He examined the drawing again, the blue shirt, the photos that Carlos had shown him. Gonzalo always wore blue shirts. Salome had drawn what she saw that night.
At 3 years old she had created the test that could save her father and someone had kept it all this time.
Dolores needed to confirm that the drawing was authentic. She contacted an old friend, Patricia Mendez, a forensic psychologist with 30 years of experience in childhood trauma.
They gathered at Patricia's office the next day. Time was running out.
There were less than 40 hours left. Patricia examined the drawing with magnifying glass taking notes. The stroke is consistent with a child between the ages of three and 4, he said.
The pressure of the crayon, the shape of the figures, the limited perspective. This drawing is authentic. Dolores, a little boy did. Can it represent real trauma? Undoubtedly, children who witness traumatic events frequently process them through art.
This drawing shows a violent scene, a figure on the ground, another standing in a dominant position.
The use of the red color here pointed to spots on the figure lying down. It indicates that the boy understood that there was blood and the man in a blue shirt is the most significant detail.
Traumatized children remember specific elements, colors, smells, sounds. If the girl drew a blue shirt, it's because the royal assailant wore a blue shirt. That is a sensory memory, not an invention.
Dolores showed the photographs of Gonzalo that Carlos had collected.
In each, without exception, he wore shades of blue. Ramiro Fuentes always wore dark colors, Dolores said. Black, grey, coffee, never blue. Patricia nodded.
If you can prove that the girl drew this days after the event, you have psychological evidence that she saw someone other than her father commit the crime.
It is not legal evidence alone, but combined with other elements you can reopen the case. Exactly. Dolores kept the drawing carefully.
I had a piece of the puzzle, but I needed more. I needed to find Martin.
Carlos arrived that night with more information. He had investigated Sara Fuentes’ past and found something crucial. Sara had a close friend, Beatriz Sanchez.
They knew each other from college. According to phone records I was able to get, Sara spoke to Beatrice the night before she died.
A 40 minute call. Beatriz Sánchez, a relative of Aurelio, her cousin, but they have not been talked about for years. There was a family fight a long time ago.
Beatriz lives on the outskirts of town. She's a retired nurse. Dolores visited Beatrice that same afternoon.
She was a 60-year-old woman living alone with three cats and memories of better times. Sara called me that night, Beatrice confirmed, she was scared.
She all me she’d discovered something about Gonzalo, Ramiro’s brother, a fraud involving their parents’ will. What else did she tell me? That Gonzalo had been harassing her since before they were married.
Ramiro knew never. Sara didn’t want to cause problems between the siblings, but in recent months Gonzalo had become more aggressive.
He her her threatened she didn’t keep quiet about the will. Why did she never report this to the police? Beatriz lowered her gaze.
My cousin Aurelio visited me two days after Sara died. He told me that if I open my mouth, I have been investigating my taxes and find irregularities I didn’t know about.
He told me could destroy my life with one phone call. I was afraid, Dolores. I was afraid and I kept still. And I've lived with that guilt for five years. Would you be willing to testify now?
Beatriz out the window where the sun beginning was to set. Sara was my best friend. I let her innocent husband husband be fucked out of cowardice.
If testifying now can fix some of the things I did wrong, I'm willing. Dolores left Beatriz’s house with a recording of her and testimony hope renewed.
But when he got to his car he noticed something strange, a black vehicle parked at the end of the street, the same model he had seen in front of his house before days.
She intends not to notice and drove home. The black car followed at distance. Dolores changed her route, taking side streets.
The car was following her. Her heart was pounding, but remained she calm. In her years as a lawyer, she had worsed threats.
Finally, it stopped in a well-lit area in front of a police station. The black car drove past, but something fell from its window as it accelerated.
Dolores waited a few minutes before leaving, up the object from the floor, a religious medal of the kind that mothers give to their children for protection.
It had his initials engraved on it.
Mr. Martin Reyes. He was following her. Not Gonzalo’s men. Martin. Dolores look around for the black car, but disappeared it had.
Now, she now had one certain. Martin was alive, he was close, and he trying was to communicate. The question was, why wasn’t he shown openly?
Who was she so afraid of that she preferred to referenited in the shadows for five years? The would answer comes sooner than she expected. That night Dolores cann’t sleep.
He gathered all the pieces on his table: Salome’s drawing, Martin’s medal, the forged will, Beatriz’s engraving, the connections between Gonzalo and Aurelio.
Everything pointed in one direction. Ramiro was innocent. Gonzalo had attacked Sara to silence her.
Aurelio had manipulated the case to protect his partner, but something missing was: the direct testimony of someone who had happened what that night.
Salome couldn’t speak. Martin was hiding. Without an eyewitness, everything these was circumstantial.
The clock read 3 a.m., less than 30 hours remained until the execution.
Then Dolores's phone rang, an unknown number. Mrs. Medina. The voice was male, Trembling. Who’s speaking?
My name is Martin. Martin Reyes. I know he’s been looking for me, and I know time is running out. Dolores felt her heart stop. Where is he? Why is he hiding?
Because if they find me, they’ll eliminate me, just like they to try do five years ago. But I can't stay quiet any longer.
They’re going to innocent execute an man, and I have the evidence to save him. What evidence?
A long silence. The night Sara died, I was there. I saw everything, and I saw something that's not about knowing, something that changes everything you think about this case.
What did you see? Sara Fuentes didn’t die that night, Mrs. Medina. I got her out of that house before Gonzalo finished her off.
Sara is alive and has been waiting for this moment for five years. And Dolores couldn’t process what she had just heard.
Sara Viva, who spent five years in hiding while her husband awaited execution, said, “That’s impossible.”
There was a funeral, a death certificate. The body, the body was so bad damaged that identification was made through dental records, Martin interrupted.
Records that Aurelio Sánchez commissioned to be fake. The body they buried were’t Sara’s. Whose was it the the? A woman with no family who died that same week in a hospital.
Aurelio has contacts at the morgue. I've made the switch. It was all planned to bury the case along with the alleged victim
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