To Love and to Kill (7 page)

CHAPTER 16

SPIVEY AND BUIE
waited for a few hours and then returned to Josh's front door. Josh seemed wired and uncertain this second time around, as if something was bothering him. Buie and Spivey were now prepared to tell Josh he needed to go with them down to Major Crimes for a formal interview.

The MCSO knew Josh was the last person to see Heather Strong. Detective Buie had interviewed several of Josh's so-called friends and also one of Heather and Josh's children. Buie had good information that Josh was in one way or another responsible for Heather's disappearance, either aiding her escape from town or facilitating her demise. Buie and Spivey had made contact with Emilia Carr, after finding out that Josh and Emilia had been together as a couple and asked her to come in for an interview. Emilia happily and willingly agreed. They were working on picking her up at the moment.

“We have a warrant on fraud charges,” Spivey told Josh. “It stems from the use of Miss Strong's debit card.”

Josh said he understood. However, Josh believed that as Heather's husband, he had every right to use the card.

A third detective came in. Josh went with him to Ocala.

Spivey and Buie followed.

CHAPTER 17

THE MAJOR CRIMES
division of the MCSO investigated homicides and felony assaults, in addition to other serious crimes and deaths considered suspicious or otherwise strange, until proven different: overdoses, suicides, the unexplained and so on. It was Major Crimes that got Heather's case weeks ago when the information the MCSO was receiving told investigating officers that it was highly unlikely Heather had disappeared on her own.

Detective Brian Spivey grew up in Ocala. It was baseball that landed him a scholarship at Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico. Yet, the athlete in him understood that baseball was a springboard for a degree, not a professional contract.

“Every athlete dreams of the pros, but realistically I knew that getting a degree,” Spivey said with a laugh, “was the best thing that could come out of my baseball career.”

Upon returning to Florida after college and attending a local school to upgrade his education, Spivey went right into the police academy. Not because of a family obligation or some secret desire to chase bad guys, but because being a baseball player all those years and working with a team to accomplish a goal lit a fire within Spivey to carry that spirit into his vocational life.

“Working with a group of individuals to accomplish a goal,” Spivey told me, “law enforcement just seemed to be the next step.”

His first job happened to be with the Marion County Sheriff's Office. He started like everyone else, in patrol. From there, he worked his way up into Major Crimes as a detective. That was 2002. Spivey's initiation into Major Crimes was a homicide involving a guy who had been stabbed seventy-eight times.

“Two guys put him in the trunk of a car and took him out into the woods after killing him and were in the process of burying him when a patrol car just happened to drive by and see the car. . . .” There was blood all over the vehicle, some even dripping down into the wheel wells and from the trunk. The officer called it in and they found the body soon after, along with the two guys hiding in the woods. It became Spivey's first case.

Now he was supervising Major Crimes.

When Spivey and Buie arrived back at Major Crimes that night, Emilia was already sitting, waiting to be questioned. She had come in voluntarily and said she wanted to help any way she could. Spivey and Buie knew that Emilia possibly held the potential to open up this case. She knew Josh's secrets. She had spent time with both Josh and Heather. Someone had even told the MCSO that Emilia had been Heather's babysitter at various times.

They asked Emilia how long she had known Josh.

“Two years ... we dated for four months last year when Josh and Heather split up,” Emilia said. “When they reunited in December, though, Josh and I parted ways.”

Emilia came across as articulate and intelligent. Her voice was tethered to a Southern twang prone to those native Floridians more to the north of the state. Later it would be determined that she had an IQ of about 125. Emilia was no dumb street chick; she was a bright girl who knew exactly what she was doing.

This relationship—Josh, Heather and Emilia—had a sordid, rather confusing history over just the past seven months. When Emilia was with Josh, she, of course, had words with Heather and they didn't get along. On occasion, both women had even tossed vulgarities at each other, shouted insults and argued. Your typical back-and-forth scorned-lover bickering.

“So you dated Josh?” Buie asked Emilia.

Emilia looked off to the side. She was a bit impervious in regard to sharing something—that much was obvious by the look on her face. Emilia had a secret. This much they knew to be true.

“What is it?”

Emilia looked down. She put her hand on her tummy.

“We parted ways, Josh and I, but I was already pregnant with his child.”

Buie had noticed a bump. One doesn't ask a woman if she's packing, however—just in case, she's not!

“How long are you now?”

“Eight months,” Emilia said. This posed a problem, Emilia explained.

For Buie and Spivey, this was now a major development. The stakes had suddenly changed.

“So you've seen what's been going on with Josh and Heather?” Buie wanted to know, asking for a bit of insight into the relationship from a third party.

