She smiled. She looked so much younger when she smiled. She brought her tea to her lips and cradled it like she was protecting a small, delicate bird. Vega had a sense she’d be good with patients.
“I think we’re playing a game of ‘Who’s on First?’” said Cecilia. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here and then maybe I can help you.”
“Okaay,” said Vega, drawing out the word in a long, extended breath. “Here goes.” He felt like he was diving into very cold water. “I’m looking for the daughter of a man I had contact with in the Bronx when we were kids. His name was Johnny Ray Osorio. I found what I think is his obit and it mentioned a daughter. Then I found you.”
She put her tea down without sipping it and stared at Vega a long moment. She had a strong jaw and a direct gaze. There was something about her that made Vega think she played sports in college. The articulated shoulders. The physical confidence, even when she was blindsided.
“How did you know my father?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” said Vega. “This is my only clue.” He fumbled in his wallet and handed her the picture. She held it gently by a corner, as if sensing its value.
“That’s my dad all right.” She bounced a look between Vega and the shot. “You’re the smallest kid in the photo, I take it.”
“Yeah. But that’s all I know.”
She turned the photo over and read the third name. “Angel Dominguez. Do you know him?”
“No. I haven’t been able to track him down.”
She handed the photo back to Vega. “Why is it important?”
Vega had fooled himself into thinking before he came here that there would be a way to find out all about Johnny Ray Osorio’s life without revealing his own. But he saw now, in Cecilia’s questioning gaze, that that would be impossible. To open her up he would first need to open himself.
“I may have been in foster care for a short while when I was very young. I can’t remember. My mother and grandmother never spoke about it. I was hoping that by finding the other boys in that shot, I’d know.”
“You don’t have any family who can tell you?”
“No.” Vega had come to ask the questions. He felt frustrated that he was the one doing all the answering.
“If you don’t remember, isn’t that sort of a blessing?” she asked. “My dad spent most of his childhood in foster care and the rest of his life trying to forget.”
Her words made Vega feel jumpy and expectant. If nothing else, she’d just confirmed what Michelle had told him: You were sent away. He hoped that that realization could put the matter to rest. But he realized with a pang of clarity that the really big question was one even Johnny Ray Osorio and Angel Dominguez couldn’t have answered: Why?
Vega tried to deflect the conversation away from himself. “Were you and your dad close?” he asked.
“I didn’t grow up with him,” she admitted. “He and my mom split when I was a baby. They were both so young. My father had a lot of demons, but he was trying to make things work between us when he died.”
“Cancer?” asked Vega.
Cecilia nodded. “Esophageal. He’d been a heavy drinker and smoker his whole life. He’d had drug problems too, though he was long over them when the cancer came along.”
“I’m sorry.”
She took a sip of tea. “I wish I could tell you something to help you in your search,” she said. “But my dad never spoke about his childhood. His mother was a junkie. He never knew his dad. I think he was like, three or four when social services took him away.”
“Do you know why they took him?” asked Vega.
“He was beaten by one of his mom’s boyfriends after he wet the bed. She just kind of watched, I guess. Or at least, that’s what I gathered. My dad was very angry at her for abandoning him like that. He never forgave her.” Cecilia shrugged. “I don’t know how bad it was compared to other homes in the ’hood. But I guess it had to be pretty bad for child services to take him away. I mean, this was the Bronx in the early eighties, not Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”
Vega felt the sting in her words. Like she was describing his own worst fear. It had to be pretty bad ...
“In any case,” said Cecilia, “after that, my father cycled through a series of foster homes, never staying in any one of them very long. I’m betting that if he were alive and you showed him that picture, he might not be sure himself which home he was in at the time.”
“Sure. I understand.” Vega stared at his coffee. He needed someplace neutral to rest his eyes. He didn’t want her to see the pain in them.
“So . . . this was why you came tonight?”
Her words set Vega on solid footing again. He was a cop. He was investigating a death. When they first sat down, it was clear Cecilia Osorio had information pertaining to the case. He leaned in.
