A Different Dawn (Nina Guerrera) Read online

  “This case got a lot of media attention at the time,” she told him. “I was just watching a TV newsclip from the day the family was found in their home. The reporter interviewed everyone in the neighborhood. The lady next door said what happened reminded her of La Llorona. The nickname spread like wildfire, and everyone started calling it the Llorona case.”

  Breck’s head popped up from her computer. “The what-what?”

  Nina realized the others had stopped what they were doing to listen. “The legend of La Llorona,” she said to them. “It’s a combination ghost story and folktale in Latino cultures. I’ve heard several variations.”

  “What does La Llorona mean?” Breck asked.

  “It’s Spanish for the weeping woman or the wailing woman,” Nina said.

  “I’ll bite,” Breck said, her southern drawl more evident than usual. “What’s the deal with this woman, and why is she crying?”

  Nina considered how best to convey the sheer creepiness of the story that had scared her, and so many others, as a child. “Like I said, there are many different versions. The things most accounts have in common are that a wife becomes distraught when her husband falls in love with another woman and drowns their children to punish him for his infidelity. Then, filled with remorse for what she’s done, she takes her own life. In some versions, she kills her unfaithful husband before doing herself in.”

  Breck arched a brow. “You heard this as a little kid?”

  Nina nodded. “Mostly from other Latino kids in the foster system. I remember being totally creeped out when the older kids warned us little ones that La Llorona is doomed to roam the earth forever, searching for her lost children. If she caught one of us, she would drown us too. For extra drama, one of the older kids would hide in a closet and cry out, ‘¿Dónde están mis hijos?’ at the end of the story.”

  “That means, ‘where are my children,’” Kent said to Wade and Breck.

  Nina recalled that he spoke four languages. She nodded. “It’s what La Llorona is supposed to moan as she wanders.”

  “I swear,” Breck said, “the way you grew up sounds like Lord of the Flies. I don’t know how you turned out so well.”

  Nina looked away. “Yeah, we all pretty much ran screaming to our beds while the older kids laughed.” She avoided responding to the rest of Breck’s comment.

  “I’m guessing the details of the first case had something in common with the folktale?” Wade asked.

  “We still don’t have the case file for that incident from the Phoenix police,” Breck said. “If we request all the investigative material, they’ll have to pull it from their archives.”

  Nina pointed at her computer screen. “According to media reports, the crime scene investigation revealed a stash of love letters that had apparently been kept in one of the husband’s shoeboxes in the bedroom closet.”

  “I can’t believe the PPD would release those kinds of details,” Wade said. “They would guard the specifics back then just like they do nowadays.”

  “The reporter spoke to someone close to the investigation.” Nina air-quoted the last few words. “The unnamed source told him the wife had apparently discovered her husband’s affair when she was cleaning out the closet. Their newborn baby girl was drowned in the bathroom, the husband shot in the face with a revolver, and the wife died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to her heart.”

  “If it’s staged, someone did their homework,” Kent said. “The scene includes a lot of symbolism. The wife shooting her husband in the face indicates a desire to obliterate him, like she didn’t want to look him in the eyes again. Shooting herself in the heart represents what his infidelity did to her.”

  “And the baby?” Nina asked.

  Kent considered a moment before answering. “Water symbolizes the unconscious. Submerging the product of their love into the unconscious could be a way of admitting that she should have known about her husband’s inner secrets and was in denial.”

  “Whoa there.” Breck gave him a dubious look. “That’s a pretty big stretch.”

  “I agree,” Kent said, apparently unperturbed by the debate. “But the deaths of the mother and father would certainly work even if someone had only a very basic idea of how to stage a crime scene.”

  Nina tried to put herself in the mind of the unsub. “If this was his first case, do you think he might have studied some literature or other materials to get ideas about how to lead police where he wanted them to go?”

  “He’s an organized killer,” Wade said. “It’s highly likely.”

  “Looks like it worked.” Nina glanced back down at the screen. “In a news conference, the police spokesperson said the mother, who had just given birth, may have succumbed to postpartum depression when she killed her husband and child before turning the gun on herself.”

  “Revenge filicide,” Wade said.

  Everyone but Kent looked confused.

  Wade’s mouth flattened into a hard line. “Filicide is the technical term for the murder of one’s own offspring. Revenge filicide is just what it sounds like—killing your child to get back at someone else. Someone who loves that child dearly.”

  She thought she knew the answer but asked the question anyway. “You’ve seen this?”

  “Yes.” The word came out as a harsh whisper.

  Not for the first time, Nina contemplated the inhumanity Wade had observed in his chosen area of expertise. Crimes against children were among the most difficult to investigate. She could only imagine the toll witnessing so much depravity had taken on him after pursuing hundreds of cases.

  Kent broke the silence that followed. “Studies have shown that when the child is under eight years old, the mother is usually the culprit. That changes when the children are older.”

  “I could read a thousand studies on the subject,” Breck said, touching her fingertips to her heart. “But I’ll never understand it.”

  Nina agreed. “Children are defenseless against adult brutality.” She stopped herself before adding that she had the scars to prove her point. Wade gave her a knowing look. The rest of the team was aware of her background as well. There was no need to elaborate.

