The Bone Fire_A Mystery

Chapter SIX

Friday Morning

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Gil stood with his back to the crime scene, looking at a gravestone in front of him. The tombstone was of speckled marble. It was the final resting place of Henry, who had been born in 1909 and died in 1978. Next to his name was a space left for Virginia, who had been born in 1906. There was no final date for her. She had decided not to join Henry here in death. Gil wondered if Henry had forgiven her for that.
He heard Chief Kline calling his name behind him and turned around. The quiet cemetery had turned into a sparsely attended freak show, with a crime scene tech taking photo after photo as Kline, Garcia, and a few other officers peered curiously through the glass jars. Since the cemetery was off the main road, containment of this scene was fairly easily. It simply took one police cruiser parked in front of the main entrance.
Gil walked over to Kline and saw Joe coming from the other direction, doing the same. As the two of them approached each other, Joe said, “Hey, there’s a guy buried over here named Montoya. It looks like he was a senator. Are you guys related?”
Gil shrugged. “Probably.”
“Dude, you are like royalty around here.”
They met up with Kline and Garcia in the middle of the parking lot.
“Well,” Kline said, looking tense, “I don’t know what else to do but to call in the FBI. This is getting pretty far out of our league.”
“I think this is pretty far out of everyone’s league,” Gil said. He didn’t see calling in the FBI as a failure on his part but as a chance to get more manpower. In the past, he had worked well with the agents, who were always helpful and well informed. There might be a problem with Brianna’s family, though. The FBI had been called in on her case before, and their presence led directly to the family filing the lawsuit. If they were to call the FBI in again, what little help the Rodriguezes were giving might dry up.
Gil said as much to Kline, who said, “I agree. At the same time, we are seriously overwhelmed here.”
They all stood in silence until the chief said, “Let me think about it some more. Meanwhile, I’m calling in all off-duty and retired officers for manpower. So let me know what you need.”
“Actually, I have one more thing,” Gil said, turning to Garcia, who was the department spokesman. “I was wondering about our media plan with all of this.”
“There has to be some kind of statement,” Garcia said.
“I think we locked down the crime scenes at the statues quickly enough that we shouldn’t have too much firsthand exposure,” Gil said. “It should make it pretty easy for us to ignore questions about those. The only people who got a good look were the ones who called it in.”
“They were already informed that it would not be in their best interest to speak to the media,” Garcia said.
“Okay,” Gil said. “Then what would you think if we did a statement, not a press conference, and mentioned the skull only? Our exposure at the Zozobra scene is too big. We know those Protectores have already been talking to people. Let’s only mention what we have to. Once all of this gets out, we are going to have more than we can handle in this investigation.”
“What if the other scenes come up or if the press asks if the skull is related to Brianna?” Garcia asked.
“I think ‘no comment’ about covers it,” Kline said, settling the matter.
Judge Otero sat on the bench, listening to a middle-aged local woman. The case was another domestic abuse. The woman was explaining why she had thrown a plate at her boyfriend.
He straightened his class ring on his finger. It was starting to look worn at the base. He rubbed it with his fingertip to see if that would improve the polish. The stone was blue and on the sides was etched “1971” and “UNM.” He had gotten his degree in engineering from the University of New Mexico. That was ages ago. Before his nineteen years on the bench and his five reelections.
He looked up as the woman stopped talking, saying, “I’ll send you to anger management yoga and meditation class. My clerk will give you the information.” He heard a few snickers in the audience. Before the woman could thank him, he said, “Next case.”
Judge Otero had started sending offenders to yoga and meditation classes after getting tired of seeing the same suspects over and over. Clearly, the usual methods other judges used didn’t work. So he decided to be creative and try something new. Only he didn’t expect the amount of publicity it generated. He had reporters all the way from New York calling him for interviews, and one of the cable news networks had scheduled him to talk about criminal sentences. They had canceled after the Judicial Standards Commission started its investigation a year ago, but he fully expected that they would call again once that was dealt with.
His clerk read the charges of the next case: racing on the streets, no license, no seat belt, and no registration. A young man came forward. He looked to be no more than sixteen, and his mother was with him.
