To Love and to Kill (9 page)

CHAPTER 21

AS EMILIA WAITED
for Buie to return to the interrogation room, the busy detective sat down with Josh Fulgham in the hard room next door. It was 6:20
A.M.

“Josh, you hungry?” Buie asked.

The investigator had a different tone and approach with Josh. Not quite a buddy-buddy vibe, but there was a mildly friendly touch of
“come clean and everything is going to be okay”
in Buie's voice. He wanted Josh to realize that he could trust the MCSO. They were there to help him as much as they could, regardless of his level of involvement. As Buie saw Josh, “He was a big talker—all over the page. He liked to hear himself talk. As much as he liked to talk, at that time he was trying to convince us that he had nothing to do with any of this, that he is totally innocent.”

As Buie listened, he studied Josh's body language closely—which, to Buie, told a story in and of itself. The way Josh moved, the facial expressions he used, Buie felt Josh knew what had happened to Heather. Josh couldn't hide it in the way he shifted in his chair, dropped his shoulders at times, the way he'd flare his nostrils while trying to stay calm. They were subtle movements telling Buie that Josh was hiding something.

The detective asked Josh to pick up where he had left off during an earlier interview. Buie asked Josh to finish what they had been talking about then. And it was clear here with Josh's response to this question that Buie was definitely playing both sides against each other. A tactic any good cop would use in this same situation. Regarding this common method of law enforcement interviewing, Mike Mongeluzzo, another detective involved in the investigation, would later say, “That's not an attempt to play one against the other—it's an attempt to get the truth out of two people that are lying. . . .”

“Something about ... ,” Josh said to Buie, “she (Emilia) told you I took [Heather] in the trailer and I knocked on her door at four in the morning?”

“Five in the morning,” Buie corrected.

“But it never happened,” Josh said.

“That's not true?” Buie asked, somewhat surprised.

“I never ... no. I'm going to tell you something.... There's
no
way I could kill that girl. I love her too damn much.”

Buie dropped his head. They were going backward.

After a few additional questions, Buie got back into what he claimed Emilia had told him concerning Josh being responsible for Heather's disappearance and ultimate demise. They talked about the trailer and Emilia's mother's yard—those piles of brush, newly excavated earth, junk lying around the property, debris, wood, tree limbs, sticks and dead trees. The way Buie played it with Josh was that Emilia had sold him out: Emilia had told the MCSO that Josh had killed Heather and her body was buried somewhere on Emilia's mother's property. Why was Josh denying this?

Josh said no way. It didn't happen like that. He couldn't have done it.

“So everything she's telling me is a lie?” Buie asked, clearly becoming impatient. He was frustrated that either Josh or Emilia—or both—had been giving him the old-fashioned jerk-off.

“If she's telling you that I took that girl in that trailer, that's a lie.”

“What about putting her in the hole?” Buie suggested.

“No!” Josh snapped back.

“What about killing her?”

“No!”

Buie backed up. He started from the top. “What about knocking on [Emilia's] window that morning?”

“No. Listen. I know that family well enough. I can go to the door and knock. . . .”

“So everything she is telling me is a lie?” Buie asked again.

“Yes, sir. I didn't take that girl to that trailer and put her in a hole.”

“The only person that has any means to do that is who?” Buie asked.

“Heather is my wife,” Josh said. “I would
not
kill her.” Josh sold it well. He made it sound as though he cared about Heather.

Buie talked about how he was just “relaying stuff back and forth.” He explained that Emilia and other witnesses were giving him information he was trying to verify through Josh. A lot of that information, Buie seemed to say without coming out with it entirely, pointed directly back to Josh. The trail led to the husband. The MCSO was following that trail. How was Josh going to respond to all of these fingers pointed at him?

“Where is [Emilia] now?” Josh asked.

“She's still here.”

“You going to let her go home?”

“She
ain't
going home,” Buie said. That was not necessarily true. Buie implied that Emilia wasn't going to be allowed to leave any time soon. The truth of the matter was that Emilia had not been placed under arrest. She could get up and leave whenever she wanted.

Buie then enlightened Josh by stating how the MCSO had caught him in “numerous, numerous lies,” and there was some explaining that had to be done in order for Josh—who had been complaining about being tired and wanted to be put in a jail cell so he could sleep—to get his way.

Josh continued to say he hadn't done anything to Heather; he had no idea what the MCSO was talking about or where Heather was. He believed she took off. Josh was no rookie offender, some green street kid in the hard room for the first time. He understood the games cops played with suspects and witnesses. He knew how cops juggled information and played the “good cop/bad cop” scenario with multiple suspects at the same time. The fact that Emilia was in the next room and being questioned as though she'd had something to do with Heather's disappearance told Josh he was dealing with a cop who had embarked on a fishing trip. So Josh decided he was going to play his cards close to the vest here. He would be careful with what he divulged, and would try to figure out what the MCSO knew.

