by Mary Feliz
Sergeant Nguyen took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Mrs. Teresa Olmos,” he said slowly, “we have a warrant to arrest you for the murder of your husband, Patrick Teodoro Olmos.” He stepped back and waved two young deputy cadets forward. One pulled handcuffs from the back of his duty belt, while the other read Tess her Miranda rights.
Chapter 9
If these preparations sound daunting, consider taking advantage of the emergency kits sold and prepared by many community groups as fund-raisers. The kits range in size and price from a personal first aid kit to all the supplies a family of four would need for a week.
From the Notebook of Maggie McDonald
Simplicity Itself Organizing Services
Monday, August 7, Morning
Jason stepped between Tess and the deputies. Teddy grabbed his mother’s hand. She put her arm around him and kissed his head. “It’ll be okay, buddy,” she said. Teddy’s expression said he knew that the bottom had fallen out of his world again. With each blow, he was becoming less successful in rebuilding a firm foundation on which to stand—that platform that everyone needs, but that is truly essential to teens trying to discover who they are and how they’ll navigate the adult world. I nodded to Tess and Teddy. Max and I would protect Teddy—feed him, nurture him, and protect him to the best of our ability for as long as it was necessary. Because that’s what friends did. I reached for my phone to call Forrest Doucett.
Tess lifted her chin and squared her shoulders like a proud French aristocrat on her way to the guillotine.
Jason held his arm out, palm down, toward the nearest cadet. It reminded me of the way I’d approach a dog while trying not to spook it. He shifted his attention to Sergeant Nguyen. “Are you actually arresting her, or just inviting her to come in for questioning?” Jason asked in a gentle but firm voice. “What is the charge? Can you please show us the warrant?”
Nguyen reached inside his jacket and pulled out several folded documents, which he then handed to Jason. “Arrest warrant, search warrant, affidavits, and a list of items we’re looking for, including handguns.” Jason examined them quickly, then handed them to me. “They look in order, but snap a photo of them and send them to Forrest.”
“Guns? But why?” I asked.
“It’s in the warrant,” said Nguyen, stepping forward until he was nearly toe to toe with Jason, as if daring him to do...something. It was a classic display of men squaring off and taking each other’s measure. Tension rose, and I feared that the tiniest movement on anyone’s part would land us in more trouble than we already faced. I held my breath.
Jason stared at the sergeant, but continued to speak so softly that, had the room not been so deathly quiet, or if I hadn’t already had a good idea of what he had to say, his words would have been inaudible to anyone other than Nguyen. “The cuffs won’t be necessary. Mrs. Olmos is happy to cooperate. I’d be pleased to bring her to the district attorney’s office or wherever it is you intend to question her.” He paused. “I know you have the paperwork required to arrest Mrs. Olmos, but I assume you’ll want to search the house while she’s here and question her to see if her statement proves more reliable than that of any other witnesses you’ve interviewed.”
“Witnesses?” I must have spoken too loudly, because Tess startled and everyone else stared at me with varied degrees of astonishment. “How can there be witnesses? Tess didn’t do anything. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.” I sucked in a deep breath and forced myself to close my mouth and stop talking. As much as I wanted to defend my friend, I was upsetting Tess and Teddy, and that was the last thing I wanted to do.
Nguyen sighed, then nodded, first to Jason and then to his men, each of whom took several steps backward until they stood behind their boss. “Chief, as a courtesy to you, I would be happy to question Mrs. Olmos before we take her to the jail. Is there somewhere we can talk without interruption?”
“I’m sure we can set you up with a room here from which you can conduct your interviews and supervise the search for the items named in the warrant,” Jason said. “Mrs. Olmos will want to wait for her lawyer, so that will give us plenty of time to create an interview situation that works for everyone.”
