Faye Kellerman - The Burnt House

He exhaled with a snort.

“She picks up the phone and starts to dial the police or the operator or information, someone. So that’s when Manny goes over to her and grabs the phone from her hand. He says to her, ‘Beth, you can’t do that.’ Then she says, ‘I’ll do what I please and you can’t stop me!’ Then, I guess that was too much for Manny. He finally decides to be a man. So he says, ‘You let my brother alone and let me worry about the money. I’m the treasurer and you’re nothing but a mousy piece of shit without me.’ And to emphasize the point, he pushes her, not meaning to hurt her, just meaning to get her out of the way.”

Holmes swallowed, his eyes as blank as the wall he was looking at.

“He pushes her a little too hard and she cracks her head against the wall and drops to the floor.”

Dudley was about to say something, but just shook his head instead. He continued to stare as if the scene were taking place in front of his eyes. It was certainly replaying itself in Holmes’s brain. But Decker knew that the evidence didn’t match the story that Holmes was recounting. The bash on Beth’s skull was caused by a blunt object striking her in the forehead region and was probably delivered face-to-face. It was not an injury that could have been caused by the back of Beth’s head hitting the wall.

Decker didn’t say anything. All of that would come out later.

Holmes continued to speak. “As soon as it happened, I knew we were in big trouble. I did time for burglary in a medium-security place and that was bad enough. I wasn’t about to go to Santa Fe Correctional and do real hard time. My old man was there. We both knew what Santa Fe Correctional was from visiting him. No fucking way that we were going down because some little bitch couldn’t control her mouth!”

Decker nodded encouragingly. “About what time of the day did it happen?”

“Not late, but it was after dark. I don’t know. Maybe around six. I don’t remember.”

“Okay. So what happened after you realized she wasn’t moving?”

“I remember feeling paralyzed. I didn’t know what the fuck to do. I was in a strange city and I had no friends and here I was with a dead bitch and I didn’t even kill her. I told Manny that we’d better just get the hell out. My baby brother’s reaction was funny. He was calm and collected. Maybe he even felt good about it. She’d been getting on his case for a long, long time and he had enough I guess. He was the smooth one. He told me to help him wrap up the body and he’d take care of it. So that’s what I did. I helped him wrap the body. I helped him load it into Manny’s pickup. Then Manny took it from there. I don’t know what he did with it. I never asked and he didn’t say.”

“How long was he away?”

“I don’t know. A couple of hours maybe. I was cleaning up the mess while he was gone.”

“And you don’t remember when Manny returned to the apartment?”

“I remember it was late. We spent the night packing up the truck, and the next day, Manny took out the rest of the church money from the bank. We needed everything we could get our hands on.” Holmes took in a breath and let it out. “Manny wanted us to go together, but I wanted o-u-t, out, know what I mean?” He pointed to his chest. “I didn’t kill her; he did. Let him figure it out. Besides, I could tell he was scared. The adrenaline had worn off and I didn’t want him to freak out while I was around. I told him to take the truck and go, that I’d take care of myself. I told him to look me up in Arizona in about six months after everything had calmed down. He never did call me. I never saw or heard from him again. I don’t know what happened to him, if he’s alive or dead or what.”

Sure you don’t, Decker thought. “Where’d you go after the two of you split up?”

“I hitched a ride to Las Vegas. I played the tables and turned my measly grand into five big ones. I lived it up for about a week-booze, drugs, hookers, you name it. I was the happiest that I’ve ever been in my life.”

“What happened after that week?”

“What do you think?” Holmes laughed. “Booze, drugs, and hookers cost money. I left glitter city with about three hundred in my pocket, and thumbed a ride to Arizona. I rolled up my sleeves, learned the construction business, and became a working stiff. I started paying taxes, and I’ve been a solid citizen ever since then.”

“And you never heard from Manny again?” Decker asked.

“Not a whisper. Maybe I should have reported my brother…let Beth’s parents know what happened. Maybe I shouldn’t have helped him wrap the body or clean up the mess. But fuck, he was my baby brother and he was in trouble and he got into trouble trying to help me out. I felt responsible, but not responsible enough to take the fall for something I didn’t do.”

Decker nodded. There was a lot about his story that rang true. Maybe Beth and Manny were arguing about the money. And it made sense that, during the argument, someone got pissed and bashed Beth over the head. Maybe it was Raymond/Belize, or maybe it was Manny. The one thing that was certain in Decker’s mind was that one of the brothers killed Beth.

It also made sense to Decker that Manny had buried Beth and didn’t tell his brother where. Why else would Holmes stick around after Decker and Marge had paid him an initial visit? They had told him that an old body had been discovered under the debris of the ruined apartment building. That meant nothing to Holmes because he had no idea where Beth had been buried. The contractor didn’t know L.A. all that well. It would have taken quite a stretch for Holmes to assume that the body they had found had been his dead sister-in-law. At the time of the interview, he had stated that he thought the discovered body was Roseanne Dresden.

That had probably been the truth.

Still, Holmes’s spiel was distinctly different from the recitation given to Decker by Holmes’s father, Martin Hernandez. The old man had stated that Belize had confessed to murdering Beth even though he didn’t mean to kill her. Hernandez also kept reiterating that Manny was dead.

Now, how would Hernandez know that Manny was dead unless he knew the person who had killed him? The old man had stopped short of implicating his older son in the death of his younger one, but by insisting that Manny was long dead, he pointed the arrow in that direction.

Decker wasn’t positive which one killed Beth, but he was pretty damn sure that Belize had killed Manny. In Decker’s mind, Belize’s formal name change to Raymond Holmes was Holmes’s odd way of honoring his dead brother, Ramon Hernandez.

Decker said, “You want to tell me about Roseanne Dresden now?”

“Oh God!” Holmes slapped his face. “I don’t know what happened to Roseanne! Before she disappeared, I hadn’t seen her in six fucking months!”

“I don’t know if I believe you, Ray.”

“Why not? I have been perfectly honest with you about everything else. I told you what happened with my brother, I told you about the money, I told you that I helped wrap the body, I told you I cleaned up the mess. I told you everything I know.” Holmes mopped up his face. “I have nothing more to say.”

“It’s too late,” Dudley told him. “He’s going to arrest you for murder now.”

Decker said, “You probably should have listened to your lawyer, Mr. Holmes.”

“Why?” Holmes started sweating again, pools of sweat shooting out from his overworked pores. “C’mon. I was honest with you. I told you everything. I even took a fucking lie-detector test about Roseanne. How can you arrest me for murder after all that?”

“I just figure I’ll serve the warrant and let the D.A. sort it out.”