The scene was an hour old. Meaning D.D. was already sixty minutes behind.
She followed Phil into the home. The foyer was five feet deep and crowded with a dark red bench covered in a pile of coats and shoes. More coats hung on the wall, while a high shelf held wicker baskets most likely filled with hats and gloves. Small home for such a large family, and the entryway looked it. She had to step over a pair of kids’ sneakers, navy blue, with the blinky lights on the side. Jack would love those sneakers.
Not the kind of thing to think about now.
They stepped into a larger sitting area straight ahead. D.D. noted gleaming hardwood floors—obviously recently refinished—a fairly new flat-screen TV, and a dark gray L-shaped sectional dotted with bright red accent pillows. Sitting on the sofa was a middle-aged male, head slumped forward, three blooms of red across his chest in macabre coordination with the decorative pillows.
A crime scene photographer stood to their left, snapping away. D.D. raised a hand in greeting. The photographer nodded once, kept working.
“Charlie Boyd,” Phil informed her, gesturing toward the body. “Forty-five, local contractor, and current homeowner. According to the neighbors, he bought the place a couple of years ago and has been fixing it up.”
“Explains the floors,” D.D. said. She approached close enough to inspect for signs of powder burns around the wounds while trying to keep out of the photographer’s way. No speckling on the skin, no handgun conveniently dangling from the dead man’s fingers. Though last she knew, it was pretty hard to commit suicide by shooting yourself three times in the chest.
Phil kept walking; she kept following. They passed through a cutout to a tiny kitchen, big on white-painted cabinets and short on counter space. They had to squeeze their way around a rectangular table that was definitely too big for the kitchen and probably too small for a family of five. The table was currently covered in a vibrant floral tablecloth and mounds of groceries.
Which brought them to body number two. Middle-aged female, gunned down to the left of the table, just before an open cabinet. She’d fallen on her side, a can of cream of mushroom soup inches from her fingers. Also multiple entry wounds, also no sign of powder burns, so the shooting hadn’t been up close and personal.
“Juanita Baez, thirty-eight, worked as a night nurse at St. Elizabeth’s,” Phil rattled off. “Moved in with Charlie last year. Mom to the three kids.”
D.D. nodded. She noted an assortment of details in no particular order. That, even dead, Juanita Baez had the kind of glossy black hair and fine bone structure that marked her as a looker. That the house had a half-windowed back door with a bolt lock, currently undone. That Juanita’s gunshot wounds were to her chest, not to her back, as if at the last minute she’d turned away from the open cabinet, can of soup in hand, and faced her killer.
Also that the woman’s black leather purse sat next to the collection of groceries, zipped up tight and presumably untouched. Much like the collection of high-end electronics in the family room.
Phil gestured to their right, where a flight of stairs led up to the second floor. They resumed their tour.
“At one point,” he informed her, as they hiked up, “the residence was split into two one-bedroom apartments, one up, one down. Apparently, first thing Boyd did was convert it back to a single unit. Handy, given that he then hooked up with a woman with three kids.”
D.D. nodded. She had to breathe through her mouth now, the smell stronger as they crested the stairs. And not just blood, which was thick and cloying, but a tinge of ammonia, as well. Urine. Because when people said things like I was scared enough to pee my pants, they weren’t kidding. D.D. had worked enough crime scenes to know.
More activity up here. The sound of low voices from a back bedroom: the medical examiner, Ben Whitely; or Phil’s squad mates, Neil and Carol; or miscellaneous evidence techs. The scene was quiet, all things considered, though D.D. suspected that had taken no small effort on Phil’s part. In a space this tight, with four bodies and countless time-sensitive questions, it was tempting to throw everything and everyone at it—which inevitably led to issues with possible cross contamination later on.
The first open doorway revealed a queen-sized bed covered in a mound of blankets, bed lamps beside it, an overcrowded bureau across from it. The parents’ bedroom, D.D. figured, given the fact that Phil didn’t linger.
Next, a modest bath, also recently refinished, then two more doorways. The sound of voices grew louder. A woman’s voice. Detective Carol Manley, D.D. guessed, who’d taken D.D.’s place on the three-person squad when D.D. had been wounded on the job and relegated to management. D.D.’s left arm throbbed at the memory, and she felt her jaw tighten reflexively. Manley was a perfectly good detective. And yet, given the circumstances, D.D. knew she’d never like her.
Phil bypassed the doorway on the right. D.D. took a quick peek: twin bed, jumbled blue comforter, clothes, and toy cars.
Then, end of the hall. Larger room, obviously shared by two girls, with one narrow bed pushed against a pink wall to the right and one narrow bed pushed against a purple wall to the left. The smell of blood and urine was strongest in here.
Neil looked up when D.D. entered. Carol raised a hand in greeting. No one spoke.
At first D.D. didn’t get it. Where were the remaining two bodies? Then she noticed what appeared to be laundry at the foot of the pink bed. Except it wasn’t a pile of clothes, but one body folded around another.
A girl, young, wrapped around a boy, even younger.
“Lola Baez, thirteen,” Phil said quietly. “Manny Baez, nine.”
“We’re waiting for the photographer,” Neil said. “We didn’t want to move them till then. Ben’s already been up to assess. He’s trying to figure the best way to remove the bodies without inciting a media circus.”
D.D. nodded. Given the nature of the crime and the crowd of gawkers outside, the ME’s job wouldn’t be an easy one. Nothing about this case, she already had a feeling, would be easy.
Carol cleared her throat. “Other half of the room belongs to sixteen-year-old Roxanna Baez.” She gestured to the purple side, where the wall had a poster featuring the Amazing World of Books and a dog calendar. Brittany spaniels, D.D. would presume, based on the featured dog’s shaggy white-and-brown-spotted coat.
In contrast, Lola Baez’s pink-painted wall was covered in theater posters, everything from Wicked to Romeo and Juliet to Annie.
“There’s a laptop on the desk,” Neil said. “Not password protected. Browser history shows Instagram, Tumblr, the usual. Last person to log on used it around eight thirty this morning to watch videos on YouTube. No recent messages from family or friends. Certainly nothing inviting Roxanna to a meeting.”
“Cell phone?” D.D. asked.
“There’s one cell phone on the desk, but it requires a passcode. Not sure yet if it belongs to Roxanna or her younger sister, Lola. Should be easy enough to figure out which carrier, put in a request for records.”
D.D. nodded. In this day and age, it seemed that all kids had phones, meaning she’d expect two phones for two girls. Given only one was present, maybe Roxanna had taken her phone with her. If only they’d be so lucky.
“Where’s the dog stuff?” she asked. “You said two elderly, blind dogs. Brittanys aren’t that small. Seems there should be beds, bowls, leashes.”
“We found dog bowls on the back stoop. Looks like they fed them out there,” Carol offered.
“Leashes?”
The three detectives shrugged.
“In other words,” D.D. thought out loud, “Roxanna could have taken the leashes. She really is out walking the dogs.”
Phil glanced at his watch. “An hour and fifteen minutes later?” he asked softly. “And still out of sight of dozens of patrol officers?”