The Bone Fire: A Mystery (12 page)

“All with a statue of Mary . . .”

“Right,” Joe said. “Except Zozobra. Why put her in there?”

“Well, in a way Zozobra is about making amends and forgiveness of sorts. It’s a good point, though,” Gil said. “Zozobra really has nothing to do with Mary or the Catholic Church.”

“Maybe the better question is how the skull got there,” Joe said. “Access to Zozobra was tight, I mean really tight. I was there, remember? They had security out the ying yang.”

“Where were you stationed?”

“I was with the crowd.”

“So how did he get it into Zozobra?” Gil said.

“I can only think of one way,” Joe said. “He would have had to be standing next to Zozobra at some point before it burned.”

“I know another way,” Gil said, pulling a white business card out of his wallet and dialing Mike Vigil’s number. Vigil answered right away.

“Hey, Mike,” Gil said. “I need a couple of things from you. First, can I get a list of all the people who could have gotten close enough to toss something in the fire last night?”

“You got it.”

“I also need the name of the guy who picked up the public boxes and dumped them into the fire,” Gil said.

“I can give you that now,” Mike said. “His name is George Quintana. Actually, he could tell you about who was near the fire last night, too.” Mike then rattled off George’s phone number.

“What the hell was that all about?” Joe said as soon as Gil hung up.

“Every year for Zozobra,” Gil said, “they put a few public boxes around town so people who have something they want to forget about, like photos of an old girlfriend or a mortgage, can put it in the box. Then the box is dumped into Zozobra right before he burns.”

“So you’re thinking that maybe the killer put the skull in one of the public boxes, which was then dumped in the fire,” Joe said, nodding. “Good idea.”

Gil called George Quintana and explained who he was.

“So what do you need?” Quintana asked, sounding confused.

“What can you tell me about how you disposed of the public boxes?” Gil asked, trying to keep the question open-ended.

“There’s nothing too complicated about it,” Quintana said. “I just throw the whole thing into the fire, cardboard and all.”

“Did you toss them in before the fire was set or after?”

“Right after it’s set.”

That sounded strange to Gil. “You’re allowed to go up to the burning fire and throw it in?”

“Yeah, but I’m a retired firefighter for the city, so I handle all the action near Zozobra as soon as he is lit, you know, keeping everyone away from the area,” he said.

That was good news for Gil, who needed that exact information. “So do you check Zozobra before the fire is set to make sure everything is okay?”

“Yep, I’m the one who goes up under his skirt, so to speak, and makes sure everything is good to go.”

“Did you see anything out of the ordinary last night?”

“No. It was a pretty typical burn.”

“Who is allowed access to Zozobra after he is set up and before he is burned?”

“Nobody but me and my two sons,” he said. “We’re really clear on that. They’re firefighters, too. One’s out in the county; the other is up at Los Alamos. We’re careful not to let people get close ever since a couple of kids thought it would be funny to try to throw each other in. After that, I said no way does anyone get near Zozobra. So from the time he is set up until after the burn, he is off-limits. We set up a fence around him that no one can cross except me and my boys.”

“So in your opinion, no one could have snuck something into Zozobra before he was burned?”

“I don’t see how.”

That skull was definitely in the fire and not put in afterward, into the ashes. The melted material on the back of the skull proved that. If Quintana and his sons were the only ones who had access to the fire, that meant Gil had to ask the next question. “Do you or your sons know Ashley or Brianna Rodriguez?”

“Who?”

Gil repeated the question, but Quintana had never heard of any of the Rodriguez family members. Gil knew it was unlikely the Quintanas were involved in Brianna’s disappearance, and since it seemed almost impossible for someone to have thrown the skull into the fire
just before Zozobra burned, then it must have been put in one of the public boxes.

“So, getting back to the public boxes, do you look in them before you toss them in?” Gil asked.

“Well, usually, but . . . okay, I’m supposed to look in the boxes, but I thought I told one of my sons to do it . . .”

“And it didn’t get done,” Gil said.

