No Witness But the Moon Read online

  “No offense, ma’am—Ellen. But my ex is a psychologist and I never saw any of this stuff working for her or me or anyone else.”

  “By ‘stuff,’ what do you mean?”

  “You know—” He stretched to avoid her gaze. “Having people sit around navel-gazing and talking about the time they didn’t get what they wanted for their birthday when they were ten.”

  “I agree.”

  “You do?” Good. This would be faster than he thought.

  “Which is why I would never put you through that. Tell me, how are you eating?”

  “How am I eating?” The question surprised him. “Okay, I guess.”

  “Did you have breakfast this morning?”

  “A bagel. But uh”—he jiggled his legs—“I kinda threw it up on the way over.”

  “Is that happening a lot?”

  “No. But—I’m not really hungry most of the time.”

  “How about concentration?”

  “I don’t know . . . I’m sort of like a goldfish right now. I can’t think about anything for more than two seconds.”

  “So you feel restless and antsy a lot?”

  “Yeah—like I’ve got about ten cups of coffee in me.”

  “How about sleep?”

  “What’s that?” He threw out the comment lightly but one of the things he was hoping Cantor would give him today was Ambien. He really, really needed a good night’s sleep, and if he had to induce it chemically—well then, so be it. “I can’t sleep for more than maybe an hour and a half at a stretch. Maybe you can like, give me a prescription?”

  “Pills are a short-term solution at best,” said Cantor. “I’m not a big believer in them.”

  “Oh.” So much for pills.

  “Are you talking to friends?”

  Vega tossed off a laugh. “More like avoiding them.” “Why is that?”

  “I’m not allowed to talk about the shooting. And all their shit—stuff, sorry—it sort of gets under my skin. I’ve been yelling at my teenage daughter a lot and she doesn’t deserve it. Everything sets me off.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “I did. We’re sort of on the outs at the moment. She runs an immigrant center—”

  “Oh my.”

  “Yeah, ‘oh my’ is right,” said Vega. “This whole situation has hurt her professionally. She’s hearing stuff that makes me sound like a mafia hit man.”

  “Such as?”

  “There’s this witness. A neighbor who claims I executed the suspect—shot him at point-blank range. My girlfriend wants me to tell her it’s not true. But I can’t.”

  “Is it true?”

  “Of course not!” His vehemence seemed to startle Cantor. Vega realized belatedly that the woman wouldn’t know what was true and what wasn’t.

  “You can’t tell your girlfriend what you just told me?” asked Cantor.

  “It’s not that simple,” Vega explained. “If I tell her what’s not true, then, in effect, I’m also telling her what is. My lawyer ordered me not to say anything. I’m already in trouble for some stupid comments I made at the scene. I can’t risk another mistake.”

  “Have you told her that?”

  “It wouldn’t make any difference.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because she’s gotta deliver this keynote address to a bunch of immigrant groups this evening at Fordham University. She’s supposed to go up on stage and call for the district attorney to convene a grand jury against me.”

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  “How do you think I feel? Like she’s knifing me in the back.” Vega heard the anger in his voice and shook his head. “She’s got the clout to make it happen, too.”

  “You must feel deeply betrayed.”

  Vega sighed. “I do, of course. But in another way, I sort of get it. If you asked me to protect someone who did something very wrong, no matter how much I loved them, I couldn’t go against my conscience. That’s sort of what I’m asking of her.”

  “And when you tell her that, what does she say?”

  “I can’t tell her,” said Vega. “I can’t talk about any of this stuff without exploding.”

  “And you’re exploding a lot, I gather.”

  “Kind of.” He crossed and uncrossed his legs.

  “Hmmm,” said Cantor. Vega didn’t like the sound of that. “Tell me,” she said. “Are you having a lot of dreams?”

  Vega closed his eyes. He saw the woods. Shadows moving in the darkness. A noise like cannon fire. Four shots. Four punctuation marks that signaled the end of life as he knew it. His stomach roiled. Sweat gathered at the back of his neck. His mouth tasted like old pennies.

