The Bone Fire_A Mystery

Chapter THIRTEEN

Saturday Morning

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Gil started making calls as soon as he left his mom’s house. His first was to the county detention center to check on both Rudy Rodriguez and David Geisler. He then asked to have them transported to the police station so they’d be there when he arrived. His next call was to Joe, but it went directly to voice mail. His third call also went to voice mail. It was to Chief Kline, telling him not to worry about getting the court order for the newspaper’s security camera tapes. Gil would try to figure out later how to explain that without involving Lucy.
His fourth call was to Liz, who answered on the first ring and launched immediately into an explanation. “About the fingerprints you sent me,” she said. “We’re doing our best to try to match them against what we found at the Guadalupe crime scene, but it’s going to take us a while to get everything analyzed. I’ll call you as soon as that’s finished.”
“Sounds good,” Gil said.
“Also, I did find out that the blood on the sword is human. Now, just try to stay with me while I explain the specifics,” she said. Gil let her condescension slide by. “I won’t know if it’s definitely Brianna’s blood until the DNA results come back, but if we look at blood typing I can determine in general if it might be hers. So, the blood on the sword is O positive.”
“Which is fairly common,” Gil said.
“Right. About forty percent of the population has it,” she said. “Now, we don’t know Brianna’s blood type, but I still have both parents’ blood samples and DNA that we took during the first investigation, so I did some more tests. It turns out her mom is O positive and her dad is O negative—”
“Oh, about that,” Gil said, interrupting.
“What?”
“I forgot to call you, but the guy we thought was Brianna’s dad—”
“Tony Herrera.”
“Right. He says he’s not,” Gil said.
“God damn it, Gil,” she said, clearly pissed. “Do you know how screwed we are now? I have to have both her parents’ DNA to prove that the bones and the blood are hers. I can’t do anything about a positive identification until we know who her dad is.”
“Liz,” Gil said hesitantly, trying not to make her any angrier, “I’m sorry.”
“Whatever,” she said. “I’ll call you later.” She hung up. Liz was prickly but always got the job done.
Gil next called Ashley’s cell phone. He wanted to check in to see if she had been released from the hospital, but also to find out if she could come down to the station to see if she recognized David Geisler. Plus, it might give Gil a chance to ask the one question he had to have answered: Who was Brianna’s father?
Mrs. Rodriguez answered, and she sounded exhausted as she explained that Ashley had started full labor. Gil knew this was bad news given how Dr. Santiago had explained the situation to them yesterday. He hesitated in asking Mrs. Rodriguez the next question but told her that they needed someone from the family to come down to the station. Mrs. Rodriguez’s only answer was to say that they would talk it over. Gil wondered if the family’s help was coming to a close once again. They hung up, and Gil tried to figure out how they could get Ashley to make an ID. Short of just going to the hospital and showing her a photo—which had a high incidence of misidentification—he was at a loss.
Gil arrived at the station before the detention center van showed up. Before Joe, too.
Gil was researching the court cases about mentally ill suspects when Joe walked in holding a twenty-two-ounce Mountain Dew. “Hiya, brother. What’s up? How did you sleep? I think I actually had nightmares last night about those crime scenes.”
Gil had slept badly after the call with Lucy, but he wasn’t about to tell Joe that. He said instead, “The transport should be getting here soon with Rudy Rodriguez and David Geisler, so we need to get them set up in interview rooms.”
“Cool,” Joe said, taking a swig out of his Mountain Dew
“Oh, and one more thing,” Gil said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I found out that the security tapes from the Capital Tribune won’t do us any good. The cameras are broken.”
“Seriously?” Joe asked. “Then what was that guy’s whole crap fest about us needing a court order?”
“I don’t know,” Gil said, before changing the subject to his calls with Liz and Mrs. Rodriguez. He was just finishing updating Joe when three corrections officers came in with the prisoner transfers for the day, including Rudy Rodriguez, who was not handcuffed and looked disheveled but sober, and David Geisler, who was completely shackled and talking to himself in a low voice. Gil went over to them to sign the release paperwork while Joe got them both situated in interview rooms.
