Voice with No Echo

by Suzanne Chazin

  “We’ll be watching, cipote,” he grunted, shoving the boy’s cheap cell phone back into his hoodie pocket. “You. Your family. You want them to live long, happy lives? Find that phone. We’ll be in touch.” The SUV turned the corner and sped off.

  Erick stood frozen on the curb next to his bike and bag of now-bruised vegetables and leaking milk. All that stood between him and his family’s safety was a phone. A phone that wasn’t in their apartment. He knew. He’d looked. He had no idea where it could be. Only Lissette knew. And either she wasn’t telling—

  Or she couldn’t anymore.

  Erick felt something warm trickle down one leg of his jeans. The warmth quickly turned cold and clammy. And he knew as he stood there, shivering in shame, that his fear wasn’t just for what the men had done to him.

  It was for what they could still do. To all of them.

  Chapter 20

  Vega and Michelle sat in the Taurus in stunned silence after they left Billy Kelso.

  “We have no proof that anything that private investigator just told us is true,” Michelle insisted. “It’s not like Kelso did surveillance on Crowley and caught him having sex with human trafficking victims.”

  “I know,” said Vega. “But if it’s true and Talia was planning to go to the police, it provides a strong motive for Crowley to kill her.”

  “Crowley was in Albany when his wife died,” Michelle reminded him. “If he hired someone else to kill her, where’s the evidence of forced entry? Of Talia resisting? Why is the housekeeper missing?”

  Vega had no answers, especially regarding Lissette. He turned over the Taurus’s engine and nosed out of the ballfield parking lot.

  “You update Greco,” Vega told Michelle. “He thinks I’m a broken record with my suspicions about Crowley.”

  Michelle dialed Greco’s cell and filled him in while Vega drove north, tapping the steering wheel and brooding about the case. He kept coming back to Lissette. She was at the heart of everything.

  “Ask Grec whether he and Sanchez had any luck at the Magnolia Inn.”

  Michelle relayed Vega’s question, then fielded his reply.

  “He says he and Sanchez showed Lissette’s picture around. Nobody there knew her. He did, however, find a taxi driver who dropped Lissette off at the Crowleys’ house on Friday morning.”

  Vega was pleased by the confirmation that Lissette was likely the one who brought in that New York Times. Yet the question still remained: Why didn’t Lissette call the police as soon as she discovered Talia’s body? Or, if she was afraid to call the police, why didn’t she at least call Glen Crowley?

  Because she knows something about Talia’s death, thought Vega. Something she isn’t supposed to know.

  Vega thought about Elmer Ortega’s list with those five names. Two, at least, had been facing deportation—Cesar Zuma and Edgar Aviles. Now Zuma was dead and Aviles was on the run. What about those other names on that list, Vega wondered? He couldn’t shake the sense that that list was the key to finding Lissette. And Lissette was the key to finding out what happened to Talia.

  Vega made a right and headed east, away from the direction of Lake Holly.

  “You missed your turnoff,” said Michelle.

  “No, I didn’t,” said Vega. “I want to make a stopover in Broad Plains and run those names from Elmer Ortega’s list through the ICE database.”

  “What? Now? Do you know how big a job that is?” asked Michelle. “We don’t have birth dates or addresses. We don’t even know if we have their names in the right order.”

  “All I’m asking is for you to input the names into the database.”

  “It’s almost three,” Michelle argued. “We’ve got statements to write up from Lori Danvers and Billy Kelso. You’ve got a gig tonight. I’ve got two hungry kids at home—”

  “You’ll still see your kids and I’ll make my gig. Come on,” Vega urged her. “It’s a Saturday. The place will be empty. How hard can it be to type five names into a computer?”

  * * *

  The Broad Plains headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement was housed in a ten-story brown-brick office building that looked like it had been fashioned out of a shipping carton. It was cut-rate and government-issue all the way, from its faded flags in the lobby to its dim lighting in the hallways. Vega and Michelle parked in an underground lot, signed in with a security guard, and took the elevator to the fifth floor.

