No Witness But the Moon(20)

Vega found himself watching the hawk now. That magnificent wingspan, the way it just hovered above the earth on currents of air. Vega wished he could be above everything right now, just floating. “I never wanted to be this sort of cop.”

“You think any police officer does?” asked Greco. “I’ve been doing this since you were having wet dreams, Vega. And sure, there are some cops who shouldn’t be cops. They’ve got too much temper in them. They’re too nervous under pressure. They see people as categories instead of individuals. But I’ve never yet met a cop who took this job because he wanted to kill people.”

They were both silent after that. They’d worked two whole murder investigations together before this and they’d probably exchanged fewer words than they had this morning in Greco’s Buick. Vega’s cell phone dinged with more messages. More bad news. He was developing a Pavlovian response to his phone. Each ding made him queasy. He turned his face to the side window and tried to concentrate on the shafts of weak sunlight raking the bare trees. There was no yellow to the light this time of year. It was all gray and white, like the clouds that hovered so low they seemed like distant mountains.

“The man I shot?” said Vega. “Turns out he lived in the same building as my mother—the same building she was murdered in.”

“Here we go again with the denial,” said Greco.

“How is that denial?”

“You’re hoping like hell you can fix your conscience by painting this guy as a murderer—your mother’s murderer, no less. It ain’t gonna happen, Vega. The NYPD’s been all over your mother’s case. If there were some connection, they’d have found it by now. All you’re gonna do is alienate people.”

“Like I’m not alienating them now, huh? You see the Internet this morning? I’m being compared to the Gestapo.”

“It’s going to get bad for a while, I’m afraid,” said Greco. “That’s where stage two—the anger—comes in. Everybody’s Monday-morning quarterbacking you. Colleagues. Superiors. The media.” He grinned. “Ruben Tweets-his-errors.”

Vega allowed a smile.

“Meanwhile,” said Greco, “your department’s distancing itself from the whole mess. The victim’s family is filing suit. It starts to feel like the entire world is running its mouth off while you’re just standing there with your thumb up your ass, a bystander to your own life. The only people you’ll have to take your anger and frustration out on are the people you love. But you do that”—Greco wagged a finger at him—“and it’s over, my friend. You’ll lose every significant connection in your life. Believe me, Joanna and I came close to divorcing during this period. It’s going to be even harder for you and Adele. She’ll be under pressure to distance herself from you.”

Vega slumped in his seat. “She probably should. This will kill her career.”

“Why you couldn’t just date a nice nurse or schoolteacher, I’ll never know.”

“I’ve got a thousand good reasons.” Vega shrugged. “But if you were to reverse the question and ask how come she’s with me? I can’t think of one. And that was before this.”

Greco tossed off a low-throttle laugh. It sounded like a furnace kicking in. “I can think of one.”

“You can always think of one.”

Greco pulled off the highway and turned into the county police parking lot. Several camera crews were already setting up near the front doors.

“I have a feeling those guys aren’t there to film the latest budget talks,” said Greco.

“My department’s holding a press conference this morning to talk about the shooting,” said Vega. “A bunch of brass who weren’t there are gonna tell the world how I f*cked up. And I can’t even be there to defend myself.”

“There should be a special circle of hell reserved just for the bureaucrats in our job,” said Greco. “Which reminds me: Where does that Ricky Ricardo guy fit into all of this?”

“You mean Ricardo Luis?”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

Leave it to Greco to turn every Latin singer into a knockoff from I Love Lucy. “He was a homeowner protecting his turf. His gun was legit. He called nine-one-one.”

Greco frowned. “A Mexican entertainer? From Miami? And he doesn’t have a bodyguard with him twenty-four-seven? You believe that and there’s some swampland down in Florida I’d like to sell you.”

“Nobody outside the Latin community knows who he is,” said Vega. “And besides, he didn’t kill Ponce—remember? I did.”

Greco grunted as he pulled up to Vega’s truck. Fortunately, from this vantage point, the building blocked them from the camera crews. Vega could make an exit without being spotted.

Greco put the Buick in park, pulled out a scrap of paper, and copied a phone number off his cell. Then he handed it to Vega.

“Who’s this?”

“Dr. Ellen Cantor.”

“A shrink?”

“She’ll help you, Vega. She helped me. Call her.”

“I don’t know—”

“Your department’s gonna make you do it. Why not get someone good?”

“I’d rather talk to you.” Vega rolled his eyes. “Jesus—did I just say that? I must be in bad shape.”