No Witness But the Moon Read online

  Yovanna was gone, along with the one thing that could save them all. Or kill them all.

  Marcela wasn’t sure which.

  Chapter 32

  Adele could hear the thump of rap and salsa beneath her feet as she walked the corridor of the Methodist church. The church’s basement housed a teen center that appeared to be in full swing on a Sunday evening. But here, along the classroom corridor, all was quiet save for the sound of a cardboard carton sliding along a tile floor and the scrape of canned goods being loaded onto shelves.

  Adele peeked her head into the classroom that now served as the Lake Holly Food Pantry. Margaret Behring was standing in the middle of the room, clipboard in hand, surrounded by three-foot-high piles of mostly empty cardboard cartons. She was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, but there was something different about her. Maybe it was the loose gathering of her honey blond hair. Or the fact that she wasn’t wearing any makeup or jewelry. She looked younger somehow. Perhaps she’d just had a round of Botox. Half the women in Wickford had their dermatologists on their speed dials.

  Adele rapped a knuckle on the doorframe so as not to startle her.

  “Margaret?”

  Margaret put down her clipboard and turned to the doorway. Her blue eyes looked flat and slightly wary. Adele noted again that there was something different about her. Behind her was a table full of canned corn and carrots. She was checking expiration dates before she loaded them onto the pantry shelves. She flicked her eyes at the flash of red dress beneath Adele’s black wool coat.

  “Going out I see.”

  “Out would be good,” said Adele. “This is more like presiding over a funeral.” Adele threw her black leather clutch on a table next to the canned carrots. “I have to deliver a speech tonight to a coalition of immigrant groups. And when it’s over, somebody’s career is going to be over, too. Either mine or Detective Vega’s.”

  “I see.” Margaret grabbed a can of corn and studied an ink stamp on the top. She held it out to Adele. “Do you see an expiration date on this? The stamp doesn’t seem to correspond to anything.”

  Adele fished a pair of glasses out of her clutch to check the tiny print. “That’s not a sell-by date,” said Adele. “I think it’s safe to give to clients.” She handed the corn back to Margaret. That’s when it hit her.

  “You’re not wearing glasses.” Adele had never seen Margaret without her wire-framed glasses. “Did you just get contacts?”

  “I was never any good with contacts,” said Margaret.

  “I had LASIK surgery about a month ago. For the first time since first grade, I don’t have to have a piece of glass between me and the world.”

  “So you didn’t need glasses on Friday night, I take it?”

  “I can see perfectly without them now.”

  Great, thought Adele. Vega not only shot and killed a man in front of a witness, he picked one with twenty-twenty vision.

  Margaret turned her back to Adele and began stacking the cans on a shelf. There was an uncomfortable silence between them, punctuated by the bass thump of music and teenagers’ voices below. Adele got the sense Margaret had offered up this meeting and then instantly regretted it.

  “I spoke to my attorney again, Adele. I don’t see how anything I say to you is going to be helpful to either of us.”

  “We won’t know if you don’t tell me.” Adele grabbed a can of carrots off a shelf and studied the label. Some off-brand with a wholesome picture on the front that bore no resemblance to the mushy contents inside. “I lived off this stuff when I was a kid. To this day, I can’t eat anything canned.”

  Margaret stopped stacking and turned to her. “Your family shopped—here?”

  “There was a place in Port Carroll where I grew up,” said Adele. “Not this nice. Or maybe it was just the times. I remember it stank of cheddar cheese.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” said Adele. “I don’t mention it for the most part. It’s not something I like to dwell on.” Even now, some thirty years later, Adele could still see the pain in her mother’s face when she had to line up in front of that warehouse by the library for stale bread, hunks of cheese gone hard and white around the edges, and nearly expired cans of vegetables.

  “Your parents lost their jobs?”

  “My parents worked every day of their lives,” said Adele. “They were teachers in Ecuador. Here, they cleaned office buildings. But they dreamed of something better. So they started a business. Sort of like a FedEx store for immigrants. Wire transfers. Courier services. Phone lines in the era before cell phones. That sort of thing.”

