A Place in the Wind Read online

  “Was she a virgin?”

  “Not likely. That stuff hasn’t happened for two thousand years.”

  “Huh?”

  “She was pregnant.”

  “What?”

  “About eight weeks along, according to Dr. Gupta. Could be, Catherine didn’t know. Seems like nobody else did.”

  Vega tried to recalibrate this new Catherine with the image he was carrying around in his head. “And the baby. Was it—?”

  “Rolando Benitez’s? No. We ran the DNA. I’d have taken odds that Benitez wasn’t the daddy. Not that I can tell you who is,” said Greco. “Nobody ever saw Catherine with a boy.”

  “I know someone who did,” said Vega. “The keyboardist in my band. A cop in Port Carroll by the name of Danny Molina. He subs for the piano player at the Magnolia Inn sometimes. He saw the brother fire a waiter for flirting with her.”

  “When was this?” asked Greco.

  “You can call Molina and ask him the details. He told me it was a couple of weeks ago. After the holidays. The guy disappeared after that. I don’t think Molina knew his name, but Todd Archer, the brother, would.”

  Vega massaged his forehead. “Pregnant! Jesus! I can’t believe it.” The girl seemed innocent and sheltered. Then again, maybe you had to be innocent and sheltered to get pregnant in this day and age. The experienced girls knew better.

  “Did her parents know she was pregnant?” Vega touched his stitches. They were beginning to itch. Probably a good sign.

  “They do now,” said Greco. “We just broke the news. It wasn’t pretty. Robin, the mom, seemed very worried that people would find out. That seemed to be her biggest concern.”

  “This changes everything,” said Vega.

  “It changes nothing,” said Greco. “Because nobody’s going to know.”

  “You’re not going to make this public?” asked Vega.

  “What do you think’s gonna happen if we go out there and tell the entire country—because that’s what we’d be doing—that our virgin princess got herself knocked up eight weeks before Benitez dragged her into those woods? It opens up all sorts of thorny questions I have no desire to answer right now.”

  “Are you saying you’re not going to investigate it?”

  “We’re gonna investigate it. Of course we are,” said Greco. “But until we know a hell of a lot more, I’m not going out there and telling the whole world that Snow White just became Sleeping Around Beauty. Or that the Lake Holly PD might have—underlined ‘might have’—crapped on the wrong guy. The community’s in turmoil. Everyone needs some time to heal.”

  “On a fable, Grec?” Vega couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Catherine Archer was a pregnant teenager. Which definitely ups the odds that she was killed by the father of her unborn child. Doesn’t that alternate story need to be put out there? People’s lives are at stake here. Benitez’s brother is sitting in jail over what happened. Adele just resigned because she’s being blamed for a situation she may have had nothing to do with.”

  “She resigned because La Casa had grown lax and out of touch with the way many people in this county feel about illegals right now,” said Greco. “Look at that whole surrender. She was so damned concerned about Benitez, she forgot about all the other lives she was putting at risk. My men. You. And, most of all, her own.”

  “You put her life at risk,” said Vega, “when you overreacted.”

  “Now who’s telling himself a fable?”

  Chapter 22

  Vega had under two and a half hours before he had to pick up Carp and drive him to Catherine’s wake and vigil. He didn’t want to be late. He drove home, showered, fed Diablo, changed into a suit and tie, then drove back to the county garage and signed out a black Chevy Suburban, which the guard assured him was Carp’s choice of vehicle.

  He checked his cell phone messages before he set the GPS to navigate to Carp’s estate. He was hoping Adele would text him. Maybe tell him about Sophia’s gymnastics class or what she was making for dinner. Anything to break the ice between them.

  She didn’t.

  He could text her. He wanted to. He ached to think he’d done something that hurt her. If he could go back to his old job in homicide right now, he’d gladly do it. This whole assignment was an embarrassment. Guys in his squad had started noticing that his desk was empty. That when his name came up, Waring just said he’d been “reassigned.”

