Secrets to the Grave (21 page)

32

Mark Foster was younger than Mendez expected him to be. He had imagined the head of the music department in a prestigious school like McAster, and a town like Oak Knoll—known for its summer classical music festival—would be old and stodgy in a rumpled brown suit, wearing little wire-rimmed glasses and with white hair growing out of his ears.

Instead, Foster was probably in his late forties, fit and good-looking with close-cropped thinning brown hair. He was dressed in khaki pants and a blue oxford shirt with a knitted brown necktie. The only part Mendez had gotten right was the wire-rimmed glasses.

At seven thirty in the evening Foster was still working, preparing for a rehearsal of his senior honors brass quintet. Mendez and Hicks stood in the conductor’s area of the stark white music room that rose up around them in level after level of chairs and black metal music stands. Foster distributed sheet music to the stands near them where his quintet musicians would sit.

“I’ll help any way I can,” he said. “I was horrified when I heard the news. What’s the world coming to? The murders last year, now this. You don’t expect that kind of thing here. We live in such a pretty little bubble most of the time. I remember talking with Marissa last fall after Peter Crane abducted that teacher and tried to kill her. We couldn’t believe it.”

“You were good friends?” Hicks asked.

“We ran in the same circles. Saw each other socially, occasionally met for drinks, that kind of thing.”

“When was the last time you saw Ms. Fordham?” Mendez asked.

“A couple of weeks ago at dinner,” he said. “It was so weird. I had gone to Los Olivos to try a new little hole-in-the-wall place I’d heard about. I’m a food fanatic,” he explained. “I live to find places nobody else has discovered yet. I was shocked to see anyone I knew. But there was Marissa, smiling and waving. She was always so vibrant, so full of life.”

“We were told you dated her,” Hicks said.

“We went out from time to time,” he admitted. “Plus One was Marissa’s specialty.”

“What do you mean?”

“She liked charity fund-raisers—the social scene, dressing up, having a good time, rubbing elbows with all the right people,” he explained. “But she never had to buy a ticket. She was always somebody’s Plus One.”

“A party girl,” Mendez said.

“I guess you could say so, but she wasn’t wild. She just liked to have a good time. She was a free spirit. She liked men, and men liked her.”

“Was she ever more than Plus One to you?”

“We were just friends,” Foster said, his expression carefully blank.

“Did she know you’re gay?” Mendez asked.

If Foster was shocked at the question, he did a good job of hiding it.

“I’m not gay.”

Mendez looked at Hicks, pretending confusion. “Really? Someone told us you are.”

Foster shrugged it off. “That’s nothing new. Single artsy teacher, hasn’t gotten any co-eds pregnant—must be gay. I’m not.”

“Huh,” Mendez said. “He seemed pretty sure of it.”

Foster shrugged. “Well, whoever he was, he was mistaken.”

“When did you last speak to Ms. Fordham?” Hicks asked.

Foster thought about it. “Hmm ... Sunday. She called me Sunday afternoon.”

“For any particular reason?”

He shook his head. “Just to chat.”

“How did she seem?

“Fine. Normal.”

“She didn’t say anything about being worried, or that someone was bothering her?”

“No. We talked about the holiday fair coming up. She’s been doing some work with silk. She was excited about having pieces for sale in her booth.”

“Can you tell us where you were Sunday evening?” Hicks asked.

“Dinner and a movie at a friend’s house. Home in bed by eleven thirty. School night.”

A door opened at the top of the room and two of Foster’s quintet came in carrying trumpets.

“Is there anything else?” Foster asked. “I can postpone the rehearsal if you need me.”

“No, thanks, Mr. Foster,” Hicks said. “We’re done for now.”

Mendez handed Foster a card. “Thank you for your time. If you think of anything, please call.”

Foster put the card in his pocket. “I’ll do that. Good luck. I hope you find the person that did it.”

Halfway to the door, Mendez turned around. “Mr. Foster, was Ms. Fordham with anyone when you saw her at that restaurant?”

“Yeah,” he said. “She was having dinner with her attorney.”

Steve Morgan.

 

 

“I told you!” Mendez gloated as they walked across the parking lot. “I knew it!”

“Could have been an innocent attorney-client dinner,” Hicks said.