  “I guess—I’m sort of getting these uh—physical reactions.”

  “Post-traumatic stress.”

  Vega made a face. “That’s for soldiers and rape victims and people who’ve survived atrocities. I’m a cop. Cops carry guns. Guns kill people. If I can’t handle the basics of my job, what kind of cop am I? Hell, what kind of man am I?”

  “Is that what you’re worried about? That if you admit you’re having a hard time processing this, you’re less of a man?”

  “Look”—Vega ran a hand through his hair—“I know I made a mistake. I know that. But Jesus—I should be doing better than I’m doing.”

  “So that image of a police officer you had as a little boy—you’re afraid you’re not living up to the dream?”

  “It was never my dream,” said Vega. “Maybe that’s the problem. Being a police officer was not a lifelong ambition for me. I wanted to be a guitarist in a rock band.”

  “What happened?”

  Vega shrugged. “Life got in the way I suppose. I had college loans to pay off. My girlfriend got pregnant. I became a cop for all the wrong reasons.” Vega ticked them off on his fingers now. “Security. A pension. Health insurance—”

  “Oh come now, Jimmy.” Cantor regarded him over the tops of her glasses. “You’ve been a police officer for eighteen years. I very much doubt medical benefits kept you on the job.”

  “No. I like the work,” he admitted. “I like making people feel safe and protected. I like the adrenaline rush of a good collar.” He closed his eyes and tried to put something into words he never had before. “I feel like—what I do matters. And when I’m doing it, I matter.”

  “Then those are good reasons for why you stayed.”

  “So how come I look in the mirror and feel like a fraud? All these other guys I work with—they wouldn’t be falling apart the way I am. What the hell is wrong with me?”

  Cantor laced her long piano fingers in front of her and smiled reassuringly. After all the terrible stuff he’d just told her, she still seemed to think he was worth saving.

  “Nothing is wrong with you. You’re experiencing a very normal human reaction. You took a life. It’s not something you intended to do and you’re coming to grips with the weight of that. Because you did it as a police officer, you’re having to come to grips with it in a very public and humiliating way.”

  “The media’s making me out to be some kind of monster. I can’t defend myself against the lies. I can’t even say I’m sorry for the stuff that’s true. Not that anyone would forgive me anyway.”

  “Do you forgive you?”

  “I don’t know.” Vega tossed up his hands. He didn’t have an answer. “I just want to stop feeling scared all the time.”

  “That’s something we can work on.” Ellen Cantor winked at him beneath her mop of silver hair. “No navel gazing necessary.”

  Vega had no memory of what they talked about after that. The time flew. He discussed things he never expected to: his former marriage. His relationship with Joy and Adele. The shooting, of course. But also his mother. He hadn’t realized how intensely her murder had affected him, especially since the killer had never been caught. It was like a giant open sore that never seemed to heal.

  “I feel like I let her down,” said Vega. “She’s be
en dead almost two years and here I am, a homicide detective, and I still have no idea who killed her. If that’s not bad enough, now I find out that she had a lover all these years she never told me about.”

  “You said your mother’s best friend is still alive,” said Cantor. “Perhaps you can talk to her.”

  “Martha has Alzheimer’s. She couldn’t remember talking to my mother on the phone three hours before she died. How is she going to be able to tell me anything?”

  “Jimmy—” Cantor lifted her glasses to the top of her head. Her eyes were softer and warmer without them. “Sometimes it’s not about what people tell us. It’s about what being with them helps us tell ourselves. You’re hurting so badly right now over your mother. Maybe just being around her best friend could be of comfort to you.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Cantor turned to her computer and pulled up a file on the screen. “In the meantime, we’ll work on your PTSD in a completely scientific way.” She printed out some sheets with eye and breathing exercises designed to control his flashbacks and calm him. Vega looked at the pages and frowned.

  “You don’t want to do it?” asked Cantor.

