by Mike Markel
I said, “You want to bring him in?” I had a set of cuffs ready.
“No.” Ryan was himself again. “Let me have another go at him.”
“You gonna kill him this time?”
He smiled. “Too much paperwork.” He lifted Hector up by his armpits from behind, still groggy, and poured him into a chair at a round table in the middle of the lab. We took two chairs on the other side of the table.
“Hector,” Ryan said, “you okay?”
Hector looked around, seemed to be focusing, but didn’t answer.
Ryan leaned in toward him. “Hector, I asked you a question.”
Hector nodded.
“Here’s where we stand,” Ryan said. “You just took a swing at me. My partner saw it. That’s assaulting a police officer. It’s a felony. It starts at three months but it could go way up, with your prior. You understand what I’m saying?”
He nodded right away this time. He didn’t look good. All pale and washed out, with sweat on his forehead and above his lips. Part of me wanted to bring him to the hospital to get him checked out. But a bigger part of me wanted to let Ryan finish boxing him in.
“We could go one of two ways right now,” Ryan said. “We could bring you in to headquarters, charge you, take your prints, you call your lawyer, and we crank up the system. With those shots at Detective Seagate’s house—which we like you for because you’ve got a temper that makes you do stupid things—pretty good bet you’ll be remanded. That means no bail. While you’re sitting in jail for couple or three months, you lose your job, you get thrown out of your trailer, everything you’ve been working hard to protect disappears. Your life goes to shit. You hear me?”
The silence hung in the room for a little bit as the two guys stared at each other.
“What do you want?” Hector Cruz said.
“We want you to talk to us. We want to understand what happened with Maricel, you, and Jared Higley. Like I said before you took a swing at me, we think he killed Maricel, but unless you can help us go after him, you’re the star of this show.”
“Ask me a question.”
“We have testimony that you, Maricel, and Jared Higley had a three-way. Is that true?”
Hector looked down at the table. His hand came up and he rubbed his chest where he took the punch. He nodded.
“Did you and Maricel make a habit of that?”
He looked hard at Ryan. His eyes were shiny with tears. “That was the only time. Ever.”
“How did it happen?”
“Me and Maricel had been drinking. She’d gotten some weed. We smoked it, got pretty high. We were having sex. Jared shows up. I didn’t know him, but Maricel knew him a little through Amber.”
“How did he end up with the two of you?”
“I don’t really know. I was way over my limit.”
Ryan looked at him. “Our testimony was that Maricel was crying during this episode. Can you tell us about that?”
Hector shook his head. “I don’t know if that’s true. Maricel was really broken up the last few weeks.”
“About the abortion?”
Hector nodded his head. “I didn’t want her to do it. But she said she had to. Wasn’t going to let a baby grow up without parents. But after she did it, she couldn’t stop running herself down.”
“What do you mean?”
“Saying she was a killer. A sinner. She had no value. She was a piece of shit.”
“How did you respond?”
“I told her the truth.” Hector looked up at Ryan.
“What was the truth, Hector?”
“That I loved her. That God loved her. That I wanted to marry her.”
“What did she say to that?”
“She told me she appreciated me trying to make her feel better, but how she was right and I was wrong. That she was worthless.”
“So you and she didn’t do drugs—I mean, before the abortion?”
“No drugs. But she started drinking all the time, and then the weed.”
“Where’d she get the weed?”
“I don’t know. Maybe from Jared.”
“What happened after Jared left that night?”
“Maricel was crying, out of control. She wouldn’t talk to me. I tried to tell her it would be okay. She told me to go away, leave her alone. She didn’t want to see me anymore. She screamed it at me.”
“What did you do?”
“I begged her to talk to me, but she got more and more upset. I told her I would call her the next day. I drove back to my place.”
“And that was the last time you saw her?”
He started to cry, slowly, his fingers coming up to his eyes.
Chapter 28
“I believe him,” Ryan said. “He was telling the truth. I mean, about how Maricel came apart in the last month.”
“Maybe so,” I said.
I’d asked Hector if he wanted us to run him over to the hospital, get him checked out. He said no, so he started up the vacuum cleaner and we drove back to headquarters.
“Young girl like that, an abortion can be a really big deal. But the way he describes himself so positive—I love you, I want to marry you—I’m not ready to buy that. Remember what we know about him: the Latins have their hooks in him—”
“We’re not sure of that,” Ryan said.
“That’s right. But we are sure he has a felony assault conviction.”
He was looking at his screen. He leaned in closer, then hit a few keys. “Open your email.”
“What?”
“Karen.” He spoke slowly, then looked up and fixed his gaze on me. “Would you please open your email?”
He’d just forwarded me a file, a scan of an old photo. It was in color, but the colors were all faded out, like an old Polaroid that’s been sitting in a shoebox for twenty years. “What is it?”
“It’s Brother Gerson, with a Filipino woman.”
I zoomed in, but the picture got fuzzier. I could see a tall white guy, blond hair, glasses, holding the hand of a bronze-skinned woman. They looked to be twenty. Now that Ryan said it, I saw it was Gerson. “Son of a bitch,” I said.
