A Place in the Wind Page 9

  “Wilfredo Martinez has taken about a semester’s worth of classes over eighteen months,” said Greco. “A Nobel Laureate, he’s not.”

  “Which means you checked him out already,” said Adele. “Which means you tracked down where he lives and tried arresting him and Benitez at their place of residence before you even came to my house.”

  Greco smiled his Cheshire smile. “Could have saved a lot of time and trouble.”

  “Except they’d already split.”

  “It was worth a shot,” said Jankowski. “We’re just doing our jobs, Adele.”

  “Behind my back. With information I’m providing you.”

  “If it allows us to take Benitez out—”

  “Aha!” Adele pointed a finger at Jankowski. “That’s the problem. I’m talking about affecting a peaceful surrender. And the three of you”—she scanned the faces across the table—“even you, Jimmy”—she turned to Vega, who gave her a mock surprised look—“keep talking about ‘a takedown’ and ‘taking him out.’ Can’t you hear yourselves? You want to turn this into a SWAT operation. I don’t want cops in riot gear and rifles swooping down on my preschool!”

  “You think that’s what we want?” asked Jankowski, his features compressing even more than usual into the center of his face beneath that hedgehog hair. “We want things to go the same way you do. We’re just less convinced they will.”

  “If you want Benitez, you’ll have to do it my way, gentlemen,” said Adele. “I’m handling the surrender. End of discussion. You can all be outside the preschool. Nearby—”

  “No way, Adele,” Vega jumped in. “If you’re inside that building, I’m inside that building. I want eyeballs on you at all times.”

  “He won’t surrender if he sees you,” she argued.

  “You’ve got surveillance cameras, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” said Adele. “So the director can keep an eye on teachers and children.”

  “Any outside? I can’t recall.”

  “One in front and one on the playground in back.”

  “The monitors are in the director’s office upstairs, right?”

  “And your point is?” she asked.

  “What about this?” Vega asked the cops at the table. “Me and Grec can go in the director’s office and keep an eye on the monitors. Jankowski and Sanchez—you guys can sit tight in an unmarked nearby and stay in radio contact with Grec. If all goes well? Adele can call you both in to arrest Benitez, and nobody will even know we were there.”

  “Better put an unmarked at the corner of the two intersections north and south of the school too,” said Greco. “That way, we’ll get a heads-up if he’s coming in.”

  “Yeah. Good idea,” said Vega.

  The three Lake Holly cops rose from their chairs. It was like an army unit moving out. The noise. The commotion. The adrenaline. Adele grabbed Vega’s arm and pulled him aside.

  “Promise me that you’ll do this my way, Jimmy. My whole career and reputation are riding on bringing Benitez in peacefully.”

  “Your safety comes first—”

  “Promise me.”

  “Okay, okay.” Vega held up his hands. “If Benitez does what he says he’s gonna do, I’ll make sure it goes down without a hitch. But just in case”—he stuck a hand in his pocket—“you want my pepper spray?” He usually carried a small one in his pocket.

  “No. With my luck, I’ll end up spraying myself.”

  “Nena . . .”

  “Put it away. Really, Jimmy. I’m not comfortable with it.”

  “What if you need it?”

  “Then you’ll get to spend the rest of my life saying, ‘I told you so.’ That should keep you happy for a long time. Here’s hoping it’s a long time.” Adele tried to turn her words into a joke.

  Vega wasn’t laughing.

  Chapter 11

  Greco, Jankowski, and Sanchez cleared out. Adele told Sophia she could come out of her room. The girl looked sullen and frustrated by the morning’s activities. Vega felt bad for her. He knew that Adele was going to have to talk her ex into watching the girl again later this afternoon while she handled Benitez’s surrender and the dozens and dozens of emails, calls, and texts that were coming into her computer and phone since this started. He knew, too, that Peter wouldn’t understand. Adele’s connection to La Casa had been one of the undoings of their marriage. Vega decided the best thing he could do right now was to keep the child occupied—and keep out of Adele’s way. She didn’t seem too happy with him at the moment either.

