The Broken Saint: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery

by Mike Markel

  “Want me to give Jared a call?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  Ryan punched his number and put it on Speaker.

  Jared picked up. “Yeah?” His voice was low and groggy.

  Ryan said, “Jared, this is Detective Miner, Rawlings Police Department. Can you hear me? Your voice is faint.”

  “I was sleeping. Give me a second, will ya?”

  “Sure, Jared, I’ll just stay on the line, give you a chance to wake up.”

  We heard him mutter “Jesus Christ” and clear his throat a couple times. “Okay,” he said, “What is it?”

  Ryan said, “Jared, we need to talk to you again. About Maricel Salizar.”

  “What the fuck?” he said. “I already told you everything I know about her.”

  “Yeah, well, you know how cops are, right? We’ve got a few more questions.”

  “Why don’t you just ask your questions now?”

  “No, Jared, we’d rather have a chance to talk with you in person. You’ve got two choices: wherever you are in the next half hour, or at police headquarters. Which’ll it be?”

  “What time is it now?”

  “It’s 8:10.”

  “I’ve got a 9:00 class in the Business Building. How ’bout five to nine in front of the Business Building?”

  “Let’s make it a quarter to nine.”

  He sighed. “Anything else?”

  “Quarter to nine, Jared. You’re not there, our next conversation is at police headquarters. Understand?”

  “Yeah, quarter to nine.”

  Ryan hung up.

  We got up and drove over to campus in time to get there by 8:30. The campus was starting to shake itself awake. The few students walking around were huddled in their coats, their heads down. It was supposed to get up to forty today, but it was about fifteen now. A half-dozen students clustered around the entrance to the Business Building, most of them holding Starbucks paper cups.

  “Guess you didn’t have coffee places at BYU.” I was rocking up and down on my toes, my hands deep as I could bury them in my pockets.

  “No,” Ryan said cheerfully. “There were places just off campus.”

  We stood there in the morning chill, watching the kids hurry past us, checking their phones.

  “Is that him?” I pointed off to the south with my chin.

  “I think so,” Ryan said.

  I checked my watch: 8:43. “Well, that’s a good sign. He’s not gonna make us chase him down.”

  He slouched up to us. He wore skateboarder sneakers, no socks, like my son does. Blue jeans, a hoodie sweater, and a down vest.

  “Thanks for meeting us, Jared.” I tried to smile.

  He nodded, to let us know this was a real imposition.

  “You wanna talk here or go inside the building?”

  “Let’s get this over with.”

  I was a true moron in college, but even I would have been a little smarter than to insult a couple of cops. “Help us understand your relationship with Amber.”

  “She’s my girlfriend.”

  “Known her a long time?”

  “Four or five months.”

  “Where did you meet her?”

  He pointed over his shoulder. “In this building,” he says. “In a Business Law class.”

  “You two exclusive?”

  He looked at me funny, like that was a stupid expression, maybe a stupid concept. “Well, since we’re not, like, together every second of every day, it’s not really possible for either of us to know, you know what I mean? But my life is crazy enough as it is without having to juggle two girls. So I’m exclusive. Amber? I think she is, but like I say, no way of knowing.”

  “Tell us about her black eye.”

  He looked bored and annoyed, seeing as Amber had already answered that question for us. “It was last week, I think, don’t remember which day. We were coming up the stairs to her apartment, she must’ve fell, hit her face on the bannister or whatever the hell it’s called, got the cut and the black eye.”

  “I thought she said it happened when she was going down the stairs,” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s right. We’d just driven back to her place. We were going up the stairs. Like I said, she’d been drinking—”

  “You hadn’t been drinking?”

  “No,” he said. “I got a DUI. Did a course in Traffic Court. Never gonna drink and drive again, Detective.”

  He gave me a good-boy smile, which made me want to slug him.

  “Anyway,” he said, “she remembered she’d forgotten something in the car, I think it was her gloves, so she turned around to go back down and get ’em. That’s when she slipped. So I guess we’re both right. We were going up the stairs, with a little detour to go down the stairs.” He smiled at me, like I was going to have to work a lot harder than that to trap him in a lie.

  “Can you tell us where you were late Sunday night, around midnight?”

  He put his hand on his chin and raised his head, like he was giving the question all the thought it deserved. “I have four classes on Monday, so I turn in early on Sundays.”

  “Were you at your own place or at Amber’s?”

  “Amber’s. Yeah, I remember.”

  “You didn’t go out that night? You know, to go back to your place for a little while, run out to get a pizza or something?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I was at Amber’s till maybe seven in the morning. Then went back to my place to shower and change clothes, go to classes.” He smiled.

  I looked at Ryan to see if he wanted to ask anything. He shook his head.

  “All right, Jared,” I said, “thanks for talking to us—”

  “Detective, can I say one other thing?”

  “Of course, Jared.”

  “If I was interested in finding whoever killed Maricel …” He paused dramatically, like he was going to open up a new line of inquiry for us.