“When you’re on a mission,” Ryan said, “you’re with your companion 24/7. The only time you’re out of each other’s sight is when you’re in the bathroom.”
“I’m guessing that’s not Brother Gerson’s companion.”
He just looked at me.
“Who sent you this?”
“It’s from a woman who claims to be Maricel’s aunt.” He started to read from his screen. “Maricel’s high-school teacher tracked her down. The aunt’s maiden name is Grace Salizar. The woman in the photo is her sister: Esperanza. Listen to this—”
“I’m listening.”
“Esperanza takes up with this missionary. Gets pregnant. Esperanza’s family is very traditional: she’s knocked up, by a white guy, she’s out of the family.”
“What happened to her?”
“She gives birth to Maricel, leaves her at the door of the LDS mission Gerson was in—and she disappears.”
“What happened to her?”
“Nobody heard from her again. She didn’t get taken in by any relatives. Most likely, Grace says, she ended up a prostitute.”
“Grace say what Gerson did about it?”
Ryan was reading off his screen. “He didn’t do anything about it.”
“Well, that’s shitty.”
Ryan leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “You think?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to interview him again.”
“You mean you want us to interview him again?”
“I want to lead.”
“Okay, but like I told you before, you can’t stay on track with this guy, I’m gonna take you off the case.”
“You’d do that?”
“I don’t have that authority.” I looked at him hard. “But the chief says he will.”
“I hear you.”
W
e walked over to grab our coats. I wasn’t certain he had heard me.
It was a little after four-thirty when we walked into Gerson’s office.
“We need to see Dr. Gerson.” Ryan spoke to the secretary, who pulled back a little.
“Well, I know he’s just about to head home—”
“No, he’s not.” Ryan walked fast into Dr. Gerson’s office. I followed him.
The provost, his coat half on, was shutting down his computer. “Detectives.” His expression showed he realized we were going to come at him with a little more muscle.
“Dr. Gerson,” Ryan said, “we need to talk.”
“Of course.” The provost took his coat off and tossed it on the back of his desk chair. He motioned for us to sit.
I took a seat on the small couch. Ryan took a soft chair a few feet from Gerson’s.
Ryan took a copy of the photo out of his leather briefcase and handed it to the provost. “You’ve been wasting our time, Dr. Gerson.”
The provost looked surprised by Ryan’s tone. Then he gazed down at the photo, and the color drained out of his face. His shoulders sagged. He sat there, his right eye starting to twitch. I counted five, then ten, then fifteen.
Ryan was wearing a pissed-off look I hadn’t seen on him before. “You’ve got a decision to make. Tell us the story right now—the complete story, totally honest—or our best scenario is that Maricel came to the U.S. to shake you down and you didn’t want to pay. Which will it be? You going to talk to us?”
Gerson was slumped down, his hands on the arms of the chair like he needed to hold on to something. He nodded. “I had a relationship with Esperanza. She gave birth to Maricel.” Then he was silent.
“We’ve got some time, Brother Gerson. Can you fill in a few more details?”
“The story is quite long and complicated.” Gerson’s voice was weak and distant. “What would you like to know about in particular?”
“What did you do when you found out Esperanza was pregnant?”
Gerson was wearing the hollow, broken look I’d seen a lot of times when the guy was cornered. It was a mixture of shame, embarrassment, and resignation. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You didn’t report it to the Church?”
He shook his head, then his right hand came up to try to control the twitch.
“You didn’t make any effort to help Esperanza with the child?”
He shook his head again. “She disappeared. She didn’t want me to help.”
“If she had wanted you to help, would you have done so?”
Dr. Gerson looked up, a quizzical expression on his face. “That is, of course, a hypothetical question, Detective. I like to think that I would have.”
This time Ryan shook his head. “I don’t think you would have.”
I stood up fast. “Detective, can I see you a moment?” To Dr. Gerson, “You, don’t move.”
Ryan stood up, and I led the way out of Gerson’s office, out past the secretaries and into the hall. “Last warning, Ryan. This guy’s not on trial for being a sinner. He’s a suspect in a murder case. Here’s what you’re gonna do,” I said. His jaw was set. “We’re gonna go back into his office. You’re gonna sit there and take notes. You’re not gonna say a word. You open your damn mouth, I’m terminating the interview and see that you’re taken off the case.” I paused. “Is that clear?”
He looked at me.
I waited. “Is that clear?”
“Yes, Detective,” he said.
We went back into Gerson’s office and sat down. “All right, I appreciate you staying. We have a few more questions.”
He nodded.
“What happened to Esperanza?” I said.
“I don’t know. I believe she was ostracized by her family.”
“Did Maricel know you were her father?”
“No, she did not. I had not figured out how to broach the subject with her.”
“Was it your intent to tell her?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Help us understand how she came to Montana.”
