For a moment, Vega thought Greco had hung up on him. He heard nothing on the other end. Not even breathing.
“How do you know all this?”
The rain seemed to pick up again. Vega cupped a hand and looked at the sky. “I’m not about to stand out here and take an outdoor shower, Grec. You want the details, row in. You’re not catching Moby Dick out there.”
Greco cursed and hung up. Five minutes later, Vega helped him pull his boat ashore and chain it up. He had three good-size trout in his bucket.
“I coulda had two more, if not for you,” he grumbled.
“You don’t even like fish.”
“I like fishing!”
“You like escaping,” said Vega.
“That too.”
Greco dumped out his bait and threw his rods and the bucket of fish on a thick plastic sheet in his car. Greco was obsessed with keeping his car clean. Even his driver’s seat had plastic on it so he wouldn’t get it wet or fishy on the drive home.
“Better do this in my car,” said Greco. “I’m geared up for the mess.”
“Fair enough.” Vega slipped into the passenger seat. The inside smelled of pine air freshener mixed with the scent of damp clothes and fish. The rain came down hard as soon as he closed the door. Vega pointed to the windshield. “You owe me. I saved you from that.”
“Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” said Greco. “What’s this crap about Crowley giving his wife the clap?”
“I don’t know what he gave her exactly,” said Vega. “Gonorrhea. Chlamydia. Warts. We’ll need a court order for that. But a lot of things are stacking up to suggest that Glen Crowley may have had plenty of good reasons to hire someone to silence his new bride.”
Vega suspected—correctly—that Greco hadn’t read the report he and Michelle left him yesterday. So he took the Lake Holly detective through Billy Kelso’s claims, then followed it up with his conversation with Cecilia Osorio and her off-the-record comments about Talia’s ER visit.
“So last night, you just decided, ‘what the hell?’ and went to visit the ER?” asked Greco.
“No,” said Vega. “I was there on another matter.”
“What other matter?”
“It’s personal, okay? Family crap.”
Greco held up his hands. “Say no more. I’m dealing with enough of your family crap already.”
Vega told Greco about him and Michelle running those immigrant names through the ICE database and how three of the five people on the list seemed to match up to crimes. “Except Aviles and the girl, Deisy Ramos,” said Vega. “I don’t know what the scam was on them but I’m sure there was one.”
“And how, exactly, does any of that matter to our case?’ ” asked Greco. “All these damn hyphenated names. Jesus! The whole Hispanic community’s like a bad Russian novel.”
“Forget the names for a minute, Grec. Just concentrate on the connections. Aviles is the uncle of the Crowleys’ missing housekeeper. Deisy’s the girl in that picture in the back of Talia’s sweater drawer. Coincidence? I think not.”
That intrigued Greco. And scared him at the same time. He reached across Vega, opened the glove compartment, and pulled out a bag of red licorice Twizzlers—his addiction. He thought and chewed.
“We’re under pressure to close this case down,” said Greco.
“At the cost of compromising our ethics?”
“No,” said Greco. “If I saw something that suggested Talia was killed, I’d put the brakes on everything. But all you’re bringing me is gossip, Vega. Gossip that Sanchez and I didn’t hear from any of Talia’s friends or her husband. Not even from Charlene, his ex-wife. If anybody’s gonna give you dirt, it’s an ex-wife.”
“If Crowley likes to whore around,” said Vega, “I very much doubt he or the very proper Miss Charlene Beech would ever tell you about it.”
“True. But I’m not going on insinuations here,” said Greco. “The hard facts of the case are that even a very, very strong person would have had one hell of a time stringing Talia up on that pipe against her will.”
“She was doped up on alcohol and Valium—”
“Which would have made her dead weight to lift,” Greco pointed out. “There’s no sign of a break-in. No defensive wounds to her hands—”
“Who cuts the hose to their washer and floods their basement right before they kill themselves?”
