A Different Dawn (Nina Guerrera)

by Isabella Maldonado

  “The wife, Maria.” Nina pointed at the screen. “Look at the lividity and blanching on her left arm.”

  Nina had noticed the pooling of blood, which formed a reddish-purple discoloration called lividity, on Maria’s left side. Where her body rested on the ground, however, the pooled blood had been forced back, away from the point of contact, causing blanching—whitened skin that contrasted with the dark lividity.

  “I don’t see what you’re getting at,” O’Malley said.

  “Here.” She swiped the screen with her fingers to enlarge the image. “Look at the arm.”

  Maria was dressed in a long-sleeve winter nightgown, so the lividity wasn’t visible in the photo.

  Nina tapped the screen, enlarging the image still more. “See, she was slumped on her right side.”

  Perez caught on quickly. “But the lividity and blanching were on her left side.”

  O’Malley muttered a curse. “Okay, looks like we’ve got a problem.”

  “Damn straight we do,” Nina said. “Maria was supposed to be the last person alive. So who moved her?”

  “She didn’t adjust her position after a fatal gunshot to the head,” Perez said. “Someone placed her.”

  “And he waited a while to do it,” she said, growing more animated. “Allowing time for the blood to pool while he did something else in the house.”

  Perez nodded. “I’m thinking he spent time getting other things rearranged.”

  “Like the husband’s body.” Nina felt the certainty of a puzzle piece snapping into place. “The unsub wanted to tell a story, and he had to make the evidence fit the narrative. He had to plant those love letters and partially burn them.”

  Perez clicked back to a photo file containing pictures of the house. “There were ashes found in the fireplace.”

  Several images popped up, showing a small brick fireplace with curled black papers in the grate.

  Infused with excitement, she clutched Perez’s arm. “It’s definitely enough to reopen the case, but we’ll need more to prove this was a triple murder.” She turned to O’Malley, who had gone curiously silent. “Can we pull the original evidence you collected?”

  “It’ll be stored in the Property Room.” He looked down at his hands. “Uh, I gotta say that I’m pretty damned pissed off about this.”

  Nina ratcheted down her enthusiasm, realizing what her discovery would mean for O’Malley. “Look, we’re not trying to make you look bad, we’re just—”

  “Pissed off at myself,” he cut in. “Not you. I should’ve caught that. My stupid marital problems are no excuse. I failed.”

  He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I failed those victims, and I failed the community. There’s no excuse at all. I’m gonna get my ass handed to me . . . and I deserve it.”

  Chapter 13

  Nina stepped out of Perez’s unmarked car and gazed at the festive cream-colored building. Constructed in a mission style, complete with a bronze bell high up on the stucco facade, the Mercado Vecino stretched half the length of a football field.

  Perez had explained during the morning briefing that the Sotos, Maria Vega’s family, owned and ran the Mercado Vecino. After they left O’Malley’s house, he had called the Property Room, requesting the physical evidence preserved from the original crime scene of the Llorona case. When Perez learned it would take an hour to retrieve the material, he had suggested grabbing lunch during their downtime without telling her where they were headed.

  “Why are we here?” she asked.

  “I saw how you picked at your bagel this morning.” He winked. “I know what you’re really hungry for.”

  She didn’t let him distract her with humor. “I don’t want to risk running into anyone from the Soto family before we have a strategy worked out.”

  He unbuckled his seat belt and opened his door. “Trust me. I have my reasons.”

  The exterior of the market looked like a south-of-the-border bazaar, with stands displaying everything from art to clothing to fresh-squeezed juices. Mariachi music piped in through intercoms nestled in the terra-cotta-tiled overhang above the wide glass front doors. The smell of fresh cilantro growing in tiny clay pots along one of the tables blended with the heavenly aroma of scented goat-milk soaps stacked in a tower on a blue porcelain tray. Having come from the cold, gray winter back east, Nina hadn’t just entered another state—she’d entered another state of mind.