“Son,” Judge Otero said, “do you realize that the punishment for this is ninety days in jail and three hundred dollars? It is an extremely serious offense.”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I do, sir, but I want to plead guilty with explanation.”
Judge Otero leaned back in his leather chair and surveyed the boy, who looked like he might pass out from nervousness. The judge felt this pause was necessary—especially in juvenile cases—to make the defendant realize the power of the court. Often, this was the first and last time that a citizen would step into a courtroom, so the judge felt it was his duty to show his authority. Here, in this chamber, was a rare world—a place where only one person made the rules, and not following those rules had serious consequences.
Judge Otero nodded slightly and said, “Go ahead.”
“I was just getting done eating and it was my birthday and I was only two blocks away—”
“Stop,” the judge said. “I’ll dismiss because it was your birthday, not because it was two blocks. Always wear your seat belt.”
The next case was called as the judge looked at his watch and then over the courtroom. He had only a half hour left of hearing cases until he had to head off to the Plaza for the main fiesta celebration. He watched a redhead in boots play with her hair as his clerk called up a man with a suspended driver’s license charge. Before the clerk finished reading the case particulars, Judge Otero interrupted with “You have a suspended license. How did you get here?”
“I walked,” the man said.
“You better keep walking,” the judge said as the courtroom laughed.
Chief Kline and Garcia drove off, leaving Gil and Joe standing in front of the crime scene. Near them, a goldfinch sang happily in a blue spruce tree. Gil felt like he’d been put into a pot of boiling water and left to drown. He was drifting, being pushed wherever the current took him. The chaos of the crime scenes and the implied violence were hard to wrap his head around. He needed to regain control.
“We are getting nowhere,” Gil said. “All we’ve been doing is rushing from one scene to the next and never having a chance to formulate a real theory.”
“Yeah, exactly,” Joe said. “We need to step back and regroup.”
A half hour later, Joe and Gil were set up in the office conference room with a few stacks of papers that represented Fisher’s case files, evidence logs, and crime scene photos.
They sat before a whiteboard. On it, in green dry-erase marker, Joe had written four headings—SUSPECT TYPE, PROFILE, MOTIVE, and LOCATIONS.
“All right, so our goal here is not to get locked down on specifics,” Gil said, hoping that it might forestall any disagreements. “Let’s just talk in generalities.”
Joe added, “I think we have to, since we still don’t have any information.”
Liz and Adam had yet to return any of Gil’s phone calls. Kristen Valdez hadn’t discovered any new crime scenes.
Under SUSPECT TYPE, Joe had already listed “serial killer,” “pedophile,” and “mentally ill.”
“Okay,” Gil said, looking at the list. “What do all these kinds of suspects have in common?”
“All of them would have committed stranger abduction,” Joe said.
“Good thinking,” Gil said. “So, if it is Brianna, she was snatched by a stranger. That at least gives us a broad profile to start with.” He started to pace a little in front of the whiteboard, feeling the need for movement to get his brain working.
As he began to talk, he thought back to all the research he had read about offenders who committed abductions. “Okay, well . . . killers tend to be in the same racial and social categories as their victims. That means he is a white or Hispanic male, working class. He probably has a history of violence against kids, but this is the first time he’s done anything like this around here or we would have heard about it. That makes him in his early to mid twenties but with a few minor prior arrests. He would need isolation, so that would mean he’s unmarried, lives alone.”
Joe wrote quickly on the board to keep up with Gil. The profile list now had more than a half-dozen items on it.
Gil stopped pacing and looked up at the board, nodding. “That’s a good start,” he said. “Okay, let’s move on to motive.”
“Are we talking about motive for the killing or for making the displays or for abducting her?” Joe asked.
“That’s a good question,” Gil said. “I don’t know. Are they all one and the same? Did he take her with the intent of making displays with her bones, or did that idea come later?”
Joe looked at the board for another moment before he said, “I don’t think we know enough about the guy to say for a hundred percent sure why he took her or killed her.” He hesitated before saying the next part. “I mean, I know this is your area of expertise with all that behavior analysis crap, but I feel we should concentrate on why he made the displays. I think they tell us a lot about him.”
“How so?” Gil asked, already knowing the answer but trying to use it as a teaching moment.
