The Burnt House

37

O VER THE PHONE, Decker said, “Yes, I still want DNA, but right now we need his fingerprints.”

Over the phone, Oliver replied, “I got to find a surface then. Any suggestions?”

“He’s a contractor. He works with grease and mud. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is getting him to touch something. He has a recycling bin for scrap metal, a recycling bin for wood, and a final bin for broken glass. I’d love to take something, but it’s clear that Ray has no intention of throwing the stuff away. I can’t take a sliver from the ground without asking him. And once I ask, there’s a chance that he’ll get suspicious.”

“No, don’t do that.”

“We can just wait for the DNA,” Oliver said. “I have his discarded coffee cup bagged.”

“Trouble is we don’t have Belize’s DNA on file, just his prints. Surely there’s some kind of garbage over there that you can pocket that might pick up something.”

“Nothing with a clear print, Loo, and that’s a sad fact.”

“What’s he doing now, Scott?”

“I don’t know. I left the house about twenty minutes ago.”

“No, I mean what specific work is he doing on the house?”

“Oh…I think they’re tiling…” Oliver hit his forehead. “I’m an idiot. I’ll go back and ask him for a sample of the kitchen tile to show to my wife.”

“See how easy that was?” Decker said. “Is the tile surface polished or rough?”

“It’s polished. We couldn’t ask for a better surface for latents, except maybe mirror. I wonder if I can ask him if I can bring back a sample of the mirror or do you think that might tweak his antenna?”

“Let’s start with the tile. Like you said, it’s a great surface. When are you coming back to L.A.?”

“I’ll be in the station house between five or six, depending on traffic. What about you?”

“I should be back by then. Right now I’m working with the D.A.’s office, trying to shave some time off the old man’s sentence if he testifies against his son.”

“That’s going to make you real popular with the locals.”

“The old man is going to be released in a couple of years regardless of what anyone does. It’s worth it for me to let Martin go a couple of years early if I can put Beth Devargas’s killer behind bars.” Decker adjusted the headset on his phone. In New Mexico, it was illegal to drive and talk unless it was hands-free. With a seventy-five-mile-per-hour speed limit on some of the interstates, the law made sense. “I’m on my way to the courthouse to talk to some of the people. What’s Marge doing?”

“Trying to figure out where Raymond Holmes lived before coming to San Jose. We got an eight-year gap to fill in.”

“Once we get a fingerprint match, we won’t have any trouble pulling warrants for his paper trail. Hopefully, that’ll bust this case wide, wide open.”

IT WAS AFTER six by the time Decker pulled in to the station house’s parking lot. He was tired and would be famished as soon as his stomach settled down from the roller-coaster air ride over the Rockies. There were a few souls still doing paperwork in the squad room, but Marge and Oliver were nowhere in sight. He inserted the key into the lock on his office door, when he heard a voice behind him.

“Lieutenant?”

Since Decker was hungry and grumpy and made no attempt to hide it, he figured the brave soul approaching him must have had some breaking news. Anything less would incur his wrath. He turned around and managed a tight smile. “Detective Bontemps. I take it you need to talk to me?”

“I do, sir, and it’s important. I really think you’ll want to hear this.”

“Not a problem at all.” Opening the door, Decker took the key out and turned on the lights. On his desk were a brown bag, a huge plate of chocolate-chip cookies, and a note from Rina.

Dear Peter,

The cookies are from Hannah and they’re pareve.

Much love from your long-suffering but culinary-conscious wife, Rina.

He peered inside the bag-a roast-beef sandwich with coleslaw and an apple. He brightened considerably as soon as he unwrapped the sandwich. “Sorry to eat in front of you, but I’m starved.”

“Oh, go right ahead, sir.”

“Have a cookie. My daughter baked them.”

“I’ll eat anything home baked. Can I get you some coffee? I’m getting one for myself. Gotta have coffee with cookies.”

“Actually, coffee would be great.” He’d finished half the sandwich when she came back. “Thank you, Wanda, have a seat. What’s up?”