  The waiting area had a big blue ICE logo on the wall and not one but six American flags in various sizes and configurations. Rows of plastic chairs lined the waiting area where desperate immigrants waited on weekdays to plead their cases. Everything was quiet on a Saturday afternoon.

  Michelle swiped her pass and led Vega through a locked door and into a space full of fabric-partitioned cubicles. The desks were nicer than the ones Vega saw in all the police stations he’d been in, including his own. They had a shiny blond veneer of wood and the partitions were a soft cream color—not the usual beige or gray. It gave the whole operation a touch of class that seemed out of keeping with ICE’s street image.

  Michelle walked Vega past an open desk with a big dish of candy and a banner full of flowers and bunnies that read, HAPPY SPRING, across it. Vega swiped a miniature Snickers bar from the candy dish.

  “Is that okay?” he asked. “I’m not breaking some federal law that’s gonna get me deported?”

  “Really Jimmy.” Michelle pulled a face. “We’re not like that. Especially Karen, our administrative assistant. She’s like a den mother around here. She’s the one who puts up our holiday decorations and bakes cupcakes for people’s birthdays.”

  “We don’t have den mothers at the county police,” said Vega. “When we have a birthday, someone on the squad sticks a flashlight in a roll of toilet paper and props it next to a doughnut.”

  Michelle laughed. “We should loan you Karen.”

  The walls of Michelle’s cubicle were covered in pictures of her sons. She caught Vega looking at them as she turned on her computer.

  “I think Artie Junior, my older one, looks like you,” she said. “Both of you have Pop’s eyes.”

  Vega saw it too. The pucker of flesh beneath the lower lids when the boy smiled. That unruly arch of black eyebrows.

  “Is he the shortstop?”

  “Yeah.”

  Vega wished he could think of something more to ask, but words failed him when it came to family. He whipped out his phone and pulled up Ortega’s list. He showed the names to Michelle. She took a deep breath.

  “Okay. Let’s get started.”

  Vega thought he heard some disappointment in her exhale. She wanted things from Vega that he didn’t know how to give.

  She turned to her computer and typed in Cesar Zuma-Léon.

  “Here he is,” said Michelle. “Age thirty-two. Birthplace: Honduras. Occupation: housepainter. No criminal record. One driving citation.”

  Vega bent over the screen and looked at the mug shot next to the information. It matched the man Vega had seen lying on the tracks. “That’s him, all right.”

  Michelle squinted at the screen. “It says here, he was cited five years ago for driving without a license.”

  “Was that when he came to the attention of ICE?”

  “Looks like it,” said Michelle. “He applied for asylum. It was denied two years ago. He missed his court date on the appeal.”

  Or more likely, ran out of money and figured it was a lost cause, thought Vega. “When did he go into priority removal?”

  Michelle clicked onto another screen. “Huh,” she murmured.

  “What?”

  “He didn’t. There’s no indication he was ever shifted into priority removal. That’s not to say ICE wouldn’t have picked him up in a raid and deported him. But we weren’t gunning for him.”

  “I saw the letter in his shirt pocket,” said Vega. “It said he had to deport immediately.”

  “I know,” said Michelle. “But there’s no record of
anything like that here.”

  Vega read the next name on the list to her: Jesús Monroy-Peña. Again, she was able to call it up on her computer. Monroy was a thirty-eight-year-old Guatemalan who worked as the foreman on a horse farm in Wickford. He’d come to ICE’s attention after his employers asked him to apply for legal status. His application was denied. But again, there was no record that ICE had put him into priority removal.

  Vega leaned over Michelle’s computer to get a better look at Monroy’s mug shot. He noticed the name of the farm in Wickford where Monroy worked: Springdale.

  “That farm rings a bell,” said Vega. “I think they had a break-in there a few months ago. The county was called in to help. The owner kept a lot of guns, as I recall.”

  “Did they catch the suspect?” asked Michelle.

  “I don’t think so, but I’d have to check. It wasn’t my case.” Vega took out a pen and made a note to call Wickford to see if they’d ever spoken to Monroy.

