didn’t want to be around her. Like I told you, she was always sullen around me, obviously didn’t want me near her mother, although she was just as sullen, just as unpleasant, to her mother. She obeyed her mother only when she felt like it. Then she’d turn on a dime—she’d become the nicest girl you can imagine, all smiles and hugs and charm, like at her birthday party. And yes, this was always connected to something her mother or I did for her. You can be sure I gave marrying Elizabeth a lot of thought after she told me about Kirsten.
“But you see, I loved Elizabeth, loved her to my bones, and she loved me. However, she put me off for another two years until Kirsten was twenty-one, out of the house, and on her own, and I wouldn’t have to be around her. Then we finally married.
“I will be honest. I knew that if Kirsten’s parentage ever came out, my businesses would suffer and we would be hounded by the media, but I didn’t see how it ever would come out. Elizabeth told me Bundy never knew about the child, so who would tell?”
Lucy said, “Sentra told us you didn’t know about Kirsten’s parentage.”
He snorted, a curiously charming sound. “I repeat, Sentra’s nuts. She’s a liar. She likes to cause problems, to give her sister grief. What if Elizabeth hadn’t come in before you left? You’d still believe you’d spoken to Elizabeth, wouldn’t you?”
“Very likely,” Coop said.
Lucy asked, “Do you know who told Kirsten her father’s identity?”
Lansford sighed. “It had to be Sentra. But why?” He snorted, waved a hand. “Am I an idiot, or what? It’s Sentra we’re talking about here, and that crazy witch would do anything, and for no good reason. I think it’s only because they’re twins that Elizabeth can’t seem to distance herself from Sentra, once and for all.
“I know Elizabeth certainly never told Kirsten who her father was, though she told me Kirsten asked her often enough when she was a little girl. Elizabeth simply told her that her father was dead, and that came true, soon enough, in that Florida electric chair.
“Elizabeth said when Kirsten was twenty-five she became even more secretive from one day to the next, even more unpleasant to her—in fact, she simply cut her out of her life. Elizabeth wanted desperately to believe it was simply another phase, but she said she knew in her heart Kirsten had found out about Bundy.
“And then Elizabeth found the book on Ted Bundy, right on top of Kirsten’s dresser, where she’d left it so her mother would know. As I said, we didn’t see her again, until her birthday party, which was fine with me, but I know Elizabeth worried.
“Do you know, in that book on Bundy, Kirsten had drawn circles around her father’s photos, yellow circles? And little hearts. I’m wondering now if she recognized herself.”
CHAPTER 21
Mr. Lansford said, “When Elizabeth told me about Bundy being Kirsten’s father, she admitted she hadn’t had a clue what or who Kirsten was from the time Kirsten reached puberty. She didn’t know what she would do or say or think about any particular subject from one minute to the next. She also admitted to me that Kirsten’s strangeness had always frightened her, given who her father was. Elizabeth read every book she could find on whether psychopathic behavior could be inherited, but she simply couldn’t be certain about Kirsten. She said she was afraid to even think about it; it was simply too upsetting.
“Because Kirsten hadn’t been arrested by the age of twenty-one, Elizabeth told me she began to breathe more easily, finally admitted that was why she’d waited another two years to marry me. She hadn’t wanted me near someone who could possibly harm me. I remember before she was twenty-five, Kirsten occasionally slept over, but let me tell you, I’d forget her for months at a time.
“That black Porsche.” He dashed his fingers through his beautifully styled hair. It fell right back into place. “Do you know, I always liked black until Kirsten. But black was the only color I ever saw her wear. Fricking black. And so I bought her the black Porsche. I wanted to tie a black bow around the Porsche, but her mother said it wouldn’t go over well, Kirsten would think I was making fun of her, and I confess, when she said that, I felt a chill run over me. So the bow was huge and red, and Kirsten smiled and patted me, told me thank you, and she kissed me maybe a dozen times. She even asked questions about my upcoming campaign. She was all interest, all sweetness—that day—and I’ll confess, I wanted to believe she was simply a bit on the exotic side, that her weird behavior was mainly affectation. I never dreamed she was indeed a copy of her father. I mean, who could dream of such a thing? We never saw her again after that day.”
Savich said, “You said she was unpredictable, Mr. Lansford. Could you give us an example?”
He walked over to the window and looked out onto the quiet courtyard. He said over his shoulder, “I remember once, she was maybe twenty-four, she waltzed into my office in Silicon Valley, completely unexpected, and told me she was taking me to lunch.”
Coop said, “Did you go?”
Another moment of silence, then Lansford said, “I’ve never said this before, haven’t, as a matter of fact, even let myself think it. But now that I remember that day, I realize I went to lunch with her for the simple reason that I was afraid of her. I tried to tell myself that I had no reason to be, but still—I’ll never forget the first time I met her, this eighteen-year-old who was attending Berkeley, an art major, and she looked like she wanted to shoot me, sullen as a little kid—but much more than that. I saw something in her eyes when she looked at me, lurking there, if you will, something that alarmed me. I know that sounds melodramatic, as if I’m embellishing my reactions, since I now know who she is, but I’m not sure. That something I saw hiding in her eyes, it was this Kirsten—Ted Bundy’s daughter. You know she also attended law school for a little while, like her father?”
“Yes,” Savich said. “We know.”
Lansford raised bleak eyes to Savich. “My poor wife is devastated. Can you imagine finding out your child has murdered five people?”
Lansford shook his head, trying to get his brain around the horror. “I remember Elizabeth told me once she must be the luckiest woman alive. I thought she was talking about meeting me, about our coming together, and my ego bounded to the stratosphere.” He gave a sharp laugh, met Savich’s eyes. “But what she meant was that she had survived Bundy, that he hadn’t tortured her and murdered her—he only left her pregnant.
“She left yesterday to stay with her cousins in Seattle. Yes, I know, Ted Bundy lived there. Did she meet him in Seattle? I don’t know, I didn’t ask her, but I know it was her first home.”
“What about Sentra?”
“I happened to go by the gallery Friday night and saw the two of them together. Elizabeth was furious, of course, and Sentra, well, she was laughing, talking about what an interesting evening it had been.”
Coop said, “Mr. Lansford, do you think it’s possible Sentra is Kirsten’s mother and not Elizabeth?”
“
“Maybe your wife took the baby because, as you say, Sentra was nuts, not at all good mother material.”
“No, Elizabeth would have told me.”
“Has Sentra always been an interior decorator?”
Lansford laughed. “Oh, you can’t know how rich that is. Sentra is the longtime mistress of Clifford Childs, an old-time San Francisco aristocrat with old-time money—actually, he has a vast reservoir of money. She’s never earned a dime, never done a worthwhile thing in her life, even though she claims she’s an interior decorator. She met Childs when she was all of twenty-two years old, and he was thirty, a recent widower with two sons. They’ve been together ever since, thirty-two years.”
They all knew this, since a Google search had turned up dozens of society party photos. Lucy asked, “Why didn’t they marry?”
“I don’t know why, but the way Sentra tells it, she keeps turning him down. Why? Sentra says he’s too possessive. He’s always given her an outrageous allowance, treated her like a queen. They’re quite the society