  “To paraphrase Gandhi,” Wade said, “you can measure a society by how they treat their most vulnerable.”

  “When the victims are infants or the mother has recently given birth, postpartum depression is usually suspected,” Kent went on. “Those cases grab headlines because they seem so antithetical to motherhood, but statistically, fathers are far more likely to kill their own children.”

  “So detectives investigating these cases would have no reason to question the narrative laid out for them?” Nina said.

  Wade’s voice sounded strained when he spoke. “As you said earlier, these are seasoned Homicide detectives. They’ve seen it all. Like me, they would view the situation as tragic but plausible.”

  The starkness in Wade’s gray eyes matched the increasingly grim atmosphere inside the plane. To break the mood, Nina clicked on another media report from the old case in Phoenix.

  “According to a follow-up news story a few days later, the ME didn’t find anything to contradict the police theory and ruled the causes of death to be homicide for the father and child and suicide for the mother.”

  Buxton, who had been sitting toward the back of the plane, spoke for the first time. “Put your stuff away, people, we’re starting our descent.”

  Nina closed her laptop and peered out the small window to survey the vast beige-and-brown desertscape below, so different from the Virginia foothills in Quantico that it might have been another planet. She was leaving the damp early spring chill of the mid-Atlantic East Coast to arrive in the sun-bleached warmth of the Southwest. Buxton had warned them to pack for balmy weather, and he hadn’t been kidding. She shed her sweater, grateful to be wearing a light blouse underneath. As the plane banked, circling lower, she felt an almost tangible shift into a different world.

  Chapter 7

  Persp
iration prickled Nina’s scalp as she rode in the black Suburban with her team. After landing, Buxton had opted to catch a taxi directly to the Phoenix FBI field office to set up their workspace while the rest of the team clambered into an SUV with Special Agent Paul Ginsberg, who was assigned to the PFO.

  “They call the Phoenix metropolitan area ‘the valley of the sun,’” Ginsberg was saying as he steered the vehicle onto the freeway. “I’ve been assigned here two years, and I still can’t take the heat. You’re lucky to be coming here in the spring.”

  Nina looked out the tinted window at the clear blue sky, so different from the cold, rainy gray back east. “The weather is gorgeous.”

  “That’s because it’s still winter where you’re coming from. I should know, I was born and raised on Long Island.” He smiled. “The winters here are fantastic, but the summers . . . yeesh.”

  This was her second trip to Phoenix—neither had been during the summer. From what she had seen so far, the place seemed like a balmy paradise.

  Ginsberg took an exit and headed toward the northeast part of the sprawling city. “I’m sure you’d like to get to your hotel, but we need to swing by the crime scene first if you want to go over it with the lead detective.”

  “It’s still an active scene?” she asked, surprised there would be anything to examine. “The murders took place three days ago.”

  Ginsberg maneuvered onto a side street. “The initial investigation and evidence collection have been completed, but we’ve asked the local police not to release the scene yet.” He shrugged. “It’s not an issue, because nobody lives there anymore. The whole family was killed in the attack, and the relatives are trying to sort out ownership. There’s a mortgage on the property, so the bank is wading in. Because of the title question, nobody’s hired a crew to clean and decontaminate the house either. Long story short, we have free run of the place for the time being.”

  Kent looked at Ginsberg. “Has the house been secured?”

  Ginsberg nodded. “We reached out to the Phoenix police Homicide Unit to tell them your team is on the ground, and they sent the lead detective to meet us there. Since you’re here at their request, the PPD has agreed to work directly with us, starting with taking us through the scene and going over everything in their reports.”

  She was pleased to jump straight into the investigation. Viewing the space where a crime occurred in person was always better than looking at two-dimensional photos and reading someone else’s observations about what they thought was important.

  As Ginsberg swung the SUV into a residential area, high-end shops and restaurants gave way to the rolling greens of a manicured golf course. Nina assumed they were headed into the swanky part of town. They stopped at the front gate of an enclosed community.

  Nina watched Ginsberg punch in a series of numbers before the gate slowly opened. “PPD gave me the code,” he said. “It’s different for every user, but the police use zero-nine-one-one for entry.”

  “Easy enough to remember,” Breck said.

  They continued down a wide street lined with blooming plants and verdant foliage that Nina was sure would never grow in the desert city without plenty of irrigation. After passing several massive residences, they pulled into the long driveway of a Mediterranean-style estate.

  Nina took in the tile roof, stone siding, and graceful arches. “I’m assuming a house like this would have an alarm system. What happened?”

  Ginsberg brought the Suburban to a stop next to an empty unmarked police car. “The detective must be waiting for us inside. He can explain about the security better than I can.”

  They all got out of the SUV and climbed a set of wide stone steps to reach a pair of towering front doors. Four strips of yellow crime scene tape across the entrance had been cut and dangled down.

  Kent rang the bell as everyone waited behind him. When the door swung open, the former SEAL’s large frame blocked Nina’s view inside. She saw Kent’s spine stiffen as he stood transfixed on the threshold.

