Fifty-Two

Aragon and Lewis opened a separate file on Goff. The first and last entries came easily. The crime scene, Geronimo on the floor of his gallery, then fast forward to Goff’s arrest. Filling everything in between had them cross-referencing reports in the Linda Fager and Ladron bodies files they had not yet written. They owed Rivera updates on the Fremont case. The Tasha Gonzalez file needed to be updated with results of testing on the Rio Salado soil samples and information about her brother’s financial miracle.

Lewis was having an easier time with his share of the paperwork. He was diligent about entering notes into his laptop at day’s end. Aragon scribbled on scraps of paper and empty Lotaburger bags. Some notes made their way into a spiral ring notebook that fit into the back pocket of her jeans.

Getting ready to start writing, she came across the name Sylvia Bukar.

It took her a minute to remember Roshi Buff talking about the ritual Wiccan murder in Albuquerque. She’d spent a few minutes looking into the case. Bukar had used the promise of sex to lure a middle-aged man to the foothills of the Sandia Mountains and drove a knife through his heart while she straddled him. Aragon had jotted the information in her notebook and forgot about it.

Timothy Osborn referred to Fremont as a witch. Albuquerque cops had said the same thing about Bukar.

Her notes contained the name of the Albuquerque detective who worked the case. Enrique Brito. She called his office and learned he was at the Bernalillo County courthouse in a drive-by shooting trial. She called the mobile number she was given.

“Was wondering if you would ever call back. I’m on break. We’ve got five minutes.”

“You called me?” She heard a match striking and him sucking air, firing a cigarette.

“Left a message with a Detective Serrano. Asked for you but got him.”

Aragon’s kick drove an open drawer into her desk.

“I saw the news about that girl in the sleeping bag,” he said. “The part about the ceremony in the woods made me think of my witch.”

Traffic sounds and him breathing heavier. She guessed he was climbing stairs on the side of the courthouse to find a quieter spot to talk.

Brito continued. “I understand you’re off the case.”

“I’ve still got a finger in it.”

“You want to look at her cell phone real hard.”

After Osborn and Rutmann were arrested, the FBI had gone through Fremont’s cell-phone records to verify and date calls between her and the two men. The first call fit the time frame of the ad she ran to attract them. A series of calls back and forth ended on what turned out to be the day they all drove to the ski basin parking lot and hiked into the woods. That was as far as their analysis had gone before Santa Fe took the case. Now Serrano had Fremont’s cell with the other evidence.

“Bukar gave us this story,” Brito said. “The guy picking her up at a bar, forcing her to the mountains and raping her. She stuck him to defend herself. But her cell had his number in her directory. Get this. His name was Juan Valdez, like the coffee guy. She had his number under ‘Sacrifice.’”

“The two with Fremont, her cell had their real names.”

“What I was getting at is you should see when Fremont and Bukar talked.”

She leaned forward as though Brito were sitting across the desk instead of standing outside a courthouse in another county.

“How do you know they talked?”

“Bukar’s out in Grants, but I keep an eye on my witch.” Grants was the New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility west of Albuquerque. “I want to know who visits her. Intelligence if more guys turn up dead inside circles drawn in the dirt. The Wiccans were pissed she was claiming her ritual was part of their spring celebration. She used a Wiccan knife, did it under some special phase of the moon. But theirs is a religion of peace. Where have we heard that before?”

Aragon wanted to hear about Bukar and Fremont. “Get to it.”

“Mostly family visitors making the drive. No one of the Wiccan persuasion. No witches, warlocks, or wizards dropping by. Every week women from this Christian thing Bukar’s into now. And Cynthia Fremont.”

“When?”

“About three times. My notes are in my desk. I’m pretty sure all this year.”

“Will Bukar talk to me?”

“Take a Bible. She won’t shut up.”

“This knife, I’d like to see it.”

“We never found it. Bukar claims she threw it away in disgust,” Brito said. “Look. I’ve got to get going. I’m up next for an ADA in diapers. Had to tell her how to get in my expert opinion on street lingo. A ‘cap’ is not something you wear on your head. ‘Send it’ has nothing to do with texting.”

“You said it was Wiccan. The knife.”

“Bukar bought it on eBay. I’ll send you a photo.”

He e-mailed the photo after court was done for the day. The knife Bukar used for a human sacrifice was the same black-handled serpentine knife that killed Cynthia Fremont.