Land of Careful Shadows

by Suzanne Chazin

  Adele was impossible to get hold of. She was in meetings every time Vega called. She didn’t return messages. Not that Vega’s ex-wife was any better. In between calling Adele, Vega put in a call to Wendy at Granville Middle School where she worked part-time as the school’s psychologist. He wanted to know why Joy wasn’t working with Dr. Feldman anymore or whether Wendy was aware of her and Kenny’s breakup. Both women were unreachable. Story of his life.

  He gave up reaching Adele by phone and tracked her down physically to La Casa’s preschool around the corner from the main building. The preschool was housed in an aging Victorian with a bowed front porch. The backyard was enclosed in chain-link fencing and scattered with sandboxes, swings, and toys. A couple of dozen preschoolers, all Latino, ran about the yard, their voices filled with the hard exuberance that was the same in any language. Vega felt a sudden pang thinking about the baby in the flyer. He hoped she was in some playground like this somewhere. He didn’t want to think she was another Desiree and he was already too late.

  Vega watched two boys spinning a tire swing, wrestling with it and each other as they tried to hurl their bodies onto the rim. That’s when he caught sight of a figure crouched over a small girl, tying her shoelaces. She was turned away from him so he had time to study the long curve of her neck and the smooth pink-white of her skin that reminded him of the inside of a seashell. Her blond hair mirrored the sun.

  He felt such tenderness for Linda at that moment as he watched her brush dirt off the little girl’s knees and zip up her jacket. She was a natural mother. He could see that. It radiated off her skin like pollen, infusing everything she touched. He could only imagine how hard it must have been for her to discover that she couldn’t have any children of her own.

  She rose to her feet and Vega felt a sudden panic that she might see him spying on her. He quickly ducked into the building.

  He found Adele on the second floor, in what had once been a bedroom of the house and had now been converted into a makeshift office of the preschool. The room was oddly shaped to accommodate the flue of a fireplace that had been boarded up on the first floor. Plaster fissures ran up the walls like geothermal fault lines. The floors creaked when he walked across them, announcing his presence.

  Adele was seated behind a desk overflowing with folders of papers in no discernable order. Across from her sat a young mother with a toddler on her lap. The young mother’s long, black hair was pulled back tightly into a ponytail. A small fringe of stray hairs framed her round, high-cheekboned face. The toddler sucked on a lollipop, her dark eyes staring up at Vega as if she half-expected him to break into song. A new preschool candidate, Vega supposed. He knocked on the doorframe.

  “Ms. Figueroa? Sorry to bother you but we really need to talk.”

  “Perfect timing. I got your messages. Have a seat.” Adele gestured to an empty chair across from the young mother. Then she turned to the woman and spoke in Spanish to tell her Vega’s name and title. He didn’t see why all this was necessary. The woman was going to be leaving anyway. The mother started telling Adele in Spanish that she needed to catch the three o’clock bus. But Adele looked at her watch and replied that the woman had plenty of time and motioned for her to stay seated.

  “Uh, Ms. Figueroa?” said Vega. “I need a few minutes of your time in private.” He spoke in English. He had a sense the mother didn’t speak much English.

  “I think she should stay for what you have to say.”

  That’s when it hit him. “Is this Claudia?”

  “Claudia?” Adele laced her fingers under her chin. She had a way of making Vega feel a step behind in all their encounters, like he was always walking in on the punch line without hearing the joke.

  “A busboy at the Lake Holly Diner told me José Ortiz has a cousin in town named Claudia.”

  “Claudia Acevedo, yes,” said Adele. “She has a three-year-old son, Damian, who attends preschool here.”

  Vega felt a cinch at the back of his neck, a tightening in his jaw. He’d been as honest as he could yesterday. And for what? So she could play games with him until she could tip off Ortiz? He braced a fist on one thigh and leaned forward.

  “Do you mean to tell me that you knew all along that I could find Ortiz through his cousin?”

