He dialed another number and got through on the third ring.
“If you’re not about to jump off a building, can you at least let me finish my lunch?” No doubt it was something smothered in tomato sauce, garlic, and cheese.
“Hey, Grec,” said Vega. “You’ve got a friend in the Bronx detectives squad, right?”
Greco stopped chewing and swallowed. “Tony Carlucci,” he said. “He lives in my neighborhood. Why?”
“I need him to get two phone numbers for me. One for a retired detective named Mike Brennan, and the other for a homicide detective who transferred to some FBI joint task force: John Renfro.”
“And I ask again, why?”
Vega told Greco about Ponce being the super in his mother’s building and what he’d found combing through the paperwork on her murder investigation. “These two detectives worked the case. I’m thinking maybe they can give me some background I’m missing. The cell I have for Brennan is no longer in service and I have no idea how to reach Renfro. Carlucci can probably get both numbers easily.”
Silence. For a moment, Vega thought the call had been dropped. When Greco finally answered, his voice was barely above a whisper.
“Are you smoking that K2 shit or something? Have you been watching the news? Every immigrant group in the country wants to string you up by your cojones. They’re building a shrine to Saint Hector the Light Fingered as we speak. And you want to start investigating him? You want me to ask Carlucci to put other cops on the spot? Do you have any idea how that’s gonna look?”
“Nobody has to know,” said Vega. “All I’m asking is for Carlucci to get the cell phone numbers of two colleagues. He doesn’t have to say why. I’ll make the calls. Brennan and Renfro don’t want to talk to me? Fine. But what’s the harm in my calling them?”
“No. I’ll help you any other way, buddy. But I’m not feeding your paranoia.”
“Ponce waited seventeen minutes before he dialed nine-one-one about my mother, Grec. Her priest arrived before the cops did.”
“Yeah, so? Ponce was an illegal. You think he wants to call the cops and get questioned? He panicked and probably called the priest first and the priest told him to dial nine-one-one. If the guy was looking to hide his guilt, why call the cops at all? Why not just create a good alibi and let some neighbor find your mother and report it?”
Greco had a point. Vega walked over to the couch and sank down on one of the lumpy cushions. He felt drained. He couldn’t think straight anymore.
“Where are you right now?” asked Greco.
“Home.”
“Alone?”
“My daughter’s staying with me. She went to get groceries.”
“Good. When she gets back, go out someplace with her. Clear your head. Get some fresh air. Visit an old friend you’ve been meaning to see. You’re driving yourself nuts. Remember what I said about doing something good?”
“I remember. I’ll do something good.”
He’d go with Joy to the Bronx. To visit his mother’s grave. And while he was there, he’d take Greco’s suggestion and visit an old friend—someone who was likely to know a lot more than any half-assed sloppy police report.
Father Delgado.
Chapter 9
Adele and Sophia bought a Christmas tree on Saturday morning at the stand next to Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church. It was a disaster. Someone watching them would have thought Adele was in the witness protection program the way she threw the hood of her jacket over her head and covered her eyes with the biggest, darkest pair of sunglasses she owned despite the fact that there was barely any sun. Get in. Get out. That was the plan. She grabbed the first tree she could find in her price range and stood it up for her daughter. A balsam. It smelled great even if it was shaped like an avocado.
“This looks good. Or this.” Adele grabbed the one next to it that had a big bare spot in back. Burl Ives crooned “Holly Jolly Christmas” over the tinny speakers by the inflatable Santa Claus.
“But they’re both so short!” complained Sophia.
“And fat, so there’s plenty of space on them to decorate!” Hmmm—new way to look at her own wardrobe.
They bought the one that looked like an avocado. Sophia grumbled the whole way home.
“I thought Jimmy was going to help us,” said the child. “Did you two have a fight?”
“No. We just have some things we—need to work out.”
“That’s what you said when you and Daddy separated.” Sophia was nine going on nineteen. Her sense of the world was growing almost as fast as her limbs. Adele tried to ignore it. That was her default mode for everything: the emails and texts pouring in, the phone calls from friends and colleagues, the grilling she got from her ex this morning. If Vega could shut down all questions, then so could she.
