Mendez nodded, trying the scenario out. “Bordain finds out. He’s furious. He snaps. He kills her. His mother made a big deal out of Marissa—the daughter she never had. He sends her the breasts to say ‘Here’s the fucking daughter you never had. She was a fraud and I killed her.’”

“That fits well,” Dixon said. “Too well. Darren Bordain is a smart guy. Would he do something so obvious as send those breasts to his mother in the mail? I’m still leaning toward misdirection with the breasts. Someone’s playing with us.”

“Vince, what about Steve Morgan?” Mendez asked. “Did he talk to you?”

“Yeah, he did. He’s a cagey bastard,” Vince said. “I’ve known some tough nuts in my day, but this guy doesn’t crack. He gave me a couple little glimpses inside, then shut the door.”

“But could he be a killer?” Dixon asked.

“I’m not sure,” Vince admitted, still turning the interview over in his head. He was exhausted from the mental game. His brain hurt from the effort. He could feel himself flagging.

“There’s something in him that makes him want you to believe he could be that rotten,” he said. “A lot of self-hatred.”

“What did he say about knowing the number of stab wounds the vic had?” Hicks asked.

“Lucky guess.”

“My ass!” Mendez barked.

Vince shrugged and spread his hands, wishing he had something more definitive to say. “I don’t know. If he did it, if he knew that number—which would be unlikely—why would he say it?”

“To poke us in the eye,” Mendez said. “He knows we don’t have anything on him.”

“He admits he wasn’t where he said he was on the night of the murder,” Vince said. “But he wouldn’t tell me where he was, either. He was with another woman, but he isn’t going to give her name up unless he absolutely has to. And at this point, he doesn’t.”

“Let’s say he was with Marissa,” Mendez said.

“But why would he kill her?”

“She threatened to tell Sara.”

“So what?” Vince said. “Sara has been pretty well convinced for a year or more that he’s cheating on her. She got closer to Marissa to try to prove it. He knew that. What would be the point of him killing her?”

“He has a volatile temper,” Mendez said, his frustration beginning to show. “Maybe he just snapped. Maybe she called his mother a junkie whore.”

“That’ll get you punched in the kisser. We know that for a fact,” Vince said. “Morgan is a complicated guy. And he’s undergone a dramatic change in his personality in the last year. That’s a red flag. He’s become self-destructive in his relationships for a reason.”