Swope's Ridge

by Ace Collins

  “What can I do for you?” he grumbled.

  “Are you Martin de la Cruz?”

  The man yawned, stretched, then pulled the bottom of his thin white T-shirt over his considerable belly. “So? What if I am?”

  “I’m Kent McGee and I need to speak with you.” “I don’t know you. What’s this about?”

  “It’s about Omar Jones. May I come in?”

  De la Cruz shrugged. “Long time ago, ancient history. You a reporter? I don’t talk to reporters.”

  “No, I’m a lawyer.”

  “I sure as heck don’t talk to them either.” He started to close the door, but was stopped by McGee’s $250 black loafer.

  “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I don’t care, but I’m not leaving without speaking with you.”

  De la Cruz picked at his shirt while he studied his uninvited guest’s face. Finally, after yanking his faded jeans up under his bulging waist, he signaled for McGee to follow. “The living room’s to the right. Just push those newspapers off the couch. I can’t spare much time.”

  As McGee moved a week-old copy of the Dallas Morning News from the cushion to the floor, he said, “I’m sure you have several important appointments. You must be an extremely busy man.”

  “What do you mean by that?” de la Cruz shot back as he plopped down in a well-worn La-Z-Boy recliner.

  “When’s your next poker game?”

  “What? You here to collect somebody’s debt?”

  McGee grinned, leaned back, and crossed his right foot over his left knee. As his host tried to get a make on him, the lawyer inventoried the contents of what, in the home’s heyday, had been called a parlor.

  De la Cruz was a textbook example of a man who was always sure he was just one game away from a big win. The man’s college degree in computer programming had somehow been lost in this chase. Pride had walked out too. His desk was stacked with old lottery tickets and more than two dozen decks of cards. The computer screen displayed a site that handicapped dog races. On the coffee table were brochures from at least half a dozen horse-racing venues. He was a sad study of human nature, a smart man living a solitary life blanketed in bad luck created with his own hands.

  “I don’t care about your gambling,” McGee said. “If you want to let your life ride on your instincts, that’s fine with me. If you’re dodging debts, so be it. I only care about what you saw on September 10, 2001. Give me that information and I’ll leave you alone.”

  “I told the police over and over again. Then I told it during the trial. I never changed anything. I can’t add any more now.”

  “Yes, I’ve read what you told the FBI and everyone else. In every case, it’s always the same. Almost word for word. That’s not normal. No witness ever remembers it all the first time. It takes a while for a mind to process all the information and recall the details. Those whose stories never change are usually spitting out a script someone else wrote for them. Is that what you’ve been doing? Did you even see Jones that night?”

  The words that should have stung didn’t. De la Cruz showed no sign of feeling the slightest bit insulted. Instead, like a gambler knowing he has the winning hand, he leaned back in his chair, smiled, and closed his eyes.

  “Your name is Kent McGee,” he began as if reciting lines from a stage play. “You first knocked on my door at 12:03. You probably rang the doorbell first, but it doesn’t work. You knocked seven times. The first four you rapped your hand five times, the next eight, and finally the last two you beat on the wood eleven and nineteen times. You have a yellow-gold school ring on your right hand. The stone is purple; your initials are on one side. The year you graduated, 1991, is written on the other. Ouachita is the name of your school; the etchings on the ring indicate your major was in humanities and your mascot is a tiger.”

  He paused momentarily, licked his lips, but did not open his eyes. “Your watch is an analog type, silver expandable band, but there was not enough of the face showing from under your shirt sleeve for me to read the brand. The stitching in your shirt indicates it was custom made. Your initials, KBM, are on the cuff. Your belt has a simple gold buckle; the leather is triple stitched on both edges.”

  De la Cruz opened his eyes, smiled, and added, “And, if you want me to go on, I can tell you other things, including a description of the small scar on your forehead and the flecks of gold that are only in your right eye, not your left.”

  McGee smiled. “You have keen powers of observation. I’d expect no less of someone who’s been banned in Vegas.”