  “Detective—”

  “—This is not some moot court at Harvard, you know, Ms. Figueroa. I found out this morning that Ortiz worked with Ernesto Reyes. He was the last person to see him alive. He may be the only person who can help the police find out whether Reyes was chased to his death. Don’t you care about that? Or about the fact that his wife, Vilma, could be the body we found in the lake?”

  “She’s not. I can assure you.”

  “What are you, Ortiz’s lawyer all of a sudden?”

  “No, Detective. But this”—she gestured to the woman in the chair—“is Vilma Ortiz. And her daughter, Bettina.”

  The young mother, who clearly didn’t understand a word of their conversation in English, bowed her head slightly at the sound of her name. Vega regarded her warily. He’d been blindsided by Adele on one too many occasions to look pleased that his supposed victim was sitting right beside him.

  “I already know how your suspicious cop mind works,” said Adele.

  She turned to the mother and asked in Spanish for ID. The woman rummaged through her purse and produced a Lake Holly library card and a bottle of prescription eye medicine, both in the name of Vilma Ortiz. She handed them to Adele who turned them over to Vega. That was about as good an ID as Vega was likely to get from an undocumented woman in the state of New York. He handed them back to Vilma with a quick gracias. Then he pulled out a pad and pen from a jacket pocket.

  “Can I have your current address and phone number, señora?” He asked in Spanish.

  Vilma shot a hesitant look at Adele who nodded. In a soft, childlike voice, Vilma gave Vega her cell phone number and an address in Granville. Vega was able to verify the cell number on the spot by dialing it and having Vilma answer. The address was more problematic. He tapped his pen on his notebook. Adele seemed to read his mind.

  “You’re not here to hunt down José Ortiz for a missed court date, Detective,” she said in English. “You’re here to ask for his cooperation as a witness in a potential homicide. You start playing heavy-handed, you’ll likely just scare the Ortizes off.”

  “Are you the appointed spokesperson for the family now?” he shot back. “I should arrest you for obstruction of justice.”

  “On what grounds? I knew as little as you did yesterday. I’m just better at talking to people than you are.”

  “And when were you going to tell me about these talks? When the Ortizes sent a postcard from Miami?”

  “As soon as I knew why they ran. You know it too, apparently.”

  “Reyes.”

  Adele nodded. “Vilma tells me José knows the police want to speak to him about Reyes but he’s afraid because of the harassment charge. He feels he’s in enough trouble with the police already.”

  “So he skips out on his court date? On his rent? He doesn’t think that’s going to get him into more trouble?”

  Adele sighed. “You’re asking a man who’s had to run from authority figures his whole life to suddenly trust them. It doesn’t work that way. I already told Vilma that her husband’s best defense is to follow the law. But even I’m not always persuasive.”

  Vega thought about Vilma’s beating six weeks ago and wondered whether a man like Ortiz could be persuaded of anything by a woman. He handed Vilma his business card and issued his own plea in Spanish. “Please, señora—tell the señor to call me. The police might be able to work something out with the missed court date. But he needs to come forward. Ernesto Reyes-Cardona has a family too. A sister right here in Lake Holly who believes he was chased to his death. Your husband is the only one who might know what happened.”

  “But my husband says he didn’t see anything.”

  “There may be some small thing
he has forgotten that might be important. The police will never know unless they interview him.”

  The young mother tucked Vega’s business card in her bag and rose, clutching her daughter tightly in her arms. She bowed her head. “Thank you very much, señor, señora. You have been very kind to speak to me today. I will talk to my husband. I will tell him to speak to you.” Vilma sounded willing and compliant but Vega knew from experience that poor Latinos always showed deference to authority. It did not necessarily mean they would follow through. Vilma looked at Adele. “May I leave?”

  “The detective has no legal right to detain you.” Adele shot Vega a look that dared him to contradict her. She could feel his fury even before she’d finished seeing Vilma and Bettina to the door. He had his legs stretched out in front of him until they reached halfway under her desk. He’d taken over the room.

  “Look, Ms. Figueroa,” he said as soon as Vilma was out of earshot. “I don’t like the way you do business here. You should’ve called me as soon as you got a lead on Ortiz.”