“We’ll have fun decorating the tree together,” said Adele. “We’ll set it up in the living room and string it with popcorn. And maybe some cranberries.”
“Diablo will eat the popcorn and cranberries,” Sophia told her mother. She was probably right. This morning, Diablo had already turned one of Sophia’s favorite sneakers into an open-toed sandal and eaten through the lining on her bike helmet. Diablo’s owner had given Adele two toys for the dog to chew on. He hadn’t touched either since he’d arrived.
“We’ll just have to keep him away from the tree.”
When they got back home, Adele fetched a stepladder from the garage and climbed up to untie the ropes that secured the tree to the car.
“It’s so small,” complained Sophia.
It looked like a bloody great monster to Adele, especially when she tried to tip it off the roof of the car. She ended up with a broken fingernail, a patch of sticky pinesap on her favorite suede jacket, and a head full of pine needles. She was shaking the mess off her shoulders and hair when she heard a familiar voice call to her from the sidewalk.
“Would you like a hand?”
Dave Lindsey stood at the foot of Adele’s driveway with a backpack slung over one shoulder and his hands stuffed awkwardly in his jacket pockets. Though he lived in town and owned a real estate brokerage firm here, Adele couldn’t remember the chairman of the board of La Casa ever stopping by her house before.
This wasn’t a social visit.
Adele studied the tree at her feet. It was lying on its side like some hunter’s slaughtered deer carcass. “Sure. Thanks.”
Lindsey traveled the length of her driveway in three or four long strides. He had the slightly stooped shoulders and spider legs of a man who always got recruited for basketball as a kid whether he wanted to or not. He once confided in her that his shyness and size as a boy got him the nickname “Lurch,” after the ghoulish fictional butler in The Addams Family television show. Adele wished he hadn’t told her that. She could never see him now without thinking of the name.
Lindsey leaned over Adele’s tree, poked a leather-gloved hand through the branches, and yanked the balsam into an upright position. The tip didn’t even crest the underside of his chin.
“Is Santa growing his elves taller these days?” Adele quipped. “Or are you here to tell me I’m on the naughty list?” She wanted to keep the conversation light and playful. Sophia was still waiting impatiently on the front steps to get the tree into the house.
“We need to talk, Adele. And since you’re not returning emails or phone messages—”
“I wasn’t aware that my contract with La Casa required me to be on call twenty-four-seven.”
“There’s a fire blowing through this community. This is not the time to play hide-and-seek.”
“Mom! I’m cold,” said Sophia. “Can we take the tree in?”
Adele fished her keys out of her handbag and walked them over to the child. “Go inside. I’ll be there in a minute, lucero.” Bright star—her nickname for her daughter.
“But we were going to decorate the tree—”
“And we will!” She’d get this damn tree decorated today if it killed her.
Adele waited until the child had stomped off inside and she heard Diablo bark out a greeting. Then she turned back to Lindsey who was still holding the tree upright like some shield that could protect him from her wrath.
“Exactly how am I supposed to have this sort of conversation today? I have my daughter to take care of. She doesn’t know about any of this. Nor do I want her to. Her former babysitter is the daughter of the man who was shot.” Adele couldn’t bring herself to say, “the man Detective Vega shot.” She preferred to think of the shooting as some force of nature, spontaneous and ineluctable—not the willful actions of the man she loved.
Lindsey took a moment with Adele’s revelation. “Have you spoken to her yet?”
“I haven’t spoken to anybody. How can I? What would I say that wouldn’t cause somebody in my life a lot of pain?”
“I understand your predicament, Adele. I do,” said Lindsey softly. “But things are heating up. I’m not sure you realize just how much. Let me get your tree inside for you. Get Sophia settled in her bedroom or something for a little while. We need to talk.”