The two men met back up at Gil’s desk, where Gil said, “So the plan is for me to do an assessment of Geisler. More to judge his mental state. Then I’ll call the DA and see if we can legally interview him. After that, I’ll interview Rodriguez.” Gil sighed. He was going to have to get Rodriguez to confess to abusing Ashley in order to ask if he was Brianna’s father.
“Sounds like a plan, man,” Joe said.
Gil unclipped his paddle holster and locked it and his gun in his desk drawer, then grabbed a notebook and went into the interview room. Geisler sat in one of the two chairs in the room, rocking back and forth, constantly saying nonsensical words. He would occasionally laugh, always putting his hand up to his mouth and giggling.
“Hello, David, I’m Mr. Montoya,” Gil said. “Do you remember me from last night?”
Geisler just kept talking. Among the mumblings, Gil could only hear a few distinct phrases. “A right wall no matter dumb, dumb.”
Gil continued. “I need to get your age and address for the paperwork. Can you help me with that?”
Geisler looked up and said with an elfish smile, “Rarely heaven is dog symptom . . . move a consciousness my hip hip lock.” Then he started giggling again.
Gil sighed and said, “David, can you understand what I’m saying?”
Geisler got up suddenly and walked to the wall, facing it. There he fluttered his arms and started saying, “Giraffe spoiled drum pink.”
“Did you know Brianna Rodriguez?”
Geisler, still facing the wall, jumped on one foot and muttered.
Gil shook his head. He watched Geisler for another moment before getting up and leaving. He went to the room next door, which was the other side of the mirrored window. Joe stood in there, watching Geisler.
“I think he’s worse,” Gil said sadly.
“I agree with that,” Joe said. “Now what?”
“Now we call the DA and try to figure out what to do.”
Gil put a call in to the district attorney’s answering service and asked that the lawyer on call get back to him about Geisler. In the meantime, he would interview Ashley’s dad. They needed him to confirm two things: their suspicion that he had nothing to do with Brianna’s disappearance and that he was—or wasn’t—Brianna’s father.
Gil wasn’t looking forward to the interview. Sexual abuse was a delicate issue that needed lots and lots of interview time to even begin to break the suspect down and get at the truth. They just didn’t have that kind of time right now, especially since they had no evidence to support the claim. In the end, the abuse charges would be turned over to the sexual offender detectives, who specialized in that kind of work. At the moment, it was the murder charges that concerned Gil. He had to know if Rodriguez had impregnated his daughter. Their blood evidence against Geisler now depended on finding Brianna’s father.
The complexity of the situation meant that Gil would have to break the interview up into pieces. The first part would be easy. Gil would only ask Rodriguez about Brianna’s disappearance and not mention Ashley’s abuse. It was the second part that would get ugly.
Gil grabbed a general interview form and went into the room. He introduced himself again to Rodriguez before sitting down in one of the two chairs. The chairs were the only furniture in the room by design. They called it an interview room, but it was really an interrogation room, devoid of distraction.
Rodriguez was definitely sober now, his polo shirt and pants wrinkled from the overnight accommodations. Gil asked him to confirm his name and address, which he wrote on the interview form. The form served no actual informational purpose. Instead, it gave Gil a baseline from which to judge the way Rodriguez responded to questions. It allowed Gil to check the man’s normal verbal and behavior patterns so that later, when asking the tough questions, Gil could determine if Rodriguez’s answers fit the baseline. Anything outside the baseline could be a lie.
Gil leaned forward in his chair before saying, “Rudy, what is your understanding of the purpose for this interview with me here today?”
“I don’t know,” Rodriguez said, looking confused. “To talk about Brianna?”
Gil didn’t respond to Rudy’s question and instead said, “As you know, we have recently found evidence that leads us to believe that Brianna is dead.” He stated this firmly with little intonation, following the basic interview script. It was the same method used by police across the country, and Gil found some comfort in staying within the rules of questioning someone. When it came to interviewing suspects, he rarely colored outside the lines. Gil continued, “If you know anything about Brianna’s disappearance, our investigation will find that out. But if you had nothing to do with it, it will show that as well. If you know anything at all about it, you should tell me now.”
“I don’t know anything,” Rodriguez said in a rush. “I swear.”
Gil had been direct with his question on purpose. To throw Rodriguez off. Suspects rarely expected anyone to ask them directly if they committed a crime.
