Vega played a football fantasy game on his phone to distract himself. He stretched out his legs, careful not to trip anyone walking by. At home, he might have lost himself in the game. But not here. His eyes flicked up at regular intervals, scanning the rows for trouble—seen and unseen. It was the cop in him. He could never be totally oblivious to his surroundings. But even so, he still might have overlooked the dark-skinned Hispanic girl with the Asian eyes walking down the center aisle of the laundromat.
If not for her light pink windbreaker.
What was she doing here? Was she running away? He couldn’t think of any other reason why a thirteen-year-old Lake Holly girl, fresh from Honduras, would be wandering around a Bronx laundromat on a Sunday night.
Vega watched her walk into the bathroom with a blue backpack slung over one shoulder. He put away his phone and rose from his chair. He didn’t want to be obvious about following her so he bought a Snickers bar at the candy machine and pretended he’d just seen her for the first time as she stepped out of the bathroom.
“Mija.” My daughter—a gentle endearment. “What are you doing here?” he asked in Spanish. “Do you remember me? I bought you and your brother candy last night at the hospital.”
Yovanna’s eyes flared in surprise for a brief moment, then she looked down at her feet. Vega noticed that her purple canvas sneakers were soaked from traipsing through the snow. She had no hat or gloves. What parent would send a child out in spring clothes on a night like this?
Marcela hadn’t. This was the teenager’s own doing. That much was becoming crystal clear.
Vega crouched down next to the vending machine and held the Snickers bar out to her. He wanted to meet her downcast eyes and make himself as small and unthreatening as possible. “I bought the wrong item. Would you like it?”
Yovanna looked torn. If she was running away, she was probably hungry. On the other hand, she clearly didn’t want to engage him.
“It’s okay,” Vega said softly. “I won’t hurt you, mija.” He didn’t tell her he was a cop. That wouldn’t soothe a Honduran teenager who’d just seen what passed for justice on both sides of the border. So he concentrated on associations. “I know your mother, Marcela. She used to babysit for my girlfriend’s daughter. My name is Jimmy, by the way.”
Vega waited for her to tell him her name. She didn’t. Instead, she took the candy bar from his outstretched hand and settled into one of the chairs along the wall. She sat the backpack in her lap while she unwrapped the bar. She bit off a huge chunk and chewed noisily. She was hungry. Vega sat down in the chair next to her and kept his gaze straight ahead so she would feel less threatened.
“Does your mother know you’re here?” he asked softly.
The girl didn’t answer. Vega had to let Marcela know her daughter was safe but he didn’t have her number. He decided to bluff.
“Okay, Yovanna.” He used her name now to let her know he meant business. “I’m going to have to call your mother. I can’t let you just wander around New York City without your mother knowing where you are.”
“No!” That woke her out of her stupor. She looked at him now. “Please. I have to do this.”
“Do what? Run away?”
“I have to meet a man.”
Vega felt sick. No man who wanted to meet a thirteen-year-old girl was up to anything good. Vega pumped her for information. “So this man—he’s supposed to meet you here?”
“No. In front of a dollar store a few blocks from here. He’s picking me up in an hour. But it’s cold and I needed someplace warm to stay until then.”
“Do you know his name?”
“No. I just have a phone number for him.” Probably a burner, thought Vega. These sorts of low-lifes have dozens of disposables they use once and throw away.
“Do you know what he looks like?”
“No. But he said he will know me.”
“Yovanna, getting mixed up with some rastrero who will abuse you is not the way.”
Yovanna frowned. “But I’m not. I’m just giving him something. Something that will fix all of my family’s problems.”
“You are thirteen years old, mija. If your family is having problems, it’s not because of you.”
“But it is! If I weren’t here, my grandfather would still be alive. My mother said so. I heard her!”
“Ay.” Vega dropped his head in his hands. He felt terrible that this poor girl had to carry this burden at such a tender age.
“My mother said she wished he’d stop calling and the situation would go away,” said Yovanna. “So I got his phone number off her cell. I can handle this myself.”
“And what exactly are you supposed to give this man that is going to fix all of your family’s problems?”
“Just this.” Yovanna unzipped her backpack and pulled out a shiny silver disc—a CD or DVD—wrapped in a single sheet of newspaper. The grooves caught the overhead lights and sparkled. Yovanna flipped the disc over to the cover side. Someone had scribbled numbers across it in black magic marker. A date.
Vega’s heart froze.
He was never good at remembering birthdays. He and Wendy once had a terrible fight because he forgot their anniversary. He had to write down every date on his calendar for the littlest thing or it slipped his mind. But he knew that date: it was branded onto his heart.
That was the date his mother was murdered.
This was the missing DVD. And on it, most likely, was video security footage of his mother’s murderer. Vega snatched the DVD out of Yovanna’s hands.
“Hey! That’s mine!”
Vega got to his feet and held it out of her grasp. “Where did you get this?” he demanded. He forgot for a moment that he was talking to a frightened thirteen-year-old child.
“Give it back! If I don’t hand it over, he’ll hurt my family!”
“And if you do, he’ll kill you. The man you’re meeting with is a murderer, Yovanna.”
