Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(22)

And a moment later, she did. D.D. really liked Lynda Schuepp.

After producing two mugs of latte, the woman left D.D. and Phil to their own devices. She had a shop packed with caffeine-addicted patrons on a sunny Saturday morning. Hands still waving, she hustled out the door.

D.D. took a moment to sip her latte, regain her bearings. “She wears a Fitbit,” she murmured to Phil. “I wonder what her heart rate is at any given time.”

“Please. I wonder how many tens of thousands of steps she gets in each day.”

“Scary,” D.D. agreed. She leaned forward and they turned their attention to the security system. Playback seemed easy enough. Phil started them at nine A.M., then worked forward in five-minute increments. Nine forty-five, there were no dogs. Nine fifty, dogs appeared. He rewound to nine forty-five. They sipped their lattes and watched.

Nine forty-six, Roxanna Baez appeared suddenly on camera, holding two leashes. She was already focused on the trees. Not running, but walking very quickly. The moment she arrived at the small slice of greenery, she dropped to her knees and went to work on the leashes, wrapping them around the base of the tree.

The girl wore jeans, a thin long-sleeve shirt that might be red, and, of course, the backpack. The security camera recorded in black and white, but D.D. thought the pack might be light blue, as the neighbor had reported. The straps were frayed, the fit snug, as if the backpack was sized for a child. Manny’s pack? Or a leftover from Roxy’s youth?

The coffee shop had already placed a bowl of water curbside for customers with dogs. The girl grabbed it, moved it closer to her spaniels. Now they could see the side of Roxy’s face. It appeared shiny. Wet with sweat, tears? The girl’s hands were shaking visibly as she set down the water bowl.

“She looks terrified,” Phil murmured.

D.D. didn’t disagree.

The girl unslung her pack, still moving quickly. Paper, pen. Scribbling the two notes, folding them up tight, then sticking them under each collar. The dogs were pacing, confined by their leashes but clearly agitated.

Roxy looked over her right shoulder, then her left. A short pause. Then she threw her arms around the first dog. Rosie, D.D. thought. Then the second dog, Blaze.

The girl didn’t wait. She grabbed her worn pack, slung it over her shoulders, and, with a last, nervous look around, took off again.

“She’s running,” Phil said.

“From what she did at her family’s house, or from what she saw?”

They both sat back, sipped more coffee. Phil started the video again from the beginning. They watched it a second time, then a third. Then Phil advanced the video, this time in one-minute intervals, looking for signs that Roxanna Baez had doubled back, returned down the other side of the street. No dice. Next, they focused their attention on the sea of pedestrians caught on the fringe of the camera’s lens, people walking down the sidewalk after Roxanna Baez. Possibly in pursuit. Maybe a neighbor or familiar face from outside the crime scene this morning. No one jumped out at D.D. She glanced at Phil, who shook his head.

“Timeline,” she said. “We know Roxy left the house with her pack and the dogs sometime around eight thirty. Numerous witnesses put the sound of shots fired at shortly after nine. And this”—the recording had a date and time stamp in the upper-right corner—“places Roxy and the dogs here at nine forty-six.” She looked at Phil. “Think it takes a teenager and her two dogs an hour and fifteen minutes to walk ten blocks?”

“I’d guess more like thirty minutes.”

“So where’d she go in between?”

“Are there any parks in the area? Someplace she’d logically take the dogs to play?”

“Or meet with someone? Or tie the dogs up so she could circle back to the house to do what she really had planned for the morning? And what’s in the backpack?” D.D. muttered. “I want to know what’s in that pack.”

Phil appeared troubled. “She still looks terrified to me. And the way she tends the dogs. Making sure they’re in the shade, bringing them water, writing notes. You think a girl who takes such good care of her dogs is the same kind of girl who’d gun down her own family? Her siblings?”

D.D. knew what he meant. The sight of Lola and Manny, curled up tightly in the corner of the bedroom . . . She’d never forget that.

“We need more cameras,” D.D. said. “We need to reconstruct this girl’s route minute by minute, starting at eight thirty this morning. Where did she go? Who did she meet? What did she do?”

“Working on it.”

“Where’d she go after this?” D.D. rewound their video again. Watched Roxanna stuff notes in her dogs’ collars, then pause for her last good-bye. “There, she takes off north. What’s north of this coffee shop?”

Phil shrugged. “Not my neighborhood.”

D.D. already had her phone out, was loading up maps. “Bus stop,” she announced. “Which would give the girl several options for escape. Wait, here we go: A few blocks up is St. Elizabeth’s Medical. Isn’t that where Roxy’s mom, Juanita Baez, worked?”

Phil nodded.

“All right. Have a detective reach out to MBTA’s security department. Bus lines fifty-seven and sixty-five. We need to check with drivers, start flashing Roxanna’s photo around, see if anyone remembers her boarding a bus. Does she even have a pass? Another question to answer.”