“About that . . . other matter,” said Vega.
“I can’t talk about that.”
“But you thought that’s why I was here,” Vega pointed out. “You thought I wanted to talk to you about Talia Crowley. Why?”
“Sharon said a county homicide detective wanted to talk to me,” said Cecilia. “The only death investigation in Lake Holly I’m aware of at the moment is Talia Crowley’s.”
“But why would you think I would contact you?”
Cecilia shook her head. “I’m sorry, Detective. I have to follow HIPAA rules.”
“All right. Fair enough,” said Vega. “But you can deduce. So can I. You’re an ER nurse. You know something about Talia Crowley’s medical status. I have to assume she came into the hospital’s ER at some point and you treated her. I have to assume it was recently, or you probably wouldn’t have put it together with my visit. So it’s not about her pregnancy. That ended several months ago.”
“I can’t tell you anything,” she said. “Not without a court order.”
“But to get a court order, I need to know what I’m looking for.”
Cecilia tossed a glance over her shoulder. Two hospital orderlies walked into the cafeteria. They were talking baseball with the cashier. Nobody was paying any attention to Vega and Cecilia.
“She was in the emergency room maybe two weeks ago,” Cecilia said softly.
“For what?”
She stirred her tea. Vega went on a hunch.
“Was she beaten? Was Crowley abusing her?”
Cecilia shook her head. “Not . . . in the way you’re thinking.”
“What? He raped her?”
She took a deep breath. “She was suffering pelvic pains.” “From the miscarriage?”
“That was long over.”
“Then what?” asked Vega. “Appendicitis? A punch to the gut?” He leaned forward. “Help me here, Ms. Osorio—”
“Cecilia—”
“Cecilia,” said Vega. “Nobody’s gonna know. I promise.” Vega made a cross on his chest. “Hey, I just bared my soul to you. I think you can trust me.”
“She was suffering from pelvic inflammatory disease.”
Vega gave Cecilia a blank look. He had no idea what that was.
“It’s an infection in the female reproductive organs,” she explained. “Usually from an untreated sexually transmitted disease.”
Vega took a moment to process what Cecilia was telling him. “Talia had an STD? From long ago? Or from recently?”
“It couldn’t have been from long ago because every newly pregnant woman gets tested for STDs during her first OBG visit, usually when she’s two or three months pregnant. So she didn’t have one six months ago.”
“In other words,” said Vega, “she didn’t have one before she married Glen Crowley.”
Cecilia said nothing. Her silence was confirmation enough.
“I guess that leaves only two options,” said Vega. “Either Talia got an STD from an extramarital lover or Crowley did. Which means at least one of them was cheating.”
“Judging from her reaction at the time,” said Cecilia, “I don’t think she was cheating.�
��
“So we’re down to one assumption.”
Chapter 24
Vega awoke in his lakeside cabin at ten thirty the next morning to the smell of bacon—a surprise in itself, since Joy was a vegetarian.
He pulled on a pair of sweats and stumbled down the wood plank stairs onto the first floor of the cabin. Joy was in the kitchen area, frying something on the stove. She looked well rested. Vega was glad. He’d waited until a respectable six a.m. this morning to sneak into the house, giving Diablo a treat to keep him from waking her. He fell into such a deep sleep after that that when he awoke, he forgot his daughter was here.
“Hey, chispita,” Vega called out, using her childhood nickname, “little spark,” in Spanish. “That smells delicious.”
Joy turned to him, her lower lip sagging in disappointment. “I was going to serve you breakfast in bed.”
“I’d rather eat down here with you.” Vega came up behind her and gave her a hug. He looked in the pan. Strips of something thick and gray swam in a sheen of olive oil. “I thought you were frying bacon.”
“It’s tempeh,” said Joy.
“What the hell’s tempeh?”
“Compressed and fermented soybeans.”
“Looks like fingers from a corpse,” said Vega.