If anybody else had shown up on Adele’s front lawn this morning, she might have written it off as an overreaction. But Lindsey was no zealot. He’d started out a decade ago as a vocal opponent of an immigrant outreach center in Lake Holly, insisting at town meetings and demonstrations that such a place would encourage a greater influx of “lawbreakers” into the area, thereby weakening the economy, straining public services, and spurring white flight. He became a champion of La Casa when he discovered that the newcomers were hardworking people who kept downtown vacancy rates low and made it possible for small stores to flourish. He spoke softly, thought pragmatically, and shied away from political vitriol. If he was here this morning, it wasn’t over some vague notions of injustice. It was because of something very, very real.
“Okay.” Adele sighed. “Let’s go inside.”
Lindsey carried the tree into her living room and fitted it into the stand while Adele coaxed Sophia to play in her room and then went into the kitchen and put up some coffee. She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until she placed two mugs on the kitchen table and went to take a seat. She felt a stitch in her side.
“I’ll be honest with you,” said Lindsey, folding his long frame into a chair. His legs took up most of the floor space beneath. “When I first heard about this shooting, I didn’t think it would end up quite so heated as this. But then word started coming in. First, that the suspect was unarmed. Then, that he had no criminal record. Then, that when his daughter went to ID his body at the morgue, he was unrecognizable from the neck up.”
“That’s not a rumor? He really was shot in the head?”
“Worse than the head. The chin. The bullet apparently caught him under the chin and obliterated his whole face.”
“Dear God.” Adele closed her eyes. There was only one way she could picture something like that happening.
She didn’t want to think about it.
Lindsey gave Adele a puzzled look. “The police confirmed this at a press conference this morning. Haven’t you spoken to Vega about this?”
“He can’t talk about the shooting—not even to me.”
“But you could call the DA’s office,” said Lindsey. “You have that contact there—what’s her name?” For a businessman, Lindsey was terrible with names—especially Spanish ones.
“Myrna Acevedo.” Adele had known her since law school. She and Myrna often traded things off the record. But this was different.
“Going to Myrna on this would feel like a betrayal,” said Adele.
“If Vega’s not talking—what choice do you have?”
“To wait for the results of the autopsy and police investigation before rushing to judgment.”
Lindsey shook his head. “Normally, I’d leave a decision like that in your hands. But I think you’re letting your personal feelings blindside you. This case is already garnering national attention. This morning, I spoke to both Ricardo Luis’s publicist and Ruben Tate-Rivera.”
“Ruben Tate-Rivera isn’t even from this area! He’s just looking for publicity.”
“Well, he’s going to get it. And you need to be ready.” Lindsey leaned forward and held her gaze. “Vega joked about the shooting.”
“What? That’s nonsense! He would never joke about something like that.”
Lindsey fished a piece of paper out of his backpack and handed it to Adele. “He did. Read the transcript. It’s part of the interview the DA’s investigator conducted with Wickford Police Officer Drew Franklin. Franklin and Alison Peters were the first two officers on the scene.”
“How did you get this?” asked Adele. “Even I couldn’t get this.”
“Tate faxed it to me. He’s got friends and media contacts everywhere.”
Adele put on her glasses and read the highlighted portions.
DA: Did you see Detective Vega shoot the suspect?
Franklin: No, sir. But my partner and I heard the shots.
DA: How many shots?
Franklin: Four.
DA: How close were you to the shooting?
Franklin: About fifty feet downhill from the scene.
DA: Did you get a sense how close Detective Vega and the suspect were to each other when Detective Vega shot the suspect?
Franklin: They sounded close—maybe only a few feet apart. But I can’t say for sure.
DA: How did Detective Vega behave after the shooting? Was he distraught? Nervous?
Franklin: Nervous. He kept insisting we find the gun.
DA: And what happened when you didn’t?
Franklin: I commented to my partner that I wasn’t sure the suspect had a gun and Detective Vega said, ‘No, I just blow people’s brains out for the fun of it.’
DA: He said this to you?
Franklin: I think he said this to himself but we both heard it.
