Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(50)
Hector closed his eyes, leaned his head back again. “She saw me,” he said abruptly. “We never spoke of it. But that day in the courthouse, Roxanna looked down the hall. She stared right at me. Right before I ran away.”
“She saw you at the courthouse? She watched you leave them?” D.D. asked sharply.
“If I was her,” Hector said, “I would’ve shot me, too. But not today. I would’ve done it five years ago, when I deserved it. I’m not a perfect man. I’ve made many mistakes. Roxanna has a right to hate me. Manny and Lola, too. But why now? We are a family now. We are good now. So why . . . That’s what I don’t understand. Why now?”
“You said Lola was crazier now than before,” D.D. thought out loud.
“But Juanita was trying to help her. She knew it wasn’t Lola’s fault.”
“Juanita was asking questions Lola didn’t want answered,” Phil said.
“So why is Lola dead? Shouldn’t Roxanna be the one hurt and Lola the one running away?” Hector asked. “And why Manny? Neither of them would ever do anything to hurt Manny.”
“You said that day in the courthouse, it appeared to you that Roxanna was moving stiffly. Like she’d been hurt?”
“Yes. She held herself too straight, with her elbows tucked. I’ve been in enough bar fights to recognize the morning after. It looked like she had bruised ribs.”
D.D. glanced at Phil. “Maybe Roxanna has her own secrets from that year. Questions she didn’t want Juanita to answer.”
“She would not hurt Manny,” Hector repeated. “And even if she has reason to hate me . . . I’m clean. Juanita is clean. We behaved like bad children once. But we are good parents now.”
“Unless that’s the problem,” D.D. considered softly. “Roxanna was always the parent? Now you two are taking her job from her?”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Hector said.
Which D.D. couldn’t really argue with; she was reaching for straws and she knew it. Hector’s primary question rang true: Five years ago this family had been a mess, five years ago maybe Roxy had had reason to act out against at least Juanita and Hector. But both had sobered up. Juanita had gotten her children back and, so far, still appeared to have her life on track. So again, what had happened in the past few weeks to raise Roxy’s agitation to the level she’d sought help from Flora’s group, let alone trigger this morning’s murderous rampage?
“One last question.” Phil spoke up. “You said Lola was behaving erratically. Any chance she was on drugs?”
Hector sighed miserably. “I want to say no. Such behavior would break Juanita’s heart. But after that incident with the teacher . . . When it comes to Lola, anything is possible.”
“How far would Roxanna go to protect her younger sister?” D.D. asked.
Hector shrugged, repeated, “Anything is possible.”
Chapter 19
WHERE ARE YOU?” I ASKED Sarah over the phone.
“Behind the high school,” she whispered back. “Followed the target here. Have eyes on him now.”
“Is Mike with anyone?”
“Not yet. But he seems to be waiting.”
“Maybe a rendezvous point,” I considered out loud. “Are there others around?”
“You kidding? Soccer practice. Field hockey. Football. I don’t know. There are kids, coaches, parents everywhere.”
I’d forgotten that. High schools had sports, clubs, extracurriculars that also took place on the weekend. Making the grounds a good place for Roxanna to hide in plain sight? Or at least catch up with her best friend and probable accessory, Mike Davis?
“Hey,” I thought out loud, “any chance you see a gaggle of Hispanic girls hanging around?”
“Umm, lots of girls loitering around. Hard to differentiate the groups without approaching more directly. I don’t want to spook the target.”
I understood. Odds were, Mike had spotted Sarah here and there while he was making his way to the high school. While a woman out walking on a sunny day wasn’t suspicious on its own, the same woman suddenly appearing on the school grounds would catch his attention.
“Okay,” I said at last. “Hang tight. Let me know if Roxanna appears. And if you spy anything that resembles gang activity or drug deals, that would be good to know, as well.”
“Gee, at a high school?”
“Knew I could count on you.”
I ended the call just as D.D. and Phil exited St. Elizabeth’s and my next job began.
? ? ?
“SO SOON?” D.D. STARTED, THEN glanced at her watch and frowned. “Has it really been two hours?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun,” I assured her. I held out my hand to Phil. “Flora Dane. BPD’s newest CI. Nice to meet you.”
Phil rolled his eyes at me. “Seriously?” he asked D.D.
“Sorry. These things happen.”
“How’s Hector?” I asked.
D.D. shrugged. “Gonna live. Swears Roxanna didn’t do it. She has no reason to hurt him. More pertinently, she wouldn’t risk injury to the dogs by opening fire so close to them.”
“So he didn’t see the shooter? Or won’t admit it might be Roxy?”