The Bone Fire_A Mystery

Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN

Sunday Night

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Ashley wished Justin would hurry up with the police officer. She wanted to show him what the baby had done; he had blown the cutest little bubble of spit. Then the bubble popped, and the baby closed his eyes again.
The baby looked like Justin, just as Brianna had. They both had his eyes.
Justin had been a pretty child. So sweet. So alone. His own mother, her aunt, had two jobs and a boyfriend. So, ever since Justin was little, he’d been coming over to Ashley’s house every day so she could watch him after school and on weekends. He would sleep over most nights. They had fun together, playing and being silly. She felt so free with him. She had never had any brothers or sisters to play with, so she felt like a child for the first time.
He was like an angel with his blond hair, but he also was so mature for his age. They would talk about the meaning of life and sneak drinks off her mother’s vodka bottles. Ashley often thought that he was the only man who had never used her.
One night, when her father was drunk, Ashley snuck into Justin’s bed so her dad couldn’t find her. They cuddled together in the night, protecting each other. They had slept together like that for many nights since. They would wake up together and tease each other, both laughing at the same things.
Ashley knew that people would think it was wrong. They would think that she had somehow hurt Justin, as if she ever could. He wanted the togetherness as much as she did. Even though she was twelve and he was seven on that first night they were together, the difference in their ages was only five years.
In a few years, when she was twenty-three and he was eighteen, those five years would mean nothing.
Gil and Joe sat in the police station. It was quiet. Fiesta was over, so all the overtime officers had gone home. They were looking at the photos of the Rodriguezes’ backyard taken just after Brianna disappeared. Everything was a muddy mess because of the rain that day. In the background of the photos, the arroyo was almost overflowing as water rushed through it with violence. It was so different from the quiet arroyo that Gil saw behind the Rodriguezes’ house when he first visited them.
Gil and Joe were looking over the pictures to try to spot the knife that might have been used to stab Brianna. Chances were it had been thrown into the river, washed downstream until the water petered out, and left on some sandy bank. Just like Brianna.
They didn’t need the knife. It would have been a nice additional piece of information, but they had something that would work just as well—the last person who saw Brianna alive. Laura Gutierrez sat in the interview room, waiting for them. They were making her wait on purpose. To keep her off balance. Her parents had given them permission to interview her without them being present and declined to come down to the station, even after Gil explained the situation briefly.
As Gil looked absentmindedly at the photos, he thought about the Rodriguez family. They had all lied from the beginning about where they were the day Brianna disappeared. Each one thought that telling the truth of where they really were would be worse than the lie. Alex Stevens was drinking and driving. Mrs. Rodriguez was passed out. Ashley and Justin were intertwined in bed. Laura was alone with Brianna. In the end, they cared more about their lies than about that little girl.
Gil looked at Laura Gutierrez as he and Joe entered the interview room. She sat with one leg crossed over the other, leaning back. She didn’t look nervous. She was smiling slightly. Gil, who was holding the usual manila folder with Laura’s name on it, kept standing and started the usual speech. “Laura, do you know why you are here today?” He was tired. He thought about all the people in the case who were sexual abusers—Ashley, her father, Judge Otero. Gil wondered how many of them would ever be charged. That was a decision for the sexual offender division and the DA. Gil would be happy to be left out of it.
“The hell if I know,” Laura said, still smiling, bringing him back to the interrogation.
Gil just looked at her, not reacting to her disdain. Because that was what she wanted. Instead, he rattled off the introductory statement. “It’s recently come to our attention that we have been misled regarding some things about Brianna’s disappearance. I can guarantee you, Laura, that our investigation will uncover the truth. In light of that, if you know anything about it, you should tell me now.”
She looked at Gil flatly and said nothing. For the first time, Gil actually wished Joe would say something. He wasn’t sure he had the energy for this. For her. Because she was going to take a lot of energy to interrogate. Nevertheless, she wouldn’t be hard to get a confession out of, because her motive to kill was so primal—jealousy. That was usually a hard emotion to cover up.
“How long have you been dating Justin?” Gil asked, sitting down. Joe pulled up a chair next to him.
“Three years, two months,” she said. “We hooked up when we started middle school.”
“What did you think about his relationship with Ashley?” Gil asked.
“It wasn’t a relationship,” she said scornfully. “She was just using him.”
“How so?” Joe asked. Gil felt grateful to him for jumping in.
“She would just have him when Alex wasn’t around,” she said. “It was disgusting for a woman her age to be doing that.”
“That made you angry?” Gil asked. He actually wanted her angry. It would make the confession easier.
“It made me pissed,” she said, as if pissed were a different emotion than anger. As if the word “anger” didn’t describe the height of her emotion to the right degree.
“Were you pissed at Justin?” Joe asked.
