by Lisa Gardner
Chapter 20
D.D. HAD A TEXT FROM HOME. With a photo. She desperately wanted to unlock her screen and view it. Photo of Dog? Photo of Alex and Jack with Dog? Photo of anything at all from home? Because she could use a slice of family right now. A moment to remember the good things in life.
But first things first. She got on the phone with Neil. She and Phil liked to tease Boston’s youngest detective about his bright red hair and perpetually youthful features, calling him the Richie Cunningham of homicide detectives. In truth, Neil had matured nicely over the past few years. With the addition of Carol Manley to the squad, he was no longer the rookie, and had taken the lead on more investigative angles. If D.D. felt like a proud mama, then Phil was a positively beaming papa.
“Any more major findings from the Boyd-Baez residence?” D.D. asked Neil now.
“Nothing that stands out.”
“Interviews with the neighbors?”
“Everyone agrees that they seemed like a normal family. No loud arguments, parties. No strangers coming and going at odd hours. Sounds like Juanita was a good cook, while Charlie was known to help with small fix-it jobs around the neighborhood. Everyone liked them, though no one seems to have known them that well. Juanita and the kids only moved in during the past year.”
“Anyone see the shooter walk into the home shortly before nine A.M.?”
“No.”
“What about images from security cameras on the street behind the Boyd-Baez place? We know the shooter jumped the fence. He or she disabled the video cameras on that building, but surely there are some other systems on the block.”
“And yet . . . no.”
“Really? This is a densely populated area. Whatever happened to Big Brother’s always watching?” D.D. asked crankily.
“Not on that block,” Neil informed her. “I’ve been digging into the family finances. So far, it all appears pretty straightforward. Monthly paychecks in, monthly expenses out. No major deposits or withdrawals. Limited credit card activity. They weren’t living high on the hog, but they were getting by.”
“What about cash transactions? Anything that might indicate illegal activities, drugs?”
“Charlie’s contracting seems to be a mix of working as a sub on bigger jobs, with some smaller, independent projects on the side. For many of those he probably was paid in cash. But again, no unexplained deposits or high-end purchases—say, jewelry, electronics, designer shoes—favored by drug lords to launder their profits. And we didn’t find a safe in the house or hidey-hole under the bed. Not even a wad of bills in the freezer.”
“So on a scale of one to ten, the odds of Charlie or Juanita being closet drug dealers . . . ?” D.D. prompted.
“I’d score them a three, and only that high because clearly something was going on sinister enough to lead to a quadruple murder. But Carol and I have scoured the residence from top to bottom at this point; no sign of drug paraphernalia. Just”—D.D. heard a faint wobble in Neil’s voice—“a normal family living a normal life in a normal home.”
D.D. didn’t speak right away. She knew what he meant. Neil wasn’t married with kids—in fact, he was a gay man who’d grown up in a family of Irish Catholic drunks—and yet the domestic cases always hit hard. A father figure gunned down while still sitting on his sofa; a mom shot to death in her own kitchen. And the kids . . . D.D. still couldn’t think about the kids.
“Ben completed a cursory exam of the bodies at the scene,” Neil was saying now, referring to Ben Whitely, Boston’s ME and one of Neil’s former lovers. “No sign of obvious needle marks on Juanita or Charlie. Of course Ben issued his usual caveat—”
“Nothing is final till he can complete his exam back at the lab,” D.D. intoned.
“Exactly.”
“What about Lola Baez?” D.D. asked.
For the first time, she heard surprise in Neil’s voice. “The thirteen-year-old? What about her?”
“There’s a rumor Lola Baez was part of a gang. Possibly dealing drugs. Possibly using drugs. We’re not sure.”
Silence as Neil contemplated the matter. “Ben will run a tox screen—that’s SOP for cases like this. If you really want to be thorough, however, I can ask him to run a segmented analysis of Lola Baez’s hair. That would not only tell us conclusively if she was doing drugs, but an approximate timeline for when she started—or ended, for that matter.”
