Voice with No Echo

by Suzanne Chazin

  “I’m glad,” said Vega. “I owe him. I’d be happy to write a letter on his behalf.”

  “I’m sure he would appreciate that.” A shadow crossed Adele’s face. “I guess Bale didn’t tell you anything about Lissette?”

  Vega shrugged. They were sitting inside a flimsy hospital cubicle with ears all around. He didn’t want to leak information in an ongoing investigation. Still, Bale’s allegation that Lissette killed Talia Crowley bothered him. Not because it was ludicrous.

  Because it wasn’t.

  On the surface, Bale and the Ramirez brothers would have had no vested interest in killing Talia Crowley. They were all about blackmailing immigrants into helping them rob high-end houses and businesses. That likely changed when Elmer Ortega’s prints showed up after the jewelry store heist in Lake Holly. Ortega could have dropped a dime on all of them. It made sense the Ramirezes would kill him. But that upped the ante. Bale needed assurance the district attorney would never go after them. What better way than blackmail? A phone video of an underage human trafficking victim having sex with the DA would keep Crowley in their pocket forever. Except Deisy left her phone and wallet behind, Talia found it, and the only one who could get it back was Lissette.

  There was just one person in her way: Talia Crowley.

  “I hope Lissette’s alive,” said Adele.

  “Me, too,” said Vega. But maybe not for the same reasons.

  * * *

  When the attendant came to wheel Vega in for X-rays, he insisted Adele go home and take care of Sophia. She was gone by the time he came out. He was wheeled into an actual room with four walls and a door. Greco was inside, taking up the only visitor’s chair and tapping messages, one finger at a time, into his phone.

  “Jeez, you look like crap.”

  “I got an excuse,” Vega shot back. “What’s yours?”

  Greco closed the door and dragged his chair closer to Vega’s gurney. The screech of chair legs across the linoleum felt like an ice pick in Vega’s brain.

  “Got you an actual recovery room instead of that shower stall they had you in,” said Greco. “So—you dying? Or are you gonna talk to me about this fustercluck you’ve handed my department.”

  “I’ve handed?” Vega sat up. Lights spurted across his field of vision like shooting stars. His head throbbed. “One of your finest did this to me.”

  Greco placed a meaty paw on Vega’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze—his best attempt at bedside manner. “I should’ve realized when I saw that body-cam footage that Bale needed to be taken out of action right then and there.”

  “Forget it,” said Vega. “How could you know it was this bad? This has taken everybody by surprise.”

  “And now it’s going up the food chain,” said Greco. “FBI’s been notified. U.S. Attorney’s Office is involved.”

  “Our involvement has been terminated?”

  “Not terminated,” said Greco. “Demoted. We’ve gone from chefs to busboys. They still need our legwork to figure out which end is up. Feebies can’t tie their shoes without ten pages of instructions.” Greco walked Vega through what he and Sanchez had done so far, from bagging Deisy Ramos’s phone at the synagogue to writing up search warrant requests on the phone’s contents, Bale’s house, cars, and electronic equipment.

  “We’ve got BOLOs out on the Ramirez brothers,” said Greco. “We’ve alerted the airports and agents at the Mexican border in case they decide to flee to El Salvador. Michelle’s over at ICE, trying to figure out how Bale got his inside information.”

  “How about Crowley?” asked Vega. “The feds are gonna question him, right?”

  Greco pointed to a video monitor mounted high up on the wall. “I have no idea if those things are wired for sound. And I’d rather not have our mugs accusing the DA of anything on the six o’clock news.”

  “He admitted to being with that girl, Grec.”

  “That girl is dead,” said Greco. “And we weren’t investigating the girl. We were investigating Talia Crowley’s death. Which in no way involves the DA.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because he passed his polygraph—”

  “What? When did this happen?”

