Land of Careful Shadows

by Suzanne Chazin

  “You’ve never lost a child, Jimmy. You have no idea what that does to you. You’d do anything after that to protect the ones you have left. Believe me, in my shoes, you’d do the same thing.”

  “I couldn’t square it with my conscience.”

  “You’d be surprised what you can do when you have to.” Rowland rose. “I have work to do. Let’s just remember the friendship as it used to be, huh?”

  Chapter 16

  Vega felt hollowed out from the morning, his allegiances blurred, his sense of his own history shattered. He’d gone into Bobby Rowland’s store to convince his old friend to stop deceiving himself about his son. He’d come out wondering if the ultimate prize for self-deception didn’t belong to Vega himself. When it came to women at least, he didn’t have a clue.

  He called Greco and updated him on his interview with Rowland.

  “Sounds like we’re on the right track thinking those punks are behind this string of bias attacks,” said Greco.

  “Yeah,” Vega agreed. “But without Bobby coming forward, we’re no closer to proving any of that. Too bad we can’t find Ortiz.”

  “We did find him. Your friend Adele convinced Ortiz to turn himself in this morning.”

  Vega decided to let the “your friend” remark pass.

  “Unfortunately, he turned out to be a waste of time,” Greco added. “He saw nothing. He knows nothing. I’ve had dementia patients who give better testimony. And meanwhile, the clock is ticking on Morales. Porter’s already putting on pancake and eyeliner in time for the six o’clock news.”

  Vega checked his watch. Eleven a.m. He had seven hours.

  “Did you try Cindy Klein again?” asked Greco.

  “Yeah. Still no word. I’m heading up to Apple Ridge Drive now. I’m going to camp on her doorstep if I have to.”

  “Just don’t be obvious about it. That’s The Farms, Vega. The neighbors see a Hispanic man without a lawn mower or a leaf blower in his hands, we’re gonna have the switchboard lighting up with suspicious person calls.”

  There was something coldly antiseptic about The Farms in Vega’s opinion, and it wasn’t just because his ex-wife lived there. It called itself a neighborhood and yet repelled the notion at the same time. The houses—Georgians, Colonials, and Tudors, none under five thousand square feet—were lined up like sentries along broad swaths of perfect lawns. The driveways all emptied onto streets wide and untraveled enough to kick a ball around on.

  And yet it always felt to Vega as if aliens from another planet had designed it. Every house had huge windows but most were covered over in multiple layers of drapes and shades. Lights and sprinklers flicked on and off from automatic timers. There were imposing front doors but it appeared no one ever went through them. There were multiple chimneys but he never smelled a fire burning. There was patio furniture and the occasional in-ground pool. And yet Vega could never recall seeing anyone outside when he drove by save for gardeners and handymen. SUVs and minivans shot in and out of three-car garages like their occupants were mole rats, always going somewhere else, forever in a hurry.

  He missed The Farms of his teenage years—the real farm—where vines grew thick through hundred-year-old stone walls and the oaks and maples were so broad it took two people, arms linked, to encircle their trunks. He missed the rows of gnarled apple trees that, even after the real farm closed down, continued to produce their Macintoshes and Galas and Empires, mute and stalwart against the din of buzz saws and excavation equipment. When Wendy was three months pregnant, Vega carved their initials in a hundred-year-old oak on that farm. She told him their love would last as long as that tree. Now, the only trees Vega saw flanking those gabled Tudors and white-columned Georgians were the ones the developers planted, none of them wider than a teenage girl’s calves. He supposed Wendy was right after all.

  Forty-three Apple Ridge Drive was the style and size of a small Normandy castle. It couldn’t have been more than about ten or twelve years old, yet the brick was milky with a lime coating that made the home look as if it had survived since Napoleon’s time. There was a turret at the entrance and a huge stained-glass window with eagles and dragons across it. There were two enormous fieldstone chimneys running up opposite sides of the house and a three-car garage with elaborate wood-paneled doors across each bay.

