The coffee was finally ready and she poured him a mug at the counter. She rustled up some Oreos, apologizing for not having anything better. She was about to launch into a conversation about the weather or some other inane drivel, when Vega reached over and touched her hand.
“Linda, it's fine. Relax. It's only me, okay?”
She sighed. “I'm sorry. It was justâsuch a surprise.”
“Bad surprise?”
She stirred her coffee. Vega thought he saw some color come to her cheeks. “No. Good. All good.” Her eyes, pale as dawn, registered approval. Twenty-five years later, and he still sought her approval.
“What about you, Jimmy?”
“What about me, what?”
“Are you married? Do you have kids?”
“Divorced. One daughter.” He put the mug to his lips and took a sip. “She'll be graduating high school in two months. She's starting at Amherst in the fall on a pre-med scholarship.” He wasn't sure why he added the stuff about Amherst and the pre-med scholarship. He supposed it was because Linda's family always looked down on him. He couldn't help feeling like his daughter's achievements were a vindication of sorts.
“You must be so proud.”
He was. Sometimes he had to catch himself. He could become a bore about his daughter, telling everyone he knew about how she'd been selected to assist on a research project at Lake Holly Hospital, studying the efficacy of dietary education on low-income pregnant women. He didn't think he'd ever used the word “efficacy” in his life before Joy began working with Dr. Feldman. Now, he trotted out the phrase at least once a day.
“And your mom?” asked Linda. “How's she doing?”
He raised his mug to his lips but it just hung there. He felt the steam rising off of it, condensing on his face, as if even the coffee was crying for her.
“She died last April.”
“Oh Jimmy, I'm so sorry. Was she sick?”
“No. She was murdered. In a botched robbery.” His voice felt rubbed raw. He struggled with the pitch.
“Oh my God. Here?”
“In the Bronx. She moved back several years ago. She said she was happier down there near all her friends.” He blamed himself for the move. If only he'd managed to hold his marriage together. Maybe he could have stayed in Lake Holly instead of having to move farther upstate. Maybe she'd have stayed nearby. So many maybes.
“You were close to her, I remember.”
“Yeah.” Talking about family had always been a sore point for him. Growing up, there was always the “what happened to your father?” And how do you answer that? How do you say he just up and left and not get those pitying, judgmental gazes?
It wasn't like his father really went anywhere. He wasn't in jail, wasn't a drunk or on drugs, despite what Anglos always assumed. He was a bass guitarist for a Dominican meringue band that played the Latin bars in the Bronx and Washington Heights in Manhattan. Sometimes, when Vega was little, he'd see him at Manny's Bodega on East Tremont Avenue, a ropy, good-looking man whom everyone seemed to like. His dad would even slip him a dollar or two and tell him a joke or roughhouse with him. It always made Vega wish for more and it was the wishing that hurt the most, the sense that his father's presence was little more than a fog that came without warning and left with the slightest change in temperature.
The dog lifted her head and ran suddenly out of the kitchen. Dogs always know everything before humans, it seemed. She came back a moment later, doing a little jig to herald the return of her master. Vega slipped off the kitchen stool, feeling self-conscious and guilty though he reminded himself that he was only here because of his job.
Olivia skipped into the kitchen first, brandishing an open shoebox to reveal two bright blue soccer cleats with lime green Nike swooshes running along their sides. Vega expected her to go all shy in his presence. Joy would have at that age. But the girl simply walked up to him as if he were an uncle she'd been expecting.
“Want to see my new cleats?” she asked. Her long, black hair had been tied back into two ponytails, and a baseball shirtâred sleeves, tan bodyâhung loosely over a pair of red sweatpants with the word “Justice” running down the side. Not a concept. A brand name. Shockingly expensive. Wendy used to buy their clothing for Joy.
Olivia was stockier than her parents. She had that Indian blood that tended toward a thick, square torso. But her eyes were large and full of energy. She looked like a happy child, like Linda and Scott were giving her a life she never could have hoped for in Guatemala.