  “This afternoon. While you were doing your high-wire act with Bale.” Greco leaned in closer. Vega could smell the garlic on his breath from lunch. “It’s legit. I got the state police to administer it. We kept the questions to Lissette’s disappearance and Talia’s death. He’s clean on both. He didn’t kill his wife. He doesn’t know where his housekeeper is.”

  “Well, somebody killed his wife,” said Vega. “What about that light switch at the top of the basement stairs?”

  “By the time the neighbor called nine-one-one, the whole electrical panel was flooded,” said Greco. “The house would have been dark.”

  “But that basement light switch was in the off position—”

  “Which could have happened accidentally when the firefighters lugged their gear down the stairs,” Greco pointed out. “Look, Vega, we’ve got feds crawling up our asses at the moment. We’ve got a corrupt dead cop, a major scam we haven’t even properly unraveled, and a shot-up synagogue. I’m not turning the feebies loose on our DA over a friggin’ light switch.”

  “What about the fact that he was whoring around and Talia wanted to expose him?”

  “You think he’s the first politician to engage in those sorts of extracurricular indiscretions?”

  “Those indiscretions”—Vega gritted his teeth—“involve a sixteen-year-old human trafficking victim who was murdered yesterday. And I’m betting that phone of hers links Crowley to the scam—”

  “If the feds want to pursue him, I’m all for it,” said Greco. “But I’m not gonna wave a stick at a pit bull and neither should you. You fight that fight and lose, you’ll never work in this county again.”

  Greco rustled around in his pocket and pulled out a half-eaten Hershey bar. He handed it to Vega.

  “What’s this?” asked Vega.

  “A get-well present.”

  “Where’s the other half?”

  Greco shrugged. “I got hungry waiting for you to come out of X-ray.”

  Chapter 45

  Greco took Vega’s recorded statement while Vega gobbled the rest of the melted Hershey bar and waited for the stack of insurance forms, prescriptions, HIPAA privacy statements, and doctors’ follow-up instructions he had to sign and review before he could be discharged. The stack was as thick as a robbery case file.

  Greco offered Vega a ride back to the station house to fetch his truck but, aside from the candy, Vega hadn’t eaten all day. He needed some real food in his stomach first. Something filling and soothing. The hospital cafeteria’s cuisine would go down just fine.

  “I can walk back afterward,” Vega told Greco. “It’s only a couple of blocks.”

  “Walk, nothing,” said Greco. “Just call the station house when you’re ready. One of the patrols will drive you over.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  Vega had forgotten how bright the hospital cafeteria’s fluorescent lights were. They made his headache worse. So did the lingering smell of tomato soup. But at least it was quiet at four in the afternoon. The lunch crowd was over and the dinner crowd hadn’t started.

  Vega chose something basic for his battered stomach: overcooked chicken and a plate of soggy white rice. The blandness of the food comforted him and their coffee wasn’t half bad.

  He was struggling with his plastic knife, tearing at the limp chicken, when a figure walked toward him. He didn’t take her in until she stood across the table, resting her fingers on the plastic chair.

  “Detective Vega? What happened to your face?”

  Vega lifted his gaze slowly so as not to assault his eyes with the lights. He took in the pale blue scrubs first. Then the tea she was cradling in her brown hands and finally, the black kinky hair pulled back tightly in a ponytail, revealing those articulated shoulders and oversized earlobes.

>   “Ms. Osorio—”

  “Cecilia.” She put her tea on the table. “You’re sort of a family acquaintance at this point, I suppose.” Her hawkish eyes took in Vega’s swollen and bruised face. “Did you get into a car accident?”

  “Line of duty.” He wasn’t about to delve into the details.

  She frowned at his T-shirt. He forgot he had the name of a heavy-metal band plastered across his chest. “Undercover?”

  “No, unfortunately. The guy who hit me knew he was hitting a cop.”

  “I hope he got worse.”

  Vega stared at his plate. She seemed to guess that she’d entered a conversation there was no graceful exit for. She pulled out the chair. “May I sit down?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “You’ve been on my mind ever since the weekend. I was thinking about calling you.”

