“I’m not holding anything back.”
“Sounds like you never do.” Greco raised an eyebrow. “Might be a strategy to consider on the home front sometime.”
Greco radioed his patrol officers. Then he and Vega split up and scoured the area, searching for footprints, discarded chewing gum wrappers—anything that would give them a clue as to who dumped this baby and why. They found beer cans—lots of beer cans, and cheap plastic bottles of vodka, a favorite of the hard-core drunks in the area. Vega and Greco didn’t really believe the alcohol containers had anything to do with the person who dumped the baby here. But they were hoping against hope that perhaps Zambo wasn’t the only witness in these woods last night. Two drunks were better than one—at least in this case—if only to compare stories.
The two men worked silently, taking notes of things they wanted the crime-scene techs to bag and remove. Vega made a sketch for himself of where the body was found in relation to the community center. Through the trees, he could see the parking lot at the back of the center. At the far end of the lot was a Dumpster.
“We know the baby was probably abandoned before it got light out, right?” asked Vega.
Greco nodded. “At this stage anyway.”
“You’re looking to get rid of a baby quickly. Why walk all the way into the woods? Why not just throw the body in the Dumpster?”
“Too great a chance of being spotted at the community center,” said Greco. “Remember, if you’re right about Zambo, the baby was placed out here alive before eight last night. La Casa was still open.”
“But if the killer walked into the woods via the community center, they had to walk past La Casa anyway. Not to mention that Dumpster.”
“Even a mom who wanted to get rid of her baby might feel a twinge of guilt throwing her in a Dumpster.”
“Maybe,” said Vega. “Then again, maybe she came from another direction.” He scanned the hillside behind them. There was a vague path through the trees. In summer, it would be completely overgrown with nettles, porcelain berry vines, and barberry bushes. But this time of year, most of the underbrush had already died off, leaving just a few skeletal branches of red berries and thorns.
“The parkway’s up this way, right?”
Greco nodded. “You think she parked on the side of the road and walked the baby into the woods from there?”
“It’s worth checking out.”
They trudged up the hill past clusters of bright red viburnum bushes and feathery groupings of hemlocks. Acorns rolled beneath their shoes, and chunks of rotting bark littered the path like fallen plaster. Brambles caught on their coveralls and scratched angry white lines across the skin on Vega’s wrists. He’d had a deep coffee tan all summer. It was fading now.
“It’s a hell of a schlep through this in daylight,” said Greco between breaths. Perspiration beaded the top of his scalp. “Still think a woman who just gave birth is gonna walk through here in the dark with a baby in her arms?”
“Half the pregnant women in Lake Holly are in better shape than you, Grec.”
They heard the highway up ahead, marked by an intermittent whoosh of cars. They followed the sound until they found themselves on a flat, six-foot-wide clearing next to the northbound side of the parkway. It was a Depression-era road—narrow, quaint, and twisting—certainly never meant for the volume of traffic that zigzagged along it now. It was still early on a Sunday, so traffic was light, which was good because neither of them was wearing a reflective vest.
“I don’t know,” said Greco. He wiped a sleeve of his coveralls across his forehead and kept one eye on oncoming traffic. “It’s hard to imagine anyone stopping here unless they broke down and had no choice.”
Vega studied the ground. The weedy thatch was shot through with stones—hardly ideal turf for any tire impressions. And yet a car had been here recently. He could tell by the way the weeds were lying flat or broken along two parallel troughs. Vega pointed this out to Greco.
“Yeah. Okay. I’ll buy that it happened at some point.”
“If she brought the baby by car, she was traveling northbound,” said Vega. “We should check the exit just south of here and the one just north for all recorded vehicle activity in the past twenty-four hours.”
“Will do,” said Greco. The first time Vega told Adele about all the automated license plate readers in the area that could spew out specific car locations with a click of a button, she railed against police invasion of privacy. Vega wondered if she’d change her mind about the technology if it caught the person who did this.