Bontemps’s face was flushed with the excitement that came from discovery. Her hair had been recently cut, exposing a full face softened by natural-looking makeup. Her skin was mocha cream, her lips accentuated by pink lip gloss. She wore a blue blouse, a glen-plaid jacket over chocolate slacks, and oxfords covered her feet. “Lee Wang and I must have canvassed that condo complex three different times. Today the good old Lord was with us. We found someone-someone we interviewed before-but we asked our questions a little different and we got different answers.”

Decker’s head had been so immersed in the Hernandez boys that he had to think a moment about the assignment. Condo-complex canvassing: the Roseanne Dresden case. They had been looking and looking for any witnesses who might have seen Roseanne coming in or going out on the morning of the plane crash. He put his sandwich down and took out his notepad. “Good. Go on.”

Wanda checked her own notes. Her hands were shaking. “The woman’s name is Hermione Cutlass and she’s a nurse. This time we phrased the question differently. We asked, ‘Do you remember where you were the morning of the crash?’ instead of ‘Do you remember seeing Roseanne the morning of the crash?’ We figured if anyone had seen Roseanne that morning, we would have heard about it by now.”

“Okay.”

“So this is what we got.” Wanda cleared her throat. “On the morning of the crash, Hermione Cutlass was scheduled to work the seven A.M.-to-three-P.M. shift at St. Luke’s in Simi Valley, but she was running late. Her daughter was home sick with the flu, and Hermione had to wait until a babysitter came so she could go off to work. By the time the sitter came, she was real late.”

“What time was that?”

“She thinks it was around seven, when she shoulda been at work already. She remembered running to her car, running through the parking area, not really paying too much attention to what was going on other than getting to her car, when all of a sudden a black Beemer pulled out in front of her and almost crashed into her. She said she had to jump back to avoid getting hit. She was screaming nasty words at the driver, but she was talking to the air. The car just bolted the hell out of the lot. She was so angry that she wrote down the license plate…”

“She has the license number?”

“She said she planned to report it to the condo board when she got back home.”

Decker’s heart started whacking in his chest. “So tell me it was Roseanne’s BMW.”

“Yes, it was, but she didn’t know it at the time.”

“Good Lord!” He smiled genuinely. “And she’s just remembering the car now?”

“Y’see, the first time we asked her questions, we asked if she saw Roseanne that morning. The answer to that question was no. This time we asked her what she did that morning.”

“Recalling her morning of the crash jogged her memory about the car.”

“Yes, but she didn’t know it was Roseanne’s car. She just wrote down the license number, worked a long day, and then forgot about the whole thing, especially once she heard about the airplane crash. That kinda took the wind out of her sails to be mad at anyone. All she could think about was poor Roseanne.”

“Okay, okay, give me a minute to digest this.” He closed his eyes and opened them. “Does she remember what time the Beemer almost crashed into her?”

“Sometime after seven but before eight.”

“Before flight 1324 crashed.”

“Definitely before the crash, because she heard about the accident at the hospital.” Wanda took in a deep breath and let it out. “When she got home that night, it was all over the condo that Roseanne had died. Everyone felt absolutely sick about it.”

“Did she know Roseanne?”

“Casual acquaintance. You know, they saw each other in the Jacuzzi or the gym or the laundry room. It’s always awful when someone you know dies unnaturally.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I asked her, ‘Are you sure you’re remembering the correct day?’ And she said, ‘Absolutely, positively.’ And then she told me the story. When she got to the part about the car being a BMW, I was holding my breath. I asked her to describe the car and that’s when she remembered she wrote down the license plate.”

“And she still had the number?”

“In the glove compartment, right where she left it. When I asked to see it, she asked me why. I told her I’d tell her as soon as I got off the phone with DMV. When the license plate matched, I told her that Roseanne drove a black BMW. The poor girl just about fainted. She started crying and carrying on, because she told me that it was probably Roseanne rushing to make her flight. And she said some real nasty things to the driver. In some respects, she said she wished the car would have crashed into her because then Roseanne would have stopped and missed the plane.”