  “You want to go in the backyard?” Vega asked the child. “Build a snowman? It’s great packing snow.”

  Sophia brightened right away. Nine-year-old girls were easy. It was when they got into their teens that everything turned difficult.

  The snow in Adele’s backyard was heavy and wet—perfect for packing. Vega was dressed for the weather today. He had his lug-soled boots, heavy socks, and waterproof gloves that he hadn’t needed last night at the gig. Sophia frowned at his holster.

  “Why do you need a gun to build a snowman?” she asked as she zipped herself into bright pink snow pants.

  “I just carry it, sometimes.” Vega wasn’t about to tell Sophia the truth—that with Benitez on the loose, he wanted to be sure he could protect the child and her mother on a moment’s notice.

  Last night’s storm had dumped a good six inches on the ground. The backyard was as smooth as a sheet cake and begging for a child’s imagination. Sophia flopped down and made angels. Then she and Vega began rolling the snow into balls. In no time, they had a five-foot-tall snowman. They got a carrot from Adele’s refrigerator, two rocks for eyes, and some branches for hands.

  “We need a hat,” said Sophia. She got a thoughtful look on her face that was a perfect imitation of her mother. Those same dark, intelligent eyes, with just a hint of fire. Vega liked the girl. He knew she liked him too. But he was careful—always careful—not to overstep his boundaries. She had a father. Vega didn’t want to get in the way.

  “Maybe we can find something in the garage,” Vega suggested. Adele’s garage was two stories high. It sat on the edge of the property adjacent to Max Zimmerman’s. Boxes and gardening tools cluttered the shelves, many of them covered in cobwebs.

  “Mommy keeps Halloween decorations somewhere in here,” said Sophia. “I think we have a witch’s hat.”

  “You want your snowman to be a witch?” asked Vega.

  Sophia put her hands on her hips and frowned. “Who says it has to be a snowman? It could be a snow-woman. Or even a snow-witch.”

  Vega laughed. Yep, she was her mother’s daughter. “Okay. Sounds good.”

  The Halloween box was on a shelf above a garage window that overlooked Max Zimmerman’s kitchen. Vega pulled the carton down for Sophia. While she pawed through it, Vega noticed a chair next to Zimmerman’s dining table.

  The chair was turned over on its side.

  “I found the hat!” said Sophia. Vega cupped his hands to the dusty window and squinted into Zimmerman’s kitchen.

  “Jimmy?” asked the child. “What’s the matter?”

  “Mr. Zimmerman’s kitchen chair is overturned. Maybe it’s nothing, but I should check it out.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  “No.” It was probably nothing, but Vega didn’t want to go walking into a situation with a little girl in tow. “How about if you put the hat on our snowman—snow-woman,” he corrected. “And then ask your mom if she has any hot chocolate? I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Vega escorted Sophia out of the garage, then hopped the fence and walked up to Zimmerman’s front door. He rang the doorbell. No answer. He pounded, then put his ear to the wood and listened. He could hear a television blaring from within. Zimmerman’s light gray Cadillac Seville was parked in the driveway. He had to be here. Vega walked the perimeter of the property. There were no footprints in the snow, no tracks in the driveway. He was definitely inside. If he wasn’t answering his door, s
omething had to be wrong.

  Vega peered in through the glass at the back door. He couldn’t see anything past a mudroom. He didn’t want to break in and cause a lot of damage if the old man was just snoozing or in the bathroom. He hopped back over the fence and opened Adele’s back door. He was covered in snow, so he stamped his feet and called to Adele.

  “She’s on the phone,” groaned Sophia. “She said she’ll be off in a minute.”

  “Do you know if she has a key to Mr. Zimmerman’s house?”

  “I’ll ask.” Vega heard Sophia’s footsteps racing up the stairs. A few seconds later, Adele was in tow.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Maybe nothing,” said Vega. “But I noticed a chair overturned in Mr. Zimmerman’s kitchen. He’s not answering his door. If you’ve got a key, I think I should go inside, check things out.”

  “Hold on. It’s somewhere,” said Adele. She came back a few minutes later with a brass-colored key and handed it to him. “Want me to go with you?”

