Possessed (9 page)

In addition to her massage studio and her job in security at the club, downtown Ana met a lawyer, and before long, she worked part-time in his office as a translator for his Spanish-speaking clients. He'd later say that the clients liked her and felt comfortable with her, and that she appeared caring toward them.

Looking back, Suarez considered how it all came together, and said, “I think part of it was that the Rice wasn't a good place for Ana. It was after she moved in there that things started going crazy.”

The rumors of dark occurrences on that particular piece of downtown Houston real estate had begun decades before the current building was erected. The land was initially the site of the Republic of Texas capitol building, before statehood, when Texas was its own country. When the republic moved its headquarters, the building became the Capitol Hotel. The tragedies dated back to 1858, when the republic's fourth and last president, Anson Jones, shot himself in his room after dinner while a guest at the hotel. That building was razed in 1881, and the first Rice Hotel was erected by Houston oil magnate William Marsh Rice in 1881. That building was later torn down to make way for the current hotel in 1912.

Over time, witnesses reported strange occurrences at the hotel. Some claimed to have seen an ethereal woman in white who rattled doorknobs. Around a second-floor bathroom, the visage of a homeless woman sometimes appeared, a friendly spirit only seen by women. At other times, downtowners reported seeing the figure of a man jumping from an upper story over and over, a sight perhaps linked to the 1929 stock-market collapse when devastated investors across the U.S. took their lives.

One of the more common alleged sightings occurred off and on in the seven-thousand-square-foot Crystal Ballroom, with its columns and sparkling chandeliers, a popular
venue for weddings. At times, guests reported floating balls of light and couples in Victorian dress on the dance floor. When carefully eyed, the figures lacked feet. One theory was that the ballroom floor was raised at some point in the building's history, and the ghostly revelers twirled on the original surface.

In more modern times, on the day of his assassination, President John F. Kennedy rested in a room at the Rice before boarding his fateful flight to Dallas. Through the years, when that room was empty, some reported hearing a man's voice.

When Ana moved her studio into the Rice, Montoya said, “That was when all hell broke loose.”

From the beginning, Ana made no secret of her interest in the spiritual world. The first time she met Raul Rodriguez at a party, she spent much of the night talking about her beliefs, explaining that she'd turned her back on traditional religions, especially the Jehovah's Witnesses of her childhood. In particular, she expounded on her worship of the sun. As he listened, Rodriguez thought Ana sounded like a Wiccan, someone who thought of herself as a witch, as she described harnessing the power of the sun through her fingers and eyes.

While Rodriguez wasn't particularly concerned, he was surprised at Ana's enthusiasm. “There's always been an interest in spirituality in the Latin culture,” said Rodriguez. “But Ana talked and talked about it, unusually so.”

In Rodriguez's experience, many Hispanics believed in what he described as “white magic,” the use of crystals, herbs, and the like, to heal. On his part, Rodriguez believed in Karma and that some people,
curanderos
, Spanish for folk healers, had special abilities. Yet Rodriguez never spent an evening with anyone quite like Ana, who seemed consumed by it. Bubbly and fun on one hand, she became intense when she talked about her interest in developing what she described as her powers.

At the party, Ana circulated, approaching people,
holding their hands, turning them over and reading their palms. On a table, she fanned out a deck of tarot cards to predict futures, her eyes flashing with excitement much as they may have decades earlier when she'd shown an interest in such things as a little girl.

When Ana was a child, Trina objected when her daughter used a Ouija board in the family house. At night, without her mother's intercession, friends would later say that at the Rice Lofts, in a site some believed haunted, Ana, intoxicated after a night drinking in the bars, returned to her studio and again took out a Ouija board, calling on spirits, attempting to open a portal connecting the physical world and an invisible one. “A lot of Spanish-descended people believe in white and black magic,” said Montoya. “I didn't think anything of what Ana was doing at first. But then bizarre things kept happening. It was as if she had no boundaries.”

Much of what happened wouldn't seem out of step with the new Ana, the once suburban housewife who danced for men in bars. Montoya marveled at the changes in her friend, like the day she showed up at Ana's studio in the Rice and found her in a sexy outfit with a low-cut top, showing off her cleavage, standing on a stool, posing in front of a window.

“What are you doing?” Montoya asked.

“Just fooling around,” Ana said, explaining that a friend had called and asked her to stand in the window, so he could take pictures of her from the building across the street.

Later that afternoon, Montoya walked into a club and found a group of men, one with photos displayed on a laptop, erotic photos of Ana. “Does she know you took these?” Montoya asked, only to learn that they were the photos Ana had modeled for at the window. When Montoya told Ana that the men had been ogling her photos, Ana looked not angry but pleased.

“Well, really, did you like them?” she asked Montoya. “Are they good?”

Montoya laughed, thinking it was all crazy, that she'd been upset about the photos, when Ana obviously felt flattered.

But the voodoo doll truly caught Montoya's attention.

“Look what I have,” Ana said one day. Out of a small casket-like wooden box that also contained a chicken bone, Ana pulled a primitive doll fashioned from sticks and rags. She told Montoya that she'd bought it in New Orleans, and that she'd used it to put a spell on a man she worked with at Coca-Cola, one she claimed harassed her. True or not, what Ana said was that the man had died.

“Get it out of my shop,” Montoya told her, not wanting anything to do with the totem.

Laughing, Ana said, “It's only a toy.”