“You taking us to the spot?” Buie asked. The question seemed random—out of nowhere. Implying that the MCSO had information leading them to a particular place where Heather might be. There was a certain feeling in how Buie spoke letting Josh know the MCSO might have found out that Heather was either buried on Emilia's mother's property or left dead inside that trailer. The MCSO was working on obtaining a search warrant as Buie and Josh spoke. However, Buie wanted Josh to commit to at least this one request before they could go any further.

Josh was rattled by the suggestion. “I don't even know if that's where she's at, man. I don't know that's where she's at. I
hope
she's not in the ground.”

“All I got to say, Josh, if somebody did this with you, you need to expose that person also. Don't take this power rap by yourself.”

Josh sighed. Then he rubbed his face, as if doing this would refresh him, maybe wake him up. Using his hands to articulate, he said, “I didn't do it. I'm telling you, I
didn't
do it. I mean, I know I lied to you, and you cannot trust me—”

Buie interrupted: “I'm not saying I can't trust you. I just don't
totally
trust you.”

“I ain't got it in me, man. I really don't. I know I've got a violent background, but I ain't got it in me to kill my wife, man.”

Buie wasn't getting anywhere. That much was clear. When he realized Josh wasn't yet ready to be honest and talk about whatever he was hiding (if anything), Buie asked Josh if he was willing to give up a DNA sample. Let's start there. Extract some DNA in good faith and see where the investigation went. Buie didn't explain why. He left it hanging again, suggesting that the MCSO had forensic evidence.

“Okay,” Josh said.

Buie got up and walked out of the room, letting Josh know he was going to get a DNA kit and the paperwork. He'd be right back.

When he returned about twenty minutes later, Josh asked about Emilia and how she was doing. He came across as though he was generally concerned. Then: “How long before I get moved over to the jail?”

“It's going to be a little bit. So if you need to relax, go ahead,” Buie encouraged.

Josh said he was freezing “his ass” off inside the room. “Is [Emilia] okay over there?”

Buie stuck his head inside the room where Emilia sat patiently.

She was fine.

Back with Josh, Buie said, “Uh-huh. Just went and checked on her. . . .”

Josh wanted to know if Emilia was giving a DNA sample, too.

Buie told him yes, she was—though they had yet to ask her.

After Buie got his DNA sample, he left, telling Josh to hang tight, and he'd be back in a few.

CHAPTER 22

DETECTIVE BUIE PUT
on his Emilia Carr cap and walked back into the soft room, where Emilia was waiting. Emilia had been firm in her position, but also a bit standoffish and not so cooperative as far as everything she knew. The MCSO was well aware of this.

In Emilia's defense, her lack of cooperation didn't mean she was covering up for her old flame; it only meant, Emilia said later, that she was not in the business of giving cops everything they asked for, just because they asked for it. Emilia knew the rub: Buie was playing her as much as she was playing him. Far as Emilia considered, Josh could be anywhere. Josh could even be out, walking the streets. Emilia didn't trust cops to tell the truth all the time. Bottom line for her was: Could Josh get to her? This was a genuine concern for her. Emilia understood Josh's internal rage; she had seen it firsthand. Emilia recognized what Josh was capable of. And now, after talking with Buie and Spivey, Emilia claimed to have figured out that Josh actually had killed Heather, when for the entire time Heather had been missing Emilia claimed to believe Heather had taken off.

Last time they chatted, Buie and Emilia were trading barbs over a particular point of contention: Did Emilia know Josh had taken Heather into the trailer? Buie was firm in his position that he believed Emilia might have even been at her mother's when Josh brought Heather over there. One of the last things Buie had shared with Emilia before he stepped in to speak with Josh was: “He could have brought her to your house. I don't know if she was dead or alive when she came.”

“Oh, dear God,” Emilia responded to that comment.

When Buie returned, Emilia spoke up immediately: “I remember something.”

“What's that?” Buie asked.

“I don't know how relevant it is, but you said you asked his daughter some questions.”

“Uh-huh,” Buie agreed. He was interested in this.

Emilia explained that she didn't want Buie to run out and sit down with Josh's daughter, because the girl was only eight years old, but if they did speak with her again at some point, Emilia wanted them to ask the child if “she remembers the day we were all out at [my] mom's house and Josh told me that there was a stray dog in the back he was scaring away.” Emilia went on to explain how Josh demanded on that day that she keep the kids “up front” and away from that backyard area. “Just ask her if she remembers that. That was one of the days he was out in the backyard. . . .” As Emilia now saw that moment, she was thinking Josh was doing something that involved the child's mother out back and didn't want anyone to sneak up on him—especially the kids.

