The Knife Before Christmas

by Jamie Lee Scott

  “Are you going to wait to tell everybody at the office?”

  Cortnie nodded. “I think it’s only fair to let my husband know before I let all of my coworkers know. And you know if Charles gets ahold of this, everyone will know before Gabe knows.”

  There was a soft knock on the open door, and I turned around to see Uta in the doorway. I wondered how much of our conversation she heard.

  “Mr. Ibara is here to see you,” she said.

  I stood. “I wasn’t expecting him. Go ahead and have him sit in my office, and I’ll be there in a moment.”

  “Is Mr. Ibara the attorney?” Cortnie said.

  “He is, and he asked us to call him Memo.” I looked over Cortnie’s shoulder to her desk. “What are you working on?”

  She adjusted the papers on her desk, spreading them out. “I’m going through the list of names Hector gave Charles, looking through all of their social media.”

  I raise my brows. “What have you found so far?”

  “It looks like all of them are on Facebook but have private accounts. I found just about everybody on Twitter, but the last tweets were from 2015 to 2016. They are quite prolific on Instagram, though. Lots of gang signals and photos of dogs, cats, and food. You know, the usual.”

  As I headed toward the door, I asked, “What about Snapchat?”

  “Snapchat only lasts twenty-four hours, so it’s not going to do us much good unless we can get into their private messaging accounts. And that’s only if they saved the messages. Nowadays, a lot of these kids under the age of twenty-five are using Snapchat to message because it doesn’t show up in the call logs on their phones.”

  “They message on Snapchat, so it’s not on their call logs, and they don’t password protect their accounts. The apps are always running in the background and they don’t want to have to log in every time they open them.” I was thinking out loud.

  “Welcome to the new millennials generation. I don’t think they are the type to think things through,” Cortnie said. “Then again, neither was I at that age.”

  “I’ll still see if I can get Hector’s phone from Memo. But I don’t see Snapchat helping much because Hector’s been in jail longer than twenty-four hours.”

  Cortnie turned back to her work. “Good luck with your attorney.”

  When I walked into my office, Memo was sitting patiently with his legs crossed and his briefcase on the floor beside him. As I entered, he uncrossed his legs and stood.

  “Good morning, Ms. Capurro. Sorry for the unannounced visit.”

  I didn’t think Memo could look any sharper than he had the previous day in his plum suit, but he stood in front of me with a dark gray suit with lighter gray pinstripes, a white shirt, and a gray tie. He shot his cuffs, then sat back down.

  I walked over to my desk. “It’s not a problem. I need to talk to you about a few things anyway. Is there a specific reason you’re here this morning?”

  Memo opened his briefcase and pulled out a strap of cash. It looked like hundred-dollar bills. He handed them to me. “I needed to give you your retainer.”

  I reached across my desk and took the strap from him. It was definitely Benjamins. I didn’t want to be so tacky as to count it in front of him, so I placed it on my desk and pushed it off to the side. “Is there any new information you’d like to share with us regarding Hector’s case?”

  “I can only share what my client has given me permission to share. And currently, I don’t have permission for anything. Is there anything you would like me to ask him when I talk to him today?”

  I pulled open the side drawer of my desk and grabbed a pen and a small pad of paper. I wrote the items on the piece of paper. “Any evidence you have regarding this case would help us greatly. I’m not sure how much the prosecution has shared with you to this point, or what you know about what’s in the murder book. But anything you have would help us. Also, if you have access to Hector’s phone, we would be grateful. And if it is password-protected, we will need access. However, he needs to do that.”

  “I’m not sure if the police have taken Hector’s phone as evidence, but I will look into it. I’m just getting started on the details of this case myself. I’ll talk to Hector and see what he has to say about giving you the information I have. If he gives me permission, I’ll get copies made and have them messengered to you.”

  “That would be great, thank you. If we can’t get Hector’s phone, we’ll at least need access to his phone records, so if you could get permission for those, that would be wonderful.” I hoped there was something on it that would help us help him.

  Memo stood. “I’ll see what I can do.” He reached inside the jacket of his suit and pulled out a business card. He placed it on my desk and said, “This card has my cell phone number on it. Feel free to call me any time day or night.”

  I didn’t touch the card, just looked at it. I stood. Reaching across the desk to shake Memo’s hand, I said, “I hope we can help your client. And thank you for everything. I hope that between us, we can find the real killer.”

  Memo didn’t say anything, but nodded his head, turned, and left the office.

  As I watched him nod his head at Uta and walk out of the office, I wondered, did he really want Hector exonerated? Or did he think Hector was guilty, too? Personally, I wasn’t sure what I thought, but I wasn’t paid for an opinion, I was paid to get the facts.

  I sat back down and looked over to the corner at Lola’s empty bed. She hadn’t been feeling well this morning and didn’t seem like she wanted to come to work. Maybe she knew I was going to be tailing someone all morning. She wasn’t as fond of riding in the car as she used to be, so I left her at home where she wouldn’t be disturbed and could sleep all day. That made me think about children. If Lola was a child, I couldn’t just leave her at home alone when she wasn’t feeling a hundred percent. I would have to take time out of my day, call in sick, or make some sort of arrangement to make sure I could be with her. I couldn’t bring a sick kid to work. A sick dog was bad enough. Though Lola wasn’t feeling so bad I felt like she needed to be babysat, she just wasn’t in the mood to come to work with me. As she got older, it happened more often.