“Daad! It’s healthy for you. Bacon’s full of carcinogens.”
Vega didn’t want to criticize his daughter’s attempts at feeding him. Joy had been going through a rough patch these past few months after an attempted sexual assault back in January. She’d regressed a little since the incident—as Wendy, her child psychologist mother, said she would. She’d taken to collecting stuffed animals again and watching TV shows from her childhood. She was also spending less time with college friends and more time with her parents.
Vega loved seeing Joy. They did all the things they used to do when she was younger—going for jogs around the lake, playing board games, cuddling on the couch and watching the Yankees. But he hoped he wasn’t helping her hide from the world.
“Hey,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “If you made this teepee, I’m sure I’ll love it.”
“Tempeh, Dad. It’s called tempeh.”
Vega gobbled down the fried eggs and potatoes Joy made him but fed the tempeh to Diablo when she wasn’t looking. He drew the line at herbal tea and made coffee instead.
“So, what are your plans today?” he asked her.
She shrugged. “Study for finals. Binge-watch TV.” Vega put down his coffee mug. “Isn’t there something on campus you’d like to do? A concert? A lecture? Dinner with friends?”
“Maybe. I’ll see.”
Joy lived with her mother and Wendy’s second husband in Lake Holly. Valley Community was only twenty minutes from their house. When Joy started there last September, the plan had been for her to go for two years and then transfer to a better college. Now, Vega couldn’t imagine her feeling secure enough to move away.
“Chispita.” Vega leaned forward and searched her big dark eyes. “It’s been almost four months now since the . . . incident.” He didn’t know what to call it. He felt embarrassed even talking about it and he knew she did too. “You’re barely nineteen. You should be out seeing friends, maybe dating—”
“You want me to date? Every boy I ever brought home wasn’t good enough.”
Vega studied the black sheen of his coffee. That was true. But that was before . . .
“I want you to go back to having a life,” he explained.
“I love spending time with you and I know Mom does too. But we don’t want you to be afraid of the world.”
Joy pushed her eggs around the plate. “I’m not . . . afraid,” she said slowly. “I just . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Just what?” Vega held his breath. Joy rarely opened herself like this. He didn’t want to blow it.
“I’m having a hard time putting it behind me.” She pushed her plate away. “I wish I could just wash it out of my brain and forget. But I can’t.”
“I know.” Vega patted her hand. “Life should come with an erase button. But it doesn’t. Sometimes, the only way past something is straight through it.”
He hadn’t planned on telling her about that photo in his wallet or Michelle or his meeting with Cecilia Osorio, but all of a sudden, he found himself doing just that. He thought she might be annoyed that he was mixing her turmoil with his own. But it seemed to help her. She leaned over and hugged him.
“Oh, Daddy,” she murmured into his neck. She never called him that anymore. “You must be so torn up about this.”
Vega felt his pulse quicken at her words. He was torn up. And just like Joy, he couldn’t seem to move on from it.
“Why don’t you visit your father and ask him?” Joy suggested.
“I can’t,” said Vega. “There’s too much baggage there.”
“But you need to know what happened,” said Joy. “If not through your father, then through Michelle. It’s like you just told me—the only way past this is through it.”
Vega hated when she used his words against him. “You want me to be strong, Dad. Maybe we can be strong together.”
* * *
They cleaned up the dishes and took Diablo for a jog around the lake. A light rain had fallen earlier and the clouds still hovered low and dark like steel wool. It felt good to be with Joy. Vega had never felt closer to her. This is what matters, he told himself. The here and now. Not the past. But he knew that his daughter was counting on him to be a role model. If she was going to get past her trauma, then he’d have to do the same.
After she left, Vega called Adele. She was on her way out the door, first to meet with Aviles’s wife, Maria, at their apartment, and then to go to the synagogue to meet with Aviles. Vega wished her luck, then told her about tracking down Cecilia Osorio at the hospital last night and how Joy had encouraged him to call Michelle and get the facts.
