The Replacement Child (30 page)

The counselor was saying something, but Maxine ignored her. She started praying the rosary in her mind, since she didn’t have her beads. She started the Carrying of the Cross, imagining herself holding the heavy cross on her back, the wood scratching her skin. She was walking slowly up a hill and the cross was getting heavy. The Roman soldiers were pushing Simon of Cyrene toward her, to have him take the cross. She pushed him away as hard as she could. But when he looked up, he had Melissa’s face, with cuts on her cheeks. Maxine stopped her prayers and opened her eyes. The counselor was on her cell phone.

Maxine made the sign of the cross, closed her eyes again, and said the Our Father, starting the Crucifixion.

She said a Hail Mary and thought of herself on the cross. Her hands started to shoot with pain from the nails the guards were pounding in. She turned to look at one of the guards, but it was Melissa, with her face covered in blood. Suddenly, Melissa was the one on the cross and the guards were nailing her to it. Maxine was far away, watching Melissa. Her daughter was
screaming to her for help. She opened her eyes and crossed herself three times, wondering again what God was trying to tell her.

G
il stood in the Strunks’ driveway, waiting for the state police to return with a search warrant for the house and car. They had decided to also get a warrant for Mrs. Strunk’s car. Ken Strunk had stopped talking after the state police came and called his attorney. As Pollack had said, “He’s lawyered up.”

Pollack jingled the change in his pocket as he walked over to Gil.

“This is looking interesting,” he said with enthusiasm, eyeing Ken Strunk’s car while he said it. Mr. and Mrs. Strunk were sitting in the back of a state police car across the street. They weren’t technically under arrest yet.

One of the officers called over to Pollack, saying that the Strunks wanted to see him. Pollack went to the patrol car, opened the back door to talk to the couple, and crouched down.

He trotted back to Gil a few minutes later, chuckling. “Those people have some balls. They’re stupid balls, but still balls. Mrs. Strunk wanted to know if she would be outta jail by tomorrow because,” Pollack changed his voice to a falsetto, “she’s expected at a function with the mayor.” Pollack laughed. “I think she thought that would impress us. I’m impressed. Are you impressed?” Pollack stopped dead for a second and smiled. “I got an idea.”

He walked to the patrol car and spoke quietly to the officer, then came back to Gil and said, “Let’s have some fun.”

The officer escorted Mrs. Strunk out of the car and over to Pollack and Gil.

“Mrs. Strunk,” Pollack said in a tone that sounded exaggeratedly polite to Gil. “It occurred to me that you must be freezing in that car and that you might be more comfortable if
we waited inside the house.” Mrs. Strunk glanced toward her husband. Pollack said, “He’ll be fine out here.”

She hesitated. Pollack said in the same tone, “You know, Mrs. Strunk, you’re not a suspect. We would just like to talk to you.” He added with a whisper and a smile, “But we’re really just using that as an excuse to get out of the cold.” Still she hesitated, then she nodded and the three went inside.

They sat at the kitchen table, and Pollack, all smiles, offered to make coffee.

“So, how long have you and your husband been married?” Gil asked.

Mrs. Strunk seemed to examine the question for tricks before she answered. “Four years.”

Gil could almost hear Pollack smiling behind him. That might be good news. If it had been twenty years, she might have been in too much denial to help them. If it had been only one, she might still be too infatuated with her new husband to betray him. But four was perfect. After four years, the shiny-new marriage would have given way to the everyday marriage. And everyday marriages are prone to cracks and leakage. Mrs. Stunk might have noticed the cracks but ignored them for the sake of the marriage. It was their job to shine a bright light on those cracks.

“If you’ll pardon me for asking,” Pollack said, with the same false decorum, “but were you ever married before?”

Mrs. Strunk answered more quickly this time. “Yes. For ten years. I have a son who goes to UCLA.” Pollack made noises like he was impressed.

“And Mr. Strunk—does he have children?” Gil asked.

“He was married to this awful woman for thirteen years, but they never had children.”

“How’d you and Ken meet?” Pollack asked.

“We were at this gallery opening on Canyon Road, the Hewitt Gallery.” Pollack nodded like he knew it, but Gil was sure he didn’t. “The hostess introduced us.”