  “No. I’ll give it a try,” said Vega. “I was just thinking about this teenage girl I met last night at Lake Holly Hospital. She just arrived here from Honduras. Her mother’s undocumented and the girl . . . Let’s just say it probably wasn’t the easiest of journeys.”

  “That’s a brutal trip, especially for a child on her own.”

  Vega nodded. “She seemed so . . . I don’t know—”

  “Traumatized?”

  “Yeah.” His heart ached for her. The shooting had rubbed all his nerve endings raw. He felt everything acutely now—even other people’s pain.

  “I keep thinking that that girl needs therapy even more than I do,” said Vega. “She’s thirteen years old and in a strange country. She doesn’t speak the language. She hasn’t seen her mom in ten years. And God only knows what her journey across Central America and Mexico was like.”

  “I’ve worked with some of those children,” said Cantor. “And you’re right. Many of them are suffering from PTSD. They’ve endured terrible traumas. It’s no wonder they have nightmares and can’t concentrate.”

  “What’s the prognosis for a girl like that?” asked Vega.

  “I haven’t met her so it’s difficult to say,” said Cantor. “But I’m guessing she’s having adjustment issues being away from her mother for so long. If there’s a new husband and children, that can add further burdens. There are the language barriers and the fact that she’s likely behind in school. Then of course there’s the fact that she’s undocumented so her future here is uncertain at best. It’s easy for a child like that to feel overwhelmed and fall into depression and self-destructive behavior.”

  “And if she got the services she needed?”

  “The prognosis would be much better, certainly. She can’t focus in school until she feels safe and she can’t feel safe until her PTSD is addressed.” Cantor studied him. “Jimmy, I’d love to say I could help every child. But without some framework in place, one or two therapy sessions would do nothing for a child like that.”

  “I understand,” said Vega. “I’m just—”

  “Trying to help.” She smiled. “Because that’s why you do what you do. So we’re going to concentrate on getting you well again. And then you can use that energy to help others.”

  Chapter 27

  “Mom! Hurry up! I’m going to miss Hayley’s birthday party!” Sophia cried. Fortunately, Sophia’s friend’s ninth birthday was a movie-and-pizza affair, not an ice-skating or rock-climbing event. Adele had already had enough guilt from her ex-husband, Peter, last night about Sophia’s sprained ankle. She didn’t need her daughter adding more.

  “Are you sure you’re up to it?” asked Adele, glancing down at the soft cast on her daughter’s foot.

  “I’m fine.”

  The party was being held at a small movie theater in downtown Wickford in a beautiful old landmark building that had yet to succumb to the megaplex syndrome of all the other movie houses in the area. It had the look and feel of an old concert hall of the 1800s, with large white columns in front and a chandelier in the lobby. Hayley’s parents had taken over the theater for the latest Disney release and the pizza party afterward. Adele didn’t even want to guess what such a party had cost the family or what they would do for an encore when Hayley got into the double digits.

  Adele dropped Sophia off at the party. Then she sat in her car and tried to quiet her nerves for what she was about to do. She picked up her cell phone and dialed. A woman’s voice—breathy and confident—answered on the second ring. It turned brittle as soon as Adele said her name.

  “Unless this has to do with food pantry business, my attorney says I can’t talk.”

  “I understand your situation, Margaret,” Adele replied. “And I’m not asking you to alter any statement you’ve made to the police. I’m just asking if—given our previous relationship—you might at least walk me through what you saw Friday night.”

  Adele had known Margaret Behring about five years—ever since Margaret and her husband moved north from Manhattan. She’d been a bond trader at Goldman Sachs before she had her two children, and she brought her brains and organizational skills to the food pantry and a host of other charities in the area. Adele respected her. That was one of the reasons this was so difficult.

  “You’re not a disinterested party, Adele.”

  “I know I’m not. But I’m about to walk on a stage this evening and set the tone for how every major immigrant group in this state regards this shooting. Detective Vega won’t say a word to me. If you won’t talk to me, what do I have to go on?”

