Secrets to the Grave

58

There were years of friendship contained in the box Mendez had pulled out of Gina Kemmer’s house. Years and years.

Vince spread the contents of the box out on a table that ran along one wall of the war room. He had removed the boxes of files pertaining to the See-No-Evil cases and put them under the table. One crime at a time.

Gina’s box contained framed photos, photo albums, and packages of photographs that had never made it out of the envelope from the drugstore that had developed them. All of Gina Kemmer’s life condensed into three-by-five and five-by-seven rectangles.

Vince went through them, separating them into groups—as to his best guess, at least. Family, school, friends, vacations.

Gina came from a nice, normal-looking family. Dad wore a crew cut. Mom wore cat-eye glasses. There were three kids: two boys and a girl—the youngest. They lived in a brown ranch-style house in Reseda, according to the loopy handwriting on the back. Reseda September 1969.

They vacationed at Big Bear and Yellowstone. There was Gina with Minnie Mouse at Disneyland. Robbie, Dougie, and Daddy at a Dodgers game in June 1972.

Funny the things that built a life. All these little moments knitted together. Another Christmas, another Easter, another Halloween.

He thought of his own family, and how many of these photos his girls had packed away in boxes. Photos without him in them. A familiar hollow ache filled the center of his chest. He made a mental note to call them on the weekend. They were always home Sunday night.

He would be in the next set of family photos. Him and Anne and the children they would have together. He thought of last night, sitting with his arms wrapped around Anne and Haley both.

He thought of Zander Zahn, who probably had no photos from his childhood—nor would he want any reminders of that painful, horrible time. He wouldn’t want even the memories—which was why he kept them locked away in his strange compartmentalized brain.

He surrounded himself with things instead of memories. Tangible things he could touch and hold. Things that would never leave him. How telling that room of human prosthetics—no whole person in his life, just parts and pieces made of plastic. They couldn’t hurt him.

Vince took a deep breath, sighed, and rubbed his hands over his face, turning his attention back to Gina Kemmer’s photographs.

He found the first one of Marissa dated 1971. Even as a young teenager she had been striking with her shining dark eyes and her dark hair falling around her shoulders in waves. She was dressed like a hippy in bell-bottom pants with a peace sign hanging around her neck and a leather headband across her forehead. Gina was in a similar getup. The back of the photo read—in schoolgirl handwriting—Missy and Me, Sept. 1971.

They had grown up together. Best friends. Like sisters. School. Boyfriends. Holidays. Trips.

So why the big lie? Why say they only met here in Oak Knoll in 1982? Who would have cared where they had come from? Who would have cared how long they had known each other?

And why had Melissa Fabriano changed her name? Had she just wanted to reinvent herself? Had she been running from someone in LA? Maybe her family hadn’t been as idyllic as the middle-class Kemmers of Reseda.

Maybe Haley’s father had been abusive. Maybe there was no blackmail scheme. Maybe the abusive father of her child had finally found her and put an end to her perfect secret life in perfect Oak Knoll.

Then why wouldn’t Gina have given up his name? She would have been in danger from him too. Why wouldn’t she just give him up?

The door opened and Mendez came into the room with a bag from Carnegie West Deli.

“If there’s a hot pastrami on rye in that bag, I’ll kiss you full on the mouth.”

“No tongue,” Mendez said. “I’m not that kind of girl.”

He set the bag on another table and started dragging sandwiches out of it.

“Finding anything?” he asked, nodding at the photographs.

“More questions than answers, so far. Gina and Marissa go way back. Gina and Melissa, I should say. They go back to seventh or eighth grade.”

“So why pretend they didn’t?”

“That’s my question. If Marissa was running from someone in Los Angeles, came up here and changed her name, who would care if she and Gina knew each other?”

“Maybe Marissa wanted the whole new identity—needed it for whatever reason—but Gina didn’t want to be bothered with living a lie.”

“Maybe . . .”

Vince got up and stretched, picked up his sandwich and breathed in the aroma through the wrapper.

“I gave up pastrami ten years ago,” he said. “At the same time I quit smoking. The big midlife health kick.”

“And then?”

“I got shot in the head and lived. A little pastrami isn’t going to kill me.”

“You gonna take up cigarettes too?” Mendez asked, eyeing his meatball sub for a spot to attack it.

“I’m indulgent, not stupid,” Vince said. “So did Bordain want you fired?”

“No. He invited me to go golfing. He’s nothing like his wife.”

“You liked him?”

“He’s hard not to like. Charming, charismatic, accessible. He’s the guy guys want to hang out with and ladies want to hang on his arm. But he talks about his marriage like it’s a business arrangement.”

“It probably is. It looks like it works out for both of them.”

“That’s not the kind of marriage I want.”

“Mr. Romance.”

“And you’re not?”

“I am, absolutely. Guilty as charged, and happy as a half-wit at the county fair,” Vince confessed. “But not a lot of people get that lucky. Not everybody wants to. The highs are really high, but the lows suck. Middle of the road is safer.”

“Dixon asked him if he had a girlfriend who might want his wife dead. He said he’s learned to make sure that doesn’t happen. Pay now, not later. What do you think that means?”

“Hookers. Cash on the dresser. Cheaper than a mistress.”

“I guess.” Mendez shook his head and sighed wistfully. “The world’s an ugly place, Vince.”

“Not always,” Vince said, picking up a photograph of Gina Kemmer and Marissa Fordham in bikinis on a beach. He looked at the back. “Life’s a knockout in Cabo San Lucas, circa ...”

He stared at the back of the snapshot, turned it over, and stared at the front.

Mendez stopped chewing and talked with his mouth full of meatball sub. “What?”

“March 1982.”

“What about it?”

“Haley was born in May 1982.” He put the photo down and tapped a finger on the very flat belly of Marissa Fordham/Melissa Fabriano. “Does that woman look seven months pregnant to you?”

“Maybe the date is wrong.”

“Why would the date be wrong? Gina learned from her mother to always put the date on the back of the picture. Every photograph on this table has a date written on the back of it. Why would any of them be wrong?”

“But she’s obviously not pregnant.”

“Obviously not.”

“Wow.” Mendez shook his head as if he’d been dazed. “We’re busting our asses trying to find out who Haley’s father is. We don’t even know who her mother is.”

“Who’s the daddy?” Vince said, feeling a whiplash coming on. “Who’s the baby?”