Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(91)

Roxy’s eyes widened. Clearly, she’d not thought to clean her backpack. She also glanced down self-consciously at her smudged shirt.

“We’re going to test your hands first.”

D.D. started with Roxy’s dominant hand. She methodically swiped the girl’s right hand with the saturated cotton mitt, first wiping the inside of Roxy’s palm, then around her thumb and along the top of her index finger before returning to the outside of the palm. The detective was basically wiping down any surface that would have come into contact with the firearm, I realized. Finally, D.D. doubled back, paying special attention to the area around Roxy’s fingernails, scraping under the tips.

She repeated the pattern on Roxy’s left hand. Then D.D. returned to the sink, holding out her gloved hand while she picked up the second spray bottle. None of us spoke.

She spritzed the cotton mitt. She didn’t say anything, but again, working methodically, covered the entire surface. I leaned forward, staring harder, waiting for something, anything to happen. At the table, Roxy was doing the same.

Nothing happened. The plain white mitt remained plain white.

D.D. caught us staring, smiled slightly. “This is the magic moment,” she said, and picked up the third spray bottle.

More misting. The entire glove. Sarah moved off the sofa into the tiny kitchen area, where she could stare directly over D.D.’s shoulder.

D.D. held up the mitt for dramatic effect. Ten seconds. Twenty, thirty . . .

“Nothing’s happened,” Roxy said from the table. “Those sprays, they’re some kind of reagent, right? Which should react with the nitrite residues, if any are present. No change in color means no reaction, no nitrites. No GSR.”

D.D. glanced at the girl. “We’d heard you were a star student. You are correct. Any nitrite residue should be turning hot pink by now. It’s not a subtle color. Even a trace of hot pink would warrant further testing. But in this case . . .” She held up the plain white mitt.

“You’re not quite out of the woods yet, however,” she said, and nodded her head toward the backpack.

This time, the process went much faster. She wiped the straps, the zipper, anything Roxy might have touched shortly after firing a weapon. Then, with her right hand, she gingerly removed all the contents from the backpack. The black sweatshirt, a ball cap, a battered blue folder, tons of wrappers from protein bars, some matches, bear spray, a penlight, unused shoelaces, duct tape, a half-consumed bottle of water. Not a bad bugout kit, particularly as I understood the reasoning behind the contents.

But no handgun in the pack. And no traces of GSR inside or out.

“This isn’t a slam dunk,” D.D. said at last, peeling off the second mitt and sealing it in its original plastic envelope. “For all I know, this simply proves you were wearing gloves at the time of the shootings—”

“No gloves this morning.” I spoke up. “I could see skin—pale hands gripping the pistol.”

D.D. slid me a glance. “As I mentioned, the test should’ve been administered immediately after the shooting—”

“But as you said, what are the odds of her having washed it all off? Even removed from beneath her nails, and from her backpack? And haven’t I read cases where traces of GSR were found on the suspect’s belongings weeks after the murder?”

D.D. skewered me with a second glance. “The complete absence of findings,” she provided dryly, “does work in Roxy’s favor. So much so that I don’t think I’ll drag her sorry ass down to headquarters and throw her in jail just yet. But, Roxy, I need you to talk to me. Your family is dead. You’ve been on the run for twenty-four hours. Who are you hiding from?”

“I don’t . . .” She glanced at Sarah and me as if looking for assistance. “I’m not sure.”

D.D. pulled out the other chair and took a seat across from Roxy. “So why’d you buy the gun?”

“What gun? I don’t have a gun. You just searched my entire pack.”

“Then you left it behind at the community theater. Stashed it in a cubbyhole. Maybe buried it in another flower bed, such as you did at your house.”

“I don’t—” Roxy paused. Closed her mouth. “Oh,” she said at last. “That gun.”

“Yes. That gun. The twenty-two I recovered in your backyard. Why’d you buy that gun?”

“It wasn’t mine. I don’t know much about guns. And talking to the group—they don’t recommend guns. Especially if you haven’t been properly trained or don’t have any experience.” She glanced at Sarah and me again. We were both sitting on the floor now, as there wasn’t enough room in the tiny parlor, but no way were we leaving Roxy alone with the detective. Sarah had Rosie snuggled up with her, while Blaze already had his head resting on my lap.

“Gee, how civic-minded of them,” D.D. drawled now. “And yet, in the backyard of your house, raised garden bed, we recovered a twenty-two.”

“Lola,” Roxy whispered. “I found the gun one morning under her mattress. We, um . . . we had a fight. I couldn’t believe she had a gun. I couldn’t believe she’d brought it into the house. Forget Mom—what if Manny had found it? What then?”

“Why did Lola have a gun?”

“She said she was supposed to have it. Las Ni?as Diablas. She’d joined the gang. And members carried guns.”