No Witness But the Moon

by Suzanne Chazin

  They settled into an area far from the television and vending machines. “So tell me about this girl,” said Vega.

  “Her mother and stepfather live here in Lake Holly.” Adele played with the chain around her neck, sliding the cross back and forth. She was still wearing that thing. Vega wondered who she thought she was praying for. If it was Vega, God had a wicked sense of humor. She cleared her throat. “The girl’s mother is Marcela.”

  “Huh? I thought Marcela had a little boy.”

  “She does. Yovanna was living with Marcela’s mother in Honduras. She just arrived about a week and a half ago.”

  Vega felt the knowledge roll like a bead of dew across the surface of his brain for a moment before slowly sinking in. “Wait, do you mean to tell me that you spoke to Marcela today? You didn’t talk about me, did you?”

  “I wouldn’t do that. And besides, what could I talk about? You don’t tell me anything.”

  He let the dig pass. “Did she tell you about why her father went to Ricardo Luis’s house?”

  “She insists he’s not a thief. But I also gathered from the conversation that Hector borrowed money to pay for Yovanna’s passage and he hadn’t paid it back.”

  “So you knew her daughter was coming?”

  “I knew she’d arrived,” said Adele. “I can’t ask more than that. It would be—inappropriate—given my position.”

  “Not to mention that what she did is illegal.”

  “A child belongs with her mother, Jimmy. Look what we just went through with Sophia and tell me you don’t believe that.”

  “In my heart? Of course I believe it. In my head? I don’t have an answer.” Vega shot a glance at the doors beyond the brightly lit waiting area. A television screen glowed across the faces of anxious people waiting their turn to be admitted. His mind was racing. He wasn’t really thinking of Marcela and her daughter. He was thinking about Hector Ponce.

  “So Ponce borrowed money to smuggle his granddaughter from Honduras,” said Vega. “Presumably from someone with far less friendly repayment terms than Hudson United—and no free pens. How much did he owe?”

  “Eight thousand dollars.”

  Vega let out a long whistle. “Not bond-trader big. But certainly a huge chunk of change for working people, never mind immigrants.” Vega was already building a case in his head. Vega’s friend, Freddy Torres, had said that Ponce was a gambler. Maybe Ponce was counting on a big score and when it fell through, he got desperate. Ricardo Luis dined regularly at Chez Martine where Ponce worked. The Wickford police had already established that. It would have been a simple matter for Ponce to lift Luis’s address from credit card receipts and make the hit.

  Except Ponce didn’t have a car or a means to get away.

  “Jimmy? Are you listening to me?” Adele sounded frustrated. “This isn’t about Marcela’s father. It’s about Yovanna. Marcela told me this gangster gave her a week—one week—to come up with eight thousand dollars or he’d kill her daughter.”

  The cop in Vega could see it coming a mile off.

  “Let me guess.” He crumpled up his coffee cup and aimed for the wastebasket. It flew in cleanly. “Marcela wants you to give her the money.”

  “Not give. Lend. Or find a way to raise it.”

  Vega grabbed her hand. “Come.”

  “Where?”

  “Tell the front desk to call you on your phone if they need you.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I’m not having this conversation in a public waiting area,” said Vega. “That’s why.”

  He walked Adele to her car in the hospital parking lot. Neither of them spoke. Adele got in the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

  “What?” she asked him.

  “You’re getting snowed, nena. And you don’t even see it.”

  “Snowed?” He could sense her tensing. She saw everybody as a broad, open surface of good intentions. He was a cop. He saw the sharp edges and angles.

  “Marcela wants a payoff. Guilt money.”

  “What?”

  “Isn’t it convenient that she should approach you, knowing you’re the girlfriend of the cop who just killed her father?” asked Vega. “And isn’t it convenient that you’re so wracked with guilt right now that she could ask for just about anything and you’d give it?”

  “What do you take me for? An idiot?”

  “No. Never an idiot,” Vega said softly. “Just a very trusting person.”

  “Who can’t tell the difference between a con and a sincere request.”

  “You’re upset right now. You’re not thinking clearly.”

  “And you are?” She threw up her hands. She had a point there. “You don’t know Marcela like I do. She’s not that sort of person.”

  “She’s the daughter of a thief. You think blackmail’s beyond her?”

  “She came to me because she was scared.”

  “But not scared enough to contact the police. In fact, she doesn’t even want you contacting the police.”

  “Oh, and contacting the police is really going to accomplish a lot.” Adele gave him a sour look. “I’m sure Detective Greco is going to fall all over himself to help the daughter of the man you just shot protect the child she just smuggled!”

  Vega slouched in his seat. He felt impotent as a cop, impotent as a man. He couldn’t do anything right these days. “Look, I’m not saying Ponce wasn’t in hock to someone. It makes sense. And maybe this thug did contact Marcela and threaten her. But true or not, you can’t give her money. You’d be aiding and abetting—”

  “A felony. I know, Jimmy. You don’t have to educate me on the law.”

  He touched her knee. He felt her whole body relax beneath his touch. He still had that effect on her. That was something at least.

