by Tami Hoag
Promise me, G.
I promise, M.
90
The weather system that had settled rain and fog over the area for the last several days had moved out, leaving the air crystal clean and the sky a sparkling, brilliant blue. The drive out to the Bordain ranch was like being in a video for a luxury car—except that they were in the usual ordinary Ford from the SO fleet of unmarked units.
This road, lined with spreading oak trees and white board fences, was where Bordain Motor Cars shot their commercials for the Mercedes dealership: a beautiful silver sedan slinking around the curves of the road, Darren Bordain leaning against the white board fence looking elegant and wealthy, telling all viewers they deserved a Mercedes.
The Bordains’ shaggy red imported cattle grazed in the emerald green grass along the edge of the blue reservoir. As Mendez turned in at the gate and they rolled down the driveway, exotic-looking chickens of all colors with fantastic plumes atop their heads clucked and squawked as they pecked at the ground beneath the lush pepper trees.
Milo Bordain, in a huge straw hat and loose gardening clothes, was tending her roses, looking calm and relaxed. Not what Mendez had expected from her, considering the circumstances. She barely looked up at them from her work.
“Of course I knew all about it,” she said, snipping the huge wilted head of a salmon-colored rose from its stem. “I’m not a fool, Cal. I know how the world works. I know men.”
“And you were fine paying blackmail to Marissa Fordham?”
“I never considered it blackmail. I considered it an investment. It wasn’t as if Marissa didn’t have something to contribute to the world. She was an amazing artist.”
“Who happened to have your son’s illegitimate child,” Mendez said.
She glanced at him like he was an annoying horsefly buzzing around her.
“I’ve told you Haley is like a grandchild to me.”
“Because she is your grandchild.”
“Now that her birth certificate has surfaced, I’ve already spoken with our attorney about beginning adoption proceedings. The records will remained sealed, of course. It isn’t necessary for the entire world to know the circumstances of Haley’s birth.”
“That news could hurt Darren’s political future,” Dixon said.
Milo Bordain laughed. “If I told you how many very powerful political figures in this state have a love child or two on the side, you would be embarrassed at your naïveté, Cal.”
“But how many have gay lovers?” Mendez asked.
For once, she spoke directly to him. Now the claws came out. “My son is not gay,” she snapped, “and if you persist in this line of investigation, my husband and I will sue you personally and the sheriff’s office for slander and defamation of character.”
“You would rather believe that Darren murdered Marissa than that he prefers male company?”
“Darren didn’t murder Marissa. He had no reason to. Marissa had no reason to blackmail anyone. She was very well taken care of.”
“I heard she was getting tired of being controlled by you,” Mendez said. “That maybe she was over being the daughter you never had.”
“That’s nonsense. Marissa was an artist. Artists have their fits. She may not have always appreciated my guidance, but she certainly appreciated the results,” she said. “I introduced her to all the right people, exposed her work to an audience she would never have had access to on her own.”
“And rubbed her face in it every chance you got, I’m sure,” Mendez said.
Milo Bordain looked at Dixon, irritated. “Why do you continue to allow him to upset me, Cal?”
“That’s his job.”
His answer didn’t please her. She should have been the queen of something, Mendez thought. Back in the day when monarchs could order people’s heads cut off—like Marissa Fordham’s.
“Maybe you were the one who got tired of her,” he suggested. “She was rebellious. She didn’t show proper appreciation for all you did for her. She knew all the Bordain secrets.”
“That’s absurd!” she said, tears springing to her eyes. She turned to Dixon. “I loved Marissa!”
“Not enough to let her marry your son,” Mendez pressed.
“Marissa had no interest in getting married! She had her art, she had Haley. She was happy with her life! I’m devastated by what happened to her!” she went on. “I don’t know who killed her, but it certainly wasn’t me or my husband or my son!
“Are you forgetting that I’ve been threatened too?” she asked. “Someone sent me that—that—box in the mail! Someone tried to run me off the road! What are you doing about that? Anything?”