“No. It wasn’t his fault. She was abusing him. Sexually abusing him,” she said, deliberately enunciating every word, as if it would come as a surprise to them.
“Did you talk to Ashley about it?” Joe asked.
“That bitch? She just laughed at me.”
There was nothing new to this story. He had heard it many times. The woman, scorned by her lover, with nowhere to turn, takes her anger out on something else. Sometimes she might shred his clothes. Or run over his golf clubs. Or crash his car. Or kill his daughter.
“We know you were alone that night with Brianna,” Gil said. He was rushing to the end because he was tired of playing games with this child. She had no remorse. She somehow believed in her mind that killing Brianna was necessary to get back at Ashley.
“So?” she said.
“You were the only person alone with her that day,” Gil said.
“So?” she said again.
Gil almost rolled his eyes at her. “We know you killed her.” It was too blunt, but he wanted to shake the attitude out of her.
She finally looked nervous but was trying to hide it. Gil knew he should tell her that he understood why she killed Brianna, that it was the only way to make sure Justin didn’t leave her for Ashley, but he just didn’t have the energy. He was thankful Joe spoke up.
“My guess is that you didn’t even think before you did it,” Joe said. She was finally listening a little and seemed less concerned with keeping up her bravado. “It was just such a quick response, and you were just so angry. Then before you knew it, there you were, and there she was, and you had to do something . . .”
“It wasn’t like that at all,” she said.
“Well, then, what was it like?” Joe asked.
“Yeah, I was pissed,” she said, “but all I did was make a phone call.”
“To who?” Gil asked.
She didn’t answer.
“To who?” Gil asked again, too loudly.
Joe said, “I can go on my computer and get your phone records in just a few minutes, but it would be better if you told us yourself.”
“Fine. Whatever,” she said, all attitude again. “I called Tony.”
“Tony who?” Gil asked without thinking.
“Tony Herrera.”
An hour after her meditation class, Lucy found herself standing on the labyrinth in front of the cathedral, still dressed in her comfy sweatpants. She took the first step of the cobbled maze and started to follow its twisting path. She had left the class feeling energetic but pensive, so she drove to the cathedral and started on the labyrinth without really knowing why. The meditation class had been interesting, but the teacher had talked in a monotone voice incessantly about “following your breath,” which was an instruction that Lucy didn’t understand. The teacher did say one thing that made Lucy listen a little more carefully—she had said, “Quiet your mind.” That wasn’t something Lucy did too often. In fact, she usually did the opposite. She numbed her mind, distracted it and inundated it.
She wondered why she avoided the quiet so much. Was it because it seemed so boring as she ran toward the chaos?
The teacher had said something else. “Rid yourself of anything that disturbs the quiet of your mind.” The teacher had been talking about stray thoughts and images that came up during the meditation, but all Lucy could think of was the guilt. The old distraction that she kept going back to.
She took one of the twists of the path and thought about Del. Why hadn’t she told him what she’d really written on her note in Zozobra? Why should she care if he teased her? She did care—the guilt had somehow become important to her, and she didn’t want him mocking it. It took her a moment to realize that she was angry at him. Furious, in fact. She listened to all of his incessant blather, and he made fun of her for having real emotions? Lucy started to walk faster as she cursed Del in her head. She felt guilty about the dead woman because she was responsible. She was to blame. In truth, though, Lucy had done nothing wrong. Nothing at all. She had only done the best that she could. Just like she had done nothing to make Del break up with her. Nothing at all. Lucy stopped short as the final thought hit her. It was the first time she realized that she blamed herself for the collapse of their relationship. She only absently saw that she had reached the center of the labyrinth. Her mind was suddenly quiet.
Death. Del. Guilt. Quiet. It was all a little too much for a Sunday afternoon, and where did it leave her? She looked up at the trees above her, then at the church towers. It left her in the center of a maze that she had no idea how to get out of.
At least she knew one thing—she did want to get out. She wanted to be released. She deserved it. Because she had done nothing wrong.
Gil drove the Crown Victoria back toward the adult detention center on the outskirts of town. Joe sat in the passenger seat. Silent.
They had left Laura in a holding cell at the station while they went to check on her story. After her act of annoyance dropped away, she told them, piece by piece, about the day Brianna disappeared. About Tony Herrera.
Laura had gotten jumped into the West Side gang when she was ten. The same gang that Herrera once ran in. The girls who jumped her in had been nice, probably because she was so young, only giving her a black eye and a few scrapes. It was because of West Side that she met Justin.
As a little sister in the gang, she was only expected to do small things, every once in a while. One of those things had been to hold some drugs for Tony Herrera, who was dealing out of the food court in the mall. Laura had stood next to the Gap waiting for him, the little bag of heroin in her pocket. Tony had just gone to buy a shirt at Sears, where the security guards were a tad too quick to arrest gang members.
