The Bone Fire: A Mystery (36 page)

“Ahh . . .” Stevens said. That simple hesitation told Gil that he had just asked a question Stevens hadn’t answered before.

“It’s okay if you don’t remember,” Gil said. “Let’s move on. You mentioned you bought gas. How much was the price per gallon?”

“I . . . I’m not . . .” Stevens said, fumbling.

Gil didn’t expect Stevens to actually remember any of this. It was more than a year ago. What Gil wanted was Stevens’s actual memories, not ones he had created over time.

“When you were back at home, what did you do with your keys?” Gil asked.

“I’m sorry?” Stevens said, looking confused.

“Your car keys,” Gil said. “Did you put them in your pocket? On the kitchen counter?”

“Umm . . . I guess I don’t know,” Stevens said. It was that statement that Gil had been waiting for.

“Are you sure?” Gil asked, having Stevens repeat it so the uncertainty of his answers would stay put.

“No,” Stevens said. “I don’t know.”

Gil nodded. He had one more question to ask as a test to see if Stevens would lapse back into his recitation. “When did you start to eat lunch?”

“I don’t . . . I think we started just after Justin and Laura got there,” he said, sounding unsure.

“Good, good,” Gil said. “And you were eating in the backyard?”

Stevens nodded.

“Great,” Gil said. He took one of the sheets of paper he had brought in and handed it and a pen to Stevens, saying. “Draw the backyard at the time Brianna disappeared.”

“What?” Stevens asked.

“Draw the backyard,” Gil said.

“Like a sketch of it,” Joe added.

They waited while he awkwardly drew while holding the paper on his lap. Gil made no effort to make the task easier for him, wanting to
keep him right where he had him—off his game. Gil had sized up Stevens in the few minutes that Joe was getting a baseline. What Gil saw was a man who would flatly lie if confronted directly with the fact that he wasn’t present when Brianna disappeared. Stevens was the kind of person who would stick to his lie even when faced with proof of the truth. The only way to break down that kind of man was to shake him up. So Gil’s questioning technique had actually served a dual purpose—it washed the interview slate clean and broke down the man’s stubbornness.

Gil watched Stevens draw the arroyo, the house, the gas grill, the outside table and chairs. After he was done Gil said, “Now, if I understand correctly, it started to rain, and you were all about to go inside when you noticed Brianna missing. So show me on your map where Ashley was standing just before you noticed Brianna was gone.”

“Umm . . .” Stevens said, “I don’t know . . .”

“You have to know,” Gil said. “You were there. Was Ashley sitting, standing, what?”

“I guess she was sitting . . .”

“And where were Justin and Laura?”

“I guess they were sitting, too,” he said.

“And Mrs. Rodriguez?”

“Sitting,” he said, now more sure of his lie.

“And where were you?”

“By the grill,” Stevens said, assuredly.

“And when I leave here and go to the hospital and ask Ashley if she was sitting or standing when Brianna disappeared, what will she say?” Gil asked.

“Uh . . . I . . . umm . . .” Stevens said.

Gil leaned forward. “Look, Alex. It’s okay. I understand. You had a chance to make some money that day, and you took it. Like you said before, you were taking care of your family.” Joe was nodding in agreement. Gil purposely didn’t call Stevens a liar. He kept everything vague to soften his crimes. Gil continued, saying, “Now it’s time to stop. You have done an excellent job taking care of Ashley and the new baby on the way. Now it’s time to step up to the plate and tell us what happened. For your family.”

Stevens took a deep breath and said, “Okay, I wasn’t there . . . I had a repo job in Socorro.”

Gil should have been happy that Stevens admitted the truth, but instead he felt empty. Because Stevens’s confession meant that the family was lying about everything. It made Gil think about something he didn’t want to consider—that the family knew who the killer was and was protecting him.

Gerald pronounced the woman dead, as Lucy went to get a sheet to cover her. They had to wait for the medical investigator to show up before they could leave.

Lucy draped the woman’s body and maneuvered the sheet so it also covered up a pool of blood nearby. Deputy Segura, who had been with her on the car fire two days ago, approached her and said, “I need your help.” He looked overwhelmed and tired, so Lucy agreed. She followed him over to a minivan parked on the side of the road, a few yards beyond the crash scene. In the back sat a woman and a child.

“Hi,” Lucy said softly. “How are you doing?” She assumed this was the dead woman’s family, who had been called to the scene by the police. Lucy had been asked once or twice before to check out a family who had just been given the news that a loved one had died, to make sure they were not suicidal or homicidal. The woman was just looking off into space, holding the little boy, who looked to be six.

“Ma’am,” Lucy said, “I just want to talk to you for a moment and see how you are.”

The woman said nothing. Lucy wondered if this was the dead woman’s sister.

Deputy Segura, standing next to Lucy, said, “This is Karen and Max.” Lucy smiled at the little boy and said, “Hi, Max.” He said nothing.

“Karen, I just want to say that I can’t imagine how difficult this is for you,” Lucy said. She was glad that she had thrown the sheet over the body. The accident scene was a few yards behind them, and the body wasn’t visible from the van, but Lucy wouldn’t want Karen to inadvertently see her dead sister just lying on the road.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Lucy asked.

Karen cleared her throat and said, “The officer mentioned that he could arrange for someone to take us home.”

“Of course,” Lucy murmured as she turned to look for Deputy Segura, who suddenly was nowhere to be seen.

“We can have your car towed to your house,” Lucy said.