  De la Cruz suddenly seemed proud. “You’ve done your homework. I’m impressed. But if you think this is just the power of observation, then you’re mistaken. It’s a lot more than that. I have a gift.” He smiled while allowing the fact to soak in. “Have you ever heard of hyperthymestic syndrome?”

  “No.”

  “Few people have. Give me a date, sometime in the last thirty years.”

  “June 12, 1982.”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, de la Cruz began, “Three quarters of a million people gathered in New York’s Central Park to protest the spread of nuclear weapons. Simon and Garfunkel played a concert to rave reviews in Rotherham. I got up at nine-thirty a.m. It was a beautiful morning in Ada, Oklahoma, where I lived. I dressed that day in a blue T-shirt and my jeans had a hole in the right knee. My Little League game was rained out by a thunderstorm that started at five-fifteen p.m. I took my bath at nine-thirty-five p.m., found a single chigger bite on the inside of my left calf, watched the weather and sports, then went to bed. My sheets were red and white stripes, and the rain, which had stopped at eight-fifteen, began again at eleven-o-two.

  “I could go on, but I think you should be able to understand my unique abilities. If not, let me explain my gift this way. Most people remember things for a moment, then those images start to fade. At first their memories just move into soft focus, then they become somewhat transparent, the details disappearing into almost nothingness. I’m one of a handful of people who never forget anything. I can tell you what clothes I wore on March 15, 1992—a gray sweater, blue slacks, and black socks, the left one with a hole in the heel. I can tell you the details of every bet I’ve ever made.”

  De la Cruz tapped his forehead. “It’s all here, day by day, moment by moment, and year by year. What I saw on September 10, 2001, is as clear now as it was at 8:03 that evening. My story will not change because it can’t change. When I think back, I see it as if I’m watching it right now.”

  16

  AS HIS HOST FELL SMUGLY BACK AGAINST THE recliner’s cushion, McGee weighed his next move. De la Cruz was obviously the perfect witness for the prosecution—any prosecution. His abilities were shockingly accurate. No one could challenge those abilities in any way. What chance did a suspect have if he was fingered by de la Cruz?

  But what if this man was using hyperthymestic syndrome to craft a false story? It would be the perfect cover. Because of his diagnosis and track record, his story would ring true even if he was telling a lie. His remembering every moment of his life didn’t mean he was telling the truth. But how do you prove that a man who can’t forget is a liar? Cracking a guy like this was going to take some outside-the-box thinking. How could he separate fact from fiction?

  McGee decided to start with praise.

  “I’m not going to question your ability,” he began. “I’m very impressed. No doubt you could’ve used your gift to break the bank in Vegas if they’d just given you a chance. In fact, I’m surprised they didn’t hire you. Looks to me like you’d have made a great employee.”

  “My skills got me the ’Vette by the garage,” de la Cruz bragged. “Won it in a local game last week.”

  “I’m surprised you ever lose.”

  “Well, at cards I usually don’t,” he said, “but I’ve got to move around a lot to find folks who haven’t heard about me. My reputation’s my biggest enemy. My skill doesn’t help me with the ponies or dogs. I just like to gamble. T
here’s a rush like nothing else when I’m in that moment with everything riding on one race or one play.”

  “I guess it’s kind of like waiting for a jury to come in.”

  “Maybe. I wouldn’t know.”

  “Martin, let’s be clear on something. Your skills don’t mean you’re always honest. I’ll bet five dollars you’re smart enough to bend the rules when you see the chance.”

  De la Cruz’ eyes lit up. “I never get caught. That comes from watching the details and avoiding the traps that catch other cheaters. So if you can’t catch me, I’m not cheating.”

  “Let me flip that a bit,” the lawyer cut in. “The fact that you do bend the rules, using your reputation and your gift to work a game to your advantage, means that you could’ve invented the story about seeing Omar Jones. After all, who would question a man with a perfect memory? I’m thinking you invented the whole thing and used your well-known gift to legitimatize your lie.”

