no idea at the time and would have thought anyone crazy who said Monica had to get herself bruised somehow if she was going to make the battery theory fly and set him up for murder.
That Easter Saturday, Monica called her friend Vicki Maestas around 8:30 P.M. Monica blurted out that “it” happened again. Maestas asked Monica why she didn’t call the police about Paul’s abuse. Monica said Paul threatened to kill her if she reported his violence, because he risked losing his job. “She was very afraid of Paul. She was scared. In our conversations, she was scared.”
Monica told Vicki she had a domestic violence packet and she planned to file charges against Paul on Monday, despite the threats. She said she was scared about what Paul would do once he was notified about the charges, Vicki said.
Monica never talked to Maestas about suicide, not that night and not before.
On Easter Sunday, Monica paged Dusty Downs while he was at church and he called her back.
Downs commented, “Monica seemed distraught, somewhat upset.” They arranged to meet at the police department around noon. Monica arrived with Rick Jacquez, her sister’s boyfriend.
“She advised me that there had been an incident on the previous day and she now wished to go ahead and proceed with filing charges and a formal report. I explained to her again, uh, what would happen by the filing of this, this offense report would automatically start an administrative investigation. And I wanted her to be aware of that, that these people would be contacting her, uh, interviewing her in regards to that. I wanted (her) to be aware of that. I also informed her of her own personal safety that she needed to seek the civil remedy which is the domestic violence petition which would restrain Paul from any further contact with her. I even provided her with what we call the Domestic Violence Package to facilitate that.”
Downs explained she would have to file the papers in court. Monica promised to do so. She asked Downs to call her early Monday to ensure she didn’t back down.
But that never happened. Instead, the last explosive episode between Monica and Paul intervened.
On that Monday, at 5:30 A.M., Paul left Anita’s house and went to his apartment to change and get some cereal and milk for his daughters’ breakfast. He arrived at his former home about 6:40 A.M., just as Monica was backing out of the driveway with the girls in the van. Monica saw Paul and pulled back into the driveway.
“What did you expect me to do with three dollars?” Monica demanded as she left the car. The girls remained inside the van, Diane wearing her Catholic school uniform.
“I didn’t know I only had three dollars left when I handed you the cash.” Monica told him she was taking the girls to their grandmother’s house before she went to work. This puzzled Paul after the plans they’d made for him to watch the girls.
He got the girls out of the van, and they all followed Monica into the house. The girls started eating the cereal Paul poured for them. Monica asked Paul to dispose of some spoiled meat in the refrigerator and he did as he was told.
When Paul had finished the task, Monica made her angry announcement that she was filing charges against him.
Guilt-ridden and grief-stricken, Paul surveyed the bloodstains from Monica on the walls and furniture. He tried several times to pick Monica up, but the gushing blood made her body slippery—blood yet another barrier between the one-time lovers. After one of those desperate moments, he looked up to see his fifteen-year-old stepdaughter, Amanda, wet hair dripping from her shower. Hatred loomed at him, her arms tightly crossed around her towel-wrapped body.
“What did you do to my mom?” she demanded.
“Nothing!” Paul cried hoarsely. “She just shot herself. Call 911! Don’t let the babies back here!”
Amanda slammed the door. Diane was already calling 911, something her kindergarten teacher had just taught the class. Amanda took over the call. She told the dispatcher exactly what Paul had told her.
Finally, Paul half-dragged, half-carried his wife as he tried to race through the house. But he moved as though every step forced him to pull his shoes out of sucking quicksand. He tried to ignore the wide-eyed horror in the little girls’ eyes as they watched their death-soaked mother and determined father. In the garage, Paul tried to put his wife in the van, but she slipped out of his arms a final time. He felt her body shudder and knew he had no time to head for the hospital. He had to begin cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Amanda kept the girls away from the garage, where she stationed herself. Her suspicious eyes took in Paul’s every move.
After what seemed like hours, sirens roared in the air and an ambulance turned into the driveway. Emergency medical technicians took over CPR and tried to stop the bleeding as much as possible for the quick ride to the hospital. At that point, Paul didn’t notice the blood all over his hands. “She died in my arms,” he murmured over and over. What he did notice was the faces of the Farmington Police officers who arrived at his house. They were grim. He knew from personal experience that officers are trained to hide their emotions. But these guys could have at least acted a little sympathetically toward him after such an ordeal. Their stony expressions puzzled Paul.
Soon after ambulance personnel wheeled Monica off to the hospital, Paul looked down and saw for the first time his blood-covered hands. “I tried to give her CPR,” he said. The other officers ordered him not to wash. Paul, feeling himself in shock, didn’t have the energy to take care of himself anyway. And it didn’t dawn on him the extent of what was going on in the minds of the officers.
Memories flashed through Paul’s mind like dreams. Meeting Monica, dancing so close their heartbeats intermingled, their children’s births. Their passionate, almost violent lovemaking, her body glowing afterward in the low light. Her warmth. The most beautiful woman in the world! Those pictures quickly metamorphosed into a bloody, gasping, yet still amazing-looking creature. Even death couldn’t erase her beauty.
For two hours, New Mexico State Police officers who had been Paul’s comrades questioned him, while Monica’s blood dried on his hands. Although his fellow officers wouldn’t let him go to the hospital to be with his wife in her last moments of life, he felt as if he had been there when the last of her body’s physical energy joined its spectral.
Paul relived that macabre moment in the bedroom again and again. Nervousness as he opened the door; Monica’s brown eyes fixated on his frightened, confused blue ones. The shotgun—her body, flying into the air, soaring, then crashing violently, blood gushing. Words were superfluous: the shotgun told instantly of all the unhappiness and pain, leaving no room for talk.
Farmington and state police officers intermixed, measuring blood spots, collecting evidence. Officers buzzed almost, but not quite out of Paul’s earshot. Finally, what they were saying slowly penetrated his fog.
“Monica would never kill herself!” “You can’t kill yourself with a shotgun!” “She’s too tiny to reach the trigger.” “Paul always kept loaded guns in his house.”
But he didn’t understand why Dusty Downs, Chief Richard Melton
