Mendez believed someday the DNA markers of convicted felons would be stored in a giant database available to law enforcement agencies all over the country. They would have only to run DNA on a hair left behind at the scene, a drop of the killer’s blood, a piece of skin, and a search of the database would give them the name of their perp.

Unfortunately, it was 1986 and that day was still a long way off. For now, they would collect evidence and hang on to it, hoping they would be able to match it to a suspect when they had one.

Somehow, the victim had made it out of the bedroom. The trail of blood and overturned chairs and lamps was easy to follow.

Mendez couldn’t help but picture it in his mind: Marissa Fordham, bleeding profusely as she tried to get away. Her hands had been covered in blood, as if she had tried desperately to stem the gushing from her wounds. Her heart would have been pounding. She would have been choking on panic.

Where had her child been during all of this? Had the little girl seen it happen? Had she been roused from her own bed by the commotion? Had she stumbled, sleepy eyed, out of her own bedroom to witness her mother fighting for her life?

Hell of a thing for a little kid to have to see.

At last check with the hospital, the child was still alive.

What kind of witness would she make?

The 911 operator had reported the call to Dixon. “My daddy hurt my mommy.”

If it was that simple, they had only to go in search of the child’s father. Maybe Zander Zahn didn’t know who that was, but someone would. Women didn’t keep secrets like that. Marissa Fordham would have confided in a girlfriend. They just had to find out who her friends were.

The deputy who had been first on the scene came in through the kitchen door, looking to Mendez.

“There’s a woman here who had an appointment with the victim.” Mendez followed him outside and around to the front yard of the little ranch house.

The local media had come to camp out shortly after Vince had gotten there. A TV news van had arrived from Santa Barbara before nine. Bad news traveled fast.

The deputies had kept them at a respectful distance down at the end of the driveway. A lone blue Chrysler minivan had been allowed to pass. The woman sitting behind the wheel stared at Mendez now as he approached her door.

Sara Morgan.

He recognized her instantly. The cornflower blue eyes, the tousled mermaid’s mane of blond hair. Her daughter, Wendy, had been one of four children to stumble upon the body of murder victim Lisa Warwick the year before.