Chapter Four

Holcombe pulled his SUV to a stop. No text from Madison meant she hadn’t found Torres or a crime scene. The apartment complex was an older two-story building that stretched the length of the block—a concrete garden-style relic that never saw better days. Thrown up thirty years ago to meet Houston’s boom, it never aspired to be more than cheap housing.

He flashed his badge to the HPD officer at the front door. Before he could announce himself, Madison’s voice rang out from the other side of a bare countertop in the apartment’s sparse kitchen.

“Howdy. Torres isn’t home. Robinson sent the warrant five minutes ago. We’re clear to do a visual check for blood or signs of violence and then clear out. The apartment manager let me in.” Madison crossed to the other side of the counter, waving her flashlight in the dimly lit space. Holcombe walked in. The apartment was a reflection of its exterior—cheap, damp, and tired. He imagined the ceiling sagging from sheer exhaustion, or maybe it actually was.

Detective Kris Madison, recently loaned to the Task Force from the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office, was the newest addition to the team. Despite having just two years of detective experience before her assignment, Madison carried herself with a confidence that demanded attention. Holcombe always found her presence intriguing; it took him a while to put his finger on why. She reminded him of a coach—someone who could command a locker room, whether it was football or rugby. Her short, stocky frame, piercing blue eyes, and closely cropped blonde hair contributed to her air of authority, a mix of practicality and quiet strength that made her stand out.

Madison continued, “This place is clean. Too clean. It barely looks lived in. The couch looks like it was pulled from a curb, and there’s just a mattress on the floor. There’s a gym bag peaking out of the closet over there,” she waved to a half-open closet door next to the apartment entrance, “but the warrant won’t let me look in it. The shower doesn’t even have a curtain, the counters are bare, and there’s no TV in the living room. Doesn’t feel like anyone’s living here.”

Holcombe nodded, his instincts agreeing. “It’s the smell. Too musky. No human funk. We need to figure out when Torres was last here. Let’s lock it up and start knocking on doors.”

“Already on it,” Madison replied, gesturing to the left. “Patrol officers are knocking for us. I think they started that way.”

The apartment manager hovered a few yards away, pacing, not anxious but eager. Holcombe waved him over.

“Can you lock this up for us?”

“Absolutely, detective!” The man darted forward with enthusiasm. As he approached, Holcombe sized him up—a young Latino guy desperately trying to grow a mustache.

“You’re way too young to be the manager here,” Holcombe said with a grin.

“I do maintenance. It’s my weekend to be on call.” He hesitated, curiosity flickering. “So, uh, what’s going on? The other detective wouldn’t say, just showed me the warrant.”

“We’re looking for Mr. Anthony Torres,” Holcombe replied, keeping it vague. “His truck’s tied to another crime, and we need to check in on him.”

Holcombe watched as the man processed the information, his curiosity sharpening. People loved stories, and homicide investigations came loaded with them—love, revenge, greed, lust, the whole deadly spectrum. Everyone wanted to be part of one.

Holcombe leaned in, lowering his voice. “This is part of a homicide investigation, but we can’t get into details. We really need to find Torres. Oh, I’m Holcombe, by the way. What’s your name?”

“Jose.” The man hesitated, then blurted, “So... is Anthony dead?”

“Not that we know of,” Holcombe said. “That’s why we need to find him. Do you know where he works or where he hangs out when he’s not here?”

Jose’s curiosity faltered, doubt creeping in. “He told me he worked on oil rigs, so he’s gone a lot.”

“Thanks, Jose. If you think of anything else, give me a call.”

Holcombe sent a quick text to the detective group as he walked back to his SUV.

Torres isn’t at his apartment. Knocking on doors now.

Madison caught up as he slid into the driver’s seat. She leaned against the door and talked to him through his open window. “Patrol’s knocked on about two dozen doors. Only three people answered. One guy said Torres sometimes had a woman with him, thought it was a girlfriend, but didn’t know much else.”

“You know, the truck had a bunch of receipts from a bar called The Last Dock. I looked it up; it’s about 4 miles from here, on the other side of the Sam Houston. There are at least a dozen other places that are closer to here.”

“You want to go check it out?”

“I want to go check it out.”

Madison nodded, and they drove separately to The Last Dock. Holcombe tried to focus on the game playing faintly on the radio, but his mind drifted. The case wasn’t taking shape—no witnesses, no ID, no clear scene. Just threads that led nowhere.

The frustrating thing was not to know who the victim was. Knowing the victim, learning about their love, triumphs, fears, and failures from family, friends, and enemies was always necessary in pursuing the murderer and providing closure for those loved ones left behind.

