No Witness But the Moon Page 16

  “People know, Adele. Whether I tell them or not. Some already knew and now they all do. Besides, how else could anyone explain your behavior? You spoke to the DA’s office. You confirmed all the incriminating facts. And yet you’re still refusing to call for a grand jury investigation.”

  “I’m not refusing. I’m weighing it.”

  “What’s to weigh?”

  Adele blinked at him.

  “Okay. I get it,” said Lindsey. “If you stand up on that stage tomorrow and call for a grand jury investigation, your life with this man is over. But let me ask you this: if you found out he executed an unarmed man at point-blank range, would you really want a life with him after that? You’ve spent ten grueling years building La Casa. You’ve spent what?—a few months?—dating this guy. Are you really willing to stake your whole career—La Casa’s credibility—on what he did in those woods?”

  One of the board members pulled Lindsey aside to ask him a question. Adele used the excuse to disappear into the crowd. She felt lost and was reeling. She wished she knew what to believe. She wished Vega would tell her. Why couldn’t he just tell her?

  After forty-five minutes, Adele grabbed her coat and found her way out through the kitchen. Minutes ticked by. Luis wasn’t there. She turned to go back inside.

  “Finally. My nicotine fix.” And there he was, dimpled grin on command, smiling at her as he stuck a cigarette between his lips and lit it. “You smoke?” He held the pack out to her.

  “No. Thanks.” She shook her head. His presence one-on-one turned her shy.

  Luis regarded the glowing embers of his cigarette. “I keep trying to quit but I’ve been smoking since I was thirteen.”

  “That young?”

  Luis shrugged. “I was a street kid in Nogales, Mexico. You grow up fast.”

  “Did you always sing?”

  “Sang. Danced. You name it, I did it.”

  “I guess people noticed your talent.”

  Luis laughed. He could act, too. He was acting like he cared what Adele had to say. “Nobody notices anything when your belly’s empty. Believe me, I spent years dressing up in ridiculous costumes and doing stupid gong show routines on Sábado Gigante. One wrong move and I could end up back there.” Adele knew the Spanish-language variety show. She used to watch it as a child. “Despite what everyone sees, I was not an overnight success.”

  “So how did you get your big break?”

  He shrugged. “You make the right connections and then just do whatever you need to keep them. You got my book, right?”

  “Um, yes. Thank you.” She hadn’t cracked the spine.

  “See, that’s where I am right now. I just wrapped up my first American movie. It’s coming out in July and my agent and a whole bunch of people in Hollywood think this is the career move that’s going to break me out of the Latin market and into mainstream audiences. This shooting—it could ruin everything.”

  “I’m sure you’ve got an army of publicists handling that,” said Adele.

  “Yes. I do,” said Luis. “But when you told me just now about your connection to the police officer”—he sighed—“I feel bad. I never wanted things to go like this. I know the detective was just trying to do his job.”

  “It would be great if you could say that publicly.”

  “I wish I could, Adele. But the media, the fans—they could turn against me in an instant. It’s bad enough that I shot this man. All the anti-gun people now hate me. Never mind the fact that every celebrity in Hollywood who is anti-gun walks around with an armed bodyguard. The double standard is ridiculous.”

  “You don’t have a bodyguard?”

  “I do in Miami. I have to. Here for the most part, I can escape from all of that.”

  “Sounds like you don’t like fame all that much.”

  “It’s got its upside, sure.” He held his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and took a long pull. Up close like this, without a camera or spotlights, Adele could see the scrawny Mexican street kid he’d once been.

  “The problem is, everyone wants something from you,” said Luis as he exhaled a long blast of smoke. “Even when you give, it’s never enough. They always want more. When I made that nine-one-one call, I just wanted it to be over.”

  “It? You mean the robbery?”

  Luis leaned against the building’s shingles and looked past Adele to the parking lot. “If there was a way I could make things better without destroying my career, I would. I didn’t grow up like this.” He gestured to the Mercedes, BMWs, and Escalades that lined the lot, their chrome and paint sparkling like they’d just come out of the showroom.