  “You’re not going to like anything I have to say.”

  “I’m prepared.”

  Silence. Adele’s car was cold and yet she felt sweat gathering on her skin.

  “There’s a shipment of canned corn and carrots coming into the pantry around four this afternoon,” said Margaret. “No one else is going to be there to receive it but me.”

  “So if I show up, you’ll talk to me?”

  “We never had this conversation. Is that understood?” Margaret hung up.

  Adele had a long list of errands to run while Sophia was at the party. Her younger sister Grace’s birthday was coming up. There was a drugstore next to the French restaurant, Chez Martine, that sold birthday cards. Adele began walking over. She heard someone call out her name. She turned to see a teenager in restaurant whites sweeping the sidewalk.

  “Omar!” Adele couldn’t remember his last name. He was a Guatemalan, about seventeen, short in stature with a round, impish face. She hugged him. “I didn’t know you worked at Chez Martine.”

  “I got the job maybe two months ago, señora.”

  Adele culled her memory for what she could remember about him. His mother used to attend that Friday night support group at La Casa, Las Madres Perdidas. She worked for years as a live-in maid in Wickford. Omar had come over recently. There were probably other siblings still left in Guatemala. Adele didn’t think he attended school. Most likely, he hadn’t been to school in years—which made it next to impossible for him to go back. Besides, the trip over had probably burdened him and his family with enormous debt. He needed to earn money to pay it back. He probably didn’t even have time to take English classes.

  “Are you happy here at Chez Martine? Are they treating you well?”

  “Yes, thank you. I just got a promotion to a better shift.” His face turned solemn. “Only I am sad because of the reason. It’s because our head dishwasher, Hector, died. Did you know?”

  “Yes. I heard. I’m sorry.” Omar was so young and so new to this country that he probably had no idea how Adele was connected to the shooting. “Did you know him well?” she asked.

  “Oh yes. He was a very good man. I don’t care what the police say.” Omar waved his hands in front of Adele. They were enca
sed in heavy padded black gloves. “These? Hector gave them to me. I didn’t have a pair. I didn’t know how cold it gets here. He gave me a wool hat, too.”

  None of this sounded to Adele like a man who would rob a house.

  “Omar, did the police talk to you about Hector at all?”

  “They talked to all of us after the shooting, yes. They searched his locker.”

  “Did they find anything unusual?”

  “I don’t think so. They didn’t even find his extra jacket in there. Hector always kept one in his locker in case the weather changed. He didn’t like the cold. Maybe he gave it to his friend.”

  “A friend at work?”

  “No.” The teenager looked over his shoulder and kept sweeping.

  “Omar, is there something you didn’t tell the police?”

  “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “This isn’t Guatemala. The police won’t do anything bad to you.”

  Omar kept his eyes on his broom. “I have to go peel carrots.”

  Adele squinted inside the mullioned windows. Chez Martine wasn’t open for lunch on Sundays. The staff would just be cleaning the place out and preparing for Sunday dinner. “Do you have a break when I can talk to you?”

  “Maybe you can come around back? I will speak to my boss.”

  Omar’s boss, a hefty Colombian who seemed to tower over his largely Central American staff, growled at Omar in Spanish that he had “five minutes” to speak to Adele. Then he handed Omar a giant bucket of carrots. “Peel while you talk.” He had a commanding presence. Adele felt as if she were being ordered to don an apron and do the same.

  “I don’t want to get fired,” said Omar. He worked fast as he spoke. Adele watched the carrots flying through his fingers, the knobby orange peels gliding across his sun baked hands. His fingernails were chipped and uneven. They looked like they belonged to a hand much older than seventeen years. There were fresh pink scars across the knuckles. She wondered what sort of journey he’d endured to make it to see his mother here in Wickford. She wondered how they were faring as a family now.

  “Nobody is going to fire you for telling the truth,” Adele promised him.