Land of Careful Shadows

by Suzanne Chazin

  “We came together. But not—not in that way.”

  Vega noted a slight coloring in Morales’s cheeks.

  “What way was it then?” Vega smiled but it was a cop’s smile. He was already a step ahead of Morales. Men all cut the same way when you come right down to it.

  “We didn’t—I have a wife and children in Guatemala.”

  “Yes,” said Vega. “I gathered that part.”

  “Once we came here, I didn’t—” Morales fingered a loose piece of veneer on the tabletop. “I promised my wife I would be faithful.” He looked more upset than at any time during their conversation. Vega had to smile. Rodrigo Morales could survive anything; endure anything—except the reproach of his wife.

  “Look man,” Vega assured him. “You wouldn’t be the first guy bearing up under difficult circumstances who forgot your vows for a while. Seems to me, a lot of the men who cross the border do that.” Vega knew plenty who had abandoned their families entirely and made new ones here. But he had a sense Morales was not that kind of man. He seemed genuinely distressed by his infidelity. The question was, could he have been distressed enough to kill Maria Elena if, say, she wanted to keep the relationship going and he didn’t?

  “I stopped it,” said Morales. “Soon after we came.”

  “So you were having sexual relations with Maria Elena and you decided to stop?”

  “Yes.” Morales looked down at his hands, embarrassed. “I stopped.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t remember. Sometime in October maybe?”

  “I have a witness who saw you come into La Casa with Maria.”

  “That would have been in the fall. To help her find a job.”

  “Did she find one?”

  “Not right away. But eventually, yes. She worked as a live-in housekeeper.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know the house. Somewhere on the hill away from town. Where the houses and lawns are very big and the trees very small. I’ve cut lawns there.”

  “The Farms?”

  “Maybe.” He jiggled his feet nervously again. “You never told me how she died.”

  “How about you tell me?”

  Morales blinked. “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do. You ran, didn’t you?”

  “Because you were going to arrest me.”

  Vega leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head as if they were just chatting over a beer. “I haven’t arrested you, Rodrigo. Like I said, we’re just talking here. So tell me how she died.”

  “I don’t know how she died.”

  Vega decided to offer up a few details to help Rodrigo’s memory along. “She was found in the lake. Maybe she couldn’t swim?”

  “No. She could swim. We both can.” Morales looked confused. “Did she drown?”

  Kind of hard not to, with four ropes holding you down.

  “So if Maria went into the lake,” said Vega, ignoring Morales’s question, “she’d be able to swim out?”

  “I—I think so. We never swam there. What happened to her?”

  “I think you know.”

  Morales frowned. “I don’t.” And then it hit him. “Are you saying she was murdered?” He was so focused on his lost hundred dollars and the likelihood of getting deported, he’d completely missed the reason they’d brought him in in the first place. He touched his chest like Vega had just planted a fist in it. “You think I killed her?”

  “You busted your ass to come North to provide for your family. And all of a sudden when you try to break it off, she wants to call ICE to get you deported. She wants to tell your wife—”

  “—She never did those things.”

  “Okay, threatened to do them. And everything you’ve worked for is about to go down the toilet, Rodrigo. Everything. On account of some jealous woman. Come on—who could blame you?” In Vega’s experience, people confessed much more readily to even the most heinous of crimes if he tapped into their desire to come off as reasonable and justified.

  Morales moved his swollen lips but no sound came out. He seemed unable to mount so much as a “no” in his defense. If Vega could get fifteen more minutes with the guy before Porter showed up, he might make some progress. Of course the physical evidence—what there was of it anyway—still had to match up. And there was the matter of that hate letter. But Vega had to go where the circumstances took him and worry about making all the pieces fit later.

  “Don’t you want to tell your side?” he prodded.

  Something burst inside Rodrigo Morales, some door he could no longer keep shut. He’d been able to hide his fear but not his anger. He kept his voice low, but there was a hard edge to it when he spoke.

  “You have no idea what we went through to come here. None. They would have raped her in Veracruz.”

  “Who? Bandits?”

