“The girl’s name is Sofia Garcia-Figueroa,” Wade began. “Sixteen-year-old Hispanic female. Mother’s currently in rehab trying to kick a meth addiction. Father’s two years into a ten-year stretch for drug charges. Sofia has been in foster care since she was five years old. She’d been living in a group home for the last six months and ran away for the third time two weeks ago. The group home supervisor reported it after a missed bed check, but no further action was taken to locate her. According to MPD detectives, she began supporting herself through prostitution.” He looked up from his notes. “Like her mom.”
Listening to the recitation of Sofia’s story tore at Nina. In a few brief sentences, Wade had summed up a lifetime of pain, rejection, and trauma. Sofia might have turned her life around, but she would never have the chance now.
Wade flipped to the next page. “Last place anyone saw her was a few blocks down on M Street at nineteen hundred hours the night before she was found.”
“Was she with a john?” Kent asked.
Before Wade could answer, Buxton gave Breck a significant look.
She took the cue. “I’ve been working with Video Forensics. We got her on a bodega’s surveillance camera walking in to buy cigarettes,” Breck said. “She was alone.”
“Did she use a fake ID to buy the smokes?” Nina asked.
“Didn’t have to,” Wade cut in. “The clerk who works that shift apparently doesn’t put a lot of stock in tobacco sales laws. Metropolitan police are dealing with him now.”
“Who found the body?” Kent wanted to know, apparently just getting looped in on the case.
“Joaquin Ochoa,” Wade said, glancing down again. “A busboy at the Triple Threat nightclub. He went through the rear service door to take out the trash around three in the morning, after closing time. Saw her foot sticking up. We’re lucky the dumpster was fairly full, or she would have been down near the bottom and he never would’ve seen her.”
Nina hadn’t heard that detail before. “The unsub didn’t want to dispose of her. He wanted to be sure I went to the scene. He must have known ahead of time the dumpster would be full.” She turned to Wade. “Was it close to the time the garbage is normally collected?”
Wade flipped a few more pages. “Trash is picked up weekly. Scheduled for the following morning at six.” He gave her a nod of agreement. “He wanted her found.”
“And he wanted her found in a dumpster,” Nina said. She was certain of it. Nothing this killer did seemed random.
“That’s been bothering me,” Wade said. “Why did he place her in the bin? If he merely wanted to delay discovery, he could have hidden her on the pavement behind it. She wouldn’t have been spotted until trash collection time when a garbage truck with a hydraulic lift picked up the dumpster to empty it. In fact, that would have made more sense if he wanted to be certain someone saw her.” He looked at Nina. “Makes me wonder if he knew your history.”
He made the comment with the clinical objectivity of a seasoned investigator, but his words fell on her with the force of a physical blow. He’d posed the idea that the unsub had staged Sofia’s body in a grisly parody of Nina’s as an infant, which meant he suspected the unsub might be aware someone had thrown her in the trash.
She recovered as quickly as she could, striving to hide her reaction. “I don’t see how he could have known. I certainly didn’t tell him about it when he had me.”
“But there were some people who knew?” Wade continued.
“The circumstances of my entry into the foster system were in my file, but I never spoke about it to anyone.” Her eyes slid away from Wade’s. “Ever.”
“What a killer does with his victim postmortem speaks volumes,” Kent said, saving her from further explanation. “Someone who arranges the body carefully, or covers it up, indicates that he knew the victim or experienced a modicum of remorse for his actions. On the other hand, someone who treats the body with contempt demonstrates total dehumanization of the victim.” He tapped his notebook. “This killer felt no regard for Sofia and did not believe she deserved any consideration whatsoever. That could be the extent of his reasoning for dumping her where he did.”
“True,” Wade said. “But there’s more here. What about the note he left in her mouth and the coded message spray-painted at the scene? Both mentioned ‘hope’ in a way that made it clear he knew Agent Guerrera’s former surname.” He turned back to her. “How would he know that about you?”
She hesitated a beat before responding. “Because I told him.” The statement hung in the air a moment before she elaborated. “He forced it out of me. At first, I gave him a fake name, but he could tell I was lying.” She straightened in her chair. Damned if she would let anyone judge her sixteen-year-old self. “He kept hurting me until I told the truth.” He had broken her that day. A part of her would always remain broken.
Undeterred by her obvious discomfort, Wade delved deeper. “Did he seem to understand that ‘esperanza’ meant ‘hope’ at the time? Did he make a comment about it?”
She thought back, forcing her mind to compartmentalize, sifting through the detritus of memory fragments. “No. He must have figured that out later.”
Everyone seemed to mull this over a moment before Buxton pushed the discussion forward, diverting them from the awkward turn the conversation had taken. “Was Sofia Garcia-Figueroa sexually assaulted in any way?”
“Raped,” Wade said, pulling his eyes from Nina to scan his notebook again. “There are also twenty-seven horizontal lacerations across her back as well as three burns from what looks to be a cigarette and ligature marks around her throat. We won’t know in what order everything happened until we hear more from the ME.”
Nina’s stomach gave a nasty lurch. “You mean the sex assault could have been postmortem?”
“The full autopsy will give us a better idea,” Wade said. “We’re also waiting on a tox screen and a DNA report.”
“I’ve got a rush on it,” Buxton said.
“Any idea where the murder occurred?” Kent asked.
“We only know it wasn’t at the scene where the body was found,” Wade said. “Forensic analysis of trace evidence may help determine that too.”
Nina focused on the girl’s life for clues about her death. How would she have managed to live on the street? Working as a prostitute was risky on many levels. She would have needed protection, and she had likely fallen prey to the narcotics trade that sucked so many in.
“Is she affiliated with any gang?” she asked. When Wade raised his brows, she elaborated. “Did she have a pimp? A supplier?”
“MPD is working that angle,” he said. “They have boots on the ground in the neighborhood right now. I should hear from Stanton today or tomorrow. That’s all I have.”
Buxton immediately turned to Breck. “Let’s hear about the video.”
Apparently caught off guard, Breck jumped and grabbed the laptop in front of her. Nina sympathized with her. Buxton was running the meeting at a fast clip.
“We analyzed video from multiple city cams and businesses along M Street,” Breck said. “None of them were angled to show the alley behind the nightclub.”