Decker wrote and wrote. “Okay, then what?”
“With Manny as our leader, we pulled in some new members. He gave our little group some focus and much-needed gravitas. Otherwise we were just a bunch of white American kids rejecting what we grew up with. People started coming to hear Manny speak. It was Beth’s idea to start charging money for the good of the group. She also found the storefront and that made the church a real entity. Beth and Manny used to spin the Indian tales and folklore. Beth taught us all how to cook traditional New Mexican dishes and we held all these potlucks that drew even more people. Beth also gave demonstrations in ceramics and charged for lessons. We used one of the bowls for sacramental wine, and another for an incense burner. It was all very exotic.”
“I understand.”
“Manny was the natural leader, but Beth was the creative one. She also came up with the idea of buying an organic farm to give the group some real purpose. We all thought it was a fabulous idea. This was before the hard-core organic-food craze, but a lot of hippies were into health food. We were all psyched on the idea. We finally had some goals in our pathetic lives. It was all going so well!” Lindie sighed and drank more latte. “Then Belize showed up.”
Decker nodded. “Trouble?”
“With a capital T.” She wiped away tears. “If Manny and Beth were exotic, Belize was the king of glamour. Belize not only had Indian blood, but he had actually served time in jail. At that time, you’ve got to remember that there were no such things as criminals, just political prisoners. This was the decade when the Indians took over Alcatraz. Native Americans were hot. Belize was hot. He caught everyone’s eye when Manny brought him in one day. Manny worshipped Belize. Their old man was sentenced to something like forty years in prison for murder. Belize took over the role as Manny’s father figure.”
“Belize took an instant liking to me. Believe it or not, I was cute when I was young. I wish I had had warts on my nose. It would have saved me a lifetime of misery.”
Yet she had stuck it out with the guy. Decker said, “He made a play for you?”
“Yes.”
“And it flattered you.”
“You have to understand, I was always second fiddle…more like third fiddle. First in the alpha female position was Beth, then Alyssa, then me, and then some of the others. All of a sudden this exotic, mysterious guy was coming on to me. Instantly, I gained a new stature.”
“What happened to Christian as your boyfriend?”
“That broke up a long time ago. He was part of the group, but we were no longer an item. It was a free-for-all.” She paused. “Do you know what happened to Christian?”
“He’s a headmaster of a very exclusive private school back east.”
She rolled her eyes. “Talk about a sellout.”
“Maybe he felt he could serve best by educating young minds,” Decker said.
“Maybe he fell into the job because that’s what his father did. Christian used to deride his dad because he received all these expensive birthday and holiday gifts. Now he’s doing the same thing. I use the word ‘hypocrite’, but look at me. Soccer mom complete with the brownies and the SUV.”
“You’re raising your children in a wholesome environment. What’s wrong with that?”
She gave him a tearful smile. “Thanks.”
Decker said, “When you say that it was a free-for-all, I assume you mean all the partying?”
“Of course.”
“What about Beth and Manny. Did they get into the partying?”
Her eyes looked past the physical walls that she gazed upon. “For some reason, I remember the two of them as being kind of spiritual. I know they smoked a lot of weed, that I can remember really well. But I don’t recall them fucking around a lot. Beth and Manny took their roles as leaders pretty seriously. I remember Manny being more into drugs and food than sex.”
Consistent with what Alyssa Bright Mapplethorpe had told Marge. “How long was Belize with the church before things went wrong?”
“He was never really with the church, which is amazing.” She blew out air. “In roughly two weeks’ time, Belize managed to ruin all of our careful planning and hard work.”
“What happened?”
“The man was a goat…insatiable…some things never change.” She blotted tears. “I guess I didn’t satisfy him. Or maybe I just wasn’t around. He was living with Beth and Manny and Manny wasn’t always around. Beth was a beautiful girl.”
Decker thought a moment. “He made a pass at Beth?”
“Truly incredible, huh? Why I didn’t leave him years ago…I’m such an idiot!”
“People get caught in situations,” Decker said.
Lindie let out a small laugh. “You do a great job at playing ‘good cop.’ If I weren’t so distraught, I’d probably fall for you.”
Decker smiled. “I take it Beth told Manny about Belize’s pass?”