“Those are pretty cool cleats,” said Vega. He heard Linda's voice in the mudroom off the garage, filling her husband in on the visit. Vega was sweating. He wondered what Scott Porter already knew about him.
“Detective? Good to meet you.” Porter stepped forward, his handshake one psi short of a combat hold. Vega wondered if there was a little alpha marking going on, but what the hell? They were in his house. Linda was his wife. He was entitled to claim his territory.
Vega normally disliked criminal defense attorneys. A lot of them patronized cops, treated them as stupid and racistâlittle more than meter maids with guns. Vega had gone on one too many witness stands where some abrasive lawyer in a suit tried to twist his words or turn him into the bad guy for doing his job. But Scott Porter seemed more personable than that. Maybe it was his smile, the way it curved up a little too much on one side, gave him a goofiness that made him seem more sincere and amiable than most of his colleagues. Or perhaps it was because they weren't in a courtroom. Nobody's integrity was on the line here.
“Linda tells me Adele sent you.”
“Uh, yeah.” Vega waited for more, some mention of the past. But Porter just smiled his goofy smile. Linda sent Olivia up to her room to play. She poured her husband a cup of coffee and he sat down at the counter.
“What can we do for you?” Porter's eyes were blank. No one's that good an actor. Vega shot a look at Linda. She looked away and Vega felt a stab of something sharp and unexpected in his gut. Linda Kendall was his first love. He was hers. They'd lost their virginity to each other. He'd jumped off a goddamned cliff and nearly died to win her over. And Vega didn't even merit a mention to her husband? It never came up? Not even that terrible last time they were together? All these years, she'd never entirely left his thoughts. All these years it seemed, he hadn't even registered in hers.
Vega tried to brush the hurt from his mind and keep his thoughts on the job at hand. He found the flyer he'd stuffed into his back pocket and flattened it out across the kitchen counter.
“I'm here about a woman. Do either of you recognize her?”
Porter put down his coffee cup and stared at the picture. “Is she dead?”
“She was found in the reservoir this morning. I won't have a time frame for the death until the medical examiner looks at the body.”
“Do you know what happened to her?”
“It's still under investigation.”
“Where's the baby?” asked Linda.
“That's one of the things we're trying to find out.”
Porter pushed his coffee aside. He stared at the picture a long time, as if searching his memory banks for a name. “I don't recognize her,” he said finally.
“Let me see,” said Linda, taking the flyer. “Hmmm. The picture's a little blurry. I don't recognize her offhand. I'd have to go back through my client files.”
“Would she be in those files if she came into La Casa?” asked Vega.
“Not necessarily,” said Linda. “A lot of people don't want their names or information in our system. They're afraid, even of us.”
“How about the name José Ortiz? Do either of you know him?”
“Guatemalan from Quetzaltenango?” asked Linda.
“Late twenties? Has a small scar on his cheek?”
“That's probably the guy. Do you know where I can find him?”
“I haven't seen him in several weeks.”
“How about his wife, Vilma, or his two-year-old daughter?”
“I didn't even know he had a wife and daughter.”
“Would you have a photograph of him in your files?”
Linda shook her head. “I'm afraid we don't take pictures of clients. It's a breach of confidentiality.”
“Since when?” Hell, Vega had five pieces of picture ID in his wallet right now.
“Why do you want to find him?” she asked.
“I just need to ask him a few questions.” Vega turned to Porter. “Maybe you've had some dealings with him? He was cited for harassment on a DV complaint from his wife about six weeks ago.”
“Name's not familiar,” said Porter. “Had he been arrested, I'd probably know him. But in case you haven't noticed, Detective, Latinos in Lake Holly tend to get arrested only if their victims are legal or their crimes make them de-portable. Undocumented womenâas I'm assuming Vilma isâare more or less on their own in Lake Holly.”