“Give it back!” She started to cry. Loudly. Loud enough that even over the rumble of washers and dryers, people heard her. Three young Hispanic men in the adjoining aisle walked over, forming a wall between Vega and the front door.
“Are you messing with this girl?” the stockiest one demanded. He had a snake tattoo running down the side of his neck. His buddies were behind him. Vega could feel the machismo radiating off their bodies. They were already priming themselves to throw a punch in defense of her honor. Coño! He’d had enough fistfights in the last twenty-four hours to last him a lifetime.
Vega slipped the DVD into the pocket of his jacket and flashed his badge. “I’m a police officer and this girl and her belongings are part of a criminal investigation.”
Snake tattoo thrust out his chin at Vega’s badge. “What the hell is that? That ain’t NYPD. You some kind of mall cop or something? That don’t count for shit here, man.”
Snake tattoo’s words emboldened the dozen or so people beginning to gather around Vega and Yovanna. “Give her back her stuff!” yelled an obese young woman in a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. She flung a wet towel at Vega. He ducked.
Yovanna clawed at Vega’s pocket for the DVD. He grabbed her by her arms and began maneuvering her out of the store. “Help me!” she cried to the onlookers in Spanish. “This police officer shot and killed my grandfather. And now he wants to hurt me, too!”
The crowd pressed in as Vega half dragged, half carried Yovanna and her backpack out the door. “Let her go!” they began chanting. Vega knew he had to act fast before they cut off his exits.
“You are coming with me,” he told Yovanna in Spanish. “You are thirteen years old, your family has no idea where you are, and whether you believe me or not, your life is in danger if you turn over that DVD.”
He thought the people inside EZ Clean would give up once he hit the street. He thought the cold and snow would be enough to keep the two dozen or so patrons inside. But they were worked up now. And the crowd was getting bigger. The commotion had attracted the attention of
two guys drinking outside a bodega on the opposite corner. Soon several more people from the bodega joined in. Word had started to spread that Vega wasn’t just any cop. He was the cop who’d shot a dishwasher from the neighborhood. “Let-her-go!” was soon replaced by the chant, “Kill-er-cop!”
Things were escalating—and fast.
Vega backed up toward the school. Torres owned the laundromat. People around here respected him. Surely he could calm them down. But would he even know what was happening right now? God forbid Joy should walk out into this.
“I’m trying to save your life,” Vega hissed at Yovanna. Crash. Somebody tried to throw a beer bottle at his head and missed. People had their fists raised in the air. Their mouths were hard and angry. Vega wasn’t sure he could hold the crowd off much longer. He tried to speak but his voice was drowned out by the chanting.
“Let me go!” Yovanna shouted. “This has nothing to do with you!”
“That DVD has evidence of a murderer on it. My mother’s murderer!” Vega shouted.
“You’re lying,” she insisted.
“I’m not.” Vega tried to maneuver her up the steps of the school. He heard the click of a push bar behind him. A door opened.
“Everyone! Please! Stay cool. We can work this out.” Vega had never been so happy in all his life to hear Freddy Torres’s voice.
Chapter 36
The gathering was supposed to kick off with cocktails at five, followed by Adele’s keynote speech at five-thirty followed by dinner at six. It was an awkward arrangement, sandwiching Adele between the buzz of booze and the rumble of empty stomachs. Normally these events were a clubby affair, more akin to a college reunion than a political caucus
But not this year.
Adele saw the news vans as she nosed her Prius off the main tree-lined roadway of Fordham University and into the parking lot of Keating Hall, a fortresslike building with turrets befitting a medieval castle. At first Adele thought the media presence had to do with the fact that Ricardo Luis had planned to attend. But Luis wouldn’t be a household name to the mostly white student body.
Adele got out of her car, already cursing her little open-toed red sandals, which scooped up the falling snow with every step. The sky was skillet black but the building’s security lights were bright enough for Adele to pick out a small gathering of what looked like students on the front steps. It had to be students. They were all carrying backpacks and wearing ridiculous wool hats with pom-poms and fringe. At least they were dressed for the weather, unlike Adele. Ruben Tate-Rivera was at the center. Not only was he hijacking the event, he was bringing his own media entourage to make sure he got top billing.
Adele bundled her coat around her and ducked past the crowd. She wasn’t about to give Tate the satisfaction of being pulled into his interview.
The lobby of Keating Hall had marble floors and a high, arched ceiling with dark beams cutting across it. It did not hold heat well. Adele was freezing. She had chosen to wear a sleeveless cinched-waist chiffon in a dazzling shade of ruby red. The choice had been deliberate—to show the audience she wasn’t hiding and didn’t intend to. But at the last minute, she’d grabbed a red-and-tan silk scarf to mute the effect.
Already, she was chickening out.
She’d scrapped her speech on the way over. She had no idea what she was going to replace it with. The symposium’s theme this year was “Healing a Divided Nation.” How could she talk about healing a divided nation when she couldn’t even come to terms with her divided self? She didn’t believe that Vega had executed Hector Ponce—not after getting a near-fatal firsthand glimpse of Margaret Behring’s night vision. But that didn’t mean she thought Vega was innocent, either. He was still a police officer who’d shot and killed an unarmed man. She couldn’t go against her conscience and sweep that under the rug. In time she’d come to hate herself—and hate him, too—for such a decision.
