he had a rehearsal. After that, nothing."

"We know approximately when Gina left her house that afternoon," Mendez said. "But we have no way of knowing when she met up with our bad guy. It could have been early, it could have been late."

"Maybe this, maybe that," Dixon complained. "This is giving me a headache. I want something we can take to the bank. Have we got that photo lineup put together for the little girl yet?"

"Bordain refused to have his photo taken, we don't know where Zahn is, a big no on Steve Morgan," Hamilton said. "But I was able to put something together with photos from other sources-the college, the local papers, Oak Knoll Oak Knoll magazine. It's not ideal. It won't stand up in court. But it's better than nothing." magazine. It's not ideal. It won't stand up in court. But it's better than nothing."

"Our witness is four. She won't hold up in court either, but we need something to go on. It's worth a shot." Dixon looked at Vince. "Is Anne okay with this?"

"Yeah. I gave her the heads-up already. But if you want it tonight we'd better get on it, p.r.o.nto." He lifted his arm and tapped the face of his watch. "Four-year-olds have bedtime."

69.

"I wish we didn't have to do this so late," Anne said. "Nighttime is difficult. She already doesn't want to go to sleep because of the nightmares."

"We don't have a choice, sweetheart," Vince said. "We've got a killer running around loose who's going to be on the ragged edge when he finds out Gina Kemmer isn't dead. Time is of the essence here."

Anne sighed. "I know."

She stood at the door to Haley's room and looked at Haley, sitting on her bed in her pink pajamas playing quietly with Honey-Bunny and the new stuffed toy cat Milo Bordain had given her.

Sara had picked Wendy up and gone home right after dinner. Anne and Haley had gone through what Anne wanted to make a nightly ritual of a bath, quiet time, then story time, then bed. Routine would help give Haley a sense of stability, and the downward progression of activities would help teach her to relax and quiet her mind.

Anne knew from her own experience over the last year the value of that kind of routine. Now she could put what had been a difficult experience for her to a positive use for Haley. But tonight she would interrupt that routine to potentially draw out the most terrible memory a child could possibly have: the memory of a monster.

Vince rested a hand on her shoulder, reading her emotions perfectly.

"We'll show them to her together," he said. "You and me. Okay?"

"Okay," Anne said. "Let's get it over with."

Vince turned to Mendez. "Keep your fingers crossed."

Mendez took a seat on a bench in the hall to wait.

Vince pressed Anne into the room with a hand on the small of her back. Her heart was thudding in her chest.

"Haley? We're going to play a little game, sweetie," she said, feeling like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Haley looked up at her, wide-eyed and innocent. "What kind of game?"

"We're going to look at some pictures," Vince said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I'm going to put them down on the bed, then you're going to look at them and tell us if you know any of the people in the pictures."

Haley got on her knees and leaned sideways into Anne, chewing on the tip of her index finger as Vince laid the pictures out.

Anne watched her face carefully, looking for any nuance of expression that might indicate recognition.

Haley reached out a finger. Anne held her breath.

"That's Zander," Haley said, pointing at the wide-eyed math genius with his wild cloud of gray hair. She looked up at Vince and crinkled her nose. "Isn't he weird?"

"He looks kind of funny in this picture, doesn't he?" Vince said. "Do you know anybody else here?"

Haley studied the pictures one by one. With the exception of Steve Morgan, Anne only knew who they were because Vince had told her. The head of the music department at McAster. An architect. Steve Morgan's law partner.

Darren Bordain in a photo from a magazine-a shot of him and his mother dressed to the nines at a charity function. He was almost a carbon copy of Milo.

Steve Morgan, handsome, dressed for golf, a wide white grin splitting his features. It was hard for Anne to look at him so happy when she knew he was making Sara and Wendy miserable with his bad behavior. Here he was in a lineup as, at best, a man who cheated on his wife, and at worst a murder suspect.

Haley looked at all of them very carefully. Anne held her breath. Vince was holding his breath and watching the little girl's reactions as carefully as Anne was.

Finally, Haley looked up and smiled like a pixie. "These are all my daddies!"

She proceeded to point to each face and name them.

"Daddy Mark and Daddy Don and Daddy Bob and Daddy Steve and Daddy Milo and Daddy Darren and Zander."

"Daddy Zander?" Vince asked.

Haley shook her head. "Just Zander."

Anne felt limp with relief. As much as the detectives needed a positive ID, she couldn't help but be glad Haley hadn't looked at these men and seen the face of the person who had choked and smothered her.

"Do you see Bad Daddy?" Vince asked.

Haley ignored him and turned instead to Anne. "Mommy Anne, will you read me a story?"

"Sure, sweetheart. In a few minutes. You get under the covers and I'll be back before you know it."

"You won't turn the lights off?"

