The Burnt House (33 page)

The group nodded. Decker was the first one to speak. “It’s logical, but wasn’t Ivan at work by eight-thirty or nine? If the man was racing out at seven in the morning, he doesn’t have enough time to find a spot, bury her, take her car to the airport, then find a ride back to his condo so he can pick up his own car and be at work by nine.”

Wang said, “Maybe the witness got her times mixed up.”

Decker said, “Killing someone in a car in broad daylight is very chancy. So is dragging a body and shoving it into the trunk. There’s also a real possibility that her car was speeding because she was rushing to make the doomed flight.”

Marge said, “Erika Lessing, the flight attendant who worked the counter for WestAir, distinctly remembers
not
seeing Roseanne.”

“A positive witness is better than a negative one,” Decker said. “Roseanne could have slipped in without Erika noticing her.”

“Of course,” Marge answered, “but the bigger issue is that Roseanne’s remains haven’t been found at the crash sight.”

Decker said, “That, together with a witness who saw the car speeding off, is what we’re going to use to get a warrant to search the car. If Roseanne was violently murdered inside her vehicle or in the trunk, we would probably find more blood than would be expected, a reasonable amount even if Ivan cleaned the car.

“Assuming he didn’t change the carpets,” Wanda said. “What if he did?”

“Then that would be suspicious,” Marge said.

“Exactly,” Decker said. “So before we even bother a judge with a
warrant, let’s investigate to see if Ivan did anything with the car that would arouse suspicions.”

“Like changing the carpets?” Oliver said. “What do you want? For us to start checking BMW dealers?”

Wanda said, “If he was hiding bloody carpets, do you think he’d use a dealer?”

Decker said, “Even so, start with the dealerships. Best place to order new carpets, and there aren’t that many of them in this area. If that doesn’t work, canvass the independent car-repair shops. Ivan’s not a genius but he wouldn’t drive around in a car with blood-soaked carpets.”

“Yeah, but he seemed really excited about driving Roseanne’s Beemer,” Oliver said. “Nothing as sweet as driving a car you didn’t pay for.”

AT ELEVEN TWENTY-SIX
A.M
.,
a grinning Decker announced that Raymond Holmes’s right finger-and right thumbprints matched the fingerprints on file at Roswell Correctional for Belize Hernandez. Upon hearing the first bit of definite news, the squad room broke into cheers. His matching prints together with the old man’s story made the contractor a prime candidate in Beth Devargas’s murder, and jumped Holmes to the top of the list in regard to the disappearance of Roseanne Dresden, speeding Beemer and lie-detector test notwithstanding.

With the matching prints, Raymond Holmes’s visits to Santa Fe Correctional, and Martin Hernandez’s assurance that he would testify against his son in exchange for his immediate freedom, Decker had no problem getting a warrant for Holmes’s arrest for Beth’s murder. It was signed and sealed by two in the afternoon, and at six in the evening, Decker, Oliver, and Marge were sitting in row 13, seats A, B, and C on a Southwest flight from Burbank a.k.a. Bob Hope Airport to San Jose International. Holmes would be brought in for voluntary questioning the next morning at San Jose PD and proper personnel at the police station had been informed of the mission, ready to assist the trio in whatever they needed.

To everyone’s relief, Holmes agreed to come in without the necessity of announcing the purpose of the visit. But this time, he was wary enough to ask for a lawyer. Three hours later Holmes and a gray-suited man named Taz Dudley waited for Decker in an interview room at San Jose PD in a western-area precinct.

The party was about to begin.

R
EMEMBERING HOW MUCH
Holmes sweated, Decker brought in a box of tissues and made sure that there was plenty of water available. Immediately, the big man poured himself a glass, drained it, and poured another one. The interview would probably be interrupted by frequent bathroom visits, which would affect the rhythm of the questioning but such is life. Holmes had dressed comfortably—sweatpants and a black T-shirt that tented over his belly like a parachute. He had socks and sneakers on his feet. His mouthpiece, Taz Dudley, was garbed in a navy shadow-stripe suit, cream-colored shirt, and a red tie.

Some minutes were taken up by introductions. Then Decker started the conversation.

“Are you comfortable, Mr. Holmes?”

“How comfortable can I be when I’m dragged away from my house and continue to be treated like a common criminal?”

Taz Dudley placed a manicured hand on his shoulder. “Let me talk, Ray. That’s why you’re paying me. You just settle down, okay?” The
lawyer was an austere-looking man, with a portly build and a decent head of salt-and-pepper hair. He had deep brown eyes, a square chin, and a tan that either came from many Caribbean vacations or hours in a salon. “Do you want to tell us why you brought my client in for questioning?”

Decker’s words addressed the lawyer but he looked at Holmes. He threw out a false start. “Your client was having an affair with a woman who is now missing.”

