He eyes her badge and identification, and almost looks relieved. “Sweet Jesus, what a mess we got.”
“I’m involved in an investigation that might have a connection to what’s happened here,” she says, still keeping her identification in hand. “May I ask who’s in charge?”
“That’d be Sergeant Morales, over there by the door.”
“Your name, Officer?”
“Puntez.”
She smiles, one Hispanic to another, helping out. “Thanks, Officer Puntez, I appreciate the cooperation.”
Rosaria walks by him just as another officer trots up, quickly unspooling the traditional black-and-yellow crime scene tape, and as she gets closer to the house, there are a lot of loud voices, cursing, and more loud voices, until a woman’s voice cuts through and says, “That’s enough. Right now we got two victims inside, and nothing’s getting moved or touched until the chief and our own crime scene investigator show up.”
The woman is Sergeant Morales, skinny and short but wearing her dark uniform with pride and, now, with anger. She’s glaring at the other officers—two from the county and one from the state—and then notices Rosaria.
“And where the hell are you from?” she demands. “Border Patrol?”
Rosaria displays her identification and badge, and Morales nods and says, “Nice. The Army. Why the hell not? Add more confusion and jurisdictional pissing to this mess. What brings you here?”
Rosaria sees the other officers looking on with interest, and Morales sees that as well and says, “All right, I get it. C’mon, let’s duck around the corner.”
At the corner of the house Rosaria sees two other officers slowly going across the field, and Morales says, “The chief goes out of town for a doctor’s appointment, and look at the shitstorm that just got dumped over my head. So…Vasquez, is that it?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“What’s going on with the Army?”
Rosaria says, “If I tell you, will tell me what happened here?”
“Christ, yes. In fact, I’d love to bundle it up in a big box and bow and pass it over to you. I can’t tell you the last time we had a homicide in Three Rivers, and I grew up here. And now we got a double homicide. Damn.”
Rosaria puts her identification away. “I’m investigating an AWOL Army officer. She was last spotted in a town called Kenedy.”
“Sure, right down the highway.”
“Well, I was on my way to Kenedy when I got the information about the shootings here in Three Rivers.”
Morales frowns. “What, you got some crazy vet, suffering from PTSD, going on some sort of killing rampage?”
“No, not at all,” Rosaria says.
“Good. I got two nephews, good boys both, who’ve been to Iraq and Afghanistan. I won’t stand for that shit, anybody dissing our veterans. So why do you think there’s a connection?”
“I don’t know if there’s a connection,” she says. “That’s why I’m here. It just seems…odd, that my AWOL officer would be spotted in Kenedy, and then there’s a shooting here, not long after.”
“Your officer a combat veteran?”
“No, she’s an intelligence officer.”
“She got family around here?”
“No, she’s originally from Maine. She’s never been to Texas, has never been stationed in Texas.”
“She got somebody here she might have a grudge against?”
“Not that I know of.”
“And you don’t know of any connection between her and my town?”
“Not at all.”
Morales slaps at a buzzing fly and says, “Fair enough, you’ve been up front with me. Now it’s my turn. We got a nine-one-one call about twenty minutes ago, saying there were shots fired at this house. No big deal, hearing gunshots, but the caller said the shots came from within the house, and that she had spotted two people running away from the scene. First responder came in, saw bodies and blood, and that’s where we stand.”
“Any identification of the victims?”
“Two adult males, that’s all we know. Both died from gunshot wounds.”
“They rent or own the place?”
“That’s being tracked down.”
Rosaria nods. “Mind if I take a peek inside?”
Morales says, “Think you can stand it?”
“No,” Rosaria says. “I know I can stand it.”
CHAPTER 61
AT THE steps leading into the house, a young male Three Rivers police officer holds a clipboard in his slightly trembling hands, and near his feet there’s an open black plastic case. The door to the house is propped open with a rock.
Morales bends over the case, comes back up, and hands over a set of light-blue paper booties and latex gloves. As Rosaria and the sergeant start getting dressed, another Three Rivers officer comes over, nearly breathless, and says, “Mister Houston, up two houses, he says the folks who were here had a big black pickup truck, extended cab, with those overhead lights. He said it drove out a while ago, he’s not sure of the time.”
Morales says, “Okay, then, put it out. I’m busy here.”
Once they are both dressed, Morales says, “I know you’re a pro, but I still have to say it: be careful where you step, and before you touch anything, ask me first. Savvy?”
“You got it.”
At the open door, the officer notes the time and writes down Morales’s name, and Rosaria presents her identification. After the recording is done—essential at any homicide scene to keep track of the traffic—Morales goes in, and Rosaria closely follows.
The police sergeant stops, and Rosaria takes in the bloody scene. The smell of death is here in this room, and unlike other crime scenes she’s visited over the years, this one is relatively fresh. Too soon for body decomp to have set in, though there’s the aroma of discharged firearms mixed in with the pungent scent of bodies having just been ripped apart by bullets traveling at several thousand feet per second.
The dead man in this small living room is huge, bulked-up, and Rosaria can imagine the house shuddering when he hit the ground. He’s wearing black shorts and a wrestler-type tank top, and there are torn and twisted strips of gray duct tape around his ankles and wrists.
What’s visible on his skin are a lot of tattoos, and Morales notices Rosaria’s interest as she leans over the dead man and says, “Rough ink work, right? That’s Mexican prison stuff, right there. Our dead guy here has a lot of blood and bullets under his belt.”
Rosaria says quietly, “Yeah, plus one through the mouth. Good shooting.”
“Or accidental. Once bullets start flying, you never know where they’ll end up.”
A television is on its side, the sound and picture still on, and Rosaria cants her head, says, “Looks like a telenovela.”
“Good call.”
Rosaria straightens up and says, “This guy…he wasn’t shot right off when the intruder came to the door. He either recognized the intruder or didn’t think he or she was a threat. And the intruder…violent death wasn’t the goal.”