“Someone talked when they should have kept their mouth shut,” Perez said. “I filed a report and notified my chain of command about the Kirk lead. Lots of people on the department could have accessed that information. I’m assuming the same is true with the FBI.”
They had all filed reports as well. Buxton had briefed the SAC and others at the PFO about the case.
“I don’t want to believe it either,” she said, “but I can’t see any other way. How else would he know our next move?” She walked down the hall to the master bedroom. “And did he ransack the place to make it appear like a burglary, or was it to find something Kirk was hiding?”
“Perhaps both,” Perez said, gesturing toward the tall chest of drawers. “Evidence techs bagged and tagged Kirk’s wallet, a diamond pinkie ring, and a gold watch that were on the dresser in a wooden tray. His cash and credit cards were still in the wallet, and no one has used the numbers to make any online purchases.”
“Whoever did this wasn’t after money,” she said, glancing around. “Televisions, stereo equipment, the victim’s car—all here.” She turned to Perez. “What’s missing?”
“Kirk’s computer.” Perez beckoned her. “I’ll show you.”
She trailed him into the home office. A rectangular clearing in a thin layer of dust on the desk’s smooth surface delineated the spot where a laptop had been.
She peered behind the desk. “He took the power cord too.”
“That would make it more valuable if he intended to sell it,” Perez said. “Our pawn unit is checking to see if it turns up anywhere.”
“He’s not selling it,” Nina said. “He needed to be sure he could plug it in because he’s going to search for files, which could take time.”
“What files?”
“No idea. This is a hunch, but it feels right. If the only thing missing from this house is a computer, the killer didn’t want us to see something on the hard drive.”
Perez’s dark brows shot up. “Could Kirk and the suspect have been working together?”
“You mean a serial-killing team?” At his nod, she considered what she had learned from Wade and Kent about those who formed partnerships to terrorize and murder. “It’s rare, but it has definitely happened before.” She recalled the investigative files she had reviewed the previous night. “If that’s what’s going on here, it would have been obvious who he was hanging out with, but that’s not the case with Kirk. He was something of a loner. Never married.”
“His last relationship seems to have ended over a year ago,” Perez said. “A woman he met when he sold her a house after her divorce.”
“So . . . a full-service Realtor, then?”
Perez chuckled. “I suppose you could call it that.”
She pulled the conversation back to their surroundings. “Kirk died because he knew the unsub.” Thoughtful, she strolled back to the living room. “His house was ransacked in an attempt to disguise the fact that there was something incriminating on his computer.” Her eyes came to rest on the fireplace. “Wait a minute. What’s this?” She stepped close to the hearth. “The mantel has the same thin film of dust the rest of the house has.”
“Welcome to Arizona,” Perez said. “Everybody loves the dry heat, but the dust is a constant problem. Any flat surface that isn’t wiped down every three days accumulates enough to be visible.”
She pointed at the cluster of frames propped on the mantel. “There’s an outline where a picture used to be. Did the evidence techs collect it for some reason?”
She studied the remaining pictures while Perez called the crime scene supervisor. After a brief conversation, he slipped his cell back inside his pocket. “They didn’t take it.”
“Then the killer did.”
“The pictures on this mantel go back a lot of years,” Perez said, squinting at the collection. “This one is of Kirk when he was a teenager.”
“There’s a bunch of young men in this one,” Nina said, pointing to another framed photo. “They all look like they’re between eighteen and twenty-five.” Realization flashed through her. “When we interviewed Robert Cahill from the juvenile detention center, he said Kirk had helped some of the other boys find jobs after they got out.” Excitement blossomed. “What if Kirk stayed in touch with some of them?”
“Kept photos of his fellow delinquents?” Perez looked doubtful. “Why would he do that?”
Despite Perez’s lack of enthusiasm, she knew she was onto something. “Remember how Cahill said he thought Kirk turned his life around? What if Kirk was proud of that? These aren’t photos of fellow delinquents to him.” She swept out her hand toward the array. “They’re pictures of kids he rescued. Kids like himself.”
“So he gave them a job and maybe mentored some of them?”
“That’s what Cahill thought.”
Perez put his hands on his hips. “You’re thinking the subject comes in here and takes the computer but also swipes a picture off the mantel because he’s in it with Kirk?”
“Why else would he take it?”
“That’s a pretty big leap, but let’s say you’re right,” Perez said. “How can we tell who was in the missing picture?”
“Easy.” This time, she was the one who pulled out her phone. “I’ll take photos of the remaining pictures and forward them to Breck. She’ll print copies we can show to Cahill and ask him to ID anyone he remembers from the juvenile detention center.”
Perez caught on quickly. “We can eliminate everyone who’s in any of the photos that weren’t stolen.”
“Exactly,” Nina said. “Then we ask him who else Kirk helped right after they got out. The one that’s missing is our suspect.”
Perez returned her smile. “Pretty damned smart, Guerrera.”
Chapter 35
Twenty minutes later, Nina slipped her cell phone back into her pocket and started down the front walk toward Teresa’s house. “That was Wade,” she said to Perez. “Cahill’s not answering his phone, but they’ll keep trying to reach him. Buxton wants us to continue with field interviews while the rest of the team chases down the other leads.”