  The man in the black beret whom Adele had seen earlier hung out the kitchen door. “Ric. You’re needed inside.”

  Luis stamped out his cigarette. “See what I mean?” “It’s a shame,” said Adele. “Under different circumstances, Jimmy would have been thrilled to meet you. He’s a musician, too.”

  “The detective? What does he play?”

  “Guitar. In a club band. They call themselves ‘Armado.’ ”

  “Hah.” Luis laughed. “Sorry. It’s just—Armed—that doesn’t sound like the best band name for a man who just uh, did what he did.”

  “I know. All the band members are in law enforcement. That’s where the name came from.”

  “Hold on a moment, please.” Luis went into the kitchen and emerged a few minutes later with a scrap of paper. “This is my private cell phone number. Please tell the detective that if he would ever like a tour of my home recording studio or guitar collection in Wickford, I would be happy to give him one.”

  “Thank you,” said Adele. “That’s very kind of you. But I doubt his department would let him.”

  “I understand. I’m just trying to offer a—cómo se dice?—a peace offering?”

  Adele tucked the scrap of paper into her purse. “I’ll let him know.” She ducked back through the kitchen and found Dave Lindsey.

  “I’ve got to go.” Adele didn’t want to pick Sophia up too late from her friend’s house. The girl’s family was doing her a favor as it was.

  Lindsey leaned in close to speak over the music. “Margaret Behring,” he shouted.

  “What?”

  “Do you know a Margaret Behring?”

  “I’m on the board of the Lake Holly Food Pantry,” said Adele. “Of course I know Margaret. She coordinates all the volunteers who help stock the shelves.” Many of the pantry’s needy clients were also clients of La Casa.

  “Margaret lives in Wickford. On Perkins Road. Right behind Luis.”

  Adele stepped back as the realization of what Dave Lindsey was saying sank in.

  “You don’t mean. She’s not—”

  “Tate just told me. She’s the one who witnessed the shooting.”

  Chapter 18

  Rage coursed through Vega’s veins. The sort of rage he’d never known his entire life, not even when Wendy told him she was pregnant with another man’s twins. It bypassed all logic and reason. It clawed at his core, snarling and feral, ready to leap out at the son of a bitch who’d threatened his daughter.

  I will kill the hijo de puta who slashed my little girl’s tires. I will bash his brains in. I don’t care if they send me to jail. I’m going anyway.

  How was it possible that he’d killed a man last night and felt only guilt and regret? And now, not twenty-four hours later, he felt only desire to do the same thing?

  You want a killer cop? Bicho es! I’ll give you a killer cop!

  He could barely keep his mind on the road as he drove to the community college campus. He tailgated in the left lane, driving too fast, taking the turns too quickly, whipping in and out of traffic like he had some sort of death wish for himself and anyone who came into contact with him. I’m toxic. Stay away from me, cabrones. The world hates me and I hate the world! If he could find a bumper sticker to proclaim it, he would.

  Up until this moment in his life, he’d always tried to find the essential goodness
in people. And sure, with some, you had to paw through a pile of manure to uncover it. But he never quit looking. He wanted to help people. He wanted to keep them safe. He wanted to guide them through their time of crisis to that moment when things would get better. He believed that even when they lied to him or cursed at him or took a swing at him that it was only the uniform or his position of authority that they were angry at. They were acting out of impulse. It wasn’t personal. When everyone calmed down, they would see that. Things would improve.

  He wasn’t sure he could believe that anymore. Never had humanity looked darker or more threatening to him than in these last twenty-four hours. Never had he felt so vulnerable and alone.

  Do whatever you want to me! he felt like screaming. But spare the people I love! He was a man with a bull’s-eye on his back. Everyone he cared about was likely to become collateral damage.

  Valley Community College was county police jurisdiction. His jurisdiction—if he weren’t on administrative leave. He managed to keep himself together long enough to ask his department to send over two officers to file a formal report. He didn’t want this swept under the rug by campus security.

