“I’ll tell him,” Ava said. “He’s here. In this hospital.”
“Wow, I feel. . .” Billie smiled and coughed. “Honored.”
“If he’s mobile, we’ll come up and visit,” Ava said.
Billie’s eyes welled with tears. He gave a slight nod.
“You should wait until you hear what I have to say,” Billie said.
“Okay,” Ava said. She pulled up a chair and sat down. “Do you mind if I tape our informal conversation?”
Billie shook his head. Ava took out her phone and started to record.
“I’m Ava O’Malley, speaking with. . .”
“William Joshua Trujillo, Jr.,” Billie said.
“At Anschutz hospital,” Ava said. “I can read you your rights, but I don’t think we need to since we’re just talking today.”
Billie nodded.
“You said that you had something to say,” Ava said. “What do you have to say?”
“I killed my father,” Billie said.
Seventeen
Tears fell down Billie’s cheeks. “I. . . I. . .”
“You shot an RPG at his limo, and it exploded,” Ava said, evenly.
Sobbing now, Billie simply nodded.
“Mr. Trujillo nodded,” Ava said for the recording.
She grabbed a box of tissues and set it next to him. She’d seen this happen to Seth. A horrible, long-held truth is a terrible burden to carry. Once spoken, there’s a well of sorrow that comes spilling out.
“I. . . I’ve never said that before,” Billie said, wiping his face. “I. . . practiced in my mind. I thought about going into FBI headquarters and telling them. I. . .”
He wept again.
“Tell me about your father,” Ava said.
“He was a real bastard,” Billie said, shifting to anger.
“Everyone I’ve met says that,” Ava said with a smile.
“It’s true,” Billie said.
“I’m certain it is,” Ava said. “Why don’t you tell me the whole story?”
“The whole story?” Billie asked. “You mean getting my uncle’s grenade launcher and firing it or breaking my arm or. . .”
“Where did your mom meet Senator Michaud?” Ava said.
“They lived on the same street,” Billie said. “She said that Aspen was full of drugs and sex. Her parents and his parents had a regular ‘thing.’”
“What kind of a thing?” Ava asked.
“Sex, drugs,” Billie said. He lifted his shoulders in a stiff shrug. “Mom and Dad spent a lot of time together while their parents partied with each other and many others. The kids would go to my grandparents’ basement and watch TV or whatever. My uncle. . .”
Every time he said the word “Dad,” his handsome face sneered, and his voice was angry.
“Sheriff Trujillo?” Ava asked.
Billie gave a quick nod.
“He used to say that their parents’ reckless behavior was why he wanted to be a cop,” Billie said. He nodded. “My mom got used by one of the neighbors.”
“Used?” Ava asked.
“Molested,” Billie said. “Her parents were actually happy for her. They said that she was entering her womanhood.”
“How old was she?” Ava asked.
“Ten,” Billie said. “My uncle beat the shit out of the neighbor. His parents kicked him out. The next time they saw him, he was a deputy sheriff.”
Billie nodded.
“Justice,” Billie said. “My uncle really believed in justice.”
“Your mom was close to her brother?” Ava asked.
“Like peas in a pod,” Billie said with a nod.
“How did she wind up with Michaud?” Ava asked.
“Trujillo,” Billie said. “He and Mom had the same last name before he changed it to get away from us and marry that rich lady.”
“Slow down,” Ava said. “Let’s take it one thing at a time.”
Billie nodded.
“I just. . . it’s nice to finally talk about this,” Billie said.
“I bet,” Ava said with a nod.
“Mom and Dad got married when they were like sixteen years old,” Billie said. “They lived with my uncle until Dad’s parents died. He got enough money from his parents’ estate to feed him and mom, at least for a while. I came along nine months later.”
“So he really did have a child and was married,” Ava said.
“He did,” Billie said. “Don’t get me wrong. He could have still gone to Vietnam. He just didn’t want to. That was pretty cowardly behavior in the eyes of my uncle.”
