by Lisa Gardner
“Crack. I heard it. I knew what it was, too. Gunshot. I’ve heard them enough times. But I didn’t realize at first . . . My arm . . . my shoulder. It felt like it was on fire. Then I saw the blood trickling down my hand and I realized I was shot. I was the one who got shot. I fell to the ground. In front of the dogs. I wanted to protect the dogs. Because, you know, I had not been there for Manny. So I had to save the dogs. You understand? My son, he loved those dogs . . .”
D.D. and Phil nodded. Hector’s voice had grown thick, and once again his dark eyes had a wet sheen.
“People were screaming. Someone was yelling to stay down. Rosie and Blaze pressed against me. Shaking. Or maybe that was me. I don’t know. But . . . nothing happened.” Hector tried to shrug, winced at the pain. “No more gunshots. Nothing. I waited and waited, then the cop was back and many more lights and sirens.”
“Did you see anyone running up the street?” Phil asked.
“Lots of people were running.”
“Even on the other side of the street?”
“I didn’t look at the other side of the street. I kept my attention on the dogs. They were upset, whining.”
“Did you see anything right before you heard the gunshot?” D.D. tried. “Maybe a reflection, a flicker of movement out of the corner of your eye?”
Hector shook his head.
“How long do you think you’d been standing there, with the dogs, before you were hit?”
“I don’t know. I spoke to the officer for a bit. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes?”
In other words, D.D. thought, plenty of time for Roxy to spot Hector’s approach from her second-story hideout, then sneak back down to street level, take up position behind the tree, and ambush him.
“Do you own a gun?” Phil was asking Hector now.
“Me? No, no. Why would I have a gun?” But Hector’s gaze slid away as he said this. Which made D.D. wonder again what they didn’t know about this man. His grief over his son appeared genuine. And yet, if their theory was true and Roxy had lured him to the coffee shop just to ambush him, why? Surely that meant he couldn’t be a totally neutral party or family outsider. Whatever was going on in the Boyd-Baez family, he must’ve played a role, too, to win himself a spot on a teenage girl’s hit list. Or could it be even more sinister—Roxy believed he had been the one to murder her family and this was her attempt at revenge? With the dogs as bait?
D.D. resisted the urge to rub her temples again. Cases often reminded her of distorted images. Peer at them directly and nothing made any sense. But the moment she came up with the right vantage point, they snapped into focus. That’s what she and Phil needed now. The right vantage point to make sense of four dead and one wounded, all in the space of twelve hours.
“What about Charlie?” Phil was pressing now. “Did he own a firearm?”
Hector grimaced. “I can’t speak for that man. He didn’t even like me. But I would doubt Juanita would allow a gun in the house. She doesn’t like them. She’s an ER nurse. She’s seen what they can do.”
Phil nodded; in fact, he’d already run Charlie Boyd’s name against gun permits. Hector Alvalos’s name, as well. Which only proved neither man legally owned a firearm, and still made these questions worth asking.
The use of a gun was one of the pieces of the puzzle that bothered D.D. She could picture Roxanna hiding out in the abandoned office space across from the coffee shop; in fact, that was the best explanation for why dozens of patrol officers and alerted civilians hadn’t been able to find her in the hours after her family’s murders. D.D. could also imagine Roxy purposefully tying up the dogs across from her hiding spot in order to lure Hector into her line of sight. But where had the girl gotten the gun? And when had she learned to shoot? Because trying to target a man standing twenty yards away on a crowded street while remaining tucked behind a tree was no mean feat. Roxanna, if she had been the shooter, was lucky she’d hit Hector at all, let alone missed a random bystander and the two dogs.
Would the girl even have risked firing with Blaze and Rosie so close? Seemed reckless to D.D., and nothing they’d learned about Roxy suggested impulsiveness.
“You said Juanita blamed you for her drinking,” D.D. said now. “What about Roxanna? Did she blame you as well?”
Hector shook his head. “I . . . I don’t know.”
“You picked up Manny every Sunday,” Phil piled on. “Who oversaw the exchange? Juanita? Charlie?”