  “The police are bandits,” said Morales. “I passed out in a boxcar with a hundred people stuffed in like sardines just south of Monterrey. I would have died if she hadn’t gotten me near a crack in the undercarriage to get some air. You think I would kill her after all we went through?”

  “You cared about her. I can see that,” said Vega. “You weren’t just some cold-blooded killer who wanted her dead.”

  Silence. Morales stared at him. “You will never understand.” He said the words like they were a curse, like he was wishing on Vega one tenth of what had been heaped on him. Vega felt a shudder travel down his spine trying to imagine what it would be like to be trapped in a boxcar under the blazing Mexican sun with a hundred other people crammed into it. And he wondered, for all he’d seen in his eighteen years as a police officer, in his years growing up in the Bronx, if he hadn’t seen anything at all.

  The door to the conference room burst open and Scott Porter stood in it, paperwork and pen in hand. The goofy smile was gone. He took one glance at Morales’s face and gave Vega a look of utter contempt.

  “I am Mr. Morales’s attorney. I will be representing him in all future proceedings, Detective. I am instructing him forthwith to cease and desist all conversation or cooperation with the police.” Porter turned to Morales and gave a synopsis in Spanish of what he’d just said. Then he handed Morales some paperwork to sign.

  “You don’t have to sign that paperwork, Rodrigo,” Vega said. “You’re not under arrest. All we’re doing is talking.”

  “Talking, huh?” Porter switched to English and gave an exaggerated shrug. “So? Talk is over. Let him go.”

  “We need to detain him.”

  “To ID a dead body? C’mon, Detective. Stop bullshitting Morales. Stop bullshitting me.”

  “All right,” said Vega. He tried to smooth down his mud-stained shirt. He didn’t look or feel very professional right now. “She’s a little more than a dead body.”

  Greco joined them in the doorway, cursing quietly under his breath.

  “Ah. I see, gentlemen,” said Porter, all courtroom theatrics now. “So to the Latino community, she’s being presented as an accidental death. But between yourselves, she’s a homicide you’re trying to sweep under the carpet.”

  “Now hold on,” said Greco. “We haven’t ruled it a homicide. We’re still exploring all the angles.”

  “By coercing and threatening a defenseless immigrant into a confession, no doubt.”

  “We’re not coercing anyone into anything,” said Vega. Though in his experience, the only way you ever got ketchup out of a bottle was with a little pressure. “He’s simply being detained.”

  “You have probable cause to detain him?”

  “Mr. Morales has ID’d the victim and indicated that he had a consensual sexual relationship with her,” said Vega.

  Porter turned to Morales and asked in Spanish if what Vega had said was true. Morales hung his head and nodded. Score one for the police. Porter bounced a look from Greco to Vega.

  “Is my client a witness? Or a suspect you’re too lazy to handle in a constitutional manner?”

 
“Careful, Scott,” Greco growled. “You piss us off enough and I’d be happy to charge him right now. He’s got a criminal record and a prior deportation order so we both know it’s adiós, Estados Unidos as soon as that happens. ICE will put a hold on him faster than a drunk to a whore’s tit. The charge doesn’t even have to stick. The results will be the same either way and you know it.”

  Porter tossed off a small laugh followed by a look of disbelief. It was as if he were mugging for an imaginary judge. Vega sensed this was exactly how he behaved in a courtroom. Vega took back every nice thing he thought about him at Linda’s.

  “Are you two detectives blind? Or just incredibly stupid?” He gestured to Morales. “Have you looked at my client’s face?”

  Vega shrugged. “So? He tripped.”

  “Got a witness to that effect?”

  Vega looked at Greco who widened his eyes behind Porter’s back. The only person who could say for sure whether Vega was telling the truth was the very man he was trying to detain, maybe even charge with murder. Porter must have known that already or he wouldn’t have asked. Defense attorneys always have a second act up their sleeve.

