D.D. nodded, keeping her attention on the dogs. She kneeled, getting up close. Both dogs seemed well groomed, in good condition. No sign of injury or blood spatter. She gently lifted the first dog’s front leg. The shaggy spaniel didn’t seem to mind, obediently holding up her paw. The footpad appeared rough, but again no evidence of blood or trauma. Should she be bagging the dogs’ paws as evidence? Things they never thought to mention at the police academy. Then again, given that the dogs had walked all the way from the crime scene to here, any evidence discovered on their paws would be cross-contaminated, worthless in a court of law.
D.D. lowered the dog’s leg, went back to stroking her long ears. She could feel the dog tremble slightly beneath her fingers, press closer into D.D.’s hand. She was anxious, D.D. thought. The change in schedule, a day that wasn’t like the day before. The dogs knew something was up; they just didn’t know how bad yet.
“Working on canvassing the area for potential witnesses now,” Phil was saying from behind her.
“Hang on.” D.D. had just found it. A square of paper folded up tight, wedged beneath the dog’s collar. She eased it out, unfolded the note carefully.
“My name is Rosie,” D.D. read out loud. The shaggy dog lifted her ears at the sound of her name. “I am a twelve-year-old Brittany spaniel. I’m blind but gentle. I like to be outside in sunny weather, listening to birds. Please don’t separate me from my friend Blaze. If found, you can call . . .”
D.D. rattled off the number, then frowned and looked at Phil.
He dialed the number while she inspected the second dog’s collar. Sure enough . . . “I am Blaze,” she read, “a ten-year-old Brittany spaniel. I’m blind but a very good boy. I love to be outside with my friend Rosie. If found . . .”
“The number belongs to Hector Alvalos,” Phil reported, lowering his phone.
D.D. straightened slowly. Both dogs moved in closer, pressed against her legs. So much for her dark jeans, which would now be covered in white and brown hairs. She supposed she should get used to such things.
“Why Hector Alvalos?” D.D. asked.
“I don’t know; he’s not answering his phone.” Phil paused. “He knows the dogs, visiting the house to pick up Manny each weekend. Maybe he watches them sometimes.”
“Most people put their home numbers on their dog’s collars,” D.D. countered. “Or their phones. Given that Roxanna didn’t . . .”
“It’s as if she already knew there wasn’t a home for them to return to,” Phil finished for her.
“Anyone know exactly what time the dogs showed up?”
“Best estimate is sometime around ten. But most of those patrons are gone by now.”
“We’re going to need to pull all receipts from nine thirty on. Then call those customers and have them return to be interviewed. Someone saw something and we need to know what.”
“Or,” Phil replied, “we could review the security camera footage. Mrs. Schuepp is loading it up for us now.”
“Or,” D.D. agreed, “we do that.”
Phil gestured toward the coffee shop. D.D. fell in step behind him, leaving Officer Jenko, back on duty, guarding the two beautiful dogs.
? ? ?
LYNDA SCHUEPP HAD BEEN RUNNING the coffee shop for eight years. A brisk woman with wavy brown hair and hands that moved even faster than she talked, she had them in a back room and set up with a security monitor in a matter of minutes. D.D. wondered how much coffee the woman drank on the job. D.D. wished she had some of that coffee.
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?”