The name seemed like a bolt from the blue, since Mateo was the younger brother of her husband, the man who had stated during the investigation that he had only arrived at the scene after the crime.
“No…” Ramira whispered, shaking her head slowly.
But Salome continued.
‘I saw him that night,’ the girl whispered. ‘He said I had to stay in my room and couldn’t go out because there were adults talking.’
The social worker straightened up immediately.
‘Salomé, you never mentioned this during the investigation,’ she said, her voice now tense.
Salome lowered her gaze slightly.
“Nobody asked me what I saw,” she replied curtly.
Those eight words made the air in the room feel heavier.
Mendez rubbed his chin slowly.
He remembered reading that the girl was asleep during the incident.
This assumption was accepted without question.
“What exactly did you see?” he asked again.
Salome took another deep breath.
“I woke up because they were arguing,” she said. “My father was yelling, and Uncle Mateo was yelling even louder.”
Ramira’s hands began to tremble again, but this time from shock instead of despair.
“What were they discussing?” Méndez asked.
“Money,” Salome replied. “And something my father called betrayal.”
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The colonel felt a shiver run down his spine.
The official report stated that the victim, Ramira’s husband, was attacked suddenly and without warning.
No argument is mentioned.
It was never mentioned before that Mateo was present.
“What happened next?” Méndez asked slowly.
Salome’s voice became even softer.
“I heard something fall… something like a chair,” she said. “Then my father screamed again, and after that everything went silent again.”
Ramira covered her mouth with her hand; tears began to stream down her cheeks again.
‘Oh my God…’, she whispered.
Salome looked at her mother and continued speaking calmly.
“When I opened the door a little, I saw Uncle Mateo with the knife in his hand,” the girl said.
The room froze.
Even the guards held their breath for a moment.
“He saw me looking,” Salome continued. “He said that if I said anything, I would disappear forever.”
Ramira leaned back in her chair and began to tremble violently.
Five years.
For five years, she was convinced that her daughter had fallen asleep during the nightmare.
For five years, the child carried the truth with her alone, without knowing what had happened.
Méndez was already thinking about the legal consequences unfolding before him.
If the girl’s testimony is correct, the entire investigation was based on a manipulated timeline.
Mateo positioned Ramira at the crime scene while concealing his own presence.
And Ramira’s fingerprints on the knife suddenly acquired a chilling significance.
“He forced me to catch him,” Ramira whispered suddenly, remembering something she had buried under trauma for years. “He said that if I didn’t, he would do something to Salome.”
The expression on the colonel’s face became more tense.
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