Holcombe used his drive time to catch up with Nguyen.

“Hey, what’s up?” Nguyen answered cheerfully.

“Nothing at the apartment. Like a lot of nothing, we aren’t sure if this guy Torres actually lived there all the time. We are going to go to that bar where I found the receipts for The Last Dock. So, Madison and I are going to start there.”

“Got it. So, we are starting to wrap up here. K9 searched around, but we didn’t find a gun. It’s just a big empty parking lot here. A tow truck is loading up the F-150 right now, and they are going to take it to the print shed. Good to release the scene?”

“What about the field?”

“We aren’t sure about the owner, so we didn’t cross into it. The K9 unit did walk the treeline, but there wasn’t anything there. There are a couple of spots where people have worn down a path to cut through, probably homeless people, but nothing jumped out at us.”

“Yeah, if you are good to go, I don’t have a problem with it.”

Nguyen agreed and told him he would catch up at the office later. It was already close to ten o’clock, and Nguyen wanted to make sure whatever meager evidence they had collected would be put at the front of the line at the lab. 

Rain misted the windshield as he pulled into the dive bar’s lot, parking beside Madison’s SUV. The Last Dock sat on a forgotten stretch of industrial road, a relic of the city’s boom-and-bust cycles. They stepped through the metal fire door and into a cacophony of rock music and loud conversations.  Inside, the usual dim haze of dive-bar lighting, mixed with furniture that had been procured from church sales and the side of the road. 

Holcombe took it all in. The Last Dock hadn’t always been a bar. The exposed steel girders overhead and rusted pulleys dangling from the ceiling told the story of its past life—a machine shop, probably. Faint, peeling paint on the concrete walls suggested it had once been part of Houston’s industrial backbone, now reduced to a watering hole for anyone looking to disappear for a while.

There was a solid crowd for a Friday night, Holcombe guessed. No one paid them any attention as they walked to the corner of the bar, near a line of taps of beers.

Holcombe and Madison stood at the edge of the bar, surveying the crowd. People glanced their way but didn’t linger. No one made eye contact long enough to be suspicious, but the absence of curiosity from some corners of the room was telling.

Holcombe flashed his badge. “Hey,” he said to the bartender, a bottle-blonde in a black tank top and tight jean shorts. She looked mid-thirties, but the makeup struggling to hide years of wear made him revise that to forty-five.

“Police,” he said. “Major Case Task Force. We’re looking for someone.”

The bartender crossed her arms, a subtle but clear sign of defense. “Who are you looking for?”

Madison held up her phone, displaying a photo of a driver’s license. “Anthony Torres,” Holcombe said, his tone steady but pressing. “We found his truck in connection with another crime, and we need to talk to him.”

The bartender’s eyes narrowed briefly as if weighing how much to share. “Yeah, I recognize him. He’s been coming in every night for the past week.” She paused, glancing around the room. Holcombe noted the shift and decided to lean in.

“What time today was he here?” Holcombe asked, flipping open his notebook and pretending to consult it as though the information were already recorded. He let the silence sit, giving her space to fill it.

“Uh… he was here a couple of hours ago,” she said slowly. “Had a beer, watched some TV.”

Finally, a lead.

Madison swiped her thumb across the phone screen, bringing up another photo. “What about this woman?” She turned the phone around to show the bartender an image of the victim. It was taken close-up, her face locked into a grimace of fear or surprise. Maybe both. No blood was visible, but the bartender’s reaction was immediate.

Her face drained of color. “Oh god, is she… is she dead?” Her voice dropped to a whisper as if saying it too loudly would make it more real. “Yeah, she was here today. She’s been coming for the past few weeks as well.”

Holcombe felt the tension in his shoulders ease slightly. It wasn’t much, but it was progress. “Were they together?”

The bartender shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. At least I’ve never seen her with him. She always went to the back room, by the pool tables. I saw her with a laptop every now and then.”

“Laptop? At a place like this?” Madison asked with a bit of irritation in her voice.

The bartender smiled back. “Yeah, we have free wifi. Some people ‘work from home’ from the booth here. Anyway, to stay in business.”

Holcombe wanted to get the conversation back on track. “So, you never saw them together, but would you see them coming or leaving together.”

“That, I really can’t tell you. I have been working so many shifts that I don’t pay attention to the door. I do know that the guy would always sit here, and he didn’t talk to anyone.” The bartender gestured to a stool at the corner of the bar top, near the door to the kitchen area. 

“How about the lady? Did she talk to people?”

