by Lisa Gardner
“She failed.”
“Lola was one of you. Means you failed, too.”
Carmen took a second step off the porch, her girls shifting around her, taking up strike positions.
I shook my head in warning. “No. You don’t get to hide behind attitude. A gang is family. A survivors group is family. We do everything we can for family. So tell me what I need to know about Lola. She died with her arms wrapped around her baby brother. She died trying to shield him with her own body. You should be proud of her for that. You should respect her.”
Carmen paused. The expression on her face wavered.
“Manny was a good kid,” one of the girls murmured from behind her. They wouldn’t look at me anymore. I’d hit the right buttons, triggered their sense of shame.
“What do you think you’re doing, standing here, saying these things?” Carmen tried to rally.
“Was Lola involved in Roberto’s death?” I repeated. “Stage his suicide? Because that would give plenty of people incentive to kill her. Come on. You have rivals. You know how motive works.”
“She hated him. He beat her when she was little. Did worse. Messed that girl up.”
“So she killed him. Who knew?”
“No! It didn’t get that far.”
“What do you mean? He was sharing nude photos. What more incentive did she need?”
“Photos weren’t of Lola.”
“But . . .” Then I got it. What would hurt worse. Not photos of Lola, but of Roxy. “Lola would kill him for that, too,” I said.
“Maybe. But the loser shot himself. Then”—Carmen spread her hands philosophically—“there was no need.”
“And the photos?”
“Died with the SOB. Never heard anything about them again.”
A movement from my left, just up the block. As someone trained to be aware of my surroundings, I half registered it, but the information had surprised me. I was still trying to work out what it meant when: Crack.
Gunshot. Loud. Distinct.
I dropped to the sidewalk, holding tight to both dog leashes, as in front of me girls dove for cover.
“Hijo de puta!” Carmen spat again, flattening to the ground.
A fresh crack. Wooden splinters flying from the stoop. More swearing from the girls. Followed by a rapid succession of boom, boom, boom as the shooter continued firing.
Keeping my head low, I twisted to the left, trying to make out the gunman. There, across the street, two houses up. A hooded figure in a bulky navy blue sweatshirt. I couldn’t see a face. Just long dark hair pouring out from around a pale neck. Clearly a female.
Roxy?
What the hell?
I was still trying to figure it out when the shooter turned and fled.
Chapter 30
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? COMING down to confront a group of known gang members all by yourself?”
“I brought the dogs—”
“Oh, sure, two elderly blind guard dogs. I stand corrected.”
“We were having a perfect civil conversation—”
“You got shot at!”
“Technically speaking, Carmen Rodriguez—”
“Stop it! Stop excusing your stupidity, stop looking so smug, and for the love of God, stop looking at your phone or I will smash it myself!”
Flora rolled her eyes but obediently slid her phone into her pocket. D.D. could feel a growl coming on. She stalked away. Approached Phil instead.
“Six shots fired,” he rattled off promptly, recognizing the mood. “Target appears to be Carmen Rodriguez, known member of Las Niñas Diablas, and/or some of her fellow gangbangers. No hits, just minor injuries from flying debris, as the wooden porch sustained most of the damage.”
D.D. glanced at the ambulance double-parked on the sidewalk. A girl with short dark hair and the telltale beauty mark sat in the back. An EMT was applying gauze to her bleeding forearm. The girl stared straight ahead, seemingly uncaring, while four more girls hovered around her. They were all muttering under their breath in Spanish.
Calls for revenge would be D.D.’s first guess. Against a shooter they would never identify to the cops but go after themselves.
She already missed playing catch with Kiko. Not to mention the look of utter adoration this morning when Jack woke up and realized Dog was still there. Alex had been correct: Jack did a dead-on imitation of roo roo roo.
“Casings?” she asked Phil.
“Crime scene has recovered half a dozen across the street. All consistent with a nine millimeter. They are now digging slugs out of the porch to be tested against the ones recovered from the Boyd-Baez scene and Hector Alvalos’s shooting.”