“Or Roxanna. There was no set pattern. I didn’t linger. I’d knock on the door, out would come Manny. End of the day, we do the same. In reverse. Manny was a good boy. He’d be ready for me.”
“But Juanita was home,” D.D. pressed, remembering the earlier explanation of the woman’s crazy schedule. “She ever talk to you?”
“Sometimes. Small stuff. Manny has this homework, that soccer practice. A game later in the week. I tried to go to any activity I could.”
“You hang out with Juanita and Charlie there?”
“No. Juanita and I are better apart. We both know this. We stay apart.”
“What about Roxanna?” Phil asked. “You talk with her during Manny’s soccer games?”
“No. She stays with Juanita and Charlie. Often, she has books with her. She sits, does her homework.”
D.D. had a thought: “What about Lola?”
Hector’s eyes widened slightly. He glanced quickly away.
“Lola hang out with her family?” D.D. pushed.
“She and Juanita fight too much,” he mumbled.
“So Lola wanders around on her own. Maybe even comes to stand next to you. Anything to provoke her mother.”
Hector didn’t look like a tough guy anymore. If anything, his scar stood out pitifully against his ashen face. “I try not to be alone with Lola,” he said at last. “The soccer field, I might not stand with Juanita and Charlie, but it’s crowded. Lots of other families. I make very sure there are many people about if I’m with Lola.”
“Does Lola think you’re a big, strong man, Hector?” D.D. asked quietly. “Does she think, if you were good enough for her mother, maybe you’d be good enough for her?”
“Stop it!” Hector slammed his fist against the hospital bed. He grimaced immediately from the pain, his IV bag shaking, one of the machines now beeping. “She is a child. She doesn’t understand. She might think she’s pretty, but she’s just a little girl.”
“She was a child,” D.D. corrected. “She was a little girl. She’s gone now, Hector. Murdered, just this morning. Hours before someone also took a shot at you. Why? Tell us what’s going on. For her sake, for Manny’s sake, what the hell did you do, Hector? Fess up. Now!”
“I don’t know what I did! I don’t understand. They should not all be dead. Manny should not . . . I don’t understand. Oh, my beautiful boy. I do not understand!” Hector banged his head back against the raised mattress. Tears were streaming down his face. “I did not do this!” he moaned. “I could not do this. But I don’t know who did it either. None of this makes any sense. We were just a family, a normal, mixed-up family. Lots of little wrongs, yes, but nothing so big to deserve this. Nothing!”
D.D. and Phil exchanged glances. They waited, gave the man a chance to regain his composure.
“Why didn’t you want to be alone with Lola?” D.D. asked firmly, after a few minutes had passed.
Hector sighed heavily. Closed his eyes.
“Come on, Hector. We know you want to protect her. But this is a murder investigation. It’s all going to come out. The sooner you tell us, the sooner we can get some answers. Find out who killed your beautiful boy. And, hopefully, save Roxanna in the process. Because you understand she’s in danger now, right? If she didn’t kill her family, someone else did and that someone else is still looking for her. Or she did hurt her family and maybe also opened fire on you, which makes her an armed and dangerous sus
pect now being hunted by every cop in Boston. These aren’t good scenarios, Hector. You need to help us find Roxanna first. Save her from herself.”
Hector kept his eyes closed. Finally: “Lola was acting out . . . You know, doing inappropriate things. There was an incident at school, with a male teacher. She said things . . . did things. There were witnesses, other classmates.”
“How do you know this, Hector?” Phil asked.
“Juanita told me. Took me aside. She wanted to . . . warn me. Be careful around Lola. But I already knew. As a man. The way she’d been dressing, acting . . . It made me uncomfortable.”
“Do you think Charlie was molesting her?” D.D. asked bluntly.
“I don’t know. Juanita brought it up, straight away, said it was not him. She thought, looking back, that Lola’s behavior had started before Juanita had moved in with Charlie. But it had grown worse in the past year. Lola turning thirteen, becoming more like a teenager.”
“What did you think?” D.D. asked.