“Maybe. As I said, she was always in the back areas of the bar, so I didn’t keep an eye on her. Maybe Hector knows.”

She gestured toward an older Hispanic man hauling a tub of glasses and trash to the bar. Setting it down with a clatter, he turned toward them, his face lined with years of hard work.

“Hector,” the bartender called out before Holcombe could speak, “did you help this lady?” She nodded toward Madison, who held out the phone for him to see.

Hector squinted at the photo. “Sí. She’s been here all week.”

“Did you see her talking to anyone? What was she doing?” Madison asked.

Hector smiled, revealing a mouth that mainly had steel-looking teeth. “Si, she asked for water.”

“Dammit, Holcombe, you don’t speak Spanish, right?”

“Nope. Nguyen has been teaching me various curse words in Vietnamese.”

“Thanks. Um, ma’am,” Madison waved the bartender over. “Do you speak Spanish?”

“Yeah,” the bartender replied. “What do you want to know?”

Holcombe smiled as Madison started her translated interview with Hector and the bartender. Speaking a second language in Houston was becoming a necessity. In the past 20 years, the Space City has become a destination for more immigrants from more countries than anywhere else in the United States. Mexico and South America were, of course, because of proximity, but Southeast Asia, Sub-Sahara Africa, and the Middle East had massive representation of the 21st-century immigration surge fueled by Houston’s energy and transportation economies. 

Holcombe always felt that since Houston was started by real estate developers rather than settlers, it had the attitude that if you had the money and the willpower, you could make it your new home. 

Madison thanked Hector and walked back to Holcombe.

“She didn’t talk to anyone, more than to say hi. Sometimes, guys would approach her, but she turned them down. She would be on her laptop sometime. And finally, Hector didn’t pay attention to Torres, never saw them together.”

“How about tonight?”

“She comes in and goes to the back. Hector gets her water. He thinks he saw her go out the backdoor but wasn’t sure if she ever came back.”

Holcombe offered a nod of thanks before turning back to the bartender. “Did you happen to see when the man left today?”

The bartender waved her hand dismissively. “No, I came back from swapping kegs, and he was gone. It was really busy today, and I have a lot going on.” The shock of a photo of a dead body before was going away, and the bartender was getting edgy and defensive. Holcombe decided that she wasn’t going to be friendlier, and she couldn’t think of any more questions that might make her open up. He thanked her, handed them a business card, and tucked away his notebook.

Holcombe looked at Madison, who nodded her head towards the back of the bar.

“Let’s take a walk around the building,” Holcombe said, his voice low. “See if we can find anything out back.”

Madison nodded, already heading toward the exit. 

Near the rear of the bar, they found the back door Hector had mentioned. Holcombed pushed the crash bar on the back door, opening it into the humid night air; the muffled roar of the bar faded behind them. They scanned the perimeter of the building, the faint smell of spilled beer and cigarettes hanging in the air. A single light buzzed above it, casting uneven shadows over the concrete. 

The parking lot behind The Last Dock stretched out like an afterthought, poorly lit and bordered by a sagging chain-link fence that separated it from a shallow drainage ditch feeding into the bayou. The lot was uneven; years of repatches from various types of concrete, gravel, and asphalt. Little islands of oil-stained puddles reflected the ambient lights from a single source high atop a pole. The trash from earlier in the night—a crushed Styrofoam cup and a couple of beer bottles—floated in the murky water pooling near the dumpster enclosure. The air smelled of a mix of damp cardboard and various vehicle exhausts being pushed down into the neighborhood.

“Check this out,” he said, crouching down. The mark was faint but distinct, as though someone had dragged their foot—or something heavier—over the ground.

Madison joined him, her flashlight tracing the area. “Could be nothing,” she said, though her voice carried the same edge of interest he felt. Holcombe was about to turn to get a better angle when he caught a glint out of the corner of his eye. It came from the other side of the parking lot, in one of the empty spaces. He walked over, his steps quickening along the way.

The purple tinge of the cheap LED light made it hard to notice at first. Holcombe was about to dismiss it as just another oil puddle in the cracked asphalt of the parking lot when his flashlight caught the unmistakable sheen of red. He crouched down, squinting against the weak overhead light, and waved Madison over.

“I’ve got blood,” he called out, his voice steady but sharp. He pointed his flashlight at the glint that called him over. “And here is a casing.”

He snapped a picture with his phone before marking it with one of the orange plastic evidence markers Madison handed him.

“Looks like a 9mm,” he said, standing up.

