by Lisa Gardner
Barb Campbell flushed. “I was reading. And I don’t exactly hear much when I’m lost in a good book.”
“Dogs barking?”
She shook her head.
“Voices arguing? Screaming?”
Another shake.
“Had you noticed anything going on earlier at the house? Maybe glanced out while you were pouring a cup of coffee, picking up your novel?”
“Um, the dogs. I heard the jangle of their collars as they came around the side yard.”
“They were running or playing?”
“No, the girl had them. Looked like she was taking them for a walk.”
D.D. stared hard at Barb Campbell.
“You saw someone leave with the dogs?”
“The taller girl. Long dark hair. Maybe eighteen or so? She stopped right beneath this window to pick up her backpack.”
“Her backpack?”
“Yes. A ratty light blue thing. Looked like she was retrieving it from behind a bush.”
“What time was this?” D.D. asked sharply.
“I don’t know. Maybe eight thirty? I was just getting ready to read.”
“What was she wearing? Color of her shirt, maybe a jacket?”
“Um, I wasn’t paying that much attention. Red shirt, maybe? I can picture red. And blue jeans, I think. I don’t know. Nothing special.”
“Did you see her leave through the front gate?”
“No. I just saw her walking down the side yard. But she had both dogs on leashes, then she grabbed her backpack. Where else would she go but through the front gate?”
“Did she seem agitated, upset, anything?”
“Honestly, I have no idea.”
“What about a phone? Did she have her cell in her hand? Did you hear her talking to anyone?”
Barb Campbell shook her head.
D.D. handed the woman her card, but her mind was already elsewhere.
At eight thirty in the morning, approximately thirty-five minutes before the shootings, Roxy Baez had left the house with not only the dogs but also a backpack she’d secreted away. Filled with items she’d stolen from her family? Supplies she already knew she might need for her future life on the run?
The backpack bothered D.D. Seemed to indicate some kind of advanced planning. But what kind of sixteen-year-old ran away with two dogs? Or, worse, exited the property, then returned to shoot the rest of her family to death?
What the hell had been going on in that house?
Who was this family?
Chapter 6
Name: Roxanna Baez
Grade: 11
Teacher: Mrs. Chula
Category: Personal Narrative
What Is the Perfect Family? Part I
When the cops first arrive, my baby brother runs away and hides under the bed. There’s a lady with them. She came in her own vehicle, a little economy car. We’ve seen her before. She walks up to the door first, knocks hard.
“Don’t answer it!” my little sister says. She is eight. Nearly my height, with long dark hair and big dark eyes. Like a doll. Sometimes, when she goes with me to the corner market, grown men stare at her. I don’t take her to the corner market as much anymore.
I don’t have those problems.
The lady knocks again. She wears nice pants, black, and a purple-colored blouse. Fancy clothes, I think. But they don’t work with her face, which is tightly pinched. Not so nice.
She has come to our apartment twice before. We don’t think she likes kids. Maybe, for her job, you can’t.
“Shh,” Lola says. “Pretend we’re not here!”
Being older and wiser, I already know this won’t work. The lady will come in. She always has. And now, with the policemen standing behind her, waiting . . .
I’m eleven. I’m the oldest and these things are my responsibility. Slowly, I unlock the door. The lady and I stare at each other.
“This isn’t your fault,” she says, then pushes by me into the apartment.
I try to clean. I try to shop, put together meals, wash clothes. But this latest spell . . . it has lasted longer than most. I’ve raided my mother’s purse, then the money in the freezer, then the emergency funds she stashes under the mattress and doesn’t know that I know about. Except I think she got to most of that money first.
I think she used those last few dollars for the bottles of tequila that now roll across the apartment floor.
Which is why the lady has come to the door.
She looks around. I already know she sees everything. Last time she asked me about the empty fridge, the dishes in the sink, the stench in the bathroom. So many questions. I did my best. I’m the oldest. That’s my job. I tried. I tried. I tried.
Later, my mother yelled at me. She wept, she raged. “They will take you away!” she cried. “Don’t you understand? They’ll take you away from me!!!”
My baby brother got so upset, I had to sleep with him that night. The two of us curled up tight on the sofa. Lola on the floor. My mother passed out on the bed.
“I don’t want to go away,” Manny sobbed.
“It’s okay,” I told him then. “We’re family. No one is gonna tear us apart.”
I’m the oldest, which means I’m the one who knows best how to lie.
“Where’s your mom?” the pinch-faced lady asks me now.
“You just missed her,” I say politely. Beside me, Lola nods. She might be only eight, but we’ve both heard this question before.
From down the hall comes the sound of crying. Poor Manny, hiding under the bed from the pinch-faced monster.
The lady looks toward the bedroom.
“Your brother?” she asks.
“He’s little. These visits scare him.”
“I’m here for his protection.”
I don’t say anything. She’s told me this before. As the saying goes, we agree to disagree on this subject.
“Is your mother in the bedroom?”
“She’s out.”
“Roxy, I know she’s home. I can smell the liquor from here.”
