John Cabrera's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

Cabrera drove to the property records office on J Street, parked, and walked inside. The building smelled like dust and copier toner. He requested the original deed for the boarding house and waited at the counter. The clerk returned with a leather-bound book, pages yellowed with age. Cabrera flipped through until he found what he needed—the property lines, exact measurements, every square foot Puente controlled. He pulled out his notebook and copied the dimensions. The yard was bigger than it looked from the street, extending past the fence line into an easement the city had abandoned years ago. More ground to search. More places to hide bodies. He photographed the deed pages, closed the book, and slid it back across the counter. Now he knew exactly where to dig when the warrant came through. Outside, Cabrera stood on the sidewalk and studied his notes. A tree stretched overhead, its branches thick enough to block the afternoon sun. He leaned against the rough bark and reviewed the property measurements again. The easement added another thirty feet to the search area. That meant more time, more manpower, more resistance from the captain. He circled the dimensions in his notebook. The courthouse stood across the street, its tall columns and wide steps crowding the block. A brass plaque gleamed near the entrance. Cabrera had walked past it a hundred times but never stopped to read it. Now he crossed the street and climbed three steps to get closer. The plaque honored the town's founders—names and dates from a century ago. People who built something that lasted. That's what this case needed to be. Something that lasted beyond headlines and politics. He walked back to his car and sat behind the wheel. The boarding house was eight blocks away. He could see it one more time before heading to the station. The route took him down a side street where brick walls rose on both sides. Ivy covered one section, green tendrils pushing through cracks in the mortar. The building looked abandoned, windows dark and doors locked. Nature was taking it back, one vine at a time. Cabrera slowed and looked closer. The ivy had split the bricks in places, roots working into gaps the city never bothered to fix. That's what happened when people stopped paying attention—things fell apart quietly, piece by piece. The boarding house was the same. Seven tenants gone, and nobody noticed until he started asking questions. Back at the station, Cabrera pinned the property measurements to his timeline. The easement changed everything. It gave Puente space to work without neighbors watching. The yard extended into ground the city forgot about years ago—no foot traffic, no maintenance crews, just dirt and weeds. He marked the area on his map with red ink. When the warrant came through, that's where they'd start digging. The infrastructure maps would arrive tomorrow, and he'd match them against the deed. Every pipe, every drainage line, every section of disturbed earth. Puente thought she was careful, but she'd left a trail. The permits, the signatures, the ground itself. Cabrera closed his notebook and looked at the wall. Three years of work, seven missing people, and finally a clear picture of where the bodies were buried. The truth was close now. He just had to keep pushing until it broke through.