Tami Hoag - Secrets to the Grave

For the first time in a long time, Dennis Farman cried himself to sleep.

87

“So, what’s this all about, Cal?” Bruce Bordain asked.

He was irritated and making only a half-hearted effort to conceal it. The blindingly white smile had been downsized. There was certain tension in his body. He hadn’t appreciated having a deputy interrupt his breakfast for a command performance at the sheriff’s office.

“You couldn’t just pick up the phone and talk to me?” he said to the sheriff. “I’ve got a plane to catch before noon.”

“We’ll try not to keep you, but this is a conversation we don’t want to have over the phone, Bruce,” Dixon said, leading the way back from his office, past the detectives’ squad room.

“Do I get a heads-up as to what this is about?” Bordain asked. “I don’t like surprises unless they’re twenty-two with big tits and jump out of a birthday cake naked.”

“Well,” Dixon said, opening the door to interview room one and motioning Bordain in, “then it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re not going to like this one.”

“And you’re bringing me back here to the dungeons for this?” Bordain said. “Should I have brought my attorney with me?”

“I don’t want someone walking into my office while we’re having this conversation, Bruce. If you decide at some point that you’d be more comfortable with your attorney present, you’re free to call him.”

The last remnants of the bullshit smile faded away. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

“Have a seat,” Dixon offered.

Bordain took the chair facing the door with his back to the wall. Dixon took the seat at the end of the table. Mendez took the seat with his back to the door, but turned the chair sideways.

“Bruce,” Dixon began. “I asked you the other day how well you knew Marissa Fordham—”

“And I told you, well enough to have a conversation.”

“How intimate would that conversation be, Mr. Bordain?” Mendez asked.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you asking me if I was screwing her? You think I was screwing my wife’s pet artist right under her nose? Do you think I have a death wish?”

“We’re more interested in the year prior to when Milo began sponsoring Ms. Fordham,” Dixon said.

“In 1981,” Mendez specified. “You would have met her in Los Angeles. Her name was Melissa Fabriano then.”

Bordain didn’t even blink. “Never heard of her.”

“We’ve come to find out she spent some time working at Morton’s downtown,” Dixon said, “as a hostess. You’re a steak man, aren’t you, Bruce?”

“I like a great cut of beef,” he said. “And I’ll admit it: I like a great piece of ass too. But I never laid eyes on Marissa until Milo introduced me to her.”

Mendez tapped the edge of the file folder against the tabletop and exchanged a meaningful look with Dixon.

“Have you spoken to your son recently, Mr. Bordain?” Mendez asked.

“I spoke to Darren yesterday. He came out to the ranch to check on his mother. We had breakfast.”

“Do you know if Darren had a relationship with Ms. Fordham prior to her moving here?”

“I wouldn’t know. Darren doesn’t share the details of his love life with me. What is any of this getting at?”

“We spoke with Darren last night,” Dixon said. “He also denies knowing Marissa prior to her moving here in 1982.”

“Well I’m glad we’ve cleared that up,” Bordain said, getting up out of his chair. “Neither my son nor I knew Marissa Fordham before she became Marissa Fordham.”

“The problem with that,” Dixon said, “is that we’ve come into possession of a document that suggests otherwise.”

Bordain’s eyes went straight to the file folder. He sat back down.

“Which is what?” he asked.

Mendez opened the file and moved it across the table.

“This is a photocopy,” Dixon said. “We have the actual document in safekeeping.”

Bordain pulled a pair of reading glasses out of the chest pocket of his pale yellow shirt and perched them on his nose. Mendez watched him for any sign of an emotional reaction as he read the document. There was none. Bruce Bordain hadn’t gotten where he was by not being able to play poker.

“It’s a lie,” he said, and shoved the file back across the table.

“It’s a pretty convincing lie,” Dixon said, “by all appearances.”

“It’s still a lie.”

“Marissa Fordham moved up here with her infant daughter in 1982,” Mendez said. “Your wife began to sponsor her almost immediately—”

“Milo is an art lover.”

“—paying her a monthly amount of five thousand plus providing her with a place to live and work. That seems to be the coup of the century according to professionals in the art world.”

“Somebody has to win the lottery.”

“And this incredibly lucky young woman also just happens to have a birth certificate naming one Darren Bruce Bordain as the father of her child?” Dixon said. “Are we supposed to believe that’s a coincidence, Bruce? Because I have to tell you, in case you didn’t know it, I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday.”

Bordain rubbed a hand across his face and scratched behind one ear, looking off to the side and at the floor.

“And we still haven’t gotten to the heart of this, have we?” he said.

“Was she blackmailing you?”

“That’s not it,” Bordain said. “Come on. Go for the big one, Cal.”

“Mr. Bordain, where were you on the night Marissa Fordham was murdered?” Mendez asked.

“I was in Las Vegas the entire weekend.” He pulled his wallet out and withdrew a business card. “If you’d like to speak to my companions for that night, call this number.”

Mendez took the card and looked at it. Pinnacle Escorts. “Pay up front,” Mendez said, “not later.”

“Apparently, my son needs to learn that lesson.”

“You’re going to leave your son hanging out to dry on this, Bruce?” Dixon asked. “I didn’t peg you for that.”

“He has to take responsibility for his own actions.”

“Oh, he has,” Mendez said.

“Then there you have it.”

“Last night he owned up to being gay.”

Bordain came halfway out of his chair and jabbed a finger at Mendez. “That’s a fucking lie!”

“It would be if it wasn’t true,” Mendez said.

“My son is not a faggot! He’s—He’s—He’s just trying to get out of this!” he said, pointing to the file folder. “It’s his kid. The woman called him and told him she was pregnant. He sent her a check to get an abortion. She didn’t do it. Then she showed up here with the baby. I’m not having my son marry some hippy artist with a love child. He’s got a future to think about.”

“So you paid her off,” Dixon said. “Does Milo know why she’s writing those checks?”

“Of course she knows.”

“And she’s fine with that?”

“Milo knows her job. She’s protecting her son.”

“That’ll be the best spin you can put on the story,” Dixon said. “Darren got a woman pregnant. Boys will be boys. And that definitely proves he’s a boy’s boy. Then the family took the woman and child in to support them. Very magnanimous. Definitely the right thing to do.

“The problem is, Bruce, the girl is dead.”

“I didn’t do it,” Bordain said. “I was in Vegas.”

“With access to a private jet and a bevy of handsomely paid alibi witnesses,” Mendez said. “Is that going to hold up?”

“Like the fucking Hoover Dam,” Bordain said. “Because it’s true.”

“And Darren couldn’t have done it,” Mendez said. “Because he was busy fucking his gay lover.”

A huge vein bulged out on Bordain’s forehead, throbbing. “That’s a lie! You shut the fuck up!”