“An angry, depressed woman who miscarried her child and believes her new husband is cheating on her,” said Greco. “Everything you’ve brought me just bolsters the suicide claim. Now, as far as the immigrants getting scammed, I think that’s a separate case. One that the Warburton Police should look at while they go after Ortega’s killer.”
“You sound like my friend with the Warburton Police—”
“Well . . . he’s right.”
The car windows began fogging up. Greco tapped the steering wheel, deep in thought. “Dr. Gupta is leaving the manner of death as undetermined. I’m going to gather up the reports and present the police conclusion as a suicide on Monday—”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” said Greco. “To enable the ME’s office to release the body for funeral arrangements.”
“What would change your mind?”
Greco regarded Vega beneath his bushy brows. “Hard proof. Find me something that proves Talia wasn’t alone in that house the night she died. A witness. A piece of evidence. That’s what I need to put the brakes on this.”
Chapter 25
A witness. A piece of evidence.
Vega had less than twenty-four hours to find one or both of those or Lake Holly was going to close down the investigation and label Talia’s death a suicide. Vega sat in his truck, feeling the weight of Greco’s decision and the promise he always made to victims:
Tell me who you were and how you died—and I will get you justice.
So far, he’d failed Talia Crowley. He knew only one way to rectify that. Go back to the beginning. Start over.
Vega left the aqueduct and drove to Greenbriar Lane, hoping that seeing the house again might help him recall something he hadn’t Friday night. The house was still surrounded by yellow crime-scene tape, now sagging from the rain and the endless crisscrossing of cops. A piece of tape had come undone across the driveway, the loose end now swimming in a murky puddle.
Vega got out of his truck and knotted the tape in place again.
“He’s not here,” a voice called across the driveway to him.
Vega turned to see an older white woman by the curb. She was carrying an umbrella and walking a miniature hairball of a dog. The dog was wearing a little raincoat that looked nicer than Vega’s.
“He’s staying with his ex in Wickford,” she added. “In their carriage house. Funny arrangement, if you ask me.” The woman wrinkled her nose. She had sharp eyes that seemed to take everything in and pass judgment on most of it.
Vega stepped over the tape and extended a hand. “Detective James Vega. Do you live on the block?”
“Edith Walker. I’m the one who called nine-one-one. I live next door.”
She pointed a bony finger at a contemporary house about a hundred feet away. “I was walking Walter and saw the water gushing out their basement window. At first, I thought they were watering their lawn. But who waters their lawn at eight at night?”
“Did you know them well?” asked Vega.
“Who knows their neighbors anymore? People are so busy these days. All this social media.” She offered a disapproving look. “They only moved in a few months ago. He was never here. I guess that’s to be expected for a district attorney. And she was always dashing off—probably to some exercise class or whatever. I saw their maid more than I saw them.”
“Lissette?” asked Vega. “Did you talk to her at all?”
“I saw her. I didn’t say I spoke to her.”
“What was she doing when you saw her?”
“Oh, just . . . you know . . . sweeping the driveway. She
came out when FreshDirect delivered their groceries. And of course, I saw taxis and cars pick her up and drop her off.”
“How about on Friday?” asked Vega. “Did you see her come or leave?”
“No.”
“How about Thursday night?”
“I didn’t see anyone there at all,” said Walker. “That house was dark all night. Not a single light on. I already told the police all of this,” she said, a note of irritation in her voice.
Vega’s cell phone rang in his pocket. Walker nodded to the sound. “That’s the problem these days. Everyone’s too distracted.”
“You’re right,” said Vega. He wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. And besides, the caller was Michelle. He was anxious to speak to her. “Well, thanks for clarifying everything, ma’am,” said Vega. They parted. Vega walked back to his truck as he picked up the call.
“Michelle?”
“So listen . . .” She began. “Can you drive down to the Bronx today?”
“Drive . . . all the way down there?” He hopped in his truck and shut the door. He didn’t want to be having this conversation out in the open. “If you were able to find out something, I’d rather just hear it over the phone.”