“Witnesses?” D.D. asked.
“Umm . . . you mean ones who might actually talk to cops?”
She glared.
He shrugged. “Door-to-door canvass revealed a lot of neighbors who know nothing about no one. As for Las Niñas there, I’m guessing they know plenty but will tell us even less. Shooter was across the street, tucked behind a telephone pole, when he-slash-she-slash-it opened fire. Not a great line of sight, which may explain the lack of success hitting the target. Or maybe the shooter was only trying to scare. Who knows?”
D.D. glanced around. “I doubt there are cameras in this neighborhood.”
“There’s a bodega two blocks over that might have a security system. I’ll send over a patrol officer to ask. But no one is sure in which direction the gunman fled, as most of the victims had their heads down by then.”
“Yesterday, after the Alvalos shooting, a female wearing a dark blue hoodie was spotted running away.”
Phil nodded.
“This morning, according to Flora, the shooter was also wearing a dark blue hoodie,” D.D. continued. “Same caliber of gun, same wardrobe. Seems like more than coincidence to me.”
“Roxy Baez?” Phil asked.
“We know from Hector she had reason to doubt his loyalty in the past. He could’ve intervened in family court when Juanita lost custody, but he didn’t. Presumably, Roxy was also unhappy with her sister joining a gang, might even think they have something to do with Lola’s death. Maybe the reason she hasn’t made herself known to the police, despite the Amber Alert, is that she’s decided to exact her own brand of justice first.”
“Her family was shot with a nine millimeter, as well,” Phil pointed out. Meaning they still couldn’t discount Roxy as their killer either.
D.D. nodded. “Yeah. And to say we know what’s going on here, or with Roxanna Baez, would definitely be an overstatement. Here’s a thought: Yesterday Flora mentioned that Roxy carries a light blue backpack. We also recovered a thread consistent with such a bag from the vacant office space across from the coffee shop. Flora suggested we check video cameras from the coffee shop area to see if the infamous girl in the navy blue hoodie was carrying such a pack when she fled the Alvalos scene. Any luck with that project?”
“We have two detectives reviewing footage,” Phil reported. “But haven’t heard back. Let me put in a call.”
D.D. nodded. She glanced at the ambulance again. The huddle of Hispanic girls, fussing and muttering among themselves. What the hell. She strolled on over.
“Backpack. Baby blue. Which one of you has it?”
The standing girls turned first, staring at her in confusion. D.D. knew minions when she saw them and not just because Jack was obsessed with those movies. She focused her attention on Carmen Rodriguez, who was waiting for the EMT to finish bandaging her arm.
“Roxy always had a baby-blue backpack,” the gang leader said.
“First shot was fired. You heard it. Did what?”
“Ducked,” Carmen replied flatly.
“Really? City girl like you. How many times have you heard gunfire by now?”
“Enough.”
�
�Enough not to panic? Enough not to be scared?”
“I don’t panic. I’m never scared.”
“In other words, you didn’t just duck. You looked.”
Carmen stared at her. Paramedic patted her on the shoulder, told her he was done. Carmen never even glanced at him but kept her gaze on D.D.
“I ducked, and I looked.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“Just a figure. Across the street. Dark sweatshirt. Hood up. Could’ve been anyone.”
“With long dark hair?”
Carmen smiled, raked her uninjured hand through her own short do. “Guess for once, that rules me out.”
“Color,” D.D. commanded softly, “of the sweatshirt?”
“Navy blue.”
“Wording? Logo?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Patriots? Didn’t stare that hard.”
“Pants?”
“Jeans. Light blue. Skinny legs.” Carmen frowned, one of her first genuine displays of emotion. “Hoodie made the shooter seem big. But the legs . . . Definitely a skinny dude.”
“Or dudette.”
Fresh shrug. Game face back on.
“Shoes?”
“Wasn’t looking that low. Kept my eyes on the gun.”