“Has this always been the case?” asked Vega. “Or has the situation gotten worse since the Shipleys were run over?”
Linda looked at her husband. Vega sensed they'd had this conversation before. “We need to tell, Scott. This can't go on.”
“Let's just say,” said Porter, “that since Valentine's Day, the sentiment in Lake Holly among cops and locals seems to be that the only good illegal is a dead or deported one, and no one seems that picky which of those it comes down to.”
“That's a pretty serious allegation,” said Vega. “Got any proof?”
Porter cradled his coffee mug and scrutinized Vega as if seeing him for the very first time. “What's your interest in all this, Detective?”
“I can't ask what goes on in town?”
“In my experience, cops are never idly curious.” Porter leaned forward. “What happened to that woman at the reservoir?”
“I told you, it's under investigation.”
“Quit with the party line, Detective. We both know she's a homicide or the county wouldn't even be mixed up in the case. So let me take a wild guess: you want to find José Ortiz because you think he's involved. Maybe you saw that DV complaint and you're wondering if, while the cops were playing, âsee no evil, get no U visa' with Vilma, José went a little over the edge. But you're not entirely convinced you're on the right track. That's why you're fishing here. Because you already believe there's a pattern of hate crimes going on in town, and you want to know if the dead woman's part of that.”
“I never said any of that.”
“You didn't have to.”
Silence. The men stared at each other. Vega wondered if he'd feel such a desire for one-upmanship if Porter weren't Linda's husband.
“Scott,” Linda said, putting a hand on her husband's arm. “Show him the report.”
“What good will that do?”
“More good than if you don't show him.”
Porter shoved the flyer to one side of the kitchen counter and left. Vega wasn't sure if he was following his wife's directive or disengaging entirely. His absence sucked all the purpose out of the room. Vega played with a pen on the counter. His head thrummed with silent accusations.
“I never told Scott about us,” Linda said finally.
“No shit. Nice to see I counted for so much. I guess I should have figured as much when I never heard from you after that cop spread-eagled me across Bobby's old Plymouth and Bobby spread-eagled you soon after.”
She pursed her lips. She'd never been one for crude language and Vega's life as a cop meant he lived on a steady diet of it.
“You never came back to school,” she said softly. “Your mother never left a forwarding address.”
“How could I come back to school? Everybody assumed I was a drug dealer after that. Bobby never copped to it. I was on probation. My music scholarship was history. We couldn't very well keep living with Bobby's dad as our landlord. We only moved to an apartment in Granville. You coulda called me if you'd wanted to.”
“So could you,” said Linda.
“You don't think I tried? Your parents hung up on me. They threatened to take out a restraining order if I got near you. I didn't need any more legal problems. And then I found out about you and Bobby.” Twenty-five years later, and the memory still stung. “What the fuck was I supposed to do?”
“Don't curse, Jimmy. My daughter's upstairs.”
“Sorry.” He dropped his eyes to his coffee cup. He told himself it shouldn't matter anymore. He wished he could feel that.
Porter returned to the kitchen brandishing what looked like a police report. Not Lake Holly's. This one said
METRO-NORTH
.
That was the problem with the county. Too many police agencies: FBI, DEA, DEC, ICE. It was a dyslexic's nightmare every time someone dialed 911.
Porter slapped the report on the counter in front of Vega. “I don't know what I'm doing showing you this or why it will help anything.” Then he took a deep breath as if he were about to plunge into very cold water.
“After Dawn and Katie Shipley were killed in February, there were a number of incidents in town, most of them small. A couple of fistfights at the high school. Some graffiti in back of the supermarket. A fender bender between two middle-aged guys that ended up in punches and epithets being exchanged.
“But then,” said Porter. “Things started to escalate. In early March, someone set that fire in the community center's Dumpster. No witnesses. No leads. Personally, I thought they needed to look at the kids who were suspended for those fights at the high school. One of them was Bob Rowland's older boyâthe one who works with him at the hardware store?”