“It’s not that simple,” she explained. “My mother and Pop won’t tell me anything. My mother yelled at me to quit asking.”
“This is my life we’re talking about. They’re denying me information that is rightfully mine.”
“I agree,” said Michelle. “So I found another solution.” She cupped a hand over the phone. Vega could hear her sons’ voices in the background and Michelle yelling at them to “hush up!” Then she un-cupped the phone.
“I have this friend,” she began. “Yvonne Peters. Well, she’s not really a friend. She’s the grandmother of my son Alex’s best friend. But she works in records at ACS.”
“What’s ACS?”
“The Administration for Children’s Services. What used to be called the Bureau of Child Welfare. If you were in foster care, Jimmy, your records would probably be with ACS. And you’re a cop. You wouldn’t have to jump through a million hoops to see the file.”
“But it’s a Sunday.”
“Exactly,” said Michelle. “Even a cop has to fill out a lot of forms and leave a paper trail. ACS is closed today and Yvonne can just walk you in there. All you have to do is drive down.”
Vega’s breath clouded the windows of his truck. He ran the sleeve of his jacket across them. He felt paralyzed by the choice before him. He liked his life. It had taken so much time to build it. To find a woman he could truly be himself with. To make peace with his daughter. His ex. His past. He felt like Lot’s Biblical wife. If he looked back at who he’d once been, he might turn into a pillar of salt. Become bitter and unmoored. Fall back into the bottom of that dark well he’d crawled out of so many years ago.
Then again, he’d made a promise to his daughter. If he wanted her to make peace with her past, he had to do the same.
“Come,” Michelle pleaded. “We’ll make it fun. I’ll drop my kids with my mom and we can grab a bite at Mama Linda’s after.”
“You want to go to a cuchifritos joint?” Mama Linda’s had been around since Vega was a boy. The deep-fried pork snacks could still conjure the aroma of his mother and grandmother’s kitchen.
“You need to get back to your roots more often,” she chided him. “When the roots go, the leaves begin to die.”
“Only at Mama Linda’s could someone mention food and death in the same breath.”
“Ay, bendito! You are sooo suburban,” she teased. “I have my doubts whether you can even parallel park anymore. So do we have a date? I can text you the address of ACS and when you get there, you can text me and I’ll bring Yvonne Peters.”
Vega took a deep breath. “Okay. You’re on.”
“Trust me, mano, going to ACS won’t be half as bad for your digestion as Mama Linda’s.”
Mano. Bro. Not quite a brother but close enough. The word kindled something inside of him. His whole life, he’d considered himself an only child. He’d gone through everything alone. His grandmother’s death. His move to Lake Holly. His divorce. His mother’s murder.
Maybe—finally—this was one thing he didn’t have to go through as an army of one.
Chapter 26
The rain had stopped entirely by the time Vega reached the Bronx. The air became humid with the promise of warmer weather. In the park, children climbed the monkey bars beneath the broad green leaves of sycamore trees and old men wiped down the benches and chessboards. Along the streets, neighbors gathered on their stoops. Everything felt warmer down here. The temperature. The pavements. The people. Spanish chatter rose on street corners. Car horns and boom boxes played a melody in counterpoint.
Vega didn’t trust his out-of-city police parking decal to shield him from a ticket. He drove past the address for ACS on Leland Avenue and navigated the streets until he found a parking spot. Then he doubled back on foot, past dollar stores and bodegas and liquor marts that felt as timeless to him as the five-story tenements with their zigzag fire escapes and Puerto Rican and Dominican flags in the windows.
He texted Michelle that he was close by. She texted back that she and Yvonne were running twenty minutes late. Ok, he replied. They were on neighborhood time. He could wait. He put his phone away and turned the corner.
The street was familiar. He saw that now as he stood on the curb between two parked cars and gazed across at a five-story brown brick tenement with a pale crown-shaped design above each window and an even bigger one above the door. He allowed his eyes to wander up to the third floor, to the windows on the right.