  Michelle moved on to the next name, the only female on the list: Deisy Ramos-Sandoval. Age: sixteen. Birthplace: El Salvador. No criminal record. No infractions of any kind.

  “It says here, Deisy crossed the border three years ago as an unaccompanied minor,” said Michelle. “A judge issued her temporary asylum while her application for permanent asylum makes its way through the courts.”

  Vega leaned in closer and looked at the mug shot on the screen. It showed a young teenage girl with soft brown eyes and dimpled cheeks. Vega reared back.

  “It’s her.”

  “Who?”

  “Deisy. Deisy and Nelly.” Vega fumbled for his phone, scrolling until he found a copy of the photograph he’d seen in Talia’s drawer. The one of the two little girls on that lush green hillside in Central America. He showed it to Michelle.

  “It’s the same girl, all right.”

  “It’s more than the same girl,” said Vega excitedly. “It’s the direct connection we’ve been looking for. Deisy Ramos. Her picture was sitting in a wallet in the back of Talia Crowley’s dresser drawer. Her name is on Elmer Ortega’s list.”

  “Yes, but why?” asked Michelle. “Was Talia involved in helping this girl? Was the girl connected to Lissette?”

  Vega read the file over Michelle’s shoulder. It said that Deisy lived in Port Carroll with her mother, stepfather, and two half brothers. There was no mention of a “Nelly.” Maybe Nelly was a cousin still residing in El Salvador.

  “I don’t understand what a sixteen-year-old asylum-seeker would be doing on that list,” said Michelle. “Cesar Zuma was illegal. So is Edgar Aviles since his TPS was rescinded. But Deisy—she has temporary asylum. She doesn’t need some gangbanger to help her avoid deportation. If anything, he’d hurt her chances.”

  “Maybe someone convinced her otherwise.” Vega thought about the removal letter from ICE that the Metro-North police found in Cesar Zuma’s pocket. He mentioned it to Michelle.

  “Do you think it was real?” he asked.

  “It had to be.”

  “I don’t remember who signed it,” said Vega. “You’ve got no record of it in your files.”

  “Greco must have a copy he can text to me,” said Michelle. “If someone from our office signed it, I’d recognize the name.”

  They split up after that. Michelle texted Greco to ask about that letter and finish inputting the names into the computer. Vega called his contacts in Wickford about the Springdale Farm break-in.

  “You can use Karen’s desk,” Michelle offered. “Just don’t eat all her candy.”

  * * *

  Sitting at Michelle’s administrative assistant’s desk felt like visiting someone’s grandma. There were potted plants and tiny crocheted stuffed animals scattered about the desktop. There were dozens of snapshots and Bible quotes pinned to a partition. Karen Hurst appeared to have a very big and very loving family. Vega tried to move as few things as possible as he attempted to track down the threads to a case that seemed to be multiplying by the minute.

  He started by calling Mark Hammond, a detective friend at the Wickford Police. Hammond was playing golf, this being a sunny spring Saturday. But he was happy to fill Vega in on the details of the robbery from the thirteenth hole.

  “It was quite a haul,” said Hammond. “The thieves got away with two shotguns, one pistol, and about thirty thousand dollars in cash and jewelry.”

  “Any indication it was an inside job?” asked Vega.

  “Every,” said Hammond. “The thieves had the alarm code.”

  Vega asked Hammond if they’d interviewed Monroy.

  “The foreman? Sure,” said Hammond. “He’s worked for the Eldridges for eight years. Takes care of all their horses. He has the alarm codes for everything so we looked at him closely.”

  “And?” Vega heard the thwack of balls and the stutter of sprinklers in the background. Hammond’s mind was on the game. It was an effort to get him to connect to the messiness of crime while he was surrounded by so much manicured greenery.

  “We couldn’t find anything that tied him to the heist,” said Hammond. “He had a solid alibi the night of the break-in. He was helping his brother at a catering gig. A hundred people saw him there. Plus, afterward, he didn’t start flashing around a lot of cash or new purchases—which is usually the case in these things.”

  “No drug use?”

  “None.”