  “Nah. I’ll just check it out. If anything’s wrong, I’ll call you.”

  Vega hopped back over the fence and rang the doorbell again. Still, no answer. He stuck the key in the lock and swung it open. He kept out of the door frame. He didn’t want to end up as a statistic—another dark-skinned man who got shot for being in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

  “Mr. Zimmerman?” he called. “It’s me, Jimmy Vega. Your next-door neighbor’s boyfriend. I just want to make sure you’re okay, sir.”

  That’s when he heard it. Over some commercial on television for life insurance for seniors. Over the clank and hiss of the steam radiators. A faint, hoarse voice. It was coming from the kitchen. Vega left the front door open in case he had to make a quick exit. He felt for his Glock 19 and wrapped his fingers around the grip.

  “Mr. Zimmerman?”

  The old man was sprawled on his kitchen floor, his strong bony hands gone white from clutching the chrome legs of the overturned kitchen chair.

  “Jimmy? I can’t get up.”

  Vega reholstered his weapon and knelt. Zimmerman clutched Vega’s hand. His fingers were ice cold. The old man was terrified. He was shaking all over.

  “Did you fall, sir?”

  “I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. I tripped and I . . . I can’t get up. I think I broke my hip.” Zimmerman went to try to right himself.

  “Don’t move, Mr. Zimmerman,” said Vega. He didn’t want him to risk further injury. “I’m here now. You’re gonna be okay.” Vega pulled out his cell phone and punched in 911. “This is Detective James Vega, county police,” he told the dispatcher. “I need an ambulance at 320 Pine Road in Lake Holly. I have a man in his eighties who took a fall in his home. He thinks he broke his hip.”

  Vega stayed on the line, fielding questions from the dispatcher. Zimmerman had trouble hearing the dispatcher’s questions so Vega had to repeat everything.

  “She asked when you fell.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Was it light out? Dark?” asked Vega.

  “Dark.” So he’d been like this for many hours. Vega felt terrible that he and three other strapping cops were right next door with Adele this whole time and they had no idea. How long would he have lain here if Vega hadn’t gone into that garage for Sophia’s witch hat?

  Vega used Zimmerman’s landline to call Adele and give her an update. She and Sophia ran over with pillows and blankets. Vega used the blanket to cover him. But he rejected the pillow.

  “We can’t move him,” Vega explained. “The EMTs need to stabilize his head first.”

  Zimmerman was a tough old guy. He didn’t complain. He just kept asking Adele to make sure she locked up after him. “I don’t want someone thinking they can rob my house while I’m gone!”

  Adele cooed her assurances. The ambulance came and took Zimmerman to the hospital. Vega straightened up the kitchen, turned off the television and turned down the heat. Adele and Sophia took a quick walk through the rooms to make sure there wasn’t some open window or running faucet that could cause a problem. Zimmerman was a big Yankees fan, it seemed. There was a wood-mounted plaque in the hallway. It was a replica of the Daily News cover story when the team won their twenty-seventh World Series. He also seemed to love carousels. There were pictures of them all around the house.

  “Jimmy?” Adele called to him. “Can you come down to the basement?”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Just—come down here.”

  The door to the basement was off the kitchen. Vega descended—and found himself staring at shelves stacked floor-to-ceiling with canned goods. Some of the cans were so old, they’d begun to rust.

  “Whoa. It’s like the Lake Holly food pantry down here,” said Vega. “What was Zimmerman before he retired? A grocer?”

  Adele shook her head. “He used to work the carousel at the county amusement park. I think they let him keep doing that until about five years ago.” So that’s where the carousel fixation came from. “Before that, I believe he owned a men’s clothing store until it went bankrupt.”

  “It’s like he was preparing for the end of the world.”

  “Maybe he thought he was,” said Adele. “I noticed on his bedroom dresser upstairs, he had a gun.”

  “A gun? Max Zimmerman?” asked Vega. “This is a guy who won’t confront the Morrison boys and tell them to stop throwing their dog’s doo over the fence.”

  “I know. I’m surprised too,” said Adele.