  “And it failed?”

  “No. It was a huge success. So much so that their neighbor stole it from them.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Margaret. “Couldn’t they file a police report or something?”

  “The neighbor was the business owner on paper. On account of the fact that she was here legally and my parents weren’t. End of story as far as the police were concerned.” Adele still burned with the memory of her father trying to file a theft report—and the police laughing at him.

  “There was nothing my parents could do,” she explained. “When you don’t have papers, you don’t count and neither does anything you try to accomplish. My parents lost all their savings. After that, we had to make choices. If my sister or I got sick, a doctor’s visit meant my father couldn’t afford bus fare for the week and had to walk three miles to work. A school trip to the museum meant a week of no lunches for my mother. People used to heckle us when we visited the pantry. They’d shout ‘Learn English’ or ‘Get a job.’ My parents did everything they could to build a better life for our family. And in one fell swoop, it was gone.”

  Margaret leaned against the table and studied Adele for a moment. “Is that going to happen tonight?” she asked softly.

  Adele felt embarrassed. She didn’t want this woman’s pity. “I’m not my parents,” she said stiffly. “And Detective Vega’s a big boy, too. We’ll survive. I’d just prefer to know the truth, that’s all.”

  Margaret exhaled. She seemed too spent to argue anymore. She grabbed one of the empty cardboard cartons and began ripping it apart and flattening it for recycling as she talked.

  “I was getting my three-year-old out of the bath around six-thirty,” Margaret began. “My son’s bathroom window overlooks our side yard. I looked out and saw two men standing on the edge of a pool of floodlight in the woods adjoining our yard. They were standing right next to each other.”

  “Can you describe them?”

  “One was wearing a dark puffy coat and the other was wearing a smooth nylon one that was also dark in color. They both appeared to be Hispanic, at least from my vantage point. I dried off Tyler, picked up the phone, and dialed nine-one-one. The dispatcher told me the police were already on the scene. Right after that I heard gunshots and looked out the window. The man in the puffy jacket was lying on the ground and the other man was backing away.”

  “Wait,” said Adele. “So you didn’t actually see Detective Vega shoot Hector Ponce?”

  “Adele—I saw them standing very close together and thirty seconds later, I heard gunshots and saw one man down and the other backing away. What does that sound like to you?”

  Adele paced the scuffed beige floor. She stared at the colorful posters on the walls showing kids scarfing down fruits and vegetables she had to bribe Sophia to eat.

  “I don’t understand,” asked Adele. “Why was there even a floodlight in the woods?”

  “The floodlight is ours,” said Margaret. “Last weekend, some professional installers put up Christmas lights on our house and garage. In the process, they knocked a lot of our floodlights out of alignment. One of them accidentally got aimed into the woods.”

  “So you looked out. You saw two men standing together. How do you know one of them was Detective Vega?”

  “I don’t,” said Margaret. “But there were no other people in the woods. So what I saw c
orresponds to your detective friend and that Chez Martine dishwasher.”

  Adele bristled that Margaret had chosen to refer to Vega and Ponce by their jobs, not their names. They weren’t people to Margaret. They were occupations.

  “The dispatcher told you the police had arrived,” Adele noted. “But you didn’t see flashing lights?”

  “Not from my vantage point. I suppose they were there,” said Margaret. “They may have been closer to the bottom of the hill. The trees are very thick, even this time of year.”

  Margaret stacked the flattened cartons up against the wall. She was finished for the evening. She looked anxious to leave. “Look, Adele, I’d love to tell you something that would make you feel better. But I can’t lie about what I saw.”

  “I know that. I’m not asking you to.”

  They shut off the lights. Margaret locked the pantry doors. Evening had fallen by the time they returned to the parking lot. Margaret cupped a hand over her eyes.

  “Ever since I had the LASIK surgery, everything is so much brighter at night! It’s quite amazing.”

