The Third Body
Maribel Rodriguez
The call came at 6:47 a.m., dragging me from a dream I couldn’t remember. My phone vibrated against the nightstand, the screen’s blue glow cutting through the pre-dawn darkness of our bedroom. Marcus stirred beside me, his arm sliding off my waist as I reached for the phone.
“Rodriguez.”
“We got a body at the Grandview Hotel. Room 412.” Luis’s voice was rough with too much coffee and not enough sleep. “Looks like a homicide.”
I was already swinging my legs out of bed, my bare feet finding the cold hardwood floor.
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
The Grandview Hotel squatted on the corner of Fifth and Washington, a relic from the seventies that had been renovated just enough to avoid being condemned.
The morning air bit at my face as I stepped out of my car, carrying the smell of exhaust and yesterday’s rain.
Yellow crime scene tape fluttered in the breeze, and a small crowd of early risers had already gathered on the sidewalk, their phones raised to capture whatever tragedy had unfolded inside.
I ducked under the tape and flashed my badge at the uniform guarding the entrance.
The lobby reeked of industrial cleaner trying to mask the underlying scent of mildew and cigarette smoke that had seeped into the walls over decades. My shoes squeaked against the linoleum as I crossed to the elevator.
Luis was waiting on the fourth floor, leaning against the doorframe of room 412. He straightened when he saw me, running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair.
“Morning, Rodriguez. You look like hell.”
“Thanks, partner. You’re a real charmer.”
He stepped aside to let me enter. The smell hit me first—the coppery tang of blood mixed with the chemical sweetness of air freshener and something else, something organic and wrong. My stomach tightened, but I’d learned years ago to breathe through my mouth and keep moving.
Our vic––Robert Chen lay on the bed, his body positioned almost peacefully on top of the comforter. He wore dress slacks and a button-down shirt, both wrinkled.
His face was purple, eyes bulging, tongue protruding slightly between his lips. The ligature marks around his neck were deep and angry, the skin bruised in shades of purple and black.
“Housekeeping found him about an hour ago.” Luis moved to stand beside me, his notepad already in hand. “Robert Chen, forty-six, accountant at Morrison & Associates. Checked in two nights ago. Paid cash.”
I pulled on latex gloves, the snap of rubber against my wrists sharp in the quiet room. The carpet beneath my feet was worn thin, and I could feel the unevenness of the floor through my shoes.
“Wallet?”
“Gone. Phone too. His briefcase was dumped out over there.” Luis gestured to the corner where papers were scattered across the floor. “I’m thinking robbery. Guy checks into a cheap hotel with cash, someone figures he’s got more on him, things go sideways.”
I moved closer to the body, studying Chen’s face. His eyes stared at nothing, and I had to resist the urge to close them. That would come later, at the morgue. For now, everything stayed exactly as it was found.
“Any signs of struggle?”
“Not much. Couple of defensive wounds on his hands, but nothing major. ME’s on her way.”
I circled the bed slowly, taking in every detail. The nightstand lamp was on, casting a warm glow that felt obscene given the circumstances.
A half-empty glass of water sat beside it, condensation still clinging to the sides. The bathroom door stood open, revealing a neatly hung towel and an unused bar of soap.
Something nagged at me, a whisper in the back of my mind that I couldn’t quite hear yet.
I leaned in closer, examining Chen’s neck. The ligature marks were consistent with manual strangulation—someone had used their hands, not a rope or cord. The killer had been strong, determined. This wasn’t a panicked reaction; this was methodical.
Then I saw it.
Behind his left ear, barely visible beneath his hairline, was a small puncture mark. Tiny, precise, like a needle prick. My heart rate kicked up, and I felt the familiar rush of adrenaline that came with a break in a case.
I’d seen this before. Twice before.
My hand moved to my phone automatically, pulling up the camera. I took several photos from different angles, making sure to capture the mark clearly. The flash illuminated Chen’s pale skin, and I noticed Luis watching me from across the room.
“What’d you find?”
I straightened, slipping my phone back into my pocket.
“Just documenting everything. You know how the brass gets if we miss something.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. The puncture mark was too small, too easy to miss.
If I mentioned it now, Luis would want to know why it mattered, and I didn’t have an answer yet. Not one that wouldn’t make me sound crazy.
Amy Tran, twenty-two, college student. Found in her apartment six weeks ago, GSW to the chest. It was made to look like suicide.
It wasn’t suicide.
Gloria Hastings, sixty-seven, retired nurse. Found in her home three weeks ago, brutally beaten. Then stabbed in the chest.
Both vics had the same tiny puncture mark behind their left ear. Both cases had been written off as unrelated—different neighborhoods, different victim profiles, different circumstances.
But I’d worked both scenes. I’d seen the marks. And now here was Robert Chen, middle-aged accountant, strangled in a hotel room with the same puncture mark in the same location.
Three victims. Three puncture marks. Three different types of death. However, the same signature marks behind the ear. Not enough evidence to present as a serial crime yet. But I needed to keep digging.
Luis was still talking, something about checking the security footage and canvassing the other rooms, but his voice faded into background noise.
I stared at Chen’s body, my mind racing through the connections, the patterns, the things that didn’t fit the narrative of random violence.
