Now that he had seen Zahn in a full-on rage, it wasn’t as difficult to picture. He could have snapped, gone into a dissociative state, gone after Marissa with the knife. He may not have been consciously aware of any of it.

Despite the many times Vince had seen that used as a defense in a murder trial, a true dissociative state was a rare, rare thing to have happen—but it did happen.

He pieced that scenario together, frame by frame in his mind: the horrific murder, Zahn walking home afterward, still in a daze. At some point he would have become aware of this blood-soaked clothing—which would have been a trauma in itself for Zahn. He may or may not have realized how that had happened. He would have disposed of the clothes and scrubbed himself clean.

Zahn’s mind may never have allowed him to associate the bloody clothing with what had happened to Marissa and Haley. The human brain has amazing ways of protecting its owner. Zahn’s had no doubt compartmentalized many of the traumas of his life, closed the doors on those compartments, and locked them.

“Detective Leone? What are you doing here?”

Vince looked up to see Rudy Nasser at the gate. He had already punched in the gate code, and the gate was rolling back, revealing him standing there with two bags of groceries from Ralph’s.

“I came by to check on Dr. Zahn,” Vince said as Nasser came up the narrow path that cut through Zahn’s mind-boggling array of junk.

“Is he all right?”

“He’s resting now. Have you ever seen Dr. Zahn lose his temper?”

Nasser frowned. “Not until the other day when he knocked me down. He’s ordinarily very mild-mannered. Meek, really. Why? Did something happen?”

“He’s fine,” Vince lied. “I was just wondering, that’s all. Have you seen him since that happened?”

“Yes, why?” Nasser asked, his dark eyes looking more suspicious by the second.

“Did you talk about what happened?”

“No. I was out of line. I upset him, he reacted. It’s water under the bridge.”

“He didn’t mention it? Didn’t say anything? Didn’t apologize?”

“No,” Nasser said. “Why are you asking me these things? You can’t possibly still be thinking Dr. Zahn had something to do with Marissa Fordham’s murder.”

Vince worked up a placid smile. “I just like to understand how people work, Rudy. I want to know what makes them tick. Details fill the picture in.

“I’m sure you want to get inside,” he said, nodding at the grocery bags. “Your ice cream is going to melt.”

Still suspicious, Nasser went to the door just the same and let himself in with a key. He turned back before he went inside.

“Should Dr. Zahn have an attorney?”

“Not on my account,” Vince said.