  “You send my client to county lockup on some sloppy, poorly executed charge and I will make sure that his bruised and bloodied face is on the cover of the New York Times tomorrow morning and all over the Internet by ten a.m. And don’t expect me to hold back the way I’ve been doing. I will tell them about the arson at La Casa last month and the Reyes matter and all the other bias incidents that have been happening in town. By the time I’m finished, Maricopa County, Arizona, will look like a bastion of brotherly love compared to Lake Holly and Detective Vega here will be fielding his very own redneck fan club.”

  “I didn’t rough him up,” Vega insisted. “He tripped on his boots. We were in the woods.”

  Porter smiled viciously. “Looks like you’ve got even less proof of that than you’ve got to hold my client.”

  Vega curled his fists at his sides and tried to remind himself that he had eighteen unblemished years with the county police. Scott Porter couldn’t undo all that—could he? Would Joy be opening the newspaper tomorrow morning to see her father’s departmental photo plastered alongside Morales’s swollen face? Would Captain Waring, Vega’s boss, be doing the same? Vega could kiss off a future in homicide if that happened. For that matter, he could kiss off any future. Waring had no patience for brutes and bullies. He’d not only fire Vega, he’d personally see to it that he never worked in law enforcement again.

  Vega turned to Greco. He tried to quell the rising panic in his chest. “Got another room we can talk in, away from Mr. Porter’s client?”

  “Yeah.” Greco frowned. Even he looked scared and subdued. “This way.”

  Porter told Morales to sit tight; he’d be back. In the hallway, Vega saw Adele. Not good. Not good at all.

  “Aw, damn it to hell,” said Greco. “Why don’t you just call in the ACLU while you’re at it?” Greco jabbed a finger in Adele’s direction. “Is she Morales’s attorney too?”

  “No,” said Porter. “But I think you gentlemen”—he put a sarcastic emphasis on the word—“would be wise to listen to us. Things would have gone a lot better if you had.”

  Chapter 11

  Adele Figueroa sat in a stuffy, overheated conference room at the Lake Holly police station watching Scott Porter, Detective Greco, and Jimmy Vega mark their turf like a bunch of pit bulls eyeing each other’s jugulars.

  “—He’s a material witness if we say he’s a material witness.” Vega.

  “—Do the words, ‘civil rights violations’ mean anything to you?” Porter.

  “—We charge Morales with even one misdemeanor and he’s history. Adiós amigo.” Greco. Apparently, Rodrigo had a prior conviction and deportation in his immigration records so Greco’s words weren’t idle threats. The man really didn’t have a prayer of staying in this country.

  Adele herself had no idea what Rodrigo’s background was. She hadn’t had time to question Enrique or Anibal about their friend after they burst into La Casa this afternoon just as she was ducking out a little early to get her nails done. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a reason to get a manicure but she immediately canceled as soon as the men breathlessly spilled out the story of Rodrigo’s arrest. Or rather, Enrique did. Anibal just stood there, baseball cap in hand, and asked whether Señora Adele could please find their friend an attorney.

  Adele liked Anibal. She trusted his judgment. She was furious that Vega had gone behind her back and plucked Rodrigo off his work site like Vega was picking up a bag of laundry from the dry cleaners. She couldn’t imagine how he’d found Rodrigo so quickly. But now that she was here, her afternoon plans shot, her evening plans headed in the same direction, she realized how little she knew about the man.

  He’d been coming to the center for only about six or seven months, mostly in the company of Enrique and Anibal. He sat in a corner, hoodie zipped around him, frayed baseball cap down low across his brow, his eyes always on the door for a job to come in. He didn’t take English classes. He never filled out a client intake form. He was polite and quiet but distant and reserved. The only time she’d really spoken to him was when she tried to find him a pair of work boots to replace his worn-out ones. And now the police were detaining him in what appeared to be a homicide investigation. She wanted to help the man if he was innocent. Certainly Enrique and Anibal believed he was. But what if they were wrong? She didn’t want to put La Casa on the line for a criminal.

  The men in the room continued to argue. Adele put a hand up. No one noticed. Finally, she slammed two fists on the table. All three jumped.