“Color?” D.D. requested again. “Anywhere around the shooter. Patch of green weeds, backdrop of gray buildings. Think of the shooter. What colors do you see?”
Carmen didn’t answer right away. Because she was honestly considering the question? Or crafting her next lie?
“Navy blue,” the gang leader said at last. “Heavy dark blue hoodie. That’s all I got.”
“No light blue backpack?”
“Nope.”
“After the shooting, what did the suspect do with the gun?”
“Stuck it in her pocket and ran.”
“Her pocket?” D.D. grinned.
“Hey, you said dudette, not me.”
But D.D. already didn’t believe her. She left the crew and returned to Flora Dane, her wayward CI.
• • •
FLORA HAD HER PHONE BACK out. Was staring at it impatiently.
“What the hell is it with you and that phone?” D.D. asked.
Flora didn’t answer, just tucked the phone away. Roxy’s two brown-and-white spaniels were sitting on either side of Flora. The short-haired one—Blaze, D.D. thought—had his head on Flora’s foot, while the longer-haired one, Rosie, was sniffing the air.
“You picked up the dogs this morning?” D.D. asked sharply.
“I stopped by the high school counselor Tricia Lobdell Cass’s place. Figured the girls”—she nodded toward Las Niñas—“would recognize the dogs as Lola’s. Be less liable to attack first and question later.”
“Did it work?” D.D. asked, thinking it wasn’t a bad strategy. A group of girls might view a single female as an immediate target. But a single female with two familiar dogs . . .
“Learned a few things,” Flora volunteered. “Tricia mentioned there’d been some kind of issue with an inappropriate photo several months back. Someone sharing the silhouette of a nude girl on a school loop account, something like that.”
“Allegedly Roberto,” D.D. provided.
Flora nodded. “The principal inspected his phone but couldn’t find anything. According to Las Niñas, the photo wasn’t of Lola, but Roxy. I also heard from Tricia that Anya Seton was jealous of Roberto and Roxy, but the school counselor thought it was paranoia on Anya’s part.”
“You think Roberto and Roxy were a couple?”
“I can’t see that. But it’s still possible Roberto had such a photo. Sent it around the school as a form of blackmail.”
“He might have taken the photo during their time together at Mother Del’s. Maybe he went so far as to tell her she should keep quiet about those days, or worse photos would follow.”
Flora nodded. “Given that Lola was a member of Las Niñas Diablas, I wanted their take on the attack against their gangland sister. Hence my dog-chaperoned visit.”
“And?”
“They don’t know what went down yesterday. Carmen considered it a family issue.”
“No gangland retaliation?”
“According to them, no, and I believe them. Also, Lola was very popular with the boys, but she used that to her advantage. Never gave up something for nothing, is how Carmen put it.”
“Thirteen-year-old girl,” D.D. muttered.
“Reading between those lines, sounds to me like she didn’t have a boyfriend. More like she used situations to her advantage. Which could mean she flirted with the wrong guy, and some vengeful niña went after her, but it’s hard to see how that would translate to the elimination of her and her entire family. Way easier to simply shoot her the next time she was out with the dogs, whatever.”
D.D. agreed. “ME found evidence that Lola had had sex shortly before her death. So we know she was sexually active. Aren’t Las Niñas Diablas known for their love of knives, however?”
“Yeah.”
“So again, the shooting of Lola’s entire family . . .”
“If I were a jealous girlfriend, I’d be more apt to carve up my rival’s beautiful face,” Flora concurred.
“Good to know,” D.D. assured her. “This is what troubles me, however: According to the ME, Lola was killed with a single gunshot to the head. Up close and personal. The killer wanted to be certain.”
“She was the primary target,” Flora said softly.
“Exactly. Which might bring us back to revenge. Anya, a fellow gang member, a jealous rival. Except none of that feels right. Revenge is an emotion. This murder went down more like an assassination.”
