The Bone Fire: A Mystery (15 page)

“That’s right,” Lopez said. “I checked with the security company before I talked with the police. The cameras won’t be fixed until the end of the month.”

“So there are no tapes,” Kirkpatrick said, disappointed. He had probably been hoping that he could use a still picture from the security camera feed to solve his lead photo problem.

“No, there aren’t,” Lopez said. “Of course, we couldn’t tell the police that. We need to be above reproach.”

“How does just telling them that there are no tapes make us below reproach?” Lucy asked. That’s why Gil had been here. He had come to the newspaper with his hat in his hand asking for the tapes.
Tapes that didn’t exist. When Gil saw Lucy, though, he didn’t even tell her about it. He didn’t ask her for help. He just stopped by to say hi. For some reason that made her furious.

“This is the way it is done at all newspapers,” Lopez said with a fatherly smile. “You know that.”

“In the meantime, we’re jerking the cops around and making them think we have evidence,” she said.

“Oh, come on,” Kirkpatrick said to her. “Look at the big picture. The police can never think we’d bend over for them. We’re the watchdog. We have to be completely separate from them.”

“I agree with that,” she said, “but in this case—”

“It can’t be a case-by-case issue,” Richards said. Lucy was starting to feel ganged up on. “It has to be across the board. We cannot, under any circumstances, be seen as in the pocket of the police.”

“Wouldn’t we best serve the public by being honest—” she said.

“We are being honest—” Richards said.

“Lucy, you’re just saying this because you’re in bed with them,” Kirkpatrick said, causing Lucy to jump in surprise.

“What?” she asked.

“I just saw you talking to a detective in the newsroom—”

“I believe we’re done here,” Lopez said in his perfectly modulated, infinitely calm tone.

The Santa Fe County Adult Detention Center, located in the grassy plains beyond the outskirts of town, housed 682 inmates from nineteen jurisdictions. The front of the building was typical of many Santa Fe government facilities. It had big square pillars supporting a square roof over a porch while faux vigas jutted out from the sides of the building. The sliding double doors were even painted turquoise, New Mexico’s most-used color for trim. Gil and Joe went inside and signed in on the visitor’s log, then locked their sidearms as well as their BUGs—backup guns—in the gun locker. They were escorted to a small beige room with a metal table connected to metal chairs and then connected to the floor. In case of a riot, the table and chairs wouldn’t go anywhere. A few minutes later, Tony Herrera came in, wearing an orange jumpsuit. He was of slight build with a shaved head and a goatee. His arms were covered in blue prison tattoos of naked women and guns. On the back of his neck was tattooed
ASHLEY
in fancy script.
He was considered only a medium security prisoner, so no handcuffs were necessary.

“Hey,” Phillips said to Herrera as the two men shook hands.

“Ah, dude, you’re back,” Herrera said. “What’s up?”

Gil wondered at their familiarity. Maybe Joe had come here with Fisher during the original investigation.

Joe introduced Gil, and the three of them sat down.

“You here about Brianna?” Herrera asked.

“Yeah,” Joe said. “Look, we found some bones . . .”

“Damn,” Herrera said, shaking his head. “I mean, I knew she was dead, but hell . . .” He trailed off, staring into space.

“You don’t seem too upset.” Gil said as Joe took a small pad of paper out of his shirt pocket to take interview notes.

“I’m crying on the inside, Holmes,” he said with a flash of a cruel smile.

“We’re talking about your daughter,” Gil said matter-of-factly, careful not to put any inflection or judgment in the sentence. He let it hang there in the air.

Herrera snorted lightly. It was a small noise, accompanied by an even smaller movement—a tightening around the eyes. It was derisive, dismissive.

“Have you talked to Ashley at all?” Joe asked, as Gil kept his eyes on Herrera’s face, studying him.

Men who have been incarcerated for years develop a strong ability to mask their facial expressions. This makes it hard to interview them because there is no truth. Everything they say and everything said to them is treated as a lie. Their only emotion is suspicion. Their faces are one-note, whereas the facial expressions of the people in the general public are a symphony. Gil was hoping that with a little careful observation, he could get beneath the one-note that was Herrera’s face and see down to the orchestra pit.

