Land of Careful Shadows (6 page)

“Matt,” Linda offered.

“Matt Rowland, yeah,” said Porter. “The kid's had a few minor brushes with the law. But the cops said they spoke to Matt and his friends and they all had alibis. Then, about a week later, two Latino males were beaten and robbed in Michael Park. They were very drunk and couldn't identify their assailants, so once again, we had nothing.”

Porter opened the police report. “Then, two weeks ago, this.”

Vega flipped through a stack of glossy 8 x 10s. All he could tell from the photos was that someone had found their way in front of a northbound train near Lake Holly station. The victim had been pureed as a result, the mother of all roadkills. Muscle, bone, and tissue lined the tracks in striations and puddles. The only part of the person that was preserved was a backpack that had been tossed to one side. It lay there, completely unblemished, mocking the grisly remains of its owner.

“His name was Ernesto Reyes-Cardona,” said Porter. “He was a Honduran busboy, age twenty-one, a resident of Lake Holly. He was last seen at two a.m. on March twenty-seventh, walking home from his job at the Lake Holly Diner. The ME says the cause of death was electrocution. His foot touched the third rail and he collapsed before he could get out of the way of the train. His sister—my client—believes he wouldn't have been crossing the tracks if he weren't being chased. But once again, we have no witnesses.”

“What about the video cameras at the train station?” asked Vega. “Didn't they pick up anything?”

“Reyes was too far away from the platform. The cameras close to the station show a figure running and then collapsing across the tracks. But they didn't pick up images of anyone in pursuit. Either no one was chasing him or they were far enough behind that they never got on camera.”

“Did the engineer give a statement?”

“He says it was too dark to see anything. All he saw was a bundle of something on the tracks. By then, it was too late to stop.”

Vega scanned the report. It looked thorough enough. No whitewash. No leads, either. He slid the report back to Porter.

“My wife wanted me to show you, so I'm showing you,” said Porter. “Is there a pattern of violence against Latinos in Lake Holly since Edgar Lopez ran over Dawn and Katie Shipley? Absolutely. But it has been next to impossible to build any of it into a case that would stand up in court. My clients are afraid to come forward as victims or witnesses because they fear getting deported.”

Vega opened his mouth to argue, but Porter beat him to the punch. “And don't tell me about U visas, Detective. Or any of the other things that are supposed to protect innocent people from capricious prosecutorial misconduct. None of them is a magic bullet. People get deported if a federal judge decides they should. And that decision has a whole hell of a lot to do with which way the wind is blowing on any given day in Washington. Believe me, I've been doing this a long time. First, in the Midwest, and for the last seven years, here. I've seen too many people get deported over nonsense to risk a client that way.”

“So you're not from around here?” asked Vega.

“I'm a farm boy,” said Porter. “Frankly, I prefer the Midwest. But my wife is from Lake Holly. Born and raised here. She wanted to move back to be closer to her folks.”

Porter rose. He looked exhausted. Vega took his cue and rose as well.

“Thanks for your time.” He handed Porter his business card. Porter stared at it a moment, then cocked his head.

“You don't happen to have a daughter named Joy, do you?”

“Yeah. She's a senior at Lake Holly High.”

“I play tennis with an obstetrician named Marc Feldman.”

Vega puffed out his chest a little, ready to deliver his “efficacy” speech. But something in Porter's face threw him off balance. The goofy smile. It was gone, replaced by a look of concern.

“How's she doing?” asked Porter.

“She's—doing great,” said Vega. “Just ask Dr. Feldman.”

“Marc hasn't seen her since the accident.”

“Your daughter had an accident?” asked Linda.

“Nothing serious,” said Vega. “She stalled out my car about a month ago on the train tracks north of town. The car got totaled, but she walked away. She's probably just been busy at school.” Joy loved working for Dr. Feldman. It seemed inconceivable to Vega that she'd just stop. It seemed even more inconceivable that neither Wendy nor Joy would have thought to tell him.

“Have her call Marc,” said Porter. “He's been worried.”