  Adele calmly took a seat behind her desk. She sat very straight in her chair and looked Vega in the eye. She was not the sort of woman who crumbled when a man berated her. This center would never have come into being if she were so easily cowed by men with power.

  “You said, as I recall, Detective, that you wanted to talk to Mr. Ortiz. Which implies you needed his cooperation. If I’d simply turned over his whereabouts to you, he would have run, or developed amnesia, and you’d have nothing.”

  “You think anything’s different after our little sit-down today?”

  “I think Vilma will try to persuade her husband to come forward.”

  “Like she persuaded him not to beat the crap out of her six weeks ago—huh?” Vega took her silence for affirmation. “Take it from me, Ms. Figueroa, he’ll never come forward. People like him always say one thing and do another.”

  “People—like—him.” She repeated Vega’s words slowly. “Are you referring to lawbreakers or immigrants without papers?”

  “Technically, they’re one in the same.”

  Adele felt something cold and hard settle in her gut. A vestigial response she could never entirely suppress. She would always be fourteen around cops.

  “My mother and father had no papers, Detective Vega. They were hard-working, law-abiding people. Their sole crime was to want a better life for their children. In my book, they were heroes. So don’t talk to me about your technicalities.”

  Vega ran the back of his hand across his lips and regarded her for a long moment. He wore no rings—wedding or otherwise. She had a sense he was divorced.

  “The police give your parents a hard time when you were growing up?”

  “My parents never gave them cause.”

  “Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” He leaned forward, chin resting on tented fingers. His eyes changed color in different lights, she noticed. Yesterday, they were the color of bittersweet chocolate. Today, with the sunlight streaming through the office, there were flecks of dark honey in the irises. She realized he was looking for an honest answer.

  “My mother and father were teachers in Ecuador. Here, they scrubbed office toilets. They dreamed of owning their own business—just a little immigrant phone service center—nothing fancy. But that’s impossible if you’re undocumented. So they found a neighbor who was legal. She agreed to put her name on all the paperwork in exchange for a share of the profits. My parents worked for five years to get that business off the ground. Eighteen hours a day, every day. My sister and I had to raise ourselves. We didn’t even see them except at work. When they finally started to turn a profit, the neighbor stole it all. Changed the locks on the doors. Took everything. All the phone cubicles my father had built by hand. The computers. The bank account. I went with my father to the police to help him file a complaint and the officers laughed at him. Laughed. They called him a wetback and said he got what he deserved. He never got over it. Two years later, he died of a heart attack. He was only forty-eight.”

  “I’m sorry,” Vega said softly. “That must have been hard.”

  Adele nodded. She couldn’t remember telling that story to anybody.

  “The cops in Lake Holly—they give you a lotta grief?”

  “Comes with the territory. But it’s not just them. Grants and donations have been down since the Shipley incident. Our preschool director just left because she could get twice the money elsewhere. And in June, our lease at the community center is up. The landlord’s not sure he wants to renew.”

  “Commercial property should be a cinch to rent in this economy,” said Vega. “I’ll bet you can get your pick.”

  “If I was opening up a Starbucks, you’d be right,” said Adele. “But La Casa doesn’t serve lattes and espressos. We’re sort of at the bottom of the food chain. Nobody wants day laborers hanging around their neighborhood.”

  Downstairs, little feet pounded across the floorboards. Children’s voices filled the house like water coursing through a shallow streambed. The children were coming in from play. Vega rose. “I should leave you to your work. I’ve gotta let Metro-North and the Lake Holly PD know about Ortiz.”

  “I’m headed back to La Casa anyway. I’ll walk you out.” In the big room on the first floor, the children were putting away their coats in their cubbyholes and gathering around a long table where Linda and two teachers were pouring juice into Dixie cups and setting out oatmeal cookies on paper napkins. Adele grinned, watching Vega pick his way past the low tables full of tiny three- and four-year-olds as if he thought he might crush one. Adele nodded to Linda.

  “Thanks for helping out here today. I’ll be over at La Casa. Call me if you need me.”