Perez fell into step beside her. “Sounds like Teresa’s got company. She didn’t mention visitors when I called ahead.”
The familiarity reminded Nina that Perez had known this family for years, and his fellow detectives had handled the original case. It struck her that he knew more about her relatives than she did.
Sounds of laughter reached Nina as she waited after ringing the doorbell a third time. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting when she came here—this time aware that Teresa was her aunt—but a noisy gathering wouldn’t have been her first choice.
“Come in,” a feminine voice called from inside.
Nina glanced at Perez, then shrugged and opened the door to a cacophony of clanking dishes, music, and voices.
She followed the sound to the house’s main gathering area, an airy family room that flowed into the kitchen. The space held even more people than Nina had anticipated from the noise. It looked like three generations were setting up for a party.
Nina surveyed the room. These were her people. Her familia. Something she had never known. This is what fate had stolen from her twenty-eight years ago. She had barely begun to come to terms with the circumstances of her birth. If Carmen hadn’t taken her from the hospital, she would have died with her parents.
It seemed destiny had decreed that—one way or another—she would grow up without a family. Her colleagues and neighbors had become the closest thing she’d known.
Perez stepped around her and approached a lady who appeared to be in her seventies. The shape of her eyes and set of her chin identified her as Teresa’s mother.
Nina’s own grandmother.
She had to shut down these thoughts. Fast. She would handle this. She would compartmentalize.
“It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Soto,” Perez said to the older lady.
“Javier.” She returned his greeting
warmly, clasping both his hands in her frail, birdlike ones. “I’ve told you to call me Sofia.”
Perez appeared to be on a first-name basis with the matriarch as well as the others. She watched as he went to shake Sofia’s husband’s hand. The older man pulled the detective into an abrazo, a hug between Latino men.
After Perez made the introductions, Nina apologized. “I can see we’re interrupting something.” She surveyed the bustle of activity around them.
“We’re having a baby shower in a couple of hours.” Teresa had quietly emerged from the kitchen. “Come here, mi’ja.” She beckoned to an extremely pregnant young woman. “This is my daughter, Selena, and her husband, Tony.”
Pride lit Teresa’s eyes as she gazed at Selena, who looked like she might have the baby any minute.
Nina scrutinized Teresa’s features with fresh interest. This is what her own mother, Maria, would have looked like had a killer not taken her life at such a young age. Teresa was lovely, with pretty brown eyes, tan skin, and thick dark hair streaked with gray.
Nina’s chest constricted with unspoken loss. Would Maria have looked upon her with a mother’s love in her eyes? Would she have called her mi’ja?
“Agent Guerrera?” Teresa said, concern in her voice.
Nina silently cursed the terrible timing. At a moment when the family was preparing to celebrate new life, they had come to talk about death.
“Is everyone here family?” Nina asked, her voice cracking on the last word.
“Guests won’t arrive for another hour or so,” Teresa said in affirmation. “It’s going to be a brunch.”
Judging by the amount of food covering the kitchen counters, the shower would be a large affair. What they wanted to discuss involved the entire family, so despite the setting, perhaps this was for the best.
“We saw the story about the switch at the hospital on the news,” Teresa said, broaching the subject. “Are you two here to tell us what you found out about Maria’s baby?”
Nina hesitated as everyone fell silent, their faces filled with eager expectation. This was not like her. She had never backed down from anything. Not bullies as a child, not violent criminals, and not those in law enforcement who had thought her too petite to pull her own weight. Here she stood, irresolute, in front of a group of people who might welcome her if they knew who she was.
Regret momentarily paralyzed her. She had come here to lie to them. That would be their first impression of her when they looked back on this moment.
This was so much harder than she had ever imagined it would be.
“Thank you all for allowing us to trespass on your celebration,” she began. “We wanted to give you an update on our investigation into the facts surrounding the death of Maria and her family.”
Nina was careful not to refer to it as the Llorona case. That legend had tormented this family for years. At least that much of their nightmare would finally end today.
Nina began her explanation carefully. “As you all have heard on the news, we’ve learned Maria’s baby was switched with another child at the hospital the day she was born.”
“So it’s true?” This time Teresa’s daughter, Selena, spoke. She was holding her extremely round pregnant belly, looking horrified.
“It is,” Nina said. “The baby who died in Victor and Maria’s home was not their child. We’ve confirmed it through DNA.”
“Then where is my niece?” Teresa said. “What happened to her?”
Perspiration trickled down Nina’s neck as she delivered the words she and Wade had rehearsed earlier. Words that were a lie of omission.
“We are still following up on that part of the investigation,” Nina said. “We will give you a full briefing as soon as we can.”
Teresa looked up at Perez, obviously hoping for more. “Then another family raised our little princesa, and their baby died?”
Nina gritted her teeth. This was a rabbit hole she hadn’t prepared to go down. Guilt gnawed at Nina as she heard Perez tell Teresa and the rest of the family what he thought was the truth.