"Nope. I won't turn the lights off."

"Bad Daddy comes when the lights are off."

"Bad Daddy can't come here," Anne said, gathering the pictures back up off the bed.

She followed Vince into the hall, pulling Haley's door only partially closed.

Mendez got to his feet with a look of tense expectation.

Vince shook his head. "No go. It may have been too dark for her to recognize the killer that night. Or she might only relate that person to Bad Daddy if he was dressed all in black."

"You know, people don't look the same when they turn on you," Anne said quietly. "I remember how Peter Crane looked when he was above me, choking me. His eyes went flat and cold, like some kind of beast's. The angles of his face stood out as if the skin were being pulled tight against the bone. He didn't look like Tommy's dad, or everybody's favorite dentist, or the man who had come to my door just minutes earlier. It was like he was wearing a mask and then he took it off and I saw what he really was."

Vince slipped his arm around her and drew her closer to him, just to let her feel that he was there and strong and protecting her.

"Haley may not have recognized the man who hurt her," she said. "Because it wasn't a man who hurt her, it was a monster."

Mendez sighed, defeated. "I'd better call my mother and ask her to light a candle for Gina Kemmer then, because she's the only one left who can ID this guy."

Good, Anne thought, as she slipped away and went back into Haley's room. Just relating her own experience in a few brief sentences had brought the terrible image of Peter Crane's face that night back to her mind with such sharp clarity it was painful. Her heart was beating quick and shallow, and she felt weak both physically and mentally.

If Haley could be spared that ...

"Let's make up a story tonight," she said, settling in beside her little charge.

Haley snuggled into her, thumb at the ready. Anne brushed her hair back and kissed her forehead and began.

"Once upon a time there was a land where there were no monsters and no mean people and no bad daddies ..."

When Haley had drifted off, Anne slipped from the bed and padded downstairs in her stocking feet. The house was quiet except for soft smoky saxophone music drifting out of Vince's office. He was sitting at his desk with only the desk lamp on, concentrating, peering down through his reading gla.s.ses at notes he had made.

He glanced up at her and smiled, took off his gla.s.ses and set them aside. He looked tired. Anne tunneled her fingers into his thick hair and smiled back.

"Come to bed, Daddy Vince," she said.

"Mmmm ..." He pressed his cheek to her breast and sighed. "I am so exhausted, so wiped out, so out of gas ... and I still want you, Mrs. Leone."

He pulled her face down to his and kissed her, a deep, slow, s.e.xy kiss.

"But ... ," Anne said as they emerged back into the real world.

"But ... I want to go over these notes one more time. I can't shake the feeling that there's an answer in here somewhere and I'm just not seeing it."

"Maybe you've been looking at it too long."

"Can't see the forest for the trees? Maybe so. It's probably hiding right in front of me. I'm just beating myself up over Zahn," he admitted. "I pushed too hard. I'm afraid I might have triggered something in him he can't get back from."

Anne brushed a thumb over the bruise on his cheek where he told her Zander Zahn had struck him. "We can't know somebody else's tipping point. Most of the time, we don't even know our own until it's too late.

"I looked at those pictures tonight ... ," she said. "I'm sure not one of those men ever believed they could do what was done to that woman. And yet, one of them probably did."

Vince nodded, then broke the darkness of the thought.

"How'd you get so smart?" he teased.

"I married well," Anne said, smiling. "Come upstairs. You can tell me a bedtime story."

They walked up the stairs hand in hand.

Vince spoke softly. "Once upon a time there was husband who loved his wife ..."

70.

Thunder rumbled. In the distance Dennis could see flashes of lightning far away. He loved it when it stormed at night. But the rain had stopped for now, which suited him fine. The fire would burn better without rain.

Dennis felt like he had a thunderstorm inside his brain. Anger rumbled and grumbled then BANG BANG! Flashed like lightning. He was so mad he wanted to just run shouting, spinning around, flinging his arms, crashing into things. Then he wanted his hands to turn into knives and he would slash his way through crowds of people and blood would be spurting everywhere. He would spin and turn and cut people in half and cut their heads off.

And at the end of his rampage would be Miss Navarre. And he would stab her and stab her a million times like the guy that killed that lady in the newspaper. He would stick his knives inside of her and down her throat and in her eyes and through her brain. And she would be alive the whole time until he cut her head off.

She didn't care about him. She didn't show up again. And n.o.body told him she wasn't coming. He had worked so hard to write his report about the murder like she wanted him to. Two whole pages.

Dennis didn't like to write. It was hard for him. He didn't always get the letters to go the right way, and he didn't understand punctuation. He wrote what came in his head, but it didn't always come out like it did for other people like stupid brainiac Tommy Crane or Wendy Morgan. They did everything right. Dennis did everything wrong.