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“Maybe it’s not her in there.” Sarina’s voice held little hope. “I mean, Paul . . . he . . . well, he wasn’t entirely faithful.”
Collette snorted. “What she means is that Paul Latham was a tom cat, what our mother used to refer to as a playboy, like it was—I don’t know—kind of naughty but acceptable, back in the day, even something a man could be proud of. Thank you, Hugh Hefner! Anyway, Paul was one of those men who couldn’t keep his hands to himself. Just ask some of the nurses he worked with. He even came on to me once at a Christmas party. All drunk and grabby. And he was in trouble with some of his patients, or had been.” Her eyebrows arched. “If you know what I mean.”
Paterno was starting to get a picture of the Lathams.
“He had weapons,” Paterno said.
Collette rolled her eyes and clung to the umbrella as another gust threatened to pull it from her hands. “Not just a few. He was a major gun nut, and I mean major. He had everything from pistols t
o antique rifles to assault weapons.”
“The boys too,” Sarina agreed. “Paul’s sons. Macon and Seth.”
“It bothers—oh, hell—it bothered Brindel. She didn’t like the guns, especially around the kids even though the boys had moved out. They’re older.” Collette shot a look toward the house. “And now this . . . It’s just so hard, impossible to have sink in.”
“I don’t think it ever will.” Sarina blinked.
“Let’s go down to the station and you can fill me in. Give me names, phone numbers, and addresses of family and close friends, business associates. The couple had children, right? You mentioned they had ‘sons.’ ”
Sarina was quick to say, “They’re Paul’s boys, not my sister’s. They’re around twenty now. . . .” She glanced at Collette, who lifted her shoulders in a beats-me gesture. “From his first marriage with . . . what’s her name? Katrina. Yes, that’s it. They lived with Paul and Brindel for the most part after the divorce. Paul wouldn’t have it any other way. But as I said, they’re grown, or should be. Sometimes I wonder . . .”
“And then there’s Ivy,” Collette said.
Sarina managed a fleeting smile. “Yes, my, er, our niece, Brindel’s daughter. Ivy. The one we were talking about. She’s . . . seventeen, I think. Her birthday’s in February, next month, so she’ll be eighteen then.” Again she glanced at her sister for confirmation, and again received a shrug as an answer. Obviously Sarina Marsh was closer to the dead woman than was Collette Foucher.
Collette’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “Don’t we need to identify the body, er bodies or something?”
Sarina let out a little squeak of protest.
“First, the station, then, if you want, the morgue,” Paterno said. “We’ll put out an Amber Alert for your niece and hunt down her stepbrothers as we’ve searched the house. No one other than the victims is inside.”
“Maybe we should wait for Regan,” Sarina suggested.
Collette rolled her expressive eyes, as gray as the San Francisco day.
“She’s a cop. A homicide detective.” Sarina was looking at Paterno now. “She lives in Montana. A town called Grizzly Falls.”
From the corner of his eye, Paterno saw a uniformed cop at the barricade at the end of the street, the policeman talking to a man behind the wheel of a sporty BMW. The driver had his window rolled down and was gesturing angrily to the Victorian house next door to the Lathams. A neighbor. Someone to talk to. Later. Paterno made a mental note, then turned his attention back to the sisters huddled beneath the umbrella’s plastic canopy. “Why would a cop from Montana be interested in this case?”
“She’s our other sister,” Sarina said, then hiking up her chin a fraction in defiance of her sister, added, “I’ve already called her.”
Paterno didn’t like the sound of that.
Collette groaned.
But Sarina barreled on, “Maybe you’ve heard of her? Regan Pescoli? With the Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department? She’s been in the news. Cracked quite a few bizarre cases.”
Paterno was getting a bad feeling about this. “No.”
“Really?” Sarina seemed surprised. “Just last summer there was a case involving Bigfoot and a television series—”
“Enough!” Collette cut in. “He can Google her if he wants.”
The bad feeling just got worse. “I’m sure I’ll meet her.”
“She just had a baby,” Collette argued. “I mean a few months ago.” She didn’t sound sure about the timing. “She can’t come here.”
“Of course she can!” Sarina added, “She’ll bring Tucker with her.”
