It was enough to change Carlos’s attitude from suspicion to guilt. “It wasn’t what you think,” he said quietly.
“What was it, then?” Gwen asked.
“She was lonely,” Carlos said. “She had such an enormous burden of responsibility on her. And she needed someone who understood. That’s all I was doing. Listening to her when she needed to talk.”
“Until you weren’t just friends anymore,” Gwen put in.
Carlos sighed. Then he looked up at Gwen. “I didn’t kill her,” he insisted. “I loved her.”
“Did she say she was breaking up with you? Going back to her husband?” Gwen asked, leaning forward with urgency.
Carlos murmured something, possibly in Spanish. I didn’t understand it.
Apparently Gwen did, and she followed up with, “Luis wasn’t anywhere near here when Gabriela was murdered, but you were. Why should we believe you had nothing to do with it? What about your alibi?”
Carlos cringed. “I was at home. My mother told the police that already, didn’t she?”
“Your mother loves you,” Gwen said. “She would lie for you in a heartbeat.”
My stomach fell at this, but it might well be true. I would probably lie for any one of my sons if he were under investigation for murder.
I saw something change in Carlos’s expression. He hardened, and then his defensive stance changed. He looked straight at Gwen, his shoulders straight.
“Did Luis tell you that he physically abused his wife? Did he tell you that Gabriela was terrified of him? That she was relieved when he was deported because it meant she was safe?” he demanded.
“He didn’t admit to anything like that,” Gwen said, not realizing her mistake until after she’d spoken and glanced at me in regret.
“Of course he wouldn’t,” Carlos said passionately. “That would make it obvious who killed Gabriela.”
Damn. Now Carlos knew we’d interviewed Luis, meaning he was here in town, and it was easy for him to point to the other man for the murder. We were making this too easy for him. Gore would never have let him take control of this interview like that.
Gwen asked, “Do you know this for a fact? Had you ever seen Luis hurt Gabriela?” I could hear her breathing faster. She was too invested in this.
“No, I never saw him in person at all. He was gone by the time I knew Gabriela and it’s good for him that he was, because I would have made him sorry for what he’d done to her,” Carlos said, and I thought I heard real anger there.
“So she said she was afraid of him hurting her? What else did she tell you?” Gwen asked.
“It wasn’t just what she said. It was how she acted all the time. Like a string pulled tight, ready to snap.” He put his thumb and forefinger together, then released them with a flick. He went on, “She told me a story once, when it was late and she was vulnerable and upset. She said that on Christmas Day the year before, he had chased her out of their old apartment with the knife he’d been using to cut up the turkey. She had to beg the apartment manager for help.”
I thought about the Gabriela I had known, independent and capable. Was it possible she’d made up a story like this just to gain Carlos’s sympathy? Or could he have made it up himself? As a salesman, he must be used to saying whatever got him what he wanted from a customer. But I believed him instinctively.
“What happened after that?” I asked as Gwen collected herself. She had a hand over her heart. I was sure the story had hit close to home for her, a domestic abuse victim herself.
Carlos spoke with emotion, a born storyteller. “She had to sneak back into the apartment and get the kids out through the window. Luckily, it was on the ground floor. She was that terrified of Luis.” He looked back and forth between me and Gwen.
Luis had clearly been hiding something from us. This could be it.
Carols continued with a dramatic gesture, “She said he was completely unpredictable. Sometimes he would be a loving husband and father. Then suddenly, he would act like a maniac. She didn’t know what set him off, but she decided she couldn’t take chances anymore. He might hurt or kill her, and then what about their kids?”
I considered Gabriela’s position in the United States. Without documentation, she might have felt like she was better off not asking the police for help in case her legal status came up. And the increased raids from ICE in the last couple of years wouldn’t have made her feel safer, either. People without citizenship could be treated terribly, and had so much more to fear.
“So, you’re saying that Luis made up the story about Gabriela having an affair?” Gwen asked, back in control of her emotions.
Carlos waved dismissively. “Of course he made it up. I’ll tell you the same thing I told Detective Gore. He’s the one you should be looking at for Gabriela’s murder. He wanted his kids back, and Gabriela was standing in his way.”
That part I believed, but the rest I didn’t know about. Carlos and Luis both seemed like potential suspects, but Gore hadn’t arrested either of them so far. I wished I knew what her take on the case was.
We stood up and thanked Carlos for his time, then left.
Chapter 24
“Do you believe Carlos?” Gwen asked as we sat in the car and stared at the apartment building.
“About Luis abusing Gwen?” I said, trying to sort through my impressions. I knew I’d liked the handsome, well-dressed Carlos immediately, and that I’d seen Luis put his fist through a wall. Was I being led by the nose to certain conclusions? Could Carlos be the murderer here? Could he have been the abusive one? Or could it have been both of them, and Carlos just covered his tracks better? “I don’t know.”
She nodded, then said, “Carlos was a little too slick. But I can’t see that he has any potential motive to kill Gabriela.”