“Yeah,” Emilia said. “Back in January, Heather claimed Josh pulled a shotgun on her—the gun belonged to my father. He went to jail.”

Buie and Spivey were well aware of Josh's time in jail on that charge. They had gone back and listened to several recordings of Josh making phone calls from jail during that same time in January until he got out, just before Heather went missing. Those tapes, and whom Josh was speaking to, told an interesting tale all on their own.

“When he got out of jail, did you two get back together?”

“We tried to work things out,” Emilia said. “It was very rocky, though.”

“How'd you and Heather get along?”

“We weren't necessarily friendly, so we pretty much maintained our distance. We never fought or anything like that, though.”

This was untrue, both detectives knew.

The impression Emilia gave was that she and Heather stayed away from each other. When they followed that rule, things were okay between them. When they didn't, well, they argued like junior high school girls in the hallway between classes, fighting over a boy.

“When was the last time you saw Heather?”

“Oh, geez, probably like January tenth, a few days after Josh got hit with that gun charge. I babysat their kids while Heather worked.”

“You
watched
their kids?”

“Yeah . . . when she got home that night, we argued because of her calling the cops on Josh and him going to jail.”

Emilia went on to say that Josh never threatened Heather with a gun. He took the weapon so he could clean it. That charge was bogus. It was Heather and her new boyfriend making it up to get Josh out of the picture for a while.

“Did you put your hands on Heather?” Buie asked.

“No way—she would have had me in jail!”

“Did you fight with her, like grab her hair or anything?”

“No! When we got into it, I chose to leave. I didn't have a problem with Heather. I didn't,” Emilia claimed. It sounded sincere.

They took a break. Emilia was tired. She was feeling the day, the week, the month. She was going to be giving birth to Josh's child in a matter of weeks. His wife was missing. Josh was sitting in jail on a fraud charge. Emilia felt helpless and unable to do anything. Her life seemed to be once again spiraling downward, and there was no way she could find to stop it.

Near 10:00
P.M.
on March 18, after a break, Emilia sat down with Spivey and Buie for a second time. She said she wanted to clear something up and then be taken back home so she could rest.

“Sure,” Spivey said.

“I did grab Heather once. It was two or three nights before Josh went to jail. But I made sure not to have any contact with her
after
that. I stayed away from her.”

They talked about a few inconsequential pieces of information and then Buie got a patrol car to bring Emilia back to her mother's house in Boardman.

As she left, Spivey and Buie stood, watching Emilia Carr walk out of the building. They looked at each other. Both investigators knew that they'd be speaking to Emilia again. She definitely knew more. That much was clear in the way she answered questions and her body language.

CHAPTER 18

JOSH FULGHAM SPENT
the evening of March 18, 2009, in the local Ocala jail. Detective Donald Buie, not much convinced by the answers Emilia had given them, called Emilia just after midnight, indicating that the MCSO wanted her to come back in and chat some more. Would she mind?

“Yeah, okay,” Emilia begrudgingly said.

Buie sent a patrol car to pick her up. What he didn't tell Emilia was that between the time she had gone back home and then, he had developed new information about the case.

And it involved her.

It was 12:39
A.M.
when Emilia sat back down in the interview suite at Major Crimes to give her third interview within the span of about ten hours. She didn't know it, but Josh was getting rustled awake from his cell to be interviewed, so they could record it and then play back sections for her if Josh said anything that could help—a standard police tactic when two people are thought to be involved and know more than they are sharing. Buie and Spivey were certain that between the two of them—Josh and Emilia—they would figure out where Heather was and what had happened to her. The hope at this point was that she had been kidnapped and was being held somewhere. Or perhaps Josh had threatened Heather and had scared her into leaving town. Thus far, there was no indication that anything deadly had happened to Heather.

“How are you?” Buie asked Emilia as she settled in.

“Exhausted,” Emilia said.

“You and me both.” Buie took a pause. “Listen, I had you brought back here because we developed some new information, okay? However, you are not under arrest.”

Emilia, who seemed calm, but very tired, nodded, indicating that she understood. Still, that last comment from Buie seemed to be serious. This was not a conversation anymore, Emilia knew. She was being interrogated.

Buie got serious. He said, “Because I had a patrol car bring you back here, okay, I need to question you—okay?” He explained that before he asked his first question, the MCSO needed to advise Emilia of her rights. “These rights are just so you and I can talk.”

Emilia said she understood.

After Buie read Emilia her Miranda rights, as a professional formality, he asked if she was ready and willing to talk to him. At this point, Emilia could have said no, that she wanted a lawyer. But it sounded as though she had nothing to hide.

“I mean, I don't see why not,” Emilia said.