Madison turned back to the puddle, angling her flashlight to widen the beam. The puddle was small, diluted by the recent rain, and pooled in one of the shallow depressions in the asphalt where parked cars had weighed it down over the decades. 

“Lucky the rain didn’t wash it all away,” Madison muttered. She pointed to a pile of sodden cardboard pressed up against the fence by the storm. She flipped one of the flattened boxes with her boot, revealing more blood smeared underneath. “Looks like this was covering it. The wind must’ve moved it. I’ll call CSU and grab the tripod light.” She stepped away and headed around the front of the building. 

Holcombe barely nodded, his focus already elsewhere. His flashlight moved in slow, deliberate arcs, scanning the ground outward from the puddle. A few more flecks of red mixed with gravel caught his attention. He could see it now—a body being dragged. The victim was standing here, he thought, his eyes fixed on the parking space. The killer had pulled them away, leaving faint, smeared evidence behind.

Holcombe stepped into the victim’s place and let his imagination take over. A woman facing the building, her silhouette framed by the purple light. The killer, standing a few feet away, raises a gun—a pistol, most likely. The shot rings out, sharp and fast. Holcombe’s frown deepened. He recalled the residue on the victim’s shirt. No, it wasn’t a distance shot. And she would be facing the fence. The killer had been close, within arm’s reach.

Headlights snapped him out of the mental reconstruction. Madison’s SUV rumbled into the lot, blocking the entrance, her patrol lights casting muted red and blue flashes across the scene. She popped the trunk and hauled out a portable work light. A click later, the parking lot was bathed in stark white light, illuminating the blood with surgical clarity.

Holcombe squatted by the edge of the bloodstain and spotted something glinting just beyond it. A shell casing is lying on the painted line of the adjacent parking space. He adjusted his stance, running through the scene again in his mind. The shooter, closer to the bayou, had likely fired from near the fence. The Latina victim was moving toward the fence line. The first shot was fired; the casing landed to the right. Holcombe paced the imaginary scene, narrating his theory to Madison.

“Torres comes out, maybe heading to his truck. Victim approaches. Bang. Shooter drags the body, tosses it in the truck bed, and takes off.”

Madison adjusted the work light. “Straightforward enough.” She gestured toward the fence line. “Check there?”

Holcombe nodded, his flashlight grazing the pavement until another glint caught his eye, this time closer to the fence. It was another casing, nearly hidden in the gravel and shadows. He marked it and stood up, stretching out the ache in his back.

“Shooter fired twice. Maybe Torres missed with one?”

“Did the victim have two wounds?” Madison asked, glancing up from her phone.

“Only saw one, but the M.E. might find another. There was a lot of blood soaking into her clothes in the truck bed.”

Madison tapped out a message to CSU. “They’re ten minutes out. Robinson’s checking fingerprints through immigration. Might get lucky if she’s been flagged before.”

“Good deal,” Holcombe said, heading toward the edge of the building. His flashlight caught the glint of a security camera mounted above the bar’s back door. He smiled grimly. The video would tie the scenes together and fill in the gaps. He scanned the lot again, his beam catching the wooden gates of a dumpster enclosure. The chain holding them shut sagged loosely, barely keeping the doors together.

Holcombe approached, his flashlight steady. He yanked the chain free, letting it rattle to the ground, and swung the gates open. The smell hit him first—wet cardboard, rot, and something metallic. His light swept the enclosure, landing on a pale, lifeless hand jutting out from beneath the debris.

“Madison!” Holcombe called, stepping back from the scene. “I’ve got another one.”

“You’re kidding me,” Madison muttered as she jogged over, the wet pavement slick under her shoes. She pulled her phone from her jacket pocket but hesitated. “Who do I call first?”

“Hold off for now,” Holcombe said, crouching near a haphazard pile of cardboard. “Let’s see what we’ve got.” Madison’s adrenaline was showing, but Holcombe wasn’t surprised. Homicide detectives saw plenty of bodies, but finding a second one on the same night? That wasn’t routine.

“Turn off your light real quick,” he told her. Holcombe pulled out his phone and snapped a few quick photos, first with his flash and then without. Putting his phone back in his pocket, Holcombe motioned for the flashlight again and reached to the pile of crushed boxes. Madison was watching as he pulled back the cardboard to reveal a man’s body, facedown, legs twisted awkwardly against the dumpster’s wall.

The victim, in his thirties, was wearing work boots, jeans, and a dark jacket. Holcombe crouched again, tugging a worn wallet from the man’s back pocket. He stood and flipped it open in the light.

“Well, damn,” he muttered, holding up the ID card for Madison to see. “Looks like we’ve got Anthony Torres.”