When the Devil Doesn't Show: A Mystery (21 page)

She was in a Santa County detention center after having been processed at the sheriff’s department, which included a mug shot and fingerprinting. She had passed the field sobriety tests—sort of. Bad footing or icy pavement could explain her minor stumbles. But there was no arguing with the Breathalyzer test. She’d known that if she refused to take it, she could be charged with aggravated DWI, so she blew into the instrument—as she had so many times at home to ensure that she never drove drunk. The Breathalyzer had registered a .09, just above the .08 limit. She would be held in lockup until arraignment in the morning, at which point she could post bond and get out. In the meantime, she was trying to figure out a way to get in touch with Gil.

A corrections officer came by, and she called over to him, saying, “Did you call him? What did he say?”

“He didn’t answer,” the officer said.

“Call him again.”

“Give it up. He’s not coming to get you out of here,” the officer said.

“What about his partner, Joe?”

“I talked to him. He didn’t say anything. Sorry.”

“What time is it?”

“Just after nine thirty.”

*   *   *

Mateo Garcia stood at a glass-and-wood counter with a calculator in his hand. He had locked the store’s doors at 9:00
P.M
. and turned the red-and-white sign on the door to
CLOSED
. Now he had the shoebox containing all the IOUs in front of him. Willie’s visit that day had made Mateo curious about just how much money he would owe the mountain man when the time came. Mateo had spent the last ten minutes pulling out receipts and typing numbers off the IOUs into a calculator. Willie came in only four or five times a year, but the fifty-dollar checks came in every month.

There was a knock on the door and Mateo looked up. Mr. Anaya, Shorty Anaya’s father, waved at him through the glass. Mateo went to unlock the door, and Mr. Anaya came shuffling in, leaning heavily on his cane.

“What can I help you with tonight, sir?” Mateo asked him.

“Oh, I need candy,” he said. “It’s almost Christmas. I need candy to hand out to the kids when they come to the door.”

While Mr. Anaya made his way over to the candy aisle, Mateo went back to the counter to use the store phone. A few minutes later, Shorty Anaya drove up and came into the shop, stomping the snow off his boots.

“Thanks for calling,” he said to Mateo. They both watched as Shorty’s father took a Hershey bar and put it in his coat pocket. Shorty shook his head, laughed, and yelled across the store, “Dad, put the candy back. It’s not yours.” Mr. Anaya didn’t listen and put a bag of Skittles in his pocket next.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mateo asked. “I’d rather
he
shoplifted from me than some teenager. How’s he doing with the Alzheimer’s?”

“He’s good,” Shorty said, “until he goes wandering off like this. How he manages to walk in the dark up that icy road…” He didn’t finish the thought.

“It’s no problem,” Mateo said. “At least he always comes here and doesn’t head off into the woods.”

“I think he comes here because he remembers it from when he was a kid,” Shorty said. The Anaya family had been shopping at Garcia’s Hardware since it first opened in 1910. The Anayas still lived in the house where generations of children had grown up.

The wood floor creaked as Shorty went over to the candy aisle. “Dad, it’s time to go,” he said, taking his father’s arm to lead him out of the store.

“I don’t want to go,” Mr. Anaya said, sounding like a whining child. “I need to get candy for when the kids come to the door.”

“He’s been saying that since he got here,” Mateo said. “I think he’s remembering
Mis Crismes.
” Mateo’s mother had told him stories about
Mis Crismes
from when she was a girl in the 1950s. On Christmas morning she and her brothers and sisters would each take a pillowcase and go door to door to neighbors, yelling, “
Mis crismes.
” When the neighbors opened the door, each child would get a treat in his bag. Mrs. Quintana had popcorn balls. The Archuletas gave out candy canes. The Ortegas down the hill made
bizcochitos.
His mother could come home with a pillowcase full of cookies, apples, and oranges. Mateo wondered why the tradition had died out. He and his friends had never celebrated it. As best he could tell, his mother’s generation was the last one that did, unless the practice still survived in the tiny mountain villages.

“Is that what you’re talking about, Dad?” Shorty asked him. “Are you remembering back when you celebrated
Mis Crismes.
”

“Mis Crismes, Mis Crismes,”
Mr. Anaya said in a little high voice, making Shorty and Mateo laugh.