“Do you know who could have done this?” Gil asked.
“I’ve thought a lot about that, but I just can’t think of anybody.”
“Do you know anyone that you feel absolutely had nothing to do with it? Just your gut feeling?”
“Oh, there is no way Ashley or Rose had anything to do with it. Nobody in the family did,” Rodriguez said. He stopped to think for a second and then said, “It had to be a stranger.”
Gil nodded. Guilty suspects would usually be fast and furious when answering the question about who else could be to blame. They did not formulate thoughtful responses.
“You believe it was a stranger who took Brianna?” Gil asked.
“Yes, I do,”
Gil nodded again. It was a straightforward answer with no signs of deception. Rodriguez made no attempt to add on an improbable scenario, like Brianna had run away.
“When was the last time you saw Brianna?” Gil asked.
“About a month before she disappeared, when I moved out,” he said as he started crying, his bloodshot eyes becoming even redder. At that moment, he was every inch a grandfather who’d lost his only grandchild.
“I’ll get you some water,” Gil said as he got up to leave. His mind was already on the next part of the interview, where he would find out if the grandfather was also the father.
Del was driving down Cerrillos Road as Lucy absentmindedly watched the buildings go by. Del was at the wheel of her car because just as they had been leaving Santa Fe Baking Company, Lucy’s brain decided to spin the world a little more quickly. She thought it best to let him drive, but now it felt strange being a passenger in her own vehicle.
Neither of them spoke as Del slowed down for a traffic light. Lucy gazed out the window at a green street sign that stood on the corner. It read SECOND STREET in reflective white paint. Second Street, along with Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth streets, seemed to be the city’s one attempt at true grid planning, but the whole project included only five streets. There was no First Street. At some point, the industrious city planner who started the number system simply gave up. So where there should have been a Seventh Street, instead there was Llano Street.
The light turned, and the car ahead of them didn’t move. Del lay on the horn.
“Stop it,” Lucy said sharply without thinking, trying to pull his hands off the center of the steering wheel.
“What?” he laughed as the cars started to move. “Why?”
“People in Santa Fe don’t honk,” she said.
“Oh really?” he laughed again.
“It’s completely rude.”
“When did you become a Santa Fe expert?”
“I guess it was after I was forced to move here by my ex-boyfriend,” she said meanly.
“I didn’t force,” he said just as cruelly. “I believed you begged.”
Lucy snorted, shook her head, and looked out the window. She said nothing more until they got to Del’s house. He got out and said his signature postcoital phrase, “Thanks for the sex,” before closing the door. He had always thought it was so funny when he said it. Del could never get past the joke that only he appreciated.
Lucy got into the driver’s seat and went home, still fuming at Del. Once in the house she jumped in the shower. She was reading the directions on the shampoo bottle—which she did before every use—when she remembered she was supposed to be meeting Andrea at 10:00 A.M. She had no idea what time it was. She rinsed off quickly and checked the clock: 9:49 A.M. Damn. She called Andrea’s cell, hoping to catch her before she left the house.
“Hello?” said a male voice that answered Andrea’s phone. He sounded familiar.
“Tommy? Is that you?”
“Hey, boss. How are you?” Tommy said, chuckling.
“I assume this means that you’re with Andrea,” Lucy said, laughing.
“In every way,” he said.
“Eww, I don’t want to hear about it,” she said. “Can you ask Andrea if I can meet her at eleven instead? I totally lost track of time.”
“Sure, hang on.” She could hear Tommy saying something in the background before he got back on the phone. “She says that’s fine. Hey, did you hear the news?”
“What’s that?”
“They arrested somebody in the skull case. He’s schizophrenic or something.”
“What?” Lucy said, confused. She thought about all the planning it would take to put the skull in Zozobra. “That can’t be right . . . there’s just no way.”
“What do you mean?” Tommy asked.
“I just don’t see how that could be,” she said. She knew she must sound like an idiot.
“I don’t—” Tommy started to say. She could tell that now he was confused.
“You know what, Tommy? I’m not making much sense. Sorry. I’ll see you later.” She hung up before he could ask her more.
Lucy stood in her bedroom, with water dripping down her skin and onto the floor. She was too lost in thought to notice. They had arrested someone with schizophrenia in the skull case. It made no sense to her. The crime and the aftermath simply didn’t match the medical manifestation of the disorder.