  After a moment’s pause, Kent’s harsh words echoed off the arched interior ceiling. “No. Fucking. Way.”

  “Special Agent Kent,” a familiar male voice carried from inside. “Nice to see you too.” The tone oozed sarcasm.

  Nina slipped past Kent and held out her hand in greeting. “Glad to be working with you again, Detective Perez.”

  The Homicide detective’s entire demeanor changed, white teeth contrasting with tan skin as his face split into a grin. He clasped her outstretched hand. “I had no idea you were back in town, Nina.”

  “You two know each other?” Ginsberg asked, evidently noting that Perez had used her first name.

  “You recall the high-profile case that brought us to Phoenix a while back?” she asked Ginsberg.

  He gave her a sardonic look. “Who doesn’t?”

  “Detective Perez and I partnered up to check out leads.” She didn’t add that Perez and Kent hadn’t hit it off at the time, nearly coming to blows.

  “Why did your team fly all the way out here?” Perez asked. “We know the case might be related to one in New York, but there must be more to it.”

  Wade responded before anyone else had a chance. “Can you take us through the scene first? Then we’ll get into the particulars.”

  She caught Perez’s frown.

  “What?” Wade said, obviously spotting the taut expression as well.

  Perez crossed his arms. “Let’s just say it isn’t the first time Feds landed in the middle of our investigation and didn’t want to provide any information.”

  “We’ll play nice,” Nina said quickly. “I promise. Just fill us in on this case first.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Perez said, turning toward the interior of the house. “Here’s how we think it went down,” he began. “The subject entered the home through the front door at about two in the morning. Everyone was asleep.”

  Listening to Perez, Nina recalled that police tended to use terms like subject or perp—depending on the department—to describe an unidentified assailant, while the FBI favored unsub. One of many small shifts she’d made when changing careers.

  “I would expect a place like this to be alarmed,” Nina said, reiterating her earlier question before she got sidetracked by other crime scene details. “How did he get in?”

  “Defeated a wireless security system,” Perez said. “We figure the subject used a remote signal to jam the frequency. That way, when he opened the door, the sensors didn’t detect a separation of contact points, so there was no alarm activation.”

  “That’s pretty sophisticated,” Breck said, speaking for the first time since they’d entered the home. “He had to know what he was doing, or he could have accidentally overloaded the system and set off the alarm.”

  “Everything this guy did at the scene indicates careful planning,” Perez said.

  Breck, who seemed to understand electronics better than the rest of them, pressed the issue. “Was the front door unlocked?”

  Perez shook his head. “There is no sign of forced entry. We believed he either picked the lock or climbed inside an unlocked window.”

  “Is it possible to pick a deadbolt?” Breck asked.

  Nina followed her gaze to the circular silver lock above the doorknob. “A few years ago I arrested a burglar who had a set of picks that could have opened this lock in forty seconds,” she said. “It’s totally doable.”

  “Well organized, well prepared, well executed,” Wade said. “We have reason to believe the unsub had plenty of time to check out his targets and study their security.”

  Before Perez could start asking more questions about why the team from Quantico was there, Nina redirected the conversation, prodding him for more details. “Speaking of the targets, we read the preliminary report on the flight here, but we don’t have any updated information about the victims.”

  “The couple was living in a high-rise condo downtown until the wife, Meaghan Doyle, found out she was pregnant
. She and her husband, Tom, moved into this upscale gated community about six months ago.”

  Breck perked up. “Does the gate record which access codes were used and when?”

  “We already asked the HOA,” Perez said. “The system doesn’t record that information.”

  Nina wanted to keep the discussion on the victims. “The report said the Doyles were doctors?”

  “He was an orthopedic surgeon, and she was an ophthalmologist, both in their late thirties. They waited to have their first child, presumably due to their professional commitments.”

  They followed Perez to the bottom of the staircase leading up to the second floor as he continued his narration of the scene. “Crime scene techs found no evidence that the subject went through the entire house. He seems to have zeroed in on his target area once he entered, then left after he finished without taking or touching anything that we could discover.”

  “Because he was done here,” Kent said. “He’s efficient and sticks to his purpose.”

  Nina scaled the steps, glancing at family photos on the wall as she passed. Smiling faces filled with joy. The kind of happy family she had never known. The kind of family that would have been excited to welcome a new life.

  “How did the unsub know the parents wouldn’t be awake feeding the baby?” she wondered out loud.

  “The question we keep asking ourselves,” Perez said. “He either took a big chance or he had some way to know what they were up to inside the house.”

  “This unsub left nothing to chance,” Wade said with absolute certainty. “He knew they were asleep somehow.”

  Nina steeled herself for the grim reality of what the unsub had done. She stopped in the hallway and glanced at Perez. “How did this go down?”

  “We’re not sure, but we believe he suffocated the baby first,” Perez said, grief flickering momentarily in his dark eyes. “Then he carried her body out of the nursery down the hall into the master bedroom. The parents used a baby monitor, but apparently didn’t wake up until the killer fired his weapon at the father, which makes me think they kept the bedroom doors open as a backup in case something went wrong with the monitor. That way, the killer would have been able to push each door open without making any noise.”