Mendez couldn’t even hear Monique the mail clerk going on. He was trying to get his head around this new twist in the Bordain tale.
He nodded to the door. Hicks thanked the clerks and followed him out onto the sidewalk.
“
No other words came. They stood on the sidewalk outside the post office, oblivious to the citizens of Lompoc going in and out of the building. Mendez knew his partner’s brain was doing the same thing his brain was doing: spinning its wheels crazily.
“I don’t get it,” Hicks said. “She mailed that box to herself?”
“She
He couldn’t help but picture the murder scene, the incredible brutality, the blood. He could imagine Marissa Fordham’s screams of terror as she tried to escape her killer.
“That can’t be right,” Hicks said, rejecting the idea entirely. “The postal worker; she’s got to be wrong. That can’t be what happened.”
“She recognized the photograph,” Mendez said. “We didn’t even ask her to look at that photograph. And the attitude. That’s Milo Bordain all over.”
Hicks shook his head. “There’s no way. No woman could do that to another woman. Women don’t kill like that—hands-on, crazy, violent. Cut another woman’s breasts off? No.”
A woman with a toddler in tow caught the last of that and gave them a wide berth on her way into the building.
“Maybe she mailed the box but didn’t know what was in it,” Hicks said.
“How could she not know what was in it?”
“The husband or the son gave it to her to mail.”
“To mail to herself?” Mendez said. “And she drove way the hell to Lompoc to do it? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“And Milo Bordain as a homicidal maniac does? No woman could do that to another woman. No way.”
Mendez put his hands on top of his head and walked around in a little circle.
“Marissa Fordham was the daughter she never had,” Hicks said. “The little girl was like her granddaughter.”
“
“Then why would she try to kill the girl?” Hicks asked. “What grandmother does that?”
Mendez tried to lay out a scenario that worked. “Milo Bordain and Marissa get into it. Maybe Marissa wanted more money or maybe she was done with it. Either way, Milo snaps and goes nuts. She realizes too late that the little girl saw her and can identify her. She has to kill her, too.”
“A woman can snap and kill somebody as easily as a man,” Hicks conceded. “But the mutilation? Shoving the knife in the vagina like that?”
Two elderly women leaving the post office gasped and stared.
Mendez got the picture out and opened it flat. Bruce Bordain, Darren Bordain, and his mother at a charity function.
“Look at them side by side,” he said. “If not for the age gap, they could be brother and sister. Twins, even.”
“The son dresses up in drag,” Hicks ventured. “Mom is on the masculine side. He’s on the feminine side. He pretends to be her and brings that box up here to mail it.”
“That would make a hell of a movie,” Mendez said, “but it doesn’t make any sense.”
Hicks threw his hands up. “What part of this lunatic family does?”
“I don’t know,” Mendez said, digging the car keys out of his pocket. “But we’re not going to figure it out standing here. Let’s try to find a pay phone and call the boss.”
99
After the bright sunshine, the interior of the barn was so dark, it took Anne a moment to adjust her eyes.
The barn was cool and smelled of fresh hay and horses. Haley let go her hand and ran halfway down the center aisle then turned right. Anne followed. A door stood open to a feed room. A wide sliding door opened out onto a patch of shaded grass where two tiger-striped kittens were taking turns pouncing on a string of orange twine.
Haley dropped down on her knees in the grass and snatched at one end of the string. The kittens bounced into the air in surprise, dashed away, then came back in stalking mode.
Haley squealed and giggled in delight at the antics of the kittens. Anne stood in the doorway watching her, so happy to see her happy. She deserved to have some time to think nothing but little girl thoughts about kittens in the grass.
“Mommy Anne! Come and play with my kitties!”
Anne got down on the grass beside her and paid careful attention while Haley showed her what to do with the twine to make the kittens pounce on it.
“This one is Scat,” she said. “And the one with the white paws is Mittens.”
Scat bounced up on his toes with his back arched and his tail straight up in the air, then turned and dashed back into the barn. Haley ran after him, running smack into Milo Bordain’s legs.
She looked up at the tall woman whose face and hair seemed stark white against the black backdrop of the dark barn.
“Oops!” Anne said, laughing.
But Haley didn’t laugh, and Milo didn’t laugh.
Haley took a step back and then another, her eyes on Milo Bordain.
“Haley?” Anne said, puzzled by the expression on her face.
Bordain leaned over. “Haley? What’s the matter? You remember me. Auntie Milo.”
Haley’s lower lip began to tremble and tears welled in her eyes.
“B-b-b-bad,” she stammered.
“You didn’t mean to run into your auntie Milo,” Anne said. “It was an accident.”
“B-b-b-b-ad,” she said again. “Bad Daddy. Bad Daddy!”
It took a second for Anne to understand, but then the pieces snapped into place. Swallowed by the black background, with just her face standing out, Milo Bordain must have reminded her of the man who had attacked her mother. Darren Bordain was a prime suspect. He was the spitting image of his mother.
“Bad Daddy! Bad Daddy!”
Milo frowned sharply as Haley began to wail and shriek, only succeeding in making herself look more menacing.
“Haley!” she snapped. “Stop that!”
Before Anne could react, she took the girl by the upper arms and gave her a shake.
“Haley! Stop it! Stop it right now!”
Anne bolted forward and scooped Haley into her arms, ignoring the pain of her own injuries as she pulled the little girl tight against her. She wanted to knock Milo Bordain on her ass.
“Don’t frighten her more!” Anne snapped.
“She knows me, for heaven’s sake!” Bordain snapped back. “She’s being ridiculous!”
“She’s four!” Anne shot back.
Haley cried harder.
“What have you been putting in her head?”
“Nothing!”
“Cal Dixon and your husband are trying to frame my son—”