Hector opened his eyes. He appeared very troubled. “The kids . . . When I lived with Juanita, they were all good kids. Roxanna, she was a little adult even back then. Our fault, I know. We partied and fought and Roxanna . . . she kept everything together. So we partied more, because that’s the kind of fools we were. The kind of disease we had.”
D.D. nodded. She and Phil encountered plenty of alcoholics on the job—sometimes they were suspects and sometimes they were victims and sometimes they were fellow cops. Addiction didn’t recognize boundaries.
“Lola, she was not Roxanna. She didn’t want to do homework or follow rules or be quiet. She would sneak out of bed after Roxanna fell asleep. I would catch her spying on her mom and me. ‘Back to bed,’ I would tell her, and she’d go. Or, ‘Check on your brother.’ Because she loved Manny. She’d do anything for him. Roxanna was always telling her what to do, but Manny worshipped her, and Lola liked that.
“Then . . . it all fell apart. Juanita was so unhappy. She thought I worked too many nights, came home even later than I should. She accused me of other women, all sorts of things. And the apartment was too small and the kids needed new clothes, and just . . . everything was wrong and it was all my fault. It made her drink more, until she got written up on the job. Then they threatened to fire her, which became my fault, too, because I should be at home to help with the kids and find us a better apartment, except if I’m home more, how do I make the money for this bigger place?” Hector shrugged. “Then the school called, because the kids didn’t have food for lunch and were wearing the same clothes day after day because Roxanna was just a child and there’s only so much a child can do . . .
“Big fight. I don’t even remember what started it. But the big fight. I was so mad. Just so . . . angry. I wanted to punch Juanita. Do anything to make her stop screaming at me. Stop her from making me feel so worthless. I fisted my hand. I might’ve done it. But then, I saw the kids. They were standing there. Staring at me. Manny, he was crying. Lola was holding him. Though he was nearly half her size. And Roxanna . . . she had her arms around both of them. Protecting them. From me.
“I hit the wall instead. Drove my fist right through it. Juanita stopped screaming at me. Everything went silent.
“I . . . I couldn’t take it. I grabbed my work bag and I left. I never came back.”
“You went to Florida,” D.D. said. “And while you were gone . . .”
“Juanita lost custody of the kids. Manny was sent to one foster care family, Roxanna and Lola to another. They told Juanita three kids were too many to place together.”
“Juanita cleaned up her act,” Phil provided. “Must’ve met all the court requirements because a year later, she got the kids back. That’s not easy to do.”
“Juanita got sober. She had hit rock bottom and she fought back. She’s a strong woman. I always knew that. It’s one of the things I loved about her.”
“But the kids . . .” D.D. pushed.
“When I returned, heard what had happened, learned how Juanita was doing, it gave me incentive to enter the program, become sober. My sponsor, he arranged for me to meet with Juanita. We talked for the first time in a long time. We both made amends. And I got to start seeing Manny again. In the beginning, he was very quiet. Almost shy. I understood. He’d watched his father turn into a monster. Then worse, the monster left him. I apologized to Manny. I tried to explain the disease. I told him I was better now. I promised to never leave him again.
“He said he understood. He said his mother had been sick, too. So sick, they’d all had to go away. He said he hoped we were never sick again.”
D.D. and Phil nodded.
“Manny . . . he was young when much of this happened. I’m not sure how much he remembers. And he had his sisters. Roxanna and Lola, at least when they were still together, did everything to take care of him. He got over it. I don’t know what else to say. My beautiful boy forgave me. Just like that, we were okay again. He loved coming to see me. I’d arrive at the house and his face would light up. We played soccer. We walked in the park. We . . . were family again.
“The girls . . . Roxanna watches me. She remembers. Maybe she forgives, but she does not forget. For the first few months, she stared at me so hard I could feel the hole burning in my chest. But I kept my word. Like Juanita, I have not had a drink in years. I became the father I should’ve been. Roxanna has been nicer to me lately. She even talks to me on occasion. As long as Manny is happy, she forgives me.