I stepped into the living room as I selected Forrest’s office number from my contact list. I hoped I’d find him in his Orchard View location—a high-rise upscale business suite he’d recently opened as a satellite to the firm’s headquarters near AT&T Park in San Francisco. He’d joked that he needed the new location to be closer to our family and friends, making it easier to respond to my “constant calls” for help. I suspected the real reason was that the bulk of the firm’s business was connected in one way or another to Silicon Valley commerce. Forrest had once told me he spent as much or more time arguing cases in San Jose as he did in San Francisco.
The call connected, and I briefly explained to the receptionist that I was a friend and a client of Forrest’s, and that I needed help for another friend who was being arrested for murder. The words seemed as foreign as if I’d suddenly begun speaking a language I’d never studied, but they didn’t seem to faze the receptionist. “Please tell him there’s been a new development,” I added.
He transferred me to Forrest’s office, where an automated system invited me to leave a message. “Forrest, the Santa Clara County sheriff has a warrant for Tess Olmos’s arrest and paperwork to search her home and garage for firearms and a number of other items. Everything is happening quickly, so we need you or one of your colleagues here as soon as possible. It looks like Jason has convinced Sergeant Nguyen to question Tess here at the house and hold off on arresting her. I doubt Jason will let Tess answer any questions until you get here. I took photos of the warrants and the other forms Nguyen gave to Tess. I’ll send them to your personal phone.”
Forrest responded with a quick text before I’d finished sending the documents.
In town. On my way.
I took a minute to breathe deeply and think about what I needed to do when I walked back into the kitchen. The most important thing was to project confidence. The boys needed to know that the adults had the situation in hand and that there was nothing to worry about.
I heard a vehicle pull up outside and peered through a gap in the living room drapes. Forrest hopped out of the cab of a dented pickup truck that sported more primer than paint but appeared to have originally been red. It was old, but not yet vintage, and it had a bit of a coughing fit when Forrest turned off the engine. It was a far cry from the sleek black Tesla he normally drove. His faded jeans, gray sweatshirt, and dusty hair indicated he’d come as soon as I’d called. If he was working from home today, he wasn’t catching up on lawyerly paperwork nor meeting clients—not without his tailored suit, silk tie, and crisply starched shirt.
“Excuse my appearance,” he said after he’d introduced himself. “I wasn’t expecting to conduct any business today. It’s Lizzy’s birthday, and we’re landscaping. I’d just made my first trip to the hardware store when you phoned.”
Forrest, exuding more confidence than I’d been able to drum up, met with Tess in a small courtyard seating area off of Tess’s bedroom. Jason joined them, but not until after he’d told me that Stephen and Paolo were on their way. Until they arrived, it was my job to make sure Sergeant Nguyen and his men adhered to the limits of the warrants. I nodded my agreement, but I was as out of my depth as I would have been if Jason had handed me a baby manatee and asked me to feed it some lunch.
I smiled bravely at the boys and spoke quickly before toddling off to dog the heels of the sheriff’s men. “Forrest knows exactly what to do,” I said, adding, for Teddy’s sake, “He’s a lawyer and an old friend of Max’s. He’s helped us out on several occasions and I trust him.” Teddy relaxed a little, but he seemed more comforted by Max’s reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“Jason asked them to be careful and tidy in their search,” Max added. I hoped the sheri
ff’s men would comply. There were few feelings creepier than having strangers paw through your personal belongings. The last thing Teddy needed was for them to accidentally break something he treasured as a memento of his father.
“I need to watch them,” I said, pointing toward the garage, where the men had launched their search. We could hear the sounds of boxes being moved and drawers being opened and closed a bit more roughly than I thought was necessary.
“Go,” said Max. “I’ll call Elaine. She wanted to keep an eye on the news vans. If they’ve left, I think we could use her help. Stephen’s too.”
“With what?”
“I’m not sure, maybe just to tip the scales—increase the number of people here who are squarely behind Tess and Teddy.”
Brian followed me to the garage and bumped into me as I paused to open the connecting door. “Mom?”