  “What kind of gun?”

  “I don’t know guns, Jimmy. And I certainly wasn’t about to get close enough to check!”

  “Okay,” said Vega. “Stay down here with Sophia. Let me check it out.”

  “It’s none of our business.”

  “It is if it’s not licensed. I’m just gonna pull the registration number and run it through the system. If it comes up clean, fine.”

  Vega padded up the stairs to the bedrooms. Stale, overheated air mixed with the scent of aftershave and hair creams. Still, it was tidy. There were three small bedrooms under the eaves, all with big, heavy, dark furniture that packed the space like commuters in a train car. It looked to Vega as if nothing upstairs had been moved or altered since the 1970s. One bedroom had clearly been a girl’s at some point. The walls were pink and there were frilly curtains with smiley faces on them.

  In the largest bedroom—Zimmerman’s—Vega saw the gun, lying on top of a dresser covered in a lace doily. It was a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, a six-chamber revolver that was the handgun of choice maybe forty years ago. Vega was betting Zimmerman bought the gun when he owned his clothing store, especially if the store was in a high-crime neighborhood. Vega picked up the gun. It was fully loaded and appeared to be well cared for and in good working condition. The only cops he knew who owned these anymore were retired guys. Vega’s own Glock 19 was lighter, mostly plastic, and used a magazine that held fifteen rounds—a much more efficient weapon, in his opinion.

  Vega opened drawers, scrounging around for a piece of scrap paper to copy the serial number under the grip frame. An old photo caught his eye. It was a sepia-toned photograph of a small, chubby-cheeked preschooler in a double-breasted wool peacoat with brass buttons down the front. The picture looked as if it had been snapped in the 1930s. The coat hung to the boy’s knobby knees, which were bare. The child was wearing short pants and black shoes, which Vega suspected was the style at that time. On his carefully combed head of dark hair was a newsboy cap. Vega assumed the boy was Max. It looked a little like him in the eyes. It was probably taken in whatever country he’d immigrated from long ago.

  Adele appeared in the bedroom doorway. “What are you looking at?”

  “Huh?” Vega shrugged. “Just trying to find a piece of paper to copy the gun’s serial number. Don’t touch it,” Vega cautioned. “It’s loaded. And keep Sophia away as well.”

  “She’s downstairs,” said Adele. “I’ve got to take her to Peter’s soo
n so we can get ready for Benitez.”

  Adele opened some drawers until she found an empty torn envelope. “Here,” she said, handing it to Vega. “Write the serial number on this.”

  Vega put the photograph down and copied the number. Adele stared at the picture.

  “You think that was Max as a boy?”

  “I guess.”

  “It’s strange,” said Adele. “Usually in old people’s homes, there are a lot of pictures, especially of children and grandchildren. I can’t find any. He has a son, I thought. I’ve seen him.”

  “He has a daughter too,” said Vega. “Judging by one of the rooms.” Vega shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t like pictures. I’ve got all those albums of my mother’s and I never display them. I don’t like being reminded of people I loved who died.”

  “Hmmm.” Adele returned the old photograph to the drawer. “Still. When you’re old, I would think that memories are all you’ve got.”

  Vega thought about all those cans in the basement. What would make a man think he needed that much nonperishable food? “Maybe his memories aren’t something he wants to be reminded of.”

  Chapter 12

  Vega tried to calm his nerves as he stared at the video monitors in the preschool director’s office. Everything was in place for Benitez’s surrender. One unmarked at the intersection south of La Casa’s preschool. One at the north. Jankowski and Sanchez in another unmarked behind the plumbing building across the street from the preschool. All of them in radio contact with Greco, who was seated in a chair next to Vega, a radio receiver wrapped around one ear, unwrapping the cellophane from a package of Twizzlers. The noise felt like ice picks on Vega’s eardrums. He was sure the other cops could hear it over their radios too.

  “Do you have to do that now?” snapped Vega.

  “What’s it matter?” Greco crushed the wrapper in his pocket. “Adele’s the only one downstairs. Besides, the heating system’s so loud, nobody’s gonna hear us anyway.”