Greco, of course, pointed out the obvious hole: “We’ll have plenty of raw travel footage. But nothing to tie it to.”
“By the time you pull it all together, we may.”
An SUV whizzed by, sucking the air as it passed, nearly knocking them both over. Vega stepped back near the guardrail. He noticed it was scuffed. There were a few chips of paint at his feet and a small, triangular piece of red plastic that appeared to be from the covering of a vehicle indicator light. He pointed out the paint chips and plastic to Greco.
“We should get the techs to tag and bag this stuff. Maybe it will give us a make and model of car to match up against the license plate reader data.”
Greco frowned at the red plastic. “I don’t get it.”
Vega straightened. “Get what?”
“Why someone would sentence a baby to death out here when, under the Safe Haven Law, all they had to do was walk her into Lake Holly Hospital. Or our police station. Or any manned firehouse, no questions asked. Didn’t even have to be the mother who walked the baby in. Didn’t even have to be in Lake Holly.”
Vega studied Greco in the bright light of the clearing. His jowls had gotten more pronounced. His shoulders sagged in on themselves like an old pillow. Vega could tell he’d have preferred to spend the rest of his days until retirement filling out theft reports and putting a few more dealers out of commission. He didn’t need the burden of this baby on his conscience.
Greco opened his mouth and gave voice to what they were both thinking: “What sort of person would choose this instead?”
Vega offered up the only answer he could think of: “Someone who didn’t see a baby. They saw a problem. And they wanted it to disappear forever.”
Chapter 4
The assembly hall was packed for Sunday services. Luna Serrano ushered her younger brother and sister into folding chairs near the back. Papi took the aisle. Luna was glad they’d arrived late. It made it easier to avoid all the small talk and questions. “There’s no point in talking anymore,” Papi had told them this morning, as they were getting ready for church. “It’s in God’s hands now. He’ll listen. Or He won’t.”
God hadn’t been listening much lately, thought Luna. But she didn’t say this to her father.
The stage in front was strung with white lights. In the center, an empty lectern awaited the booming, sweaty presence of Pastor Ray. Dulce scratched at the crinoline in her pink dress. Mateo played with his tie.
“Sit still,” Luna hissed at her siblings. Dulce stuck out her tongue in response. Papi hunched forward in his folding chair, ignoring all of them, and studied an address on a slip of paper in his hands. He shoved it into his pocket as soon as Pastor Ray bounded onto the stage and an electric guitarist and drummer began playing, “Dios Está Aquí”—“God Is Here.” The congregation immediately got to their feet, singing and swaying to the music. For a minute, the joyful beat swept Luna away, made her feel almost like a normal fifteen-year-old again.
Almost.
“We must be open to the miraculous,” Pastor Ray urged in Spanish as the congregation took their seats. “We must be open, as Paul and Silas in the Bible were open.” Pastor Ray paced the stage and spoke about how Paul and Silas were shackled in a prison cell. Instead of bemoaning their fate, they praised God. In response, God sent an earthquake to free them.
Papi sank down in his seat and tugged his pant cuff over his right ankle. Señ
or Ortega leaned forward and patted Papi on the shoulder. Señora Aguilar turned in the seat in front of Luna and whispered a promise to drop off a casserole of tamales and beans at their apartment later. It felt like when Mami died all over again.
My father’s alive and healthy! Luna wanted to stand up and scream to all the people who were giving them pitying looks. He’s not going anywhere!
She prayed that that was true.
The rest of the service was a blur. Luna stood up when she was supposed to stand up and prayed when she was supposed to pray. Finally, Señora Gomez sang “Fe”—“Faith,” a signal that the service was ending and everyone could head to the back of the hall, where cookies and cake were being spread out on a long folding table.
Her father rose from his chair as soon as Pastor Ray stepped off the stage. “We need to leave.”
“But Papi,” Dulce whined, “I want cookies.”
“We don’t have time.”
“But Papi—”
“No!”