  At first, everyone thought he’d been moved to pistol permits because someone saw him there making sure Max Zimmerman’s gun was registered. (It was.) When that rumor turned out to be false, his old pals pressed for details. Vega knew that anything he said would only make matters worse, so he said very little. He felt just like one of those purged officials in the old Soviet Union. Nobody sends postcards from Siberia.

  He opened up his screen to text Adele.

  Nena, he began.

  He couldn’t think of a single thing to write after that. Words for him—words with meaning—were like something at the bottom of a deep, dark well. They had to be pulled up, syllable by syllable, in a very small bucket.

  He started three different texts and deleted them all. Every one of them sounded too whiny. Or too angry. Or, worst of all, too needy.

  Mike Carp lived in Wickford, a town to the east of Lake Holly. The two towns shared about as much in common with each other as canned tuna and ahi. Lake Holly was cops and plumbers, fifth-generation residents and immigrants. Wickford was trust-fund babies, entertainers, and Wall Street CEOs. Lake Holly was nestled in a valley and loaded with small Victorians, sidewalks, and mom-and-pop stores. Wickford was rolling hills full of estates and horse farms nestled around a village that looked like something out of the Revolutionary War. Tiny storefronts in brick veneer. Steepled churches built of white clapboard. Cobblestoned sidewalks. It was beautiful until you discovered that much of the town housed nothing but real-estate firms and dry cleaners.

  The fastest way to Wickford was to drive to Lake Holly, then head east out of the valley, past the reservoir that gave the town its name. Vega passed it now on his right. The last pale brushes of daylight skimmed its surface. A flock of Canadian Geese flew low across its southern edge, past the same steep granite cliffs Vega once jumped off as a teenager on a dare from a girlfriend. It was a reckless move that still filled him with embarrassment at how cavalierly he might have thrown his life away.

  He was headstrong, he supposed. Joy was like that now. Vega closed his eyes and replayed the moment that professor threaded his arm around his daughter’s waist. He hoped she wasn’t about to pull the equivalent of a cliff dive with this guy.

  In the Suburban’s rearview mirror, Vega watched the village of Lake Holly recede by inches into the valley until all he could see were the twin granite spires of Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church. And then that, too, was gone.

  Vega followed the GPS directions to two enormous black wrought-iron gates. He rang the buzzer and identified himself. The gates slowly opened like some plow horse was pulling them. He drove through, initially mistaking the caretaker’s house and barn for Mike Carp’s residence. The actual residence was another three hundred feet down the driveway. It was three stories tall and looked like a European boarding school. There was a cobblestoned courtyard with a fountain of peeing cherubs in the middle. The fountain was turned off this time of year—which made the cherubs seem a little less innocent touching themselves with those big smiles on their faces. Maybe he just didn’t have the European aesthetic down.

  A uniformed butler—the last white servant in America—greeted Vega at the front door. Vega stepped into a grand hallway with black-and-white marble tile, a chandelier, and a sweeping central staircase that fanned out at the bottom. The whole place looked like the set of The Sound of Music.

  “In future,” said the butler, “you should come around back and announce yourself. Then wait outside.”

  “Nonsense!” boomed Carp as he thudded down the stairs, smoothing the collar of his s
hirt over his jacket. “Jimmy wants to come in the front doors, let him.” Carp turned to Vega. “We’ll be meeting a few of my staff at the McCarthy Funeral Home in Lake Holly. You know it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ll let me off in front and join us after you park. How’s the head?”

  “Fine, sir.” The bruising wasn’t too obvious on Vega’s caramel-colored skin, but there was no hiding the black surgical thread.

  “Good. Glad to hear it.”

  Carp buried himself in paperwork and texts on the drive over. By the time they arrived in Lake Holly, it was dark. Already, the town was mobbed. The police had cordoned off the funeral home to keep spectators and the media out. The vigil, however, was another matter. People with video cameras were setting up along Main Street to catch the parade of mourners slated to gather after the wake.

  “It’s going to be a big crowd tonight,” said Carp. He looked excited. Vega felt something closer to dread. A lot of these people—almost all of them white—weren’t from Lake Holly. Vega could tell that by the clueless way they wandered around, pointing to the ribbons on the lampposts and posters of Catherine in store windows.