When Tony came back, he was with Ashley. His girlfriend. Next to Ashley was Justin, the cousin she was babysitting. For Laura, it was love at first sight. She didn’t realize until later how much of a hold Ashley had over Justin.
Laura explained to Justin that it was wrong. That Ashley was just taking advantage. A year ago, Justin finally agreed to stop seeing Ashley. Or so he told Laura. She didn’t find out the truth until the afternoon Brianna disappeared, when she heard Justin and Ashley in the bedroom. It was too much. She saw Brianna outside, playing alone in the backyard, and thought about what Tony would do if he knew Brianna wasn’t his kid.
“But Herrera couldn’t have cared less that Brianna wasn’t his,” Joe said to her.
Laura snorted in response, saying, “Yeah, right. As soon as Ashley delivered the baby he went and tried to cut off his West Side tattoo. He was always talking about how he had to be a good father and all that shit. He tried to get a real job over at Home Depot and swore that as soon as he got enough money he’d buy Brianna all these toys. But he never paid a cent in child support and barely saw the kid.”
Gil parked the car, and he and Joe walked into the detention center. They went through the procedure once again of signing the visitors’ log and putting their sidearms in the gun locker.
This time they went to a different beige room and waited for Tony Herrera to be escorted in.
Gil felt tired as he thought of all the mistakes they had all made in the case. Sure, Fisher had committed a lot of them, but Gil was not blameless. He had interviewed Herrera two days ago, and he forgot to double-check whether the man had been in jail when Brianna disappeared. Fisher had written in his notes that Herrera had been in custody. In fact, Gil found out with a little checking, Herrera had been released the week before due to overcrowding. He was just a low-level drug dealer, after all. A minimum security prisoner. No real danger to the community.
Gil also had missed something crucial. Something he had seen with his own eyes. He thought back to the interview with Herrera. Gil had known Herrera was lying when he said he left the gang because of the lifestyle, but he had been so focused on finding out if Herrera was Brianna’s father that he hadn’t asked any follow-up questions. He never asked if Herrera left the gang for Brianna. Fisher wasn’t the only one who had made mistakes, and David Geisler had paid for them all.
Herrera came in in his orange jumpsuit, his shaved head glinting in the fluorescent light as he sat down.
“Hey, man,” Herrera said to Joe, but as soon as he noticed that Joe’s friendliness had evaporated, he leaned back in his chair, tattooed arms crossed in front of him.
Gil looked at Herrera and felt strangely relaxed. Maybe it was because he wouldn’t have to lie in this interview. Maybe because there were no games left to play.
“We talked to Laura Gutierrez,” Gil said.
Herrera said nothing. He just stared at Gil. Hard.
“She told us about the day Brianna disappeared,” Gil said.
Gil wasn’t asking questions. He was just making statements. Because he knew Herrera wouldn’t talk to them. Even if he did, he certainly wouldn’t tell them the truth. Because they had nothing to trade for it. The only bargaining chip might be a reduced sentence for a confession, but that would be up to the district attorney. Right now, they had nothing valuable to offer. So Herrera would stay silent. Gil guessed that the man wouldn’t ask for his lawyer right away, though. Mainly because prison is boring. Joe and Gil offered a distraction. They were like a television program to Herrera; they were entertaining to watch.
Gil still hoped to get something out of the interview, despite Herrera’s silence. It wouldn’t be evidence. It might only be the knowledge that Gil did everything he could to seal up the case.
“Laura says she called you and told you something shocking,” Joe said. “She told you that Brianna wasn’t your baby.”
Herrera didn’t move, but he was listening.
“You know what else she told us?” Joe said. “She said she had to explain to you about babies because you actually thought a kid who was due in July could have been conceived by you almost a year earlier.”
Herrera didn’t react to Joe’s mocking.
“Dude, did you even listen in sex ed class?” Joe asked. “It’s nine months, man. Nine. Not ten. Not twelve.”
Still no response from Herrera.
“Then Laura tells you that Justin is Brianna’s real father,” Joe said, “and you lost it, because here Ashley wouldn’t have sex with you, this tough guy, but she was doing this kid?”
Herrera was stone still.
“And this was after you had gone and left everything—the gang, your friends—to take care of your little girl,” Joe said. “Man, you even tried to cut off your own tattoo.”
Gil interrupted, saying, “Laura told us that you showed up just a few minutes after she called. She said you tried to break down the front door, but it was locked, and she was too scared to open it. She thought you might try to kill them all.”
“When you couldn’t open the front door, you went around back, where you saw Brianna playing in the backyard.”
Herrera was trying to look disinterested.