A voodoo doll similar to the one Ana Trujillo Fox carried

F
or the most part, on the surface, nothing seemed different about Ana Trujillo Fox. The Rice sponsored happy hours in a community room for residents, and Ana went often, sexily dressed, standing in her stilettos, holding a glass of wine, chatting to the mainly young professionals gathered. Some thought that perhaps the woman with the massage studio talked a little too loud, or insinuated herself unwelcomed into conversations, or touched them when they preferred that she keep a distance, but for the most part, she was a colorful addition to the parties.

As she became ever more enmeshed in the downtown night scene,
Ana continually reinvented herself, at one point hanging out with a group of rappers who drove in limousines and took her to extravagant parties. At other times, Montoya walked in and found her at the pool at the Four Seasons Hotel with a group of lawyers, getting some sun. “She moved with a wealthy crowd,” said the hairdresser. “She fit in with anyone, changing depending on who she was with.”

To her friends' surprise, Ana brought a young homeless woman into her studio, allowing her to stay. She had a sad story of being involved in drugs and losing custody of her child. When Ana's friends warned her of the dangers of taking in people off the street, Ana scoffed. In response, she claimed exceptional abilities that protected her and expressed no fears.

“I have powers,” Ana told Montoya one day. “I can do things with my mind.”

“You don't,” her friend replied. Over the years, Montoya had run into people who thought they were able to manipulate others by claiming a connection to the spirit world. That led her to the conclusion that any powers they had were granted by those who accepted their abilities as real. “The only way you have powers is if someone believes in you, and I don't believe.”

Before long, Ana started telling friends that she had a mentor, someone she encountered in downtown Houston who advised her on spirituality. When Montoya met the man, he was a bike messenger, delivering paperwork and packages between office buildings. The well-spoken young man said that he had a degree in theology but hadn't been able to find a job. “We talk about different religions,” Ana told a friend. “He's teaching me.”

Later, it would seem that Ana became what some in the mystic community called “a jumper,” a person who took bits and pieces from many religions, cobbling them into her own beliefs.

As vocal as Ana was, many took note of her new interests. Montoya's friends began referring to Ana as “your
witch friend,” and the hairdresser worried that perhaps Ana had crossed some invisible line and lost control of her life.

In February 2009, Ana failed to take a class required by the state and her massage license lapsed, yet she continued to practice. Late that month, Montoya threw her friend a fortieth birthday party with champagne, balloons and chocolate-dipped strawberries. Halfway through the happy event, Ana suddenly sobbed. When Montoya asked why, her friend said, “I've never had a birthday party. My mother didn't believe in them.”

That year, Montoya watched as Ana fell in love with a younger man, one she showered with gifts and trips, even taking him skydiving. Handsome, tall, well-spoken, he talked of marriage. Then he left on what was supposed to be a short work trip and never returned. She called and called, until his phone was disconnected. She'd gone through much of her money from her divorce settlement, including her 401K, and the man she'd showered it on left her without a word.

“Maybe he's dead,” Montoya said, as Ana cried, despondent.

Watching her friend suffering, trying to find her place in the world, Montoya felt ever closer to Ana. Yet the hairdresser's friends voiced alarm, worried about the association. “You need to get away from that woman,” one cautioned her. “She's dangerous.” Not yet ready to heed the warning, Montoya held tight to the friendship, exhilarated by Ana's zest for life.

T
hen something happened that changed Ana. Two versions would later unfold surrounding the events of May 15, 2009.

Months earlier, Montoya had introduced Ana to a man named Brian Goodney, who worked in the oil business and had a loft in the Rice. They'd met off and on, going out to dinner or drinks, but there wasn't a romantic connection. What they would later agree on was that on that evening, Goodney had a small dinner party in his apartment, and
Ana arrived rather late, as the other guests were leaving. Goodney walked his final guest to the parking garage, then returned to the apartment, and he and Ana were alone.

When explaining their connection, Ana later contended that she believed she and Goodney had a professional relationship, that they had plans to work together in the furniture business. In her account, he returned and she tried to leave, but for some unexplained reason, he blocked her exit and grabbed her by the shoulders, struggling with her, pinning her against a wall.

Later, Ana told Montoya that in the struggle, she grabbed a candlestick and hit Goodney on the back. In anger, he followed her down the long hallway to the door and pushed her against the wall. She fell and hit the floor, hurting her head. “She called me crying, saying she was bleeding from her ear,” said Montoya, who didn't care for Goodney.

“That's what you get,” she told her friend. “I told you to stay away from him.”

In sharp contrast, Goodney described a much different encounter.

The trouble, he said, started weeks earlier, when Ana asked him for a twenty-two-hundred-dollar loan. She refused to tell him what the money was for, and he turned her down. That set the stage for the night of the dinner party. When he walked back into the apartment, he said that Ana looked startled, as if she'd been interrupted. Suspicious, Goodney thought she may have been rifling through his things.

“Time to go,” he told her, and she followed him to the door. But then, without warning, he said, she picked a candlestick up off a table and clubbed him on the back of the head, knocking him unconscious.

In Brian Goodney's version of that night, he awoke on the hallway floor, near the apartment door. Opening his eyes, he saw Ana sitting on the floor a distance from him, staring at him. Saying nothing, she simply stood up, stepped over him, and left.

The next day, embarrassed by having been hit by a
woman, Goodney called her to ask why she hit him, but she didn't answer, Unbeknownst to him, by then Ana had filed a police report, claiming that he had pushed her to the floor, and she'd hit her head. For some reason, the police never talked to Goodney, but the following weekend, a man who identified himself as Ana's attorney called and threatened to file a felony assault charge against Goodney unless he paid Ana thousands of dollars. Goodney refused, and from that point on, he said he kept his distance from Ana.