  She reluctantly followed Perez as he strode to an outdoor grill, where two men were flipping pieces of chicken with metal tongs, basting it with a sauce that instantly made Nina’s stomach growl when she caught a whiff.

  Perez laughed. “See, I know what you need.”

  One of the men at the grill inclined his head toward Perez. “Nice to see you bringing someone with you besides that ugly partner of yours.” His chuckle revealed the humor behind the remark.

  They got a paper plate heaped with chicken and Mexican fried rice before walking to the fresh-beverage stand. She pondered the array of choices. Papaya, watermelon, horchata, lemonade, guava, and something she had never seen before.

  “What’s this?”

  “Prickly pear.” Perez pointed at a cluster of reddish-pink fruit in a woven-straw basket next to the stand. “It’s made from the fruit of a cactus that grows here in Arizona. The juice is delicious on its own, but it also makes the best margarita you’ve ever tasted. That’s for after work, though. I’ll buy you one sometime before you go back to DC.”

  She ordered the prickly pear juice, he got papaya, and they headed toward one of the brightly painted wooden picnic-style benches in the vast eating area inside the store.

  Two men with enormous white cowboy hats, plaid shirts, and jeans with huge silver belt buckles ate fresh burritos at the next table over. They were speaking Spanish, laughing at a shared joke. Another table held a family with a father, a very pregnant mother, and Nina lost count of their children, who seemed to be in a constant state of motion, running back and forth on the Saltillo tile floor.

  She realized this was what she had missed growing up in a series of foster homes. She hadn’t been raised to value her ethnic background. She had taken care to learn Spanish and to hang out with some of the Latino kids when she could. She had even moved into the Latin corridor of Fairfax County as an adult, but nothing was quite like growing up among people who looked like you. In so many ways, she had been an outsider her entire life.

  Perez seemed to catch her watching, and his cheeks dimpled. “You should seriously think about living in Phoenix. It suits you.”

  “I couldn’t move all the way across the country. I don’t know anyone here.”

  “And your novio would miss you?”

  He was fishing, and not bothering to hide it. “I don’t have a boyfriend,” she said. “And I’m not looking for one either.”

  “Javier,” a feminine voice called from behind her. “Nice to see you.”

  Nina turned to see who was greeting them and nearly dropped her plastic fork. She looked into eyes she had seen in newspaper cuttings. And in crime scene photos.

  Perez cleared his throat. “Good to see you, too, Teresa.”

  The woman—slender, petite, and in her fifties—leaned forward to clutch Perez’s hands in hers. “And you brought a young lady.” She smiled at Nina. “How nice.”

  “Agent Nina Guerrera,” Perez said, then turned to the woman. “This is Teresa Soto Marquez.”

  Nina put it together, recognizing the name from the files she had studied. Teresa Soto was Maria Soto Vega’s twin sister. After having scrutinized the crime scene photos for hours, it was eerie to see those same eyes looking at her. Now, though, instead of being lifeless and dull, they were wide with surprise as they returned her gaze.

  Nina’s cheeks warmed, certain Teresa had recognized her. “Nice to meet you.”

  Teresa shook her hand. “I saw the news. You are here working with Javier on that horrible murder.”

  This was precisely the kind of awkward sit
uation Nina had been concerned about when Perez took her here for lunch. She cocked her head and turned to him.

  As if understanding the implied question, he responded to Teresa’s comment. “The FBI is always willing to help us when we ask. This case is . . . challenging.”

  “I hope you find whoever did that,” Teresa said, a series of emotions playing across her lovely face. “It is a truly dreadful thing to kill an entire family.”

  Nina looked up at her, aware that perhaps no one else could better understand what relatives of the Doyles were going through. “Whatever else happens, I can promise you that we will not stop until we put the person responsible behind bars.”

  Teresa choked out her thanks and hurried away.

  Once she was out of earshot, Nina rounded on Perez. “Why did you bring me here if you knew I might run into Maria’s family?”