Buie stood. He approached Emilia and explained: “Before we start, I want to go get something—I want you to listen to something, okay? Then I want you to tell me your thoughts after that. Okay?”

Emilia again nodded yes. She was curious as to what was going on.

Buie had interviewed Josh during the intervening time Emilia had left the MCSO, returned and sat down again with them. Josh was actually just in the adjacent room from where Emilia was now sitting. Buie had recorded that interview with Josh. When he returned to Emilia after a brief break, Buie had a tape recorder with him. He had obviously gotten something he could use from Josh. He placed it on the table in front of Emilia, who looked up, as if to say,
“What the hell are you doing?”

Buie didn't say much. He hit the PLAY button and pointed to the tape recorder. “Listen.”

The interview ran several hours. In it, Josh had admitted to knowing where Heather was, without giving away the location, what happened to her, why she was gone, or if she was alive or dead.

While the tape played, changing his tone from friendly to very serious, Buie said, “You can stop me at any time, okay, but Josh has got
you
driving the bus! He's saying that you told him. . . .” Buie was obviously no longer the good cop, who was just having a friendly conversation with Emilia. The MCSO had information that Emilia was involved in some way. She needed to explain her role.

Emilia was confused.
Told him what? What is going on here?
she wondered.

She felt blindsided. What had Josh gone and done now? Had he turned on her? Was he lying to them about her? This worried Emilia greatly.

“You told him . . . ,” Buie began before stopping himself again. Then: “I'm telling you, he told me that
you
told him that! We know that he brought her (Heather) back to the house that night.” Buie was referring to February 15, though he never mentioned the date. By “house,” he meant Emilia's mother's house in Boardman, where Emilia lived.

“What house?” Emilia pleaded. She sounded entirely confused by what Buie was saying. “I was home that night.”

“Listen! Listen!” Buie said sharply. “See there,” he added, playing the tape and stopping it after Josh mentioned Emilia by name.

Emilia looked at him quizzically. She was puzzled by the detective's sudden change of demeanor.

“I was at home at my momma's,” Emilia explained.

“Your heart is about to jump out of your chest,” Buie said, trying to perhaps put a jolt into Emilia to scare her.

“That pisses me off,” Emilia said.

“Don't do this to yourself.”

“What?” Emilia asked, confused.
What is this detective talking about?

“Don't
do
this to yourself,” Buie said again.

“Ask my momma,” Emilia insisted. “I was
home
that night.”

“Don't. Do. This. To. Yourself.” Buie said it slowly. It was clear, in the cryptic way the detective was explaining things, beating around some bush Emilia had no idea existed, that maybe Buie was hoping to get Emilia to say something to bury Josh. Was Buie playing Emilia? Trying to make her think that the MCSO had more on her and Josh than it did?

“What is he saying I did?” Emilia wanted to know. She couldn't explain herself if she didn't know what the hell this detective was referencing.

“That you set it up!” Buie finally said.

“Set
what
up, though?”

According to what Buie now told Emilia, Josh had told them that “you told him you guys took care of Heather, and for him not to worry about her anymore.”

Emilia was no dense, stupid woman, unaware of what cops were legally entitled to do within the scope of an interview. Cops could completely lie to a suspect or a witness. Cops used this tactic all the time. They said things with the hope of getting a suspect or a witness to admit to something he or she did or didn't do. As far as Emilia could tell, Josh never said any such thing on the tape she was listening to. Where was this coming from?

Thinking more about it, Emilia indicated that she had no idea what Buie was talking about. She encouraged the detective to clarify exactly what Josh was saying if the cop wanted to have a conversation with her she could follow.

“Who's ‘you guys'?” Emilia asked. If Emilia had helped Josh, as Buie seemed to be suggesting, where did the “you guys” portion of this come into play? The way Buie worded things, it didn't make sense.

“You,” Buie said, further confusing the situation.

“But how, if I was at home?” Emilia asked.

“He told me about the incident of you grabbing Heather at the house when you were supposed to be babysitting . . .,” Buie said, explaining in a bit more detail what Josh had allegedly said happened on a night back in January when Emilia and Heather had supposedly gotten into an altercation. There was much more to it than a simple argument between two women, Buie suggested, as Emilia had told them recently.

Emilia looked down and started shaking her head side to side.

“He was in jail [then],” Emilia finally said, responding to that argument incident between her and Heather.

They went back and forth a bit more and Buie said, “Listen, listen . . .” He held up his hands for Emilia to stop talking. She was becoming somewhat impatient. They were dancing around the issue. Then Buie got a little aggravated. He said, “Listen . . . I'm telling you
right
now, he's admitted to his stuff. He lawyered up, but he chose . . .”

