* * *
Gil hadn’t even put the foil-covered bowl of green chile stew down on his desk before Joe started talking to him.
“I have made my way through that list of friends that Liz gave us, and all I have to report is that I have now woken up every gay man in Santa Fe,” Joe said, flipping through his notebook. “And that’s a lot of gay men.” Santa Fe was second only to San Francisco in the number of gay households per capita. The list Liz had given them last night was two pages long.
“Thanks for doing that, Joe,” Gil said.
“Unfortunately, none of them had much helpful to say,” Joe said. He started to read aloud from his notes: “Our guys went to a dinner party four days ago and, I quote, ‘seemed fine.’ They didn’t mention any problems to anyone. When I asked about the chance of an affair, everyone told me the same thing: ‘hell, no.’ I wish I’d been that certain of my ex-wife,” he said, glancing up at Gil before looking back at his notes and adding, “They had plans to meet Christmas Day with friends to open presents. That’s it.”
“What about threats or problems with anyone who is homophobic?” Gil asked. The idea the murders were a hate crime was not far-fetched. It wouldn’t have been the first time in Santa Fe. There had been beating incidents in 2005, 2006, and 2007. In one case, the suspects included a teenage girl who, with a group of others, kidnapped a man and tried to “beat him straight.” Liz had been the lead medical investigator for that case, but hate crimes against gays had become much rarer in recent years.
“Nothing,” Joe said. “They didn’t go to gay bars or really go out much at all, except to friends’ houses. They were an old, boring married couple.”
“Okay,” Gil said. “What about the third victim?”
“No one has any idea who Mr. Burns could be—”
Gil interrupted, saying, “That’s what we’re calling him? Not ‘John Doe’?”
“But,” Joe continued, “the most popular guess is that Mr. Burns is an unexpected Christmas houseguest, but neither of our victims had kids or close relatives who might show up out of the blue like that.”
“All of that doesn’t tell us much,” Gil said. “Has Liz gotten back to us on time of death?”
“Hang on,” Joe said. “I’ll text her.” A moment later his phone buzzed; he looked at the screen and said, “She writes, and I quote, ‘TOD was 4:00 P.M. yesterday. Same for all victims. Don’t text me again.’ It’s amazing how much she loves me.”
“Okay,” Gil said. “They were killed about an hour before the fire department got on scene.”
“Now we need to know the last time someone talked to them or saw them in public, so we can get the timeline straight,” Joe said, popping a Cheeto into his mouth from a bag that had been open on his desk for three days. “I think our best bet would be to call Price’s office and see when he was at work.”
A half hour and several phone calls later, all they had to show for their efforts was an appointment at Los Alamos Laboratory with an assistant security director.
Joe leaned back in his chair and asked with a sigh, “What do you want to do now?”
“Go back to the house,” Gil said, pulling on his coat. Joe was doing the same when he noticed the bowl covered in foil on Gil’s desk. “Why do I smell garlic?”
CHAPTER FIVE
December 21
Lucy got to work at 9:15 A.M.—late on her first day. She’d had to dress like a professional since she’d now be interacting with the public. Usually, she looked more like a pizza delivery person in jeans and a T-shirt. Today, she was wearing a button-down blouse that had taken way too long to iron and gray pinstriped pants that needed to be hemmed.
She walked through the backdoor of the Capital Tribune. The building was a mishmash of old and new, with parts from the 1800s and the 1970s. Some of the exterior walls had seams where the old and new didn’t quite line up. She went into the windowless newsroom, empty of people, where the cubicle dividers made playhouse-sized streets and alleys. The quiet made her nervous. She was used to a humming office where editors yelled headline ideas over to the copy desk, and where the Photo Department held meetings while standing in front of the bathroom. They would all come in later. For now, all that was making noise was the police scanner jumping from station to station. The relative silence allowed Lucy to take in the newsroom sans employees. It wasn’t a pretty sight. The sea-foam green walls and low-hanging fluorescent lights made it look like an empty aquarium.