  He tried to force himself to calm down enough so that he didn’t look like a raging lunatic when he pulled up to the campus security building. It was a portable trailer that looked like a giant Twinkie with a handicap accessible ramp in front and two flowerpots that seemed to be used mostly for cigarette butts. There was a small parking lot facing the building with one campus patrol car in a marked spot and an aging Nissan sedan across from it. Joy’s car wasn’t here. It was probably in the student lot. Just as well, thought Vega. He wasn’t ready to face the casual viciousness of the crime yet. He parked his truck next to the Nissan and walked inside.

  The trailer was one long overheated room. It smelled of burnt coffee and damp wood. Joy was sitting on a plastic chair between two girlfriends who were hovering protectively around her. All three of them looked like variations on the same theme, with their skintight, ripped jeans, ponytails, and childish accessories. The girl on Joy’s right was black with Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed Reindeer mittens on her hands. The one on her left was blond with freckled skin and a wool hat adorned with pom-poms pulled low across her forehead. Vega wished he knew their names, wished he paid more attention to such things.

  Everybody stared at Vega when he entered. Besides the girls, there were three officers in the room. There was the campus security officer, a black guy with the ramrod posture of a retired soldier. There were also two uniformed officers Vega recognized from his own department—Wilson, a white guy with soft eyes whose father used to work with Greco in the Lake Holly PD, and Duran, a fellow Puerto Rican who was short-listed to make detective soon. At this rate, maybe he’d take Vega’s job.

  All conversation stopped when Vega entered. The only sound was the squawk of the department radios. Vega nodded to the three officers. There was no point in introducing himself to the campus security guy. Anybody who hadn’t been under a rock the past twenty-four hours knew who he was.

  “So what do you have so far? Any witnesses? Any video footage?”

  “No witnesses,” said Duran. He had a weight lifter’s physique—all shoulders and biceps and pecs—probably a compensation for his relatively short stature. He lifted his gaze to meet Vega’s but his eyes seemed to be focusing on a spot just past Vega’s earlobe. “We’ve pulled the video. One suspect. A white male, maybe five-nine, a hundred and fifty pounds wearing a dark hoodie.”

  “That’s like a third of the student body.”

  “The video’s very grainy,” said the campus officer. His nameplate read STEVENS. “The county hasn’t appropriated any funds to update our security equipment in a long time so we’ve got no clear facial shots. We do know that he got into a dark-colored jeeplike vehicle with someone else behind the wheel. Though again, we’ve got no idea who that person is.”

  “Model? Color? License plate?” asked Vega.

  “Can’t tell from the video,” said Stevens. “It looks like a Jeep. Maybe a Renegade. Black or dark blue or maybe even dark green.”

  “You can’t cross-check the Jeep with student-registered vehicles?”

  “We did. But right now, we have no proof it was a student. The campus has no perimeter security so in theory, anyone could have driven in.”

  Vega turned to Joy. “Can you narrow the field of suspects, perhaps? Any boy you rejected? Or who thinks you rejected him?”

  “That’s sexist, Dad.”

  “How is that sexist?”

  “To assume that I’m somehow to blame for this.”

  “I’m not blaming you. I’m just wondering if maybe you sent out the wrong signals to someone.”

  “That’s not blame? Look at the note, Dad! It’s about you, not me.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence in the room. Now Vega was not only a killer cop, he was a chauvinist as well. He tried to run with his mistake.

  “Okay. So this is about me.” He turned to Stevens. “Has someone on campus been active in antipolice protests?”

  “We have several student organizations that would fit that bill,” said Stevens.

  “The whole campus knows!” said Joy. “You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who hasn’t seen something about it.” Vega could have been on death row and been more popular, apparently. He turned back to the cops.

  “Are you interviewing students?”

  “Duran and I are on that now,” said Wilson. “Kids often brag about this sort of vandalism.”

  “It’s more than vandalism,” said Vega. “This student—and I use the term loosely—made terroristic threats against my daughter.”

  “Actually, right now, the charge would be vandalism,” Duran interrupted. “Criminal mischief, to be more precise. There is no threat, implied or otherwise.”