“Well . . . he didn’t hide her body,” Joe said. It was now his turn to pace around the room. “He wanted her to be seen. Not only seen, he wanted her bones to make a statement. He put time into making that necklace and putting all that stuff into the jars, and then writing those notes. This took a lot of thought, a lot of planning.”
“So he’s organized,” Gil said, almost smiling. Joe was finally starting to think like a detective.
“He’s creative, too,” Joe said. “I mean, to him he made something beautiful, something to look at.”
“He thinks it’s art,” Gil said, picking up on Joe’s train of thought, “and an artist tries to convey emotion.”
“What emotion is he trying to show with this?” Joe asked.
“I think it’s guilt,” Gil said.
“I think it’s pleasure,” Joe said. Gil shook his head. Despite all their theorizing, they were right back where they had been all day. Going over the same territory, still at odds.
Gil was tired of it.
Ashley Rodriguez felt the muscles in her stomach tightening in another contraction. The nurse said they weren’t real contractions, but they felt real to Ashley. She was alone in the exam room of the ER, waiting for the doctor to check her. The nurse had told her to wait on the table, but lying on her back was impossible. Her heavy belly cut off her breathing, as if someone were choking her. She had tried to lie on her side, but within a few minutes, her hip and thigh started throbbing.
She decided just to stand up and walk around the room a little, pulling the IV stand behind her. Her pregnancy with Brianna had been so different, so easy. There had been no false contractions. She had been getting a prenatal checkup when the doctor said something about taking her over to the hospital for some tests. She was quickly taken to an ultrasound room. Blood was drawn. Exams were done. Then the doctor said, “Are you ready to have your baby?” It had taken Ashley by surprise. She was only at thirty-three weeks. She had almost seven weeks left to go until her due date, and she wasn’t in labor, but the doctors seemed so sure. So they gave her something to block the pain, and she had a C-section while she was still wide-awake. As soon as it was over, the nurse asked Ashley if she wanted to breastfeed, but Ashley said that she was too groggy. She really didn’t want the nurse to get mad at her, but she didn’t want to nurse Brianna. Just like she didn’t want to nurse the new baby. She had seen what nursing does to a woman’s breasts, and she didn’t want hers to end up sagging and loose. Plus, if she breastfed, she’d have to pump her breast milk if she wanted to leave the baby with her mom. A bottle was so much easier.
She had been in the hospital for a few days, but Brianna had to stay longer because she came too early and the doctors said her lungs needed some extra help. Ashley spent all day in the hospital, sitting next to Brianna, holding her tiny hand, but at night, she had to go home. Even during those few hours apart, Ashley missed her little girl.
The marker Joe was using on the whiteboard made squeaking noises as he wrote. He was adding items under a heading that now read MOTIVES FOR DISPLAYS. He had already put down “guilt” and “pleasure.” They had agreed not to debate the finer points behind each of their pet motives and instead just concentrate on getting all the possible ideas down.
“I guess if he used her bones like this because of his religious beliefs we should also add ‘faith’ as a motive,” Gil said, “and we should probably think about what Garcia said about a cult.”
“What kind of cult would do this?” Joe asked as he added the new items to the board. “Like Satan worshippers? Or a death cult?”
“I have no idea,” Gil said. The two men looked at the board for a moment before Gil said, “What are we missing?”
“What about a revenge motive?” Joe asked. “I would think if someone wanted Ashley or anyone else in the family to suffer, this would be a great way to do it.”
“That’s an interesting thought,” Gil said as Joe wrote it down, “and that means we should add ‘retaliation killer’ to the suspect list. Did Fisher ever mention anyone in the family who had enemies?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” Joe said, “but I’ll go through his notes again as soon as we’re done here.” The two men stared at the motive list a little longer until they were out of ideas.
“All right, let’s move on to locations,” Gil said. “I guess you can write where we found all the bones.”
Joe wrote the list quickly: Zozobra, Mary, Mary, and Mary.
Gil smiled a little. “That’s not incredibly helpful, but it’ll work for the moment.”
“Okay,” Joe said. “What do all these locations have in common besides the Mary thing? . . . I guess they’re all downtown, and they all have significance to people from Santa Fe. A couple of the places are a little hard to find.”