  A police officer parted the barricade by the funeral home. On the steps of the stately white Colonial, teenagers with soft baby cheeks gathered in small groups, their noses red with the cold, clutching stuffed elephants and turquoise ribbons, their eyes as shell-shocked as their parents’. Vega dropped Carp off in front, where Prescott and Vanderlinden were waiting. He parked the Suburban and walked back.

  The McCarthy Funeral Home was styled like a Federalist mansion. Lots of raised wood paneling in shades of pale blues and calming greens. Vega greeted a few people he knew. Volunteers from La Casa. Parents of Joy’s friends from high school. They all looked so fresh-faced and homogenous. It was like he’d just walked into a Mormon assembly. Vega looked for evidence of the other Catherine whom Joy had told him about. The one who tutored immigrants at La Casa. Who had friends with purple hair and nose rings. Friends with undocumented parents. That was the girl Vega would have liked to have known. The one who sought out the ignored and the downtrodden. She wasn’t in evidence in this room.

  Vega tucked himself into a line filing down the center aisle into the main receiving room. He waited while it moved toward the casket and braced himself as always. For all the death he’d seen as a cop—including Catherine’s—he could never get used to viewing it all cleaned up and sanitized like this.

  He’d been raised a Catholic, of course. Christened at St. Raymond’s in the Bronx. Confirmed at Our Lady of Sorrows, right here in Lake Holly. His mother had been a lifelong believer. And yet the rituals never offered Vega the comfort they did his mother. People spoke about “God’s plan.” But as far as Vega could see, God seemed to be holding the world together with rubber bands and Elmer’s glue. Not much of a plan, to Vega’s way of thinking.

  The Archers were at the end of the receiving line. Vega had never seen the family up close. Robin was the spitting image of her daughter. She had the same blue eyes and upturned nose, the same shade of blond hair, though hers was likely chemically enhanced. There was a stoicism to her that Vega found both admirable and unimaginable. She was holding it together, offering mourners a pressed-lip smile and accepting hugs and handshakes with a coolness that suggested she never lost her composure, no matter how dire the circumstances. From looking at her, no one would know she’d just been informed by the police that her daughter was eight weeks pregnant. But then again, maybe that was what was keeping her together.

  No one knew.

  Todd, too, seemed to be modeling his mother, albeit with more difficulty. His face looked gaunt beneath his reddish beard. His eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep. He wrapped an arm around his father.

  In pictures Vega had seen, Todd’s father, John, was a handsome man. He had the look of an aging European ski instructor, with his salt-and-pepper hair and carefully trimmed beard. But not this evening. His balance was unsteady. His face was flushed and he was sweating, even though it was cool in the room. When he shook Vega’s hand, his grasp was so weak, it felt like a four-year-old’s. Vega wondered if the man had been drinking. Or doped up on antidepressants and anxiety medication. Not that Vega could blame him. If Joy had been the one lying in that casket, someone would have to sedate Vega too. He could never survive something like this.

  Vega offered his condolences, signed the guestbook, and walked into the foyer. Mike Carp was chatting to a couple of mourners, while Prescott and Vanderlinden checked their cell phones and pretended not to. Vega stood close by, in case Carp needed him. That’s when he saw her. She was dressed in a tasteful black wool coat, nipped in at her tiny waist. Her dark brown hair was wound up primly in a bun. She was on her own. No Alan. No twins. No Joy. She gave John Archer a hug that lasted a beat too long.

  Vega’s heart wobbled in his chest. It would always wobble where Wendy was concerned. She took a big chunk of his youth. She gave him his only child. After she left, there were days he wanted to crawl into a hole and die. They’d been divorced six years now. He was in a healthier place than he’d ever been with Wendy. And yet, he could never see her and not feel a certain homesickness for the girl she’d been and the boy he used to be.

  She caught sight of him before he could duck out of her line of vision. She was staring at the stitches on his hairline as she walked over.

