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Roxy through the detox.
    Roxy opened her door holding a red can. “I’m hunting cockroaches. Come join the fun.”
    Roxy had some sort of Mediterranean blood in her, mixed strikingly with a large dollop of Scandinavian. Long black hair, dark skin, sky blue eyes. Lindy knew it was the kind of look that drove men mad, made them do crazy things in the night or conjure wild dreams in daylight.
    “You don’t have to do the cockroach thing,” Roxy said. “But if you see one, yell, ’cause I’m in the mood to kill. These babies are big.”
    Her apartment was simple, eclectic. Roxy had her watercolors, unframed, attached to the walls, and some kind of unidentifiable fabric on the floor doing an imitation of a rug. The place smelled of incense and dishwater. R&B played softly in the background.
    And on the coffee table, which had various scuffs, lay a big, black book.
    “I’m glad you called,” Roxy said. “Let’s go do something. I’m feeling cramped in here.”
    Lindy eyed the black book as she sat on the sofa. “Since when are you reading the Bible?”
    “Since a month.” Roxy tossed herself on a beanbag chair that might have done duty in the Berkeley of the sixties.
    “What’s the occasion?”
    “Met a guy.”
    “A Bible salesman?”
    “An artist, wiseacre.”
    “He’s got you reading the Bible?”
    Roxy pointed at herself with both index fingers. “I took the plunge. Baptized and everything.”
    “Like in water?”
    “Duh.”
    Lindy was amazed, but only somewhat. Roxy did have a spontaneous personality.
    “Hey, come to church with us.” Roxy sat up, like she’d just had the greatest idea in the world.
    “Church?”
    “Why not?”
    “I haven’t been in a church since . . .” Since her mother died.
    “Come on. We have a great minister—”
    “Who is this guy? Where’d you meet him?”
    “At group.”
    “He’s an addict?”
    “Nah, he was there supporting a friend of his. We started talking, one thing led to another . . .”
    “And boom , you’re Mother Teresa.”
    “Hey now . . .”
    “Sorry. I’m a little tense. You got anything to drink?”
    “Like what?”
    “I was thinking of the hard stuff. Dr Pepper.”
    “I’ve got diet.”
    “I said the hard stuff. ”
    “Sorry, chica . You have to drive.”
    Roxy went into the kitchen and returned with a couple glasses of Diet Dr Pepper.
    “You ready to go back to work?” Lindy asked.
    “Yeah baby!”
    “I might have a case for you to help me with.”
    “What kind?”
    “Murder.”
    Roxy whistled.
    “If I take it. It’s the boy who shot those kids in the park.”
    Roxy froze midgulp. She lowered her glass silently.
    Lindy told Roxy what she knew so far, up through the interview with Drake DiCinni.
    “Guy sounds like a real loser,” Roxy said.
    “And that’s what’s sticking in my throat.”
    Lindy looked into her friend’s Nordic eyes, which had a difference about them now. Aknowingness. Roxy didn’t look as confused or vulnerable as she had the last time Lindy saw her. Maybe it was her new boyfriend.
    “Take the case,” Roxy said, “and do what God meant you to do.”
    Lindy shook her head. “How’d God get into this?”
    “He’s into everything. That’s something I found out.”
    “Oh yeah? Why didn’t I get the memo?”
    “It’s all in here.” Roxy picked up the Bible.
    And that’s when a little snap went off inside Lindy. She had always believed in something out there, even flirted with Christianity in high school. But that seemed a long time ago.
    “Does it say in there how come God let this kid turn out the way he did? How come he let this father even have a kid?”
    Roxy looked a little pained. “I know there’s hard questions.”
    “Well, when you get an answer to any of ’em, let me know. And while you’re at it, let me know why I got the father I got.”
    “What about your father?”
    “Forget it.”
    “No, tell me.”
    “Why?”
    “You come here and drink my Dr Pepper, you ask me to work