No Witness But the Moon(18)
He better never meet ME in a dark alley. . . .
He’s gonna NEED a gun after this....
Vega felt like he was going to explode from all the hurt and anger inside of him. He wanted so badly to punch something—anything—to get the rage out. But he didn’t want to make any noise and wake Adele. She didn’t deserve to be dragged through this. Their original plan had been to take Sophia to pick out a Christmas tree this morning at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in town. But Vega couldn’t imagine doing anything so normal. Instead, he scribbled a quick note of explanation and left it by Adele’s bedside. He hoped she’d understand. He didn’t write what he was really thinking—what he didn’t yet want to acknowledge. The kindest thing he could do right now was to leave and never come back. They’d been together only eight months. She didn’t deserve to sacrifice a decade of hard work because of his two seconds of bad choices.
In the kitchen, Diablo greeted him warmly, jumping up for a scratch, dancing around the back door to go out. The cab could wait. Vega fetched the leash off a hook in the mudroom and attached it to Diablo’s collar.
“Come on, pal. Let’s take a walk.”
It was a cold December morning. The air felt like peppermint in his lungs. Pale rays of sun lit up the hard frost on car windshields up and down Adele’s street. Somewhere down the road, Vega heard an engine humming and the sharp sound of an ice scraper across glass.
Diablo was all good cheer as he trotted down the sidewalk, his tail and ears turned up on alert, sniffing every fire hydrant like he’d never before encountered such a thing of beauty. Vega had to fight with him a little to get him to heel but overall, the dog seemed comfortable with him. They soon developed a rhythm. While they walked, Vega pulled out his cell phone and checked his messages. They were multiplying like a virus. From friends. From fellow cops. Everyone wanted to talk to him about the one thing he couldn’t talk about.
Vega was halfway to the next corner when Diablo began turning in circles behind a leafless sycamore and arching his back. Too late, Vega realized that he’d forgotten to bring a baggie to pick up after the dog. That was all he needed: to get Adele in trouble with her neighbors. He had to hope the dog would just be quick about it.
No such luck. Vega could hear the soft purr of a car engine slowly pulling alongside him as Diablo finished his business. Vega turned, ready to plead with some annoyed homeowner. He recognized the white Buick as soon as it pulled to the curb. The driver’s door opened and a familiar figure hefted himself out from behind the wheel. A weak shaft of sunlight caught the top of the man’s bald head as he frowned at Vega over the roof of his car. The man bent down and rummaged through a cellophane package for something. When he emerged again, he had a stick of red licorice in his gloved hand. He bit off a piece and chewed loudly.
“I’d ticket you, Vega. But I think you’ve got enough troubles already.”
Diablo strained at his leash, jumping and whining until Lake Holly Detective Louis Greco walked around to the curb and gave the animal a scratch. “Is this a therapy dog?” Greco eyed the steaming pile of fresh doggie doo next to the tree. “Or are you just offering up a public statement on your current predicament?”
“So you’ve heard.”
“The whole freakin’ country’s heard thanks to that mail-order professor with the Orville Redenbacher bowties. How he gets this shit so quickly, I’ll never know. I got a friend on the Bronx detectives’ squad who called me as soon as it went viral. Seems the perp you shot was from his neck of the woods.” Greco shoved the rest of the licorice stick in his mouth. He rubbed two gloved hands the size of baseball mitts together. Everything about Greco was big. His wide, jowly face. His gut. His opinions. He delivered the last with gusto.
“I figured maybe Ruben Race-Hysteria would give you a pass, you being Puerto Rican and all. But I guess being a cop trumps every other allegiance. That’s probably the one thing that media whore and I can agree on.”
“Glad to hear you two are in such cozy agreement,” Vega said dryly. He wasn’t in the mood to hear Greco’s take on Ruben Tate-Rivera, the shooting, or the state of police work in the United States today. Besides, he already knew what they’d be. He and Greco had worked a few cases together over the past year and although Vega had initially been put off by the man’s gruffness, he’d come to like and respect him. Even so, Louis Greco was a townie cop nearing retirement. His whole career had been spent in tiny Lake Holly handling small-time burglaries, car accidents, drug arrests, and domestic abuse complaints. The most deadly thing Louis Greco had probably ever done in his entire career was eat the two-week-old leftover potato salad at the back of the station house refrigerator.
Diablo tugged on his leash. “I’ve gotta get going,” said Vega.
“I’m not out here looking for jaywalkers, you dope. I came to find you. Adele told me you and the dog had both taken off so I figured, follow the fire hydrants.”
“I can’t talk, Grec. Not to you. Not to anybody.”
“I know that.” Greco opened his front passenger door. “But Adele tells me your truck’s in the county police lot and you need a ride to fetch it. Hop in. We’ll drop the Poop King at her house and head over.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Consider me a taxi service.”