Voice with No Echo

by Suzanne Chazin

  “She lost her phone?” Vega knew that most young girls would sooner lose a limb than their phones.

  “She wouldn’t tell her mother where she was when she lost it,” said Molina. “They had a big fight and the next morning, Deisy was gone. No note. Nothing. Hilda came to me and I put out a BOLO. You’re the first sighting I’ve had.”

  “I’m not a sighting,” said Vega. “All I’ve got is that old picture and Deisy’s name on a dead mara’s list.” Vega thought about the photograph. “Do you know who the other girl was in the snapshot? It said ‘Nelly’ on the back.”

  “Nelly?” Molina got a panicked look on his round, normally cheerful face. “Let me see the picture again.”

  Vega pulled it up on his screen. Molina cursed under his breath.

  “This is bad,” he said. “Something terrible has happened to Deisy.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because Nelly was Deisy’s younger sister,” said Molina. “Deisy would never have parted with this picture you’re showing me. Not voluntarily.”

  “Why?”

  “Nelly Ramos drowned three years ago when the girls were crossing the Rio Grande into Texas,” said Molina. “That’s part of the reason Deisy was such a mess when she arrived. She watched her kid sister get swept away.”

  * * *

  They set up their equipment with a sort of grim determination after that. Like they were laying a supply line for an invasion. Molina walked Vega through the story of Deisy Ramos while they worked. His voice carried a weariness to it. They’d both heard versions of the same sad history dozens of times. Kids left behind in Central America who risked everything to be reunited with parents they hadn’t seen in so long they were strangers. Parents who’d built new lives with new spouses and children and didn’t always welcome their resentful, foreign offspring. What started out as a fairy-tale reunion seldom had a fairy-tale ending.

  They were interrupted by a pounding on the back doors.

  “I’ll bet that’s our fearless drummer,” quipped Molina.

  “The knocking just speeded up.”

  They opened the doors to see Richie Solero pushing a cart piled high with equipment. He looked like he was moving the entire contents of his apartment. Vega never got over how much time and effort it took to make a few hours of music.

  “Hey, Jimmy,” Molina shouted across the cart. “What do you call a drummer who’s late to his own gig?”

  “A deadbeat,” said Vega, right on cue. “Hey Danny—how do you know the drum solo’s coming up?”

  “Half the audience runs to the can.”

  Molina held out a knuckle and Vega rapped it. They were corny jokes that Solero had heard a thousand times before, but they usually elicited a grin from him. Or, at the very least, a middle finger. This evening, Solero didn’t even seem to hear them. His eyes, which always carried a vague sleepiness to them in the best of times, looked especially lost this evening. His face was flushed and sweaty.

  “Hey, Richie—you okay?” Molina asked.

  “Yeah. Sorry. Me and Kim were sort of going at it again.”

  Kim was Solero’s ex-wife and the mother of his two children. Money—or the lack of it—seemed to be a constant source of conflict between them. So much so, it had spilled over into Solero’s budding romance with Jenn Fitzpatrick, the crime scene tech, and ended their affair a few months ago as well.

  “Come on,” Vega said to him. “We’ll help you set up.”

  Molina and Vega each grabbed a drum box while Solero began setting up his stand. From the kitchen, Vega heard a crash of dishes followed by a string of Spanish curses. The catering staff was having their own problems at the moment.

  Molina pulled the kick pedal out of a soft zippered case and handed it to Solero to screw into place.

  “Jimmy was just telling me about that dead mara who turned up in Warburton. Cheetos Ortega. And about that list of names you found in his pocket when he died.”

  “What about it?” asked Solero.

  “One of the names on that list is a runaway from Port Carroll,” said Molina. “A sixteen-year-old Salvadoran girl named Deisy Ramos. I know the mom. She’s a waitress at the Port Carroll Diner and she’s desperate to find her. If you know anything . . . ?”

  “Sorry, Danny,” said Solero. “I don’t know anything more than you do.” He shot Vega a questioning look. “If anything, I know a whole lot less.”