Buie didn't seem too excited by this revelation. He moved on.

After some conversation about getting her something to eat, Emilia said, “I'm hurting.”

“Where are you hurting at?”

Emilia Carr, eight months pregnant, said, “My belly.”

Buie explained that he was going to be keeping her another several hours and was sorry it was uncomfortable, adding, “We got to find out what's there at the house.”

The strategy the MCSO was working under (without sharing it with Emilia or Josh) was to get Josh out to the trailer to point some things out for them. If they could get him into the situation—and what they now believed was a crime scene of some sort—they could begin tossing hardball questions at Josh and maybe crack him. This was the virtual-reality version of taking a crime scene photograph as a suspect talked and sliding it across the table, placing the end result of a serious crime in front of a perp's face, hopefully, to unsettle him. It often worked when you had a suspect on the verge of a major break.

The detective asked Emilia if she would be “okay” with them questioning her some more.

“Yeah,” she answered. “I hope to gosh she ain't there.”

“You want a candy bar?” Buie asked.

“I just want to go home to my babies.”

Buie said something about how an investigation was ongoing; and because of that, and because of Emilia “misleading [them] a lot in this investigation, covering up and lying in this investigation,” she was a “potential suspect in this investigation,” too. Emilia had done this to herself, in other words. It was a warning to come clean and stop lying by omission if she wanted them to work together toward her needs.

Emilia said she understood.

Buie explained how she was now being “detained.” Her presence there at the MCSO was no longer voluntary. Emilia was being held by the MCSO.

She could no longer leave on her own.

The DNA question came next.

Emilia said the MCSO already had her DNA. “I was arrested a few years back on a felony charge and they did my prints and took a swab.”

Buie said he wanted a fresh swab.

Emilia said she was okay with that, adding, “I'm not going to let some sick man cost me my children.”

After Buie took the swab, he ended the interview.

CHAPTER 23

JOSH FULGHAM WAS
drained and couldn't really think straight. Yet, he was not tired enough to be interested in what Emilia had been saying. Detective Buie later noted, “The guy would not stop talking. All he wanted to do, once he got going, was talk and talk and talk.”

Buie told Josh he couldn't share any of the information Emilia had given them just yet. Then he read Josh his Miranda rights again, surely trying to send a message that Emilia had divulged information causing the MCSO to believe Josh knew where Heather was and had been involved in her disappearance.

Josh then decided he wanted to go back to his jail cell and get some sleep before they continued. He was too tired. He wanted to be fresh.

“You wasting my time?” Buie asked. “Do you
not
want to do this?”

“Start over in the morning,” Josh suggested casually.

“Do you
not
want to do this?” Buie asked again. He was under the impression Josh had something important to share. That's what Josh had told one of Buie's colleagues while Buie was out of the room.

“I guess not,” Josh said. “'Cause I want to sleep and we'll start over in the morning!” He sounded a bit more firm.

Buie decided to play a card: “I'm
not
coming back in this room.”

“Tomorrow can we?” Josh said.

“No,” Buie snapped back. He then stood and walked out of the room without saying anything more.

“Wait . . . ,” Josh said, pleading.

Buie had made it as far as the hallway outside the room, when he turned and walked back in.

“What?” Buie asked as he faced Josh.

“We're done?” Josh asked. He sounded shocked—surprised that Buie had given up on him so quickly.

“Listen . . . Josh. I have no—I
don't
want to play games.”

“I'm not trying to.”

Buie said he was finished with the dance they had been doing all night long. It was close to sunup on March 19. Buie was tired, too. He said he'd rather not talk at all if Josh was going to play him for a fool, adding once again how, if he left the room for a second time, Josh would be entirely on his own.

A look of worry came over Josh.

Buie sat down. “You want to talk to me or not?” the detective asked quietly.

“Yes, yes,” Josh said. Then he said if he was “going down for something, I don't want to take somebody that might have did something down [too].... You see what I'm talking about?”

However confusing it had come out, Buie said he understood.

Josh admitted that what he had shared earlier during a conversation with Buie out in back of the building, while he was allowed to smoke a cigarette, wasn't exactly the entire truth. In fact, Heather had never called Josh's mother's house on the day she went missing. Josh said he wanted to clarify this, because he had reported that to Buie previously. Apparently, Heather had never asked him to meet her at the Petro because she was taking off and wanted to leave the children with him.

