No Witness But the Moon(19)

“Look, I appreciate the offer,” said Vega. “But I’d rather be on my own right now.”

“Bad idea, buddy.”

Couldn’t this guy take a hint? “Listen, Grec,” said Vega. “I know you mean well. But you’ve got no idea what I’m going through right now. And don’t hand me that ‘thin blue line’ shit.”

Greco was a head taller than Vega. He stared down at him. His eyes got dark and deadly serious. “You tried to drink yourself to sleep last night and it didn’t work, did it? Next you’ll start popping Ambiens like they’re breath mints. They won’t work either. That little film inside your head will just keep playing until making a cup of coffee feels like too much mental effort. You’ll explode at everything and anything. Your relationships will fall apart. Friends will start to back off—or you’ll back off, thinking everyone’s better off without you. By the time they hand you back your service weapon, you’ll start thinking that’s just about the neatest and easiest solution. One bullet—no more pain.”

Vega blinked at Greco. There was only one way he could know all that.

“How come you never—?”

“Like you said: How could anyone understand?” Greco rapped a knuckle against the open door. “Get in.”

Greco kept the pearl-gray brushed velour interior of his Buick spotless. Vega was sure he had it detailed once a month. Which made Vega all the more embarrassed when Diablo licked the rear windows and muddied the seat with his paw prints.

“Sorry,” said Vega after they dropped Diablo back at Adele’s. “I owe you for a car cleaning.”

“I’ll put it on your tab.”

Greco nosed the car along the highway, following the train tracks that zigzagged south through the county. They breezed past small, picturesque villages where nothing stood taller than the church steeples. All around them were bare gray trees and rolling hills dotted with deer and flocks of wild turkeys. The sun was trying to break through. The day looked far too promising for Vega’s mood. His cell phone dinged. He took it out of his pocket and frowned as he scrolled through text messages and emails he had no intention of answering.

“Ah, social media,” said Greco. “You can’t take a leak these days without the whole world commenting on it. That was one thing, thank God, I never had to deal with.”

“When did it happen?”

“Four years after I came on the job.” Greco dug into his open bag of Twizzlers and pulled another out. He didn’t offer Vega one. They both knew Vega would call it sugar-coated wire insulation and pretty soon Greco would be ribbing Vega about all the fried food Puerto Ricans eat and Vega would be countering that Italians couldn’t eat anything not smothered in garlic, tomato sauce, and cheese. Working a case with a partner was a bit like being married. After a while you knew everything about the other person.

Or maybe you just thought you did.

“It was a domestic disturbance call,” said Greco. “Sunday morning, February 27. That date will forever be etched into my brain. Me and my partner, Bryan Kelly—he’s long retired now—we got dispatched to this nice, tidy little cape house over on Cliffdale Street. A seventeen-year-old girl had called nine-one-one to report that her twenty-year-old brother was holding a meat cleaver to their mother’s throat.” Greco shook his head. “For as long as I live, I will never forget that young man’s face.”

Greco went to take a bite of the licorice then changed his mind and stuffed it back into the bag. He’d lost his appetite. Vega could relate. He hadn’t eaten more than a few bites since the shooting.

“Me and Kelly, we both tried to talk the kid into putting down the cleaver. Kelly—he’s a veteran cop—he tries to distract the kid so I can get in a little closer and maybe disarm him. But the kid sees what we’re about to do. He turns the blade from his mother and lunges at me. To this day, I keep wondering why I didn’t just step back. Why did I shoot?”

“Because he could have killed you,” said Vega.

“Yeah, well—you die a little anyway. I suspect you’re already learning that by now. You’re still in the denial stage, I imagine.”

“The what?”

Greco pointed through the windshield to a red-tailed hawk hovering overhead. “Isn’t that just the most beautiful creature? I swear I never get tired of watching hawks fly. All that beauty just so they can swoop down and kill something. Pierce it right through the heart. Oh yeah,” Greco suddenly remembered. “The denial stage. You ever heard of the five stages of grief?”

“No.”

“By the time you’re finished with counseling you will.” Greco ticked them off on his gloved fingers: “Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Anyway, the first is denial.”

“I’m not in denial, Dr. Freud,” said Vega. “I know I killed a man.”

“Yeah, but right now you’re itching to prove to yourself and anyone who will listen that you did the right thing.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“I know that, Vega. So does every cop out there. But you’re looking for someone to absolve you. Like it never happened. That’s what I mean by denial. You’re not ready to accept that good intentions can still have bad consequences.”