“Rodriguez? You with me?”
I blinked, focusing back on Luis. He was watching me with that expression he got when he thought I was overthinking things.
“Yeah, sorry. Long night.”
“Marcus keeping you up with campaign stuff?”
“Something like that.”
We worked the scene for another two hours. The ME arrived and confirmed preliminary cause of death as asphyxiation due to strangulation. Time of death was estimated between 10 p.m. and midnight.
I bagged evidence, took statements from the hotel staff, and reviewed the security footage with Luis.
The cameras in the hallway had been conveniently broken for the past week, and the lobby footage showed dozens of people coming and going, none of whom stood out as obviously suspicious.
By the time I left the Grandview, the sun was fully up, and my head was pounding. I sat in my car for a long moment, staring at the photos on my phone.
The puncture mark was clear, undeniable. But what did it mean? Why would someone strangle their victims and then inject them with something post-mortem? What was the point?
I needed to pull the files on Tran and Hastings, compare the autopsy reports, and see if there was something I’d missed. But I also needed to be careful. If I started making noise about a serial killer without solid evidence, Captain Reyes would shut me down before I could even get started.
The drive home was a blur of traffic and red lights. My mind kept circling back to that puncture mark, to the three bodies, to the feeling in my gut that screamed this was connected.
Marcus was in the kitchen when I walked in, still wearing his running clothes, his dark hair damp with sweat.
The smell of coffee filled the apartment, rich and bitter, and my stomach growled despite the lingering scent of death in my nostrils.
He looked up from his phone and smiled; the kind of smile that had made me fall in love with him three years ago.
“There’s my detective. Rough morning?”
I nodded. “Homicide at the Grandview.”
He poured me a cup of coffee. “The Grandview? That place is a dump.” He added cream and sugar the way I liked it. “What happened?”
I took the mug, letting the warmth seep into my hands.
“Strangulation. Middle-aged guy, looks like a robbery.”
“Sounds pretty straightforward.”
I sipped the coffee, the bitterness cutting through the fog in my head. Marcus moved around the kitchen with easy confidence, pulling out ingredients for breakfast.
He’d been up since five, running his usual six miles before diving into prep for another day of campaigning. The primary was only three months away, and he was running neck-and-neck with the incumbent DA.
“How was your run?”
“Good. Cleared my head.” He cracked eggs into a bowl, whisking them with practiced efficiency. “You look exhausted, babe. When’s the last time you got a full night’s sleep?”
“I sleep fine.”
“You were tossing and turning all night. I heard you get up twice.”
Had I? I didn’t remember. The past few weeks had blurred together, a haze of crime scenes and campaign events and late nights reviewing case files.
Marcus slid scrambled eggs onto two plates, adding toast and fresh fruit. We sat at the small dining table, and I realized I was starving. The eggs were perfect, fluffy and seasoned just right. Marcus had always been the better cook.
“So, this homicide.” He took a bite of toast, watching me over the rim of his coffee mug. “You think it’s connected to those other cases you’ve been obsessing over?”
The word “obsessing” landed like a small stone in still water, sending ripples through my chest.
“I’m not obsessing.”
“Mari.” He reached across the table, covering my hand with his. His touch was warm, familiar. “You’ve been working yourself into the ground. Between my campaign and these cases, you’re running on fumes.”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re seeing patterns that might not be there.”
I pulled my hand back, picking up my fork.
“Three murders in six weeks, Marcus. That’s not normal.”
“Three murders in a city of two million people? That’s actually pretty normal, statistically speaking.” His voice was gentle, the same tone he used when explaining legal concepts to juries. “Different neighborhoods, different victim profiles, different circumstances. Sometimes bad things just happen, and they’re not connected.”
“But what if they are?”
“Then you, my dear, will find the evidence to prove it. But you can’t let yourself get tunnel vision. That’s how good detectives miss what’s right in front of them. By obsessing.”
He was right, of course. Tunnel vision was dangerous, could lead you down the wrong path and blind you to other possibilities.
But this wasn’t tunnel vision. This was instinct, the same instinct that had closed dozens of cases over my ten years on the force.
Still, I didn’t argue. Marcus had a full day of campaign events ahead of him, and I didn’t want to start a fight over something I couldn’t yet prove.
Marcus swallowed a bite of eggs. “Sometimes you have to take a step back, reset yourself, get a fresh perspective. Who knows, the answers you seek may be right in front of you?”
“You’re probably right. I’m just tired.”
His smile returned, warm and reassuring.
“Get some rest today. Take a nap. The case will still be there when you wake up.”
We finished breakfast in comfortable silence, and Marcus kissed me before heading to the shower. His lips lingered, reminding me that our relationship worked because we were two pieces of the same puzzle.
I sat at the table, staring at my empty plate, my mind already back at the Grandview Hotel.
Three bodies. Three puncture marks. I pulled out my phone and looked at the photos again.
The mark was there, clear as day. Whatever Marcus said, whatever Luis thought, I knew in my bones that these cases were connected.
You just need to prove it Maribel.
Time was ticking, I had to figure out what that puncture mark meant before there was a fourth body.