  For a moment, he felt the old energy, the spark of desire to undress her right here, right now. But something strangled it as quickly as it came. All emotion and sensation had gone dead inside of him since the shooting. Hunger. Lust. Deep, dreamless sleep. Light, playful laughter. He caught glimmers of those things but they were like trains speeding through a station. He couldn’t latch on no matter how hard he tried. Would anything ever come back? Would he spend the rest of his life at the bottom of this cold, dark well? He couldn’t tell anybody how scared he was. Not even, sadly, Adele.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked her softly now. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”

  Adele sighed. “If I had anyone else I could go to, I would. I know you’ve got enough on your plate. But this is a desperate situation. Is there some way you could make a few inquiries without letting Marcela know I told you?”

  “My department impounded the cell phone that was on Ponce when he died,” said Vega. “I’m sure Teddy Dolan got a warrant for a record of all his calls. Not that it’s necessarily come through yet, but if Ponce knew this loan shark personally, there might be a traceable number on there. You borrow a big sum like that; I suspect it’s not a faceless transaction. I can run it by him at least.”

  Adele huddled deeper into her coat. “Marcela asked me not to go to the police. I feel like I’m betraying a confidence.”

  “You can’t just sit on your hands. What if her daughter really is in danger?”

  “You won’t take it beyond an informal discussion with Dolan?”

  “Let me see what he comes up with—okay?”

  Adele locked up her car and they walked back into the building. They’d just sat down when Sophia’s doctor opened the doors of the emergency triage area and beckoned Adele to follow. She rose. “I’ve got to go. Will you—?”

  “I’ll be waiting here when you come out.”

  Adele disappeared through the doors. Vega pulled out his cell phone and texted Dolan to see if he’d gone through Ponce’s phone records yet. Vega didn’t say why he needed to know. He thought it would be better to discuss the situation in person. Not that Dolan was answering his texts anyway, it seemed. He checked his messages. There was one fr
om Isadora Jenkins:

  Name of therapist? Date and time of appointment? Answer NOW.

  Coño! She wasn’t going to leave him alone about this. He was fine. When he was helping Sophia in the woods this evening, he felt strong and in control.

  But would I have been if I’d been alone? he wondered. If I wasn’t focused on helping someone else?

  He pulled out his wallet and rifled through the billfold until he found that scrap of paper Greco had given him with Ellen Cantor’s name and phone number. He left a message on her answering machine with his name, number, and a request for an appointment. At least it would get his lawyer off his back.

  He walled himself off from the noise and commotion of the emergency room waiting area. All around him he heard babies crying and children whining for candy. Across from him he noted several glassy-eyed teenagers who’d clearly gotten into daddy’s booze and were now regretting it. He hoped they didn’t decide to get sick right now. His clothes had been through enough these past twenty-four hours.

  An ambulance barreled up to the sliding glass doors of the emergency entrance. Vega lifted his head to see two EMTs hustling a bloody man on a stretcher through the doors and into the back. The man’s face was covered with an oxygen mask. A saline drip hung from a bag. On a Saturday night, he could be anything from a motorist in a car wreck to a drunk after a fistfight. Still, he looked to be in bad shape. He’d take precedence over all the sprains and broken bones in the waiting area. Adele might be awhile.

  A Lake Holly uniformed patrol officer walked over to the admitting desk and began giving the nurse some basic check-in information. Vega went back to scrolling through his messages. He looked up just in time to see a familiar face hustling through the doors with a red licorice stick in his mouth. He took the licorice out of his mouth and began talking in low murmurs to the uniformed officer.

  This was no car wreck. Detective Greco wouldn’t be wasting his Saturday night in the emergency room for that.

  Vega got up from the couch and sidled up to Greco while he was speaking to the nurse. Greco turned, a sour look on his face.

  “What are you doing here, Vega? You’re supposed to be under the equivalent of house arrest and you end up in the emergency room? I don’t even want to know what you two were up to.”

  “Adele’s daughter sprained her ankle. I’m just waiting for them now.” Vega nodded his head toward the emergency room doors. “So is that the victim? Or a suspect you leaned on too hard?”

  Vega expected Greco to toss off some snide comment and tell Vega to beat it. It wasn’t any of Vega’s business who the man was or what the Lake Holly PD wanted with him. Instead, the big man’s jaw set to one side and he studied Vega.

  “Come. We need to talk.” Greco showed his badge at the security desk and ushered Vega into a waiting area by an operating room. He jerked a thumb at the doors.

  “Call came in right after I dropped you off,” said Greco. “Couple of teenagers found him on the banks of the Brighton Aqueduct right near the pedestrian bridge.”

  “A jumper?”

  “That’s what I thought. Until I checked his wallet.”

  “He was robbed?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. But that wasn’t the most interesting thing about him. It was the picture I found inside his wallet that got me. One of those department store Christmas photos. Of a man, a woman, and their two boys.”

  “It’s gonna be a tough Christmas for them,” said Vega.