“You don’t sneak out of town to an out-of-the-way restaurant nobody knows for a simple client dinner.”

Hicks conceded the point.

“That bastard!” Mendez said. “I want him in the box. Now.”

“It’s not against the law to have dinner,” Hicks said. “Or to cheat on your wife, for that matter.”

“He’s connected to a murder victim.”

“He’s a lawyer. He’ll never consent.”

“He’s got a big ego,” Mendez said, pulling open his car door. “Maybe he’ll want to prove us wrong.”

“What do you think about Foster?” Hicks asked as they got in the car.

“Single artsy teacher with no pregnant co-eds?” Mendez said. “Sounds gay to me.”

“He was pretty cool about it.”

“If he’s used to people assuming he’s gay, maybe it’s no big deal to him.”

“There’s a big difference between someone saying you’re gay and someone being able to prove it,” Hicks said. “We didn’t ask him who he was with at that out-of-the-way dinner.”

“Like you said: There’s no law against having dinner. Unless he was making out with another guy between courses, it doesn’t matter who he was with,” Mendez said.

“I see,” Hicks said. “It’s okay for Foster to meet a boyfriend for dinner, but Marissa Fordham being seen with Steve Morgan gives Morgan a motive for murder. That’s some double standard you’ve got there, compadre.”

“Don’t ridicule my theory of the crime,” Mendez said. “I mean, do you really think the powers that be at McAster would be shocked to find out their music director is gay? That’s like saying they’d be shocked to find out half the girls’ softball team are lesbians. Would they really care?”

“They’d care if there were photographs,” Hicks pointed out.

“So would Steve Morgan,” Mendez countered.

33

The adrenaline for the upcoming confrontation coursed through Mendez all the way to the Morgan home ... then crashed. Steve Morgan’s Trans Am was not in the driveway.

“Maybe it’s in the garage,” Hicks said.

“It was parked outside last night.”

“Last night? What are you doing? Stalking the guy?”

“I was just driving around, thinking. I came by here.”

“You’re obsessed.”

“I’m tenacious. It’s only obsession if there’s nothing to back it up.”

They sat at the curb for a moment, Mendez regrouping his thoughts.

“Let’s go in,” he said. “We’ll talk to Mrs. Morgan. Light a fire.”

Sara Morgan was not pleased to see them. It took her several moments to come to the door. She was dressed like a welder in bib overalls and a heavy leather apron with equally heavy leather gloves. Her hair was up in a messy topknot with long curls slipping free all around.

She looked like she hadn’t slept or eaten in days.

“Detectives,” she said, pulling the gloves off. Her hands were raw with cuts and scratches. She had given up on the Smurf Band-Aids. The sculpture she had told him about was taking a hard toll on her.

“What a surprise,” she said with no surprise in her voice at all.

“Mrs. Morgan,” Mendez said. “Is your husband at home? We need to speak to him.”

“What about?”

“It’s of a sensitive nature, ma’am,” Hicks said.

“Are you going to accuse him of sleeping with Marissa again?” she asked bluntly.

“Uhhhh ... well ...”

“Don’t bother,” she said. “He’ll only deny it. That’s the first three things they learn in law school, you know. Deny, deny, deny.”

“It sounds like you’ve already had that conversation with him,” Mendez said.

Sara Morgan let his statement hang. “He isn’t home,” she said. “He called to say he’d be late. Again.”

Wendy came down the stairs then, her eyes widening a bit at the sight of two detectives in the foyer. She’d grown since Mendez had last seen her. She was going to be a knockout like her mother in another few years.

“Hey, Wendy,” he said, smiling. “How are you doing?”

She shrugged with one shoulder. She didn’t smile back. “I’m okay. Why are you here?”

Sara Morgan turned to her daughter. “They have some questions about Marissa, about ... what happened.”

Wendy huffed an impatient sigh. “Why don’t you just say it? Her murder. Marissa was murdered. Somebody took a knife and killed her.”

“Wendy—”

“I’m not a baby, Mom. I know what goes on in the world. People get murdered. People die. It’s nothing new,” she said with a bitterness in her tone that made Mendez frown.

Wendy looked up at him with unblinking blue eyes. “Do you know who killed her?”