He wasn't the only one.

T
he cops in town referred to Vega's old neighborhood as
La Frontera
—“the border” in Spanish. It was just a short walk from the station house. Vega was dying to grab some dinner, take a hot shower, and put some new gauze pads over his blisters. But the residents of
La Frontera
were working-class people. The only time he was likely to find them home was in the evenings.

He left the Escalade at the station because it was easier to walk than to find parking at this hour. He trudged up the hill, past the fortress-like doors of Our Lady of Sorrows that took all of Vega's strength to open as a boy. He turned onto Magnolia. All the streets in this part of town were named after trees. Until he moved from the Bronx to Lake Holly when he was eleven, Vega had no idea there were oaks and pines and sycamores and magnolias. To him, a tree was a stick in the ground with a necklace of dog feces around it and a plant was a factory that you hoped you were lucky enough to get a job at when you finished school.

A landscaper's truck rumbled past and a man in muddy jeans hopped out of the cab, a backpack slung over one shoulder. Two other Latino men rode by on bikes. Lights flicked on behind closed curtains. The smell of fried onions and chilies called out to his stomach. It was a different place than Vega remembered. The lawns were sparser. Some were paved over entirely to make room for more cars. Clusters of cable dishes sprouted like mushrooms from rooftops and mailboxes were stacked atop one another along doorways. Everything seemed more crowded. Noisier and grittier. But it was full of families, full of life. There were toy bins and faded Little Tikes playhouses in the front yards and pots of geraniums along windowsills. There were work boots and tools being aired out on front porches and bicycles padlocked to chain-link fences. In some ways, Vega thought, he might have been happier growing up in the neighborhood now than when he stood out as the only dark-skinned kid on the block, the only child without a father—there, solely because John Rowland could get more rent from an overworked Puerto Rican nurse than he could a white family. Not every idealized neighborhood is ideal for every child.

He started on one side of the street, at a stucco house with six mailboxes and, armed with a copy of the dead woman's picture, talked to every man or woman who opened the door. He spoke in his most respectful Spanish. He stressed that he was only here to find out if they could identify the woman in the photograph or knew the whereabouts of José or Vilma Ortiz. He didn't show his badge unless they asked for ID to keep the encounters as low-key as possible.

Some residents tried hard to help, staring at the photo, calling on other household members to see if they knew her or the Ortiz family. Others—probably the most recent arrivals—opened their doors only a crack and shook their heads without giving the photo more than a passing glance. After two streets, Vega couldn't say for sure whether no one knew his subjects or whether people were too scared to get involved.

It was past eight p.m. by the time Vega limped down Maple Road. His ankles hurt. His head throbbed like there was a mariachi band inside. He was about to call it quits for the night when a silver Mercedes SUV with tinted windows turned the far corner and slowly cruised down the street, then double-parked about twenty feet in front of him. This wasn't a street where silver Mercedes normally traveled.

The driver flicked on an interior light. Vega saw two figures inside, a male and a female. Vega watched the male in the front passenger seat power down the window and thrust out a lanky brown arm. He was wearing a green-and-beige checked shirt that Vega recognized as the uniform of a cashier at the local supermarket. He had the build of a teenager, but there was no slouch to his posture, none of the nervous energy so common in puberty. He seemed to have an adult air about him, a wariness of overstretching his boundaries. And in that moment, Vega recognized his daughter's boyfriend, Kenny Cardenas. He recognized the SUV, too. His ex-wife had one just like it. Which meant he had no doubt who was in the driver's seat.

She was sitting very still, head bowed like a child caught doing something she shouldn't have. Her long, black hair fell across her face. She made no attempt to tuck it behind her ears. Kenny had his head turned toward the window. Vega suspected they were in the throes of an argument, though it lacked the passion and drama he'd expect from two teenagers. Maybe they were breaking up.