“We’ll pursue it if we get a lead,” Dixon said. “There’s nothing we can do right now.”
“You’ll do something when I’m dead on the floor,” she snapped. “That’s a great comfort to me! And I heard that Kemmer girl was found not far from here. This killer is lurking out here and you’re wasting precious time accusing people who had no reason to be involved—”
Mendez’s pager interrupted the tirade. He excused himself and went back to the car to radio in. When he got the message, he ran back, dismissing Milo Bordain from his mind.
“We have to go,” he said to Dixon. “Gina Kemmer is conscious.”
91
“She’s drifting in and out,” Hicks said as they met at the elevators near the ICU. “She fights for it, she’s with it for a few seconds, and then she goes back under.”
“Has she said anything?” Dixon asked.
“Not that makes any sense. She mumbles when she’s out. Stuff like ‘stop it, go away, leave me alone.’”
“I wonder who she’s talking to?” Mendez asked. “Her assailant? She hasn’t mentioned a name?”
“No.”
“Is her family here?” Dixon asked.
“They left to go have lunch.”
She looked like hell. The rat bites had scabbed over and the bruises were in full bloom. Somehow Mendez figured she would have thought she looked pretty good compared to the alternative. She should have been dead. The shot that had been meant to kill her had passed through her shoulder doing the least amount of damage possible. She had been plucky enough to survive on garbage and tenacious enough to get herself up a ladder with only two good limbs.
Vince was sitting beside her, waiting. He had done most of the talking the day they had interviewed her. His voice was strong and distinctive. If Gina was going to connect with any of them, it would be with him.
“How’s Anne?” Dixon asked.
“Sore, tired, upset,” he said.
“That kid’s just bad,” Mendez said. “My mother would say he’s the son of the devil.”
“I don’t think even the devil would claim him,” Vince said. “Twelve years old and he’s done. He’s broken. What are we supposed to do with him?”
“Lock him up and throw away the key,” Dixon said. “How’s the little girl? She was there.”
“Seeing Dennis trying to stab Anne scared her pretty badly. On the upside for us, it seemed to shake loose some memories. Still no name for the killer, but she’s closer to having access to it in her mind—if it’s in there.”
Gina Kemmer stirred and mumbled, “Knock it off.”
Vince leaned closer to her. “Are you talking to us, Gina? It’s Vince Leone. Do you remember me? I came to your house a couple of days ago.”
Kemmer stirred and whimpered.
“Can you open your eyes and talk to us, Gina?”
“No,” she said, her voice small and weak.
“Sure you can,” Vince said. “You crawled out of a well with one arm and one leg. If you can do that, you can open your eyes and talk to us. Come on. You can do it. You have to fight for it, Gina.”
“No, Ma-ris-sa. Stop.”
Vince bobbed his eyebrows. “Is my voice getting higher?”
Mendez laughed. “If she thinks you’re Marissa, she must be hallucinating.”
“Hey, you’ve never se
en me in a skirt.”
“Ay, yi, yi, I could go blind just thinking about that,” Mendez said.
“Come on, Gina,” Vince said. “You’re missing all the fun here. Open your eyes and talk to us.”
Mendez thought he could see her struggling to follow Vince’s instructions. Her brow knitted. A frown curved her mouth.
“Thatta girl,” Vince said. “You’re almost with us, Gina. Come on.”
She lifted her eyelids as if they weighed a hundred pounds apiece.
“Hey, there she is!” Vince said. “These are a bunch of ugly mugs to wake up to, huh?”
She parted her lips as if they had been stuck together. Mendez took a glass of water from the bed table and slipped the straw between her lips. She drew on it enough to get a little bit of moisture.
“You’ve had a rough few days,” Vince said. “Do you remember?”
She nodded slightly.
“Do you remember that someone shot you, Gina?”