Decker nodded. “If it was closer to seven, maybe it was Roseanne rushing off to work. If it was closer to eight, there is no way Roseanne could have made the doomed flight. Can she narrow down the time a little more?”

“No, sir, I tried that. She doesn’t remember beyond sometime between seven and eight.” Wanda raised her eyebrows and licked her pink glossy lips. “And we got one other major problem. It was Roseanne’s car; that is definite because the number she wrote down matched Roseanne’s plates.”

“But she couldn’t see who was driving the car.”

Wanda nodded. “It happened real fast. She was in a rush and she was flustered. And the Beemer was in a rush.”

“Could she tell you something about the driver?”

“She said it happened so fast, she couldn’t even see if it was a man or a woman. She thinks there was only one person in the car, but she won’t even swear to that.”

EVEN WITH JUST a skeleton crew in the squad room, Hannah’s batch of forty-eight cookies was gone. Decker had resorted to picking the crumbs left behind.

“Those were good,” Wanda Bontemps said. “Ask your daughter for the recipe.”

“I think I’m in sugar narcosis,” Marge said. “Can I adopt your daughter?”

“You’ve never seen her before a trig test.”

“I’ve seen my own daughter before a particle-physics test. She can’t be any worse.” Marge’s cell phone rang. She looked at her watch. “Speaking of which…It’s eight o’clock, it must be Vega. Excuse me for a moment.”

Oliver said, “I’m making more coffee. Any takers?”

Four hands went up. Marge covered the cell’s mouthpiece and shouted, “Count me in.” She talked to her daughter for a moment longer then rejoined the group. They had decided to talk in the squad room because the common tables provided more space than Decker’s office. “What did I miss?”

“As it stands right now, the Loo was just saying that it’s unlikely that a judge is going to issue a warrant for the Beemer unless we can implicate the car in a crime.”

“We’re out of luck.” Oliver had returned, balancing coffee cups, cream, and sweetener. “There are no outstanding wants or warrants on the car. Ivan may be a murderer, but he obeys traffic signs.”

Wanda helped him with the coffee. “Are we still thinking about Ivan as his wife’s murderer?”

“What do you mean?”

The newest detective said, “If we get a match for Raymond Holmes as Belize Hernandez, isn’t it likely that Hernandez was Roseanne’s killer? He did it once to his sister-in-law. Why couldn’t he do it again?”

Oliver said, “He could, but something’s still not making sense with that.”

Marge broke in. “Scott and I were talking about this. Why is the man we call Raymond Holmes hanging around, knowing full well that we found his sister-in-law’s body?”

Wang sipped coffee. “Maybe he thinks we can’t identify the body.”

“Maybe, but I know what Scott and Marge are getting at,” Decker said. “There’s something out there that we’re missing and it has something to do with Manny Hernandez. The old man told me that as far as he knows, Manny’s still missing. According to him, Raymond Holmes is Belize, but Martin’s eighty and a con, so everything is suspect until we have evidence to back it up. Until we have a positive on the prints, we don’t know if Ray is Belize or if Ray is Manny.”

“Who’s doing the print comparison?”

“I asked for Zach Spector,” Decker said. “He’ll be in tomorrow at ten. I’ve already contacted Roswell Correctional. A copy of his prints on file should be arriving here by ten-thirty in the morning, providing that FedEx is on time. In the meantime, if we want to speculate, let’s go back to the Roseanne Dresden case. What are we thinking? That her husband stashed her in the trunk while still alive-because she didn’t die in the condo-then carted her off and killed and buried her somewhere?”

“That crossed my mind when Hermione told me the story,” Wanda said. “But why would he do it in daylight? Why not just wait for the cover of night?”

“Ivan is not a cool cookie,” Marge said. “Suppose they got into an argument. Ivan admits that they fought the day before. Maybe she came home early in the morning and they fought again. This time, he got really mad and pushed her. We found her cell under the couch. Maybe she fell backward and hit her head. She gets knocked out cold and he just panicked.”

Wang said, “People fall and hit their head, but usually they don’t die right away. Do you honestly see the guy throwing her in the trunk and then killing her and burying her?”