  Linda put down the carton of juice and gestured—not to Adele, to Vega.

  “Wait up, Jimmy. I want to talk to you a moment.” Jimmy? Adele looked at Vega and noticed a blush creep into his toffee-colored cheeks. He was attracted to this rubia, this blond Anglo-Saxon. Adele could feel it. And for some reason, it stung.

  Linda must have caught the look that crossed Adele’s face because she quickly added: “Jimmy and I were friends in high school.”

  “Oh.” The word had a glacial edge to it. Adele was behaving childishly. She couldn’t explain why.

  Linda called back over her shoulder, asking the two teachers to hold down the fort while she stepped outside a moment. She grabbed an Ann Taylor peacoat in the front hallway. Vega helped her into it. Adele managed to get into her own lumpy fleece jacket with no one’s help, thank you very much.

  Outside, the wind had picked up. The three of them walked along the outer edge of the chain-link fence to Adele’s car. Linda turned to Vega.

  “I was going to call you,” she said. “But they needed me here this morning and I got busy.”

  Vega toyed with the fence, pulling on the links so they puckered and rattled. Adele noticed that he seemed nervous and tongue-tied in Linda’s presence. He hadn’t been that way at all upstairs. What was it about Latin men and their obsession with blondes? It’s not like Linda was beautiful or anything. Her face resembled those pale likenesses in Old Dutch paintings: skin the color of just-cut apples, eyes that took on the ambient shade of the sky. She was skinny rather than svelte, bony rather than sculpted. When she turned her wrists, blue veins snaked along the undersides like she’d drawn them on in pen.

  “I’m pretty sure I remember the woman in that photograph you showed me,” said Linda. “I’m also pretty sure I filled out a client profile sheet on her but I can’t seem to find it. She came in only once or twice to see if anyone wanted to hire her as a cleaning lady. I remember her because I had a job for a nanny. Most clients will take anything you find for them. But she wouldn’t work in a home with little kids. ‘No young children.’ I remember her saying that. I may have set up an interview for her. It would be on the intake sheet if I could find it but I can’t.”

  “Do you remember her name?” asked Vega.

  “I think it
was Maria. I don’t remember her last name.”

  “Well,” Vega laughed. “That only narrows the list down to like a third of the Latinas in the county.”

  “I know. Sorry,” said Linda. “But even if I remembered a last name, sometimes clients give me fake ones and change them periodically so that may not help you as much as you think. But I do remember that she was with a man when she came in. I see him at the center from time to time. He never did an intake sheet. I’ve asked a few times but he’s always refused. I know he usually comes in with Enrique Sandoval.”

  “I know Enrique,” said Adele. Enrique had a crush on her. She could feel it. The way he’d hop from one foot to the other, like he was walking on fire in her presence. Kind of the way Vega was behaving with Linda now. “Enrique comes in with his older cousin a lot. Anibal—”

  “—This isn’t Anibal,” said Linda. “Anibal has a mustache. And his fingers—” Linda held up her left hand and made a slicing motion across the digits. Anibal was so good with his hands, you’d have to look closely to know that some of his fingers were partially amputated. “This other man—I saw him this morning before I came over to the preschool. He and Enrique and Anibal got picked for a job clearing brush over in Wickford. His shoe was falling apart.”

  “You mean Rodrigo.” Adele had seen the boot. Tied together with string. They had some castoffs in a closet and she tried to find him a pair that fit but they were all too small. Adele felt bad for Rodrigo. He had so much dignity when he was trying to stuff his feet into the castoffs. He was so unfailingly gracious, thanking her for her efforts. It would have been easy to drive to Target, buy a pair of cheap work boots out of her own pocket, and come back. But then she’d have to do it for every client. And they all had sad stories. So she helped Rodrigo get thicker string to keep the sole tied to the boot and hoped he’d either earn enough to get a new pair or someone would donate the right size.

  “This guy’s name is Rodrigo?” asked Vega. He bounced a look from Adele to Linda. “Rodrigo what?”