Buie stopped, then thought for a moment.

Then he continued, “You know what? I think I need to tell you
all
the truth. That's why you are back in here.”

This got Emilia's full attention. What was Josh doing? What had he said? Emilia and Josh had been fighting lately. Ever since Josh had married Heather back in December 2008, this after making a promise to Emilia (not to mention getting her pregnant), she'd had reservations about the two of them and a future together, child or no child. Emilia knew Josh was pissed off at her lately—but what had he gone and done now? Had he made up stories about her, implicating her in Heather's disappearance? Had he told the MCSO things that were untrue in order to get back at her? She wouldn't put it past him to set her up.

I need to find out what they know,
Emilia thought.

Emilia explained to Buie that the MCSO could ask her mother about her whereabouts on “that night” and her mother would confirm that Emilia was at home. Even her sister would vouch for Emilia being there. There was a family friend over at the house who would also verify Emilia's presence.

“Emilia,
what
night?” Buie said. He had never mentioned a date.

“February fifteenth, the day after Valentine's Day that she supposedly left . . .”

Detective Buie now took on a sarcastic tone. He said, “Let me explain something to you, sweetheart . . . okay!”

“Uh-huh,” Emilia said.

“You had been soliciting people to do something to [Heather].”

Emilia wanted to laugh. “That's hearsay,” she said.

Who is the MCSO's source for this nonsense?
Emilia wondered.
Josh? Huh! He's a violent person with a criminal record and a penchant for telling lies. Why believe him?

“You call it what you want,” Buie responded.

Emilia laughed again.

Buie got a little perturbed. “We ain't down here,” he said sternly, “to have a picnic.”

“I know that,” Emilia responded. “. . . but this is why I'm upset—”

The detective interrupted her. “You can be upset all you want to. I'm telling you
right
now that your boyfriend has thrown you under a bus. He's admitted to lying. He's admitted that he is involved in this and knows about it, okay?” Buie got himself going. He continued, telling Emilia that she “could sit there and play this game” all she wanted, but it wasn't going to do anybody any good—to which Emilia laughed again as Buie continued: “I told you the first time when I held your hand and I looked you square in the eye and I told you this is your opportunity to come clean and be straight ... but I'm going to walk right out of this room if you lie to me.”

Emilia kept saying she was home on that night. She didn't say it, but she thought,
Go ahead, Detective, walk out of the room. I could not care less.
From Emilia's viewpoint, she hadn't done anything wrong. She couldn't understand how they could take the word of a guy like Josh Fulgham against hers.

Bottom line here was that if they had anything solid, Emilia would be wearing metal bracelets and sitting in a holding tank, facing charges, same as Josh.

But she wasn't.

Buie hinted at what they had, adding, “You can listen to every jail phone call.”

What did
that
mean? Emilia knew she had spoken to Josh when he was in jail—but did those conversations amount to anything?

They went back and forth, and Buie was then called out of the room.

Inside that interview suite just next door, Josh Fulgham was talking. Buie later explained how they had Josh situated in what Major Crimes called a “hard room,” a square box with a few chairs, devoid of anything interactive, like photos or pictures or even color. It was just a room—small and serious.

Next door, however, where they had Emilia, was considered the “soft room.” Part of her being interviewed there was because Emilia was eight months pregnant. Inside the soft room was a leather couch and carpeting. It had a much homier, comforting feel. The only thing that separated Josh from Emilia was a wall.

Buie was trying his best to turn one against the other—and he was getting somewhere.

It wasn't a “good cop/bad cop” plan, Buie clarified. “We just wanted Emilia to feel comfortable so she could open up.”

Major Crimes understood that the key to getting Josh to admit his role in whatever had happened to Heather was making Emilia feel as though she held the cards. Josh was clearly giving them an indication that he'd had something more to do with Heather's disappearance, but at the same time minimizing his role in any of it.

“Where is Heather Strong, Mr. Fulgham?” Buie asked Josh after walking into the hard room, pacing a bit and approaching his suspect.

Josh was sweating. He was tired. It was late, somewhere near four in the morning now, and everyone had been up all night. Josh was also hungry. He said he wanted this over with so he could get out of there, get into a cell, eat, and get some sleep.

“She is probably with this guy Wayne . . . ,” Josh said again.

“Wayne?”

Buie and Josh talked some more. Buie said he would be right back.

The detective opened the door, turned, and walked into the soft room.

“Emilia, listen, who is Wayne? Can you tell me about Wayne?”

“Heather could be with Wayne, sure,” Emilia said, and even gave Wayne's cell phone number to Buie.