“She’s out at that 5’N’10 concert on the Valley campus tonight,” said Vega.
“That concert was canceled.”
“What?”
“My niece goes to Valley,” said Sanchez. “She just called my sister and told her. She’s driving home now.”
“But I’ve been calling my daughter all evening. She’s not picking up her voice mails or texts.”
“She’s probably just bummed about the concert being canceled,” Sanchez assured him. “Bet if you take a ride over to the campus, you can track her down. In the meantime, I’ll go back in the meeting and let my chief and Carp’s people know Langstrom.”
Vega heard a clicking on his phone. Another message was coming in. Joy? He raced to get Sanchez off the line. The call had gone to voice mail by the time he picked up.
Hi, Dad. 5’N’10 cancelled. I can’t believe it! Dr. Jeff felt so bad for me, he invited me to dinner. Catch you later.
“Invited me to dinner.” Does that mean out to dinner? To a restaurant? Or to his house?
Vega hit the reply button. His call went to voice mail. He left a terse message: “Call me right away. Whatever you do, don’t go to Langstrom’s house.” He sent the same message on a text. No reply. He jumped on the highway and drove over the speed limit the whole way to Valley. He’d feel foolish if it turned out that all Langstrom had done was take Joy for a pizza at the local student dive.
Then again, nothing felt foolish when he thought about that video of Zoe Beck.
He was almost at the campus when a set of flashing red-and-blue lights lit up the interior of his truck. He saw a Mayfair Police Department cruiser in his rearview mirror. Puñeta! Mayfair was two stoplights bookended by the county hospital on one side and the community college on the other. The cops here likely never saw anything bigger than a fender bender or a drunken frat boy who’d wandered too far off campus. They didn’t know Vega. They weren’t going to be in a hurry with him.
Even so, he was surprised when they spoke to him over the loudspeaker.
“Get out of the car. On the ground. Hands behind your head.”
What? For going ten miles over the speed limit? In a pickup with a PBA sticker on the back windshield?
Vega opened his truck door and stepped out, his hands over his head. “I’m a county police detective!” he shouted. “I’m on my way to an emergency.”
“On the ground! Now!” shouted a male voice.
The ground was wet, covered in the remnants of melting snow and grit. It was the last place Vega wanted to be. But he knew that once the guns come out, the only thing cops understand is absolute, abject obedience. This was how civilians got shot. They assumed their explanations meant something.
Vega lowered himself to his knees, then his stomach. The asphalt felt icy and wet against the front of his jacket. He shivered as he laced his gloved hands over his head.
Vega heard two voices approaching him—one male, one female.
“I’ve got a nine-millimeter Glock in my holster,” said Vega. “My badge and ID are in my wallet in my right back pocket.”
The male patted him down and removed his gun. The female cuffed him.
“Hey!” Vega protested. “What’s going on?”
The two cops pulled him to his feet. The man was black with a shaved head. His name tag read, Tripp. The woman was white with a narrow face and an overbite. DiStefano.
“Got a nine-one-one call of shots fired from a suspect matching your description in a truck with your plates,” said Tripp.
“What? I didn’t fire any shots.” Who would report such a thing?
But Vega had a sick sense he already knew. Carp was in Lake Holly tonight. Carp was doing business with Langstrom. He’d have a vested interest in tipping Langstrom off that the police were onto him. And an even greater interest in slowing Vega down if he found out that Vega’s daughter was with Langstrom this evening. Vega was betting the “associates” Carp had with him tonight were Prescott or Vanderlinden. Either of them could have put in a 911 call easily. From anywhere. Maybe even one of the station house phones.
“This is a crank call,” Vega protested.
Tripp removed Vega’s wallet from his pants pocket and fished out his police ID. He shined a flashlight on it and frowned at his face. “Hey, aren’t you that cop who shot that guy—?”
Coño. Now they really wouldn’t believe him. “Yes. That’s me. But I didn’t discharge my weapon. Check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“We’ll check everything out,” said Tripp.
