Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(85)
“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 Ni?as—“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 Ni?as, 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 Ni?as 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 ni?a 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 Ni?as Diablas known for their love of knives, however?”
“Yeah.”
“So again, the shooting of Lola’s entire family . . .”