“Good, good,” Gil said. “We can add that to the profile, that he’s probably a local.”
Joe stared at the board some more, then said, “I feel like we’re missing something about Zozobra.”
“How so?”
“Well, at all the other crime scenes, the bones were left at Catholic sites . . .”
“All with a statue of Mary . . .”
“Right,” Joe said. “Except Zozobra. Why put her in there?”
“Well, in a way Zozobra is about making amends and forgiveness of sorts. It’s a good point, though,” Gil said. “Zozobra really has nothing to do with Mary or the Catholic Church.”
“Maybe the better question is how the skull got there,” Joe said. “Access to Zozobra was tight, I mean really tight. I was there, remember? They had security out the ying yang.”
“Where were you stationed?”
“I was with the crowd.”
“So how did he get it into Zozobra?” Gil said.
“I can only think of one way,” Joe said. “He would have had to be standing next to Zozobra at some point before it burned.”
“I know another way,” Gil said, pulling a white business card out of his wallet and dialing Mike Vigil’s number. Vigil answered right away.
“Hey, Mike,” Gil said. “I need a couple of things from you. First, can I get a list of all the people who could have gotten close enough to toss something in the fire last night?”
“You got it.”
“I also need the name of the guy who picked up the public boxes and dumped them into the fire,” Gil said.
“I can give you that now,” Mike said. “His name is George Quintana. Actually, he could tell you about who was near the fire last night, too.” Mike then rattled off George’s phone number.
“What the hell was that all about?” Joe said as soon as Gil hung up.
“Every year for Zozobra,” Gil said, “they put a few public boxes around town so people who have something they want to forget about, like photos of an old girlfriend or a mortgage, can put it in the box. Then the box is dumped into Zozobra right before he burns.”
“So you’re thinking that maybe the killer put the skull in one of the public boxes, which was then dumped in the fire,” Joe said, nodding. “Good idea.”
Gil called George Quintana and explained who he was.
“So what do you need?” Quintana asked, sounding confused.
“What can you tell me about how you disposed of the public boxes?” Gil asked, trying to keep the question open-ended.
“There’s nothing too complicated about it,” Quintana said. “I just throw the whole thing into the fire, cardboard and all.”
“Did you toss them in before the fire was set or after?”
“Right after it’s set.”
That sounded strange to Gil. “You’re allowed to go up to the burning fire and throw it in?”
“Yeah, but I’m a retired firefighter for the city, so I handle all the action near Zozobra as soon as he is lit, you know, keeping everyone away from the area,” he said.
That was good news for Gil, who needed that exact information. “So do you check Zozobra before the fire is set to make sure everything is okay?”
“Yep, I’m the one who goes up under his skirt, so to speak, and makes sure everything is good to go.”
“Did you see anything out of the ordinary last night?”
“No. It was a pretty typical burn.”
“Who is allowed access to Zozobra after he is set up and before he is burned?”
“Nobody but me and my two sons,” he said. “We’re really clear on that. They’re firefighters, too. One’s out in the county; the other is up at Los Alamos. We’re careful not to let people get close ever since a couple of kids thought it would be funny to try to throw each other in. After that, I said no way does anyone get near Zozobra. So from the time he is set up until after the burn, he is off-limits. We set up a fence around him that no one can cross except me and my boys.”
“So in your opinion, no one could have snuck something into Zozobra before he was burned?”
“I don’t see how.”
That skull was definitely in the fire and not put in afterward, into the ashes. The melted material on the back of the skull proved that. If Quintana and his sons were the only ones who had access to the fire, that meant Gil had to ask the next question. “Do you or your sons know Ashley or Brianna Rodriguez?”
“Who?”
Gil repeated the question, but Quintana had never heard of any of the Rodriguez family members. Gil knew it was unlikely the Quintanas were involved in Brianna’s disappearance, and since it seemed almost impossible for someone to have thrown the skull into the fire just before Zozobra burned, then it must have been put in one of the public boxes.
“So, getting back to the public boxes, do you look in them before you toss them in?” Gil asked.
“Well, usually, but . . . okay, I’m supposed to look in the boxes, but I thought I told one of my sons to do it . . .”