I stopped, turned, and put my arm around him. Whereas his normal adolescent instinct might have been to duck out of my reach, today’s extreme circumstances made him lean into my embrace. “Is this weird?” he asked. “I mean, Jason’s a cop.”
“What do you mean?” I had no idea what he was getting at.
“I mean, Jason told you to call Forrest. He convinced Nguyen to talk to Tess here instead of at the station. He’s the one who asked you to watch the deputies. But he’s a cop. Shouldn’t he be on their side?”
It was an easy question for me to answer. “You know Jason. He’s on the side of the law. He takes his vow to serve and protect literally. Right now, he’s protecting Tess and Teddy. Making sure the sheriff’s guys follow the law. Not every cop might see that as part of the job, but Jason isn’t any cop, now, is he?”
Brian’s shoulders relaxed.
“Your dad and I are going to look after Teddy and Tess as long as necessary,” I told him. “This is a tough time for them, but they’ll be okay. We’ll see to that.”
“Mom...” Brian bit his lip, and his gaze dropped to his shoes. “Yesterday I was feeling sorry for us. I was afraid our house would burn down. I worried about the damage the fire was doing. Today, I’m pretty sure that doesn’t matter much.”
I gave him a hug and kissed the top of his head. I knew exactly how he felt.
Chapter 10
Emergency contact information greatly aids first responders. Many athletes who train outdoors carry copies of their driver’s licenses in their shoes or helmets. Other options are downloading an ICE (in case of emergency) app on your cell phone that will provide all relevant information if your phone is unlocked. Another commercially available but inexpensive and durable solution is a Road ID tag that can be worn on your wrist or attached to your clothing.
From the Notebook of Maggie McDonald
Simplicity Itself Organizing Services
Monday, August 7, Lunchtime
The intrusion of Nguyen and the deputies seemed as outrageous as if an entire circus troupe and their elephants, tigers, and trained seals had descended upon us. They combed the house and garage and prepared to leave after bagging their evidence, which included two guns.
“Where did you find them?” Tess asked, eyeing the firearms as though she expected them to explode. “I’ll kill that man. He was supposed to have gotten rid of them.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she slapped both hands over her mouth when she realized what she’d said.
The younger, thinner sheriff’s deputy held the guns and described them, as the second deputy jotted notes on the inventory portion of one of the pages that had come with the search warrant.
Forrest took Tess’s hand and held it firmly. She peered up at him. “If you know anything about the firearms, I see no problem in telling the officers.”
Tess sat near the end of the kitchen table, where the second deputy was writing. “May I?” she asked. He slid the smaller handgun toward her. Tess picked it up with a rustle of the sealed evidence bag. “This one was Patrick’s grandfather’s. He liked to target-shoot, and at one time was being considered for the Olympic team. PopPop called it a free pistol. Neither Patrick nor his dad took up the sport, but Patrick wanted to hang on to it in case Teddy was ever interested.
“It takes a .22 round, I think, but I’m sure we don’t have any ammunition for it. Patrick was supposed to store it at his parents’ house or in our safety deposit box. I guess he hadn’t gotten around to moving it.” I heard a catch in her throat, but she gamely kept going, reaching for the second gun, a long one that the first deputy shoved toward her when Tess held out her hand. “It’s empty,” he said. “I checked.”
Tess examined the gun. “Does the warrant cover this? It’s not a handgun.” Nguyen nodded to the cadet, who pulled out the warrant, flipped through pages of small print, and read: “Any handgun or other weapon that could fire or be adapted to fire a .22 round.”
“That’s a Remington .22-250,” Forrest said. “My dad had one. It fits the description.”
Jason frowned and turned to the sergeant. “When you told me ‘handguns’ earlier, did you misspeak or deliberately mislead me?”
Nguyen flushed. “I apologize for my lack of precision,” he said mechanically, not sounding at all sorry. I shivered and was glad I’d called Forrest. If Nguyen was going to be playing games and trading semantics, I was way out of my league.
