“I spoke to Darren yesterday. He came out to the ranch to check on his mother. We had breakfast.”

“Do you know if Darren had a relationship with Ms. Fordham prior to her moving here?”

“I wouldn’t know. Darren doesn’t share the details of his love life with me. What is any of this getting at?”

“We spoke with Darren last night,” Dixon said. “He also denies knowing Marissa prior to her moving here in 1982.”

“Well I’m glad we’ve cleared that up,” Bordain said, getting up out of his chair. “Neither my son nor I knew Marissa Fordham before she became Marissa Fordham.”

“The problem with that,” Dixon said, “is that we’ve come into possession of a document that suggests otherwise.”

Bordain’s eyes went straight to the file folder. He sat back down.

“Which is what?” he asked.

Mendez opened the file and moved it across the table.

“This is a photocopy,” Dixon said. “We have the actual document in safekeeping.”

Bordain pulled a pair of reading glasses out of the chest pocket of his pale yellow shirt and perched them on his nose. Mendez watched him for any sign of an emotional reaction as he read the document. There was none. Bruce Bordain hadn’t gotten where he was by not being able to play poker.

“It’s a lie,” he said, and shoved the file back across the table.

“It’s a pretty convincing lie,” Dixon said, “by all appearances.”

“It’s still a lie.”

“Marissa Fordham moved up here with her infant daughter in 1982,” Mendez said. “Your wife began to sponsor her almost immediately—”

“Milo is an art lover.”

“—paying her a monthly amount of five thousand plus providing her with a place to live and work. That seems to be the coup of the century according to professionals in the art world.”

“Somebody has to win the lottery.”

“And this incredibly lucky young woman also just happens to have a birth certificate naming one Darren Bruce Bordain as the father of her child?” Dixon said. “Are we supposed to believe that’s a coincidence, Bruce? Because I have to tell you, in case you didn’t know it, I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday.”

Bordain rubbed a hand across his face and scratched behind one ear, looking off to the side and at the floor.

“And we still haven’t gotten to the heart of this, have we?” he said.

“Was she blackmailing you?”

“That’s not it,” Bordain said. “Come on. Go for the big one, Cal.”

“Mr. Bordain, where were you on the night Marissa Fordham was murdered?” Mendez asked.

“I was in Las Vegas the entire weekend.” He pulled his wallet out and withdrew a business card. “If you’d like to speak to my companions for that night, call this number.”

Mendez took the card and looked at it. Pinnacle Escorts. “Pay up front,” Mendez said, “not later.”