“No,” he said. “We’re still gathering information. Your mom and Ms. Fordham were friends. We thought she might be able tell us something about Ms. Fordham we don’t already know.”

Satisfied with that answer, Wendy moved on. “How’s Haley? Is she going to be all right? Where is she?”

“She’s going to be fine,” Mendez said. “Anne Leone—Miss Navarre—is looking after her in the hospital until we can find some relatives.”

Wendy’s demeanor lightened considerably at that. She turned to her mother. “Oh, Mom! Can I go see her? Please!”

“Wendy loves Haley,” Sara Morgan said, her own expression softening as she looked down at her daughter.

“Can I go see her in the hospital? Please, please, please!”

She turned to Mendez again. “I was going to get to be her babysitter next year. After I turn twelve. I could have handled it this year because it’s not like I’m a regular eleven-year-old. I’m very mature for my age.”

“I know you are,” Mendez said.

“I don’t know if they’ll allow visitors, sweetie,” Sara Morgan said.

“I’ll ask,” Mendez offered.

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Wendy said, bouncing on the balls of her feet as if the excitement weren’t going to be contained in her body. She turned toward her mother. “I’ll take her something special. Can I make her a card? Please? Can I go in your studio and make her a special card?”

Her mother ran a hand lovingly over Wendy’s tangled mermaid’s mane that matched her own. “Sure, sweetie. Make her something really special.”

Wendy bolted back up the staircase and disappeared.

Sara Morgan watched her go. There was a fine sheen of tears in her eyes when she turned back to them.

“I don’t get to see her that excited very much anymore,” she said.

“That must be hard on you,” Mendez murmured. It occurred to him that a lot of things in her life were hard on Sara Morgan. He halfway wanted to put his arms around her and give her a shoulder to cry on.

Maybe more than halfway.

“Ma’am,” Hicks said. “Do you know where your husband was Sunday night?”

“He was in Sacramento all weekend for a golf tournament. I couldn’t tell you what time he got in Sunday night. I didn’t hear him. When I came downstairs Monday morning he was sleeping on the sofa.”

“I hate to have to ask this,” Hicks said, “but do you think your husband was involved with Ms. Fordham?”

“I don’t know,” she said sadly. “And frankly, I don’t want to know anymore. My marriage is as over as it’s going to get. I just don’t know how to leave it.”

“I’m sorry,” Mendez said softly, even though a part of him wasn’t. She deserved better than Steve Morgan. She deserved to be happy.

Hicks drew breath to ask another question. Mendez headed him off at the pass.

“Thank you, Mrs. Morgan,” he said. “We won’t take up any more of your time.”

“I was going to ask her where she was Sunday night,” Hicks said as they walked back to the car.

“Leave her alone.”

“If her friend was sleeping with her husband, she had as much motive to kill Marissa Fordham as anyone. Maybe more. And did you see her hands? They’re all cut up.”

“She’s making a sculpture, working with metal.”

“Since when? Monday morning?”

Mendez started the car. “Let’s go find the asshole she’s married to and ask him.”

34

Anne had changed into a pair of gray sweatpants and a soft, loose black sweater for the evening, settling in beside Haley on her hospital bed. She thought it would be a wonder if she didn’t fall asleep before the child did. She was exhausted from the battle with Maureen Upchurch and Milo Bordain, and the knowledge that neither woman was going to give up.

Maureen would band together with Bordain now if for no other reason than to be against Anne. Milo Bordain would bring her family’s influence to bear wherever she could. Not that Anne blamed her. The woman considered Haley family. Even if she showed no outward signs of being maternal, she clearly felt a strong connection.

Anne had Judge Espinoza on her side. She tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that he would not be swayed. A staunch Democrat, he would delight in thwarting the Bordains at every turn.

Haley was busy coloring in the coloring book Franny had brought for her. She wouldn’t last for long, either. Her energy came in short bursts followed by long naps. Her little body had been put through a lot, and while she now had a clean bill of health, she would still be recovering physically for days.

She hadn’t asked about her mother again.

Anne thought she probably simply couldn’t cope with the idea that her mother wasn’t here and had closed a door in her memory—temporarily. Anne suspected that when Haley couldn’t hold those memories back anymore, the floodgates would open and the emotion would pour out.