Herrera said he hadn’t heard from Ashley in years. “How’s she doing?” he asked.

“She’s pretty broken up,” Joe said. “You ever talk to anyone in here about Brianna?”

“In here?” he said. “No, man, nobody in here knows my business.”

Gil let them forget he was there. He faded as much as he could away from the conversation.

“So how’s your time going?” Joe asked.

“It’s going, man. You don’t do the time. The time does you, you know.”

“Are you doing that work release program?”

“Yeah, out picking up trash in my little orange jumpsuit.”

“What about the gang? Are you still in it?”

Herrera cocked his head. “Why do you have to go ask me that for? You know I can’t tell you that.”

“Look, Tony, we think that Brianna’s death might be gang related,” Joe said intently.

“No way, man. Who would do that? Nobody I know would go after a kid,” Herrera said.

“You don’t know anyone who has a beef with you?” Joe asked.

“Nah, man, I got no problems,” he said.

“How about Sureño 13?” Joe asked. “Your West Side boys have been having some problems with them.”

“Yeah, I heard about that,” Herrera said, “but that’s got nothing to do with me.”

“How can you be so sure?” Joe asked.

“I ain’t doing that shit no more,” Herrera said. “I got out.”

“Why?” Joe asked.

“I got tired of the life, you know?” Herrera said, his eyes tightening again.

Gil knew that Herrera likely was scared straight by the inherent violence. Of the reasons members left gangs, the fear of death was the one most often cited, next to starting a family.

“How do we know you’re telling the truth?” Joe asked.

Gil was about to interrupt, to tell Joe that no gang member would lie about his affiliation or lack of one, when Herrera rolled up the sleeve of his orange jumpsuit. His upper right bicep was sliced with scars where someone had clearly cut through the skin several times. The effort was made to stamp out the tattoo below, which was still slightly visible. It was a w.s. for West Side Locos.

“I did this myself,” Herrera said, proud of the scars he had inflicted.
Joe was about to ask another question, but Gil knew he had the opening he had been waiting for.

“Where’s your tattoo for Brianna?” Gil asked. In New Mexico, where almost two thirds of people under twenty-five had tattoos, it was considered common to get inscriptions of your children’s names. Especially if you were in jail. Especially if the child had died. “Every guy in here has his kids’ names tattooed somewhere. Where’s yours?”

“I’ve been meaning to get one of those,” Herrera said with a flash of teeth.

“You know what else is strange? You didn’t ask how Brianna died,” Gil said, again without inflection. Perfectly modulated.

Herrera shrugged. “Whatever, it don’t matter. It is what is. Dead is dead.” Herrera’s eyes tightened again. That was what Gil had been watching for. He had finally seen beneath Herrera’s one-note emotion of suspicion, and what he had seen was something more sinister—a lie.

“You’re not her father,” Gil said. He felt Joe tighten up next to him.

Herrera started, “That’s not—” but he had paused too long before jumping in with the denial.

“Who’s the dad? Do you know?” Gil asked.

Herrera leaned back on his stool, his arms crossed in front of him, the blue tattoos on his arms indecipherable in their squiggles and turns. Gil saw those crossed arms and knew he needed a different tack.

He turned to Joe and said, “Why do you think he kept saying that Brianna was his kid when he knew she wasn’t?”

“I totally would have done it,” Joe said, catching on. “In a heartbeat. Ashley told everybody he was the dad. After Brianna went missing, all these people came in here to visit, the cops, family, you know. I bet he felt like a celebrity. Like even that cute blond TV reporter came here. She did like, what, two jailhouse interviews with you?” Joe said, turning to Herrera.

“More like three,” Herrera said with a sly smile.

“Exactly,” Joe said. “I would have said I was the dad of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer if it meant I could spend a few minutes alone with her.”

