Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

Miss Navarre came around the table and squatted down beside him, her pretty flowered skirt floating into a puddle around her feet. She looked up into his face like she was searching for something.

“I wish that too, Tommy. But you know none of it was your fault, right? You didn’t cut through the park expecting to find that body. You didn’t miss your piano lesson on purpose. You didn’t ask Dennis Farman to beat you up. It’s not your fault.”

Tommy didn’t argue with her, but he knew it was his fault. He had decided to cut through the park. He had looked at Dennis when he shouldn’t have. His mother was upset because of all of this trouble he had fallen into.

Miss Navarre stood up and crossed her arms and walked around in a little circle. From Tommy’s observations that usually meant the person was working up to saying something nobody wanted to hear.

“Do you remember last Thursday night?” she asked. “Do you remember what you did that night? Were your mom and dad home?”

“I think so,” Tommy said, puzzled. “My dad and me watch The Cosby Show.”

“I like that show too,” Miss Navarre said with a little smile. “Does your mom watch with you?”

“No. She doesn’t think anything is funny.”

“That’s too bad for her.”

“She’s not a very happy person,” he said.

“How about your dad? He seems like a happy person.”

“Most of the time,” Tommy said, but he didn’t say anything about how it was when his mother was on one of her rampages and yelling at his dad. He didn’t say that sometimes his dad would just have to leave, and how he wouldn’t come back for hours.

It didn’t feel right to tell anybody things like that. Not even Miss Navarre. That was family stuff. You weren’t supposed to tell other people family stuff. It was like a code. You had to be loyal to your family first.

“My mother used to say ‘This too shall pass,’” Miss Navarre said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means even bad times will go away. All the crazy stuff that happened this week already happened, it’s behind us. We should look forward. Next week could bring something really great.”

I hope so, Tommy thought as he slid off his chair and followed her out of the room, holding his arm against his aching ribs. I sure hope so.

“I can’t believe any of this is happening,” Sara Morgan said, pulling her pink sweater around herself as if she was freezing, even though the morning was warming up quickly.

She was a pretty woman in a wholesome athletic sort of way, dressed like maybe she was on her way to aerobics class in black leggings with gray leg warmers slouching around her ankles. She had a head of hair a man would like to tangle his hands in-thick with curls and waves. She had caught up a couple of sections in barrettes in a halfhearted attempt to keep it under control.

They stood on the sidewalk in front of the school. Mendez flipped his Ray-Bans down against the bright sun.

“We had such a nice life a week ago,” she said. “Suddenly everything is wrong.”

She was on the verge of tears-out of proportion to what had gone on in the conference room. Although, Mendez thought, Janet Crane was almost enough to make him cry.

“You’ve had a lot to deal with,” he said. “I spoke to your husband yesterday. I understand he was out of town when the kids found the body.”

“Yes,” she said, suspicion creeping into her expression. “You talked to Steve? Why?”

“The murder victim, Lisa Warwick, volunteered at the Thomas Center as a court advocate. She and your husband had worked together frequently. We thought she might have confided in him if someone had been giving her a hard time. Did you know her?”

“Yes,” she said. “I met her a couple of times.”

“Is that all?” Mendez asked, feigning surprise. “They never met at your home to talk about a case?”

“Steve doesn’t bring his work home with him.”

“Hmmm. Well, I suppose that’s good, but it makes for a lot of late nights at the office, doesn’t it?”

“Steve’s very dedicated,” she said, her voice cool.

“To his work,” Mendez said. “Does it bother you that he gives up so much time to the Thomas Center?”

“It’s a worthy cause.”

She looked away, pulled a pair of aviator sunglasses from on top of her head and settled them in place to hide the stress in her cornflower blue eyes.

“You volunteer as well?” Mendez asked.

“No. I’m busy with other things.”

Like holding herself together, he thought. We had such a nice life a week ago.

“Mrs. Morgan,” he started, “there’s no delicate way of asking this question. Was your husband involved with Lisa Warwick? Romantically?”

“No!” she said, too quickly, hugging herself tight.

“We’ve looked at Ms. Warwick’s phone records. There are a lot of calls to your husband’s office. A lot of after-hours calls.”

“You said yourself, they worked on a lot of cases together.”

Mendez didn’t press for more. Browbeating Sara Morgan into saying it aloud would only have been cruel. Her husband was unfaithful to her. She was suffering enough keeping the secret to herself.

“One other thing,” he said. “Do you happen to remember where your husband was last week, Thursday, late in the day?”

“He was in town,” she said. “I remember that. I teach an art class every other Thursday evening. He was home when I got back.”

“What about from, say, five to seven?”

“He rarely gets home before seven. I leave for my class at six.”

Which meant she couldn’t account for his whereabouts during the time period Karly Vickers went missing.

He waited for Sara Morgan to ask why he wanted to know, but she had had enough.

“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Morgan,” he said. “I’ll let you go. Have a nice day.”

She laughed without humor, already on her way to her car.

“I spoke with Sara Morgan,” Mendez said, walking into the war room, where Vince had carved out a spot for himself at a small table in one corner.

He glanced up from making notes, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. “And?”

“It’s a good bet Steve Morgan was having an affair with Lisa Warwick. Mrs. Morgan was very uncomfortable with the topic,” Mendez said, pulling up a chair.

“She didn’t come right out and say he was cheating on her?”

“No. She couldn’t deny it fast enough. She’s trying to hold together what she has,” Mendez said. “It’s a sore point with her that he dedicates so much time to the Thomas Center.”

“With other women,” Vince said. “Vulnerable women, women in need of heroes. That’s a rich prowling ground for the wrong kind of guy.”

“Everybody says he’s a Boy Scout.”

Vince arched a brow. “What kind of merit badge do they give out for adultery these days?”

“A scarlet letter?”

“Good one,” Vince said. He pulled his glasses off and set them aside. “So, let’s say he’s having an affair with her. That’s a long way from doing what was done to her.”

“Maybe she was threatening to tell the missus, giving him an ultimatum he couldn’t live with.”

“Motive for murder, yes. But a guy murders his mistress in the heat of the moment. He gets rid of the body. He doesn’t carve it up like a totem pole and plant it in a public park for school kids to stumble on.”

“Maybe he wants to make it look like some maniac did it.”

“How much information about the Paulson murder was made public knowledge?” Vince asked. “The strangulation? The cutting? The mutilation? The glued eyes?”

“Almost none of it,” Mendez admitted. “And the wife couldn’t account for his whereabouts when Karly Vickers went missing, either. Guess we’d better find out if he ever met Julie Paulson.”