“Those were good times,” Shorty said as they reached the door. Mateo opened it for them. “Back then you got Christmas candy for free just by asking for it and you didn’t have to shoplift.” Mateo told them good night as he closed the door behind them. He decided to leave the IOUs for another day and instead made a sign that read, C
LOSED UNTIL
D
ECEMBER 26
, which he put on the door that he locked behind him.

*   *   *

One of Lucy’s cellmates had woken up, and Lucy had gone into interview mode, talking to the woman as if she were a subject of an article, asking her question after question yet never offering any information about herself. The woman, who had four kids, two ex-husbands, and only $14.02 in the bank, had been arrested on her third DWI, which meant jail time. Lucy was just about to ask the woman if she was scared to go to jail when the corrections officer came past again and Lucy asked, “What time is it?”

“It’s twenty minutes later than the last time you asked,” he said.

“That would make it after eleven, right?”

“Why do you keep asking me about the time?” he asked.

“It’s after eleven, right? That’s all I need to know.”

“Fine, yeah. It’s officially”—he looked his watch—“eleven-oh-nine and fifteen seconds.”

“Thank you. I want to make my phone call.” He shook his head and opened the cell door, leading her to the guard station, where the phone was. She dialed Tommy Martinez’s cell phone.

“Hey, boss, what’s up?”

“I’m in jail,” she said.

“For what?” he asked, sounding like he didn’t believe her.

“DWI, but that’s not why I called. I need a favor.”

“I can come bail you out—” he started to say.

“No, I need you to do something for me,” Lucy said. “Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?”

“Yeah, okay, go ahead.”

“Do you know who Detective Gil Montoya is, with the Santa Fe Police?”

“Sure…”

“Can you get a hold of him right away?”

“No problem.”

“I need you to ask him something,” she said. “Write this down. I need you to ask him if it’s true that all the victims of the recent home invasions worked in the same department at Los Alamos National Lab.”

“Really? Is that true? Do they?”

“I don’t know for sure,” she said.

“Now you’re fishing.”

“I’m hoping he’ll look into it after you call him,” she said. “I can’t seem to get him to call me back.”

“So you were at the fire where the two bodies were found?”

“Yep,” she said. “I was there.” She thought of the joke she’d made with Gil at the fire scene, when she’d teased him about giving her his trademark don’t-tell-anyone-at-the-newspaper-about-this-crime-scene speech.

“This will go great in the story I’m writing tonight about the newest home invasion,” Tommy said. “Wait.… damn. It’s past eleven o’clock. Copy desk probably put the paper to bed already. Hang on.” In the background, Lucy heard Tommy calling over to the night editor. She couldn’t be sure of what they said to each other, but she was completely sure of what the answer would be. In journalism, some deadlines were absolute.

“Damn,” he said back into the phone. “They said there’s no way to stop the presses.”

“Yeah. I know,” she said. “It’s a bitch how those deadlines work. If only I’d called a half hour ago.” She could hear how tired she sounded. Not sarcastic, just tired.

“I guess I can get it in the day after tomorrow,” he said. “That sucks, though.”

Lucy sighed. “Yeah, it sucks, but that should be fine. It’ll be a big scoop.” The story wouldn’t hit the paper—or any other media—until Christmas Day. It might give Gil enough time to do something with the information she was sending him through Tommy.

“But you still have to make the call as soon as we hang up.”

“Okay. I will. Promise,” Tommy said. “What else can you tell me? What’s the name of the department they work in? When did the home invasions we’re talking about happen? Do they include those people killed in the house fire and the family that was hit last night?”

“Nope. That’s all you’re getting from me.”

“Okay. I’ll figure it out.”

“I know you will.”

“But what do I say when Montoya asks how I got the information?”

“Tell him the truth,” Lucy said, laying her head against the wall near the phone and closing her eyes. She had promised Gil only three days ago that she wouldn’t tell anyone at the newspaper about the fire or the bodies. Seventy-two hours was all it took for her to renege. She felt worse about breaking that promise than about her DWI. She had been drinking and driving; she deserved to be arrested. It was embarrassing, but she could make a joke out of it that would make everyone laugh, including herself. But her promise to Gil wasn’t as easy to make light of. She knew Gil had taken her promise seriously—and would take her breaking it just as seriously. She might just have lost one of her few friends. “Tell him I told you—and please tell him I’m really sorry.”