  “This cabrón wrote ‘killer cop’s daughter.’ That’s not threatening?”

  “I’m afraid we get a lot of this type of vandalism,” said Stevens. “Some are fraternity pranks. Others are students who are angry at their professors or looking to get revenge against an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend—”

  “What Stevens is saying,” Duran interrupted, “is that we can’t justify a bigger charge in this case without explaining why all those other cases fall under the heading of ‘criminal mischief.’ ”

  “So that’s it? You just file the report and let these pendejos skate?”

  “Nobody’s letting anyone skate.” Vega could tell Duran was getting frustrated with him. Vega was frustrated, too. He’d never been on this side of the divide, standing before cops, feeling helpless and victimized.

  “Stevens is going to keep an eye out for your daughter,” said Duran. “We’ll run checks on the student-registered vehicles. We’ll ask at the fraternities. It could take a month or two. But we’ll catch these guys, I’m sure.”

  “And they’re gonna be real scared when you charge them with criminal mischief and all they pay is a freakin’ fine.”

  “Dad!” cried Joy, tugging at his sleeve. “Let’s go home.”

  “I don’t make the laws, Jimmy,” said Duran. “And neither do you. My suggestion in the meantime? Buy your daughter some pepper spray. A lot of the girls on campus carry it.”

  “Pepper spray? That’s your answer?”

  “Quit it, Dad! You’re embarrassing me.” Joy ushered her father out of the trailer and into the parking lot.

  “Pepper spray?” Vega asked again as their feet hit the asphalt. “You’re attacked and all these guys can do is suggest I buy you some pepper spray?”

  “I wasn’t attacked. Just my car. Dad, please! Can we concentrate right now on getting the car home?”

  Joy had already called a tow truck to meet them in the student parking lot. They just had to wait for it to show up. Vanessa, the black girl with Rudolph mittens, hugged Joy and got into her car next to Vega’s truck. Vega thanked her for being there for his daughter.

  The other girl, the freckl
ed blonde, just stood there fiddling with the pom-poms on her knit hat.

  “You need a ride?” asked Vega as he beeped open his truck doors.

  Freckles didn’t move.

  “Tell my dad what you just told me,” said Joy.

  “But it’ll get my boyfriend in trouble!”

  “If you don’t tell, I will,” said Joy.

  “Tell me what?” asked Vega. “Does she know the guys who did this?”

  “No,” said Joy. “Tell him, Katie.”

  Vega found himself suddenly scrutinizing this Katie more closely. She wore a suede jacket and supple high leather boots that were fashionable rather than warm. Even her slouchy cherry-red messenger bag looked like something his ex-wife would buy on her second husband’s hugely inflated Wall Street salary. While a lot of kids at Valley Community were struggling financially, Katie didn’t appear to be one of them.

  “Where’s your car?” Vega asked the girl.

  “In the same lot as Joy’s.”

  “Hop in. I’ll drive you over and we can talk.”

  The girl squeezed into the back seat of Vega’s truck and removed her pom-pom hat. A crackle of static filled the air.

  “Katie’s from Wickford,” said Joy.

  “Mmm.” Vega had no idea if this was small talk or significant. With teenage girls, you never could tell.

  “Her folks live on Rose Lane. Off Perkins Road.”

  “Huh.” That was right around the corner from Ricardo Luis. Vega’s palms began to sweat just thinking about those dark woods. That full moon. He willed himself to listen and not float off into his own loop of fears.

  “Dad? If Katie tells you something, does it have to get reported to the police?”

  “Depends.” Vega caught Katie’s eye in the rearview mirror. He needed to engage her directly. “I’ll do my best to shield you from any embarrassment. But I have to work within the law.”

  “I’m like, more worried about my parents than the law,” said the girl. She pulled a brush and compact mirror out of her messenger bag and began combing her long blond hair, no doubt getting it all over Vega’s back seat. He often wondered why women considered it perfectly reasonable to fix themselves up in public. What would they say if he brought out his shaving kit right now?