  Vega rang the doorbell. He expected no one to be home. You can never tell whether anyone is home or not with a house in The Farms. He was heartened when a woman in her late fifties answered the door. She was thin to the point of emaciated, with perfect white teeth and long, black hair that she blow-dried straight like she was still in high school. She wore high-school girls’ clothes, too—tight designer jeans and a dark sweater that she accentuated with a leather-and-brass belt like something the conquistadores might have worn, slung low across her waist. Her slivers of hips could barely hold the thing up. A heavy gold bracelet encircled a bony wrist and her manicured fingers sported several rings that looked as if they were real, not costume.

  “Ms. Klein? Cindy Klein?”

  “Yes?”

  Vega flashed his badge. “James Vega. I’m a detective with the county PD. I left a message on your phone?”

  There was a momentary question on her feather-lined lips, a slight arch to her plucked eyebrows before she remembered.

  “I’m so sorry, Detective. I didn’t have a chance to return your call. And now I’m getting ready to host a luncheon. Can I call you later?”

  “I won’t take up too much of your time, ma’am. But this is important. May I come in?”

  She hesitated. “Can I ask what this is about?”

  He pulled out the flyer. “Do you recognize this woman?”

  “Why—that’s Maria.”

  “Maria what?”

  “Maria—” She offered up a look of embarrassment and then remembered. “Vasquez. Maria Vasquez. She used to work for me. Is she all right?”

  “No ma’am, she’s not. She’s dead.”

  “Oh my God. What happened?”

  “That’s what I’d like to come in and talk to you about.”

  Cindy nodded and beckoned Vega into an enormous central hallway where the light fell like syrup through the windows. A large pot of daffodils filled up a brass table in the middle of the hall. Off to the right was a living room with a dark-beamed ceiling. A black lacquer baby grand took up the far corner of the room. Vega eyed the piano wistfully. His mother used to have an old upright with missing keys when they lived in the Bronx. They’d had to leave it behind when they moved to Lake Holly. If he’d had more time and money, he would have loved to own another.

  Cindy led him away from the living room to another big room with leather couches and Persian rugs that adjoined an open kitchen with hand-painted tiles. A wall of glass overlooked a rolling green stretch of backyard and the rear of another Farms mansion that looked as if it had been built out of sugar cubes.

  “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Sure, thanks.”

  Cindy called out to a stocky Latina cutting cubes of melon, presumably for the luncheon. “Carmen? Can you get us some coffee?”

  “Yes, missus. How the mister like?”

  “Café sólo con azúcar, por favor,” said Vega. Black with sugar, please. He exchanged a quick smile with Carmen, the recognition between them a bond that always caught him by surprise. He supposed he would always feel Latino around Anglos, always search out that comfort zone.

  Cindy motioned for him to have a seat on the leather couch.

  “Are you comfortable talking here?” he asked.

  “Oh, it’s fine.” She moved a vase of orchids to one side of the coffee table along with a book of reprints from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Carmen is going to be vacuuming the living room for our guests and fixing the spread. She speaks very little English. She won’t know or care what we’re talking about.”

  In Vega’s experience, that was never the case but he let it pass. “How long did Maria work for you?”
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  “About five months. What happened to her?”

  “Her body was found in the reservoir. Her death is still under investigation.”

  “You mean she drowned?”

  “We don’t know yet, ma’am.” Vega set the flyer of Maria on the coffee table and pulled out his notebook. “When did she stop working for you?”

  “About a month ago. Sometime in early March, I believe.” Cindy fiddled with her watch. Vega noted a starburst pattern of diamonds on the face.

  “She leave of her own accord?”

  “Not exactly—I sort of fired her.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, see, actually, I didn’t tell her I was firing her. I just sort of told her I didn’t need a live-in anymore. Because I didn’t want her to, you know, get spiteful or anything.” She fiddled some more with her watch. “I can’t believe she died. Right here in Lake Holly.”