“Right. So I ended up throwing them in without ever opening them,” Quintana said. “Which was a stupid thing to do. You never know what’s going to be in the boxes.”
Right,
thought Gil.
You never know.

“So how many boxes were there?” Gil asked.

“I put out only one box this year,” Quintana said. “I think interest in the whole public box thing is waning. I picked that one up right around five o’clock yesterday, and it was in my car until I put it in the fire.”

“Where did you pick up that box from?”

“It was over in the lobby of the
Capital Tribune
.”

Lucy sat in the flowered courtyard of La Casa Sena, watching people eat colorful food, artfully arranged. A blond waitress went by with a plate that held a piece of pie lined with raspberries, drizzled with chocolate, and sprinkled with rose petals. Lucy couldn’t help but gawk since most of her meals came wrapped in paper and warmed under heating lamps.

Even though this was her first yearly review since working at the
Capital Tribune
, she decided that the best part of it was going to be the food, followed only by the free aspect of that food. All that was required to get the free meal was to sit through an agonizing hour of talk about her work performance with her big boss, managing editor John Lopez.

She had had yearly reviews at all her previous jobs. No matter the workplace, the conversation always followed the same script: It would begin with an hors d’oeuvre of small talk and move into an entrée about job expectations. For a salad, there was discussion of what the future might hold—a promise of a bigger title and better
projects. As for the dessert, it was five minutes of “constructive criticism” that was disappointing in its lack of sweetness.

Her reviews were never that bad, but for some reason she saw them as humiliating. Maybe it was the idea of the boss’s telling you that there was a dark spot on the X-ray he’d taken of your career when you’d thought it was healthy as a horse.

Lucy sat in her metal patio chair, trying not to fidget. Lopez finished ordering his salmon and carefully put the cloth napkin in his lap. Lucy quickly did the same, smiling nervously.

“So how do you think your first year at the newspaper went?” he asked, taking a sip of his water. She had actually been there for a year and a half, but Lopez ran perpetually behind on the yearly reviews. She thought it best not to point that out at the moment.

“Umm . . . great?” she said, not sure if that was the correct answer.

“Are you getting used to Santa Fe? It’s a big change from Florida.”

“Yeah, no, it’s great here,” she said, wishing she sounded like she meant it. Which she did. New Mexico was like a big present she was constantly unwrapping, finding a fabulous gift under every layer.

“How are things at the fire station?” he asked.

Lucy had been very up-front about her work as a first responder at Piñon Fire and Rescue, mainly in the hope that they would let her go to calls when things were slow at work. Which they surprisingly did. Since she was an unpaid medic and helping the public, Lopez said, he saw it as an indirect way of giving back to the readers. She didn’t question his logic, if there was any logic there to question.

“Everything at the station is great,” she said, realizing that she needed to find a descriptive word other than “great.”

“I heard there was a car fire this morning,” Lopez said.

“Yeah, there was,” she said hesitantly. How did he know that?

Lopez must have seen her confusion and said, “Harold heard you on the scanner.”

“Oh, okay,” she said. Thanks to the police scanner that sat on a shelf over her desk, all of her co-workers could hear when she used her EMS radio on a call.

“What are you going to say in the brief about it?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I was just thinking we need a page two brief about the car fire. Since you were there, it should make it easy for you to write it up.”

“Wait. I’m sorry, I’m not sure I get it. You want me to write a brief about a call I was on?” Lucy asked. Something shifted horribly in her as she asked, “Is this part of my review?”

Lopez smiled. “I just feel it’s time for us to take advantage of your hobby.”

“My hobby? You want me to report on 911 calls?”

“Yes. That’s actually one of the goals we have written down for you for the next year,” Lopez said, taking a printed paper out of his briefcase. Sure enough, at the top was written,
LUCY NEWROE. SPECIFIC GOALS TO ACCOMPLISH
.

Lucy could only nod, cursing herself for not anticipating this. It was common practice at some bigger newspapers to pay people to listen to the police scanner and write up briefs on what they heard. Lopez basically was asking her to do the same thing, but in her case, she would be one of the people talking on that scanner as well. Since anyone could hear what was said over a scanner, it made every emergency call public purview. She could technically and legally write a story on all radio communications or public police and EMS reports, as long as it didn’t violate patient confidentiality laws. She knew Gerald would think it was unethical. As for herself, she didn’t know what to think.