  “Joy told me about what happened on campus. Are you okay?”

  Vega shrugged. “I’ll live.” He turned back toward the receiving line. John Archer looked as if he could barely stand any longer. “Looks like it’s taking a lot of meds to get that poor guy through this. Not that I blame him.”

  “Or know him.”

  “You do,” he shot back. She stiffened. They both seemed to know what he was referring to.

  “Discretion was never your strong suit, Jimmy.”

  “Nor yours.”

  They were back to their perennial fighting stances. Vega decided to change the subject. “Did Joy happen to mention that little incident with ‘Dr. Huggy’ today?”

  “Who?”

  “At the protest, this old guy with a beard put his arm around Joy’s waist. I think he teaches some kind of science or something.”

  “Jeffrey Langstrom,” said Wendy. “I think Joy has a crush on him.”

  “I’m more worried about what he has on her.”

  Wendy frowned. Or rather, tried to. She had work done on herself these days. She didn’t need it. She was five years older than Vega, but she would always be young and beautiful, at least to him.

  “You can’t read all that from a hand around her waist,” she insisted.

  “I’m a guy,” said Vega. “I know how guys think. First the waist. Then the breasts.”

  “This isn’t the hokey pokey.”

  “What’s she told you about him?”

  “She talks about him a lot,” said Wendy. “But I’m sure it’s just a teacher crush. Girls have so much hidden drama.”

  Vega held her gaze. “Women too.”

  “Vega!” shouted a voice from the corner. Doug Prescott. The mouth breather. “We’re heading out. Now.”

  “I gotta go,” said Vega. “Let me know if you find out anything from Joy.”

  Vega followed Carp’s entourage out of the funeral home and onto Main Street, now blocked to traffic. Hundreds of people had already gathered along a stretch flanked with turquoise ribbons. Most of the faces were white; however, Vega was pleased to see that there were some blacks and Latinos, too, clustered together primarily with their religious congregations.

  At the intersections, volunteers held out baskets of long white tapered candles in plastic cup holders. They looked like Popsicles. Vega took one and touched it to someone else’s lit wick. A flame shivered to life, joining all the others that flickered around him. Vega felt encapsulated by a shimmering river of light. It was beautiful. And hushed. Even Carp and his entourage said nothing as they made their way to
the front of the crowd, where they were joined by Lake Holly’s mayor, the town board, a state assemblyman, and various local religious and civic leaders. Everyone except the Archers.

  “Where are the parents and brother?” Vega asked Hugh Vanderlinden, who happened to be standing closest to him.

  “It was too much for the father,” said Vanderlinden, cupping a hand for warmth over his curved anteater of a nose. “They’re being escorted by the police to the town hall plaza.” The vigil was set to end at the war memorial there. That’s where the news affiliates had parked their vans and satellite dishes.

  The procession wound its way past the century-old railroad station and then turned east toward the plaza. Some of the mourners peeled off and took a shortcut through the parking lot and over a footbridge, which spanned the creek behind the town hall. The glow of their candles threw shadows across the grizzled trunks of the weeping willows that dotted the banks of the creek. By day, in good weather, employees from the town hall often ate their lunches at picnic benches beneath their graceful tendrils. By night, some of the immigrants gathered there to talk and drink. The Lake Holly Police Department was forever chasing them off. That’s what drove many of the more hard-core drinkers into the woods.

  Vega followed Carp, the local politicians, and the clergy into the town hall plaza. In the center of the plaza was a granite obelisk engraved with the names of local dead soldiers from all the wars. Next to it was a pop-up tent. Vega pushed aside the memory of the last time he saw such a tent. It covered the body of Catherine Archer in the woods. Vega wondered if every cop in the crowd was making the same connection.

  Beneath the tent was a lectern with a microphone and a row of folding chairs. The Archers were seated on the chairs. John Archer was sweating. There was something rigid and masklike to his features. A priest from Our Lady of Sorrows bent down to speak to the family as mourners filled the plaza. The light from their candles danced across the four Greek columns that anchored the front of the town hall building.