Chapter 7 Shay
Shay
The porch groaned under my boots, and I made a small mental note about the wood’s integrity.
The last thing I needed was to fall through some rotted board while questioning a witness.
Come to think of it, the entire house bore the marks of neglect, with white paint peeling from the siding, gutters hanging loose and clogged with leaves.
I knocked on the door. Behind me, Adam shifted his weight, and I could feel his presence, solid and watchful. We’d done this dance a hundred times before.
I heard movement inside; shuffling footsteps, slow and hesitant. A shadow passed across the window, paused, then vanished.
“Mrs. Valdez?” I called out, pulling my badge and holding it up to the peephole. “Detective Sawyer, Homicide. We need to talk to you about the 911 call you made this morning.”
More silence. I was about to knock once more when I heard the scrape of a chain, the click of a deadbolt, then another deadbolt—a woman who didn’t skimp on security, it seemed.
The door opened about six inches, and I got my first look at Camila Valdez.
Deep purple shadows cupped her eyes like bruises.
Her hair—jet black, shot through with silver—hung limp and unwashed around her shoulders, framing a face that might have been called beautiful once, before the weight of all the years she carried had settled into her features.
She wore a thick, oversized cardigan despite the space heater, which I could see glowing orange behind her, clutching it closed at her throat like armor.
“Mrs. Valdez?” I kept my voice gentle, as if speaking to a wild animal. She looked like she might bolt at any sudden movement. “I’m Detective Sawyer. This is my partner, Detective Keller. Can we come in and talk to you about what you saw this morning?”
Her eyes flicked from me to Adam and back again, assessing. I’d seen that look before, usually on people who’d learned the hard way that authority figures weren’t always on your side.
“I already told them everything,” she said, voice hoarse. “On the phone. I don’t know anything else.”
“I understand, and we appreciate you making that call. But sometimes people remember details later, after the initial shock wears off. It would really help us if we could go over it one more time.” I paused, then added, “We can do it out here if you’d prefer, but it’s pretty cold.”
Which was true. The January wind cut through my jacket, and I could see my breath misting in the air. Mrs. Valdez glanced past us at the house next door, where crime scene techs were still processing the scene, their van parked in the street, flanked by police cars.
She made a decision. The door opened wider.
“Five minutes,” she said.
The interior of the house was dim and cramped, but surprisingly clean. A crucifix hung on the wall next to a portrait of the Virgin Mary, and I could smell the waxy scent of candles recently burned.
She moved to the couch, and I took the armchair while Adam remained standing by the doorway, a notebook in his hand. He had a gift for making himself forgettable, for blending into the background until people forgot they were being watched.
“Can you walk me through this morning?” I asked, keeping my tone conversational. “Start from when you woke up.”
“I woke up around five-thirty. I always wake up early—I have insomnia, you see.”
“Did you hear anything unusual? From next door or outside?”
“No. Nothing.”
“When did you first realize something was wrong?”
“Around six,” she said, pulling the sleeves of her cardigan over her hands. “I was doing dishes at the kitchen sink, and when I looked out the window, I noticed that Martin’s back door was open.”
“His back door,” I repeated. “You could see his back door from your kitchen?”
“Yes. Our yards back up to each other. There’s a fence between us, but it’s chain-link. You can see through it.” She stood abruptly and moved toward the hall. “Come here, I’ll show you.”
We followed her into a narrow galley kitchen, and she pointed out the window above the sink. I moved closer to look. Sure enough, I had a clear view of Martin Baker’s backyard and his back door, which was currently closed and marked with crime scene tape.
“That’s when you knew something was wrong?” Adam asked from behind us. “Just because the door was open?”
Mrs. Valdez turned to look at him, and there was something sharp in her gaze. “In this neighborhood, Detective, you always learn to lock up your doors.”
She had a point. I looked out at the backyard again, studying the layout.
“I watched for a few minutes, thinking maybe he was taking out trash or something. But he didn’t come back.”
“That’s when you went over?” I asked.
“No.” The word came out almost defensive. “I’m not stupid, Detective. I called him on his cell phone first.”
Adam’s pen scratched across paper. “And?”
“It rang, but no one picked up.”
She moved back to the living room, and we followed.
She sat down again, heavier this time, as if gravity had increased its claim on her.