“That was not the truth,” Josh admitted.

Detective Buie now knew they were getting somewhere and encouraged Josh to continue.

While at Heather's house that night, Josh explained, he had sex with her (probably another lie). Afterward, he didn't hang around. He left almost immediately. Things were okay between them. They were acting civilly toward each other. They were even talking about getting back together (also a lie). But now Josh had this other woman in his life, Emilia (who was pregnant), which posed a major problem for Heather. Josh never said whether Heather knew if Emilia was pregnant with Josh's child, or if Emilia knew that Josh was thinking of getting back with his wife. These were two very important facts Josh did not share at this time.

Josh arrived home to Emilia that night, after supposedly having had sex with Heather, and Josh said his girlfriend never suspected anything. But two weeks later, long after Heather went missing, Emilia approached Josh and said something about Heather being gone. The way Josh told it was, although Emilia might have never come across as knowing Josh had slept with Heather, she certainly knew he was seeing her again.

Josh explained to Buie that he asked Emilia on that night if she knew anything about Heather's disappearance. She had made remarks that led him to believe she might.

According to what Josh told Detective Buie, Emilia had responded to Josh as follows: “She's ‘gone and not to worry about her.'”

Was this a tit-for-tat situation? After he realized Emilia had obviously told the MCSO something and had used his name, was Josh now putting the onus back on her?

Buie, who didn't care one way or another how Josh felt about their conversations with Emilia, asked Josh if he had questioned Emilia further about that particular comment.

Josh said he didn't, adding, “I don't know. . . . I didn't believe her. I figured Heather would be back by [then] and take the kids. To be honest with you, I really did. . . .”

So Heather had never left the kids with Josh?

That much, it appeared to Buie, Josh had just admitted.

“Do you think Emilia had something to do with it?” Buie asked.

“I don't know.”

According to what Josh said next, Emilia told him Heather's boyfriend, James Acome, along with a friend of James's, were both involved in Heather's disappearance.

“And Heather told me something, too,” Josh said.

“What's that?”

“That them two boys were offering money to get rid of her.”

None of this made sense to Buie. He questioned Josh further about it. Josh said he never took any of it seriously because Heather was known to take off and leave “for a long period of time.” So Josh never really worried too much that something awful had happened with her being gone all that time. But now that he'd had a period to think it through, considering that James and his friend were involved (as Emilia had implied and Heather herself had seemed to back up with that comment), Josh said he believed they might have tossed Heather into Orange Lake to be eaten up by the gators. He concluded that thought by saying, “I don't want to believe something bad happened to her.”

Buie broke into a long rant about Emilia and how pissed off he was at her for running him around in circles, clearly using Josh's feelings for Emilia—and these new admissions—against him. Buie could tell Josh was on the fence with Emilia: Josh was ready to give her up totally, and, at the same time, he was trying to keep her close by, as an ally.

Near the end of a long back-and-forth between the two men, as Josh noticeably felt completely comfortable with Buie and surely understood Buie was on his side, the detective said, “Listen to me . . . hold my hand. Let's get through this. It's late. You owe it to your kids.”

Josh nodded yes.

“It got out of hand.... Be a man.”

Josh nodded yes again. He was slipping, falling into Buie's arms.

“Let's go get this girl . . . ,” Buie suggested. “Let's do the right thing. You got me to fucking tear up here ... 'cause I know how you feel.” Buie talked about how Emilia didn't “give a fuck” about Josh or the fact that Heather was “the mother of your child.... She gave
birth
to your children.”

“Can I get a phone call—and I will find out right where [Heather's] at?”

Buie thought he had Josh on the ropes. What did he mean by “phone call”?

“Who are you going to call?” Buie wondered.

By then, Josh was under the impression that Emilia had been driven back home and was no longer across the hall.

“Emilia,” Josh said. That's who he needed to call in order to find out where Heather was. According to Josh, she would know.

Buie said he was going to get Emilia picked back up and Josh could speak to her once Emilia returned to Major Crimes.

Josh wanted to know if Buie was going to be speaking with Emilia as soon as she arrived.

“I'm not talking to Emilia,” Buie said. “Because . . . you know what? She's a coldhearted bitch, and you don't
owe
Emilia shit. She done set sail on you already. . . . Think about your daughter. Think about your son. Let's do the proper thing for their mother. You ain't gotta tell me nothing in between. Nothing. Just take me to where she is. I just want to see her. I just want to get her from where she is.”

Josh paused. He was thinking about what Buie had said. Then: “Well, say I did something to her—I didn't have
nothing
to do with it.”

Detective Buie breathed a sigh. His suspect appeared ready to give it up.