  “This,” she said, “is a pissing match and it’s getting us nowhere. You two,” she said, gesturing to Vega and Greco. “You say Rodrigo is a material witness. But it sounds to me like you’re trying to turn him into a suspect and you’re frustrated that you can’t browbeat some sort of confession out of him. And you”—she turned to Porter—“With all due respect, Scott, you’ve been waiting for a chance to air the town’s dirty laundry for some time. Maybe Rodrigo is your man. But what if he’s a legitimate witness to a murder? Or—God forbid—a suspect?”

  “That gives the police the right to rough him up?” asked Porter.

  “Puñeta!” Vega slammed a fist on the table. “I didn’t rough him up!” Vega ran two hands down his face. He looked exhausted. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, which were spattered with mud. There were flecks of mud on the dark hair of his arms. He turned to Adele and spread his arms, all sweetness and charm. A former altar boy, she was sure of it. “I didn’t touch him, Adele. On my mother’s grave, I swear.” Adele. He’d called her Adele. She wondered if the switch was accidental or calculated. She felt a pull and swallowed it back. He had played her before—gone behind her back this afternoon to get Rodrigo over her objections. How had he managed that so quickly?

  “You need to be honest with us, Detectives,” said Adele. “It will go no further than this room, I can assure you. But we need to know why Rodrigo is so important to you.”

  Greco and Vega exchanged wary glances. Cops were so distrusting, maybe because they did so much lying themselves.

  It was Greco who finally spoke. “We have evidence that the victim was put into the water against her will.”

  “Against her will how?” asked Porter.

  “Against her will. Enough said.”

  “What makes you think Rodrigo’s involved?” asked Adele.

  “For starters,” said Vega, “he’s admitted to a sexual relationship with the victim. Plus, he’s married and has indicated that he’s upset about his infidelity.”

  “So he moves from adultery to murder?”

  “Happens all the time.” Vega shrugged. “We don’t know if it happened here or not. That’s why we need to interview him some more.”

  “Oh, no siree,” said Porter. “You don’t get to keep my client while you try to build a case against him.”
r />   “We cut him loose and he’ll jackrabbit,” said Greco. “By tomorrow, he could be in Chicago.”

  “Oh, please,” said Porter. “You know how often the police hand me that excuse?”

  “Maybe because it’s true.” Greco fixed his eyes on Adele. “What time today did you meet with Vilma Ortiz and Detective Vega to discuss the whereabouts of her husband?”

  Adele felt put on the spot. The lawyer in her never liked answering a question without knowing where it was headed. She looked at Vega, but he gave her a slight shrug of the shoulders as if to suggest he didn’t know either.

  “I spoke to them around two, two-thirty. Something like that,” said Adele. Vega nodded in agreement.

  “Detective Anderson of the Metro-North PD went to interview José Ortiz at five p.m. today at the address Vilma supplied,” said Greco. “That address led to an auto parts warehouse in Granville. No one there knew anyone by the name of José Ortiz.”

  Vega felt embarrassed. And taken. Not that he could have done anything about it. “Her cell phone worked,” he insisted. “I called her myself.”

  “Yeah? Well it’s not working any longer,” said Greco. “She ditched it. They’re cheap enough. She’ll buy another. Which means our only potential witness in the Reyes case skipped less than three hours after we had a bead on him.” Greco turned to Porter. “So don’t tell me, Scott, about how your boy Morales is gonna act like a tree and grow roots if we spring him.”

  Vega tried to brush Ortiz to the back of his mind. He had more pressing concerns. “We’re just asking for twenty-four hours,” he told Porter. “The more Morales cooperates, the faster it will go.”

  “I see what you’re doing, Detective.” Porter wagged a finger at him. “Don’t try to bullshit Adele and me. You want to keep Morales here until the swelling goes down on his face. So that when you release him you don’t have any explaining to do.”

  “I don’t have any explaining to do.” Vega rose partway out of his chair. “You want to be a prick about this? Fine. I’ll charge him with resisting arrest and run his prints through the computer right now. That should trigger a deportation detainer from ICE and a nice one-way ticket back to Guatemala before the week’s out. Hell, I couldn’t book a cruise any faster.”