Lucy popped open her cell phone again and dialed.
Gil was about to go back into the interview room with Rodriguez when the front desk told him that Alex Stevens had arrived. Stevens came in looking tired with wrinkled clothes. Gil shook his hand and said, “I guess congratulations are in order.”
“Not quite yet. Ashley’s still got to get it out,” Stevens said with a yawn.
“How’s she doing?”
“Tired. She didn’t sleep at all last night and the contractions . . . she’s not handling it all too great.” Joe came over to join them. “So,” Stevens continued, “I hear you need some help with an identification.”
Joe nodded. “We just want to know if you recognize the guy from anywhere.”
“Who is he?” Stevens asked.
“We can’t really get into that,” Gil said quickly before Joe could answer. “We just want to know if you’ve ever seen him.”
They went into the viewing room, which had a two-way mirror that looked into the interview room where Geisler was being held. Geisler was now sitting cross-legged in the corner, talking to himself. Stevens furrowed his brow before saying, “I think I know that guy.”
“Really?” Joe said, surprised. “How?”
“I don’t know. I think I’ve seen him on the street by the house,” Stevens said. “Does he live in the neighborhood?”
Joe started to say, “Yeah, he—” but Gil interrupted with “Do you remember anything else?”
“I’m not sure,” Stevens said, “but there was this one guy who would stop and talk with Brianna pretty often and sometimes play with her. I think that’s the guy.”
“What?” Joe said, clearly surprised. “What are you talking about? Dude, how many times did we ask you about strangers who talked to her? It’s been a year and this is the first I’ve heard of it?” Joe shot Gil a worried look, like he expected to get reprimanded. Like it was his fault this had never come out before. Gil wasn’t sure if it was or not.
“I told the police about it,” Stevens said. “The other detective. The first one I met.”
“Fisher?” Joe asked with a hint of disbelief.
“Yeah,” Stevens said. “He said he’d check into it, but I never heard anything else about it.”
“Hang on,” Gil said, mostly to calm Joe. “This man you saw playing with Brianna. Is this him?” he asked, pointing at Geisler.
“I think so,” Stevens said. “I can’t be a hundred percent sure, but it sure looks like him.”
“How long did he play with her?” Gil asked.
“I don’t know,” Stevens said. “I saw him one day with Brianna in the front yard when I pulled up in my truck.”
“They were playing?” Gil asked.
“Yeah, it looked like they were playing with some dolls.”
Joe turned to look at Gil. Gil guessed what he was thinking about. The doll-head necklace found on the first statue of Mary.
“Did you speak to him?” Gil asked.
“No, he got up and ran away,” Stevens said. “I yelled after him, but then Ashley came out and said it was okay, that he was just a neighbor who sometimes stopped to say hi.”
“Did Ashley say anything else?”
“Only that the guy seemed a little off.”
“When was the last time you saw him?” Gil asked.
“About a month before Brianna disappeared.”
“Alex, I have to admit that it concerns me that we’re just hearing about this now,” Gil said.
“Don’t blame me,” Stevens said, starting to get defensive. “I told that other detective. You’re the ones who dropped the ball, not us.”
Joe, looking furious, did the only right thing he could have done in the situation—he walked out of the room. Gil thanked Stevens and said they would stop by the hospital later to talk with Ashley and get a formal statement from him, after the baby was born. Gil knew Stevens would want to hurry back to the hospital and he hoped the gesture of goodwill would smooth over Joe’s attitude issues.
Gil was about to go find Joe and try to calm him down when his cell phone rang. He answered, but before he could say anything, he heard Lucy’s distinctive voice.
“You arrested someone in the skull case?”
“Lucy, I can’t—”
“Gil, look, I’m not asking you as a reporter or even as a friend, or acquaintance or whatever it is that we are, I’m asking because I think you made a mistake.”
“It’s not—”
“Every news agency in the state, and maybe in the country, is going to be condemning this guy to death in a couple of hours. His life will be up on CNN, and then he’ll have no life. Just let me talk to you.”
“I don’t have time—”
“Great. I’m coming to the station. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Gil wondered if she was still drunk.