  The facility’s wedding planner—a pasty-faced man in a dark, well-worn suit, gestured to Molina that he needed to speak to him. Molina excused himself to talk to the man. Solero waited until Molina and the others were out of earshot to speak.

  “You get reassigned to Warburton or something, Jimmy?”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  Solero pulled a keychain from his pocket and removed a T-shaped key. His drum-tuning key.

  “When I saw you this morning, you’d only just confirmed that the body at the ME’s office was Ortega’s.”

  “That’s all I knew then,” said Vega. “This afternoon, I got access to ICE’s database, so I ran the names. Turns out Deisy Ramos’s name is not only on that list. Her picture’s in a wallet I found in the back of the DA’s wife’s sweater drawer. I don’t know what the connection between the two cases is. But I feel like there is one.”

  Solero inserted his drum key into one of his tom’s tension rods and slowly tightened it, moving diagonally from one side of the drumhead to the other.

  “So how come this is the first time I’m hearing about it? I walk in, and you’re telling Danny before you even tell me?”

  “I’m telling you now,” said Vega. “I just happened to see Danny first. Deisy Ramos is from Port Carroll. His beat.”

  Solero grabbed a drumstick and banged the head of his snare while he tuned it to pitch. He didn’t meet Vega’s gaze.

  “Look,” said Vega. “It’s not just Deisy I found out about. Every name on that list is an immigrant with uncertain legal status. Several appear to have been the targets of some sort of scam.”

  “What kind of scam?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Vega. “But it looks like somebody’s going around blackmailing immigrants either by pretending to be ICE or by trading off some real connection to the agency. A mutt like Ortega wouldn’t have the know-how. But he may have been working for someone who does. That might be a good investigative angle for Warburton to pursue.”

  Solero snapped his drum key back on his keychain and straightened. He met Vega’s gaze head-on. His normally sleepy eyes had a spark of something unfamiliar in them. Anger. Vega had seen that anger in Solero for his ex-wife. But never for a band member.

  “Listen, Jimmy. You and me—we’re friends and all. So I’m gonna say this in the nicest way possible.”

  “Okaay.”

  “Don’t go into another man’s house and reprogram his TV remote.”

  “Huh?”

  “Cheetos’ murder is Warburton’s case. That list, those names—they’re all part of our case—”

  “You’re gonna play turf battles with me? When we’ve got dead bodies on our hands? I’m not trying to steal your case. I’m trying to get answers—”

  “Which Warburton will do,” said Solero. “I’m happy to pass on intel to you and Danny. I’m happy to see if we can find this runaway kid. But you are way overstepping your bounds here, partner.”

  “And you’re getting into a pissing match while the building burns down.”

  Molina heard their raised voices. He ran over. “Guys! Guys!” He tamped down the air. “Cool it. We got a gig to play.” The rest of the band and Adele hung back, gawking at the commotion. They never normally argued.

  “Take a look at that list,” Vega sputtered, ignoring Molina. “Cesar Zuma threw himself in front of a Metro-North train this morning. Deisy Ramos ran away. Edgar Aviles is holed up in a synagogue, awaiting deportation. Things are happening fast. You want Warburton to get the credit? I’ll give you all the credit you want. But we
can’t afford to let the situation get away from us.”

  A swirl of voices rose up from the other side of the dining room’s double doors. The bride and groom and guests were beginning to arrive.

  “Guys!” Molina hissed, holding up a meaty hand so both Solero and Vega could see. He wiggled his fingers. They looked like dancing sausages. “What do we always say?”

  Solero sighed. “Armado is five fingers all joined at the hand. If the fingers don’t work, the hand doesn’t either.”

  “We’re a family.” Vega extended a knuckle. Solero rapped it. Then Molina. Then Brandon Cruz and Chris Feliz. Then Tony Furci and Adele. The music was what mattered. It was all that mattered.

  “Now”—Molina clapped his hands together—“let’s rock and roll.”

