“He’ll be right there,” he said, and hung up. “Sara Morgan is here to see you.”
Mendez went out into the hall with Dixon on his heels.
“I don’t want you speaking to her alone,” the sheriff said. He held his hands up to forestall the objection rising in Mendez’s throat. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Tony, it’s that Steve Morgan is an attorney and you’re already skating on thin ice with him.”
He nodded, impatient to get to her. Something had to be wrong for Sara Morgan to bring herself to the sheriff’s office.
“Fine,” he said. “Vince knows Sara. Just let me ask her if she’s comfortable with that.”
He had already started down the hall before Dixon could answer.
The receptionist had brought Sara into the small waiting area outside of the detectives’ offices, where a sign on the wall instructed all detectives to turn their guns in at the desk. She looked like hell. His first impression was that she had two black eyes, and his temper had already begun to spike before he realized the dark around her eyes was from stress and lack of sleep. She looked thin and fragile, as if a man might be able to snap her in two.
If one had already tried, Mendez was going to kill Steve Morgan with his bare hands.
“Sara? Is something wrong?”
He could see she was trembling as she stood up.
“Can I speak to you privately?” she asked, her voice so small, he could hardly hear her.
“Is this about Steve?” he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder to steady her.
“Yes.”
“Okay. Because of what happened between Steve and me, I’m going to have to have someone else sit in with us. You know Vince Leone. Is it all right if he sits in with us?”
Head down, she nodded.
“All right. We’ll go back here,” he said, letting his hand fall to the small of her back to guide her gently through the office with its small sea of desks, and down the hall to the interview rooms.
“Are you all right?” he asked quietly.
“No,” she said.
“Is there something I can get you before we sit down? Would you like a glass of water or some really bad coffee?”
She tried to smile and shook her head.
“Where’s Wendy? Is she okay?”
“She’s with Anne.”
“Okay. Good. That’s good.”
He looked in the glass inset of the door to interview room one. Vince was already waiting. He stood up as Mendez opened the door and held it for Sara.
“Sara,” Vince said easily. “I understand from Anne that Wendy is visiting Haley this afternoon.”
“Yes.”
“Have a seat, honey,” he said, pulling out a chair for her at the small table. “You look a little shaken up.”
Mendez took the chair on the far side of the table and planted his forearms on the tabletop to keep from reaching over to touch her. That didn’t stop Vince, who reached over and patted her hand.
“It’s okay, Sara,” he said in his quiet, almost fatherly voice. “You’re okay. You’re among friends here, right?”
She nodded, squeezing her eyes shut against gathering tears.
“Between me and Tony here, we’ve heard about every kind of wild story there is,” Vince went on, trying to put her at ease. “So nothing you come up with is going to shock us.”
Sara drew a shallow, shuddering breath. “I think my husband might have killed Marissa.”
Vince’s brows sketched upward ever so slightly. “What makes you say that, Sara?”
“I suspected he was having an affair with her,” she said. She was shaking so hard, she wrapped her arms around herself as if she were freezing.
Mendez stood up, took his sport coat off and draped it around her, giving her shoulders a comforting squeeze.
“When did you first start thinking that?” he asked, sliding back into his seat.
“Last winter when the project for the poster for the Thomas Center started. Then I found out she was a client—that she’d been a client for a while. Do we have to go over all of this now?”
Vince reached over and took one of her hands in his. “I’m sorry, honey. I know it’s hard. This is a tough time for you. You know you’re not alone, right? We’re here for you.”
Sara nodded and glanced at Mendez. “I told him to leave. I told him to get out.”
“You told Steve to get out?” Mendez said. “When did you do that?”
“Last night. He never called in the morning to tell us what had happened. Wendy saw his car in the driveway, but he wasn’t home, and there was blood ... We didn’t know what to think. Wendy thought he’d been killed.”
Mendez wanted to bang his head against the wall, feeling stupid and guilty. “Oh, Sara, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe he didn’t call you. I would have called you if I had known.”
“It’s not your fault my husband is a bastard,” she said. “Just like it’s not my fault his mother was a prostitute.
“Everything is somebody else’s fault where Steve is concerned. He didn’t used to be that way,” she said. “He’s changed so much in the last year and a half, I don’t even know who he is anymore.”
“His behavior has changed?” Vince asked. “How?”
“He used to be happy. He loved us being a family. We were his dream come true. And then he started working more hours and getting more wrapped up in his work for the women’s center, and he just started to change.
“I know you thought he was having an affair with Lisa Warwick when she was killed. And then, of course, Peter Crane was arrested. Peter and Steve were friends. That was hard on him. He just seemed to withdraw more and communicate less.”
“You and Marissa were friends, right?” Vince asked.
Sara shook her head. “I knew who she was. I didn’t try to get to know her until last April or May.”
“After you already believed Steve was involved with her?” Mendez asked.
“Yes. I wanted to know ... If he was in love with her, I wanted to know why. Why her? Why not me?” she asked, the pain in her voice so raw, Mendez wanted to take her in his arms and hold her.
Vince shifted his chair a little and leaned forward, still holding Sara’s hand, his knees now almost touching hers. She gave him her other hand, wanting the contact, needing to feel Vince’s strength.
“It’s okay, Sara,” he whispered. “You hang on to me as tight as you need to, honey, all right?”
She was almost doubled over from the emotional pain. Mendez left his chair and squatted down beside her so he could hear her. He braced a hand against the back of her chair. He wanted to reach up and wipe the tears from her cheek.
“Steve wasn’t in Sacramento last Sunday,” she said. “I don’t know where he was. I told him last night that I knew he wasn’t where he said he was. And he got really angry, and he said to me, ‘Do you think I was with Marissa? Do you think I was stabbing her forty-seven times and cutting her throat?’”
The hair went up on the back of Mendez’s neck. He and Vince locked eyes.
“Is that exactly what he said to you, Sara?” Mendez asked.
“Yes. He was trying to scare me. I didn’t even know who he was when he said those things.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I just wanted him gone,” she admitted. “I just wanted him to leave. And Wendy was so upset—”
“Did Wendy hear him say that?” Vince asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what she heard. I thought she was upstairs in bed. Steve was shouting at me, and suddenly she came in the room and hit him and screamed at him that she hated him. It was awful. I just wanted him away from us.”
“And he left?” Vince said.
“Yes.”