  Vega couldn’t hide his surprise. “About the case?”

  “Nooo.” She pulled off the plastic lid on her tea and took a sip. “About that . . . other matter.” She swept a gaze over her shoulder to make sure they were alone. Satisfied, she pulled her chair closer.

  “After we talked the other night, I went through a box of my dad’s old things. I don’t know what I expected to find or why I was even looking. When he died, all his possessions fit into a couple of shoeboxes.”

  Her voice caught on the words. Vega put his plastic fork and knife down and pushed his tray aside. He could see it was taking all of Cecilia’s composure to speak. She lifted her gaze from her tea.

  “I wish I could tell you I found something about your childhood that could help you, Detective—”

  “Jimmy.”

  “Jimmy,” she repeated. “But what I found said more about my dad than about you. Still, it was something I wanted to share with you.”

  Cecilia took a deep breath. “As I think I mentioned, my father never spoke much about his childhood. But I knew he was angry about his mom just abandoning him like that. All his drug and alcohol problems seemed to be about quelling that anger.”

  She dunked her tea bag, then wrapped the string nervously around one finger. “When he died two years ago, I was just so heartbroken that we’d only begun reconciling, that I stuffed all of his possessions into those boxes and stuck them at the back of my closet. I couldn’t bear to look at them.”

  Vega understood. His own mother had died a couple of years ago—murdered in a brutal attack. He still had a hard time looking at old picture albums and items he’d boxed up from her apartment.

  “Anyway,” said Cecilia. “When I went through the box after speaking to you, I found a letter my father’s mother had written to him. The envelope was postmarked about a year before she died. I thought they had no contact.”

  “What did the letter say?” asked Vega.

  “She asked his forgiveness.” Cecilia pushed her tea to one side and settled her dark eyes on Vega’s. “She told him she was a teenager when social services took him away. She was abused by her boyfriend and messed up on drugs. She told him in the letter that she was dying and begged his forgiveness.”

  “Do you know if he forgave her?”

  “I don’t think he ever did,” said Cecilia. “But the date on the envelope corresponds with the month he first reached out to me—to ask my forgiveness—for not being in my life more as a kid.”

  “And you gave it to him,” said Vega.

  “And I gave it to him.”

  She laced her fingers together and tried to compose her words. “Jimmy, I don’t know why you ended up in foster care. I don’t know what happened to you there. But I know one thing from looking at my grandmother’s letter and thinking about the last couple of years of my father’s life. Time is short. We never know how much we have. If you spend it looking for ways to hate and blame people in your past, it will drag you down and poison you. Your mother and grandmother must have been good people. They got you back. They raised you up well. And, until now, you never had to face that dark time.”

  “But that’s just it,” said Vega. “I have these half memories. Things, like being locked in a closet—”

  “By your mother?”

  “No,” said Vega. “I went down to child services in the Bronx and found out that the people who fostered me were taken off the approved list of foster homes two years after I was there. I think they did that stuff to me.”

  “And if you find them—then what?” asked Cecilia. “They’re old. They might be dead.”

  “I guess,” Vega admitted. “I found out one thing from looking at the records at least. I didn’t get taken away because my mother hit me. It was likely a baseball injury. Somebody anonymously called it into child services by mistake.”

  Cecilia regarded Vega for a long moment. “I’m an ER nurse,” she said. “You’re a cop. How many baseball injuries have you ever mistaken for abuse?”

  “What are you saying?” asked Vega. “That it wasn’t a sports injury? That my mother did that?”

  Cecilia raised an eyebrow. She didn’t believe him. Vega felt angry. He didn’t need to defend his family to this stranger.

  “My mother was a nurse,” said Vega. “Not an RN, maybe. But an LPN. She didn’t drink or do drugs. She worked every day of her life. She didn’t even bring men into the house until I was long out of it. Never once do I remember her or my grandmother hitting me across the face like that. Never!”