Luna grabbed her seven-year-old sister’s hand. “Come.” She led Dulce and her nine-year-old brother, Mateo, out into the sunshine. Their car, an old brown Chevy, sat on the other side of the gravel parking lot.
“I wish we were going to La Bella Vita,” said Mateo.
“Me too,” said Dulce. La Bella Vita was the Italian restaurant where their father used to work as a cook. On Sundays after church, he used to let them sit in a corner of the kitchen and sample the dishes before the restaurant opened for dinner. Luna could still see him in his white chef’s hat and tunic, the cuffs of his black-and-white checkered uniform pants curling over his sneakers. Everything he made tasted so good. But he couldn’t work now. The government wouldn’t let him.
Luna walked Dulce and Mateo across the parking lot. She thought her father would be close behind them. But when they got to their car, he was nowhere in sight. A moment later, he emerged from the church, walking with that awkward limp he had nowadays. He was carrying a paper plate with a napkin over it. Dulce knew what was underneath before he even lifted it. She bobbed up and down on her toes like someone was pulling her shoulders with a string. Luna saw a smile curl beneath her father’s mustache. Papi never said it, but Luna knew he was worried that Dulce’s last memories of him might be reduced to some moment like this. Her little sister wasn’t yet six when Mami died of meningitis. It was only a year and a half ago, but there was already so much about her that the child had forgotten.
Dulce reached for the plate as soon as their father walked over. She grabbed a cookie in each hand.
“One at a time,” said Luna.
“You’re not my mother,” Dulce shot back in English with a mouth full of mashed Oreos. Luna flinched. Papi kept his head down and said nothing.
Mateo’s hand hovered over the remaining cookies, moving first to one and then to another.
“Come on, Mijo,” their father urged gently. “We need to get moving.” Mateo finally settled on a chocolate chip cookie, and both children climbed in back.
Papi then held the plate out to Luna. She shook her head, no.
“But you like chocolate chip.”
“I’m not hungry,” she lied. Last week at school, a girl in Luna’s gym class called her “fat.” Papi said she was pretty. But Anglo girls at Lake Holly High had a different definition of pretty. Pretty was straight pale hair that spilled like water down your back. Pretty was size two jeans and a boy’s chest.
What Luna felt was not “pretty,” but something more shameful, something she didn’t have words for. Sometimes when she bent down at her locker, boys grabbed her rear end. She didn’t want a body that made boys do that. She wished Mami were still alive to talk to about these things. Papi was great to talk to about practical stuff. He was proud of her success in school and encouraged her dreams of becoming a doctor. But he was too traditional and Mexican to talk to about more personal matters. It would embarrass them both.
Her father wrapped up the last two cookies and shoved them under the backseat for later. Then he slid behind the wheel while Luna got into the front passenger seat. When he lifted his right leg, she saw the rectangular outline of that horrible black box beneath his sock. He’d had to wear it for four months now. Twenty-four hours a day. They all tried to pretend it wasn’t there. He kept a sock over it most of the time except for the two hours every day he had to charge it.
In the car, her father handed Luna the slip of paper with the address scribbled across it. The address was in Broad Plains, about twenty-five minutes south of Lake Holly. He tilted his rearview mirror and eyed Mateo and Dulce, arguing in the backseat over whose arm was taking up more room.
“We’re visiting an important man this afternoon,” he told them. “He’s putting time aside to try to help us, so you need to be on your best behavior.”
Luna didn’t think Papi knew any important men, but she didn’t say this. Instead she asked, “How do you know him?”
“Señora Figueroa knows him. He’s also from southern Mexico, from a village in Chiapas not far from where Mami and I grew up. Señora Figueroa told me if anyone can help us, he can.”