But her new desk wasn’t in the newsroom. She walked past the cubicles and out the opposite door, leaving the squealing scanner behind her. She went up a sloping step, then down three more. The linoleum changed from black speckled to pink, and she made her way to the left, to the Features Department.
She got to her desk and sat down, stowing her purse in the bottom drawer. The top of the desk was mostly empty, except for the computer, a few pens, and an old pad of Post-it notes. The previous owner of the desk had been Shelley Lovato—mother of three, native Santa Fean, lover of the Dallas Cowboys, and employee at the paper for twelve years. She’d been one of fifteen employees laid off without notice two weeks ago. Just eighteen days before Christmas. Shelley, who had been in advertising, had cried when she’d walked out of the building for the last time.
Other newspapers that had made similar staff cuts never recovered. More than a hundred newspapers across the country had closed since the recession in 2009. That’s what had happened to the Santa Fe Times, the other newspaper that served the area. After 150 years in business, it stopped its printing presses and went completely online, with only four staff members doing a job that used to take fifty. Lucy’s ex-boyfriend Del Matteucci had lost his photography job at the Times in the process. Lucy had followed Del to New Mexico from Florida when he first got the job. Their breakup, which began six months after they moved, had gone on for months. They had been the ultimate recyclers—using and reusing each other whenever one of them got lonely or wanted sex—until four months ago, when Lucy finally ended the cycle. She had thought their “breakup” would live up to its name, leaving her more than slightly broken, but she had been strangely content. Since then, they had talked only infrequently. The last time was two months ago, when he got laid off and told her he was moving back to Florida.
Though Lucy didn’t lose her job, she did lose her slot in the newsroom. They had offered her the cops’ reporter position, but she turned it down, not wanting to kick Tommy Martinez out of the job. Instead, she switched to Managing Features Editor, which was a title they made up just for her. While her overall job description was vague—she was to “help as needed” with feature assignments—the actual day-to-day work was clear: to write the funeral notices and birth announcements. Her boss, managing editor John Lopez, had tried to sell the new position as “restructuring,” saying they would be handing her more responsibilities as time went on, but the new title and the power that might someday go along with it were just sugarcoating. And she knew it. After her meeting with Lopez, she locked herself in one of the pink bathroom stalls at the newspaper and cried. The toilet paper she spooled out from the dispenser to mop up her face ran out before her tears did. Many journalists given her fate would have quit, but there was one thing that kept Lucy from turning in her letter of resignation: Lopez had promised she’d get her own column. That was something every journalist wanted. Columnists have their own audience. They were allowed use their own voice to express opinion, something that was strictly verboten in normal journalism. Having her own column would be a step up—or, at the very least, a step sideways—from City Editor, while being transferred to Features was not. In essence, she was demoted and promoted at the same moment.
She noticed a box next to her chair and realized that the night janitor had moved her things from her old desk. On top of the pile was a stack of business cards that had been ordered for her over the summer. She took one out. It had “City Editor” embossed in gold under her name. Lucy took the entire stack and threw it in
to the trash can next to her desk.
* * *
It had started to snow lightly by the time they pulled up to the house. Gil parked on the street, but waited to get out until Joe finished his bowl of stew. Then they walked up the long driveway as two squirrels played in the piñon and juniper trees nearby. Joe stopped and looked down at the fresh snow in the driveway, a frown on his face.
“What are you thinking?” Gil asked.
“I grew up in Pittsburgh so I know about two things: the Steelers and snow. This driveway was plowed recently, like, by a truck,” Joe said, stopping and looking at the edges where the asphalt met the forest floor. The snow off to the side was deep and piled up a foot high. “See, there are the marks from the front of the plow,” Joe said, pointing at a straight diagonal mark in the snow. “It’s been plowed in the last few hours.” He looked back down the driveway and said, “I’ll be right back,” then he jogged back down to the street. In a moment he was back, saying, “The neighbor’s driveway has been plowed, too. They must hire someone to do it.”