“Like I said, maybe he panicked. Ivan accidentally or on purpose knocks her out. He wraps her in a blanket, takes her out to her car, and stuffs her in the trunk. He goes out and gets rid of the body. Then, on the way back, he hears about the plane crash and figures he’ll blame her disappearance on the accident. But then people might ask why her car is parked in the condo parking complex and not at the airport. So Ivan drives the Beemer to the airport, leaves it there, takes a cab back to the condo, drives to work, then turns on the faucet, and tells everyone that Roseanne died in the crash.”

The group nodded. Decker was the first one to speak. “It’s logical, but wasn’t Ivan at work by eight-thirty or nine? If the man was racing out at seven in the morning, he doesn’t have enough time to find a spot, bury her, take her car to the airport, then find a ride back to his condo so he can pick up his own car and be at work by nine.”

Wang said, “Maybe the witness got her times mixed up.”

Decker said, “Killing someone in a car in broad daylight is very chancy. So is dragging a body and shoving it into the trunk. There’s also a real possibility that her car was speeding because she was rushing to make the doomed flight.”

Marge said, “Erika Lessing, the flight attendant who worked the counter for WestAir, distinctly remembers not seeing Roseanne.”

“A positive witness is better than a negative one,” Decker said. “Roseanne could have slipped in without Erika noticing her.”

“Of course,” Marge answered, “but the bigger issue is that Roseanne’s remains haven’t been found at the crash sight.”

Decker said, “That, together with a witness who saw the car speeding off, is what we’re going to use to get a warrant to search the car. If Roseanne was violently murdered inside her vehicle or in the trunk, we would probably find more blood than would be expected, a reasonable amount even if Ivan cleaned the car.

“Assuming he didn’t change the carpets,” Wanda said. “What if he did?”

“Then that would be suspicious,” Marge said.

“Exactly,” Decker said. “So before we even bother a judge with a warrant, let’s investigate to see if Ivan did anything with the car that would arouse suspicions.”

“Like changing the carpets?” Oliver said. “What do you want? For us to start checking BMW dealers?”

Wanda said, “If he was hiding bloody carpets, do you think he’d use a dealer?”

Decker said, “Even so, start with the dealerships. Best place to order new carpets, and there aren’t that many of them in this area. If that doesn’t work, canvass the independent car-repair shops. Ivan’s not a genius but he wouldn’t drive around in a car with blood-soaked carpets.”

“Yeah, but he seemed really excited about driving Roseanne’s Beemer,” Oliver said. “Nothing as sweet as driving a car you didn’t pay for.”

AT ELEVEN TWENTY-SIX A.M., a grinning Decker announced that Raymond Holmes’s right finger-and right thumbprints matched the fingerprints on file at Roswell Correctional for Belize Hernandez. Upon hearing the first bit of definite news, the squad room broke into cheers. His matching prints together with the old man’s story made the contractor a prime candidate in Beth Devargas’s murder, and jumped Holmes to the top of the list in regard to the disappearance of Roseanne Dresden, speeding Beemer and lie-detector test notwithstanding.

With the matching prints, Raymond Holmes’s visits to Santa Fe Correctional, and Martin Hernandez’s assurance that he would testify against his son in exchange for his immediate freedom, Decker had no problem getting a warrant for Holmes’s arrest for Beth’s murder. It was signed and sealed by two in the afternoon, and at six in the evening, Decker, Oliver, and Marge were sitting in row 13, seats A, B, and C on a Southwest flight from Burbank a.k.a. Bob Hope Airport to San Jose International. Holmes would be brought in for voluntary questioning the next morning at San Jose PD and proper personnel at the police station had been informed of the mission, ready to assist the trio in whatever they needed.

To everyone’s relief, Holmes agreed to come in without the necessity of announcing the purpose of the visit. But this time, he was wary enough to ask for a lawyer. Three hours later Holmes and a gray-suited man named Taz Dudley waited for Decker in an interview room at San Jose PD in a western-area precinct.

The party was about to begin.