window down so he could continue to take in the fresh air and the smells of California nature.
“He’s an old-school tight ass,” Mendez said.
“You have a real grasp of the obvious there. And I could tell as soon as he stepped in the room you and him probably don’t spend a lot of time bowling and drinking beer together. I want to know who he is.”
“He’s army. Did a tour in ’Nam. He’s been on the job here a little longer than me. Dixon hired him out of LA County.”
“So they go back.”
“Yeah.”
“If Dixon brought him here, he must be a good cop.”
“Yeah. Commendations out the wazoo. He’s a hard-ass, though. If you’re two miles over the speed limit he’ll pull you over and write you up. No mercy. He’s all about the rules. All about the uniform.”
“Rigid.”
“Like a ramrod.”
Mendez started the car and cranked up the air-conditioning.
“He doesn’t like me,” he confessed. “He sees me as some arrogant affirmative action prick who jumped the food chain because I didn’t come up the ranks right before his eyes. And I don’t need to tell you, but he doesn’t like you either.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Vince said. “That’s nothing new. Every department has a Frank Farman. Some of them have nothing but Frank Farmans. We’re ahead of the game here.
“Profiling is still a relatively new tool, and it’s subjective. Guys like Farman want hard physical evidence. They don’t trust a guy like me who’s going to come in here and tell him the killer probably tortured squirrels as a kid and talks with a lisp. They need to see for themselves it’s a useful tool. The only way to do that is for me to do my job well.”
Mendez turned the car around and headed out of the parking lot.
“Let me tell you something, kid,” Vince said. “This will get you further in life and in this business than anything else anyone will ever teach you.
“Leave your ego at home and find a way to make it work with whoever you have to work with. Other cops, witnesses, vics, perps, whoever you’re dealing with—learn to figure out in a hurry what makes them tick. If you can do that, you can always get what you need. Even from the Frank Farmans of the world.
“When I was going around interviewing serial killers for the criminal personality research project, do you think I would have gotten anywhere with those creeps if I had gone in, looked them in the eyes, and told them what I really thought of them? Hell no. I had to figure out in five seconds what each of them was about and adjust my approach accordingly.
“What do I care if some serial rapist thinks I agree with his views that all women are whores? That’s his perception; it’s not my reality. Get it?”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“You may be shocked to know this,” he said sardonically. “I’m not by nature the first guy the Bureau goes looking for as an agent. But this is the work I wanted to do, and the Bureau is the place to do it. I learned to navigate the system. Remember that.”
Mendez gave him a curious look. “Why are you telling me this?”
“’Cause you’re good, kid. You’re sharp. I want you to be all you can be.”
“You sound like a recruiting ad. Here’s something interesting about Farman: His son was one of the kids that found the body. Frank won’t let me talk to him.”
“Is it necessary for you to talk to him?”
“Wendy, the little girl of the group, told me Dennis touched the corpse,” Mendez said, brushing the question aside. “Frank let the kid hang around the crime scene until Dixon told him he had to send the kid home.”
“That’s a little odd.”
“I mean, he made the boy stay outside the tape, but still. Frank said the kid had already seen the body, why not let him see how a crime scene gets processed.”
“How old is the boy?”
“Ten, eleven, something like that. He’s a fifth grader. And his teacher left a message for me last night that prior to finding this body, the kid had been talking about there being bodies buried in those woods.”
“And your pal Frank hasn’t mentioned that?” Vince said.
“No.”
“He probably figures the kid was just being a kid,” Vince speculated. “But in light of what’s happened . . . you need to talk to the boy.”
They pulled into a crushed stone parking lot and got out of the car. The sprawling white stucco building in front of them wore a discreet bronze plaque near the main entrance: THE THOMAS CENTER FOR WOMEN.
Inside, the main hall was cool and welcoming, the walls a warm shade of yellow, the old Mexican paver floors polished. They went to the front desk and Mendez asked for Jane Thomas.
“Nice place,” Vince said as they waited.
“It’s an amazing place,” Mendez said. “A lot of the women come from abusive backgrounds, some are coming out of drug rehab, or even jail. The center offers counseling, helps the women prepare themselves to enter the work force. Their program has gotten a lot of national attention.”
“With one dead former employee and one missing client, they’re about to get more,” Vince said.
A tall, well-dressed blonde woman around forty emerged from an office down the hall.
“Detective Mendez?” She glanced from him to Vince and back, clearly worried they were there to deliver bad news.
“Ms. Thomas, this is—”
“Detective Leone,” Vince said, offering his hand.
“Can we speak privately with you?” Mendez asked.
“Of course.” Now she was really worried. “Come into my office.”
They followed her into the spacious office that looked out on a large courtyard and a beautiful garden.
“Do you have news?” she asked, crossing her arms in front of her as if preparing to hold herself up.
“No, nothing,” Mendez said.
Jane Thomas sighed in relief. “Thank God.”
“We went through Ms. Warwick’s home this morning and found a photograph of Ms. Warwick with some friends. I made a photocopy of it,” Mendez said, digging the paper out of his coat pocket. “I’d like you to have a look and tell me who the rest of the people in the picture are.”
She recognized the photograph right away. “Oh, yes, this was our celebration after one of our clients won her custody battle. The courts had given her children to the parents of her abusive husband temporarily while she went through court-ordered drug rehab, then wouldn’t give them back to her when she had finished not only rehab, but our program as well. Lisa was her advocate. She did a lot of hand-holding on that one. In the end Steve was able to persuade a judge to set things right.”
“Steve? This is Steve?” Mendez asked, tapping a finger below the man in the photograph.
“Yes. Steve Morgan. Quinn, Morgan and Associates. He donates a lot of time to us.”
“Was there anything going on between him and Ms. Warwick?”
“Lisa and Steve?” she said, almost amused at the idea. “Of course not. Steve is happily married. He has an adorable daughter. She must be about ten years old.”
“Wendy?” Mendez asked.
“I don’t remember her name,” she said, handing the paper back to him. “The woman to Lisa’s left is Nora Alfano, our client.”
“Did Ms. Warwick spend a lot of time working with Mr. Morgan on her various cases?” Vince asked.
“She spent some time with him in client meetings, that kind of thing. But Steve would never cheat. He’s not that kind of man.”
Mendez said nothing but put the picture back inside his pocket.
“Are you trying to disillusion me for the second time in one day, Detective?”
“No, ma’am. I’m just following leads. Most of them will go nowhere, but we have to follow them to the end.”