  I was excited for Cortnie, but in thinking about the responsibility of having children, I felt for her at the same time. Once you have kids, your life is no longer your own.

  Nick and I liked our life the way it was, and I wondered if we would ever be ready to have kids. As it was, we weren’t ready to be married and neither one of us had brought up the subject. It was a huge step just for us to move in together.

  I chuckled to myself because as big a decision as it was for Nick and me, Charles seemed to have no trouble inviting someone into his life to live with him. He’d had two live in partners in the time Nick had been in my life. Cortnie would get it all figured out. She and Gabe would be great parents.

  With Cortnie working on the list of names Hector gave us, I wasn’t sure what to do next. There was so much more we needed to know before we started interviewing people. I looked at my watch, wondering why Charles wasn’t at the office. I got up and walked out to the reception desk.

  “Where’s Charles?” I asked.

  Uta put one finger up, letting me know she was on the phone. Those darn headsets, I can never tell.

  “Yes, Mr. Spencer, yes, I understand. I’ll have her get back to you this afternoon. Thank you so much.” She hung up.

  I could have asked her who Mr. Spencer was, or who was supposed to get back to him, but since the name wasn’t familiar, I figured it wasn’t me and I didn’t care enough to ask.

  “Charles is in his office,” Uta said.

  “I didn’t see his car in the parking lot.”

  Uta looked behind her at the wall, as if she could see through the house to the parking lot. “Really? Maybe he snuck out the back when I wasn’t looking. He usually lets me know if he’s leaving.”

  “I’ll just go knock on his office door. I thought the door was closed t
o keep the paint fumes from wafting into the rest of the building. Maybe he just didn’t want to be disturbed.” I started down the hall.

  Unlike polite Uta, I didn’t knock lightly on the door I just turned the door handle and walked right in. That was my first mistake. The fumes from the paint were overwhelming. I shut the door and stepped back out into the hallway, gasping for fresh air. Charles was not in his office. If he was, he’d passed out in the corner and I hadn’t seen him. From the smell of it, he hadn’t been working in his office at all this morning. He was fussier about smells than I was. Then again, someone had to open the windows. I wondered if he had gone down the hall to his office, opened the door, realized it reeked, and then left. I started back toward the reception area when my stomach growled. I hesitated, then decided my stomach was more important than finding out where Charles was.

  I walked into the kitchen just as Charles walked in the back door.

  “Where have you been all morning?” he asked as if he’d been at the office all morning.

  I frowned at him. “That’s the question I was going to ask you.”

  Nine

  CHARLES

  When I walked into my office this morning, the smell of the paint made me nauseous. I walked around, opened the windows, close the door, and snuck out the back.

  I wanted to see Hector during visiting hours, so I could talk to him alone. I wasn’t sure how he felt about women because of his culture. He may have held back because Mimi was there. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the least sexist person on this earth, sort of, but different cultures hold different thoughts about women or men. This was my chance to get Hector alone and see what he would tell me.

  When I walked up to the visitor window, I saw the same woman from the previous day. She was brusque, but she smiled at me, and within minutes, I was sitting in the visitor room on the hard, round stool, waiting for Hector to be escorted in.

  This day was a little different from the previous time we visited, as every stool in the room was full, and the din of people talking made my head hurt.

  As I sat waiting for Hector to arrive, I considered how to drown out the background noise. People arguing, babies crying, and people walking in and out; it was too much for my brain to handle. I wasn’t even good with controlled chaos. I liked everything orderly. If I was ever arrested and put in jail, I think my head would explode before the end of the first twenty-four hours, although the set schedules would suit me fine.

  When Hector shuffled in, he had a smile on his face. I didn’t know if his attorney told him we’d be taking the case. The surprised look made me think that he didn’t know. The smile was because he was glad to see me. I was used to that reaction.

  Hector sat down and picked up the phone with both hands. “So you’re taking my case?”

  I had just finished wiping down the phone with antibacterial wipes and heard the last of his sentence. “Your attorney should have told you. He doesn’t know I’m here today, this was a last minute decision to visit. I’m glad it worked out we could talk.”

  “No manches!”

  “Yes, way,” I said.

  “Que padre.” He fist bumped the glass.

  I didn’t return the gesture.

  “What you wanna talk about?” Hector asked.

  “I wasn’t able to speak with you directly yesterday, not really anyway, so I wanted to go over the timeline during the days prior to your fiancée being murdered. I need all the details. Everything you can think of.”

  Hector moved the phone from his ear as he reached up to scratch the top of his head, then moved it back. “I already told you everything.”

  “No, you didn’t. You barely told us anything. I want you to start several days before your night at the bar. What was going on with you and Zhen? How were you getting along? Was there anything that made you think she might be in danger?”

