Sara Morgan let his statement hang. “He isn’t home,” she said. “He called to say he’d be late. Again.”
Wendy came down the stairs then, her eyes widening a bit at the sight of two detectives in the foyer. She’d grown since Mendez had last seen her. She was going to be a knockout like her mother in another few years.
“Hey, Wendy,” he said, smiling. “How are you doing?”
She shrugged with one shoulder. She didn’t smile back. “I’m okay. Why are you here?”
Sara Morgan turned to her daughter. “They have some questions about Marissa, about ... what happened.”
Wendy huffed an impatient sigh. “Why don’t you just say it? Her murder. Marissa was murdered. Somebody took a knife and killed her.”
“Wendy—”
“I’m not a baby, Mom. I know what goes on in the world. People get murdered. People die. It’s nothing new,” she said with a bitterness in her tone that made Mendez frown.
Wendy looked up at him with unblinking blue eyes. “Do you know who killed her?”
“No,” he said. “We’re still gathering information. Your mom and Ms. Fordham were friends. We thought she might be able tell us something about Ms. Fordham we don’t already know.”
Satisfied with that answer, Wendy moved on. “How’s Haley? Is she going to be all right? Where is she?”
“She’s going to be fine,” Mendez said. “Anne Leone—Miss Navarre—is looking after her in the hospital until we can find some relatives.”
Wendy’s demeanor lightened considerably at that. She turned to her mother. “Oh, Mom! Can I go see her? Please!”
“Wendy loves Haley,” Sara Morgan said, her own expression softening as she looked down at her daughter.
“Can I go see her in the hospital? Please, please, please!”
She turned to Mendez again. “I was going to get to be her babysitter next year. After I turn twelve. I could have handled it this year because it’s not like I’m a regular eleven-year-old. I’m very mature for my age.”
“I know you are,” Mendez said.
“I don’t know if they’ll allow visitors, sweetie,” Sara Morgan said.
“I’ll ask,” Mendez offered.
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Wendy said, bouncing on the balls of her feet as if the excitement weren’t going to be contained in her body. She turned toward her mother. “I’ll take her something special. Can I make her a card? Please? Can I go in your studio and make her a special card?”
Her mother ran a hand lovingly over Wendy’s tangled mermaid’s mane that matched her own. “Sure, sweetie. Make her something really special.”
Wendy bolted back up the staircase and disappeared.
Sara Morgan watched her go. There was a fine sheen of tears in her eyes when she turned back to them.
“I don’t get to see her that excited very much anymore,” she said.
“That must be hard on you,” Mendez murmured. It occurred to him that a lot of things in her life were hard on Sara Morgan. He halfway wanted to put his arms around her and give her a shoulder to cry on.
Maybe more than halfway.
“Ma’am,” Hicks said. “Do you know where your husband was Sunday night?”
“He was in Sacramento all weekend for a golf tournament. I couldn’t tell you what time he got in Sunday night. I didn’t hear him. When I came downstairs Monday morning he was sleeping on the sofa.”
“I hate to have to ask this,” Hicks said, “but do you think your husband was involved with Ms. Fordham?”
“I don’t know,” she said sadly. “And frankly, I don’t want to know anymore. My marriage is as over as it’s going to get. I just don’t know how to leave it.”
“I’m sorry,” Mendez said softly, even though a part of him wasn’t. She deserved better than Steve Morgan. She deserved to be happy.
Hicks drew breath to ask another question. Mendez headed him off at the pass.
“Thank you, Mrs. Morgan,” he said. “We won’t take up any more of your time.”
“I was going to ask her where she was Sunday night,” Hicks said as they walked back to the car.
“Leave her alone.”
“If her friend was sleeping with her husband, she had as much motive to kill Marissa Fordham as anyone. Maybe more. And did you see her hands? They’re all cut up.”
“She’s making a sculpture, working with metal.”
“Since when? Monday morning?”
Mendez started the car. “Let’s go find the asshole she’s married to and ask him.”
34
Anne had changed into a pair of gray sweatpants and a soft, loose black sweater for the evening, settling in beside Haley on her hospital bed. She thought it would be a wonder if she didn’t fall asleep before the child did. She was exhausted from the battle with Maureen Upchurch and Milo Bordain, and the knowledge that neither woman was going to give up.
Maureen would band together with Bordain now if for no other reason than to be against Anne. Milo Bordain would bring her family’s influence to bear wherever she could. Not that Anne blamed her. The woman considered Haley family. Even if she showed no outward signs of being maternal, she clearly felt a strong connection.
Anne had Judge Espinoza on her side. She tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that he would not be swayed. A staunch Democrat, he would delight in thwarting the Bordains at every turn.
Haley was busy coloring in the coloring book Franny had brought for her. She wouldn’t last for long, either. Her energy came in short bursts followed by long naps. Her little body had been put through a lot, and while she now had a clean bill of health, she would still be recovering physically for days.
She hadn’t asked about her mother again.
Anne thought she probably simply couldn’t cope with the idea that her mother wasn’t here and had closed a door in her memory—temporarily. Anne suspected that when Haley couldn’t hold those memories back anymore, the floodgates would open and the emotion would pour out.
There was very little literature to draw from on the subject of childhood memory, particularly childhood memory of traumatic events. Did children’s memories function in the same way as adults’? Or were the memories of children more influenced or distorted by emotional responses? Nobody really knew. There was even less information available on how best to pull those memories out and help the child cope with them.
Anne had called her professor for advice. His suggestions had been to tread very carefully, not to ask leading questions, and to go with her gut.
“I’m sure we’ll have a lot more data on the subject after this mess down in Manhattan Beach is over,” he said. “But for now you’ve got good instincts, Anne. Use them.”
Everyone in the field of child psychology, as well as those on the front lines protecting children from abuse, were watching the developing McMartin preschool sex-abuse case in Manhattan Beach, south of Los Angeles, where staff of the preschool had been accused of horrific crimes against the children in their charge.
It was a case that immediately struck a nerve with everyone who cared about children. People were outraged at the very suggestion of sexual abuse. The allegations had been made in ’83. The pretrial investigation was still ongoing three years later. But rumors about how the children involved were being interviewed were bringing more than a little doubt about the veracity of the testimony being elicited—at least among psychologists.
Improper suggestive interviewing techniques could easily mislead and confuse small children, rendering their testimony unreliable—to say nothing of potentially causing psychological damage to the children.
Maybe she knew more about this than she realized, Anne thought. But she still felt like she was working without a net.