“How long was it before you two got married?” Pollack asked.

“We both decided that since we were older, a long courtship wasn’t necessary, so it was just a matter of months. Why waste time? We weren’t children.” She was starting to warm up to the conversation, not checking her words for flaws before she spoke.

“Did you meet his family before the wedding? Go on long vacations together to get to know each other?” Pollack asked, sounding casual.

She faltered. “No, not really. I just …” She stopped, then started. “I thought there’d be time for that after the wedding.”

Pollack said, “I can understand that. Of course.” He put the filter into the coffeemaker before saying, “You know, when you’re married kinda quick like that, there are bound to be some surprises.”

“Well, the normal things. Adjusting to home life together, trying to get our schedules to mesh.”

“This whole business must come as a shock,” Pollack said slowly.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I’m not sure what to make of it.”

“Did you have any idea that this was all going on?” Pollack asked.

“I’m not really sure what
this
is,” she said with some heat. “What can you tell me?”

“Well,” Pollack said, “we think it’s possible Mr. Strunk was seeing one of his students.”

Mrs. Strunk said with resignation, “I wondered if it was something like that.”

“What made you think so?” Gil asked.

“Oh, little things. He’s been acting strange for a month. He was secretive yet had a new kind of energy. He spent more time out of the house and seemed anxious that I get increasingly involved in my work. I’m on several committees for nonprofit groups.” She sighed. “It seemed he wanted me gone all
the time.” She didn’t seem too distraught, only disappointed. Maybe a little relieved to have an answer to her husband’s behavior.

“How have things been this week?” Gil asked.

“More of the same. He got an odd phone call on Monday that he took in his study. He never takes calls in his study, even work calls. He purposely lets me overhear those. He said he wanted me to know what was going on with his work, that it would keep us close.”

“What did you think the call was about?”

“I don’t know. I answered the phone. It was an Hispanic man.” She quickly looked at Gil as if she had offended him. “I mean, he sounded like he had a local accent, a typical Northern New Mexico accent.” She stopped, embarrassed. Gil wasn’t. It was a fair description.

“What time was this call?” Pollack asked.

“Just after eight thirty
P.M.
.”

“And did your husband do anything after he got the call?” Pollack asked.

“He went out.”

“Do you know where he went?” Gil asked. She shook her head. “How long was he gone?”

“Until after midnight. And he wouldn’t come to bed. He just sat up the rest of the night. That’s when I knew there was another woman.”

An officer came in to tell Pollack that the search warrant had arrived, and Pollack excused himself and went outside.

“How about Tuesday night? Where was he then?” Gil asked. He wondered if Strunk was somehow connected to Scanner Lady’s murder as well.

Mrs. Strunk looked down at her hands. “Well, after he was so distant on Monday, I decided we needed to see my therapist.”

“What time did you go there?” Gil asked, as Pollack came back and sat down quietly.

She got more embarrassed. “Ken won’t go see Dr. Shepard, so I invited her over for dinner to kind of ease us into the discussion. It didn’t go very well. Dr. Shepard was here when Ken came home from work, about five thirty
P.M.
We had dinner about an hour later. Ken felt very defensive. Dr. Shepard left about nine
P.M.”

“And then?”

“We got into a disagreement.”

“You mean a fight? When did you finally go to bed?”

She shook her head. “I had to …” She paused. “When I get agitated, I sometimes can’t breathe very well, so we went to the hospital. We didn’t leave there until after three
A.M.”

“You have panic attacks?”

Mrs. Strunk nodded. “I have to be careful. If someone even raises their voice to me, it can start up.”

The time frame meant that Strunk couldn’t have killed Lucy’s Scanner Lady.

Gil got up and found some coffee mugs made of glass. They seemed impractical: why have a coffee mug that won’t hold the heat? Gil pretended to busy himself pouring the coffee, but he was really trying to figure out how Manny Cordova was involved. Had he and Strunk worked together to kill Melissa? Maybe Manny knew that Strunk had killed Melissa and was blackmailing him? The two of them could have met when Manny went to the school to arrest Sandra Paine. Maybe Manny was blackmailing Strunk about his relationship with Sandra?

Pollack must have been thinking along the same lines. “Mrs. Strunk, is it possible that your husband was being blackmailed?”

