around the plain one-story house are two black-and-white police cruisers belonging to the Three Rivers Police Department, one white cruiser belonging to the McMullen County Sheriff’s Department, and another black cruiser with a white hood from the Texas State Police.
Officers with drawn weapons are slowly going through the yard, and one officer comes out of the house—also with weapon in hand—and yells out, “Clear, but for Christ’s sake, we got a goddamn bloodbath in there. Anybody know when the chief will get here?”
Someone answers him, and Rosaria pushes her way through a handful of civilians, until she comes up to a heavyset Three Rivers officer, wearing a dark-blue uniform, holding his arms out.
“Sorry,” he says. “This is an active crime scene. Nobody’s allowed through.”
Rosaria shows her badge. “Warrant Officer Rosaria Vasquez, US Army. I’m a special agent with the Criminal Investigation Command.”
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