Meanwhile, Tess peered at the long gun through the enormous and unwieldy evidence bag, making more noise than someone sneaking potato chips at midnight. Through the bag she flicked some mechanism and then flicked it again. “Force of habit,” she said. “Never take hold of a gun without checking the safety devices. This gun was my grandfather’s. Remington .22-250. He used it to keep rats away from his horse feed. We’ve got no horse, no feed, no rats, and no ammo. Patrick was a local history buff, and he hung on to a lot of mementos from my granddad’s ranch.”
“More firearms?” asked Nguyen. Tess shook her head. “A branding iron, a sharpening stone. I don’t know of any other guns, but then, like I said, I thought Patrick had gotten rid of these years ago. I don’t know if they still work, let alone shoot straight. Why are you so interested in them? Are you sure they’re included on the warrant?” She looked across the table at Forrest, who had pulled out a chair and sat at the end of the table facing the deputy.
“Go ahead, counselor,” said Nguyen.
Forrest put the palms of his hands down on the table, his fingers spread wide. “The warrant allowed them to look for a firearm that took .22 rounds. Both the Olympic free pistol and the Remington fit that description. I understand that the crime scene investigators uncovered some .22 shells near the scene. The medical examiner found a bullet lodged in Patrick’s scapula that could have come from either one of these guns.”
Teddy held up his hand for Brian to reward him with a high five. “I told you he was murdered,” he said. “Dad wouldn’t have fallen from that ridge trail on his own.” Almost immediately, Teddy’s jubilation fled. His shoulders dropped, and his face drooped as he realized what connections the sheriff was trying to make. “But Mom’s right. We don’t have ammunition for those guns. Dad told me he’d teach me to shoot one day, but like Mom said, guns spooked him. We didn’t go. I didn’t know they were still here.”
“We found the long gun in the rafters of the garage where it abuts the kitchen,” said the sergeant. “We could see it from the garage floor, but not easily.” Forrest started to protest, but Nguyen held up his hand. “Calm down, counselor. It’s a righteous search. We’ve found other long guns stashed in similar places. Once we knew where to look, we could see it, though it blended into the shadows of the rafters. When it comes to hiding firearms, it’s as common a hiding place as a porch flowerpot is for keys.”
“And the second one?” Forrest asked.
“Ah, now, that was interesting, seeing as how no one here knows anything about it. We found that one on the workbench.”
I gasped at the news and strug
gled to force my brain to catch up with my need to defend my friend and the rest of us. “That can’t be,” I said. “We’ve all been in and out of the garage, both last night and this morning. There was no gun there, I’m sure of it.”
I checked the expressions on the faces of my friends and my family members. But everyone seemed as horrified as I felt. “Sergeant Nguyen, both Tess and I are extremely firm about guns and gun safety. No one here would have left a gun out where it could be so casually picked up. No one. Frankly, if I’d known Tess and Patrick had guns stored here, I’m not sure I’d even let my boys hang out here. We’d have had a long discussion about it, anyway. We used to live in Stockton. I grew up there and lost more than one member of my high school and college classes to random violence. In my mind, a gun—any gun, loaded or not—is a murder waiting for the right circumstances. Firearms can’t tell the difference between a human, a pet, or a wild animal. Neither can bullets. I’ve got nothing against hunting, hunters, or target shooters, but I don’t want guns anywhere near my kids.”
Max nodded firmly in agreement, as did Tess. All three boys were shaking their heads. “If that gun had been there yesterday,” David said, “we would have seen it. Along with dozens of friends and neighbors who were here last night. I’d have assumed it was an Airsoft replica. I probably would have picked it up and brought it to Teddy, to ask how he’d convinced his mom to let him buy it.”
Sergeant Nguyen watched each of us closely as we exchanged looks of confusion. “Do you have a list of who was invited last night?” he asked.
Tess sighed and pushed her hair away from her face, twisting it into a loose bun. “It wasn’t like that. It was neighbors coming over to lend support. Bringing casseroles, offering to help, that kind of thing.”