“So I’m looking for an artistic gangbanger. Great.”
“The gang task force keeps a database of markings. I’ve added this to the file.”
“Thanks.” Kiko was back, staring at her. D.D. reached once more for the ball. “It was Lola,” she murmured to no one in particular. “The shooter was after Lola, the rest of the family was collateral damage.”
“You don’t think the oldest sibling, Roxanna Baez, was involved?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know anymore. There’s no obvious motive for her to shoot her own siblings. On the other hand, she was clearly under stress and had ongoing tensions with her younger sister. We also have evidence she was hiding out near the scene of Hector Alvalos’s shooting, which was also done with a nine millimeter.”
“Maybe the same handgun?”
“Quite possible. We have drug angles, gang angles, deep-dark-family-secret angles. Plenty of angles. Just no traction. Anything you learn, I’d love to hear it. Sooner the better.”
“Like you’ve ever had it any other way.”
Her phone buzzed. An incoming call. She glanced at the screen, expecting it to be Phil given it still wasn’t even seven. To her surprise, the name of a law firm flashed across her screen. Juanita’s lawyer, whom they’d left several messages for just yesterday.
“Gotta go,” she told Ben. “Keep me posted.”
“Will do.”
Then Ben was gone. D.D. picked up the next call and resumed playing with her dog.
“Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren.” D.D. answered her phone crisply.
“Daniel Meekham. Of Meekham, Croft, and Bane. I’m returning your call from yesterday. I was in Florida for the week. Just got in late last night.” Pause. “Heard the news.”
“So you know Juanita was shot and killed yesterday. Along with her partner, Charlie Boyd, and two of her kids.”
“Yes.”
“Her oldest daughter, Roxanna Baez, is still missing. Do you know her?”
“The kids? No. My only conversations have been with Juanita. And our relationship was still new. I mean, I met her purely by chance in the emergency room a few weeks ago. Bagel. Knife. Oops.”
“You specialize in litigation.”
“Yes.”
“Our understanding is that Juanita was talking to you about a situation involving her two daughters. She believed something might have happened to them five years ago, after the state removed them from her custody and placed them in foster care.”
The lawyer didn’t comment.
“Mr. Meekham, you understand that your client is dead? She has no need for attorney-client privilege. Not to mention we have compelling reasons to believe Roxanna Baez might be in immediate danger. Surely protecting the life of your client’s daughter is more important than protecting your client’s privacy.”
“I understand. Like I said, this is a relatively new case. I’m still thinking it through.”
“Let me help you: Juanita believed her daughter Lola was sexually abused while in the state’s care. Specifically, while she was staying at Mother Del’s foster home. Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
“To that end, Juanita has been digging around on her own. Questioning Mother Del, for example.”
“Yes.”
“I imagine you also ran background on the woman.”
“Yes.” That slight hesitation again. “Mother Del, real name Delphinia Agnes, has been a licensed foster care provider for twenty-four years. During that time, she has consistently had a full house, anywhere from six to eight kids.”
“I thought the state didn’t allow more than four kids until recently?”
“There have always been waivers for special circumstances. Now such waivers are simply more common.”
“Does Mother Del have any kids of her own?”
“No kids, never been married. She taught kindergarten before taking disability. Then she got into foster care, completing the training courses.”
“She own that house?”
“House was an inheritance from her own family three decades ago. On paper, she has a brother, but I haven’t located him yet. She is listed as the sole owner of the property.”
“So she’s a professional foster care provider, so to speak. Takes in the kids, piles them up, cashes the checks.”
“She makes sixty to seventy thousand a year, tax free,” Meekham agreed.
“No mortgage on the house?”
“No.”
“So where does the money go? It’s not a huge amount for Boston, but with no mortgage, she should be doing pretty well. Based on what I saw, at least, she’s not spending the money on feeding the kids.”
“She has a modest savings account. Buys a new van every five years. Property taxes are more substantial than you might think. Also, according to her credit card, she spends a lot of money at Walmart, ostensibly on baby supplies, kid clothes, et cetera. All in all, her financial records are clean. No large deposits, no large withdrawals.”
D.D. frowned. That seemed to eliminate any chance of, say, a sex ring or child pornography, which would leave behind a trail of unexplained income.
“I’m still working on tracking down any additional accounts,” Meekham said, as if reading her mind. “It’s possible she has offshore banking, Bitcoins, hell if I know. As I said, I’ve only had the case a matter of weeks.”
“She might have other accounts under different names, aliases,” D.D. supplied.
“Exactly.”
“How about complaints against Mother Del?”
“Plenty. But none that caused immediate concern. She’s been written up for overcrowding, received citations for lack of cleanliness. Several notes that the food, meals, barely meet minimum requirements. She’s been investigated twice after children in her care were taken to the emergency room. Nothing that ever rose to the level of inciting disciplinary action, however. To review her file, she’s not the best foster care provider in town. But she’s not the worst either, and in an overstretched system, someone like her can slide by.”
“What were your next steps?”
“I was trying to find the photos.”
“Photos?” D.D. asked in surprise.
“Umm . . .” She could hear the sound of a man digging through papers. “One thing my investigator did find, talking to the high school counselor Tricia Lobdell Cass: There was a rumor this past spring that a fellow student was bragging about having inappropriate photos of both Lola and Roxanna Baez. Interestingly enough, this boy had also been staying at Mother Del’s during the time they were there.”
“Was his name Roberto?” D.D. asked with a sinking feeling.
“Roberto Faillon. Yes. Now talk about a rap sheet. Kid already had a file a mile thick for petty theft, assault, disorderly conduct, vandalism, you name it. Regular hoodlum in the making. According to Ms. Lobdell Cass, there was some buzz at the end of the school year about these photos. You know how high schools can be. There are group texts where information can be disseminated. Social media accounts all the kids know about, where they can continue the day’s torture from the comfort of their own homes. The rumor was that Roberto posted an inappropriate photo of a seminude female classmate on some school loop for other students to see, but the quality of the image wasn’t good enough to make out the face of the girl. When the school got wind of it, the principal pulled Roberto into his office. But Roberto claimed innocence. The photo had already disappeared from the internet. Probably to be posted under a new social media account the very next day.”
“Did the principal seize Roberto’s phone?”
“I’m told the principal went through Roberto’s phone, with the boy’s permission. Couldn’t find anything. Gave it back.”
“Which means nothing at all,” D.D. said. “Roberto could’ve uploaded the photos to the cloud to retrieve later, swapped out phones, a million other tricks.”