*   *   *

Joe was asleep against the passenger-side window. His breath had caused condensation to build up on the windshield. It was hard to see outside the SUV, but the heavy vapor also served as a tinted window, making it hard for anyone to see in. They had been sitting outside of Abetya’s house for more than seven hours. Gil was reconsidering having SWAT go in when his phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, but thought it might be Chief Kline calling him back.

“Detective Montoya, this is Tommy Martinez from the
Capital Tribune.
How is your evening going?”

“Can I help you with something?”

“Yes, sir. I was hoping you could confirm that all the victims from the three home invasions you’ve had this week are connected.”

Gill thought for a second before saying, “What do you mean connected?”

“I mean they all worked in the same department up on the Hill.”

The ringing phone had woken Joe up, and he was staring at Gil, trying to understand only one side of the conversation.

“The Hill?” Gil asked, confused. “I don’t—where are you getting your information?”

“From my boss … I mean my old boss, Lucy Newroe.”

“Lucy told you to call me,” Gil said. It wasn’t a question. Next to him, Joe swore loudly. “And she said the victims all worked up on the Hill.” Joe swore again.

“Yes, sir, and she told me to tell you that she’s sorry.”

“May I ask what she said she was sorry for?”

“She didn’t say,” Martinez said. “I assume she thought you’d know.” Gil did know—she was sorry for breaking her promise.

Gil hung up the phone after saying “No comment,” but not in response to a specific question, just the conversation in general. He looked over at Joe.

“We missed something.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

December 24

It was early morning when Kristen Valdez pulled up in front of the Gonzales mobile home. For the last half hour, she had been watching from her house up the street, waiting for the telltale smoke coming out of the Gonzales’ adobe oven in the backyard. Everyone would be cooking today, and the first thing that had to be done was to make the fire in the
horno
before sunrise. While she’d waited, she spent her time trying to get a good enough Internet connection to research genetics on her phone. She had been thinking about the man who had burned in the house fire. If she understood the Wikipedia entry about genetics correctly, it seemed possible that George Gonzales was the missing man. Joe had said that genetic testing proved the burned man had been a crypto-Jew, which meant he was a descendant of the conquistadors. For more than four hundred years, the pueblo tribes had been intermarrying with the Spanish, to the point that it was no longer possible to determine based on looks alone who was Northern New Mexico Hispanic and who was Pueblo Indian. If a Gonzales’ ancestor had married a crypto-Jew, George might have the gene.

Now Kristen got out of her Mitsubishi Eclipse, which looked almost doll-like next to the black Ford F-150 truck already in the driveway, and walked up to the Gonzales’ door. She felt the wind cut through her jeans and creep up under her T-shirt. She pulled her coat around her tighter as she knocked, then glanced back at her own house, just up the road. She could swear she saw her mother peeking out from behind the kitchen curtains. Her mother had been none too happy when Kristen had told her about the governor’s request to help locate George Gonzales, because it meant going into the witch’s home. Kristen touched the turquoise stone hanging from a heavy silver chain around her neck. Her mother had made her wear it because the blue color warded off spirits that might wish to do her harm. She also was carrying a loaf of bread wrapped in foil, which her mother had sent in the hope that it might keep them in Josephine Gonzales’s good graces.

Mary Gonzales, George’s wife, answered on the second knock. She was a large woman in her twenties with acne-marked skin and smooth, straight black hair.

“Hello, Mary,” Kristen said. “How are you?”

Mary didn’t answer. Kristen said, “The governor told me you were worried about your husband. He wanted me to look into it.”

Mary didn’t move the door, which she had pulled open only a few inches.

“That’s okay,” she said. “We don’t need any help. We heard from him yesterday. He’s fine.”

“I understand,” Kristen said, a little disappointed. That meant George wasn’t the burned man. It would have helped the case if he had been. “I’m glad it all worked out.” Mary wasn’t looking at her and instead watched the road, as if she were waiting for something, which made Kristen curious. She said, “Would you mind if I came in? My mom made some bread for your mother-in-law.”