  “Yes, Jared, that is our goal in talking with her associates …”

  “Then I’d be looking at Hector Cruz.” He nodded when he said the name.

  “You think so?” I said.

  “Yes, I really do.”

  “Why is that? Because he’s the boyfriend, you mean?”

  “That’s one thing, sure. But also—I don’t want to come across as prejudiced or anything, but you’re aware he has felony convictions.”

  I turned to Ryan. “You’re taking this down, Detective? We really should look at Hector Cruz.”

  “Absolutely,” Ryan said. “Felony convictions.”

  I turned back to Jared. “Can you tell us anything else about Hector Cruz and Maricel?”

  “I wasn’t close to either of them,” Jared said. “But Amber told me they had some kind of big fight recently. You never know. Maybe they got into it and it went too far.”

  “You know what that fight was about?”

  “Sorry,” he said. Then he smiled.

  I nodded my head and looked at Ryan again. He was writing. “That’s a really good suggestion, Jared. Again, let me tell you how much we appreciate this information you’ve given us. I think it’s gonna be really helpful.”

  “You’re very welcome, Detective.” He gave me a tight smile. “Glad I could help.” He turned and slouched into the Business Building.

  I said to Ryan, “Is it illegal to be a total douche?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Ryan said. “Not enough prison space.”

  “He says he’s exclusive with Amber because it’d be too complicated to juggle two girls?”

  “We already covered ‘total douche,’” Ryan said. “I’m thinking about whether we ought to boost him up on our list of possibles for Maricel.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, he’s obviously lying about the black eye. I like him for popping Amber. I think he’s capable of hurting a woman.”

  “Why’d he hit her?” I said.

  “It doesn’t have to be dramatic. Could’ve been anything. Falls under ‘total douche
.’”

  “What else?”

  “He’s stupid,” Ryan said. “He knows we’ve checked his record—”

  “The DUI?”

  “Yeah, but he tells us we should check Hector, like we’re so dumb we didn’t think about Hector first. And he says Hector has felonies. As in, more than one. But we don’t have any record of more than one.”

  “Which makes me like Jared more than Hector.”

  “Exactly,” Ryan said.

  “But if he’s stupid—which I believe he is—he thinks he just did a good job with us. All that shit about Amber going up and down the stairs.”

  Ryan said, “Which means he’s not gonna call her to make sure they get their stories straight.”

  “So if we get to her soon we might be able to catch her in a lie, squeeze her, get her to flip on Jared,” I said.

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  Chapter 25

  “Let’s surprise Amber,” I said. “Call the Registrar’s office. Find out her class schedule.” We were at a small table in the corner of the Starbucks just inside the Business Building. I was finishing a coffee, Ryan a bottle of water.

  Ryan nodded. “I got her student number. I can look it up.” Thirty seconds later, he said, “She’s in a finance class right now.”

  “Building?”

  He pointed over his shoulder. “Room 312.”

  “Let’s go get her right now.”

  “While she’s in class?”

  “That’s right. I want to scare the shit out of her.”

  “That should do it.” He packed his tablet and the bottle of water into his leather briefcase.

  We took the stairs to the third floor, room 312. I looked through the window in the door. There were about thirty students and a tweedy geek, bald with a long fringe of white hair, lecturing. Amber was sitting two rows back, near the center. I took my shield out of my bag and hung it around my neck. I opened the door with some force, and we walked right up to the professor.

  He looked concerned when he heard us come in. He stopped talking. I whispered in his ear. He nodded. I turned to Amber, and waved for her to come with me.

  She sat there, her eyes wide. “Now,” I said, as cold as I could. I didn’t actually enjoy scaring her, but I was okay with it.

  She started to gather her stuff. A notebook got away from her and slid off the desk, spewing loose papers all around. Another student bent down and helped her pick them up. Everyone was paying full attention to me. I ought to be a professor.

  Amber finally got her things together and stood up. With her backpack hanging off one shoulder and flopping around, she crashed her way through the desks. I led the way out of the room, Amber following me, Ryan behind us. I turned and nodded thanks to the professor.

  “What is happening?” Amber said, her voice an octave higher than I remembered it.

  “We’re going to headquarters. We need you to make a statement.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  I wanted to tell her I knew that, but I didn’t say anything.

  We escorted her out of the building, around the back to the parking lot. Ryan played his role, holding her head down as he put her in the back seat of the cruiser.

  I did start to feel a little bad for her when she began to cry.

  Ryan and I were silent during the trip, even when she started gasping out questions about why we were bringing her in. By the time I swiped my keycard letting us in the back entrance, she was ready to confess to anything we wanted.

  I led the way down the hall to Interview 1, told her to sit in the blue plastic chair at the interview table, right next to the stainless steel bar with the handcuffs attached.

  She looked like she was going to pass out.

  “Ryan, turn on the recorder,” I said.

  He got up and walked over to the controls on the wall.

  I spoke the date and time and names of the three of us in the room. Amber was almost hysterical at this point.

  “Ms. Cunningham,” I said, “we’ve obtained some additional information in our investigation of the Maricel Salizar murder.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that,” she said, sobbing. “I already told you that.”