  “Mmm.” Adele couldn’t care less about the wonders of LASIK surgery. She was more concerned about the weather. The sky had a thick wash of clouds across it. Snow was in the forecast. She hoped it would just be a few flurries. She didn’t want to have to deal with a winter storm tonight on top of everything else.

  Adele walked Margaret over to her Land Rover. A car sat idling in front of her own Prius. Its headlights were on and rap music thumped from inside the closed windows. Teenagers.

  “I’m sorry to keep coming back to this,” said Adele.

  “But you didn’t actually see Detective Vega shoot Hector Ponce, did you?”

  “Look, Adele—even if I were standing right next to them, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t see the bullet.”

  “No,” Adele agreed. “But there’s a difference between seeing something and assuming you saw it.”

  “If you saw two men standing next to each other and seconds later, one was lying on the ground and the other was backing away, what would you assume?”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Adele. Margaret beeped her electronic key and unlocked her door. Adele thanked her for her time and walked back toward her Prius. She knocked on the window of the Hyundai sedan idling right in front of it. A young man powered it down.

  “Can you move forward?” asked Adele. “You’re blocking my car.”

  “Sorry. No problem.”

  Adele straightened and went to back away from the young man’s vehicle. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a set of chest-high headlights barreling toward her. Right toward her.

  “Stop!” Adele waved her arms frantically.

  The headlights grew larger. A strangled cry squeezed out of her throat. Or was that coming from the teenagers inside the car? She couldn’t tell. Her limbs turned to Jell-O. Her heart stuttered like a windup toy. A cold wave of sweat flooded every pore in her body.

  Brakes screeched. Tires squealed. The Land Rover jolted to a stop just inches from Adele’s body, close enough that she could smell the faint burn of rubber and hear loose bags slamming against one another in the trunk of the vehicle. Had the snow already started—had there been even the faintest coating of sleet on the pavement—Adele would no longer be standing.

  The door of the Land Rover flung open. Margaret Behring raced over to Adele. Even under the hazy lights of the parking lot, Adele could see that the woman’s face had drained of color. There was a glaze of sweat on her upper lip.

  “Oh my God! Are you okay?”

  “Mmm.” Adele had forgotten how to speak. She was just relearning how to breathe.

  “I’m so sorry!” she kept repeating. Her voice sounded choked, as if she were about to cry. “The lights—they’re so bright. I didn’t see you. I just didn’t see!”

  The two women stared at each other, their short panicked breaths clouding the night air. Adele held Margaret’s gaze. When she answered, her voice was calm and steely, and strangely self-assured.

  “I know.”

  Chapter 33

  Vega hustled up the brick steps and through the heavy wooden doors of St. Raymond’s Catholic Church. Incense and lemon oil wafted over him. He hadn’t planned on being back here so soon. But he couldn’t leave the Bronx without trying to make sense of his visit with Martha Torres today.

  A late-day Spanish Mass was just ending and parishioners were streaming out of the church. Father Delgado had a long line of people waiting to speak to him after the service. Vega sat in a rear pew and watched them, wishing he could feel what they felt in this place, wishing it could give him the solace it seemed to give them. He took out his cell phone and scrolled to that picture of the two brothers and Ponce’s son at that fruit stand. He touched a finger to the soft, shy face of the man once known as Edgar and now, as Antonio. He’d looked at this picture so often, he felt like he knew them all.

  “Perhaps if you offer a prayer,” said a voice behind him in Spanish. “A prayer always helps.”

  Vega lifted his gaze. Standing over him was the grizzled, leathery face of the old janitor he’d seen sweeping the pews here the other day. The man was dressed in a white shirt and dark slacks today. His gray hair was freshly washed and still sported wet grooves from where a comb had raked through it.

  “Father Delgado told me you were Hector’s friend,” Vega said to the old man in Spanish.

  “Yes.”

  Vega slipped his phone into his pocket. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.” The man nodded to the pew. “May I?”

  “Of course.” Vega scooted over.

  The man bent with effort and crossed himself. He sat next to Vega and pulled down the kneeling bench. “Are you a Catholic?” he asked.