“When did you find out that Brianna wasn’t your kid?” Gil asked.

“A year or so after she was born,” he said.

“I thought you guys were dating when Ashley got pregnant,” Joe said. “How do you know you’re not the dad?”

“You gotta stick it in to get a baby to come out,” Herrera said with a laugh.

“You never had sex?” Gil asked.

“Just one time,” he said. “I totally had to force her to do it, and I know she didn’t get pregnant.”

“How do you know?” Gil asked.

“ ’Cause I ain’t stupid,” Herrera said. “Brianna was born exactly nine months after Ashley and I had sex.”

“But Brianna was born premature,” Joe said.

“Exactly,” Herrera said with a snort. “I can do the math. Ash got pregnant way after we had sex.”

“It must have made you angry that Ashley lied,” Gil said.

“Hell, no,” Herrera said, shaking his head and looking at the wall. “I was relieved. This way I didn’t have to pay no child support or nothing.”

“Where were you when Brianna went missing?” Gil asked, already knowing the answer thanks to Fisher’s notes. Still, it didn’t hurt to ask.

“I was in here,” he said, crossing his arms again.

“Did she ever tell you who the dad was?” Gil asked. This was the question he really cared about. The one he had to get answered.

“Nah. I never asked. She would have just lied anyway,” Herrera said. “The whole thing would have been just one more of Ashley’s games.”

“Were there any guys at the time paying special attention to her?” Gil asked.

“She had boobs, man. Every guy I knew paid special attention to her,” he said.

“But she was uptight about sex?” Joe asked.

“The one time she agreed to do it, she just freaked, crying and stuff,” Herrera said.

“Sounds frustrating,” Joe said.

“That was Ash, man,” Herrera said. “She would talk about giving her dad a blow job so he would let her use the car or something, but I never got anything like that.”

“She said that?” Gil asked. “That she had sex with her dad?”

“Not sex, man, just a blow job. But you know how girls talk,” he said, gesturing to Joe. “They’re always saying shit like that.”

“Yeah, not so much, dude,” Joe said. “That’s messed up.”

“Well, Ashley’s one messed-up chick.”

Lucy had to get out of the office to calm herself after the budget meeting, so she told Richards she’d be back in a half hour. She walked away from the building fast, hoping that with distance she would gain composure.

Fortunately, the newspaper building was in the heart of downtown, so she only had to go two blocks to reach the cathedral, which was her first stop. The late afternoon sun cast lemon yellow tones over the trees and the streets. She walked over to the church, but she didn’t go inside. What she was interested in was outside, right under her feet, really—a labyrinth.

When Lucy first heard about the labyrinth, she got excited. Thinking it would be like one of those English garden hedge mazes. Like something out of
The Shining
. Instead, it was just a flat wheel of footstones that wound in a tight little crop-circle pattern. It was like one of those puzzles that children do with a paper and pencil, helping the mouse to find its way to the cheese. The idea was to meditate your way through the bends and loops.

The center of the labyrinth was a brick clover, which mimicked the rose window above the door of the cathedral a few feet away. The actual path of the labyrinth was paved in rose stepping-stones, while the out-of-bounds were in gray-green granite. There was nothing preventing a walker from stepping on the gray-green stones. One misstep and the person would be in the world of gray. Lucy smiled. The world of gray was where she lived all the time now.

She walked the labyrinth several times a week, the turns and twists giving her a comfort that made no sense. She started the flat
maze, trying to concentrate on the plodding forward of her feet, but her mind and eyes wandered, as usual. She could hear the sounds of a mariachi band coming from the Plaza, where fiesta celebrations were in full swing.

Here at the cathedral, only a few blocks away from the party, the final tourist holdouts of the season quietly went about their exploration. She watched an enamored visitor across the street take a picture of an ivy-strewn building of wood and faux adobe. The woman said to her friend, “It’s so pretty,” as she snapped another shot. Lucy wondered if the woman would still think that if she knew it was just a parking garage. Other tourists took pictures of the life-sized statues of the saints in front of the church.