If so, Vega could hardly say he was disappointed. Not that Kenny Cardenas was a bad kid. He was a straight-A student like Joy and, from what Vega could surmise, a popular and likable boy at Lake Holly High. But it was an open secret that Kenny and his family were undocumented. His father, Cesar, mowed lawns for a living. His mother, Hilda, cleaned houses. Kenny and his three younger sisters crossed the border from Mexico when they were in elementary school. And sure, things were getting better for young people in Kenny's situation. If his father could marshal the time and resources, he might be able to apply for temporary legal status for Kenny that would allow him to get a driver's license like all his friends and to apply for jobs without resorting to fake ID. But that didn't change the fact that nothing in the boy's future was guaranteed. Not a college degree or a job with benefits or a chance to put down real roots in this country. Vega wanted better for his daughter. Maybe she couldn't understand that now, but she would someday.

He told himself to back away. Pretend he was never here. That was the right thing to do, to respect their privacy. But he couldn't leave until he was certain she was all right. He squinted through the windshield. The two teenagers were talking now. Joy was shaking her head vigorously back and forth. Kenny had his hands raised in a gesture of frustration. Vega watched her duck her head for a moment—to open the car door? To retrieve something from her purse? He wasn't sure. But there was no mistake in his mind about what happened next. As Joy lifted her head, Kenny reached across her seat and brought his fist down. His daughter's head bobbed and jerked in response.

In seconds, Vega had the passenger door open and Kenny Cardenas splayed across the hood. A stream of Spanish invectives flew from his lips. Joy wouldn't understand them. She only knew the stilted Spanish she got from textbooks at school. But Kenny would.

“You think you can hit my daughter,
pendejo?
You think that makes you a big man? Hitting a girl half your size?
”
Vega wished he could have gotten his hands on José Ortiz after he punched his wife. Maybe this town wouldn't be in the mess it was now.

“Dad!” cried Joy. “What are you doing?”

Vega didn't answer. He kicked the boy's legs apart and shoved him hard against the SUV. Kenny went to protest. Vega yanked the boy by the back of his shirt. “How does it feel when someone threatens you? Huh,
cabrón?
”

“Dad! Stop it!” Joy tugged on her father's jacket. “He didn't hit me.”

Vega kept a tight hold on Kenny's shirt as he turned and looked at his daughter. Her eyes were slightly swollen, her black mascara smeared enough to resemble one of those pouty ingénues on MTV. But that could have been from crying. She wasn't bruised or bleeding. There were no markings on her face.

“I saw him,” Vega insisted. “Through the car window. I saw him bring his fist down.”

“I was trying to recline my seat. It wouldn't budge so he had to bang on the headrest.”

“It's true, Mr. Vega,” Kenny gasped. “I didn't hit her.” Vega released Kenny's shirt and stepped back. His heart was pounding at the thought of what he might have done to the boy. He felt no better than that rookie Fitzgerald. He braced for Kenny's anger but saw something shrunken and defeated instead. Whatever Vega had interrupted this evening, it had already been going badly before he'd finished it off.

Joy paced the sidewalk, her black high-heel boots clicking on the pavement, her silver bangles jangling as she pushed her bangs out of her face. She'd always been one for drama.

“What are you doing here, embarrassing me like this?” she demanded. “I'm not five years old anymore. You can't spy on me like this.”

“I wasn't spying. I'm working a case with the Lake Holly PD. I was interviewing people in the neighborhood. I didn't know you'd be here.”

“It's okay, Mr. Vega.” Kenny looked pretty shaken up but he muscled the quiver out of his voice and tucked his shirt back into his jeans. “No harm done.”

“No harm?” asked Joy. “He could have killed you.”

“Joy”—Kenny patted the air and gave her a reproving look—“It's okay.”

She folded her arms across her chest and bit down hard on her lip. She was still a child with her emotions, Vega noticed, trying them on like a flashy pair of shoes whether they fit the occasion or not. Kenny, he suspected, had no such luxury. There were some emotions—anger, jealousy, regret—that he simply couldn't afford.

