The Last Empress of Mars

Friday morning. The previous entry and exit stamps showed he had spent a week in Nicaragua prior to his arrival here and just maybe, trouble had followed him across the border. Looking at the girl nothing appeared out of place, except for the unnatural tilt of her head due to the deep cut. She had a tattoo at the bottom of her back with two dolphins facing each other and separated by a sun in the middle. In the front, she had a pierced belly button with a small cross hanging from a tiny chain and she was on the floor lying sideways. Daniel was on the bed looking up at the ceiling on a mattress that had been clearly moved during the search. Nothing unusual about him that he could see, other than a very thick beard with more than a few white hairs. However, while examining the beard closely something under the chin had caught his attention. It looked like a paint smudge just on the edge, but closer examination showed he had what appeared to be a possible tattoo underneath. That seemed to be a strange place for a tattoo and stranger still, one that was covered by a full beard. Of course, if the tattoo said Karen and his current lady was named Maria, well that could be a very good reason to keep it covered! He would have to make sure Dr. Robles back at the Medicatura Forense lab checked that out. He was done with his examination and the boys from the Investigación Criminal unit were probably at the end of their rope waiting to get in. He would remind them to take full fingerprints of the two victims just to confirm their identities. No reason to delay them anymore, he had plenty of his own work to do while they did theirs and it wasn’t in this room any longer. As he crossed the street to the hotel parking lot, he was picturing the look of utter disappointment on Coronel Guardia’s’ face when he heard this was not an open and shut case, but he was already used to that look anyway. El Coronel was old school, in his late sixties, and always expected an instant solution to every murder case and always looked terribly shocked and deeply hurt when this was not the case. Counter-balancing that negative thought was the smile that came to his face as he stepped into his baby, a burnt orange 2007 Nissan Special Edition 350Z 2-door sports car. He bought it used in Miami two years ago and had it shipped down but it was in pristine condition and only had thirty-eight thousand miles on the odometer. In a land of 4x4’s, pickups,