Faye Kellerman - The Burnt House

She blew out air.

“I stayed in the hotel room, terrified, panicked, horrified, catatonic…waiting for the other shoe to drop. Manny and Belize spent the entire week gambling and getting drunk. Both men were constantly in bad moods and several times I had to lock myself in the bathroom to avoid being a punching bag. Mostly, it was Manny. He was acting like a wild man. Then…”

She turned away from Decker. Her profile showed tears running down her cheeks.”

“This is so hard.” Another swallow. “Toward the end of the week…around two in the morning, Belize came back to the hotel in a panic. He ordered me to pack the bags…that we had to leave. I was so scared and numb, I just mindlessly obeyed. I was constantly afraid that the police were going to arrest us. I thought they had finally caught up. In a way, I was relieved. But that wasn’t what happened at all.”

Decker waited.

“Manny got stabbed in a bar fight and the knife went right through the heart. He didn’t stand a chance. Belize had his brother’s body in the pickup. We needed to get rid of it before someone reported the incident.

“We were out in a flash. We drove and drove into the middle of the Mohave Desert. We buried him somewhere in the middle of nowhere. By the time we finished, it was close to daybreak. We left Nevada and drove to New Mexico because that’s where Belize wanted to go. As he drove he told me what had happened that night. He said that Beth had become enraged and suddenly charged Manny with a knife. That Manny reached for the first thing he could find just to fend her off. He said that Manny killed Beth in self-defense.”

“What did Belize say that Manny used to fend her off?” Decker asked.

“He didn’t say. He kept saying it was self-defense, but the law wouldn’t see it that way. Especially now that Manny was gone, it would look like the both of us killed Manny and Beth in order to steal the church money. He had this way of making me feel that I was part of it all, that I had no choice but to stick by him or else we’d both go down together.”

“Do you actually believe that Manny killed Beth?”

She shrugged haplessly. “I don’t know who killed Beth. I never questioned Ray’s story.”

“And do you also believe that Manny died in a bar fight?”

“Totally.” Lindie was on surer ground. “Manny was drinking really heavily and was acting really belligerent. He was picking fights with everyone he met. I think it was his way of atoning for what happened…his personal method of suicide.”

Decker nodded, although he suspected that Lindie was now speaking as the loyal wife. It was clear to him that Belize Hernandez had killed Beth. Now he was just wondering if he killed his brother as well.

Lindie was still talking. “…kept saying he would rather die than to go back to prison. He told me I needed to help him, that we needed to start a new life together…from scratch. From where I was standing, that sounded like a great idea.”

Decker nodded.

“Belize actually convinced me that it was better that Manny had died. Now it looked like Manny and Beth had stolen the church money and disappeared together. I know now that I should have run when I had the chance back in Vegas. But you have to realize that I was scared out of my wits. What if Belize or Manny got mad and hunted me down? I knew that one of them had brutally killed Beth. I was convinced that they would have murdered me without blinking an eyelash.”

“Still, you went with Belize to southern New Mexico?”

“He had convinced me it was Manny who was the killer. It was very convenient for me to believe that.”

“Do you still believe that?”

“I never asked, Lieutenant. I’m not going to start now.”

Decker understood. “So you went with Belize to New Mexico.”

“Yes. We stayed there for about two years. As soon as we got there, Belize changed his name to Raymond Holmes. That was fine with me. Ray took odd jobs in construction. Then we moved to Arizona, where the building trade was booming. He worked for a firm and learned the business inside and out. My husband’s a smart man.”

“When did you become Mrs. Holmes?”

“About a year after we moved to Arizona. We settled down into some kind of parody of a normal existence. When Silicon Valley started its construction boom, we moved to San Jose. Ray began a business renovating old homes. He did very well financially. We had kids. We joined a real church. We never spoke about the incidents again.”

“And you never thought about leaving him?”

“I thought about leaving him all the time, Lieutenant. I thought about leaving him when I suspected he was having an affair with that flight attendant. It turns out I was right. I knew he was lying. For all his being a criminal, Ray was always a terrible liar. I could always tell when he was trying to snow me. I knew in my heart of hearts, he was lying about the flight attendant. I suppose I just chose not to believe the truth. You have to understand that I was very good at denying what I didn’t want to deal with. Staying with him was easier than divorce. And I think in the back of my mind, I didn’t know what Ray might do if I tried to divorce him and take half of my rightful assets.”

“You thought he might get violent?”

“Maybe. We had this weird relationship, Lieutenant. We were stuck with each other forever simply because neither of us trusted the other one out of our sight.”

T HE INTERVIEW LASTED close to eight hours. By the time the statement was typed up and signed by Lindie, it was time for breakfast. Decker had been up for thirty hours, kept awake by the sheer energy that comes with solution. Although he was sure in his mind that Belize Hernandez had murdered Beth Devargas, there wasn’t enough current evidence to sustain murder beyond a reasonable doubt. There was enough proof to assign Belize some degree of culpability in his brother and sister-in-law’s demise. New evidence might be uncovered, but the case was over thirty years old. People die, things get destroyed, memories fade…

Lindie Holmes would probably accept some kind of plea to lesser charges in exchange for her statement and testimony. Decker believed her when she stated unequivocally that she hadn’t been involved in either Beth’s or Manny’s murder, but the assignment of charges was up to the district attorney’s office. Lindie probably wasn’t looking at any jail time because of her cooperation. Why she chose to cooperate when she wasn’t required to do so was left up to speculation. Decker figured she had finally had enough of Raymond Holmes. The verification of her husband’s affair with Roseanne Dresden, the pilfering of her hard-earned cash, and thirty years of gnawing guilt had finally pushed her to the point of no return. She had confessed freely without much prompting. She not only wanted to be rid of the bastard, but she craved absolution for her part in the horrific past events. Decker couldn’t give her that kind of forgiveness. Neither could the Devargases, although their clemency would mean more than Decker’s. The only person who could truly exonerate Lindie Holms was dead.

The Holmes/Hernandez case would move past the grand jury: that much was certain. Decker had done all he could do. The rest was up to a good prosecutor and twelve intelligent people.

While Lindie was talking to the D.A., working out a deal to finally disentangle herself from her husband, Decker had a chance to catch up on his cell phone messages.

The news from Marge was good. “It glowed as blue as South Pacific. If there was that much protein after a cleaning, Lord only knew how much was originally there. We’re going after a warrant for the car. We expect something first thing in the morning.”