“That would make sense,” Gil said. “A driveway full of snow is a sure sign someone isn’t home.”
“We should check on the snowplow guy,” Joe said as they reached the front door. “It snowed yesterday morning, then again last night. Maybe he saw something when he was plowing. He could have been the last person to see our victims. He might even know who Mr. Burns is.”
Gil nodded, saying, “We can ask the security guard who does the plowing.”
They reached the house, which from the front showed little evidence of the fire. The plow had taken away the tracks of the fire engines. The house itself was covered in a dust of white with red chile ristras hanging out front, green bows tied on each.
Inside was a different story. The sun streaming through skylights showed glistening ice on most surfaces. Tiny icicles hung from the ceiling where water from the fire hoses had found its way off the roof and into the house. In the corners, snow—blown in through broken windows and damaged walls—had accumulated in slight drifts.
Gil went through the right archway, into the kitchen, while Joe went left, into the living room. Gil called after him, “Go to channel six.” He flipped his handheld radio to the right frequency and turned up the volume. He had purposely picked a channel that wouldn’t bounce off a radio tower, so any conversation would be just between him and Joe.
Gil went into the kitchen, which had a large butcher block counter in the center, the kind Susan wanted in their new house. The firefighters hadn’t come in here, so everything had stayed as it was: neat and tidy. Dishes put away and mint ice cream still in the freezer. It was a slice of Jim Price and Alexander Jacobson’s lives frozen in time.
Gil clicked a button on his radio and asked, “Are you noticing anything missing?”
“Part of the gaming system that was set up in the living room is gone,” Joe said. “It looks like someone took the controllers and maybe a few games.” Gil could hear Joe’s voice on the radio and a more muted version echoing through the house.
Gil went through the other door, leading away from the kitchen, and found himself in a sunroom with a billiard table. It overlooked a flagstone patio with a lap pool and a deck that jutted out on stilts.
Gil clicked his radio on and started saying, “What about cell phones or a computer”—when he heard a ringing that sounded like an old-fashioned telephone. The sound was muffled and bounced off the walls. Gil followed the noise down a hallway and into an office. On a desk next to some bills was a ringing cell phone. A second later, Joe walked in, holding his own phone to his ear.
“I thought I’d give Jacobson a call,” he said. In his hand was another cell phone. “I found Price’s phone still plugged into the charger in the master bedroom.” Joe punched numbers into both phones, checking their recent calling history and comparing the numbers dialed against numbers in his notebook.
“The last call made from either phone was two days ago, when Alexander called Jim,” Joe said. “There were a bunch of missed incoming calls this morning: I guess friends checking on them.”
Gil said, looking around the office, “I don’t see a computer on this desk. Did you see one anywhere?”
“No,” Joe said. “And you know they had to have at least one.”
“So we’re missing a computer and a gaming system,” Gil said. “If this was a robbery, they didn’t take much.” They made their way back out into the living room. The ice covering on the furniture was already starting to melt.
“What do we think about the hate crime idea?” Joe asked.
“I don’t know,” Gil said. “I’m not convinced.”
“I think the whole cut-off penis thing is pretty convincing,” Joe said. “You’re the Wikipedia of all things criminal. What kind of suspect would we be looking at if it was a hate crime?”
“Sixty percent of the perpetrators are white males,” Gil said. “And, I think, around thirty percent of hate crimes take place in a home.”
“It sounds possible,” Joe said.
“But hate crimes resulting in murder are very rare,” Gil said. “There are only about eight a year in the entire country and that includes all hate-motivated murders, including those that are about race and religion.”
“I guess this could have been regular torture and not hate-related torture,” Joe said. “But this is pretty extreme stuff. Our suspect took the time to carve a T on his chest … I wonder if there’s a gay-bashing word that starts with T?” Joe stopped to think.