  This time, Hector reached around and scratched the back of his neck. He looked like he was considering what to say next. “We had a fight. It wasn’t any big deal. And that was…I don’t know, two days before she was killed.”

  “What was the fight about?” I asked.

  “Pinche Mario. What else?”

  I looked at him with an expectant expression on my face, knowing he wasn’t telling me everything, but I wasn’t going to lead him into the story, either.

  “I got this video camera security thing when I upgraded my phone a couple of months ago. It’s one of those motion activated cameras that has Wi-Fi. I put it in the house, but I didn’t tell Zhen about it. Anyway, it shows who’s coming and going from the front door. I saw Mario go to the house several times in the previous few days.”

  “Why didn’t you tell your fiancée you had video surveillance at the front of your house?”

  “It’s my house,” he said defensively, then added, “I planned to tell her, but I wanted to see what was happening when I wasn’t there. Mario had been to the house once a day for three days in a row. The first day I just blew it off. By the third day, I was furious. I asked Mario about it, but he said it was nothing, that he had just come to talk to her about the holidays.”

  “The holidays? That’s a little strange, don’t you think?”

  “Christmas is a big deal at our house, being Catholic and all. He said they were planning a surprise for Mamá. I think they were planning something else.”

  “You get notifications on your phone when the camera has been activated, is that correct?”

  Hector nodded his head.

  “How long did he stay? If the camera was motion activated, it showed when he came and when he left, correct?” I asked.

  “That’s what really pissed me off. The first two times I saw him come and go, but the third time, the video didn’t show him leave. Made me wonder what was going on. Did he sneak out the back door or something?” Hector’s face had turned red.

  “Do you know the login and password to check that video online?” I asked. Almost everything on my phone was protected, but I used the fingerprint to recall the logins and passwords. If I had to log in manually, I’d be screwed. I never remembered what password belonged to which account. I always got locked out before I found the right combination.

  Hector gazed at a spot behind me on the wall, not responding immediately. Then he leaned in close and whispered into the phone, giving me the login, password, and the name of the company’s website. I pulled out my phone and typed in the information on my notes app.

  “What about video from the day Zhen was murdered? Who came and went on those days?”

  “When Zhen and I got in the fight, she wanted to know how I knew Mario had been at the house. She asked if I had been sitting outside stalking her. Like I got time for that shit. I fessed up, and I told her about the camera. I told her it was for safety, not because I was checking up on her. She flipped out when she found out I had set it up and hadn’t told her.” Hector moved the phone to his shoulder, holding it to his ear. He seemed distracted by his handcuffs.

  “I know some of these cameras look like decorative items. Is that what yours was?”

  Hector looked up. “No, man, it was just a little round ball that I put in the living room window. Video was a little distorted, but I could clearly see when Zhen came and went and who came up to the front door. With the life I live, I thought this would be a good idea. Then I realized, after fighting with Zhen, that things might get recorded on that video I didn’t want seen. She told me how stupid it was, and we removed the camera. I didn’t care because it was something I got free when I upgraded my phone.”

  I just bet he wished he had kept the camera up a few more days, hindsight being 20/20 and all. If the camera was still up, and the person had come through the front door, Hector would not be in jail, and he’d at least have an idea who killed his fiancée. Not to mention, so would the police.

  On the other hand, maybe he planned this murder all along. Taking down the video a few days before the killing made him look guilty. This could lead the dist
rict attorney to ask for first degree murder, not second degree or manslaughter. No way was Hector getting manslaughter, unless he had some information the state wanted really badly.

  “When was the last time you talk to Zhen? You said you got into a fight, what happened then?”

  “I was pissed. I shoved a bunch of clothes in a gym bag and went to stay with my mamá for a few days. It took me until the next morning to calm down enough to be civil. She swore there was nothing going on with her and Mario. She said the same thing he did, that they were talking about the holidays. Mario wanted to plan some sort of surprise, and not just do the same Christmas dinner we always did. He’s always wanted to try something new. Hijo de la chingada.”

  Hector was definitely different without Mimi there. His language peppered with Spanish and swearing. He hadn’t use any Spanish when he spoke with Mimi, though he wasn’t telling me anything helpful.

  “Did you apologize to Zhen and make up?” Please say yes.

  “The thing was, when I called Zhen, she wouldn’t answer the phone. The whole next day, it went to voicemail. Not only did she not return my calls, she didn’t return my texts either. I tried to tell her I was wrong, and that we needed to talk.”

  Not exactly an apology, but he was trying. So, he hadn’t talked to her for at least thirty-six hours before the murder. And she didn’t respond to his texts. This made me wonder about the timeline.

  “You’re saying you didn’t hear from her for almost two days prior to finding her dead?”

  Hector shook his head vigorously. “No, we were texting—that whole day before we went to the bar. I told her I had to go out and celebrate Lulu moving north, but we would talk after that. She said she was good. She even told me to have fun.”

  “But you never actually spoke with her?” This felt funny to me.

  “We lived together. We talked when we were together. We almost never talked on the phone. Texting is just as good.”