So where did that leave her? She had no idea.
She followed the crowd down a long marble corridor. She felt relieved when she couldn’t place any of their faces. The annual event drew immigrant advocacy groups from all across the state. Adele was hopeful that the shooting wasn’t as big a news item in Buffalo or Schenectady.
At the door to the reception room, a pretty young Latina was checking in guests.
“Can I have your name?” the young woman asked Adele, checking her roster.
“Adele Figueroa.” It came out as a near whisper.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”
“Adele Figueroa.”
The chatter around her stopped instantly. People eyed her and pretended not to at the same time. They know my connection to the shooting. She suspected she knew why: Ruben Tate-Rivera.
“Ah, Adele. The lady of the hour.”
And there he was, in his trademark red bowtie, giving her a smile that was halfway between a smirk and a leer. He was surrounded, as always, by a gaggle of young, good-looking female assistants.
He sidled up to her. “Ricardo Luis isn’t coming.”
“He’s not?” She couldn’t deny a little dip of disappointment.
“His handlers have decided that he needs to keep a low profile from here on out. His publicist called me earlier and said he’s making no further public appearances or statements related to the shooting.”
“What changed his mind?” But even as Adele asked this, she knew. Her questions had made him uncomfortable today. Why, she couldn’t say. Still, none of this explained the media’s extreme eagerness to cover what amounted to a collegial gathering of activists.
“I saw you talking to reporters on the front steps,” said Adele. “There were more cameras out there than I’ve seen in all my years at one of these events.”
“The media goes where there’s a story.”
“And what story is that? Nothing I say—or you say—tonight is going to change the immigration debate in this country one iota.”
Tate frowned. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“What?”
Tate took her arm. “Come.” He turned to his assistants and told them he would catch up with them later.
“Where are we going?” He never traveled anywhere without an entourage.
“Someplace quiet.”
Farther down the hallway was an alcove with windows that overlooked a broad expanse of lawn and several gothic fieldstone buildings that made Adele forget she was in the Bronx. It was snowing harder now. Tiny flakes imprinted on the lead glass and then melted. The drive home was going to be hell.
“He didn’t call you?” asked Tate.
“Who?”
“The cop. Vega.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s an impromptu demonstration going on right now outside a charter school off the Grand Concourse. Know what they’re shouting? ‘Jail killer cops.’ ”
“I will not be cowed by a mob mentality,” said Adele. “The shooting didn’t even happen in the Bronx.”
“Adele, they’re not demonstrating about the Wickford shooting. They’re demonstrating about what just happened. Right here. This evening. In the Bronx. That’s why the news stations wanted to interview me just now. That’s how I learned about the situation. From them.”
“You mean some other cop just shot a civilian?”
“I mean your boyfriend just grabbed the granddaughter of the man he shot and dragged her out of a laundromat against her will. He’s inside that charter school with her now and no one’s quite sure what’s going on.”
“Jimmy? Yovanna? Why would either of them be in the Bronx?”
“I don’t know. I thought perhaps maybe you did. But apparently, he’s not even communicating with you.” Tate raised an eyebrow. “So tell me, do you still want to go on that stage and defend him?”
Chapter 37
“You can’t seem to visit the ’hood these days without getting in trouble, can you, carnal?”
Torres ushered Vega and Yovanna into the school lo
bby and locked the door behind them. He was still wearing a bulky hoodie and sweats from his basketball tournament earlier. “Now, what is this about?” he demanded. “And why in hell are you taking this kid anywhere against her will?”
Joy watched her father and Torres from a corner of the front entrance hall. Vega could tell by her sulky hooded expression that he’d failed her once again. “I’m sorry” wasn’t going to keep cutting it anymore.
“It’s not like it looks,” Vega assured Torres and his daughter. “It’s for her own good. She ran away from home. Her family’s got no idea where she is.”
Joy nodded to Yovanna who was looking sullenly at her wet sneakers. “Can’t she answer for herself?”
“She doesn’t speak English,” Vega explained to his daughter. “She needs to come back to Lake Holly with us. That’s where her family lives.”
Yovanna exploded in a sudden burst of panicked Spanish that he and Torres could understand but Joy couldn’t.
“He took something that belongs to me!” the teenager shouted, gesturing to Vega.
“What is she saying, Dad?”
Torres raised an eyebrow and answered Joy. “The girl says your father took something from her.” Torres turned to Vega. “What’s she talking about, Jimmy?”
“Nothing!” Vega didn’t want to go into it here. He wanted to get the girl home and look at the evidence himself before turning it over to the police. “It’s nothing. I’ll return it.”
“But what is it?” asked Joy. “Jewelry? Clothing?”
Torres asked Yovanna in Spanish. Yovanna told him. Even with Joy’s limited Spanish skills, she could translate Yovanna’s “de-ve-de.” Vega wished the girl would just keep her mouth shut.
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