  “This is what I meant when I told you to trust me.” He was not the least bit apologetic. “What better way to get a feel for them?”

  “I don’t know how you run investigations in the PPD, but in the FBI we don’t contact potential interviewees until we are ready.”

  “Then you probably miss out on a lot of opportunities to learn things about them while their guard is down.”

  “That’s not going to go over well when I’m sitting across from her, asking hard questions about her sister’s death.”

  “Actually, it will work to your advantage. She will have already seen you in a nonthreatening situation. And you’ve eaten her cooking, which is always a plus.” He gestured around them. “All the food here is made using Soto family recipes.” He gave her a wry smile. “Look at it this way, do you know any Latina women who like to cook?”

  She immediately thought of Mrs. Gomez next door. “My neighbor.”

  “Food is a bonding experience in our culture.”

  She wasn’t prepared to play along with whatever angle he was working. “Food is a bonding experience in a lot of cultures around the world. What’s your point?”

  “She’s more likely to confide in you now.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know Teresa. I know the whole family. You don’t. You’ll have to trust me on this.”

  “You haven’t given me much choice.”

  He had no way of knowing the depth of what he asked. Trust did not come easily for her. He may have thought he was helping, but she had the sneaking suspicion that he had immeasurably complicated things.

  Chapter 14

  Two hours later, Nina pushed open the door to the center of operations at the FBI Phoenix field office. Perez followed her into the room, where all other members of the ad hoc task force were waiting for their arrival.

  “We just got back from the Phoenix crime lab,” Nina said. “Perez got authorization to take the archived physical evidence from the Llorona case out of the Property Room for forensic analysis.”

  Buxton’s brow creased with confusion. “I thought we were sending the materials to our lab at Quantico.”

  That had been the plan, but Nina had made an operational decision in the field. “I called our lab,” she told Buxton. “They’re backlogged. The estimated turnaround time to process the materials is about two weeks.” She drove her point home. “Not including transit time to ship the evidence from here to Virginia.”

  Perez stepped beside her. “Our lab will have preliminary results tomorrow and a full report a day or so after that.”

  Apparently satisfied, Buxton motioned her toward the two empty chairs at the conference table. Nina realized the seats were arranged around three sides to face the jumbo flatscreen on the opposite wall.

  Buxton had arranged for a virtual interoffice meeting, dividing the screen into six sections, a patchwork of feeds from other field offices around the country filling each subsection. Small banners at the bottom of each read LOS ANGELES, PHILADELPHIA, CHICAGO, HOUSTON, SAN DIEGO, and NEW YORK. Each subsection was occupied by an agent from that city’s respective FBI field office. Buxton had all hands on deck.

  She turned to their supervisor, scrutinizing the deep lines etched around his mouth and eyes, as he put down his coffee and glanced at Breck, who clicked on the audio link from the terminal to the wall screen.

  “Thank you all for joining us,” Buxton said, addressing the room at large and the virtual attendees. “After a careful review of the information, we have concluded that all the suspect cases are connected.” He looked grim. “We’ve got a highly meticulous serial killer operating among us, flying below the radar for almost three decades. His crimes were so well planned that they didn’t even register as homicides.”

  “Until the two most recent cases in New York and Phoenix,” Kent said.

  Buxton nodded. “I believe the only reason the deaths were identified as triple murders in those instances is because of advances in forensic science and technology. It’s getting increasingly harder to conceal or eliminate trace evidence.”

  Nina thought about the shoe print that had connected two apparently unrelated crimes committed four years and over two thousand miles apart from each other.

  “Let’s begin with an overview of the cases,” Buxton continued. “We’ll start with New York, then circle back around to Phoenix.”

  Breck clicked open the digital file sent from the NYPD, splitting the wall monitor’s screen with the New York field agent, who filled them in on what he had learned.

  “In our case, the crime was interrupted because the mother had complications during her cesarean section surgery resulting in ongoing heart arrhythmia,” the New York agent began. “Her doctor had her on one of those monitors that alerts 9-1-1 if the heart stops.”