“And it didn’t get done,” Gil said.
“Right. So I ended up throwing them in without ever opening them,” Quintana said. “Which was a stupid thing to do. You never know what’s going to be in the boxes.” Right, thought Gil. You never know.
“So how many boxes were there?” Gil asked.
“I put out only one box this year,” Quintana said. “I think interest in the whole public box thing is waning. I picked that one up right around five o’clock yesterday, and it was in my car until I put it in the fire.”
“Where did you pick up that box from?”
“It was over in the lobby of the Capital Tribune.”
Lucy sat in the flowered courtyard of La Casa Sena, watching people eat colorful food, artfully arranged. A blond waitress went by with a plate that held a piece of pie lined with raspberries, drizzled with chocolate, and sprinkled with rose petals. Lucy couldn’t help but gawk since most of her meals came wrapped in paper and warmed under heating lamps.
Even though this was her first yearly review since working at the Capital Tribune, she decided that the best part of it was going to be the food, followed only by the free aspect of that food. All that was required to get the free meal was to sit through an agonizing hour of talk about her work performance with her big boss, managing editor John Lopez.
She had had yearly reviews at all her previous jobs. No matter the workplace, the conversation always followed the same script: It would begin with an hors d’oeuvre of small talk and move into an entrée about job expectations. For a salad, there was discussion of what the future might hold—a promise of a bigger title and better projects. As for the dessert, it was five minutes of “constructive criticism” that was disappointing in its lack of sweetness.
Her reviews were never that bad, but for some reason she saw them as humiliating. Maybe it was the idea of the boss’s telling you that there was a dark spot on the X-ray he’d taken of your career when you’d thought it was healthy as a horse.
Lucy sat in her metal patio chair, trying not to fidget. Lopez finished ordering his salmon and carefully put the cloth napkin in his lap. Lucy quickly did the same, smiling nervously.
“So how do you think your first year at the newspaper went?” he asked, taking a sip of his water. She had actually been there for a year and a half, but Lopez ran perpetually behind on the yearly reviews. She thought it best not to point that out at the moment.
“Umm . . . great?” she said, not sure if that was the correct answer.
“Are you getting used to Santa Fe? It’s a big change from Florida.”
“Yeah, no, it’s great here,” she said, wishing she sounded like she meant it. Which she did. New Mexico was like a big present she was constantly unwrapping, finding a fabulous gift under every layer.
“How are things at the fire station?” he asked.
Lucy had been very up-front about her work as a first responder at Pi?on Fire and Rescue, mainly in the hope that they would let her go to calls when things were slow at work. Which they surprisingly did. Since she was an unpaid medic and helping the public, Lopez said, he saw it as an indirect way of giving back to the readers. She didn’t question his logic, if there was any logic there to question.
“Everything at the station is great,” she said, realizing that she needed to find a descriptive word other than “great.”
“I heard there was a car fire this morning,” Lopez said.
“Yeah, there was,” she said hesitantly. How did he know that?
Lopez must have seen her confusion and said, “Harold heard you on the scanner.”
“Oh, okay,” she said. Thanks to the police scanner that sat on a shelf over her desk, all of her co-workers could hear when she used her EMS radio on a call.
“What are you going to say in the brief about it?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I was just thinking we need a page two brief about the car fire. Since you were there, it should make it easy for you to write it up.”
“Wait. I’m sorry, I’m not sure I get it. You want me to write a brief about a call I was on?” Lucy asked. Something shifted horribly in her as she asked, “Is this part of my review?”
Lopez smiled. “I just feel it’s time for us to take advantage of your hobby.”
“My hobby? You want me to report on 911 calls?”
“Yes. That’s actually one of the goals we have written down for you for the next year,” Lopez said, taking a printed paper out of his briefcase. Sure enough, at the top was written, LUCY NEWROE. SPECIFIC GOALS TO ACCOMPLISH.
Lucy could only nod, cursing herself for not anticipating this. It was common practice at some bigger newspapers to pay people to listen to the police scanner and write up briefs on what they heard. Lopez basically was asking her to do the same thing, but in her case, she would be one of the people talking on that scanner as well. Since anyone could hear what was said over a scanner, it made every emergency call public purview. She could technically and legally write a story on all radio communications or public police and EMS reports, as long as it didn’t violate patient confidentiality laws. She knew Gerald would think it was unethical. As for herself, she didn’t know what to think.
