Secrets to the Grave (24 page)

She sipped her tea and shrugged to herself. “Maybe I wasn’t needy enough. And now that I am, it’s too late.”

“When did he become so involved with the Thomas Center?” Mendez asked, steering away from the too-personal details. He didn’t need more reasons to want to put his arms around her and protect her. That wasn’t his job. It was his White Knight Syndrome, as his sister Mercedes called it.

“Steve has always been involved in women’s rights causes. He had a single mother. It was a tough situation for him growing up. She passed away when he was in law school, and he dedicated himself to helping disadvantaged women in her honor.”

She smiled an ironic little smile. “That dedication was one of the first things that attracted me to him.”

Dedication was one thing, Mendez thought. Lobbying in Sacramento for women’s rights was terrific. Donating services to the Thomas Center was admirable. But that dedication also put Steve Morgan in a target-rich environment of women to take advantage of.

Sara sighed and slid down off her stool. “And now that you know more about my life than you ever wanted to know, I’m going to take your advice and go to bed. I have car pool in the morning.”

Mendez watched her dump her tea in the sink and rinse out the mug.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “You don’t have to stay. Really. I’ll be fine.”

He didn’t believe her—or he didn’t want to believe her.

“You should take your own advice,” she said. “Go home and get some rest.”

The hell he would, he thought. Her husband had as good a reason to kill Marissa Fordham as anybody. And he had even more motive to kill the wife who was about to divorce him and take half of everything he had—plus alimony, plus child support.

But he said none of that to Sara.

“You’ll lock your door behind me,” he said as they went down the hall to the front of the house.

“Yes, sir.”

She gave him a little salute as he turned to say good night.

“And thank you,” she said sincerely. “For stopping to check on me, and for listening to me rattle on.”

“That’s okay,” he said with half a smile. “That’s a nice switch for me. In my line of work, most people don’t want to talk to me.”

“Too bad. You’re a good listener.”

An awkward little tension sprang up between them. It was like the end of a first date. Who should say what? Should he kiss her? No. Absolutely no.

“Thanks. Well, good night,” he said abruptly, and he turned and walked away.

 

 

He should have taken her up on the coffee, he thought two hours later. His eyelids felt like they were lined in sandpaper, and his mouth tasted like a dirty sock. He ran his tongue over his teeth and grimaced.

Finally a set of headlights turned onto the street. Steve Morgan’s black Trans Am. Mr. Midlife Crisis: driving a teenager’s sports car and cheating on his wife.

Mendez remembered interviewing Peter Crane during the investigation into the murder of Lisa Warwick—before Crane himself had taken the spotlight as See-No-Evil. Crane had tried to make excuses for his friend’s behavior.

Sara had given him the same out for being an asshole.

Boo-fucking-hoo, Mendez thought. He came from a tough background himself, but he didn’t use it as an excuse for bad behavior. And his mother raised him to treat women with respect, not lie to them and cheat on them.

He didn’t wait for Morgan to pull into the driveway. He got out of the car and walked across the street with purpose, coming up alongside the Trans Am as Morgan turned the key off.

Mendez smacked his badge up against the driver’s side window then shoved it back in his coat pocket. He stepped back just enough that Morgan could get the car door partially open to get out, only to find himself trapped between the door and the car.

“Is there a curfew law I’m unaware of?” Morgan asked calmly. He smelled just vaguely of alcohol.

“Where’ve you been all night?” Mendez asked without any preamble of false niceties.

“Working.”

“I’ve been past your office ten times tonight. You weren’t there.”

Morgan raised his eyebrows. “Ten times? That sounds like harassment to me.”

“Where were you?”

“I had a dinner meeting with a client.”

“Oh? Did you take her to that nice out-of-the-way little place in Los Olivos?”

Morgan looked annoyed. He worked his jaw a little back and forth like he was grinding his teeth.

“You spoke to Mark Foster,” he said and nodded. “Yes, I sometimes meet clients out of town. People here can get the wrong idea if I take a woman out to dinner.”

“Yeah?” Mendez said. “And I bet they really raise their eyebrows when you take that woman home and bang her.”

“I took Marissa to dinner,” Morgan said, maddeningly in control of himself.

Mendez would have been happy to have Steve Morgan take a swing at him. It would have given him a chance to knock the jerk on his ass, and then drag him off to jail for assaulting an officer.

“We met in Los Olivos to try the restaurant—the same as Mark did,” Morgan said. “I didn’t want to do dinner here in town because people like to jump to conclusions. I don’t need anyone calling Sara and upsetting her for no reason.”

“Or giving her one more reason to dump your sorry ass,” Mendez said. “Is that what Marissa Fordham threatened to do? Tell Sara the two of you were sleeping together? Did she give you the big ultimatum, Steve? Dump the wife or else?”

Morgan actually had the gall to laugh. “Clearly, you never knew Marissa,” he said. “She didn’t want a husband. She never let any relationship get that serious. She was very happy being single.”

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 s
aid
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.