D.D. was impressed. “Excellent. And a timeline is exactly what we need. In the last year, things changed for this family. Juanita met Charlie, then moved herself and her kids into his house in Brighton. Which, it sounds like, also returned her children to some unfinished business from their time in a nearby foster home. The more tightly we can reconstruct the past few months of the family’s lives, the better.”
“Got it,” Neil assured her.
“Anything else I should know?” D.D. asked. Because Neil was a leader in his own right now, and she was proud of him for it.
“Found a life insurance policy on Charlie,” Neil reported. “Twenty thousand. Beneficiary is Juanita. At this point, you’re basically talking enough money to cover funeral expenses.”
Times four, D.D. thought.
“House is in Charlie’s name,” Neil continued. “No sign of a will, meaning most likely the real estate will end up in probate. All in all . . .”
“Not a lot of financial motive to kill off Charlie the contractor. All right.” D.D. chewed her lower lip. As lead investigator, she had only so many resources at her disposal. After the initial callout, she’d focused the detectives and patrol officers in the immediate vicinity of the Boyd-Baez residence. But now, over seven hours later, with a fresh shooting and a possible sighting of Roxanna in the area around the coffee shop, it felt that their geography had changed. And based on what they’d learned about the family, probably their line of questioning, as well.
“I want you to focus on the kids,” D.D. told Neil. “You take Lola, give Manny Baez to Carol. Forget additional interviews with neighbors. Hit schools, teachers, best friends, worst enemies. In particular, I need to know everything about the year the kids were in state care. I’m headed to the foster home where Lola and Roxanna were placed. But what about Lola’s teacher, classmates from that year? Friends she kept, friends she dumped? I don’t know. But it sounds like Juanita Baez suspected Lola had been abused in foster care. She was working with a lawyer on a possible lawsuit.”
“Interesting,” Neil said.
“Anyone you approach, find out if Juanita talked to them, as well. I want to retrace her investigative steps, so to speak. Clearly she was stirring the pot. So who did she spook?”
“You think she might have been on to something. People who’d have incentive to cover up the initial crime, not to mention avoid the financial and PR disaster of a major trial.”
“Exactly. Which brings us to Roxanna Baez. It sounds like she was afraid of something. For herself, her sister, we’re not sure, but the past couple of weeks, something had her on edge. Oh, which reminds me, I should probably tell you about our newest player in this mess: Flora Dane.”
“What?” No mistaking the surprise in Neil’s voice now.
“She approached Phil and me earlier today. Apparently, she’s started some support group for survivors. And Roxanna Baez is their newest member.”
“What?” Neil said again, sounding even more surprised.
“It’s possible Flora is going to help us find Roxy. At least, I signed her up as my CI.”
“You’re crazy,” Neil said flatly. Which was a testament to just how long he and D.D. had worked together. Plenty of her fellow detectives thought she was obsessive and insane; very few called her on it.
“I’m sure Phil agrees with you,” D.D. assured him now, glancing down the street, where Phil stood working his own phone. “But the fact remains that we need to know everything there is to kno
w about Roxanna Baez and we need that information yesterday. Frankly, Flora already has an in with the girl, and we could use the help.”
Total silence from Neil.
“I’m sorry.” She couldn’t quite help the sarcasm leaking into her voice now. “Have you magically found Roxy and just forgot to tell me? Neighborhood patrols turned her up? You’re staring at her as we speak?”
“No,” Neil admitted grudgingly.
“Have you heard about Hector’s shooting? Did you know Flora helped identify Roxy’s hideaway across the street? Or that Roxy is carrying a light blue backpack, which we can now add to our search description?”
“So Roxy shot Hector?” Neil asked, no longer so hostile, more like resigned to his fate.
