Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(48)

“She was a child,” D.D. corrected. “She was a little girl. She’s gone now, Hector. Murdered, just this morning. Hours before someone also took a shot at you. Why? Tell us what’s going on. For her sake, for Manny’s sake, what the hell did you do, Hector? Fess up. Now!”

“I don’t know what I did! I don’t understand. They should not all be dead. Manny should not . . . I don’t understand. Oh, my beautiful boy. I do not understand!” Hector banged his head back against the raised mattress. Tears were streaming down his face. “I did not do this!” he moaned. “I could not do this. But I don’t know who did it either. None of this makes any sense. We were just a family, a normal, mixed-up family. Lots of little wrongs, yes, but nothing so big to deserve this. Nothing!”

D.D. and Phil exchanged glances. They waited, gave the man a chance to regain his composure.

“Why didn’t you want to be alone with Lola?” D.D. asked firmly, after a few minutes had passed.

Hector sighed heavily. Closed his eyes.

“Come on, Hector. We know you want to protect her. But this is a murder investigation. It’s all going to come out. The sooner you tell us, the sooner we can get some answers. Find out who killed your beautiful boy. And, hopefully, save Roxanna in the process. Because you understand she’s in danger now, right? If she didn’t kill her family, someone else did and that someone else is still looking for her. Or she did hurt her family and maybe also opened fire on you, which makes her an armed and dangerous suspect now being hunted by every cop in Boston. These aren’t good scenarios, Hector. You need to help us find Roxanna first. Save her from herself.”

Hector kept his eyes closed. Finally: “Lola was acting out . . . You know, doing inappropriate things. There was an incident at school, with a male teacher. She said things . . . did things. There were witnesses, other classmates.”

“How do you know this, Hector?” Phil asked.

“Juanita told me. Took me aside. She wanted to . . . warn me. Be careful around Lola. But I already knew. As a man. The way she’d been dressing, acting . . . It made me uncomfortable.”

“Do you think Charlie was molesting her?” D.D. asked bluntly.

“I don’t know. Juanita brought it up, straight away, said it was not him. She thought, looking back, that Lola’s behavior had started before Juanita had moved in with Charlie. But it had grown worse in the past year. Lola turning thirteen, becoming more like a teenager.”

“What did you think?” D.D. asked.

Hector opened his eyes. He appeared very troubled. “The kids . . . When I lived with Juanita, they were all good kids. Roxanna, she was a little adult even back then. Our fault, I know. We partied and fought and Roxanna . . . she kept everything together. So we partied more, because that’s the kind of fools we were. The kind of disease we had.”

D.D. nodded. She and Phil encountered plenty of alcoholics on the job—sometimes they were suspects and sometimes they were victims and sometimes they were fellow cops. Addiction didn’t recognize boundaries.

“Lola, she was not Roxanna. She didn’t want to do homework or follow rules or be quiet. She would sneak out of bed after Roxanna fell asleep. I would catch her spying on her mom and me. ‘Back to bed,’ I would tell her, and she’d go. Or, ‘Check on your brother.’ Because she loved Manny. She’d do anything for him. Roxanna was always telling her what to do, but Manny worshipped her, and Lola liked that.

“Then . . . it all fell apart. Juanita was so unhappy. She thought I worked too many nights, came home even later than I should. She accused me of other women, all sorts of things. And the apartment was too small and the kids needed new clothes, and just . . . everything was wrong and it was all my fault. It made her drink more, until she got written up on the job. Then they threatened to fire her, which became my fault, too, because I should be at home to help with the kids and find us a better apartment, except if I’m home more, how do I make the money for this bigger place?” Hector shrugged. “Then the school called, because the kids didn’t have food for lunch and were wearing the same clothes day after day because Roxanna was just a child and there’s only so much a child can do . . .

“Big fight. I don’t even remember what started it. But the big fight. I was so mad. Just so . . . angry. I wanted to punch Juanita. Do anything to make her stop screaming at me. Stop her from making me feel so worthless. I fisted my hand. I might’ve done it. But then, I saw the kids. They were standing there. Staring at me. Manny, he was crying. Lola was holding him. Though he was nearly half her size. And Roxanna . . . she had her arms around both of them. Protecting them. From me.

“I hit the wall instead. Drove my fist right through it. Juanita stopped screaming at me. Everything went silent.

“I . . . I couldn’t take it. I grabbed my work bag and I left. I never came back.”

“You went to Florida,” D.D. said. “And while you were gone . . .”

“Juanita lost custody of the kids. Manny was sent to one foster care family, Roxanna and Lola to another. They told Juanita three kids were too many to place together.”

“Juanita cleaned up her act,” Phil provided. “Must’ve met all the court requirements because a year later, she got the kids back. That’s not easy to do.”

“Juanita got sober. She had hit rock bottom and she fought back. She’s a strong woman. I always knew that. It’s one of the things I loved about her.”