“God, I don’t believe this!” Holmes shouted.

“Ray, please—”

“No, you let me handle this, Mr. Dudley. I want to have my say. Then you can take over.” He glared at Decker. “You asked me to take a polygraph test, I took a polygraph test
without
a lawyer. And I passed. Now here it is, what…like four weeks later, and you’re back again. This isn’t questioning, this is harassment. I cooperated. Yet you continue to prevent me from working, so I’m losing money there. Plus, you’re costing me money to retain a lawyer. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do if this continues, I’m going to sue San Jose, I’m going to sue LAPD, and I’m going to personally sue you!”

Holmes grabbed the glass of water, but knocked it down instead. Decker dabbed up the mess with some tissues and gave Holmes a wad to dab his face.

“This is just ridiculous!” The big man mopped up his wet face. “Look, I am truly sorry that the woman is missing—”

“Ray, you’ve said enough,” Dudley interrupted.

“Okay, okay.” He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Just get me out of here, okay?”

“Is it your intention to arrest my client?”

“It might be.”

“What the
fuck
do you want from me?” Holmes cried out.

“Ray—”

“No, I want to know why you’re harassing me after I cooperated with every request you made. This is what I get from being a good citizen?”

Decker said, “If you would just hold your outrage for a few minutes,
maybe I can ask you a few questions and straighten this mess out. Then we can all go home, happy campers.”

“That’s what you said the last time I was here!”

“Mr. Holmes, I understand your frustration. We are just doing our job.”

“Have you been talking to that scumbag husband of hers?”

“Ray—”

He stood up abruptly. So did Decker. “Relax,” Holmes said. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Decker nodded. “I’ll take you.”

“You’re not going with me. For all I know, while I’m in there with you, you’ll zap me with a taser.”

“Your lawyer can come as well.”

“This is just plain embarrassing!” He looked at his lawyer. “Make sure he stays away from my dick.”

The excursion took up another ten minutes. After they were reseated, Holmes appeared as if he had lost a little of his steam. Decker said, “I’d just like to ask your client a few questions, all right?”

“Go ahead,” Dudley said.

“Thank you.” Decker looked at Holmes. “The night before Roseanne Dresden disappeared, you told me that you were home with your wife all evening.”

“Yes,” Holmes answered.

“I really think it would be in your best interest to have your wife come in and sign a statement backing up your claim.”

“You know that’s just a form of intimidation, Lieutenant,” Dudley said. “Mr. Holmes has admitted to an affair with Roseanne Dresden. He has also told you that he had not seen the woman in six months prior to her disappearance.”

“We’ve been through this already,” Holmes broke in. “I swear to God, I don’t know what happened to Roseanne. I don’t know if she died in the crash, I don’t know if that scumbag husband did her in, or I don’t know if she hooked up with some loser with a nasty temper.
I don’t know, okay?
”

“Okay,” Decker said.

Holmes wiped his wet face. “Okay.” Sensing that the heat had been lifted, he sat back in his chair and took another glass of water. “Can I go home now?”

“Not quite yet,” Decker said. “I have a good reason for asking your wife to sign a statement, sir. It would just be one less charge to deal with.”

Holmes sat up. “What are you talking about?”

“Let me handle this,” Dudley said. “Are you going to explain or is it your intention to keep us holed up for nothing?”

“Mr. Dudley, your client has an identity problem.” He looked at Holmes and then reached in his suitcase and pulled out a legal document dated twenty-three years ago. “You weren’t always Raymond Holmes, were you?”

Dudley picked up the paper, but Holmes grabbed it from his hand. The big man looked at the paper and a new wave of sweat washed over his face. “This is what you’re asking me about?” He shook it in front of Decker. “This is what you’re in an uproar about? So what? So I changed my name. I didn’t think Tomas Martinez would go over too well in the Silicon Valley. You think I’m an upstart spic, is that what you think?”

The best offense
…

Dudley took the paper from Holmes’s hand. “This is a legal name change.” He stared at Decker and then at his client. “What’s the prob—” He stopped himself.

“What’s the problem?” Decker finished the sentence. “Yes, Mr. Dudley, we do have a problem. Tomas Martinez was born in Madrid, New Mexico, and died of pneumonia when he was eight years old.”

“Oh, for God’s sakes!” Holmes bellowed. “Do you know how many Tomas Martinezes there are in New Mexico? It’s a very common name.”

“I’m sure it is, but there’s only one Tomas Martinez that matches your Social Security number and date of birth.” Holmes was struck silent; his lawyer as well. “You want to tell us how you came to take Tomas Martinez’s identity?”

Dudley moved in. “I’d like a few minutes alone with my client.”

“Of course,” Decker said. “Just look up at those cameras when you’re ready to talk to me.”

“OKAY,” HOLMES SAID
after Decker returned. “This is the story and it’s the God’s honest truth. Are you ready to listen?”