“I . . . I don’t know if I can do that,” she said.
Lopez’s phone began to ring. He said a quick “Sorry” and answered it. He listened to the person on the other end and then said, “I’ll be right there.” He hung up. “I actually have to get back to the office. Something’s come up. We’ll finish this soon.”
Then she was sitting by herself in the middle of the sunny courtyard, where she was left to explain to the waitress that they needed to cancel their orders and to wonder if she would have to quit her job.
Gil sat in the lobby of the Capital Tribune, waiting. Joe was next to him, texting on his phone to who knows who. He was finally quiet except for the clicking of the keys.
Gil looked up at the two security cameras pointed into the lobby, a room no bigger than a two-car garage. A glass door off to the left led to the newsroom, while the door they were waiting next to had the words MANAGING EDITOR stenciled in gold.
The receptionist, an older Anglo woman with white hair and round glasses, had been helpful at first when they asked where the Zozobra box had stood. She had gotten up from her desk to stand in the exact spot. Which just happened to be in the direct line of sight of one of the cameras. When Gil asked if anyone who dropped off items in the box stood out, she seemed hesitant, but eventually said no. When Gil asked for the videotapes of the lobby for the last few weeks, the receptionist lost any will to help. She had called the managing editor and told them to wait.
As Gil sat, he looked at walls painted in a watery green and accented by badly framed newspapers from big news days gone by. There was one from the end of World War II and another from the moon landing. The building itself had a damp feel, a strange occurrence in the desert. Of course, it had probably been built in the 1800s, and at least parts of it were still adobe.
Gil looked at his watch again as the door opened and the managing editor came in, saying, “I am so sorry, gentlemen. I got here as soon as I could.”
He was a trim man with lightly graying hair, wearing a white dress shirt and bolo tie. They left the outer office and went into Lopez’s, where they all sat down at a heavy conference table.
“How can I help you?” Lopez asked.
“Well, we spoke with your receptionist, who said we had to talk with you about getting copies of your tapes from the security cameras in the lobby,” Gil said. “We think they might have some information we need on them.”
“Information that pertains to the skull you found in Zozobra?” Lopez asked. Gil wasn’t surprised he already knew about the skull. It was Lopez’s job, after all, to get the news.
“We can’t say, sir,” Gil said, though he was unsure why he added the “sir” at the end, except that Lopez seemed to be the type of man who was addressed as “sir” regularly. He wondered if Lopez was ex-military.
“Of course,” Lopez said. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid I can’t help you without a court order.”
“Oh come on,” Joe said, exasperated. “It’s not like we’re asking you for any state secrets. We just need to look at the tapes.”
Lopez smiled sympathetically. “I realize your frustration, but this is I something I am required to do according to our code of ethics. I hope you understand. I am happy to give you the name of our attorney, if it would speed the process up.”
“Dude, we can make copies of the tapes ourselves and have the originals back to you tomorrow,” Joe said.
“Again, that’s not the issue,” Lopez said. “Like you, we serve the public, but we each have different goals. Yours is about justice, while mine is about truth.”
“Our goal is always the truth,” Gil said coolly.
“Yes, but it’s not your main goal,” Lopez said, still smiling. “We serve the public by giving them facts and being a watchdog, and one of the main institutions we scrutinize is the police. We can do nothing that might undermine our reputation in the eyes of the public.”
“What the hell—” Joe said, before Gil interrupted him by saying, “There’s nothing we can say to change your mind, or maybe someone else we can talk to? These are security tapes, not interviews done by reporters.”
“I’m sorry,” Lopez said again. “The publisher is out of town, but she would absolutely agree with me. This is standard practice, really. Of course, as soon as you get the court order, I will do everything I can to help.”
“I bet,” said Joe as he and Gil got up to leave. They walked past the receptionist before Joe started swearing.
Gil interrupted him. “I’m going to head into the newsroom for a second. I’ll meet you back at the car.” He went through the glass door before the receptionist or Joe could protest.