For the first time, Sarah’s shoulders came down.
“What do we do? I’ve been listening to the Amber Alerts all morning. There’s still no sign of her. Do you think someone took her, that’s what this is all about? Maybe this person who’s hurting her friend caught wind that Roxy was trying to help out and decided to take action?”
“I have no idea.”
“Or did she . . . She couldn’t have killed them, right? I mean, why would this girl, Roxanna, shoot her entire family? I mean, sure, she asked some questions about guns, self-defense laws, but you know, if she’s looking out for her friend . . .”
“What did you tell her?”
“Um . . . some basic safety one-oh-one. The bear spray canisters. Because they’re filled with pepper spray and easy to find at any outdoor store.”
“Do you know if she bought any bear spray?” I asked. “For her friend.”
“No.”
“Did you have a sense of where she was most afraid? On the home front? Or maybe something at school?”
Sarah shook her head.
“Could this be as simple as some kind of drug thing?” I thought out loud. “Her family was dealing or she was feeling pressure from the local thug to join his business?”
“I don’t think so.” Sarah hesitated. “She didn’t seem that type. Roxanna was quiet, shy. I don’t know. She didn’t seem hard enough for that lifestyle. You know, didn’t have that thousand-yard stare.”
I didn’t say anything. Some of the girls I’d met with Jacob . . . None of them seemed hard enough for that lifestyle. Or they shouldn’t have been.
“She talk about any skills she already had?” I asked. “Steps she’d taken to . . . help her friend?”
Sarah shook her head. “Sorry.”
“And this friend? She never provided any name, details? School friend, work friend, family friend?”
Sarah hesitated. “No.”
“You don’t think there’s a friend,” I filled in.
She shrugged. “Classic line, right? ‘I don’t need any help. But now that you mention it, I do have a friend . . .’”
I nodded. My thoughts exactly. “Her family? Any information?”
“Nothing. Like I said, I didn’t even know she had siblings or dogs. Flora, what are we going to do?”
I sighed, sipped my coffee. “How do you feel right now?”
“Helpless. Sick to my stomach.”
“Do you like that feeling?”
“No! Not at all.”
“Me neither. So it’s settled. No helplessness for us. We’re going to work.”
“How?”
“Use our skills, use our heads to locate Roxanna Baez. Maybe it’s her, or maybe it’s her friend, but someone is in trouble, and we’re not going to feel better until we figure it out. So let’s figure it out.”
Sarah stared at me. “Like you did with the college student? Meaning, put ourselves in danger? Flora—”
“I wasn’t thinking anything that dramatic.”
“I’m not that strong! Flora—”
“Nothing like that! We use our skills. We use our heads. It also just so happens, I know the detective in charge of this case.”
“We’re going to the police?”
“We find Roxanna Baez. Then we can get the answers to our questions. And then we can sleep at night.”
Sarah appeared less convinced. But she finally sat, picked out a fresh donut hole, popped it into her mouth.
“I’m very sorry about this,” she said.
“Please, tell that to Roxanna Baez.”
Chapter 8
D.D. FOUND THE GUN. It was simply a matter of retracing the shooter’s path, once she knew the person had exited out the back and over the fence for his or her getaway. Which brought D.D. to the tiny backyard and overgrown herb garden. First, she checked the weed-lined fence; tossing the murder weapon was a time-honored trick for savvy criminals or anyone who watched the Godfather movies—leave the gun, take the cannoli.
She came up empty along the fence line, but sure enough, in the herb garden, hastily buried under a tall patch of leggy cilantro, she discovered a cloth-wrapped snub-nosed .22, perfect for shooting four people in a crowded urban environment where noise and getaway time would be major factors.
The serial number had been ground off. So a burner weapon, most likely picked up on the street by a killer with some smarts. The lab techs would determine just how smart; there were tricks to restoring serial numbers, entire chemical kits designed for just these situations.
For now, D.D. was more interested in her first impressions. The handgun appeared older, rough around the edges. Not a .22 that had been diligently cleaned after each use, then replaced in a gun safe. No, she had pegged it as a street weapon even before noting that the serial number had been erased.
Meaning most likely the shooter had brought the gun with him. Shown up with a plan and proper equipment. Which fit the timeline they had thus far. Everything had happened fast. No social call that had escalated to an argument, then shots fired. Just a quiet, calm morning. So quiet, so calm, Charlie Boyd had never even gotten off the couch.
To D.D., the scene felt less like a domestic gone bad than an execution. But why? What in the world could a family have done to provoke this?
Phil appeared on the porch behind her. Wordlessly, she held up the firearm, which she’d bagged and tagged.
“Any luck with the security camera on the property behind us?” She nodded to the roof of the three-story office building, which towered above the fence line.
“The building had four cameras, covering front, back, both sides. All were dismantled.”
She turned, studied Phil. “How often does the building super check the cameras?”
“Every day. Meaning the cameras were taken out earlier this morning.”
She nodded, her mind now firmly made up. “This was a planned event. The gun, the security cameras. This wasn’t an impulsive act of rage, but a calculated crime. Any luck with Roxanna’s cell phone?”
“Cell company’s been pinging away. Nothing. But we do have a discovery of sorts. The Brittany spaniels, Rosie and Blaze. We’ve found them.”
? ? ?
THE DOGS WERE TEN BLOCKS away. A decent distance, given the length of the streets. Both had been tied under a copse of trees, near a corner coffee shop. Plenty of shade, D.D. noticed when she first approached. And they’d been left with a bowl of water.
The dogs raised their heads as she and Phil approached. A uniformed officer was already standing guard, attracting attention, as pedestrians tried to figure out why two old dogs required a police escort.
The Brittany spaniels were lying down. The first one, with a longer, shaggier white-and-brown-patched coat, wagged her tail at the sound of D.D.’s approach. She stared up with big brown eyes, whining slightly.
D.D. held out her hand first, then, when the dog nuzzled her palm in greeting, stroked the dog’s long, silky ears. The dog closed her eyes as her companion lumbered slowly to his feet and shuffled closer. More hand sniffing, ear stroking. The second dog had a shorter coat but seemed equally sweet. D.D. wondered how Alex and Jack’s dog search was coming.
“Coffee shop barista phoned in the report,” the officer explained. Officer Jenko, D.D. read on his uniform. “She saw the pictures on the news, recognized they matched the dogs outside. According to her, she’s never seen the dogs before, doesn’t know anything about the Boyd-Baez family.”