“I . . . I don’t know if I can do that,” she said.

Lopez’s phone began to ring. He said a quick “Sorry” and answered it. He listened to the person on the other end and then said, “I’ll be right there.” He hung up. “I actually have to get back to the office. Something’s come up. We’ll finish this soon.”

Then she was sitting by herself in the middle of the sunny courtyard, where she was left to explain to the waitress that they needed to cancel their orders and to wonder if she would have to quit her job.

Gil sat in the lobby of the
Capital Tribune,
waiting. Joe was next to him, texting on his phone to who knows who. He was finally quiet except for the clicking of the keys.

Gil looked up at the two security cameras pointed into the lobby,
a room no bigger than a two-car garage. A glass door off to the left led to the newsroom, while the door they were waiting next to had the words
MANAGING EDITOR
stenciled in gold.

The receptionist, an older Anglo woman with white hair and round glasses, had been helpful at first when they asked where the Zozobra box had stood. She had gotten up from her desk to stand in the exact spot. Which just happened to be in the direct line of sight of one of the cameras. When Gil asked if anyone who dropped off items in the box stood out, she seemed hesitant, but eventually said no. When Gil asked for the videotapes of the lobby for the last few weeks, the receptionist lost any will to help. She had called the managing editor and told them to wait.

As Gil sat, he looked at walls painted in a watery green and accented by badly framed newspapers from big news days gone by. There was one from the end of World War II and another from the moon landing. The building itself had a damp feel, a strange occurrence in the desert. Of course, it had probably been built in the 1800s, and at least parts of it were still adobe.

Gil looked at his watch again as the door opened and the managing editor came in, saying, “I am so sorry, gentlemen. I got here as soon as I could.”

He was a trim man with lightly graying hair, wearing a white dress shirt and bolo tie. They left the outer office and went into Lopez’s, where they all sat down at a heavy conference table.

“How can I help you?” Lopez asked.

“Well, we spoke with your receptionist, who said we had to talk with you about getting copies of your tapes from the security cameras in the lobby,” Gil said. “We think they might have some information we need on them.”

“Information that pertains to the skull you found in Zozobra?” Lopez asked. Gil wasn’t surprised he already knew about the skull. It was Lopez’s job, after all, to get the news.

“We can’t say, sir,” Gil said, though he was unsure why he added the “sir” at the end, except that Lopez seemed to be the type of man who was addressed as “sir” regularly. He wondered if Lopez was ex-military.

“Of course,” Lopez said. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid I can’t help you without a court order.”

“Oh come on,” Joe said, exasperated. “It’s not like we’re asking you for any state secrets. We just need to look at the tapes.”

Lopez smiled sympathetically. “I realize your frustration, but this is I something I am required to do according to our code of ethics. I hope you understand. I am happy to give you the name of our attorney, if it would speed the process up.”

“Dude, we can make copies of the tapes ourselves and have the originals back to you tomorrow,” Joe said.

“Again, that’s not the issue,” Lopez said. “Like you, we serve the public, but we each have different goals. Yours is about justice, while mine is about truth.”

“Our goal is always the truth,” Gil said coolly.

“Yes, but it’s not your main goal,” Lopez said, still smiling. “We serve the public by giving them facts and being a watchdog, and one of the main institutions we scrutinize is the police. We can do nothing that might undermine our reputation in the eyes of the public.”

“What the hell—” Joe said, before Gil interrupted him by saying, “There’s nothing we can say to change your mind, or maybe someone else we can talk to? These are security tapes, not interviews done by reporters.”

“I’m sorry,” Lopez said again. “The publisher is out of town, but she would absolutely agree with me. This is standard practice, really. Of course, as soon as you get the court order, I will do everything I can to help.”

“I bet,” said Joe as he and Gil got up to leave. They walked past the receptionist before Joe started swearing.