“She did. Manny was forgiving of his brother’s roving eye, but Beth wasn’t. She insisted that Belize move out and get his own place. Belize didn’t want to move out. He didn’t want to have to pay rent, he wasn’t paying for food, mostly he was lazy. And he really resented Beth telling him what to do. The two of them began to argue constantly. Manny tried to keep peace but it was useless. It was inevitable that things would come to a head.”
Decker nodded. “Tell me about it. I need to hear your side of the story.”
Her eyes moistened. “I don’t know what happened because I wasn’t there.”
“So tell me what you do know.”
Her tears had returned. “Something went awry…horribly out of control. Belize told me that he…he and Beth were arguing…” She started to pant. “That the argument got very heated…that Beth wouldn’t quit…that things escalated. They got physical. There was pushing and shoving and the next thing he knew…”
She took in a quick breath and forced it out.
“He told me that Beth had hit her head on the wall. He told me that I needed to come over and help him clean up the mess.”
“Mess?”
“That’s what I asked him. What mess?” She blinked repeatedly to rid her eyes of all the tears—like bailing out a sinking ship. Her voice was barely audible. “He begged me to come over. I never heard such desperation. Of course how well did I know him? Something like three weeks?”
“Did you go over to the apartment?”
She nodded slowly. “It was horrible…horrific. I didn’t know people had that much blood inside of them.”
“Describe the scene to me.”
“Blood was…everywhere. On the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling.” She regarded Decker with a trembling lip. “I think I threw up. It was sickening. It was the most…I had nightmares for years. I still have them. That’s why I remember everything so clearly.”
“Poor you,” Decker said, and meant it.
She started sobbing. “Thank you for saying that.”
Decker let her weep openly until her breathing had slowed to an acceptable rate. Then he said, “The scene wasn’t what you expected.”
“I don’t know what I expected. All I knew is that something horrible had happened. What I should have done was run like hell, drive back to my parents’ house, and call the police. Instead, I…” Her voice trailed off.
Decker said, “Who was at the apartment when you got there?”
“By the time I arrived, Manny and Beth were gone. Belize was making some pathetic attempt to scrub down the walls.”
“Did you ask him what happened?”
“No…not at that time. I couldn’t speak. I was in a state of shock and Belize was shaken to the core. He pleaded with me to help him clean up the mess. I took a rag and started wiping the blood from the walls. It was nauseating. The smell of fresh blood and knowing that something real bad happened. My punishment for all the hell I put my parents through.”
“You can’t blame yourself for someone else’s crime, Lindie.”
Again, she started
crying. “I should have seen it coming! I should have left. I should have insisted that Belize leave! I should have, I should have, I should have.”
Decker had no words of solace. He waited a few moments then continued. “Did Manny return to the apartment?”
A long, suffering sigh. “He came back about four hours later. By then, Belize and I managed to clean most of it up…but it still reeked.”
She swallowed hard.
“Manny told us the apartment wasn’t clean enough. He said it needed to be spotless before we left. He also said that he needed to pack up his belongings and Beth’s as well. His plan was to wait until morning and make it look like he and Beth disappeared with the church funds. He said that he’d take out the money first thing in the morning and then we’d all take off together.”
“And what did Belize say to that?”
“Belize did whatever Manny told him to do.”
“I thought it was Manny who adored Belize.”
“Suddenly the roles reversed and Manny was telling us what to do. He was the only one who was thinking that night…preternaturally calm, actually. Maybe it was nerves. Mostly, I remember that he was very pissed at Belize. Unforgivingly so.”
“How could you tell?”
“Belize was constantly trying to talk to him and Manny didn’t answer. Finally Manny told Belize to shut the fuck up. Manny was always kind of a nice guy…seeing him like that, I was terrified. I don’t know who killed Beth; either one could have done it. Of course, I was way too petrified to ask.”
Decker was battling off a terrible hand cramp. “Tell me what happened next.”
Lindie kept shaking her head, trying to rid herself of the dreadful images. “We spent the entire night cleaning the place up. By morning, you could have eaten off the floor, it was that clean. As soon as the bank opened, Manny took out his own money that he had saved with Beth plus the church’s savings. We piled into Manny’s truck and headed for Vegas. We drove the entire six hours in total silence.”
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.”
44
THE 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.”
Decker glanced at his watch. It was already past “the first thing in the morning.” He called Marge on his cell. “Yo.”
“It’s been a while,” Marge said. “You must have had a productive evening.”
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