“She was up to something,” Flora said, studying the cracked sidewalk. “I thought for certain Lola was involved in Roberto’s suicide. I mean, she and Roxy move back to Brighton three years later, only to discover their enemies waiting for them. Roxy and Anya apparently had some kind of altercation in the high school hall. Then this photo starts circulating. Makes sense to me that Lola would do something like join Las Niñas Diablas, where there’s safety in numbers, while placing an entire group of homicidal girls at her disposal. But according to Carmen, they never had to intervene with Roberto. Loser shot himself, despite what Anya wants to believe.”
“You trust Carmen?” D.D. asked. “Think she was telling the truth?”
“She has no reason to lie. I’m not a cop. And once we established our mutual reputations—”
“Vigilante to gang leader?”
Flora shrugged. “In our worlds, taking credit for Roberto’s death is just that—credit. Guy was an ass, threatening one of their own. If his shooting had been Las Niñas’ doing, they’d be crowing about it, not covering it up.”
“Which leaves us with what? Roxy Baez taking a page out of your book? Arranging for Roberto’s death to protect her sister?”
“Like I said, Carmen says the photo was of Roxy. So assuming that Roberto’s suicide wasn’t accidental, maybe Lola did it. To protect her big sister.”
D.D. frowned, turned over the pieces of the puzzle in her mind. “Except . . . someone found out? Instead of resolving the situation, Roberto’s death made it worse? A new threat emerged, hence Lola’s tension and Roxy’s recent stress these past few weeks.”
Flora shrugged. “Reasonable story line, except the only person we know who cared about Roberto’s death is Anya. And for all her dramatics, she’s apparently already moved on with married theater guy.”
“Who may or may not be her alibi for yesterday morning,” D.D. considered. “What is this, a duel of sorts? Roberto threatens Roxy, so Lola kills Roberto. In revenge, Anya kills Lola and Lola’s family. Which leads us to Roxy now running around, opening fire on Hector for abandoning them five years ago, then targeting Las Niñas Diablas for leading her sister astray
these past few months? It all seems . . .”
“Crazy?”
“Far-fetched. From a homicide detective’s point of view, murder is a simple business. People kill for love or money. In this situation, there’s plenty of love and loyalty, but those lines are also getting all tangled up. Which makes me wonder again about money.”
“What money?” Flora asked.
“Juanita’s potential lawsuit against the state of Massachusetts. She was alleging her girls were abused while under the state’s care. If she could prove it, that settlement . . .”
Flora’s eyes widened. “Would be worth millions.”
“Exactly. Which is motive enough to kill Juanita Baez, let alone Lola and Roxy.”
“Meaning Roxy could’ve been a target, too, except she was out walking the dogs.”
“Of all our theories, I like this one the best,” D.D. agreed. “Except where is Roxy now, and why does a female matching her description keep being spotted at scenes of recent shootings?”
“You think she was the gunman this morning?”
“Don’t you? Nine-millimeter pistol. Same caliber as the one used against Hector and, for that matter, her entire family.”
Flora’s phone buzzed in her pocket. The woman pulled it out, glanced at the screen, then held it out.
“I can answer half your question,” she said.
“Before or after I smash your cell phone?”
“I found Roxy Baez.”
“What?” D.D. straightened.
“This morning. I figured out where she was hiding. Then I sent a mutual friend to make contact. Roxy couldn’t have been the one opening fire here because she was already meeting with my friend at the community theater building a mile away.”
“The community theater building? Where Anya Seton is rehearsing a play?”
“Old building. Lots of nooks and crannies. Roxy knew it well from working there five years ago, remember? It also happens to be near Mother Del’s, where her best friend, Mike Davis, lives, not to mention close to cafés, the high school, and other familiar locations. It also has two significant advantages.”
D.D. stared at Flora wide-eyed.
“Because of the upcoming debut, people are coming and going at all hours. Meaning there’s nothing odd about a lone female entering and exiting the building. Second, it’s a theater. Filled with props, accessories, and costumes.”