“It’s so nice when you have an eyewitness,” Joe said. He leaned forward and added in a low voice, “Laura saw everything you did through the kitchen window.”
Herrera’s jaw tightened.
Gil and Joe left Tony Herrera sitting in the beige room. He had never spoken, not even to ask for his lawyer. The DA would be charging him in the morning, which would bring stacks of paperwork on the case. Tomorrow they also would sort out if the rest of the family knew about Herrera’s involvement. For now, they walked across the parking lot of the detention center. Gil took a few deep breaths of fresh air. The coming night would be beautiful. Clear and crisp. He popped open his cell phone and dialed. All he said to the person who answered was “Can we go some place and get dinner?”


Lucy wondered if God had made greens and browns dominate the desert so the sunset—like the one she was watching now out the restaurant window—could be painted across a noncompeting muted canvas. The colors changed from yellows and oranges to reds and fuchsias, every color more molten than the last. The sunsets in New Mexico stopped her in her tracks. Always. Daily.
She looked up as Del slid into the booth. He looked good, wearing faded-just-right jeans and a light blue T-shirt. She could see why she had fallen for him all those years ago. He looked rakish and confident. She had called him just after walking the labyrinth to see if he wanted to get dinner, knowing that he’d think it was a prelude to sex.
They wouldn’t be having sex this time.
Something had shifted. She was finally starting to see Del—who was so witty and who she’d thought was so much smarter than she was—for what he was. Suddenly, after the day she’d had, that mattered. She and Del had been languishing in a place between being a couple and being broken up, and Lucy had allowed it, thinking that it was better than nothing. It wasn’t. It was worse. For her.
“What’s up?” Del said to her as the waitress came over to get his drink order.
Lucy waited until he’d asked for coffee before she said, with what she hoped was a sincere smile, “We need to talk.”
They were already at the table when Gil arrived. Joy and Therese were coloring on their place mats even though the crayons were meant for children much younger. Joy seemed to be drawing a rainbow, while Therese was making hearts and stars. They were both too old to get the same kind of pleasure a two-year-old might out of making bright streaks across a white page, but the girls were still smiling as they drew.
Susan was chatting on her cell phone and only noticed Gil as he leaned over to give her a kiss on her cheek. She looked at him, surprised, then smiled. The girls both said, “Hi, Dad,” as they kept coloring.
He sat down across the table. Watching them. They were so intent on their drawings. He didn’t expect them or Susan to ask him about the case. Nor would he want them to. Even if they did, he wouldn’t tell them anything. It was his way of protecting them—and himself. They were a refuge from work. Their little family problems gave him something other than death to deal with.
Susan hung up her phone and said, “I was just talking to the Realtor, and I realized I forgot to ask you if you’d looked at that house in Eldorado.”
“Yeah, I did,” Gil said.
“And?” she asked, taking a sip of her iced tea.
Gil said nothing. Susan knew him well enough to know that he would answer eventually. A full minute went by as the girls kept drawing and Susan looked at him. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. Gil thought about the house he’d seen, about its open space. It was beautiful, but he knew it would never be home to him. He needed to be able to see the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. They were his compass. He needed a place where there was more history to the land—his history.
He said carefully, “I don’t want to live in Eldorado.”
“Gil,” Susan said, annoyed, “We’ve been over this . . .”
“I think we should move to Galisteo.” The idea had come to him when he was walking across the parking lot of the detention center. Out of the blue, crisp air.
“And live with your mother?” Susan said. The girls watched them, ignoring their drawings. “You know I love your mom, but there is no way—”
“No, we could build our own house on their property.” Gil saw her hesitation, so he added, “We’d still be in the Eldorado school district, so the girls could go to the good school.”
Now it was Susan’s turn to consider in silence.
“And you could get your dream house,” Gil said, surprising himself with how much he wanted to do this.
“What would you get?” she asked.
“To go home.”





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Annice Barber, Angela Barber, Kristen Davenport, Pat West-Barker, and Tasha Rath for their constant support—which never wavered even when I was writing while sleep deprived and started seeing invisible bugs. The horrible invisible bugs. Special thanks to Dr. Rex Baker for doing emergency surgery on my computer. And to Barbara Ferry for all the Spanish consults. Muchas gracias. And to Linda, Deborah, and Tania, who gave me great insight into their worlds.
I also wish to thank, as always, Anne Hillerman, Jean Schaumberg, the Tony Hillerman Mystery Writing Contest, Peter Joseph, Thomas Dunne Books, and everyone at St. Martin’s Press for giving me my start in this business.
Finally, to the Santa Fe Police Department, the Santa Fe Fire Department, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department, the Santa Fe County Fire Department, and The Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper—thank you for being champions of the public, each in your own way.