“I thought Gabriela was killed for something work-related, but I guess it could just as easily be because of something in her personal life,” I said, remembering how bright Carlos’s eyes had seemed whenever he spoke of Gabriela.
Gwen tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, then changed the subject—or seemed to. “Do you ever wonder what you’d do if your husband was away for a whole year? I mean, how you’d survive?”
“I’m not sure what I’d do without Kurt,” I said honestly. He was my rock, my foundation. It would be more devout of me to say that Jesus was my rock, or the church was, or something like that, but it wasn’t true. It was Kurt. Which was why I had such a hard time when we were at odds with each other, like we’d been last year. And right now, considering what had gone on last night.
“People always say that. But you’d have no choice but to survive. I mean, you’d figure out some way to get along, wouldn’t you? Women whose husbands are in the armed forces run their households alone for years sometimes. And people have to move on after a loved one’s death, too,” Gwen said.
What was this about? Was she trying to imagine her life without Brad? I wasn’t sure I should help her to do that.
“I guess you do what you have to do if there’s no other choice,” I said lamely, wishing I was able to come up with something more than trite phrases.
“But if it wasn’t death, only a long separation, would that make it different?” Gwen said.
“I think it would make a huge difference,” I said. “If you knew you were only waiting, you could hold on.”
“What if Gabriela had thought she’d never see Luis again? If she had, could you forgive her for having an affair?” Gwen asked, veering back to the case. Or maybe she’d never left it, and it was only me who had.
“It’s not really about me forgiving her, is it? It’s about understanding what happened,” I said.
“But maybe Gabriela didn’t see what she had with Carlos as an affair. Maybe she needed him for emotional support, or just . . . physical satisfaction,” Gwen said, unconvincingly trying to make
casual, adulterous sex sound less crude. “Maybe she would eventually have gone back to Luis. He was her husband, after all. Sealed to her in the temple.” Her tone was cold at this.
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “You knew her better than I did.” I couldn’t help but think about the mother I’d gotten to know, hovering over her children, always concerned for them first. It was difficult for me to think of her jumping into bed with a handsome coworker. Then again, I was a mother and also a sexual being. My kids might not be able to imagine my sex life, but I had one.
“If Luis really was abusing Gabriela, why wouldn’t I have noticed the signs?” Gwen asked, and I wasn’t sure who she was angry at now. Herself? Her father? Luis? Even Gabriela?
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe she was good at hiding it.” But I wondered if Gwen had become close with Gabriela because of a subconscious realization that they were vulnerable in the same ways, both abuse victims. It would make sense.
“Luis didn’t sound like he felt guilty about anything. He saw Gabriela as the one in the wrong. He was the long-suffering righteous husband and father.”
Now I wished I’d taken Luis’s letters to Gabriela from the apartment. Gwen’s Spanish would have been good enough to read them. But I hadn’t thought they were important then.
Gwen pulled out and started driving. I thought she would make another speculation about Gabriela, but instead she asked suddenly, “Do you think my father thought he was right to have done what he did to me? Or do you think he just didn’t care what was right?”
Oh, no. This wasn’t the time for a conversation of this gravity, but I couldn’t evade the question. I wished she hadn’t started driving already. “I think your father is an evil man, and I’m not sure why he did what he did, or if that matters,” I said.
“Hmm,” Gwen said. She was shaking slightly. If I wasn’t watching her so closely, I might not have noticed.
“Gwen?” I said. Should I offer to take over the driving? Or just suggest she pull over for a few minutes?
“I’m fine,” she insisted, and kept going.
Since distracting her from the road with more talk about Gabriela’s situation was probably unwise, I tried to keep quiet and let her focus. I hoped that I’d been right to come with her to see Luis and then Carlos—that I was helping her by being there, not making things worse.
Finally, the shaking was bad enough that she couldn’t keep going. She yanked the wheel to the right and lurched to a stop, then leaned over the wheel and started to breathe deeply. I reached over to touch her, but she jumped and glared at me, so I put my hands up and stayed away.
“Gwen? Do you want me to drive?”
She grunted at me and I wished I could do something for her. There were tears on her face, but she wasn’t sobbing. They just streamed down until she took a breath and brushed them away. She held her head high and seemed to be trying to come back from wherever she had gone for a while. To the past, to her father, I assumed.
“It feels sometimes like no one cares about us. I mean, women who are trying to recover from abuse. The church doesn’t want to see us. Everyone wants us to be healed by the Atonement,” Gwen said bitterly, staring out the windshield. “So they can comfortably not have to hear our pain.”
I reached over the seats and patted her leg. It was awkward, but I had to do something to show her I was here for her. “I’m sorry,” I said softly. It was one thing I’d learned from Georgia’s death. People never knew what to say, but it was quite simple. “I’m sorry” was always right.
“I wonder sometimes if I had children if I’d hurt them—not the way my father hurt me, but in some other way,” she went on, sagging back in the seat a little. “If I couldn’t help it because I’m damaged, not normal.” She turned her head and glanced at me for just a moment before settling her gaze on the mountains again.
“You wouldn’t do that,” I said reassuringly. After what had happened to Gwen, I was sure she was the last person who would hurt a child.