D.D. sighed heavily, her own temper fading. “I want to say yes, but honestly, I’m not sure. Roxy was tucked away in an empty office across from the scene. Someone matching her description fled the area. We have uniformed officers scouring the area, as well as pulling security tapes that might show us if it definitely was Roxy and her backpack people saw running away. My problem is, why would Roxy shoot Hector?”
“Let alone her entire family,” Neil finished for her. “At least on this end, Carol and I haven’t uncovered anything to suggest Roxy was feuding with her mom or involved in anything illegal. Not even any evidence of an evil boyfriend.”
“All reports are that she loved her siblings,” D.D. agreed, “and went out of her way to protect them.”
“So if Roxy’s innocent, why hasn’t she turned herself in?” Neil asked. “What’s she hiding for?”
“If I had to guess—I think she’s afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Honestly, Neil, that’s what we’d better figure out.”
D.D. ended the call. Phil had put away his own phone and was now waiting for her.
“I have two sets of contact info,” he announced. “One for the girls’ foster placement, the other for Juanita’s lawyer.”
D.D. considered the matter. “Any allegations of abuse the foster parent is going to deny, deny, deny.”
“On the other hand, the lawyer might have already dug up some evidence of the truth,” Phil provided.
“Lawyer it is.”
D.D. glanced at her phone. The text from home she still hadn’t read. The photo she still hadn’t opened.
Family. So much in life came down to family.
She slid her phone into her pocket and followed Phil to his car.
Chapter 21
THE FIRST FEW TIMES I walked past the high school, I missed Sarah completely. I was looking for a thin female in neutral clothes tucked behind a tree or lurking around a bush. But directly across from the school was a sea of concrete. Deli, mini-mart, pawnshop, all with a shared parking lot. Not a tree or twig in sight for obscuring a wannabe spy. And inside the stores it would be too difficult to peer deep into the school grounds, keep tabs on Mike Davis.
I headed up the sidewalk in front of the school, then back down, keeping my head low. As Sarah had said, the school grounds was a busy place. Various kids running around in sports uniforms, others clumped together in tight groups. I spotted Mike in a shadow near the end of the school building. He was doing his rocking back and forth on his heels. Maybe he had earbuds in. Maybe he was just listening to the music in his mind.
Third pass, getting nervous now, I heard: “Psst.”
I turned toward the street and, sure enough, Sarah. Not skulking. Not pacing. But tucked down in the passenger’s seat of a parked car. She cracked the door open as I approached.
“I didn’t know you had a car.”
“I don’t. Found the door unlocked. Helped myself.”
I nodded in admiration. “Nice improvising.”
“As you can see, there’s no good place to stand around watching. And given that I’m too old to be a student and too young to be a mom, I wasn’t sure how long I could walk laps around the athletic fields without someone becoming suspicious.”
I squatted down next to the vehicle. Basic silver economy car. Student parking sticker on the windshield. Collection of hair scrunchies wrapped around the shifter.
I was more and more impressed. Sarah could be anyone’s older sister waiting for her sibling’s practice to get out. She had her phone out in her hand. Another nice touch. Bored and texting to pass the time. Most people walking by probably didn’t even see her. And those who happened to peer in, notice a lone female staring at her phone? Nothing interesting to see there.
“So, anything to report?” I asked.
“Regarding Mr. Bojangles?” Sarah was chewing gum, a concession to her nervousness over her first surveillance mission. Now she blew a bubble, let it pop. Method acting, I thought. “Nah, he’s just been bouncing around the same small area. Sometimes, I swear his lips are moving. Maybe talking to all the voices in his head.”
“Or he has Bluetooth and is talking to someone on his phone.”
Sarah blew another bubble, let it pop again. “No way I can get close enough to make that determination. I’m here to observe any meet-and-greets. So far, nada.”
I nodded, peered through the car windows to spy Mike doing exactly as Sarah had reported: bouncing on his toes, murmuring to empty air.
“So this is Roxanna’s BFF?” Sarah asked.