“I agree with Joy,” said Adele. “You don’t want these questions forever weighing on you.”
“I may just be exchanging one hell for another,” said Vega.
“I refuse to believe anything bad about your mother or grandmother,” said Adele. “If you got sent away, it was because of a mistake. I’m sure your father could set the record straight.”
“He can’t and he won’t,” said Vega. “Think about it. If my mother or grandmother abused or neglected me, the first place the courts would have sent me was my father’s. But they didn’t. Even though Michelle and Denise were living with him, I went into foster care. Which means my father and Michelle’s mother bailed on me too.”
“Oh, mi vida,” Adele said gently. She had no other words and neither did Vega. They both knew the logic of what he was saying. When they hung up, Vega sent Michelle a text:
Found Johnny Ray Osorio’s daughter last night. He’s dead but the daughter confirmed I was probably in foster care. Ask your mom for details. I deserve that.
Michelle didn’t respond. Vega wondered if a busy single mother even checked her messages on a Sunday. He moved on to work. He needed to get ahold of Greco. Cecilia Osorio’s conversation had done more than fill in the blanks in Vega’s life last night. It had filled in some blanks he didn’t even know he had in Talia Crowley’s. Or Glen’s, for that matter. Vega thought about what that PI, Billy Kelso, had said about Talia being convinced her husband was seeing prostitutes. Getting an STD was pretty damning evidence she was right.
Louis Greco’s cell phone went to voice mail so Vega dialed his home. His wife, Joanna, picked up.
“He’s fishing up on the Brighton Aqueduct,” she told him.
“In this weather?” Vega looked out the sliding glass doors at the steady rain now beating down on the back deck.
“He’ll fish in just about anything. He says the trout are easier to catch when it’s raining.”
“He’s not answering his phone.”
“He probably didn’t hear it.” She was too diplomatic to tell Vega what he already
suspected—Greco had screened his call.
“If you speak to him, tell him I’m heading over there now. He can pick up his phone or we can shout across the lake. But one way or the other, we’re talking.”
* * *
The Brighton Aqueduct was a collection of adjoining bodies of water north and west of Lake Holly. It was a hilly area with steep granite cliffs where loons and cormorants fished the waters, and deer and coyote—even an occasional red-tail fox or black bear—roamed the densely wooded trails. The land surrounding the aqueduct was wild and would likely stay that way, thanks to the fact that the area supplied New York City with drinking water. Only aluminum rowboats were allowed in its lakes, which were liberally stocked with walleye and trout. Vega suspected Greco came out here as much to get away from visiting grandchildren and pesky colleagues as he did to actually fish. He didn’t even like the taste of seafood.
The rain had tapered off by the time Vega pulled his truck onto the muddy gravel turnoff. Greco’s Buick LeSabre was the only vehicle there. Vega had dressed in dark-colored khakis, a collared golf shirt, hiking boots, and a weatherproof windbreaker, but he felt the damp chill right through everything. Early May was like that in New York. Yesterday, he could have broken out the air-conditioning. Today, he’d turned on his heater on the ride over.
Water dripped from the curtain of pines as Vega negotiated the soft ground down to the edge of the lake. The sky was so low and dense, it felt like the trees could pierce the clouds. The water was choppy and gray, pricked here and there by a few drops of rain, as if Mother Nature were wringing it out of a dish towel. One rowboat bobbed on the water. A solitary figure hunched beneath a dark green rain poncho that seemed to spread in every direction, like candlewax. He was seated facing the shore. He could definitely see Vega.
Whether he wanted to see him was another matter.
Vega pulled out his phone and dialed Greco’s cell.
“Do I look like I want to talk to you?” Greco growled into the phone.
“Talia Crowley may have caught an STD from her husband,” said Vega. “Who may have been visiting prostitutes. Underaged prostitutes. Those are the highlights. Come in, and I’ll tell you about the missing teenage girl in that photo from Talia’s drawer.”
Voice with No Echo Page 17