“How can you be so sure, when I’m not?” she asked. She looked at me searchingly now, and I knew it was important for me to give her an answer.
“Because your father made you doubt yourself, and I can see you more clearly,” I said, feeling as if the answer hadn’t come from me, but from above. I hoped it was what she needed to hear.
She had let go of the steering wheel entirely and her hands were unsettled in her lap.
After a moment, she said, “I look at someone like Gabriela and I think—it’s likely she was abused, and yet she was still a good mother. Maybe it even made her a better mother, more likely to listen to and empathize with her children.”
“Maybe,” I said skeptically, thinking again that Gwen wasn’t my daughter, but I wished she was. I wished we had the kind of connection that meant I knew what she needed and could provide it. And, deep down, I also wished that I hadn’t lost Georgia and wasn’t always trying to find someone to take her place in my heart.
“But I’m not going to be a mother. I’m not going to have children. So what’s the point of all my pain?”
I had no answer for her. I didn’t know why we suffered. Wasn’t this the great question of theodicy? How could a good and righteous God allow such evil and suffering in the world? I moved my hand to grasp hers.
I said, “I don’t know. I only know that you’re good in your own way, Gwen. Despite everything you’ve been through, you’re still trying to help other people. That’s why you got involved in the Spanish ward. It’s why you became friends with Gabriela and other people here. And it’s why you want to find justice so much on this case.” Even if her prejudices might be getting in the way.
I patted her again. “Gwen, I want you to know that I admire you enormously for changing your life. You’re giving up a lot to go to the Police Academy. You had a comfortable job, a comfortable life. But that wasn’t enough for you. You couldn’t just sit and let your life be easy. You had to do more.” If I said it enough times, would she believe me?
She let out a long sigh and let go of my hand, looking out the windshield again. “Thank you, Linda,” she said after a moment. She seemed steadier now as she started to drive again, back up the hill toward our neighborhood.
Chapter 25
At home, I thought about Thanksgiving. It was too early to start making pies, but that was what I wanted to soothe myself right now. Flaky, rich pie crust with smooth, creamy pumpkin filling inside. Since it was time to make dinner, I poured my pie craving into a savory recipe: chicken pot pie.
The divine buttery smell soon filled the house. When Kurt got home, the pot pie was just ready to come out of the oven. If I do say so myself, it looked magnificent, the crust a nice golden-brown. The crimping along the edges had stayed intact, and there wasn’t a hint of a spill in the oven.
I suppose I could have made a salad to go along with it, but there were peas and corn and potatoes inside, and those counted as vegetables for the meal, right?
“Impressive,” Kurt said when he saw my masterpiece emerge.
I bustled around to get plates and silverware on the table, plus glasses and a pitcher of water. By then, the pie had cooled down enough to eat, and I gestured for him to sit.
He seemed nervous, and I was sure he was wondering what revenge might be waiting for him for threatening me with excommunication. I served up the pie and took a few bites to show him there was nothing wrong—with the pie, at least. Then he ate, blowing quickly on each bite before devouring it. About halfway through his first slice, he looked up at me and said in a humble tone, “I’m sorry about what I said before about calling you and Gwen in for a disciplinary council. Forgive me?”
“Forgiven,” I said easily. But it wasn’t really that easy. It never is.
“Are you going to tell me what you did today?” he asked. He had an uncanny sense of when I was nosing around in a police investigation. I
wasn’t going to fall for it. But on the other hand, maybe he could help me, even if he didn’t know he was.
“Can I ask you about your bishop interviews?” I said. Kurt constantly conducted interviews within the ward—there were the annual youth ones, the ones for a temple recommend, or those for extending a calling. He knew a lot about people lying to try to look better to him.
Kurt’s eyes narrowed. “Why?” he said.
“Just curious,” I said nonchalantly. “You do them all the time, but we’ve never really talked about them.”
He shrugged. “All right,” he said before another mouthful of pot pie.
“Do people lie a lot in official interviews?” I began.
“Well, sometimes, but not too often,” he said after a pause.
“But how do you know?” I asked.
“We’re not talking about how I know that you’re lying to me, are we?” Kurt asked. “Because that’s simple. I know your tells after all these years. Like biting your lower lip and looking away from me.”
I wasn’t biting my lip, though he made me put up a hand to check and see. “We’re not talking about me!” I said.
He took another bite of pot pie, then pointed his fork at me. “All right. Sometimes it’s body language. They fidget or tap their feet, or even shake their heads when they speak.”
“So what do you do then?” I asked. His interviews were official, but certainly not at the level of a police interrogation. He had to rely on people’s desire to tell the truth, to confess. I could learn from his techniques since I wasn’t the police, either.
“Well, it depends. I try to get them to understand that I’m there to help them. They usually open up after I assure them that the point isn’t punishment, but easing their pain and helping them along the path back to God. My point to them is that God knows the truth, and that lying to me is useless. It just makes it harder for them to move closer to exaltation and the celestial kingdom.”
I offered an encouraging hmmm at this.
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