I look away. There are many things I can fix. Many things I can do. Clean this, organize that. Manny, it’s time to shower! Lola, put on fresh clothes! Come on, let’s all go to school! But there are things I can’t control. Like my mother, every time she moans Hector’s name and drags out another bottle of booze.
“This environment is not healthy,” the woman says.
Lola and I stare at the floor.
“I’m sorry, Roxy. I know you care. I know you’re trying. You’re going to have to trust me on this. In the long run, this is what’s best for you.”
The police enter the house then. They push past Lola and me. They head down the hall.
A scream. A wail. I don’t know what to do. I can hear my mother, drunken, angry, sloppy.
“Don’t you . . . take your hands off . . . goddamn . . . sonsofbitches. Hey. Stop. Goddamn . . .”
Then more screaming, in earnest now, followed by a low curse.
Manny comes bursting out of the doorway. I just have time to see blood on his mouth—under stress, Manny bites—then he flings himself at me. I catch him, hefting him up, though at four, he’s getting too big for this. He hugs me tight. I grip him back just as hard. Then Lola throws herself at me, grabbing on as well.
I can smell my baby brother. Sweat, tears, Goldfish crackers. All I had to feed him for lunch. And I can feel Lola, her strong, too-skinny arms squeezing hard. I want to close my eyes. I want to freeze this moment. Me, my brother, my sister. So many nights I’ve promised to keep them safe. So many mornings I’ve told them everything will be all right.
I don’t know what to say anymore. I don’t know what to do.
The lady is staring at me. “This is not your fault,” she says again.
&nb
sp; But I don’t believe her, and she knows it.
They drag my mom out of the room. One of the officers is listing off charges. Violation of this, neglect of that. She is cursing and swearing, wearing nothing but a yellow-stained T-shirt. She turns and vomits. The two cops jump back. She sees her moment and races for the door. The only thing between her and freedom is the solid column of her three children, still entwined.
At the last moment, our eyes meet. She stares at me. Wild, crazy. For a moment, I think she sees me. Actually sees me. Because her eyes go sad. Her face looks bleak.
Then she slams into us, knocking us down. She shoves aside the pinch-faced lady, and rushes ahead.
She just gets the door open before the next cop appears on the porch, standing right in front of her. She screams. Trapped, enraged, furious. She vomits again.
On the floor, Manny cries harder and buries his little face against my shoulder. Then the cop has my mom by the arm. He drags her through the pool of vomit, out of the house, off the porch. He takes her away. And my mother, who once read us stories and sang us songs and made us Crazy Tacos, is gone.
The remaining cops are still swearing softly. One has puke on her shoes.
“You need to come with me,” the lady says.
The three of us look up from the floor. But we don’t move.
“I’m sorry. I tried everything.” The woman’s voice catches slightly. “It’s very difficult to find one home that can take three kids,” she says finally. “But I can keep the two of you together.” She looks at me and Lola. “Manny has a different foster family.”
It takes me a moment to understand what she’s saying. When I do, I can feel my heart hiccup in my chest. Then everything goes cold. I don’t, I can’t . . . I hold Manny tighter, even as Lola curls herself up around us.
The woman is holding out her hand. The woman is waiting.
We don’t move. We can’t move.
One of the cops reluctantly steps forward. “Shh,” he says gently. And holds out his arms to take my brother away.
What is the Perfect Family? My name is Roxanna Baez. I’m sixteen years old, and when my teacher first posed this question, said this is what we had to write about, I nearly laughed. There is no such thing, I thought. Why not just have a bunch of high schoolers write about the tooth fairy or Santa Claus?
But lately, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. I think a perfect family doesn’t just happen. A perfect family has to be made. Mistakes. Regret. Repair. You have to work at it.
This is my family’s story. Please read on.
Chapter 7
I DIDN’T WASTE ANY TIME. After seeing the Amber Alert for Roxanna Baez, I immediately called Sarah and arranged to meet at her apartment. She started pacing the minute she let me in, a wild animal barely in control.
I closed the door behind me. Paused to lock all three locks. Then brought my peace offering to the tiny kitchen table, not saying a word.
Sarah had been the sole survivor of a murder spree nearly two years ago: Drunken roommate brought home a psychopath from the local bar. Psychopath went after all four girls with a hunting knife. Sarah had made it; the other three had not.
The case had garnered nationwide headlines and plenty of attention—including my own. Every snapshot on TV of her pale, shell-shocked face. Every reporter shouting some completely ridiculous, too-personal question while she continued to stare blindly into the camera, a woman still not sure where she was or how she’d made it out alive.
I watched her for a bit, skulking from the shadows. Recon for the wounded. Then . . . I don’t know. She reminded me of me. Of where I’d been, in the beginning. So I’d knocked on her door. Middle of the night. And she’d answered, just as I knew she would, looking like some kind of rabid creature, about to burst out of her own skin.
We talked. I made her promises I had no idea if I or anyone else could keep. Then she cried, though she kept telling me how much she hated tears. And so it began. My project. Identifying other broken souls, trying to teach all of us how to live again. A support group for those who’d been to hell and back, and were still trying to sort out the change in scenery.