“I have to go now,” said the boy. “I have to finish my homework.” He nodded over his shoulder to a wood-frame colonial. The front porch sagged. Paint peeled in ribbons from the siding. The house had originally been a one-family. Judging from the number of mailboxes by the front door, Kenny, his parents, and three sisters now shared it with three other families.

Kenny shot a quick glance at Joy. Vega caught something pained in the gaze. “See you,” the boy said softly. Then he hustled up the front porch steps.

“Call me,” Joy shouted after him. Vega heard the desperation in her voice. He felt the hurt as if it were his own. Kenny didn't answer as he opened the front door and disappeared inside.

Joy stood next to her mother's Mercedes, bobbing up and down in her black boots. The temperature had dropped and the skimpy Pepto-Bismol pink jacket she was wearing wasn't nearly enough. Vega sloughed off his navy blue police Windbreaker and draped it over her shoulders. The shoulders of the Windbreaker sloped down her tiny frame and the sleeves dipped below her fingers. Vega zipped it up for her like she was still in preschool.

“I can do that myself,” she said with a trace of embarrassment.

“I know. Sorry.” He stuffed his hands in his pants pockets. He could feel the cold bite right through his shirt.

“Now
you
don't have a jacket.”

“I'm okay. Maybe you could drive me down to the police station? My car's in their parking lot.”

“Sure.”

Vega eased himself into the passenger side of Wendy's silver Mercedes. He wished Joy was driving him all the way north to his house tonight instead of six blocks to his borrowed county car. The seats had those automatic warmers in them. The car's engine purred like a contented tiger. He could have closed his eyes and stayed in that Mercedes all night.

Joy checked her rearview mirrors and pulled back onto the street.

“Are you still sore at me?” asked Vega.

“You never told Kenny you were sorry.”

“It was an accident.”

“You still could have said you were sorry.”

“I'm sorry, all right? I made a mistake. You make mistakes too, you know.”

He was referring to his Acura that she'd totaled. She looked ready to dissolve into tears.

“Hey,” he said softly. “That was a stupid thing for me to say. I'm just tired and cranky. You forgive me?”

“Sure.” Silence. She was like a complicated machine that he'd lost the instructions to. He could watch the gears turning but he had no idea what was going on inside. Which reminded him.

“I was talking to a man today who plays tennis with Dr. Feldman.” He waited for a reaction. It was his cop training. He always let the other person fill in the blanks. But Joy said nothing so he was forced to continue.

“He said Dr. Feldman hasn't seen you in a month.”

Still no response.

“I thought you liked working at the hospital.”

“I've just—been busy.”

“With what?”

She chewed on a fingernail. All her nails were bitten, he noticed. She never used to bite her nails. Even the skin around the cuticles looked red and inflamed.

“He's not worth this kind of heartache, Joy. You're better off without him.”

“You don't know the first thing about Kenny.”

“I know you've got big opportunities coming up and he doesn't.”

“For your information, Kenny was accepted to Binghamton University for the fall. Pre-med, just like me. La Casa just awarded him a scholarship.”

“I hope for his sake, things work out. But even so, the kid's got a tough road ahead of him. I don't want his limitations to hold you back.”

Joy made a face.

“What?”

“Didn't Grandma and Grandpa say the same about you?” Not in his presence. In his presence, Dr. Kaplan and his wife were unfailingly polite. Stilted, but polite. They were Democrats, after all. They marched for civil rights. They gave generously to PBS and the Anti-Defamation League. But in private, Vega knew, they breathed a sigh of relief when Wendy left him for her nice Jewish investment-banker second husband, Alan, and a house in The Farms. Upward mobility, Vega supposed. Wendy moved upward. He got the mobility.

“That was prejudice, Joy. This is different.”

“Why? Because you're on the other side now?”

“I'm not on anyone's side.”

“Oh come on, Dad. As soon as you got the chance, you got as far away from your Puerto Rican roots as possible. You never spoke Spanish to me—”

“—Because I didn't want to embarrass you. Do you have any idea what it felt like to be the only kid in Lake Holly whose mother had an accent?”