Vega had a feeling they would. Very, very slowly. “Can this wait?” he asked. “My daughter’s in danger.”
“What sort of danger?” asked DiStefano.
“She went to dinner with a professor who’s a suspect in a rape, maybe even a murder.”
“A professor from Valley?” asked DiStefano.
“Yes. A guy named Jeffrey Langstrom.”
The two cops traded looks. They both seemed to recognize Langstrom’s name—which made Vega’s story sound even more dubious.
“The professor’s been charged?” asked Tripp.
“Not . . . yet,” Vega admitted.
“The police have a sworn statement from a witness? Some evidence?”
“No. But I spoke to someone who claims Langstrom abused her.”
“You’re the investigating officer?”
“No—”
“Is your daughter underage?”
“She’s eighteen,” said Vega. “And this guy’s, like, fifty.”
“So in other words,” said Tripp, “a grown woman is splitting a pizza with her professor. I think you can cool your heels while we run your ID.”
“You’re assuming they went out to eat,” said Vega. “What if she’s at his house?”
DiStefano shot a glance at her partner. They weren’t worried like Vega. But they believed in covering their asses. It was every cop’s default mode.
“What’s the address?” asked Tripp. “We can send a car to check on her.”
“I don’t know,” said Vega. “I was going to campus security to see if they had it. He’s supposed to live near here.”
“All right,” said Tripp. “Let me see if I can find anything in our database.”
Vega sat in the back of their cruiser while DiStefano examined his truck for shell casings, evidence of drugs, or other contraband.
Tripp leaned in the cruiser and looked at Vega. “Jeffrey Langstrom lives at 12 Boucher Road,” he said. “I asked one of our patrols to check the place out now.”
“Thank you.”
“You have your daughter’s cell number? I can text her for you.”
Vega reeled it off. “I tried already. She’s not answering.”
Tripp tried. She didn’t get an answer either. Also no answer. Every second in the cruiser filled Vega with more dread.
They detained him all of six or seven minutes while they ran his ID, verified that he wasn’t under the influence, and had no suspicious items in his truck—just his guitars and amps, which he clearly played. Tripp, it turned out, was a guitarist too, so they both knew the lingo. They were just about to let him go, when Tripp got a radio reply from the two cops who’d checked out Langstrom’s house.
“The professor was home, but your daughter’s not there,” he told Vega.
“Are they sure? Did they check?” Vega caught the smolder of irritation in Tripp’s eyes. No cop likes to be second-guessed.
“Her car wasn’t there, Vega,” he said more emphatically. “Langstrom said she came over, had a quick bite, and left.”
“Did they try to gain entrance to the premises?”
“They made inquiries. He declined. You know the rules, Detective. We can’t do more.”
Maybe they couldn’t. But he could.
Chapter 42
Wil couldn’t put the call off any longer. He walked into his bedroom upstairs—the room across from the pink flouncy one that looked unchanged for twenty
years. Wil sensed that space was occupied, even if the inhabitant was unseen.
The old man carried a heavy burden of grief himself. That much was clear.
Wil pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number. He heard the catch in her voice as she picked up, the way she forced a brightness he knew she didn’t feel. The deportation had taken the first part of her. The cancer had taken the rest. Two pieces of official paper separated them forever: his DACA permit, which wouldn’t allow him to leave the U.S.; her order of removal, which wouldn’t allow her to return.
“Mami?”
“Mi rey,” she breathed into the phone. Her nickname for him, “My king,” ever since he was small. Wil could hear the way the words filled up her chest. Made her sound almost well again. Made the two-thousand-mile distance between them disappear. “It’s been a long time since you called. I’ve been so worried.” Her words felt stilted, even in Spanish. Wil had to remind himself that in the Guatemalan Highlands, she spoke her native Mayan tongue—one she dropped with him once they moved to the States. He knew only a few words of Tz’utujil—an-other reason he could never make it back in Guatemala. He was a complete stranger to his own culture.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, Mami,” he replied in Spanish. “I’ve been . . . busy.” The words burned at the back of his throat. Was the sin of omission as great as a lie? If so, he was a very guilty man. “How are you feeling?”