  Chapter 23

  The thing about performing, Vega realized years ago, was that it was impossible to play and keep anything else in his head. Music wiped the slate clean. When Vega stepped onstage and heard those first notes, he felt transported. He lost himself in the rhythm that swayed his body and quieted his mind. In the emotions he brought to words he could utter precisely because they weren’t his.

  The stage and acoustics at the Grand Marquis stank. And yet, for some reason Vega played like he was on fire. Every note was clean and pure. Every word reverberated in his chest until his entire body felt like a tuning fork. Even that stupid “Macarena” song. He knew why blues musicians were so damn good. Music channeled pain. And pain made music better.

  By the time Vega stepped off the stage, he’d forgotten he and Solero had even had words that evening. He felt calm and spent. Eager to pack up, go home, and make love to Adele. The music had flushed out everything else in him.

  It had been that way for him since he was seven years old when his mother came home with his first guitar. She’d bought it secondhand from a pawnshop on East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx. Vega had no idea what made her buy it. He just knew that as soon as he wrapped his right arm over that sound box and strummed those nylon strings, all the rage he’d been feeling went quiet and still.

  Where had that anger come from? For years, Vega had no idea. And now, he thought he did:

  You were sent away. Your mother and grandmother did something terrible to you that got you sent away.

  Being onstage tonight had drowned out that voice in his head. But after, lying in Adele’s bed, listening to her soft breathing, it came back.

  He didn’t want to wake Adele. She had all that work to do with Aviles tomorrow. He didn’t want to drive home either. Joy was at his place. She wasn’t expecting her father until the morning. His sudden presence would alert Diablo and wake her up. So he got out of bed, slipped into a clean T-shirt and sweatpants, and padded softly down to Adele’s kitchen to make coffee.

  He pulled out that picture of himself from his billfold while he waited for the coffee to brew and placed it in front of him on the table, across from Adele’s laptop, closed and plugged in to charge.

  He recognized nothing in the photograph. Not the empty, garbage-strewn lot with its old refrigerators and car parts strewn about. Not the abandoned five-story tenements behind him, their vacant windows as dark and hollow as an addict’s eyes. He couldn’t even tell which boy was Angel Dominguez and which was Johnny Ray Osorio. He knew only that both were Hispanic—Puerto Rican like him. Or maybe, Dominican. One was stocky, with a spare tire of flab that threatened to balloon over the waistband of his jeans. The other was tall and lean, with kinky hair, hawkish eyes, and big ears that stuck out on the sides of his head. Neither boy was more than ten.

  The coffeemaker clicked off and Vega poured a cup, then dumped in two sugars. He thought about what Adele had said to him earlier, about how easy it would be for a cop like Vega to track down the two people in the photograph. That was true—if Vega were tracking them down as part of an investigation. But on a personal matter? Those databases were audited regularly. He didn’t want to chance getting charges. Not now. Not when he was finally back to full duty.

  There was no harm in him doing a civilian search, however. Vega opened Adele’s laptop and typed in her password. Then he pulled up her Google search engine and typed Angel Dominguez. Dozens came up—both males and females. He found poets and artists. A Realtor in Texas. A chiropractor in California. A football player for Michigan State. None of them felt or looked like either boy in the picture.

  He tried the same with Johnny Ray Osorio. He found plenty of John Osorios and Jonathan Osorios. But only one entry contained the name Johnny Ray.

  An obit. From a weekly newspaper in the Bronx, dated two years ago.

  Vega’s heart sank as he read the few brief lines that said that Johnny Ray Osorio, age forty-five, an employee in the maintenance department of Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, had died after a long illness. Vega scoured the few lines of text for survivors. No wife or siblings or parents were mentioned, only a daughter, Cecilia.

  Vega typed Cecilia Osorio into the search engine. He had no idea how old she was or whether Osorio was even still her last name. He found a student in Belize and a journalist in Venezuela—neither of which, he suspected, was the right Cecilia.