Ava nodded.
“My mom was a surgical nurse,” Billie said. “She enlisted right after Dad got his second deferment. She was assigned to the hospital at Da Nang. Bad stuff. Really bad.”
Billie shrugged.
“Who took care of you while she was gone?” Ava asked.
“My aunt,” Billie said. “My mom’s brother’s wife.”
“The sheriff’s wife,” Ava said.
Billie nodded.
“Is she still living?” Ava asked.
Billie nodded.
“I lived with them until mom came home,” Billie said. “When mom got so sick, she wanted me to live with them. Have a ‘normal’ life. But I wouldn’t leave her.”
Billie nodded.
“Is that what split up your parents?” Ava asked.
“What?” Billie asked.
“The draft,” Ava said.
“Sure,” Billie said. “My father started to hang out with the orgy people. I mean, they grew up with them, so it wasn’t a big stretch that he would join the movement. But. . .”
Billie shrugged.
“Mom said that she threw him out,” Billie said. “I don’t know if that’s true or not. He changed his name and disappeared. Just before my uncle died, he told me that he’d chased Dad away with a shotgun.”
“Why did he come to Aspen every year?” Ava asked.
“It wasn’t to see me or mom, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Billie said.
“Then why?” Ava asked.
“Mom and I lived in his parents’ house,” Billie said. “He came back every year to check on the house, his inheritance. He never paid child support. Not a penny. Mom worked until she couldn’t work anymore. The agreement was that we could live in the house rent free if we never told anyone that I was his kid and Mom was his wife. He would come for one week a year to take care of repairs on the house and to ‘spend time with his son.’”
“Did he?” Ava asked.
“Did he what?” Billie asked.
“Spend time with you,” Ava said.
“No,” Billie said. “When I was little, I would look forward to seeing him every year, but he never showed up, no matter how many times he promised my mom.”
“What did he do instead?” Ava asked.
“I think it’s more like ‘Who did he do?’” Billie shook his head. “He had orgies. Did drugs. Hung out with the old crowd.”
“Did your parents ever get divorced?” Ava asked.
“No,” Billie said. “Never.”
“Where did he stay when he was in Aspen?” Ava asked.
“Not with us,” Billie said. He sighed. “The last time he came. . . you know, the time I killed him?”
Ava nodded.
“His friends had moved,” Billie said. “No orgies for him. He was all set to announce a presidential run, so he sold the house. His parents’ old house. The house we lived in. He told Mom that he needed the money for his campaign, but he was seriously loaded by then. He didn’t need the money.”
“He sold the house out from under you,” Ava said.
Billie nodded.
“We didn’t have any idea,” Billie said. “It was on a few acres, so he sold it to a developer. The house never even went up for sale! Dad just arrived and told us to ‘get out.’ He said that he was ‘tired of us freeloading off him.’”
A tear silently ran down Billie’s face.
&n
bsp; “Mom was so sick,” Billie said. “You just couldn’t believe how sick a person can be until you see someone with Agent Orange-related cancer.”
“Or Gulf War Syndrome?” Ava asked.
Billie’s eyes flicked to Ava’s face. He raised an eyebrow and gave a sad sigh.
“Dad called my uncle and told him to enforce the eviction,” Billie said. “They argued over it. Even hit each other. But in the end, there was nothing my uncle could do. The sheriffs came and helped us move to the house I’m in now. It was my mom’s grandmother’s. You should have seen the police guards — the ones with my dad. They looked like they wanted to crawl into a hole.”
Ava didn’t say anything, in hopes that Billie would continue.
“I was so angry,” Billie said. “Just furious. We moved out by the road. I stole the RPG from my uncle’s grenade launcher from ’Nam. I knew that he had to come down that road. I waited in the freezing cold for hours for his stupid limo to come by.”
He looked at Ava and nodded.
“I stepped out from the trees and shot the RPG,” Billie said. “Boom! The explosion was so loud that Mom, as sick as she was, came out from the house to see what had happened. My mom. . .”