“Let’s just keep all the options on the table,” Gil said. He glanced around the room. “Even if it was a hate crime, this scene doesn’t make a whole lot of sense logistically. There are two separate areas where the victims were held. From what Liz said, all the victims were alive until the end. One person wouldn’t have been able to keep control of that many people at once.”
“Right. You can’t be in this room with Price and Jacobson and keep an eye on Mr. Burns at the same time, or vice versa,” Joe said. “If there was just one suspect, he’d be running between the rooms all night long. At some point, he’d just put everyone in the same room.”
“Then we have a group of suspects,” Gil said. “That means home invasion of one kind or another.” Gil looked at his watch. “We should get on the road. The drive to Los Alamos might be icy.”
They were just getting back into the car when a dark SUV pulled up and a sandy-haired Anglo man in his early twenties leaned out the window. “Could you help me?” he asked in a Texas accent. “I’m trying to find the ski area.”
“Yeah, you missed the turn,” Joe said. “Just follow this road straight until you come to the stop sign. Take a right, and you’ll be on Hyde Park Road. Just follow that up into the mountains.”
“Thanks. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the skiing conditions?” the man asked, with a laugh.
“Actually, there should be some sweet powder,” Joe said. “But take it easy. It’s twelve thousand feet up there at the top. You can get dizzy real quick at that elevation.”
“Thanks for the tip,” the man said. “My buddy told me there was some great off-trail skiing.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Gil said. “Outside the ski area is National Forest land. It’s hundreds of acres of forest. If you get lost, you’re on your own.”
“Just you and the bears,” Joe added.
* * *
Natalie Martin sat on a bench in the mall, watching her twin boys play a made-up game that seemed to resemble hide-and-seek. Deacon would run around the plastic tree house as fast as his chubby two-year-old legs could manage until Devon, in the tree house above, popped out his head and growled. Then they would both start laughing until Deacon began to run again. It wasn’t a complicated game, but it was keeping the boys busy. And that had become Natalie’s main goal in life.
She waved as she saw her friend Julie pushing her stroller toward them. Julie’s twenty-two-month-old son, Connor, was waving his arms
and legs trying to get out of the stroller before it had come to a stop.
“Okay, okay,” Julie said. “Hang on.” She freed her son, who went running off to join Deacon and Devon.
“Hey, you,” she said to Natalie, giving her a hug. “Weren’t we supposed to meet a half an hour ago? I’ve been wandering around looking for you.”
“Oh my God,” Natalie said. “I am so sorry. I have such a mom brain. I can’t keep even the simplest thing in my head.”
“Don’t you hate that?”
“Some days I wonder how I ever managed to get a PhD in chemistry.”
“I know,” Julie said. “I used to go into courtrooms and argue cases in front of a judge. I have no idea how I did that. I wore dresses and high heels and everything. Like a real grown-up.”
“I swear, as soon as we have kids there must be some hormone that makes us forget we were once smart, successful women,” Natalie said. Both women, despite sitting right next to each other, kept their eyes only on the playground.
“That’ll be something for you to figure out when you get your brain back. Maybe you’ll discover the mom brain hormone and make the big bucks.”
“When will that be?”
“When they go to college. I hope to God.”
“With any luck, the twins are both prodigies and off to college at twelve,” Natalie said. “Of course, all they are prodigies at right now is creating laundry. How do boys go through three outfits a day?”
“Are you kidding me? Connor is on his fourth today.”
They heard a cry across the playground.
“Speaking of which…” said Julie, as she got up to go to her son.
* * *
“What department did this guy work in again?” Joe asked as they drove toward Los Alamos. They had followed U.S. Highway 285 north out of Santa Fe for fifteen miles, dropping down into the wide valley cut by the Rio Grande more than thirty-five million years ago. Now they were on State Highway 502 heading west; after crossing the river and beginning the climb out of the valley, they had another twenty miles before they reached the lab.
When the Devil Doesn't Show: A Mystery Page 5
