“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.”