  This time de la Cruz was insulted. McGee could read the anger on his face and in his body language. Leaning forward, his cheeks a deep red, the gambler shouted, “I ought to—”

  “You ought to what?” McGee said as he rose and glared at de la Cruz’ contorted fleshy face. “Maybe it’s time for you to use your powers of observation. I’m taller, stronger, and quicker than you. I could take you in a minute and still have time to adjust my tie.”

  Quickly lifting his hands in surrender, de la Cruz stumbled for words to get him out of a possible whipping. “I-I-I said that wrong. I mean, well, what I mean is that I said what I said in the wrong way. I’d never attack you or anyone else. But I didn’t make anything up that night. You can strap me up to a lie detector. It’ll prove I’m telling the truth.”

  De la Cruz paused, leaned back in his chair, and held out his hands. “I play the percentages. I had nothing to gain by lying. If I’d lied, it would’ve been to protect Omar. He was a friend. I liked him. I really liked him. It broke my heart to have to testify against him in court. I can’t forget the look he gave me when I told that story. That look cut through me like a knife. But I wasn’t going to perjure myself.”

  “Especially when the whole country would’ve come after you if you had stood up for him.”

  “Hey, they had DNA evidence. They’d have convicted him without my testimony. I’m not the person whose words put Omar on death row. He killed four people—that’s what nailed him! “

  Sweat now rolled off the fat man’s face and his armpits were soaked. He was not enjoying the hand he held in McGee’s game. The worst part was he couldn’t fold.

  “Not long after you fingered him,” the lawyer continued, “you came into a lot of money. Enough to settle your debts.”

  “Yeah.” De la Cruz nodded his head. “I can tell you the exact moment the gifts came in and amounts of each check. But I didn’t know it was going to happen. It started after the story got out and the press made me out to be a hero. Big companies, some church groups, and even individuals heard about my financial woes and gave me gifts because I’d been such a super patriot. That’s how I paid off $213,421.22 in debts. Then I moved and started gambling again. I’ve been up and down ever since. I’m a few bucks above even right now, so life is good. But I didn’t lie for money. I don’t care if you believe me or not; it’s true.”

  De la Cruz was a master card player, but was he really able to run a bluff in real life when the pressure was on? McGee didn’t think so, and it was time to make him show his hand. “Martin, your story was the same every time you told it. Was that just due to your gift?”

  “Maybe,” he admitted, “but the questions were always the same. Interview after interview they always asked the same things in just about the same order. It never changed. I tried to get them to let me bet on what the next question would be, figured I could take them for some money, but they wouldn’t play. It was boring, and they kept doing it day after day, week after week, and month after month. It only stopped when they found Omar guilty.”

  Made sense. Why change the order or nature of the questions if the results the first time gave a perfect score? The only time questions changed was when investigators didn’t get the results they wanted. So maybe there was a question or two the FBI felt they had no reason to ask. If this guy’s memory was perfect, then the answers to those unasked questions might open a new direction, give a new perspective on the conversation between de la Cruz and Jones that night. It was worth a try.

  “Martin, when you saw Omar that night, was there anything about him that was different from all the other times you had seen him?”

  The response was immediate. “Sure. Omar was always upbeat and excited, kind of nervous. Nothing would be going on and he was still edgy, like he was expecting lightning to strike. But that night he was really, really calm. I’d never seen him so cool. He was kind of distant, and he was never like that. When I learned later what had happened, I wrote it off as his trying to act like everything was normal. An attempt at covering his tracks.”

  “Anything else that surprised you?”

  “Omar loved to talk, but not that night. It was like he couldn’t wait to get away from me. I remember I was trying to tell him about the Texas Rangers game. I had won five hundred dollars on it, and he said, ‘Martin, I’ve got to go. No time to talk now.’ He’d never brushed me off like that before. When I found out about the murders, it almost all made sense.”

  “Almost all?” McGee asked.