  “And we need to ask you some additional questions.”

  She was nodding her head. Anything we wanted.

  “All right, Ms. Cunningham, I want to remind you we are recording this interview. If, in the course of our investigation, we conclude that you have not been completely honest in your responses, we will not hesitate to prosecute you. It’s obstruction of justice, which is a felony carrying significant jail time.”

  She was petrified, crying, snot ribbons trailing from her nose.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  She nodded vigorously.

  “I need you to say whether you understand what I have said.” I don’t think that was strictly true, since we were recording video as well as audio.

  “Yes,” she said through her tears. “I’ll tell you the truth.”

  I wanted to go over to her and tell her it’s okay, but I didn’t.

  “We just spoke to Jared. He told us all about the black eye.”

  “Oh, God,” she said, her head collapsing onto the table.

  “I need you to tell us how you got the black eye.”

  “He didn’t mean to do it,” she said through her sobbing, her shoulders hunched, wiping at her eyes with her palms.

  “Ms. Cunningham, let me repeat what I said about obstruction of justice. You need to answer my questions fully and accurately.”

  “He punched me in the face, but it wasn’t all his fault.”

  “Why wasn’t it all his fault?”

  “I had pushed him. Hard. He fell backwards against my bureau. He yelled out, like it really hurt.”

  “That’s when he punched you in the face?”

  “Yes. I think it was the anger. It wasn’t like he thought about it. It was a reflex. He didn’t mean to hurt me. I know he didn’t.”

  “What did he do when he saw he had cut your face?”

  “He got me a towel from the kitchen, a clean towel, and held it to my cheek to try to stop the bleeding.” She was sobbing as she spoke. “He told me to keep it against my face. Then he put some ice in it.”

  “Did you seek out medical care?”

  “Yes, after a few minutes, when I’d calmed down, he drove me to the ER. They closed the cut with a butterfly bandage. The doctor told me the blurry vision was normal and should go away after a few hours.”

  “Did you tell the ER doctor how you were injured?”

  “No,” she said. “I lied. I said I fell walking up the stairs.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the doctor the truth?”

  “Jared told me, when we were going over to the hospital, that he was really sorry he had hit me, and he pleaded with me not to tell anyone because he’d get in trouble for it. He told me he loved me and promised he’d never do it again.”

  Ryan said, “Jared told us his version of why you were fighting. Tell us your version.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” she said, her head in her hands. “Don’t make me say it. My God, please don’t make me say it.”

  “Final warning, Ms. Cunningham,” I said.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, her hands up. “It was about Jared and Hector and Maricel.”

  “What about them?”

  “I caught them,” she said.

  “Caught them doing what?”

  “They were together,” she said, crying now.

  “Be more specific,” I said.

  She looked up at me, sobbing hysterically now. “Hector was having sex with Maricel. From behind.”

  “And Jared?”

  “Maricel had his penis in her mouth.”

  “And you walked in on them?”

  She nodded, her head looking down at the battered table in Interview 1.

  “I need you to answer the question, Ms. Cunningham.”
>
  “Yes,” she said, almost shouting. “I walked in on them.”

  “Thank you. Then what did you do?”

  “I screamed, is what I did. Jared looked up, saw me, cursed, and pulled away from Maricel. He pulled his pants up. I ran out of the room. Jared caught up with me. Grabbed me by the arm, to make me stop running. I told him he was hurting me. He said he needed to explain. I said there’s nothing to explain.”

  “What was his explanation?”

  “He said they’d been drinking, smoking. They were all wasted. Maricel was the most wasted of the three of them. She egged him on. Jared said he didn’t want to at first but he was stoned and it just happened.”

  “Did Maricel say anything when you came into the room and saw the three of them together?”

  “No,” Amber said. “I could see she was crying, but she didn’t say anything.”

  Ryan said, “So Jared caught up with you and you two went back to your apartment?”

  “That’s right,” Amber said.

  “And the argument between the two of you continued there?”

  “Yeah. I said what you would think I said.”

  “Which was?”

  “I called him a bunch of names, said he was a shithead, that kind of thing.”

  “And you got into that shoving match?” I said.

  “Jared didn’t mean to punch me. I believe that. He told me he loved me. I believed him. I believe him now.”

  “But he had his dick in that girl’s mouth,” I said.

  “I know,” Amber said, her palms covering her face. “I know. But he said she did it.”

  “She did it?”

  “That’s what Jared told me. They were all high. She grabbed his zipper and pulled it down.”

  “While Hector was screwing her from behind.”

  “I believe Jared. He made a mistake. I believe him. It was Maricel’s idea. It wasn’t Jared’s idea. He didn’t want to do it.”

  “Did Jared spend the night at your apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you certain he spent the whole night there?”

  “I fell asleep, if that’s what you mean.” She wiped at her snotty nose with the back of her hand.

  “So he could have left the apartment without you knowing it?”

  “I don’t think he did that.”

  I turned to Ryan. “Do you have any questions for Ms. Cunningham?”