  He scrolled down page after page of mentions that weren’t quite right. And then he found something that caught his eye. A letter to the editor in a trade publication called the Journal of Emergency Nursing. The letter writer was commenting on a study of prophylactic treatment for rape victims. Next to her name, Cecilia Osorio, were the initials BSN, RN, CEN. None of that meant anything to Vega, though he suspected the RN was Registered Nurse. But it was what was below it that caught his eye:

  Emergency Department, Lake Holly Hospital, Lake Holly, NY

  Cecilia Osorio worked right around the corner.

  Vega closed the screen. He could stop right now. Maybe that was the sensible course. The boy in the picture with Vega was likely dead. This woman, at best, was only his daughter. What could she possibly tell him? Certainly nothing about his own past or why he was sent away.

  He pulled out his cell phone. He could call the hospital. At least find out if Cecilia Osorio still worked there. There was no commitment in that.

  He bypassed the main switchboard and called Sharon Lamont, an admitting nurse he knew who worked the night shift. No big deal. He was a cop. He called the hospital all the time on cases.

  He was glad when Sharon answered.

  “Hey there. It’s Jimmy Vega—”

  “Detective Vega,” she said warmly. “How can I help you?” She assumed he was working on a case. It made the whole interchange easier.

  “Do you know if an emergency room nurse by the name of Cecilia Osorio still works at the hospital?”

  “I’m not sure if she’s on duty tonight. Let me check.” Sharon put him on hold and then returned to the line. “She’s in the ER right now. Would you like me to transfer you?”

  “No!” This was all happening too fast. He wasn’t ready.

  “So you’re going to stop by instead?” asked Sharon.

  “Uh . . . yeah. I’ll stop by.” Vega couldn’t believe how incompetent and nervous he sounded. Like a teenager asking out his first date.

  “I’ll let her know you’re coming,” said Sharon. “Can I tell her what it’s about?”

  “That’s okay,” said Vega. “I’ll do that myself.”

  * * *

  Vega left Adele a note, telling her he couldn’t sleep and went home. He was going to wish her luck with Aviles tomorrow but decided that was a sore spot between them he’d do better to stay away from for the moment.

  In the hospital’s parking lot, he tried to steady his nerves and remind himself again that Cecilia probably couldn’t tell him anything about the picture. All she could do was fill in the blanks about her father and maybe offer up a little of their family history.

  He found Sharon when he walked into the admitting area and made small talk while she tried to track down Cecilia and find out when she had a break to talk.

  “She a
sked if you have a court order,” said Sharon.

  “A court order? Why?”

  “I don’t know. She just seemed to think you’d need it.”

  As soon as Cecilia appeared, Vega knew he’d found Johnny Ray’s daughter. She was in her late twenties and dressed in blue nurse’s scrubs and sneakers. Her black kinky hair was pulled back tightly into a ponytail that exposed her oversized ears—obviously a family trait. She greeted Vega with a wary handshake and a look of uncertainty in her hawkish eyes.

  “Detective? Sharon said you wanted to talk to me.” Vega felt the heat rise in his cheeks. Cecilia Osorio seemed to be expecting some big police interview. Vega didn’t know how to break it to her that this was personal.

  “Can I buy you a cup of coffee in the cafeteria?” Vega asked. “I promise not to take up too much of your time.”

  “Sure.”

  The cafeteria was empty at three thirty in the morning. Even the night-shift doctors and nurses didn’t seem excited about hanging around in it. Maybe it was the bright fluorescent lights that made the room feel harsh and unwelcoming. Or the lingering smell of tomato soup that felt too overpowering at this hour.

  Vega bought Cecilia a cup of herbal tea and another coffee for himself. She began speaking as soon as they sat down.

  “You’re investigating Talia Crowley’s death, right?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Vega had no idea how she knew that.

  “Do you have a court order?”

  “A court . . . No. Why?”

  Cecilia folded her hands in front of her. “I knew it was only a matter of time before someone from the investigation showed up. I’d like to help. Believe me, I would. For the wife’s sake. But HIPAA regulations—”

  “Wait.” Vega was tired. It was taking his brain extra time to process things. “You think I’m here on the Crowley investigation?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Should I be?”