  “Okay, Jimmy. I believe you,” said Cecilia. “Then your mother had an enemy.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nobody makes an anonymous phone call to child services for a baseball injury. Unless they were looking to hurt your mom by hurting you.”

  Vega blinked at her. Luisa Rosario-Vega was a gentle, soft-spoken woman. Private and unassuming. Who would hate her so much they would try to take her only child away?

  Someone who blamed her for poisoning their cat.

  Someone whose kid sister had been seduced by Luisa’s husband and spirited away.

  Gloria Rodriguez.

  Cecilia must have seen the fury creep across Vega’s face. She reached out a hand.

  “Jimmy, please. Listen to me. The past is the past. You’ve got to let it go. If you don’t, it will burn a hole right through you. That’s what happened to my dad. It ruined his life. Don’t go down the same path.”

  “I don’t know if that’s in my power.”

  Chapter 46

  Vega knew he should walk to the station house, get in his truck, and drive straight home. He was officially on medical leave. His chest stung with each intake of breath. His head throbbed. The swelling on the left side of his face made it difficult to drive. Yet he burned with a deeper hurt and pain that no amount of painkillers or rest could help him with.

  He walked the few blocks to the Lake Holly police station and got in his truck. Then he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Michelle. The child in him wanted to confront her with everything he suspected about her aunt. The adult in him knew better. ICE was scrambling to find their mole. That was her focus right now and it should be his. It served no purpose to derail it with personal crap that was thirty-five years in the past.

  Her voice was breathy and concerned when she picked up.

  “Jimmy! Oh my God, I heard. Are you okay, mano? We’re going crazy here, ever since the news broke about Ryan Bale.”

  “I just got discharged from the hospital.” Vega tried to keep his voice cool and professional. This wasn’t the place to rehash ancient wounds. “Thank you for intervening on Edgar Aviles’s behalf. He saved my life.”

  “I understand he’s now fighting for his,” said Michelle.

  “Adele got word that he’ll pull through,” said Vega. “So, what’s the update on your end? Have you got any leads on who your mole might be? Because Bale definitely had one.”

  Michelle hesitated a moment. Vega realized she was probably speaking from her not-so-private cubicle. “Can I call you right back?”

  “Okay.”

  Vega checked his phone messages wh
ile he waited. There was an email he’d missed earlier, from Greco, reminding the investigators that Talia Crowley’s funeral was tomorrow. Vega knew that after the blows he took today, no one would expect him to go. But he would. He had to. He felt a great sadness that he’d let Talia down by not figuring out what had happened to her. And now, with the FBI involved, he might never get close enough to the investigation again to find out. She deserved better than that.

  Michelle called him back a few minutes later.

  “I’m in my car in the garage below,” she said. “It’s the only place I can find privacy.”

  “Have you got a suspect?” asked Vega.

  “Well, it’s not Dan Wilson,” said Michelle. “That much, we’re sure of. He’s been in the Adirondacks the whole time. Whoever set this up just used his name.”

  “Tyler and Donovan?”

  “They’re straight shooters,” Michelle insisted. “Same with Eddie Hidalgo in our office. Chuck Cassidy’s always griping about something. He has some gambling problems. My field director’s focusing on him.”

  “What about Wayne Bowman himself?” asked Vega.

  “He certainly has the access as field director,” said Michelle. “But he’s like Wilson. He’s got a religious zeal about this work that he wouldn’t compromise. Even Cassidy feels wrong for it. He’s too lazy and sloppy to pull it off.”

  “Can you match agents’ work schedules to what we know about the timeline? That might eliminate people who were on-duty.”

  “I’d love to,” said Michelle. “But Karen’s the only one who has access to all that and she left early. Doctor’s appointment.”

  “You mean the candy dish lady?”

  “Yep. Without her, we’re lost when it comes to the vagaries of our computer system.”

  Vega felt a buzzing in his head that couldn’t be ascribed to the concussion. “Does the candy dish lady have access to individual petitioners’ files?”