  “Why did you want to fire her?”

  “Well—is this all, um—necessary?”

  Vega put on his best cop voice: lots of Bronx in the accent. “This is a police investigation, ma’am. It’s necessary.”

  Cindy picked up the flyer. “Is that her little girl?”

  “What do you know about the child?”

  “Very little. I made the mistake once of asking if she had any children. She started to cry. I don’t speak Spanish, Detective. I knew there was so much I should ask but I didn’t know how to and she didn’t seem to want to talk about it. I figured the child was staying with a grandmother in Guatemala or something and she missed her. I respected her privacy.”

  “But you fired her. Why?”

  Cindy fiddled with the coffee Carmen had brought over and waited until the housekeeper had left the room.

  “Maria was a very hard worker. Very sweet and conscientious. But one day, I noticed one of my bracelets missing. This wasn’t just some sentimental trinket, you understand. It was insured for three thousand.”

  “Did you ask her about it?”

  “Well—no.” Cindy dabbed at her lipstick. There were no wrinkles on her face. She’d had work done. A lot of it, judging from how tight her forehead looked. She couldn’t have frowned if she’d wanted to.

  “I didn’t want to accuse her,” Cindy explained. “But then several hundred dollars went missing from my husband’s billfold. So I told her I was thinking of going without a live-in for a while. I figured I’d get her out and then a month or two later, hire someone else. But she went out one day and never returned.”

  Vega straightened. “You mean, she just disappeared?”

  “I didn’t know that at first. I mean, I’d already given her notice so I thought perhaps she was sort of deciding what she wanted to do. Maybe staying with a friend or something. I called her cell phone and left messages but she never called back.”

  “So you mean to tell me”—Vega leaned forward—“the woman took a three-thousand-dollar bracelet and several hundred in cash and you just let her walk out of your life?”

  “It’s—complicated, Detective.”

  Vega would never understand rich people. “Do you still have her cell number?”

  “Somewhere, I’m sure.” Cindy pushed herself up from the sofa and walked over to a drawer in her kitchen where she rummaged around. Vega heard keys and paperclips jangling against one another.

  “Here it is.” She rattled off the phone number. Vega suspected the number was the prepaid wireless variety that didn’t require a name or credit check. Still, the police could trace the number and match it to the device and place of purchase. They could also trace any calls and text messages she’d made from her phone and when they’d stopped. It was the best lead he’d gotten so far. But something was still troubling him.

  “I guess I’m not clear why you didn’t report her missing. It’s been over a month.”

  “I didn’t know whom to report her missing to,” said Cindy. “Her mother was in Guatemala. I have no phone number for her. I don’t speak Spanish and I don’t think she had any family in the U.S.”

  “And you didn’t think the little girl in the picture would want to know where her mother was?”

  “I thought perhaps they already knew. Maria had her cell phone with her when she left. She’d taken all her money, even her final week’s pay—like she knew on some level she was leaving. I was afraid that if I went to the police, I would have to tell them about the missing money and jewelry and then I could actually get her deported.”

  “But if she stole from you,” said Vega, unable to mask the frustration in his voice, “she should be prosecuted and deported. Otherwise, she could do it again to others.”

  “Well—the thing is . . .” Cindy played with one of her rings, a large speckled stone. It looked like a robin’s egg to Vega. It probably cost more than he made in a month. “The bracelet turned up in one of my handbags about two weeks after she disappeared. I’d forgotten I’d put it there because the clasp had broken. As for the money—well, my stepson eventually admitted . . .” Her voice trailed off. “We’ve got him in substance counseling now. But you have to understand, Detective. I didn’t know any of this until later. I just thought perhaps she’d moved on. Or gotten caught in a deportation raid or something.” She waved a hand in front of her face. “I mean, anything was possible. You know how these people are.”