“I don’t see how. He doesn’t really have any money. Everything is in my name, the house, the cars, our portfolio. It was to make sure his ex-wife never got it. The bank account is mine; we don’t have a joint one.”

“What if he needed cash?” Pollack asked.

“Well, he used to have a credit card, but I took that away from him months ago. Ken had to declare bankruptcy after his divorce. When we first got married, he had real problems saving his money. We have this system in place to help him control his spending habits.”

“What if he needed to get a large amount of cash?” Gil asked. Then he realized that to the Strunks, a large amount of cash would be in the hundreds of thousands, and added, “Or even a little bit of money. Say, a thousand dollars at a time?”

She thought about this and shook her head. “I really don’t see how. He doesn’t have access to his own salary. He’s on a budget.”

“Do you mean an allowance?” Pollack asked.

She looked down and smoothed the tablecloth. “I guess that’s more accurate. He has to explain to me what the money is for before I give him any cash. I know how this sounds, Officers, but Ken wanted to get his spending back on track. He was determined to do it.”

“Does he own anything of value?” Gil asked. Maybe Strunk had sold something to pay off a blackmailer.

“Everything we own is mine. He sold off all his things when he went bankrupt. We talked about him buying some pieces of art as an investment, but that was a few years down the line, when he had proved himself.”

Gil sipped his coffee. Manny Cordova couldn’t have been blackmailing Ken Strunk since Strunk had no access to money. But how were Strunk and Manny connected to Melissa’s murder?

Gil watched Mrs. Strunk stare at her coffee, wondering if she knew that every forced therapy session and every talk about an allowance backed her husband, step by step, into a corner. All of Ken Strunk’s life was under her complete control. He was inadequate at home; Sandra Paine was his way to regain
some power. A twelve-year-old has no expectations, only devotion. Strunk might have been happy to see Melissa killed if it meant that he could keep Sandra.

G
il watched Manny Cordova through the two-way glass. Cordova was surrounded by people—his lawyer, a district attorney, Pollack, and a state police officer Gil didn’t recognize. He looked scared.

The search of the Strunks’ home had been almost over when the call came that Cordova’s lawyer had finally made it through the storm. Pollack had wanted to go lights and sirens back to the state police station, but Gil had talked him out of it.

On his side of the window, Gil was joined by three state police officers, another DA, and Chief Kline, who watched impassively through the glass as the two lawyers jockeyed. Cordova’s lawyer wanted a deal. The DA wanted to hear what Manny had to say. Their fight made Gil happy that he’d dropped out of law school.

Ten minutes later, it was all sorted out. Manny Cordova would tell what he knew, and for his testimony the DA would drop some of the charges.

“Tell us what happened, Manny,” was how Pollack started.

“Last week, on Thursday, I was at the mall when I ran into Melissa Baca. She and I dated a few years ago. She …” He stopped and rubbed his eyes. When he continued, his voice was tired. “I had just gotten off work, so I was in uniform. She stopped me and we got into an argument.”

“What were you fighting about? The time you beat her up?” the female DA said scornfully.

“I didn’t beat her up.” Manny’s voice went up an octave. “I sort of just lightly slapped her. Just once. Not a hard slap. That’s it. I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to show her that I was angry….”

“Weren’t you angry when you met her at the mall? Did you
hit her again?” the DA asked. Pollack was staring at her, hard, but she was ignoring him. The DA was new; Gil had never met her before. He didn’t even know her name. She had long brown hair and was about thirty. Her gray suit seemed not to fit her.

Cordova’s voice shook when he said, “Ma’am, I never …” Manny’s lawyer reached out a hand to calm him. Manny took a rough breath. “I love Melissa. I’ve always loved her. Maybe you can’t see that, but I did.”

The DA snorted.

Pollack clearly had had enough of her questioning. He said, “Officer Cordova, please, if you could just continue with your story.”

Manny looked sideways at the DA before saying, “When she saw me in my uniform she got upset. She said she was going to report me. She said it was wrong for a police officer with a history of violence to be out serving the public, or something like that.” Gil nodded. That sounded like Melissa Baca. She would do the right thing and tell the police advisory committee that Officer Manny Cordova had hit her three years ago.