“My mission in Manila lasted more than a month after Maricel’s birth. One way or another—I don’t know the details—the LDS Relief Society in Manila oversaw Maricel’s care. Someone from that group informed me of Maricel’s existence there—”
“Did you take any action at that time to connect with her?”
“No, Detective, to my everlasting shame, I did not.”
“I know you didn’t have any money, but why did you make no effort?”
“I offer these words as an explanation, not as an excuse. I had come into conflict with my companion on the mission. Missionaries are supposed to be almost literally inseparable—primarily to prevent situations like the one I was in. Obviously, he knew that, in one way or another, I was in violation of the Church’s policy of proper behavior.”
“And staying in the good graces of the Church was more important to you at that time than caring for Esperanza or the infant?”
“I was twenty-one years old, Detective.” His head was bowed, his voice low. His eye twitched out of control.
“And you had a girlfriend at home?”
“Many young men become engaged to their sweethearts before they begin their missions.”
“And were you engaged to Andrea when you left for the Philippines?”
He nodded.
“All right, Dr. Gerson, bring us up to date on Maricel coming to the U.S.”
“When I started my career and started accumulating some disposable funds, I began to support Maricel’s care—to the extent that I could—in the orphanage in Manila.”
“How old was she at that time?”
“Seven.”
“Did she know you were helping with her support?”
“Yes, she did.” He raised his head to look at me. “We exchanged letters, then emails. All she knew is that I was LDS, and that I had served my mission in Manila.”
“Did you ever tell Andrea about Maricel?”
“No,” he said. “Andrea knew I was helping support her, but she didn’t know I was her father. I was tempted to tell her—on many occasions. Perhaps you can imagine the sense of shame and anguish I was bearing all those years. But … I thought that telling Andrea would only hurt her deeply. In hindsight, I think it’s safe to say I did not have the courage to tell her. Then, after the loss of Mitch—and Andrea’s breakdown, and Mark’s diagnosis of schizophrenia—I concluded that telling my family would be … would be almost an act of selfishness on my part.”
“So nobody in your family knows Maricel was your daughter?”
“Detective.” He looked at me, then turned to Ryan. “And you as well, Detective Miner. I understand that you have no reason to believe what I tell you about this part of my life, but I say to you, before Heavenly Father, that I am truly sorry for my sins, and that I will bear the shame of my actions forever. What enables me to function is my faith in a Savior. Without that faith, I would not be able to survive. With that faith, I can continue to breathe.”
I took this all in. “Dr. Gerson, did you kill Maricel Salizar?”
“No.” A tear traced down his cheek. “I did not kill my daughter.”
“Do you know who did kill her?”
“No, Detective.” He was sobbing openly now. “I do not.”
I stood up. Ryan stood, too. “Dr. Gerson,” I said, “thank you for taking the time to speak with us.”
He nodded but remained seated. I’m not sure he could have stood up if he’d tried.
Ryan and I left the building, crossed the parking lot, and got in the cruiser. Neither of us said anything.
“He telling the truth?” I said.
“I’m allowed to open my mouth now?”
“Don’t pout, Ryan. It’s immature and unattractive.”
We were off the campus and most of the way back to headquarters when he spoke. “I don’t know if he’s telling the truth.”
“Why is that?”
�
�Everything hangs together, but it smells to me like a penitent-sinner parable.”
“Explain.”
“It’s not any one detail,” Ryan said. “It’s just that—a guy with his intelligence and his experience speaking in the Church—those stories are second nature to him. He can tell stories like that in his sleep.”
“And the crying at the end?”
“All part of the performance. I’m not saying he’s lying and he thinks now’s a good time to cry. But he could be fabricating parts of the story. He’s been writing and re-writing this story in his head for a couple of decades. Maybe it’s morphed into the version he told us—you know, the parable of the reformed sinner who places his trust in the forgiving God—and that version resonates with all the famous parables, and his body reacts appropriately. He cries. If the tears are real, they’re for himself. He’s sorry he screwed up and got caught.”
My head was starting to hurt. “So is he telling us the truth or lying?”
“No idea.”
“Okay, how do we find out?”
“We could push his wife a little—”
“I’d rather not do that. She’s already on the ledge.”
“That’s right. But how do we know he hasn’t told her? For all we know, she could be the one protecting his job and his place in the Church. Maricel blackmails her husband, she tells him to get rid of the girl. Or she does it herself.”
“You see her stabbing Maricel?”
“No, I don’t. I’m just saying I’m not ready to buy his story.”
“Any other ideas on how to get the truth?” I said.
“We could get his financials. Put his and Maricel’s side by side, we could answer the blackmail question.”
“Maybe. I’m gonna think about that.”
“That’s all I’ve got.”
The late-afternoon traffic was starting to pick up. I blew the horn at an asshole who cut in front of me without using his blinkers. I know the cruiser is unmarked, but if he thought about it just a little, a pale blue Ford LTD with a spotlight as big as a volleyball mounted above my outside mirror and a computer monitor in the front seat sticking up high enough to be visible—think a little bit, moron.
“I bought his story,” I said.