Billie shook his head.
“She grabbed blankets and a first-aid kit and ran down the embankment,” Billie said. “There were these places in the sand — like molten glass — that burned her feet. She didn’t care. She wanted to help.”
“Who did she help?” Ava asked.
“The driver,” Billie said. “Me. The grenade launcher nearly took my shoulder off. I broke my arm just below the head of the humerus.”
“I’ve heard that’s common,” Ava said.
“I didn’t know that,” Billie said. “Thing was. . .”
Billie began to cry again.
“When the limo exploded, I started to cry,” Billie said. “Not just from my shoulder. I was devastated that my dad was dead. Mom told me to hold onto that so that no one would know that I shot the RPG.”
“Did you know the driver?” Ava asked.
Billie shook his head.
“I thought it was someone from Washington, like those bodyguards,” Billie said with a shrug. “I never saw him again. The FBI asked me about him. I didn’t get a real look at him. He took some water and a blanket from my mom. He walked away when mom was helping me into the house.
“Killing my dad?” Billie asked. “It nearly killed me. Mom died like two days later. I was ready for mom’s death because it had been happening right in front of me. But Dad’s death hit me like a sledgehammer. I didn’t get out of bed for a month. When I did, I enlisted and went to war. Like my mom. I hoped I wouldn’t come back.”
Billie shook his head.
“Now, I’m just like her,” Billie said, softly.
Eighteen
“Not just like her,” a woman’s voice came from behind the screen.
Mrs. Michaud came around the screen.
“Do you know who I am?” Mrs. Michaud asked.
Billie nodded.
“You are Will’s son?” Mrs. Michaud asked.
Billie nodded.
“Then you are my son, too,” Mrs. Michaud said.
“I don’t. . .” Billie started.
“I understand,” Mrs. Michaud said. “But I’m here now. I’d like to help.”
Billie looked up at Mrs. Michaud. He scanned her face and looked away.
“Will you let me help?” Mrs. Michaud asked.
“I need whatever help I can get,” Billie said softly.
He nodded.
“I’ll leave whenever you say,” Mrs. Michaud said.
“Did you know about him? His mother?” Ava asked Mrs. Michaud.
“No,” Mrs. Michaud said. “My father did a deep background check into Will. He found nothing.”
“Dad took the identity of a kid they went to school with,” Billie said. “The kid was born the same year and around the same time as Dad. He died when they were thirteen. The kid’s parents died the year dad decided to run for president.”
Ava nodded.
“Now,” Mrs. Michaud said. “Don’t say anything else until we have an attorney.”
Mrs. Michaud nodded to Ava, and Ava got up from her seat. Ava started to go but turned back.
“You should know,” Ava said. “You didn’t kill your father. Your grenade didn’t explode. The car was rigged with a napalm bomb.”
“What?” Mrs. Michaud and Billie asked in near unison.
Ava noticed that Billie and Mrs. Michaud were very close in age. Ava nodded. Billie looked away. She watched the emotions move across Billie’s face. When he turned back to look at her, she continued.
“According to Dr. Quincy, they were killed by a sniper and loaded into the limo,” Ava said.
“My uncle was a sniper in Vietnam. Brought a .308 home with him,” Billie said. “He was five years older than mom. He went and was back by the time Mom went.”
“Makes sense,” Ava nodded.
“That’s why you asked about the limo driver,” Billie said. He thought for a moment. “I’ll tell you. He reminded me of the hardware store owner — you know, the one in Basalt.”
“Okay, enough,” Mrs. Michaud said. “Out with you. We’ll arrange to meet you when Billie is better.”
Mrs. Michaud pushed Ava from the room.
“Nice to meet you, Billie,” Ava said. “I’m sure we’ll talk again.”
“Bye,” Billie said.
Ava left the room. She stood with her back to the door for a moment before heading down the hallway to go to Seth’s room.
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Nineteen
2 weeks later
“Yes, that’s right,” Ava said, shifting uncomfortably.
