“When he was around her or talked about her, it was like he went to another dimension. Dreamy and strange—not that Zander isn’t strange anyway. It just seemed unhealthy to me. I try very hard to keep him focused on his work as much as possible. With her, his head turned into a helium balloon and he floated away.”

“You think he was in love with her?”

“Yes, and she should have discouraged him.”

“Have you ever seen a photograph of Zander’s mother?” Vince asked.

“No, why?”

“I’m betting she resembled Marissa, or Marissa resembled her.”

“You think he had a mother thing for her?” Nasser asked, clearly creeped out by the idea.

“Not as in Oedipus,” Vince clarified. “I think in Zander’s mind she might have represented the mother he didn’t have.”

He pulled open the top of a long chest freezer and peered inside. Clean as a whistle.

“I didn’t know Marissa,” he went on, “but by most accounts she was a great mother and a lovely, vivacious person who was open to the world around her. Zander’s mother was a manic-depressive who tormented him for being different and locked him in a closet when she didn’t want to deal with him.”

“I didn’t know about his mother,” Nasser said.

“No. And you, being a healthy young man with an eye for the ladies, looked at Marissa Fordham and saw a sexual being. Zander doesn’t look at the world like that. I think he looked at Marissa and saw the essence of her—the mother, the free spirit, a woman who embraced life and feared nothing.”

“Life terrifies Zander,” Nasser said. “He fears everything—except numbers.”

“Numbers won’t burn you with a cigarette for being odd.”

Mendez called from the front door. “Vince, you need to come see something.”

“Can you top the room of artificial limbs?” Vince asked as they went inside.

“No, but I may be able to explain the room of artificial limbs.”

They went into Zahn’s kitchen and Mendez pointed to a broom closet filled with white trash bags, stuffed with who knew what. He plucked up one of the bags and held it open for Vince to look inside.

Prescription bottles filled the bag. Prescription bottles full of pills. Vince reached in and grabbed up several, holding them at arm’s length and squinting to read the labels.

Antidepressants, medications for panic disorders, a new drug Vince had come across in his recent reading on obsessive-compulsive disorder.

“The crazy bastard’s been hoarding his own medication,” Mendez said. “You might have given him a nudge the other day, but I’d say he already had one foot in the deep end.”

“Oh, man ...” Vince sighed and shook his head.

“This stuff is meant to help him,” Mendez said. “The guy’s a freaking genius. Why wouldn’t he take it?”