“I tried three times. Then I tried his landline. Same thing; the phone just kept ringing. I felt that something was wrong, so I went into his backyard. The door was wide open, like I said. And I could see into his living room.”
“And what did you see?”
“Blood. A lot of it. On the floor. Everywhere, really.” Her hands were shaking now, and she pressed them flat against her thighs.
“Did you go inside?” I asked.
“No. God, no. I never moved past the doorway. I immediately called the police.”
“Did you see anyone else? Either in Mr. Baker’s yard or leaving his house?”
“No. No one.”
“What about yesterday? Any cars you didn’t recognize on the street? Anyone walking by?”
She thought about it, her brow furrowing with concentration. I appreciated that. Some witnesses just wanted to get through the questions as fast as possible, but Mrs. Valdez seemed to understand that details mattered.
Finally, she shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
I glanced at Adam. We’d need to pull any security camera footage from the area, though, in this neighborhood, that was unlikely. Privacy meant something different around here.
“Tell me about Mr. Baker,” I said, shifting gears. “How well did you know him?”
Mrs. Valdez’s expression softened. “He moved in about five years ago. Kept to himself mostly, but he was a good neighbor. He fixed my porch railing last summer when it came loose. Wouldn’t even take a dime for it.”
“Did he seem worried about anything lately? Scared? Acting different?”
“No, he was normal,” she said. “We weren’t that close, you know? We’d chat over the fence, help each other out with little things, but we weren’t friends. Not really. I wish I’d paid more attention. Maybe if I had…” she trailed off, looking down at her hands
“Mrs. Valdez,” I said firmly, “this is not your fault. The person who killed Martin Baker is responsible. No one else.”
She nodded, but the guilt remained in her eyes.
I walked her through a couple of more questions, all standard procedure.
Did Martin have visitors? Did she know where he worked? Had she ever seen him argue with anyone? Did he have family nearby? Each answer painting a picture of the kind of man he was.
Finally, I stood, and Adam closed his notebook with a soft snap. “That’s all for now. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Valdez.”
“Will you catch him?” she quietly asked, looking up at me. “Whoever did this?”
“We’re going to do everything we can,” I promised.
Adam handed her his card, pressing it into her palm. “If you remember anything else, please don’t hesitate to call. Day or night. Even if it seems insignificant.”
She took the card and walked us to the door. As we stepped out onto the porch, I heard the click of all those deadbolts sliding back into place—Mrs. Valdez, sealing herself back into her fortress after being reminded of just how cruel the world could be.
The crime scene van was still parked next door, but the techs were packing up. They’d have collected everything they could—blood samples, fingerprints, any trace evidence left behind. Now it was up to us to make sense of it.
“A bit paranoid, isn’t she?” Adam commented.
“Can you blame her?” I allowed myself a grim smile, pulling my jacket tighter against the wind. “How much are you willing to bet that our dear Martin has a criminal record?”
“So you’re sticking with your theory, then.” It wasn’t a question.
I sure was.
It looked like we had a vigilante serial killer on our hands.
* * *
The air in the morgue always tasted like cold metal and antiseptic, a sterile bitterness that coated the back of my throat the moment the heavy doors slammed shut behind me. It was a smell designed to mask death, but it only ever managed to highlight it.
Hayes was already scrubbed in, his back to me as he adjusted the overhead lights.
Under the harsh halogen glare, the body on the stainless steel table looked less like a man and more like a discarded prop from a slasher film.
His skin was the color of wet clay, mottled with the dark purple pooling of lividity along the back and shoulders.
Hayes snapped a fresh pair of latex gloves against his wrists. “Shall we start, then?”
I nodded and took a step closer.
There were four distinct wounds clustered around the sternum and left pectoral. They weren’t clean slits; they were ragged, gaping mouths where the flesh had been torn rather than sliced. The bruising around the edges was a deep, angry violet, indicating the force behind the blows.
Hayes leaned in, using a gloved finger to spread the edges of the highest wound.
“The trajectory is upward and inward. The blade hit the fourth rib here—see the chipping?—but glanced off and likely punctured the lung. The fatal blow, however, was likely this one.” He pointed to a lower wound, slightly to the left of the breastbone. “Straight through the ventricle.”
“So he bled out fast,” I said.