  “A long time ago,” Vega admitted.

  “But you know the prayers, yes?”

  “I know the usual stuff: Ave Marias, the Lord’s Prayer.”

  “I think an Ave Maria would be nice.” The man knelt on the bench. His shiny black patent leather shoes squeaked. Vega sensed he wore them rarely and had never broken them in. Vega felt awkward following the old janitor’s lead and just as awkward not to. So he lowered himself beside the man, clasped his hands together, and followed along in whispered prayer the Spanish words he’d known so well as a child. His voice caught on the familiar line: Ruega por nosotros pecadores—Pray for us sinners. He needed those prayers himself now.

  Vega and the janitor sat on the bench after that in a moment of silent communion. All around them people poured out of the church. A few old ladies in black stayed up front, mumbling prayers to their rosary beads, their silhouettes framed by the light of rows of flickering candles beneath jewel-colored glass.

  “I don’t even know your name,” Vega apologized.

  “Humberto Oliva,” said the man. He extended a large hand. Vega shook it. His palms felt like old burlap but his grip was firm. “I know yours, of course.”

  They sat in silence while parishioners drifted past. Vega kept his eyes on Father Delgado up front. He was anxious to talk to him. “Does the Father have any Masses after this?”

  “No. Usually after this he makes the rounds of some of the faithful who cannot get to church.”

  “If you’ll please excuse me then, I need to ask him something.” Vega started to rise.

  “About Hector’s brother, yes?”

  Vega sank back down onto the hard wooden bench. “So you know?”

  “That he is dead? Yes. I spoke to Alma this morning.”

  “Did Hector ever mention him to you?”

  “He didn’t know Edgar had survived until about a month ago. That’s when he told me. We were both so happy.”

  “Why both of you?”

  Oliva stared at his squeaky shoes. “That picture. On your phone? It’s the one I saw on the news, yes?”

  Vega pulled his phone out of his pocket again and brought up the picture of the two brothers and Hector’s son o
n the screen. “This one, you mean?”

  “It was taken in Guatemala,” said Oliva. “Near the border to Honduras. In a place called El Floridio.”

  “Hector told you that?”

  “No.” Oliva pointed a thick stubby finger to his white shirt. “I took that picture. I was with them on that journey. That is how I know Edgar.”

  Vega felt as if someone had wrung all the air out of him. “You crossed the desert with them?”

  Oliva’s dark eyes held Vega’s. “Yes.” Then he faced forward and laced his thick-knuckled hands on the pew in front of him. His voice took on a soft trancelike quality. The noise and people in the cavernous interior fell away and Vega found himself transfixed by the man’s words.

  “I met the two brothers and Hector’s son on the journey from Honduras. By the time we reached northern Mexico, some of the Hondurans in our group had gotten sick or hurt or caught by the Mexican police and deported back. There were only twelve of us left,” Oliva said slowly. “Nine men. Three teenage boys. Near the border, we were handed off to a coyote who was supposed to guide us across the desert and into the United States. He was no older than the boys.”

  Oliva’s voice was measured and even, almost devoid of emotion. He barely moved when he spoke, except to lick his chapped lips. “We each carried three plastic gallon jugs of water and some tins of sardines. The water was heavy and hard to carry but it was enough to last us for three days.” Oliva held up three cracked and callused fingers. “That’s what we were told the journey from Mexico to Arizona would take.” He said the last words like a small child who still believed that saying something would make it true.

  Oliva stared straight ahead. His voice turned husky and barely rose above a whisper. “On the second day, we ran out of food. On the third day, we ran out of water. On the fourth, we drank our own urine. We were lost. The coyote told us to give him all our money so he could buy water and get help. We never saw him again.”

  “He abandoned you?” asked Vega.

  “Yes. After that, some became too weak to travel. The group began to split up. Hector’s son, Miguel, got bitten by a scorpion. Hector had to walk much slower for the boy’s sake. I was by myself. I had to keep going. My family in Honduras was depending on me.”