“Well enough, thanks to God.”
“You’re going to the doctor in Santiago? Getting your chemo? Doing the radiation treatments?” The only doctors in the region were a thirty-five-minute bus ride from his mother’s house. That was, when the buses were running. Not broken. Or trapped in a muddy ditch. Or waiting on parts that might take months to arrive.
“Yes. But I feel bad taking money from you and Lando.”
Wil felt like his heart was encased in barbed wire. Every breath dug in a little deeper. “Don’t worry. I have enough.”
“But I don’t want you to drop out of school because of me. You are our future, mi rey. Your success—that’s what matters. I know Lando feels the same way. All we want is for you to graduate.”
Oh God, oh God! Do all immigrant kids feel such pressure? It was like a vise grip pinching the nerves at the back of his neck. For as long as Wil could remember, his family’s hopes and dreams had all been planted on his shoulders. His success was their success. It didn’t matter if Mami got deported. Or if Lando got jailed or drank too much. What mattered was that Wil graduated. That Wil became a doctor. An American. If he made it, they could all die fulfilled.
“Keep making me proud. Keep making Mami proud.” Weren’t those Lando’s last instructions to him?
He’d failed them both.
“How is Lando?” asked his mother. “Is he behaving himself?” She spoke as if Lando were a small, errant child. Wil had the sense his mother had long ago reconciled herself to her oldest child’s limitations. “I called his cell phone, but it’s out of service. Did he forget to pay his bill?”
“Maybe.”
“I went to the church in Santiago yesterday,” said Mami. “Do you remember it?”
“I remember.” Wil thought of those thick, whitewashed stucco walls that kept the interior cool and damp—even on the hottest days. The air itself felt like God’s breath against his cheeks.
“I said a prayer to Ixchel,” she continued. Ixchel. A Mayan goddess.
“I pray you get better too,” said Wil.
His mother laughed. “Oh, mi rey. I don’t care about me. I said the prayer for you. You and Lando.”
So much for Ixchel’s powers. Wil suspected the prayers of a pagan female goddess were no match for walls and faith built by men.
His mother tried for lighter topics. She told him how she’d wandered the markets after church and bought a lemon ice next to a narrow, cobblestoned road flanked by colorful houses with wrought-iron balconies and long, shuttered windows. She re-created the streets of his early childhood, omitting the crumbling walls, leaning roofs, and feral dogs.
Wil closed his eyes and hung on to the soothing lilt of her words. He felt like a little boy again, nestled in bed beside her. When he was growing up, it was the only chance they ever got to be close. She often worked three jobs and came home so tired that all she had the strength to do was feed him and fall into bed with the TV blaring. It was her body Wil came to know far better than the woman who inhabited it. He loved her for the arms that would hold him against her pillow-soft contours. For her humid breath on his skin. Other little boys had memories of their mothers playing games with them or teaching them to ride a bike. Wil remembered those nights watching her sleep. He learned to take comfort in her presence. In the simple act of her being. She was like gravity—a force you felt only in its absence.
He’d felt weightless since she was taken away. And every month, more of her seemed gone. Her breasts. Her hair. The doctors were carving her up, piece by piece.
“You’re so quiet tonight, mi rey. What’s wrong?”
Tell her.
“See, Mami, it’s Lando. He’s . . .”
“He’s not drinking again, is he? You tell him to reconnect his phone. He has to look after you and help you. You tell him I said that.”
Wil’s heart beat so fast, it felt like it could leap out of his chest. She’s dying, said a voice inside him. In a land she cannot leave. A land you cannot enter. Let her die a happy woman. Why destroy her with such devastating news?
“The thing is . . . Lando is . . .” Wil held back the choke in his voice.
“What?”
Maybe he could let her down gently. Do this over time. Lando isn’t well. He’s getting worse. He’s very sick. Anything but telling his dying mother that her firstborn was shot and killed by the police for a crime he didn’t commit.