She nodded again. Just that much effort was wearing her out. Her respiration had picked up a beat and seemed a bit labored.
“Do you remember who that was, Gina?” Vince asked.
She nodded again, then visibly worked at gathering her energy to say the name.
“Mark.”
92
Sundays in Oak Knoll were days for music. A concert by the McAster Chorale, chamber music on the Plaza downtown, a student playing the Spanish guitar in the bookstore.
Mark Foster had gathered his honors brass quintet at the old Episcopalian church for a special preview of the upcoming winter festival.
The pews were nearly full. Cultural activities were always well attended in Oak Knoll. Between the academic community of McAster and the large population of white-collar retirees, no performance of any kind went lacking for an audience.
The quintet was in the middle of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” when Hicks and Mendez walked into the back of the church with a pair of uniformed deputies. The deputies made their way up the outside aisles. Mendez and Hicks walked up the center aisle and stood politely, waiting for the song to end.
Foster turned to bow to the crowd’s applause. His face dropped at the sight of them. The deputies came in from the sides.
“What’s going on here?” Foster asked.
Mendez stepped forward. “Mark Foster, you’re under arrest for the kidnapping and attempted murder of Gina Kemmer. You have the right to remain silent—”
Foster went chalk white and looked at the deputy approaching him with handcuffs.
“Don’t run,” Mendez warned him. “Don’t do it.”
But like any cornered animal, Foster’s strongest instinct was flight.
People in the audience gasped and shrieked as he bolted to the left of Hicks and dashed for a side door. Mendez sprinted after him, catching him by the back of the collar as he got the door open, and running him through the door and face-first into a stone pillar.
Slapping his own cuffs on Foster—now sporting broken glasses, a broken nose, and a split lip—he said, “I told you not to run.”
Vince was waiting for them in the interview room. He had made himself at home with a cup of coffee, a couple of file folders, a notepad he was scribbling on when they came in the door.
He glanced up at Foster over the top of his reading glasses.
“Mr. Foster,” he said, standing up and offering his hand—reminding Foster he was still in cuffs. “Vince Leone.”
“Mr. Foster had it in his head he might outrun me,” Mendez said, depositing Foster on a chair.
Vince frowned. “Oooh ... never run, Mr. Foster. It makes you look guilty.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Then why did you run?” Vince asked, taking his seat. “See how that works?”
“I’m being harassed.”
“No, I believe you’re being arrested. Which will follow with being booked and fingerprinted and deposited in the county jail.”
He made a couple of notes, referred back a few pages, took his glasses off and set them aside.
“Gina Kemmer regained consciousness this afternoon.”
“That’s good news,” Foster said.
“Not for you. Gina tells us you shot her and dumped her down an abandoned well and left her for dead.”
“That’s absurd!” Foster said, trying to laugh. “Gina is a friend! She’s confused. She must have a concussion or something.”
“No, actually, she doesn’t. She broke her leg during the fall, but she didn’t hit her head. There’s nothing but layers and layers of garbage down at the bottom of that well. A pretty soft landing.”
“Why would I do that to her?” Foster asked.
“Here’s another tip for you: Never ask a question you aren’t going to like the answer to.
“When Marissa was killed, Gina got scared, on account of she knows a lot of secrets,” Vince said. “She’s a sweet kid, Gina. She doesn’t have the stomach for secrets. She just wants to have her little store, and live in her little house, and have her friends. That’s all Gina wants.
“But her best friend gets killed, and she’s afraid maybe she knows who did it. She figures to get out of Dodge before something bad can happen to her. But she should take a rack of cash with her—just in case. So she calls a friend—you. You’ll give her a little ‘loan,’ she thinks.
“The next thing she knows, she’s in the trunk of your car.”
Foster shook his head. “That never happened.”
“I can tell you haven’t done this a lot, Mr. Foster,” Vince said. “Tip number three: Don’t deny what can be proved absolutely.”