They had childproof security gates across them now. They didn’t when Vega lived there.
He should have recognized the building—if not from memory, then certainly from photographs. He lived there until he was in first grade. Until his mom and grandmother moved to the other side of East Tremont. He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels, feeling a wash of conflicting emotions. Warm memories of his mother and grandmother frying alcapurrias—meat fritters—in the kitchen. The scratchy salsa that played from their eight-track tapes—the same ones Vega’s grandmother taught him to dance to. Hot days when his legs stuck to the plastic slipcovers on the couch. Cold nights when he cuddled with his mother under the crucifix that hung over her bed.
Not every memory was happy, however. He remembered the hissing tomcat. Its sharp claws and ready pounce. The patch he had to wear over his left eye for weeks until his cornea healed. The arguments between his mother and Michelle’s aunt afterward. Did his mother really poison Gloria Rodriguez’s cat? Vega couldn’t say. It was all so long ago.
He crossed the street and leaned a foot on the bottom step of the front stoop, feeling a wave of nostalgia for the place. He remembered thinking as a boy how high the stoop was and feeling so brave when he jumped off the top. He remembered the girls with their double-Dutch jump ropes. The boys with their basketballs forever thumping by their sides. The salsa and rap that blared from passing car windows, dissipating in the stench of fried food and exhaust.
An old, heavyset woman with wiry gray hair maneuvered around Vega and slowly began lugging a small shopping cart up the stoop. She wore lace-up sneakers and a flowery housedress that hung loosely over her big-bosomed frame.
“Here,” said Vega. “Let me help you with that.”
The old woman eyed Vega like he was a mugger.
“I used to live here,” Vega explained, hoping to ease her fears. “When I was a boy.”
He picked up her cart and carried it up the steps to the front vestibule doors. The outer door opened to mailboxes. The second door was locked. A pale, urine-colored light washed across the stairs. So many of the old tenements had burned down or been knocked down, but this one stood, sturdy as ever. The banister was covered in layers of dark brown paint. The steps were worn smooth from decades of feet. The beige walls had scuff marks running along the plast
er.
The woman stared at Vega. “Conoces a alguien aquí?” she asked. Do you know someone here?
Did he? Vega poked his head into the outer vestibule and scanned the brass mailboxes and buzzers on the wall. He searched the names, then saw it. The mailbox to an apartment on the third floor. G. Rodriguez.
Michelle’s aunt still lived in the building.
The woman in the flowery housedress held Vega’s gaze a beat too long. “You can come inside if you like,” she said in Spanish.
“No. That’s okay.”
“Please. I would like that.” Something swam in her eyes. Sorrow?
Vega took in the woman’s wiry gray hair. The spread of her features that time and gravity had softened. His mouth went dry. His heart felt like it was beating outside of his chest.
He knew.
She knew he knew.
“I’m sorry,” Vega answered in English. “My mistake. I have the wrong building.”
He turned on his heel and retreated down the steps. There were ghosts inside that place.
Ghosts he couldn’t even name.
* * *
The Administration for Children’s Services building was a gray four-story square with tinted windows. It looked like a layer cake that had been moldering in the back of someone’s refrigerator for a year. The lobby was staffed by a bored security guard playing games on his phone. Vega thought he’d have to wait around, but Michelle was already there with Yvonne Peters in tow. She was an older African-American woman with kind eyes that were magnified by thick glasses.
“Thank you for coming,” Vega told her.
“We’ll find the paperwork, Detective. Don’t you worry.” She spoke like he was a lost child instead of a cop. Vega supposed that directly or indirectly, she’d had a lot of experience with very lost children.
Yvonne showed the security guard ID and they all signed in. Then they took a lumbering elevator to the fourth floor. There was a reception area and behind it, a door to the file room. Yvonne unlocked it.
“Will you get in any trouble for taking us back here?” Vega asked her.
Voice with No Echo Page 18