  Nina marveled at the way medical technology had interfered with the unsub’s plans. “So the moment he killed her, paramedics were dispatched?”

  “He must not have been aware of her condition,” New York said. “He had already murdered the family and was in the process of staging the scene when an EMT unit responded.”

  “Looks like he learned from that experience when he came to Phoenix a few days ago,” Kent said. “He figured out how to jam a wireless alarm system at the Doyle house.”

  Nina spoke directly to the New York agent. “Since the case in Manhattan involved a five-floor walk-up apartment building, the unsub must have chosen a knife for the murder weapon rather than a gun to avoid alerting other tenants.”

  “Only the parents were stabbed,” New York said. “The infant was suffocated.”

  Wade exchanged a glance with Kent. “This appears to be another part of his pattern,” Wade said. “He never uses brutality against the child, only the parents. In every case, the baby has no injuries and almost appears to be sleeping.”

  “I don’t think he feels compassion for the babies or has any paternal instincts,” Kent said. “He’s gentle with them because he knows it would frame the mother better.”

  Nina turned back to the screen. “What happened when the paramedics arrived?”

  Breck tapped the keyboard, displaying a series of grisly crime scene photos as the New York field agent answered the question.

  “They summoned the building superintendent to open the locked apartment door with a key,” he said. “They found a bloodbath inside. The NYPD noted in their report that the scene was staged to look like a homicide-suicide.”

  Breck pulled up an image of a butcher knife lying on bloodstained beige carpeting as the agent continued. “He didn’t have time to arrange everything like in the earlier cases you sent us for reference. He must have heard the door opening and took off, because he left the knife too far away from the mother’s body. Detectives knew she couldn’t have used it. Neither could the father.”

  “Did they see him leaving?” Nina asked.

  Breck switched to a photo of a metal railing against the side of the building.

  “This is an old building,” New York said. “It still has external fire escapes. One of the medics thought he heard metal rattling like someone was climb
ing down when they first arrived. The police processed the rear window, and that’s where they found that Nike shoe print.”

  “No one got a description then?”

  New York shook his head. “It was the middle of the night on a weekday.”

  “Where did he hit before that?” Kent asked Buxton.

  “Four years prior, he was in San Diego,” Buxton replied, picking up the narrative as Breck tapped her keyboard. The San Diego police file and a different FBI field agent replaced the images from New York.

  “This case—and all the others before it—were closed as double-homicide-suicides with the mother as the perpetrator,” Buxton said.

  “The SDPD found the whole family deceased from carbon monoxide gas,” the San Diego field agent said as Breck clicked through various images. “The father and baby were in their respective rooms, and the mother was in a rocking chair near the crib. In the kitchen, all four gas burners were on and the oven door was open. The exterior doors all had towels stuffed under them.”

  “No one raised any objections to the suicide conclusion?” Nina asked.

  “The wife had been estranged from her relatives and didn’t have many friends,” San Diego said. “No one contradicted the idea that she was unstable. In fact, there had been a previous suicide attempt ten years earlier when she was fifteen.”

  “What did the unsub set up as the immediate trigger?” Wade asked. “Jealousy again?”

  “Not this time,” San Diego said. “He didn’t really set anything up.”

  Wade steepled his fingers. “Which makes me wonder if he knew about the previous suicide attempt and figured he didn’t need to bother.”

  “He has plenty of time for research before he kills,” Nina said. “Although he couldn’t have found out about a juvenile’s suicide attempt through normal channels.”

  “Wonder if he searched her social media?” Breck said. “Although I doubt she would still be talking about it if she only had one incident ten years earlier.”

  Discussion of how the unsub knew so much about his victims spurred a thought Nina hadn’t considered before. “Here’s a random question. Babies tend to come into this world when they damn well feel like it. Once the unsub targets a couple, how does he know when the baby is born?” Another thought followed closely. “What if the baby is stillborn and never comes home with the parents?”