  “Yeah, almost all. He had always called me Marty. That was the first time he’d ever called me Martin. That was weird. Maybe it was just his nerves, but it kind of sounded funny coming out of his lips. Like it was rehearsed.”

  Marty. Did that mean anything? Maybe, but not enough to go to a high court and ask for a delay in the execution. Buried in the gambler’s willing mind had to be something else the original investigators missed. But what was it?

  “Did the FBI ever ask you about his hands?”

  De la Cruz shrugged. “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. Did they ask you if he had a bleeding finger?”

  “No, no one asked that. But I can tell you he didn’t. His hands were clean. No cuts.”

  Praise the Lord for making a man who couldn’t forget! This was a break—a huge break! Still, it wasn’t enough for an appeal. He needed more.

  “Martin,” McGee continued, “what did he do after he left you?”

  “Like I told the FBI, he got into his car and drove off.”

  “Sure it was his car?”

  “I guess. It was a blue 1999 Mazda. That’s what he drove.”

  “Anything different about the car that night?”

  “It was cleaner than usual. Otherwise, nothing.”

  “You didn’t see a tag number that night, did you?”

  “No, only glanced at the car. It was a half block away and it was turned sideways. So couldn’t see the plates.”

  McGee walked over to the still reclining de la Cruz. “Thanks. You’ve been a huge help.”

  His host struggled out of the chair and they shook hands. McGee took a business card out of his pocket and dropped it on the table. “I know once you look at it you’ll remember the number. If you ever need anything, call me.”

  “Thanks.”

  McGee almost bounced out the door and onto the porch, then jumped from the front porch and sprinted toward the car. Once in the driver’s seat, he pulled away from the curb and retraced his route while whistling an old jazz number. A few verses later, when he was nearly to I-35, he hit a number on his cell.

  Ivy Beals didn’t bother with any of the standard greetings. “How did it go?”

  “You ever heard of hyperthymestic syndrome?” McGee said.

  “Yeah, really rare. It causes a person to remember everything in great detail. And I do mean every minute detail. Don’t ever ask one of those folks to tell you about a movie, because the story will take longer than the film itself. I worked with a man in the CIA who was hyperthymestic.
You can imagine how important that was in the spy game. He was the MVP of our unit. No doubt about that.”

  “Well,” McGee said, “Martin de la Cruz might well be the MVP of this case. And for the same reason.”

  “Glad you got a break. He really doesn’t forget anything. That’s just weird.”

  “I’ll email the report later. Anything on your end?”

  “Before I answer that,” Beals said, “let me ask, you got a tail?”

  “Like a tiger. Had one all day.”

  “Figured you might. The good news is that I’ve uncovered something pretty interesting.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Albert Klasser was the only one from his clan who lived in the United States. His other three brothers and their families reside in Israel. Klasser was born there but went to prep schools in New York, stayed in the States for college at Cal Tech, and never moved back home. His oldest brother, Seth, is a history professor at a university in Tel Aviv. A younger brother, Isaac, is a doctor and also lives in the capital. It’s his third sibling, Joshua, who might be the key to explaining why Albert was murdered. Joshua is a high-ranking operative in the Mossad.”

  “Israeli intelligence. That’s an interesting twist. Could offer us an alternative motive for the crime. The guys in that group play hardball and make a lot of enemies. Where is he now?”

  “At this moment, Washington, D.C.”

  “Can you get to him?”

  “Maybe. I still have some contacts from my time in the agency.”

  “Good. Get me what I need. Call me when you’ve got something concrete.”

  McGee felt like a new man as he dropped his secure phone in his pocket. Maybe he could take on the whole government, including the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. He had something they’d missed.

  But there was still the troubling aspect of who’d been imitating Omar Jones that night and why de la Cruz didn’t spot the difference. Maybe the light was so bad the man’s face was shielded. But what about the blood, the DNA, the fingerprints? Could he create enough doubt on those vital elements to at least gain an opportunity to argue the case before an appellate court?