  A door to the operating room opened and a doctor in scrubs emerged. These guys all used to look so ancient and biblical when Vega was a kid. Now they all looked like pro golfers in shower caps. The doctor pulled down his face mask and fixed his gaze on Greco. His eyes looked grim. “Are you the detective who brought him in?”

  Greco nodded. “He didn’t make it?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “All right. Thanks.” The doctor went back into the operating room to clean up. Greco kicked the chair. Vega had never seen him so visibly distressed over a victim before.

  “You probably couldn’t have saved him,” said Vega. “I guess you’re going to have to break it to his family that he’s dead.”

  “That’s the problem,” said Greco. “They already think he is. The photograph I found in this guy’s wallet? It’s a picture of Hector Ponce with his family.”

  Chapter 25

  Vega paced the waiting area, barely able to breathe. He heard the rattle of metal trays, surgical instruments, and gurney wheels on the other side of the operating room door. The dead man was being spirited away down to the hospital morgue.

  Doctors always get to bury their failures. Cops usually have to live with theirs.

  Vega wanted to feel some measure of peace from the news. If what Greco said was true, Vega hadn’t killed Hector Ponce. Then again, Ponce was dead either way and Vega had still killed someone. Some other unarmed, Hispanic man. Some other human being with a family who was about to get the devastating news that a loved one was gone. The stain on Vega was no less great just because the name had changed.

  The human being in him grieved. The cop in him wanted answers.

  “Are you sure that was Hector Ponce in the operating room?” he asked Greco.

  “No. But I just tagged the evidence in his wallet,” said Greco. “That family photo is identical to the one Alma Ponce released to the media. Do you keep pictures of other people’s families in your wallet?”

  Vega leaned back against the wall of the operating room waiting area with its soothing watercolors of sunsets and flowers. He wondered if Adele was looking for him. He wondered how he’d explain where he was. He couldn’t tell her about any of this. Not until the police made it public—and they weren’t about to do that until they knew a whole lot more.

  “I don’t understand it,” said Vega. “Marcela ID’d the other man as her father.”

  “Marcela ID’d a man whose face you shot off.”

  Vega flinched. Greco’s words were true but they still pained him greatly.

  “Most likely,” Greco continued, “what Marcela Salinez ID’d was her father’s coat and the pay stub in the pocket. As I understand from Mark Hammond over in Wickford, the ID in the man’s wallet listed an entirely different name.”

  “Antonio Fernandez,” Vega remembered. “Still, it seems to me, a man is more likely to part with a family photo than he is his paycheck.”

  “Unless Ponce lent this Fernandez guy his coat and was planning to take it back after the robbery.” Greco tossed off a laugh. It sounded like someone sawing wood.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I’m picturing the look on Ruben Tate-Rivera’s face when he realizes that he’s built an entire media scandal around you shooting a guy only to have him show up dead twenty-four hours later.”

  “I killed somebody, Grec.”

  “Yeah, you did. But that’s too complicated for Tate and the media to handle. They like things they can fit into a hundred and forty-character tweet. No one can even say for sure which one of these two bodies is Ponce’s until Dr. Gupta compares the DNA, and those results won’t come back until tomorrow at the earliest. And that’s the least of my problems.”

  Vega nodded. They both knew that the Lake Holly PD would have to treat this as a homicide investigation for the time being. Most likely, Vega’s department would be involved too, given the serious nature of the crime and its connection to the Wickford shooting. “You think he jumped? Or was pushed?”

  “We’re looking at video in the area, trying to figure out how he got there.”

  “Any video from the bridge?”

  Greco shook his head. “The town board was talking about installing security cameras at both entrances awhile back. But the price tag made them decide to just not install any nighttime lighting on the walkway instead.”

  Vega raised an eyebrow. “Those cameras will look cheap next to the lawsuit the town could be facing.”

  “Yep.” Greco agreed. “Ponce’s family may g
et richer claiming he couldn’t see and took a fall than they ever would’ve with you shooting him.”

  “That is, if he fell.”

  “Ah, the million-dollar question,” said Greco.

  “More like eight thousand.”

  “Huh?”

  Vega closed his eyes. There was no way around this. Adele had told him that Ponce was in hock for $8,000 to some gangster who’d threatened Yovanna’s life. She’d handed Vega the motive for Ponce’s robbery. And now Ponce was dead under suspicious circumstances, so that motive was more crucial than ever to the case. As an officer of the law, he couldn’t hold back evidence of this magnitude.

  “Hector Ponce owed eight thousand dollars to a loan shark at the time of his death.”

  “What?” asked Greco. “Where did you hear this?”

  “Marcela told Adele,” said Vega. “In confidence.”

  “Ain’t no such thing in a police investigation and you know it,” said Greco.

  Vega gave Greco a dirty look. Yes, he knew it. But he also knew that Adele would feel betrayed. She’d wonder how Vega could refuse to confirm or deny a single shred of information on the shooting to her, and yet so freely divulge her confidences to another police officer. It would sever Adele’s relationship with Marcela. It would break trust between her and the immigrant community. Worst of all, it would break them.