Privileged to Kill

35

“We can’t let an off-balance teenager walk around with a loaded firearm just to make it convenient for us to find out who she wants to kill,” I said, and Officer Tom Pasquale nodded as if he’d thought the same thing, even though seconds before he had suggested that we let Vanessa Davila go about her business, leading us to her intended target.

If Vanessa had looked out the curtained window of her trailer, she would have seen a fair-sized convocation. We waited in the darkness for fifteen minutes while elsewhere in Posadas Judge Lester Hobart scribbled his signature on an appropriate warrant. When the paperwork arrived via Deputy Eddie Mitchell, we kept the performance low-key. No lights, no sirens, nothing to disturb the neighbors from their dinner tables.

Vanessa never looked out, and her mother appeared genuinely surprised when she opened the door. Sergeant Bob Torrez was so tall he nearly had to duck going in, but he didn’t wait for an invitation.

He snicked a set of handcuffs on an already blubbering Vanessa and helped her to the living room sofa. Her mother stood in the kitchen, wringing her hands. If I had been in a worse mood, I would have suggested snapping a set of cuffs on her, too. But it had been Vanessa who had done the burglary, and I fervently hoped that the awful sound of handcuffs would frighten her out of any last resolve.

“Vanessa,” Estelle Reyes-Guzman said, “where’s the gun?”

“I ain’t got no gun,” she said, and it was the first time I had heard her voice-low, husky, and really quite pleasant. She would have made a good announcer for an airline.

“You were observed breaking into a residence on Escondido just a few minutes ago,” Estelle said. She sat on the sofa beside the cuffed Vanessa, and she was just about half Vanessa’s size.

“Just a few minutes ago,” she repeated. “Do you understand that you will be charged for breaking and entering and for aggravated burglary? When you broke into that house and then armed yourself with a stolen weapon, you got yourself in considerable trouble.” Vanessa Davila didn’t react with any great contrition, but I got the impression that Estelle made the speech more for the mother’s benefit.

“I didn’t,” Vanessa said.

“We got you on video,” Tom Pasquale said from the doorway, and I turned, surprised to see him holding one of those small video cameras that’s not much bigger than a sandwich. I tried to keep the surprise off my face.

“Well, I didn’t take nothin’.”

“We saw you remove a handgun from the premises, Vanessa. Now before you get into more trouble, play it smart,” I said.

Vanessa shook her head, still crying.

Estelle took a deep breath. “Mrs. Davila, do you know anything about your daughter’s activities?”

“What?” Mrs. Davila said, and Estelle glanced at me and then heavenward. She stood up.

“All right. Begin with the girl’s room,” Estelle said. Torrez, Mitchell, and Pasquale clumped down the narrow hallway, back into the dark confines of the trailer. Estelle turned back to the women.

“Do you understand that if we find stolen items in a search the penalties are more severe than if you cooperate?” she said, but Vanessa was playing her last cards, figuring that maybe we’d go away.

But we didn’t go away. It took ten minutes before I heard Bob Torrez say, “Okay, here we go.”

He walked out into the living room holding an enormous stuffed kangaroo. In its pouch, a small stuffed joey snuggled up beside a semiautomatic pistol. By this time, Mrs. Davila had made her way over to the couch, where she sat on one of its arms and hugged her daughter.

“Oh, Vanessa,” she said. That about covered it.

Sergeant Torrez slipped his pen into the weapon’s barrel and lifted the gun out of the pouch. Thomas Pasquale was at his elbow, holding a large evidence bag. “The cocking indicator says it’s hot, so handle it gently until we get prints off it,” Torrez said, and Pasquale nodded as if he’d thought of that, too.

By this time, Vanessa had sagged sideways into her mother’s arms and rocked and quaked with sobs. Estelle reached out a hand and put it on top of Vanessa’s, just holding it, a slight contact that told the girl she was there.

“Vanessa,” she said finally, “did you take anything else from your cousin’s house?” It was the first time I’d heard that connection, but it didn’t surprise me. Half of Posadas was related in some fashion to the other half. Vanessa shook her head and for the first time turned and looked squarely at Estelle. I saw the muscles of Estelle’s forearm flex as she squeezed the girl’s hand and said, “You took just the gun?” Vanessa nodded, and Estelle turned to look up at Bob Torrez.

“Would you please uncuff her now?” Estelle had a handcuff key somewhere on her person, but Vanessa didn’t know that. Torrez nodded and bent over, removing the cuffs none too gently. That helped, too. Estelle kept her hand on Vanessa’s.

“Let us talk for a while, Officers,” she said, and Torrez nodded, ushering Tom Pasquale toward the door. Deputy Mitchell followed, the ghost of a smile crinkling around his eyes when he glanced at me as he went by. I closed the door and made my way toward a chair that looked like it would hold me.

“Vanessa,” Estelle said, “we know you’ve been upset since your friend died. Since Maria died.” She brought her other hand over and held Vanessa’s. “And you have every reason to be. But you can’t try to settle things by yourself.”

Vanessa sniffed and Estelle handed her a tissue. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” Vanessa nodded. “Was it Denny Wilton, Vanessa? Was that who you were going to go after?”

Vanessa nodded again, and the relief of knowing at least one small answer swept over me.