Which had just brought me here.
Sarah’s studio apartment looked better. At my suggestion (make your home a place you can feel safe!) she’d painted the walls peach and hung an oversized graphic poster in bright shades of blue, green, and red. The artwork was too busy for my taste, but she claimed it gave her something to focus on in the middle of the night.
Which was the point of our little group, after all: exchanging tricks for chasing the demons away.
“How well did you know her?” I asked now.
I removed two cups of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee from the carrying tray, heavy on the cream and sugar for both, then opened a box of Munchkins. Another tip: There’s no problem a lot of caffeine and too much sugar can’t handle. Though some of the group members preferred hot chocolate to coffee. Whatever.
“I didn’t really know her. Not yet. That’s the whole point!”
Sarah turned. I tossed a jelly Munchkin at her head, applauded silently when she caught it. Her reflexes had improved remarkably in the past few months.
“Start at the beginning,” I advised. Another sip of coffee. Another donut hole.
“She was standing outside the studio. Where I’d started kickboxing, as you’d suggested.”
I nodded. “What did you notice? What about her caught your attention? Had you seen her before?”
Sarah frowned. She stopped pacing long enough to pop the donut bite in her mouth. Another one of the homework assignments I’d given her: Observe. Work on the transition from hypervigilance to due diligence.
“I don’t think I’d seen her before. But she was . . . nervous. Skittish. Like she was worried about someone seeing her.”
I studied Sarah over the battered table.
“She reminded you of you,” I said.
“Yeah. She looked . . . She looked like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. And she was staring through the glass, at the kickboxers, like she wished she could be as tough as that.”
“What did you say to her?”
“I asked her if she wanted to come in. She backed away immediately. Seemed spooked that I’d noticed her. She started to walk away and I . . .” Sarah looked at me. “You said I should trust my instincts. You said instincts are there for our own protection.”
I nodded.
“She needed help. That was my first instinct.”
I didn’t say anything.
“So, uh, I said I was just leaving. Heading to the corner for a cup of coffee. Maybe she’d like to join me.” Sarah shrugged. “I didn’t think she’d go for it at first. She had on this ratty blue backpack, was clutching the shoulder straps as if her life depended on it. Then all of a sudden, she relaxed, said okay. We walked together to the coffee shop.”
“Where she told you about her friend.”
“Yes. She had a friend. She was worried about her. Wondered if kickboxing might help make her feel stronger.” Sarah shrugged a bony shoulder. “I did what you suggested: I didn’t try to tell her what she should do, I just talked about me. I told her I’d survived something awful once. So bad, I didn’t think I’d ever feel safe again. But now I did things like kickboxing and it made me feel good. Stronger. And once you feel stronger, act stronger—a lot of your problems go away. Bad people don’t want to deal with the powerful. They prey on the weak.”
“What did she say?”
“Mostly, she stared at the table. We hadn’t gotten around to ordering the coffee yet, and she kept the backpack on. I figured she’d bolt at any moment. I asked her if she was sleeping at night. She shook her head. I asked her if someone was hurting her now. I mean, a teenage girl . . .” Sarah shrugged. “You have to wonder.”
I nodded.
“She got nervous. Accused me of being a cop. I assured her I wasn’t. Just someone who’s been there. But I had to back off—she was so skittish. I told her she should come back to the studio. The following week there was a beginner’s class. Maybe she could check it out.”
“And you told her about our group.” I didn’t mean to sound accusatory, but maybe I did.
“I didn’t think she’d go to the class. I figured she’d walk out of the coffee shop and that would be that. And I . . .” Sarah floundered, waved her hands. “Look, I’m new to this. But you said trust your instincts. And this girl . . . I felt for her. She seemed terrified. She looked . . . She looked like I did, not that long ago.”
I nodded. I wasn’t really mad at Sarah. And not just because I was the one who had told her to trust her instincts, but because I was also new to this survivor-mentoring gig. I just put on a better front.
“She logged on to the group forum that night,” I filled in the rest. Newbies could only access the boards using an established member’s password. At which point Roxanna Baez had requested permission to join herself—meaning basically I followed back up with the sponsoring member, Sarah, who’d personally vouched for her. The system was hardly rigorous or foolproof. I’d debated it several times—increasing the demands for basic info in the interest of better security versus the risk of scaring off people who were just figuring out how to speak up. In the end, I’d kept it simple, meaning Roxy Baez had joined our group based strictly on Sarah’s say-so.
“I pulled the transcripts from the past few weeks,” I continued now. Before I deleted the entire forum went without saying. “She didn’t post much. Just lurked.”
Which also isn’t uncommon. Most survivors are naturally distrustful. They have to get the lay of the land before they proceed. I learned early on that there are a lot of survivors out there. But only some of us will or can connect. Just the way it is in real life, I guess. Not everyone is meant to understand you. And not just anyone can help you.
I glanced at the sheaf of papers. “She doesn’t talk about her home life. Certainly no mention of a mom, stepdad, two younger siblings, or dogs. She just mentions this friend. She needs help for a friend.”