“I’m ready to listen.”

“Okay. I’m going to tell you what’s going on with that and we can all go home.” The big man let out a big sigh. “I got into trouble when I was younger. I had a hard life, I had an old man who beat the crap out of me. I had an old lady who was a junkie. I was the oldest, so everyone gave me shit. I’m not asking for sympathy. I’m just giving you some background as to why I did what I did, okay?”

“Sure,” Decker said.

“I grew up in New Mexico, which, if you’ve ever been there, is a sparsely populated state with lots of wide-open space. Like I said, my old man was a con and my old lady was a junkie. I became a wild kid and there was no one around to stop me. Just me and a bunch of bums and the open road.”

“Go on.”

“No discipline, no nothing. I did some things that I’d like to forget.”

“Like?”

“Ah, c’mon! Do I have to spell it out?”

“It would be nice.”

“Jesus! Okay. Auto theft, B-and-Es, assaults. I got into a lot of fights. I was an angry, wild kid with no discipline. It finally caught up with me when I was eighteen. I did a few years in Roswell Correctional Center, and then they paroled me for good behavior. I came out a changed man, Lieutenant. This is the key. I became a completely changed man.”

“A stay in prison can change a man.”

“You better fucking believe it! I wasn’t ever going back inside again. Never ever! All I wanted was a fresh start and a couple of breaks. I moved to Madrid, which is only about ten miles south of Santa Fe. I only stayed there for a little while because it was too close to Santa Fe
for me to be comfortable. Lots of bad memories. Tomas Martinez was dead. Tomas Martinez didn’t have a record. I figured what’s the harm? He was my fresh start.” Holmes’s shirt was sodden. “I worked construction in southern New Mex and all the way up in the Four Corners. I worked hard and kept my mouth shut. I had natural talent for woodworking. I learned all I could until I felt good enough to branch out on my own. I searched for good places to live, and at that time, Silicon Valley was the up-and-coming place. The men here…”

Holmes laughed derisively and waved his hand.

“They’ve got brainpower, I’m not going to deny that. They can do amazing things with chips, motherboards, and computers, but they don’t know a hammer from a screwdriver. It’s Nerd City. I figured it was a good place to make a kill—to do well in the construction trade. People were coming in all over the place, and housing was sprouting up like weeds. After my visit, I said to myself, ‘Buddy, you hit gold.’ So I changed my name to something more white-collar and set up shop. You look at my records and you’ll see I’m telling the truth.”

“So I have your permission to look at your records?” Decker asked.

“No, you don’t,” Dudley answered. “He was speaking metaphorically.”

“There’s nothing to see even if I gave you permission,” Holmes said.

Decker was quiet for a moment. Like all good tall tales, this one had snippets of truth. “What was your given name?”

Holmes’s eyes darted from side to side. If the guy had any smarts, he had to figure that this was going to be Decker’s next question.

“Is that really necessary?” Holmes stalled. “I want to put that part of my life behind me.”

“Yes, it is really necessary.”

“Why?” Dudley asked. “Unless it has direct impact on the so-called charges that you’re going to present us with, it is irrelevant.”

“It has to do with the truthfulness of your client, sir.” Decker faced Holmes. “What’s your given name?”

Holmes was silent. Dudley filled in the silence. “If you want to know the answer to that question, come back with a warrant.”

Decker held up the palm of his hand. “It’s rhetorical, Counselor. Because Mr. Holmes has to know that if he was in the prison system, his fingerprints would be on file.”

Holmes reached for more tissues but had used them all up. Decker looked at the mounted video camera and asked for another box of Kleenex. “You know that sample tile that you gave prospective home buyer Oliver Scott day before yesterday? Well, it contained two beautiful right thumb- and index fingerprints.”

Holmes looked green. “He was a cop?”

“He was a cop and he’s looking at you as we speak. Now, when you were incarcerated way back when, we didn’t have the luxury of Automated Fingerprint Identification System, but your prints, of course, were filed even if they weren’t inputted into AFIS. The key is to know who you’re looking for. And we damn well knew who we were looking for. So all we had to do was call up Roswell, and bingo, we had a match. Now, do you want to tell me your given name?”

“You don’t have to answer that, Ray,” Dudley told him. “Either charge him, Lieutenant, or we’re going home.”

Decker regarded Holmes. “If I book you for murder, there’s no turning back. You’re in the system once again, Mr. Holmes. That means you’re going to spend the night in jail while your lawyer sleeps in his bed—”

Holmes held up his hand. His face had become defiant. “If you know who I am, you tell me.”

“Does the name Isabela Devargas ring a bell?”

Holmes blanched and a downpour of water cascaded over his face.

“That’s a woman’s name,” Dudley said.

“That’s a dead woman’s name,” Decker answered.