  Wendy’s mother had said the same about him. When Wendy decided to ask for a divorce. He didn’t know it until later, but it was Wendy’s mother who insisted she break the news to him in a restaurant. Some place public. In case he became violent. He had never raised a hand to Wendy or Joy in thirteen years of marriage. But because he was Latino, Wendy’s mother assumed he’d behave violently and impulsively like some wild animal instead of a deeply wounded, grief-stricken man.

  He choked back the memory. “What date did Maria leave?”

  “Hmmm. I don’t remember the date. It was during that unseasonably warm period in early March. She had Sundays off so it must have been a Sunday.”

  “What time?”

  “That, I don’t know. I have a regular tennis match on Sundays. My husband tries to get in a round of golf if it’s warm enough. We usually grab lunch and dinner out. We probably weren’t even home when she left. The property is alarmed. She could have come and gone with just a punch of the alarm code.”

  “Did she give you any idea where she was going?”

  “Sundays, when it was warm enough, she usually met up with her boyfriend.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “Only his first name: Rodrigo.”

  Vega felt a pulse of electricity surge through his body.

  “And she was seeing this Rodrigo—in March?”

  “To my knowledge. I think they were apart for a while, but then they got back together.”

  Another pulse of current. Morales had lied. He hadn’t broken off the relationship after they arrived. It was still going strong right up until she disappeared. That lie and the time frame had just ratcheted him up from a person of interest to a suspect. “If I brought you a picture of Rodrigo, do you think you could identify him?”

  “I think so,” said Cindy. “He mowed my lawn here a few times but it’s not like he had a car and picked her up here on a regular basis. I think they walked to some central point to meet each other.”

  “Did you see Rodrigo the day she disappeared?”

  “No. I just remember Maria saying she was going to meet up with him.”

  “Do you know where they went? What they planned to do?”

  “I didn’t ask.” She seemed to feel the heat of Vega’s gaze upon her. “You think I should have reported her missing, don’t you?”

  “I think somebody should have. You could have told the cops what you’re telling me right now—even left out the theft part if you’d wanted.”

  “I just—I didn’t know enough about her situation to get involved. If it helps at all, I boxed up all her things. I kept thinking I should give them to La Casa but I never go
t around to it.”

  “Her things?” Jackpot.

  “They’re in the basement. You’re welcome to take the whole box if you want.”

  Vega followed Cindy to a door on the other side of the pantry. She flicked on a light and led him down an unpainted set of wooden stairs. In a corner, next to a broken skateboard, sat a large cardboard box that had already developed a fine layer of dust along the top. She looked at her watch.

  “Do you mind if I leave you down here? My luncheon is starting in a few minutes.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll probably be back at some point later today and have you ID a photo of Rodrigo.” Vega would have to use Morales’s arrest shot in Rhode Island. Nobody could ID him the way he looked right now.

  Cindy went upstairs and left Vega in the basement. He could have taken the box back to the station house and gone through it there. But Vega wanted to see the contents first. He found a set of latex gloves in his pocket and slipped into them so he didn’t contaminate anything with prints. Then he opened the box.

  Maria’s possessions didn’t amount to much. A few modest shirts and jeans. Some underwear and socks. A sweatshirt with I LOVE NY written across it. A pair of cheap silver-colored sling-back sandals. Vega had to remind himself that she probably crossed the border with only the clothes on her back.

  Everything in the box smelled musty. But even after weeks in the basement, Vega could still smell something of the woman on her clothes—a whiff of lavender from her shampoo. The vanilla moisturizer she rubbed on her skin. She was here—more alive in this box than she had ever seemed when Vega read the autopsy reports. For a moment, he could almost picture her with Morales—the way he’d stood up to the police for her, the way she’d dragged him to that pocket of air in that sweltering boxcar to save his life. Could all that have ended in one brutal moment? Vega would have liked to think not, but he had only to look at the love and hate he felt for Wendy to know that those two emotions were too closely linked to easily uncouple.