“Vanessa, were Ryan House and Denny Wilton with Maria the night she died?” Vanessa had experienced good luck with the nod, and she stuck with it. “Were you with them?” This time she shook her head. “Did you see them together?”

“Yes,” Vanessa said. “I saw them drive in to where Maria stayed.”

“How did you happen to see them?”

Vanessa shrugged. “I was walking over to see if Maria wanted to go downtown for a while.”

“And did they see you?”

“No.” Vanessa heaved a great breath and sat up a little straighter, shrugging off some of her mother’s weight. “I don’t think so.”

“Was it Denny Wilton’s truck that you saw? The dark blue one?”

Vanessa nodded.

“Did you see them again that evening? Thursday night?”

She shook her head.

“When did you hear about Maria?”

Vanessa took another shuddering breath. “Next morning at school.”

“You didn’t try to see her again that night? Thursday night?”

“No.” This time the reply was small and faint, as if Vanessa realized she’d made a mistake by letting her friend go off with the two boys that night.

“Why didn’t you come forward and tell someone, Vanessa?”

The girl shrugged and her lower lip thrust out. “’Cause.”

“Were you afraid?”

Vanessa shook her head. She didn’t look like the type who was afraid of much.

“You left school on Friday, didn’t you? Right after homeroom, when you heard the news? When you saw all the commotion?”

Vanessa nodded.

“Where did you go?”

“Home.”

“She was here all day,” her mother barked helpfully, apparently forgetting our earlier visits.

“Did you go to the football game Friday night?” I asked, and Vanessa leveled expressionless eyes at me and didn’t respond.

“Did you?” Estelle prompted.

“No.”

“Where did you go? You weren’t home most of the day, and certainly not that evening. We stopped by and talked with your mother a couple of times. You didn’t come home at all Friday night.”

“I was sitting up by the highway, watching cars.”

“By the interstate, you mean?” I asked, and she nodded. “All day and most of the night?”

She nodded again. “Until I walked uptown. When I thought everybody would be coming back from the game.”

“Were you trying to decide what to do, Vanessa?” Estelle asked, and on the surface it sounded like a monumentally dumb question…a rarity for Estelle Reyes-Guzman. Why else would a fourteen-year-old sit hidden in a bunch of elm brush, I thought, watching others travel on with their lives? Vanessa nodded, and Estelle patted her hand. “And when did you decide to go after Denny Wilton?”

“After I heard about him killing Ryan.”

“Who gave you the idea that he killed Ryan, Vanessa? It was a truck crash. They had just passed a school bus. The bus driver thinks that Denny fell asleep.”

“He killed him. I know he did.” She said it with simple finality.

“Who told you about the crash, Vanessa?” I asked.

“They were talking about it at Portillo’s.”

“The convenience store, you mean. You went there?”

“For a little while.”

“Why would Denny want to kill Ryan House, Vanessa?” Estelle pressed gently. “Why would he want to do that?”

“’Cause Ryan woulda told on them sometime about Maria. He couldn’t keep quiet very long. And somebody was saying how he’d heard that somebody had killed that old bum that was in town…the one that got arrested when they found Maria.”

The grapevine was a marvel of efficiency if not accuracy, I marveled.

“And you think that Denny Wilton killed Ryan House because he was afraid that Ryan would tell someone about Maria, and about the old bum, is that right?”

Vanessa nodded with absolute certainty.

“But Vanessa, Maria choked to death. She wasn’t killed by anyone. The boys may have panicked and run, but they didn’t kill her. And the old man wasn’t hurt badly. Don’t you think Denny Wilton might have known all that? Is that a reason for him to kill his best friend?”

Vanessa choked back a sob. “He don’t have best friends,” she said, and the venom fairly dripped.

“Do you think he would risk crippling or killing himself, just to get at Ryan? Why would he do that? They were friends.”

“He started hangin’ out with Ryan House this year ’cause Ryan broke up with Julie Hayes. That’s all. And…” She hesitated, as if she was afraid to give away too much. “Even last year, he and Ryan got into a fight right during class. So they weren’t no best friends.”

I heaved a sigh myself, not ready to try analyzing the why of teenage relationships. And from my own experience with my two sons and their friends, I knew that kids could be sworn enemies on Monday and best buds on Tuesday.

“Why do you think Ryan and Denny Wilton wanted to go out with Maria, Vanessa?” Estelle asked.

“’Cause.”

“Because why?”

“Her and Ryan were in Spanish together.”

“That’s all? They shared a class?”

“She had this crush on him. One day her and me were in the hall, and she tried to say something to him. She talked Spanish at him, and Denny Wilton was there and called her ‘the truck girl.’ He was real mean.”

“And yet they all went out together,” I said.

“A bet, maybe,” Estelle said quietly. “That and the fact that Ryan House didn’t have a car. Vanessa, do you know anything else about that night? The night Maria Ibarra died?”

She shook her head.

“And you still think Denny Wilton killed his best friend? You don’t think that the crash was an accident?”

Vanessa nodded. “I know he did.”

“How do you know, Vanessa? He could just as easily have been crippled or killed as well.” Estelle didn’t bother to mention the functioning air bag and seatbelt-shoulder harness.

“’Cause he killed my brother, too. And he didn’t never get caught either.”