DA: Do you think he was joking?
Franklin: Yes, I think he was trying to be funny.
Adele put the transcript down. “He was trying to be funny?”
“It was probably a nervous reaction,” said Lindsey. “Nevertheless, Ruben somehow managed to get this interview. Which means it’s going to become public if it hasn’t already.”
Adele knew from her days as a criminal defense attorney that people under pressure made spontaneous utterances all the time that bore no correlation to their real feelings. His “joke” was distressing. But something else in the interview was far more distressing. Officer Franklin said that Vega and Hector Ponce sounded like they were only a few feet apart. Vega never mentioned a scuffle. He had no defensive wounds. And yet Ponce was shot under the chin, which would be a difficult wound to inflict in a scuffle anyway.
If the officer’s statement was correct that Vega was standing close to Ponce, then the only way Vega could have shot Ponce under the chin was if he’d aimed his gun up against the man’s soft tissue and fired at point-blank range.
In other words, executed him.
Adele closed her eyes. She felt sick.
“This has to be wrong,” she said in a shaky voice. “I could see Jimmy losing his temper and making those stupid comments. I could. But the way the shooting is described—I refuse to believe it.”
“Adele—” Lindsey cupped his hands around his coffee mug. The mug disappeared between a wall of pale white fingers. “I’m not trying to hurt you or disparage the detective. But I wouldn’t be doing you or La Casa any good if I didn’t make you aware of all the evidence that’s starting to come in.”
“All the evidence?” Adele gave him a shocked expression. “There’s more?”
“There may be. Ruben heard from his sources that there’s a witness.”
“A witness? Who?”
“The person hasn’t come forward yet. Even Ruben doesn’t know who he or she is. But the word is, this person is highly credible. And Adele—?” Lindsey hesitated. “This person saw Vega shoot Hector Ponce in the
head at point-blank range. If that’s the case, we’re not talking about an accidental shooting anymore. We’re talking murder.”
“Oh God.” Adele dropped her head into her hands. She felt like she was watching a car accident in slow motion. “What do I do?”
“Call for a grand jury investigation.”
“You want me to ask the district attorney to put my—my—Detective Vega—on trial?” Adele felt embarrassed to use the word lover, and boyfriend felt so adolescent. It reduced her deep and satisfying affections for the man to something that could fit inside a Taylor Swift song.
“The evidence may exonerate him,” said Lindsey.
“Or put him in prison!”
“That’s not your call,” said Lindsey. “That’s the grand jury’s. In the meantime, your friend Myrna in the DA’s office may be able to give you a better picture of what’s going on.”
“The only thing that is going to give me a ‘better picture, ’” said Adele, “are the autopsy and forensic reports.”
“The autopsy won’t be ready for days,” said Lindsey. “The forensics on the case could take weeks. Social media moves at the speed of light, Adele. You’ve got that symposium at Fordham University tomorrow. Gloria Mendez, the program coordinator, called me up this morning and asked if you could address the shooting in your keynote speech.”
Adele gave Lindsey a panicked look. “You didn’t tell her that Detective Vega and I are dating, did you?”
“Of course not,” said Lindsey. “But that’s just it. You’re a leader in the immigrant community. You will be addressing the largest yearly gathering of immigrant leaders in the state. If you get on that stage at Fordham tomorrow and don’t talk about the shooting and don’t demand a grand jury investigation, people will start to wonder. Pretty soon everyone will be talking. You’ll ruin your credibility. You’ll ruin La Casa’s credibility.”
“I’m not getting up on that stage with a bunch of half-truths and innuendos.”
“Then do your homework,” said Lindsey. “Investigate the shooting. You’re a leader. Lead. Which reminds me.” Lindsey rummaged through his backpack and pulled out a book and CD. He slid them across the table to Adele. The book was Ricardo Luis’s new memoir, Song of My Heart. The cover showed Luis in a black shirt unbuttoned to his navel. The CD was a headshot with a similar dimpled grin.
No Witness But the Moon Page 9