This was her third day giving testimony to a hastily-put-together federal grand jury. She looked out at the twenty-three jurors before turning back to the prosecutors, who were asking her questions. This was a closed grand jury, so it was just Ava, the prosecutors, and the grand jury. None of her lab or even Seth was there for her.
Of all of the people involved in killing Senator William Michaud, Billie was the only person still living. They were attempting to figure out if they had enough evidence to charge him with the murder of his father and the U.S. Capitol Police.
“You’re saying that William Joshua Trujillo, Jr. shot the grenade under the limousine, causing it to explode,” the prosecutor said.
“No, you know full well that I did not say that,” Ava said.
“You said. . .” the prosecutor leaned over to read Ava’s words.
“I said that Mr. Trujillo executed the grenade launcher and broke his arm,” Ava said.
“The grenade which. . .” the prosecutor said.
“Was a dud,” Ava said. “If I may?”
Ava gave the prosecutor a hard look. For a moment, Ava could see the prosecutor doing the math — if she pressed her point, Ava might not testify in the future or worse yet, Seth might not testify. The prosecutor relented.
“We found the shell of an RPG-2 grenade in the wreckage of the limousine,” Ava said. “You should have that in your evidence packet. We put it together before it was identified as an RPG-2 grenade by FBI Special Agent Dabrowski. It looked to me as if it had not discharged.”
Ava nodded.
“Turn over the page,” Ava said to the grand jurors. “With the help of the Denver Police Bomb Squad, we discharged 10 of these grenades.”
“Where in the world would you find 10 RPG-2 grenades?” the prosecutor asked.
“My husband is a Vietnam Vet,” Ava said.
“Your husband, retired Denver Police Detective Seth O’Malley,” the prosecutor said.
“That’s correct,” Ava said. “He is the lead detective on our cases.”
“You may continue,” the prosecutor said.
“Detective O’Malley works with a team in Vietnam to assist in finding soldier and missing person r
emains,” Ava said. “He was able to obtain ten RPG-2 launchers and grenades from a contact inside Vietnam. With the help of the Denver Police bomb squad, we were able to test all ten RPG-2s as well as 20 grenades. Of the 20 launched grenades, a third of them failed to execute.”
“But all of the grenade launchers exhibited the recoil similar to that which caused Mr. Trujillo’s injuries,” the prosecutor said.
“That’s not in dispute,” Ava said. “We tested the force on each of the grenade launchers. They are more than enough to break a seventeen-year-old boy’s arm.”
“Please continue,” the prosecutor said.
“If you look at the explosions of the cartridges, you will see that the grenade explodes in the middle of the cartridge,” Ava said. She paused to give the jurors enough time to look at the images they had provided. “You’ll see that the explosions happen in the middle of the cartridge for all of the grenades that exploded. Please take a moment to look at what remained of the metal cartridge after explosion.”
Ava again gave them a moment to look at the pictures.
“The metal shards that were evidence from the vehicle wreckage do not fit the profile of an exploded cartridge,” Ava said.
“Then what do you make of Mr. Trujillo’s assertion that he killed his father?” the prosecutor asked.
“We’ve already proven that the men inside the limousine were killed with a single .308 rifle shot to the heart,” Ava said quickly. “The car was doused with an accelerant — we believe it to be gasoline — and a lit by a napalm bomb. We traced the ignition switch back to the manufacturer. And. . .”
“In your first conversation with him, why did Mr. Trujillo assert that he had killed his father?” the prosecutor cut Ava off.
“Boyish ignorance?” Ava shrugged. “We’ve shared evidence that there was a lag time between when he shot the grenade and when the car exploded — enough time, I might add, to give the driver time to get away before the limousine was ignited.
“We found no physical evidence that his claim of killing his father was accurate,” Ava said.
Ava leaned back and waited. The prosecutors had assured her that they had more than enough evidence to charge Billie with four counts of homicide. Ava thought they were a little overzealous.
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