and the fact that Emerson Pike seemed to be obsessed with these the moment he found them in her camera. She tells us that it was then that Pike first suggested they take a trip north to the States to stay at his house near San Diego, and about Emerson’s wizardry in obtaining a short-order visa for her, as if on demand.
Harry has a puzzled look. “How long did you say the visa took?”
“Three days.”
Harry makes a note. “Easy enough to check it out,” he says.
Katia tells us about her mother who, as far as she knows, is still down in Colombia, visiting relatives. Emerson was having Katia call home every day, checking to see if her mother had gotten home yet, back to Costa Rica. According to Katia, although she can’t prove it, she is certain that Emerson was not going to take her back to Costa Rica until Katia’s mother was back there, and maybe not even then. Emerson Pike’s captive. This may be the best defense she has, perhaps the only one.
“Why didn’t you go to the police, or the Costa Rican consulate?” I ask. “If you’d gone to them, you wouldn’t be in this mess now. They would have provided assistance. You know that.”
She looks at me sheepishly. “I couldn’t be sure of that. Emerson was a powerful man. He had a great deal of money. He would have friends in the police. Look at how quickly he was able to get the visa for me to come here.” She has every explanation in the book for not making two simple phone calls.
“Did he ever hit you?” Harry plumbs the depths and comes up empty.
“No.”
“Did he ever lock you up, confine you anywhere?”
“No. But I think he was going to. If he knew I was trying to leave.”
“But he never did it?”
“No. He would not let me have cash. He took money away from me whenever he found it. And then he would send money to my family in Costa Rica. It made no sense unless he was trying to keep them quiet and keep me here against my will.”
“Did you tell him you wanted to leave, to go back to Costa Rica?”
“Almost every day. Sometimes several times a day.”
“And what did he say?”
“He made excuses. Next week. Next month. Two weeks from now, and then he would change the subject.”
“Did you think of going to the police?” Harry knows this is the first question the prosecutor will ask if they get Katia on the stand.
“No. But if I had to, I would have. He knew it.”
“These pictures,” I ask, “the ones your mother took, why would they be of concern to Emerson?”
“That’s what I wanted to know. He wouldn’t tell me,” she says.
“Where are the pictures now?”
According to Katia, the police have them. They were in her bag the day they arrested her. She and Emerson had argued over the photographs the night she left. He had finally given them back to her and she had stashed them in her overnight bag before she left the house.
“That brings us to the bag,” says Harry. “What else was in there?” Harry already knows, but he wants to hear what Katia has to say.
“You mean the gold coins and the stubs from the pawnshop dealer? I already told them all about it.” Katia is talking about the police and her earlier statements to them.
Her plan was simple. When she flew into the country with Pike coming north, they landed and changed planes in Houston. She knew she could get back home from there. She also knew she had enough money from the cash in Pike’s wallet the night he was killed for a one-way bus ticket from San Diego to Houston. She had gathered the bus fare information off the Internet when Pike wasn’t looking.
According to Katia, the gold coins she took from Pike’s study were to cover the cost of an airline ticket from Houston home to Costa Rica. The exact cost of the airfare was less certain. She couldn’t be sure. But she knew one thing. She needed time to cash out the coins. According to Katia, the bus ride would give her that time, all the while putting distance between herself and Emerson Pike. While he was searching the airport for her, she would be gone. She fenced some of the coins at a pawnshop in a small town in western Arizona just hours before the police caught up with her. The pawn tickets were still in her purse, along with the cash. When they stopped her, Katia thought she was being arrested for theft.
One thing was clear, if anyone should be in jail it was the pawnshop owner. Katia had no idea of the value of what she was selling. According to expert appraisals, she had pawned more than thirty thousand dollars in rare coins and had received just over fourteen hundred dollars in cash, far less than the gold content of the coins she’d sold.
“What happened to the rest of the coins?” says Harry.
“They were in my bag,” she says.
“No. No, I mean the other two hundred and eighty-six coins. That’s what the police are estimating is gone, the ones from the drawers. The ones you broke into.”
Katia gives me a puzzled look, then back to Harry. “I didn’t go near any of the drawers. I didn’t need to. I took only what was on the desk. There were nineteen coins and twelve others in two plastic sheets. I counted them carefully on the bus when no one else was looking, down inside my bag. I am sure. This is not a question. I took no other coins,” she says.
According to the police there was almost half a million dollars in coins missing from Emerson Pike’s study the night he was murdered. “You’re sure you don’t want to think about this?” says Harry. “Where you might have put them?”
“I am sure.” Katia looks at him, indignant. “I know what I took and what I didn’t take.” She looks at me, imploring. “That proves it, don’t you see? Someone else was there. Besides, I didn’t have time to take anything more even if I’d wanted to.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Emerson was in the shower. I could hear the water running. I knew he would be coming out any moment. I didn’t have time to take anything else. It was all I could do to grab the coins on the desk and write the note. I barely got out the door as it was.”
“What note?” I ask.
She looks at me, puzzled. “I already told the police about it. The note I left for Emerson, the one on his desk. I told him I was taking some coins, but only enough to get back home to Costa Rica, and please not to follow me. I told him that if he did I would go to the police.”
This leaves Harry and me looking at each other. We have a list of items found by investigators at the scene, supplied by the police to the public defender’s office, part of early discovery. Harry flips through the list, running his finger down each page. When he finishes the last page, he looks up at me and shakes his head.
“There was no note, Katia. The police didn’t find any note,” I tell her.
“I don’t understand,” she says.
“Has anyone explained to you what the investigators found at the scene?”
She shakes her head. Katia is in the dark. Even the public defender hasn’t told her everything.
“They found Emerson Pike’s body on the floor in the study. The maid, did you know her?”
Katia nods.
“She was stabbed to death downstairs. They found her body at the foot of the stairs, near the dining room.”
“Poor lady. Emerson called her to come to work that evening,” she says, “to clean up after I cooked. It was late. She didn’t want to be there. You remember?” She looks at me. “The plantains.”
“Yes.”
“I prepared the meal that afternoon. The guests came and left. Only two couples. Emerson wanted her to clean up.” Katia’s talking about the maid. “I told him it could wait until morning. But he refused, said no, and he called her.” She slumps back into the hard metal chair, realizing for the first time the enormity of what has happened.
The police have questioned the guests, but according to the reports, they know nothing.
“There were fourteen drawers of coins.” Harry eases off the subject. “The locks on the drawers were broken,