“We are still in the process of gathering all the information about the circumstances,” he said to her. “We haven’t been able to track her down yet.”
Teresa turned beseeching eyes on Nina. “But our little girl is out there? She’s all grown up, right?”
“It would seem so,” Nina said gently, sick with shame over her deception. She decided to shift everyone’s attention with a change of subject. “I do have other important news, though.”
That worked. All questions ceased, and everyone looked at her with renewed interest.
“After reopening the case with Detective Perez’s help”—Nina tipped her head toward him in acknowledgment—“we now believe Maria and her family were murdered by an intruder.” She let that sink in for a moment before adding, “Maria never killed herself or anyone else.”
“I knew it.” A single tear coursed down Teresa’s face. “My sister would never do such a thing.” Her hands bunched into fists. “How did this happen?”
“The intruder staged the scene to make it look like Maria killed her husband and child before taking her own life,” Nina said.
“But there was a police investigation.” Teresa turned blazing eyes on Perez. “An autopsy.”
“That was twenty-eight years ago,” Perez said. “Forensic science has come a long way and—”
“But we told that detective that Maria could not have done it,” Teresa persisted. “He would not listen to us.”
“It’s quite common for family members to deny their loved one could have committed a crime,” Perez said. “Detective O’Malley evaluated the evidence he had at the time.”
Nina saw no reason to add that she had found a discrepancy in the blood-spatter patterns at the crime scene. There would be plenty of time for recrimination in the future.
Teresa remained indignant. “That detective only found evidence that told him what he had already made up his mind to believe.”
“He found evidence that had been carefully planted to lead him in a certain direction,” Nina said. “Including the love letters discovered at the scene. They were faked.”
That seemed to take Teresa by surprise. “Victor was not having an affair? There was no other woman?”
“There’s nothing to substantiate an extramarital relationship,” Nina said. “The notes were put there to provide a motive for the murders.”
Seemingly deflated, Teresa plopped down heavily on the couch. Her husband sat beside her, patting her hand. Her brother, introduced earlier as Tito, spoke in a low voice to Teresa’s parents, who had been sitting on a love seat the entire time. Nina gave them a few minutes to discuss what they had learned, processing it together as a family. Not only did they need to change their opinion about what Maria had done that night, but they also had to reassess their estimation of Victor.
Teresa’s husband, John, spoke for the first time. “How did you figure out the truth?”
“Actually, Agent Guerrera had a lot to do with that,” Perez said.
Nina blushed. “I noticed a few discrepancies when Detective Perez and I reviewed the evidence.” She did not elaborate about the other cases attributed to the same killer.
“Our Maria is not La Llorona.” Teresa dabbed at her eyes with a tissue her husband had handed her. “All these years, we have not spoken to Victor’s family.” She shook her head. “So many hard feelings.”
“We’re on our way to see his family next,” Nina said.
“Thank you so much for what you have done.” All eyes turned to Sofia, Teresa’s mother. “You have lifted a great burden from us.”
Nina’s heart ached for the older woman who clearly felt responsible for her brood. Nina could tell it was a release of shame. Shame none of them had ever deserved but carried anyway.
“Who did this?” Sofia continued. “Have you caught him?”
“We have not identified a suspect yet,” Nina said, silently praying the team wa
s having luck tracking down Cahill.
Sofia’s birdlike hand fluttered to her chest. “He’s still out there?”
“Which brings us to an important point,” Nina said. “You cannot discuss this part of the investigation with anyone. Do you understand?”
Perez added force to the request. “If you want to catch the one who did this, you must allow us to investigate without media interference.”
“And without the suspect learning how much we know,” Nina added. “Please don’t share this outside the family until we make an announcement to the public.” She thought about Snead. “And if any reporters contact you, do not pass on what we’ve told you.”
Sofia’s eyes hardened. “I give you my word. None of us will say a thing.” She glared around the room for emphasis, and Nina had the feeling no one would dare disobey her.
Chapter 36
Nina’s cell blinked with a message from Wade when they left Teresa’s house. He had located Cahill, who agreed to come to the Phoenix field office to meet with them in an hour. Meanwhile, she and Perez were tasked with updating Victor Vega’s parents.
Sitting inside Ana and Luis Vega’s quiet living room for the past twenty minutes as they delivered the heart-wrenching developments about the case, Nina observed that this dark and quiet home stood in stark contrast to Teresa’s bright and noisy house.
As they spoke, Nina learned that Ana and Luis were both born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and had moved to the Bronx in New York as children, which explained their slight Nuyorican accents. They met in high school and married soon after graduating. When Ana was expecting their first child, they moved out west to start their family in a roomier, less-populated city. Construction was booming in Phoenix, and Luis had learned the trade quickly, eventually getting his contractor’s license and starting his own business. He had planned to pass on the growing enterprise to his two sons but, tragically, both had died in their early twenties.
Nina crossed the room to look at a pair of portraits in matching black frames hung on the wall above the fireplace. She recognized Victor from the news articles and other photos she had seen.
A Different Dawn (Nina Guerrera) Page 18