  “Talk to him again,” said Vega. “Tell him his name is on a list we recovered from the pocket of a dead gangbanger by the name of Elmer ‘Cheetos’ Ortega, the chief suspect in the jewelry-store heist in Lake Holly a few weeks ago. See what he says.”

  “Will do,” said Hammond. “Thanks for the tip.” Vega hung up and wandered back to Michelle’s cubicle. He found her staring at her computer screen with a frozen look of disbelief on her face. In front of her was the ICE file of the fourth name from the list: Wilmer Diaz-Garcia. Age: Forty-two. Birthplace: Ecuador.

  “Well?” asked Vega. “Don’t tell me he’s a suspect in a crime as well?”

  “No,” said Michelle. “But his wife, Nelda, was.”

  “What?” Vega pulled up a chair and sank into it.

  “Nelda Diaz was questioned by police in the break-in of her employer, a CEO who lives in Quaker Hills.”

  “Why is that showing up in Wilmer Diaz’s file?”

  “Because Nelda confessed,” said Michelle. “She told the Quaker Hills police that an ICE agent contacted her and showed her an order of removal for her husband, Wilmer. She said the agent promised her if she gave up the alarm code of her employer’s residence, her husband could get his deportation order reversed.”

  “Did she have the agent’s name?”

  “She said he didn’t give it.”

  “How convenient,” said Vega. “You think it’s a cover story? Or someone really scammed her?”

  “It must be a scam,” said Michelle. “I can’t even find an order of removal for Wilmer Diaz before this happened.”

  “What do you mean, before?”

  “A day after Nelda confessed, both Diazes were rounded up in a raid and subsequently deported back to Ecuador.”

  “Ay, puñeta! Do you think that’s just coincidence?”

  “I don’t know,” said Michelle. “It seems like every person on that list believed they were imminently in danger of being deported—even when the files suggest they weren’t. Someone was playing them. A con man or . . .”

  Or an agent inside ICE.

  Vega sat back in his chair and thought through the implications. It felt like he and Michelle were looking at a modern-day version of the Greek Trojan horse. A seemingly innocuous gift with treachery at its core. What better way to gain inside information about alarm codes, valuables, and the comings and goings of wealthy homeowners and upscale businesses than through low-level immigrant workers such as maids, gardeners, and housepainters? What better way to ensure those workers cooperated but to threaten them with deportation if they didn’t?

  “What
about Aviles?” asked Vega. “Did you run his name?”

  “I ran the surnames as they appear on the list and in reverse order,” said Michelle. “The only one in New York that turned up was Edgar Aviles-Ceren.”

  “I’m assuming his priority removal is legit,” said Vega.

  “He’s on the list. But he was only moved there about a week ago.”

  “Who moved him?”

  “I don’t know. There are no initials next to his change in status.”

  “Is that common?”

  “It happens,” she admitted. “Names move so quickly through the system, people make mistakes. Agents forget to enter their initials. Names are misspelled. Records are entered into the wrong file.”

  Michelle’s phone dinged with a text. She opened the screen. “It’s Greco,” she said. “He sent a copy of Cesar Zuma’s removal letter.”

  Michelle pulled up the letter. A puzzled look crossed her features.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Daniel Wilson signed the letter a month ago.”

  “He works here, doesn’t he?”

  “Worked—past tense,” said Michelle. “Dan Wilson retired from ICE five months before this letter ever went out.”

  Chapter 21

  “Daniel Wilson ordered Cesar Zuma’s deportation five months after he retired?” Vega was incredulous.

  “There must be some mistake,” said Michelle. “Maybe the letter got waylaid and someone else signed his name to it.”

  “Or maybe he’s found a novel way to supplement his retirement income.”

  “Not Dan Wilson,” Michelle insisted. “He’s a true believer. Me and a lot of the other agents joined ICE for the benefits, pay, and job security. We believe in our jobs and all. But it’s not a mission. Dan considers it his patriotic duty. I can’t see him blackmailing illegals into committing crimes. This has to be a mix-up or something. Zuma simply caught a five-month break.”