Papi touched a big fat envelope tucked down beside his seat. It was old and worn, stuffed thick with paperwork her father had kept over the years to prove that he’d always held a job in this country and paid his taxes. He didn’t have a Social Security number, but he had a TIN—a tax identification number—that he faithfully filed under every year. Her mother had been convinced that if the family did everything right, in time she, Papi, and Luna would become American citizens—just like Mateo and Dulce, who were born here. Then Luna could study to become a doctor and help the family buy a little place of their own, with enough room for a garden.
It was all Norma Serrano had ever wanted. She used to come home from her housecleaning jobs with old copies of magazines her employers gave her: Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, Better Homes and Gardens. She’d spread pictures of houses with front porches and white picket fences across the kitchen table and fill her children’s heads with visions of what it would be like to live in a place where there was no landlord who’d let himself into your apartment while you were out and rifle through your belongings to check on what kind of person you were or pound on your door at odd hours to make sure extra tenants weren’t staying with you.
She kept a potted garden on their kitchen windowsill where she grew basil, cilantro, and mint. In third grade, Luna’s class planted begonias for Mother’s Day. Luna gave her mother a pink one that they still had on their kitchen windowsill in a terra-cotta pot Luna had painted. The herbs, however, were gone—destroyed when the family had to leave their old apartment after a neighbor’s place caught fire. Most of her mother’s magazines were destroyed in that blaze too. Only one stack of Better Homes and Gardens was left. They sat in a dusty pile under Luna’s bed. She couldn’t bear to look at them, and she couldn’t throw them away.
“Luna—” Papi held her gaze in the windshield as they headed south. The trees had thinned out, and a couple of tall office buildings took their place. “You understand what has to happen if—if we can’t change things?” Papi never said the word “deported.” It was like the word “cancer.” To say it was to make it true.
“It’s not going to happen,” she answered firmly.
“Please, Mija. You need to face the possibility. How can Dulce and Mateo be strong if you fall apart?”
“Umm.” Luna turned her head away and gazed out at other vehicles whizzing along the highway. She imagined herself traveling in a different car, with people who never had to worry about the things her family had had to worry about for practically her entire existence.
“Alirio and Maria José have talked it over. It will be tight, but . . .” His voice drifted off. Luna didn’t want to talk about Papi’s cousins. She’d met them maybe half a dozen times in her life. They lived in Queens in a two-bedroom apartment with their three children, all under the age of eight. How long could she, Dulce, and Mateo real
istically stay with them?
“We don’t have a choice, at least for now,” said her father. “You can still go to high school in Queens. And Dulce and Mateo can continue their educations.” He gripped the steering wheel tighter as though they were having an argument. Maybe he was having one with himself. “If I take them back to Mexico with me, what future would they have?”
“It won’t come to that.” Luna laced her fingers on her lap to keep them from shaking. Fortunately, Dulce and Mateo were fighting again, so they weren’t really listening. They understood, but they didn’t. It was a blessing really.
In Broad Plains, Luna helped her father locate the address. It was a tall gray office building on a street of other tall gray office buildings. Papi parked the car, grabbed his thick envelope of papers, and herded all of them onto the sidewalk. He straightened Mateo’s tie and smoothed the braids Luna had put into Dulce’s hair that morning. By the time they walked into the building, Papi was sweating heavily.
The lobby was empty except for a bored-looking security guard. Her father showed the man a dog-eared business card that read: BRODY, KATZ, O’CONNOR AND SCHULMAN—ATTORNEYS AT LAW. The guard directed them to a bank of elevators that let them off on the fifteenth floor. Dulce and Mateo were silent on the way up. Luna wondered if even they understood that their family’s very existence might depend on the man they were about to see.
On the fifteenth floor, they got off and wandered around until they found the office door. Papi knocked hesitantly and then pushed the door open. On the other side was a large room with black leather furniture and framed diplomas on the walls. A short, balding Mexican-looking man with a big nose and a fat belly stepped out of an office and greeted Luna’s father in Spanish. He was dressed in an expensive-looking sweater and casual slacks that made their overdressed church clothes look desperate.
A Blossom of Bright Light Page 3