“Lola . . . she has been the most different. Wildly happy one moment. And . . . touchy. Wanting to pat my arm, give me big hugs. But I don’t know. The hugs don’t feel right. From the very beginning . . . something seemed off with her. Too happy. Too touchy. Like she was trying too hard. But then she would also fly into these rages. Homework, chores, bedtime, everything is now a war. Manny tells me she yells at Roxanna as much as Juanita. ‘You’re not my real mom,’ things like that.
“Juanita was getting more and more frustrated. Not that she told me much. But after the incident with the teacher . . . She said she had concerns. She thought something might’ve happened when the girls were in foster care. She’d even hired some lawyer to look into it.”
“What did you think?” D.D. asked.
“I thought that made sense. Charlie might not like me, but I never saw anything to make me think he’s a bad guy. He seemed nice to the kids. But mostly . . . Roxanna respected him. She’s a tough judge. Also, she and Lola share a room. So if he was doing something to Lola, Roxanna would know, yes? I don’t think she’d keep quiet. I think she would speak up. Or go after him herself. But, then, what had happened to Lola? Because the more Juanita asked me about it . . . All the kids were different after that year. Everyone, all of us . . . We had to become a family again. Except Lola never seemed to heal. If anything, she’s gotten worse.”
“Did Juanita ever talk about Lola’s friends? Maybe a group of girls Lola was hanging with?”
“Juanita didn’t like Lola’s friends. Said she was in with a wild crowd. But Juanita had been doing some reading. The day she spoke to me . . . she said she thought Lola had been . . . abused . . . while in foster care. She thought Lola was acting out. These friends, her bad choices? They were Lola’s way of punishing herself.”
“What did Roxanna say?” Phil spoke up, frowning. “The girls were placed together.”
“According to Juanita, Roxanna wouldn’t talk about foster care. Just looked very troubled. But, um . . .” Hector paused. He took a deep breath. Winced briefly from the pain.
“I saw the kids. All of them. I never told Juanita. But, um . . . I got a call from a friend when I was in Florida. He told me that the kids had been taken away, Juanita ordered into rehab. I was furious. Panicked. Manny. Where had they taken my boy?
“So I drove all the way back. It had been two months, maybe, since I’d left? You hear such bad things about w
hat happens to kids taken by the state.
“Then I found them at the courthouse. Some kind of hearing. I watched from the outside. The kids were all together, sitting with some woman I’d never met. Juanita sat on the other side. She looked different. Her hair was pretty. Her face all shiny. She looked better than she had in months. Sober, I realized. She was sober.
“And I . . .” Hector’s voice grew rough. “I was not. Even before walking into the courthouse, I was so scared, I downed three shots of tequila. Had to steady my nerves. I was embarrassed then. I’d driven all the way there to save my boy, and I was still a drunk.”
Hector looked down at the white hospital sheets. “The hearing ended. I retreated to the end of the hall, hoping no one would notice me. Manny looked okay. He was talking to his sisters, tugging on Lola’s hand. She was smiling at him.
“Roxanna . . . she was moving funny. Stiffly. I don’t know if anyone else noticed. But it looked to me like she was in pain. Like maybe someone had beat her.”
“What did you do?” Phil asked.
Hector glanced up at both of them. “Nothing. I was drunk. And looking at Juanita, all cleaned up, watching the kids, clinging to each other, I was ashamed. I’d done this to them. Juanita was right. It was all my fault. I was a failure. I left them and went to a bar. Because that’s what failures do.”
Hector closed his eyes, leaned his head back again. “She saw me,” he said abruptly. “We never spoke of it. But that day in the courthouse, Roxanna looked down the hall. She stared right at me. Right before I ran away.”
“She saw you at the courthouse? She watched you leave them?” D.D. asked sharply.
“If I was her,” Hector said, “I would’ve shot me, too. But not today. I would’ve done it five years ago, when I deserved it. I’m not a perfect man. I’ve made many mistakes. Roxanna has a right to hate me. Manny and Lola, too. But why now? We are a family now. We are good now. So why . . . That’s what I don’t understand. Why now?”