“We’ve impounded your vehicle, Mark,” Mendez said. “It’s in our garage, and as we sit here, evidence technicians are going through that trunk with a fine-toothed comb—literally. All they need to find is one hair.”
“Do you own a handgun, Mr. Foster?” Vince asked.
“No.”
“If you do, and it’s registered, we’ll find out,” Mendez said.
“I don’t own a gun.”
“Does Darren Bordain own a gun?”
“You would have to ask him.”
“Oh, we will,” Mendez said.
“You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who reacts aggressively to situations as a rule, Mark,” Vince said. “You must have felt very threatened by Gina. You must have thought she could cause you to lose something or someone very important to you. Your career, for instance.”
“She threatened to tell Bruce Bordain about you and Darren, didn’t she?” Mendez said. “Bruce sits on the board at McAster. If he wanted you gone, you’d be gone.”
“You define yourself by your career, don’t you, Mark?” Vince said. “You’re proud of what you’ve achieved. People your age don’t reach the status you’ve reached in your world, do they?”
“Or did you do it for Darren?” Mendez asked. “If Gina let that secret go ... Bye-bye, political career. I wouldn’t be surprised if the old man disowned him, either. Even if Haley Fordham is his kid.”
Foster sighed. “You might notice I’m not participating here. I don’t have anything to say—other than that I didn’t do it.”
“We have a victim ID,” Mendez said. “You’re not going to come out on the right side of this, Mark. You need to think about how you can salvage something out of this mess. If Darren killed Marissa—”
“Darren didn’t kill Marissa.”
“How can you know that—unless you were with him that night.”
“I know because I—”
Dixon rapped on the door and opened it, grim faced. “Mr. Foster’s attorney is here. Courtesy of Darren Bordain.”
93
“He was going to confess!” Mendez exclaimed. “Ten more seconds and he would have confessed! He was going to say he killed Marissa. Ten more seconds!”
They had adjourned to the war room while the Bordain attorney consulted with his new client.
Vince tuned out Mendez�
�s rant. He went to the whiteboard and made a new entry on the timeline for Wednesday evening.
Apx. 6:00-6:30pm: G. Kemmer abducted by M. Foster.
Gina’s explanation had been sketchy and piecemeal. She hadn’t been able to give them more than a few words at a time before exhaustion pulled her back under. The doctor had finally intervened and kicked them out of her room.
“Let’s think this through,” Vince said, turning away from the board. “Go back to Wednesday. Gina is scared. We’ll assume because she knows who killed Marissa. She decides she needs to get out of town before something happens to her. She goes to Mark Foster. If she thought Mark Foster killed Marissa, she would never have gone to him.”
The excitement drained out of Mendez’s expression, leaving just the frustration. “But he was about to say—”
“What you wanted to hear?” Vince asked. “He could have just as easily been about to confess to having been with Darren Bordain.”
“Why else would Foster have tried to kill her?” Hicks asked.
“She threatened him,” Vince suggested. “She knew about him and Bordain. She and Marissa facilitated the relationship. They were together as a foursome a lot. Foster and Bordain both gave Gina as their alibi for part of Sunday night.”
“She was a beard,” Hicks said.
“So she’s desperate for cash to get out of town. If he hesitates, that’s the thing she has to hang over his head. Maybe it’s like I said to Foster: She threatened to expose them to Bordain’s father. He sits on the board at McAster. Bruce Bordain can ruin Mark Foster’s career. Gina can ruin Mark and Darren. The next thing Gina knows, she’s in the trunk of a car.”
“And Foster just happens to dump her in the same abandoned well Marissa’s killer dumped the bloody sweatshirt?” Mendez said, skeptical.
“That well is a public dumping ground by the sound of it,” Vince said. “It’s located equidistant between Marissa’s home and the Bordain ranch. Foster could have hiked out there in those hills. Or Darren could have told him. Or Darren could have been the one to take her there for all we know at this point.”