“Lando hasn’t been around lately.”
“He’s . . . not living with you?”
“He’s just . . . gone. A lot.”
Silence. “You have him call me.”
“No! Mami, please. He’s . . . He’s staying with a friend. A friend who’s helping him get sober.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” The words came out before Wil could stop himself. “A woman. A good woman. She’s helping him. Mami—you should see how well he’s doing. How happy he is!”
“Well, that’s good, I guess.” Wil heard the fatigue in her voice. “You tell him I love him and I’m praying for him. I know you have to go. I know you’re studying hard. Thanks to God, one day you will graduate. I love you, mi rey.”
“I love you too, Mami.”
Wil hung up. He didn’t expect the wave of grief to wash over him like it did. It started somewhere deep in his gut. A wrenching, spasmodic pain that seized his chest and constricted his lungs. He felt like he’d been sucked down by a strong undertow. Every time he tried to take a breath, he was pulled back under. He shoved a pillow into his face, but he couldn’t entirely stop the anguished sobs that came unbidden from inside him.
A loud knock on Mr. Zimmerman’s front door forced Wil’s head from the pillow. He looked out the window to see two hulking figures in identical dark blue jackets. One had a buzz cut of silver-tipped hair. He vaguely remembered the man questioning him in the aftermath of his brother’s shooting. The other was the bald cop Wil had first met at the Lake Holly Grill.
Wil’s first thought was that Mrs. Morrison had complained again. But no—the neighbor hadn’t bothered them since that first night. And besides, these guys were detectives, not patrol officers. They wouldn’t show up about something as petty as dog doo. If they were here—at this hour—they meant business.
Wil felt like he’d swallowed a sponge that was slowly expanding inside his gut.
He wiped his tears and walked down the stairs. The two cops thumped the door again. Couldn’t they see the doorbell? Then again, maybe the brute noise was intended. It woke up Mr. Zimmerman in any case. He came out of his room with his wife’s pink b
athrobe wrapped around his pajamas.
“What is this racket?” he shouted, slipping his heavy black glasses onto his face.
“I think it’s the police,” said Wil. He ran ahead and opened the door. The cop with the buzz cut gave him a sharklike smile.
“Hey there, Wil. Remember me? Detective Jankowski? And my partner, Detective Greco? May we come in?”
Wil looked at Mr. Zimmerman. It wasn’t his place to invite anyone into the house.
Max Zimmerman hobbled forward with his cane to the door. “What is this about? And why are you coming here at this late hour?”
“We’re very sorry to bother you, sir,” said Jankowski. “Please feel free to go back to bed. It’s Wil we need to see.” Jankowski kept his smile plastered to his face. “In fact, Wil, you can just come to the station house with us if you want, so we don’t disturb your host.”
“Uh, okay—”
“What? No way!” said Zimmerman. “Are you arresting him?”
“Well, no,” said Jankowski.
“We just want to ask the kid some questions,” Greco added.
“Then you ask them here,” said Zimmerman. “In front of me.”
The two cops exchanged glances. “Where would you like to talk?” Jankowski asked him. “The kitchen?”
“Okay,” said Wil.
The four of them sat down at Zimmerman’s kitchen table. Normally, the old man offered visitors something to drink. But not this time. He seemed to feel as threatened by their presence as Wil did.
Greco took out a small vial that looked like a toothbrush holder. He twisted it open and handed the wand to Wil. “We just need you to touch the swab to the inside of your cheek.” A guard at the jail had made Wil do the same thing after Wil was locked up. He didn’t have a choice then, and he suspected he didn’t have a choice now. He reached for the wand to comply.
“Why?” asked Zimmerman.
“Relax, sir,” said Jankowski. “Mr. Martinez did this at the jail already. He knows the procedure.”
“If he did it already, why does he have to do it again?”
Wil could see that the old man’s interference was annoying the cops. Something flashed in Greco’s eyes, but his voice stayed calm and patient. “Because we need one too.”
A Place in the Wind Page 30