“Apparently.”
“She’s got a nurturing streak.”
This caught my attention. I studied Sarah so intently she flushed, smacked her gum. “I mean, think about it. A kid like that? In the world of high school bullying, he basically has a target painted on his back. Roxy might be a ‘serious student.’ But I’ve met her in person. She could do better.”
“I get the impression he helped her and Lola out in foster care. Maybe hanging with him now is her way of returning the favor.”
“Then loyal and nurturing,” Sarah said.
“You don’t think she harmed her family.”
“Girl I met was too strung out to be that cold-blooded. If I’d heard she’d shot someone in self-defense, sure. But eliminate her entire family? Then head out to walk the dogs? No way.”
“The police need to speak with her,” I said softly.
“I haven’t heard from her,” Sarah said flatly in response to my unasked question. “Which, in the beginning, made sense. She’d need to get out of Dodge before she’d feel safe enough to call. But now I’m getting nervous. I feel like if she did have the opportunity to reach out . . . Well, we’re the ones most likely to believe her story, right? If she can’t confide in us, then who?”
I nodded. I’d begun wondering the same thing myself. Especially given the time. Nearly five P.M., the working hours of the day done, and still no word from her.
Sarah held up her phone. “I’m not just goofing off,” she said.
I squinted my eyes, peered at the screen. “It’s a memorial,” I said, looking at the collage of photos.
“Yeah. I found a Facebook page for Roxanna’s mother. Had a lot of family photos. So I set up a website in memory of the Baez family. Posted the photos, little comments I found online. A virtual memorial.”
I waited. Sarah had come far in the past year. From a ragged survivor barricaded in her studio apartment to this.
“We can track IP addresses. See which ones visit the page again and again.”
“Lots of people revisit memorials.”
“Yeah, but Roxanna’s on the run, right? No computer or phone.”
“I’m not sure. But if she does have a phone, the police will find her the moment she fires it up.”
“Which everyone knows, right? So if she wants news—and the girl has gotta be desperate for news—she’ll need to access a public computer. You know, hit the library, a cyber café, something like that.”
I nodded, getting it. “So we can check for a repeating IP address from a p
ublic location. Look for her there.”
“If we want to get really fancy, we can even look for patterns. Does the IP address hit the memorial address every hour on the hour, that sort of thing. Which would tell us when to visit the public location.”
“Very clever.”
“I know.”
“You’re doing a great job.”
“I know.” She smacked her gum. Blew another bubble. When she glanced at me, however, her eyes were sad. “I really want to help her, Flora. I’m the one who made contact. I’m the one who brought her to the group. And now I can’t help but feel this is all my fault.”
• • •
A WOMAN APPROACHED MIKE DAVIS. Definitely not a student. Sarah and I had been talking and didn’t see where she’d come from. But she was older, curly salt-and-pepper hair, wardrobe by Chico’s—brown slacks, deep green sweater, light brown quilted jacket topped with green-and-gold silk scarf. A little high-end for athletic fields.
A teacher? An administrator of some sort? She stopped directly in front of Mike. He was doing his bounce-bounce thing, but as she spoke, he stilled.
Slowly, he removed one earbud. Studied the woman. Then spoke. Whatever he said made her cock her head to the side. Tried again. He shook his head.
Something about the exchange bothered me. Then I got it. She was the older, more authoritative figure. And yet, to go by body language, she wasn’t talking down to the high schooler. She was pleading with him.
Whatever she wanted, he wasn’t giving it up. Back to bounce bounce bounce. From this distance I couldn’t see him well enough to know for sure, but I imagined his fingertips drumming against the top of his leg.
After another minute or two, the older woman stepped back. She looked around, studying the sea of teens. Given the hour, school sports seemed to be winding down, more and more kids breaking away from their assorted groups and heading off the grounds. Sarah already had her hand on the car door. It was time.
“Want me to continue following him?” she asked.
“If you think you can.”