“No,” Karen said strongly as she started to cry. “I never want to see this car again. Never.”

Max had started to cry as well now, but Lucy couldn’t tell if that was fear or grief.

Something in Max’s eyes made Lucy stop. He looked so scared. So petrified. She got out of the van slowly and walked to the front. It was dented in two feet from the impact. The bumper was painted red with blood. Lucy looked back at Karen and Max inside the van.

Lucy needn’t have bothered to cover the body for their sakes, because they had already seen much worse.

Joe was sitting silently next to Gil, not jumping in as much as usual. It concerned Gil slightly as he went on with Stevens’s interrogation.

“So I admit I’m a little confused,” Gil said. “Why didn’t you say from the beginning that you were in Socorro when Brianna disappeared?”

“Okay, well, here’s the thing,” Stevens said. “I had been drinking on the drive back to town, and then I got Ashley’s call that Brianna’s
missing, and I didn’t know what to do. I mean, I can’t go home because there are cops all over the house. So Ashley said that I should keep driving around to sober up and she’d say I’m out looking for Brianna.”

“So that’s what you did?” Gil asked. It wasn’t much of a master plan to avoid a DWI. It also wasn’t much of a reason to lie.

“Yeah,” he said. “I stopped and got some coffee and just sat in my truck until I was sober enough to go home.”

“Wait a minute,” Joe said. “Why not just tell the police that you were in Socorro and then when you got back to town you went to look for Brianna? Why lie about where you were? The only thing you really needed to lie about was driving while drunk.” Gil winced a little every time Joe used the word “lie,” but Stevens didn’t seem to notice.

“I don’t know,” Stevens said. Gil thought Joe made a good point. The lie Ashley came up with was overkill. It was too complicated.

“How long were you and Ashley dating before Brianna disappeared?” Gil asked.

“Like two months.”

“So you started dating while Brianna was still living with Donna Henshaw,” Gil said. Stevens squirmed a little in his seat at the mention of the adoption. Clearly, he had been told not to talk about it.

“It must have been hard when Brianna came back,” Joe said. “A little kid sure does put a damper on your love life.”

“That’s for sure,” Stevens said.

“I know I would have been mad as hell,” Joe said. “It was like being tricked. You didn’t sign up for no little kid.”

“It was messed up,” he agreed.

“You must have told Ashley how hard it was with Brianna around,” Gil said. “We know Brianna cried all the time. That must have really got on your nerves.”

“I did tell her, but she said there was nothing she could do,” Stevens said. “That kid was so spoiled and just screamed whenever she didn’t get what she wanted.” Gil looked over at Joe, knowing that he was protective of Brianna, but he showed no sign of his usual anger.

“I mean,” Stevens continued without prompting, “she was supposed to be fucking adopted, but all of the sudden, she’s back again, like nothing happened. What was I supposed to do?”

“I know what I would do,” Joe said. “I’d tell Ashley it’s either the kid or me.”

“Exactly.”

“So what did Ashley do?” Gil asked a little more quietly, maybe because he was afraid of the answer.

“I dunno,” Stevens said, looking down.

“Do you think it’s possible that Ashley did something to Brianna?” Gil asked.

“I dunno.”

Gil thought of Ashley, only twenty. No job, no money, no education—and the man she loves threatening to leave.

“Alex, do you think it’s possible that Ashley made sure Brianna was gone so you would stay?” Gil asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”

Lucy found a deputy who offered to take the woman and her son home while she went in search of Gerald. She hoped he was doing the paperwork so they could get out of there soon. She found him talking to Deputy Segura, who asked, “How are they?” Lucy just shook her head, not knowing how to answer. Instead she asked, “So what’s the deal? How did this happen?”

“Suicide by car,” Segura said.

“What?” Lucy asked. “How is that a good suicide plan?”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as a good suicide plan,” Gerald said.

“I’m not sure on the details,” Segura said, “but it sounds like she and her boyfriend were up all night drinking and then they got in some big fight. I guess she was always telling him about how she was just going to walk into traffic if he ever left her. Tonight she said something like ‘You’ll be sorry when I’m gone.’ They live in a trailer just down the embankment there.” He gestured over to the left. “She went out for a walk and never came back.”

Joe, starting to get the feel for the interview, said to Alex Stevens, “It takes a lot of love for a woman to choose her man the way Ashley chose you.”

“Yeah,” Stevens said, not sounding convinced.

“You don’t think Ashley loves you?” Gil asked.

“I dunno,” he said. “Sometimes, I know she does. Other times . . . who knows.”

“What makes you think she doesn’t love you?” Joe asked. “She must love you if she’s having your baby.”

“I’m not even sure it’s my kid,” Stevens said, then instantly seemed to regret he’d said anything.

“What do you mean?” Gil asked.

Stevens stopped and leaned his head back and looked up at the ceiling, as if he were imploring God to deliver him from this interrogation. He rubbed his eyes and then said suddenly, “Okay, look. I love Ashley, man, but she’s a trip. She’s got issues.” He started bouncing his leg. Gil said nothing. He would let Stevens’s tension do the talking for him. With that much nervous energy, he would eventually have to talk it out. A moment or two later, after some deep breaths, Stevens said, “Just so you know, I’m, like, a normal guy. I like sex and everything.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” Gil said, because it seemed important to Stevens that he be seen as normal.

“Okay, so, things sex-wise with Ashley were always kind of different,” Stevens said, not looking at Gil or Joe. “She just has problems, you know. I try to be understanding of that.”